A New Hampshire House committee on Friday will consider initiating an impeachment inquiry into Executive Councilor Karen Liot Hill. Republicans are targeting Liot Hill, the State House's highest-ranking Democrat, for conduct the New Hampshire Attorney General's office has already said didn’t amount to wrongdoing.
At issue is Liot Hill’s use of her Executive Council email to help a national Democratic law firm identify potential plaintiffs for a legal challenge to the state’s voter ID law.
The lawsuit failed, and the state Department of Justice concluded last year that Liot Hill’s actions weren’t illegal.
But Deputy House Majority Leader Joe Sweeney of Salem, who has called for Liot Hill to resign, says she committed “political lawfare run out of a taxpayer-funded inbox.”
The resolution he filed asks the House Judiciary Committee to consider the impeachment of Liot Hill for “negligently and improperly placed her personal or partisan objectives above her constitutional and fiduciary obligations to the state, thereby committing malpractice.”
Liot Hill counters that it’s the impeachment inquiry that’s partisan, and says she’s hopeful the House Judiciary will agree.
“I look forward to having the public hearing on this matter and hopefully putting this matter to rest,” Liot Hill said.
The state Constitution allows public officials to be impeached by the House and tried in the New Hampshire Senate for "corruption, malpractice, or maladministration."
But impeachments are rare. The last impeachment trial in New Hampshire was in 2000, when the House impeached and the Senate acquitted then State Supreme Court Chief justice David Brock.
Prior to that, the last impeachment in New Hampshire took place in 1790.
