Tuesday, were introduced to New Hampshire state Rep. Stella Tremblay, the big Alex Jones/Glenn Beck fan in her state's House of Representatives who said the Boston Marathon bombing was an "inside job," and who is advised by a man named David Johnson, who apparently believes that "the United States is still subject to Lincoln's declaration of martial law and is now under the control of Queen Elizabeth II."
I had some exasperated things to say about the situation on HuffPost Live last night, and as soon as I'd signed off, my colleague John Celock -- who has forgotten more things about America's state legislatures than I shall ever know -- gave me the skinny as to how Stella Tremblay became a thing that was happening in America: the New Hampshire House of Representatives has 400 members. "Double-you tee effing eff!" I replied, because huh? The Virginia House of Delegates, by contrast, has a mere 100 members. And, oh yeah, the actual U.S. House of Representatives has 435 voting members.
These two sentences from the Wikipedia entry on the New Hampshire House of Reps is sufficient to put the fear in you: "On average, each legislator represents about 3,300 residents. If the same level of representation were present in the U.S. Congress, that body would have approximately 99,000 members, according to current population estimates."
On top of that, Celock told me that members of this august body receive a mere $100 a year for their participation, which means that the only people who are likely to seek these offices are people who are just beginning their political careers, people who are winding down their political careers, and people who have literally nothing better to do than run for these seats. With a system designed like this, it can't not feature a nutter like Tremblay.
So, anyone who is truly concerned about getting Stella Tremblay out of office would be well served to stop thinking about running a better candidate in "Rockingham 4," and instead concentrate on making New Hampshire's legislative body a lot less bonkers.
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