Leonard Witt: Cordelli’s HB 324 opened door to sue local schools, Ayotte vetoed it

To The Daily Sun,

In a July 2 letter here, Carolyn Sundquist asked Gov. Kelly Ayotte to veto HB 324, the school book banning bill, passed by the New Hampshire GOP majority held House and Senate. Sundquist said the bill would allow anyone to “initiate a civil action against a school or school district.” She added that the lawsuits could be devastating to local communities.

On Tuesday, Ayotte, did veto HB 324, saying in a part, “I have concerns that this bill envisions the possibility of extensive civil action over materials in our schools, which could open the door to unnecessary litigation from out-of-state groups.”

If both an everyday citizen and the governor of the state both recognized the same danger, why did the majority of GOP legislators vote in favor of a bill that could cause so much financial harm to their own local communities and their local taxpayers?

We know that Rep. Glenn Cordelli (R-Tuftonboro), the bill’s primary sponsor, takes annual paid junkets sponsored by Young Americans for Liberty, a Texas billionaire funded dark money PAC, which is hell bent on ending public education. Maybe it’s one of the “out-of-state groups” that would sue our local school and all of us would pay the bill.

These Carroll County Republican legislators followed Cordelli’s lead: Sens. Tim Lang and Mark McConkey. Reps. Lino Avellani, Mike Belcher, Richard Brown, Joe Hamblen, John MacDonald, Katy Peternel and Jonathan Smith. Brian Taylor from Freedom was the only Carroll County Republican state representative to vote no.

If readers agree with Taylor, Ayotte and Sundquist, then it is time to question why our locally elected representatives would vote to enact a law that could financially ruin our local schools and hit property taxpayers with enormous legal costs.

Leonard Witt

Sandwich