Integrity matters
Voting with integrity should be an easy decision this Nov. 3.
Too often, the voting public has watched morally bankrupt, corrupt candidates outrun the consequences of their actions and become elected officials. Once in office, these people, who may claim to have reformed or deny the facts about their past, almost inevitably continue the same patterns of behavior. Voters have the opportunity this election to show that decency still matters, that integrity and the law still matter, and to hold our elected officials to a high ethical and moral standard.
The Sullivan County Republican candidates for State Representative this year include those who, through their own actions, should be disqualified from holding office. Jonathan Stone has been booted from more than one office by voters before. His sordid history reported in InDepth NH: He was fired from the Claremont Police Department after an investigation into his inappropriate relationship with a teen girl, and the subsequent investigation into his threats of rape, murder and a mass shooting. Mr Stone never made any public apology about his behavior. While Stone claims all his problems are from decades past, that’s not true.
He was fired by the Vermont Department of Corrections in 2021for repeatedly directing racist, homophobic slurs at his work colleagues. Stone challenged his termination but the Vermont Supreme Court ruled against him last year.
Is Mr. Stone hoping that we will forget his disreputable past? That requires all of us not to forget past behaviors and not be blind, deaf and dumb to them. Perhaps even worse are the other republican candidates, Catherine Peschke, Wayne Hemingway and Dale Girard, who choose to campaign alongside Stone at every opportunity.
I encourage all my friends and neighbors throughout New Hampshire to vote for their Democratic candidates this November. Send a clear message to the GOP that we will not accept being represented by those who lack integrity to hold elected office.