Can Voting in New Hampshire Cost a Lawmaker a Job?

Representative David Scannell, a democrat from Manchester recently voted with the majority to approve a bill that would reduce the penalty on a small amount of marijuana possession.
Scannell works for the Manchester School District.
And his vote swiftly drew the ire of Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta.
Guinta chairs the School Board.
The mayor wrote to Scannell that his vote was counter to the school district's strong anti-drug policies.
The Mayor can’t fire Scannell, but urged him to resign from his position as district spokesman.
Will Infantine, a Republican, also voted in favor of the bill. He agrees with the Mayor that
Scannell should have voted differently because of his job.
Infantine has his own insurance business.

Infantine: There's a significant difference between how I vote for something as an owner of my own business versus someone who works for the state or for the city.
But no matter whom lawmakers work for, Infantine says, they have to be consistent.
Infantine: If I believe one way, then my job should follow that; what I do out in public should follow that; and what I do in the legislature should follow that.
Democratic Representative Daniel Sullivan is also a Manchester firefighter.
He voted for the bill because, he says, it gives young people a chance to turn their lives around if they get arrested for marijuana possession.
The current penalties include denial of federal aid for college tuition.
But Sullivan says despite also being a city employee, he didn’t get the same pressure from Mayor Guinta to resign.

Sullivan: Whether Dave Scannell speaks for the school district, or I'm a firefighter, it doesn't really matter, it should be separate. We don't get paid enough to have to walk around on egg shells every time with our votes.
It does seem for the moment there has been a cease fire.
Neither Guinta nor Scannell wanted to comment for this story.
Scannell has refused to resign threatening legal action to defend himself.
He says his vote is constitutionally protected free speech.
But Paul Manuel, director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at St. Anselm College, says that claim to free speech is not as clear as Scannell seems to think.

Manuel: Free speech in the workplace is sometimes limited by the rules of the workplace, by the expectations the employer has for you, by the culture that you're in.

And says Manuel, Mayor Guinta has his job too.

Manuel: The mayor, in his capacity, in some sense he has the symbolic role of the overall good for the city and for the children and so that's the role he has to take, I think appropriately so.
But UNH Professor Melvin Dubnick flips the responsibility and puts it on the Mayor’s shoulders.
Dubnick teaches public sector ethics.

DUBNICK: Scannell and that group could raise a counter-issue about are you actually trying to influence my vote by threatening my employment and my job, which is not allowed under the ethical code.

Dubnick suggested the Mayor’s pressure on Scannell could be seen as a questionable form of lobbying.

Or maybe even undue influence.
And he says it could down the road create a conflict of interest for Scannell.
Dubnick: Because now any future vote on this will be done with the background of the threat against his continuing employment and that's not allowed under the general court's ethical guidelines.
Manchester Republican Representative Connie Soucy also voted in favor of the bill.
She disagrees with the Mayor's approach to the controversy.

Soucy: Do I think he should be penalized for his vote? No, I don't. I think if the people who voted him in are not happy with his vote or any other vote, he will not be reelected.
Scannell and other supporters of the marijuana bill will probably not have another chance to vote on it.
The Senate’s Majority Leader has called the bill dead on arrival in that body.
So it’s not likely it will even make it to the Governor, who has promised to veto it.
For NHPR News, I’m Ellen Grimm in Manchester.