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The state’s Legislative Ethics Committee declined to determine whether or not a new conflict of interest law would require Senate candidate Tara Reardon to recuse herself from certain legislation if she is elected next month primarily because she is not a current lawmaker. As a result, voters will have little clarity ahead of next Tuesday’s election whether Reardon, a Democrat, will be able to participate fully or be limited in the upcoming legislative session. A new law will go into effect at the start of 2025 that makes explicit requirements for when state legislators must recuse themselves from participation on bills where they have a conflict of interest, unlike the previous standard.
Reardon, whose spouse Jim Bouley is a partner in the Dennehy and Bouley lobbying firm, was the winner of a contentious three-person primary. One of her opponents asserted that the new law, HB 1388, would prevent her from voting, and the other asked the Legislative Ethics Committee to weigh in. The committee took a pass.
Not only because Reardon is not a current lawmaker, members said, but because there were too many unknowns to apply the law to her situation without a bill on the table. “This is legislation that’s not in effect now and, by the time it is in effect, this committee may be differently constituted,” said Rep. Bob Lynn, a Republican member of the committee and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
“I’m just very concerned about us making kind of very general decisions without having particular context.” Beyond Reardon’s specific circumstances, State House leaders have urged the committee to help prepare lawmakers for the law’s new reality before the start of the next session. At meetings this month, the committee agreed to update the booklet of ethics guidelines and to provide some kind of guidance, but it’s unclear how specific that will be.
Reardon, a current county commissioner who previously served as a state representative for more than a decade, is heavily favored to represent Concord, Bow and Hopkinton next term in the Senate. She did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Bouley’s personal clients include the solid waste company Casella, health care providers and insurers and The Brook, the state’s largest casino.
HB 1388 includes a three-part test where lawmakers are required to withdraw from “any official legislative activity” when they or anyone in their household are paid by an organization, exercise “substantial influence over the affairs of the organization,” and “the organization has lobbied, testified, or otherwise attempted to influence the outcome” of the specific legislation. Article continues after..
. Cross|Word Flipart Typeshift SpellTower Really Bad Chess The committee asked drafters and sponsors of the bill for insight on how they saw the language applying to lobbyists. Most emphasized how they had primarily focused on how the language would impact lawmakers’ balance between professional expertise in a given field and potential professional benefit.
“It never really occurred to me that it could reach into a household where one member of the household was a lobbyist and the other member of the household was a member of the legislature,” said Senate Counsel Richard Lehmann. If the bill was intended for that situation, he added, “I would have thought that would have come up.” “I can say that we never really talked about lobbyists,” said prime sponsor Rep.
Vanessa Sheehan, a Milford Republican. “However, in thinking about it, yeah, there may be some questions come up with that situation.” Reardon has maintained the law does not apply to her situation and will not limit her legislative activity.
Reardon’s attorney, William Christie, argued the committee had no standing to apply the new standard to her before she takes office, and moreover, the substance of the law didn’t apply to lobbyists. The law has a carve-out when the lawmaker or a member of their household “is a contractor whose sole relationship to the organization is providing professional advice with respect to transactions from which the contractor will not economically benefit directly or indirectly.” Christie argued that lobbyists are included in this exemption.
“Among other things, Dennehy and Bouley create public policy consulting strategies, participate in media engagement, construct plans of action, and guide the client to achieve desired results,” Christie wrote in a memo to the committee. Several members of the committee expressed skepticism with that reasoning. However, because they decided not to weigh in on Reardon’s situation, they never substantively engaged in a debate about the bill’s reach.
On landfill issues in particular, critics and advocates have worried that Reardon could be one less vote for Democrats in a Senate closely divided on the issue. Although Bouley has aided Casella’s effort to locate a new landfill in the North Country town of Dalton, Reardon has asserted that she is anti-landfill expansion and intends to vote that way. Reardon isn’t the only one who could face these questions about 1388.
For example, Concord Rep. Tim Soucy’s spouse Karen Soucy is a lobbyist with Sheehan Phinney Capitol Group whose clients include Unitil and the Association of Chiefs of Police. He has served since 2009 and — like all state representative seats in the Capital City — had an uncontested primary.
He did not respond to a request for comment. Questions about how lobbyists factor in are just one of the unknowns of how HB 1388 will change how potential conflicts of interest are handled in the New Hampshire State House. At the committee’s two meetings this month, House leadership has urged the committee to give state legislators, both new and returning, some kind of guidance to start the term.
“Members of the legislature are very interested in having a better understanding about how this legislation may affect the way that they carry out their legislative duties,” said House chief of staff Aaron Goulette told the committee. Speaker Sherman Packard and Minority Leader Matt Wilhem have discussed the new law, and “they’re both hopeful that the committee could provide guidance sooner rather than later,”— ideally by Organization Day in December, Goulette continued. Senate Minority Leader Donna Soucy, who spoke as a sponsor, echoed that expectation of education.
As is standard, the Legislative Ethics Committee will speak with newly elected lawmakers during their orientation in late November. They are still determining what to say, and not say, about HB 1388. “There’s a paradigm shift here in the legislature, where recusal is going to be part of our new norm,” said House Clerk Paul Smith.
“These members are going to need to understand, specifically, what is a recusal, what isn’t a recusal.”.
