Ruth Larson: Alton representative failed to vote on motion to suspend rules

To The Daily Sun,

My local (GOP) state representative, Raymond Howard, Jr., has been in the news recently as one of the leaders of New Hampshire’s home-grown insurrection, consisting of FreeStaters and gun advocates and anti-maskers and election deniers and others from the far right fringe. These secessionists have declared independence from the State of New Hampshire but, unfortunately, they seem to have no plans to move elsewhere. Let us all note that the NH insurrectionist rhetoric has much in common with the “patriot” and “stop the steal” talk leading to the DC riot.

On January 6, while anti-democracy thugs were ransacking the Capitol in DC, beating an officer to death, and threatening the lives of others, the NH State House was having its drive in meeting. A motion was made to suspend the rules to allow a vote on a resolution to condemn the violence in DC. Rep. Howard was present, and voted on other issues during the session, but was marked “Not Voting/ Not Excused” on the rules vote. I emailed him on 1/9 as follows: “Can you please explain the meaning of that? If it was equivalent to an abstention, please let me know why you abstained.”Rep. Howard’s response, after a 2nd email, was “I have no comment at this time”.

Three things are clear: (1) Rep. Howard did not support the resolution to condemn the violence in DC; (2) he did not have the courage to openly oppose the condemnation of violence; and (3) he lacked even the decency to answer a polite question about his vote.

Is this Mr. Howard’s idea of constituent services? Not even willing to explain his vote? Perhaps instead of fomenting revolution, he could spend a few minutes actually representing the people of his district. On the other hand, I should probably express my gratitude that he apparently did not join the murderous thugs inside the Capitol, even if he does not see fit to condemn them.

Ruth Larson

Alton