William L. O'Brien

O'Brien temporarily closed the New Hampshire House gallery to the public during a debate about the state budget on March 31, 2011, after union protestors in the gallery began yelling "shame on you" and "don't harass the middle class" and thus prevented debate from being heard. O'Brien then closed the proceedings to the entire public, including a police officer and two former NH lawmakers. When asked why he closed the proceedings, O'Brien responded "I think thugs will not rule New Hampshire."[8] O'Brien recessed the House for 10 minutes to allow state police time to clear the gallery.[9]

Assistant Democratic Leader Gary Richardson of Hopkinton asked O'Brien to allow the public back in. Richardson cited a provision of the New Hampshire Constitution, which states, "The doors of the galleries . . . shall be kept open to all persons who behave decently." O'Brien refused. The House then voted 217–146 to keep the proceedings closed, with 48 Republicans joining the Democrats in opposing the closing. According to attorney Paul Twomey, O'Brien decided to re-open the proceedings shortly after he called to notify O'Brien's office that he would be filing a lawsuit on behalf of the former lawmakers. O'Brien's staff said that the call had nothing to do with the decision, however.[8]

O'Brien claimed that the proceedings were not conducted secretly, since they were streamed on live video and the press was present. "The House of Representatives has the right to conduct itself with decorum without being interrupted by members of the public," O'Brien said. Richardson responded, "The Constitution doesn't talk about streaming video. [It says] the doors of the gallery should be kept open." [8] In Merrimack County Superior Court, Judge Richard McNamara heard arguments about closing the gallery and was told that it was open again. He did not issue an order warning O'Brien not to close the gallery again and the case was dismissed against the Democratic plaintiffs, who chose not to contest or appeal the dismissal.[10]

Remarks by O'Brien to a Tea Party-related group – explaining that a reason for a proposed law imposing more rigorous voter ID and residency requirements to be able to vote in New Hampshire elections, is that college students dominate certain local elections and "take away a town's ability to govern itself" and are "foolish, voting as a liberal" because they lack "life experience" – were widely reported in March 2011.[11][12]

O'Brien said the bill was "necessary to stop students from basically doing what I did when I was a kid: voting as a liberal."[13]

In August 2013, O'Brien spoke at a rally in New Hampshire of the Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, where he likened the Affordable Care Act to an 1850 pro-slavery federal law.[14] In his remarks O'Brien called the healthcare act, popularly known as Obamacare, "a law as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 that allowed slave owners to come to New Hampshire and seize African Americans and use the federal courts to take them back…to slave states." He later defended this characterization in an interview in the Wall Street Journal.

President Obama referred to O'Brien's remark in a September 26, 2013 speech on the Affordable Care Act at Prince George's Community College in Largo, Maryland, saying "You had a state representative somewhere say that it's as destructive to personal and individual liberty as the Fugitive Slave Act. Think about that. Affordable health care is worse than a law that lets slave owners get their runaway slaves back."[14]