Joshua Youssef's February 2, March 6, June 28 & July 24, 2012 Testimony concerning New Hampshire House Petition #26

additional commentary by Timothy Horrigan

(member of the House Petitions & Redress Committee)

See:

On February 2, 2012. Josh Youssef testified in favor of his petition (#26) before the House Redress Committee. I am featured early on when he demands that I recuse myself from the committee.

It is not uncommon for family-law petitioners to show up with the expectation that they can say who can or cannot sit on the committee. In fact, the Speaker of the House picks the committee, in consultation with the Minority Leader. My caucus leader, Rep. Terie Norelli (D-Portsmouth), wants me to be on the committee. The Speaker may not like having me on the committee, but he doesn't want to kick me off either, because even he realizes that would just get him in even more trouble than he is already in.

I ended up not having to recuse myself.

The video is divided into two segments of 88 and 30 minutes respectively:


  1. Original URL: http://youtu.be/D50pDhAfmW4


  2. Original URL: http://youtu.be/-n4yUtd_2J4

On March 6, 2012, Youssef returned for some more testimony.  This came as something of a surprise to me since his first two hours of testimony seemed plenty long to me (even though he is a very good public speaker.)  He certainly gave a strong presentation which covered his case in quite a lot of detail. But when I checked his written testimony against the video, I saw that his oral presentation tracked his written testimony point for point. He had indeed only gotten halfway through the written testimony when the February 2 hearing come to a close.  So, he came in on March 6 and spoke for an additional two hours, thus covering the entire document:


Mr. Youssef returned on June 28, 2012, while the committee was trying to wrap up its work, and gave what has been labelled a "Founding Presentation."  By now, Youssef had filed to be a State Senate candidate, but he still sat down for a lengthy session which delved deeply into stuff which most State Senate candidates would be very reluctant to talk about.  I am sitting in the back corner of the room, just barely within camera range, and I am heard more than seen.  I ask a few annoying questions.
Poor Nic Haas (Petition #33) had to sit there for six hours, doing nothing.  When we officially convened at 9:30 am, he and his sponsor were sitting there, all set up and ready to go.  We started late, then we spent over an hour (not on these videos) debating a report on the Dow Petition (#20), and then Josh Youssef spoke for the whole rest of the day.
 (Frankly, I wonder who would want to sit and watch all these videos: there is almost seven hours of video just on this one page.)
  1. Part 1 of 3

    Original URL:  http://youtu.be/mJ6j6QtjcE4
  2. Part 2 of 3

    Original URL: http://youtu.be/fdN8zjPYUao
  3. Part 3 of 3

    Original URL:  http://youtu.be/ucCWYqoCvac

On July 24, 2012, the Redress Committee took its final vote (barring a reconsideration or some other complication.)  Mr. Youssef won 9-2 with 3 abstentions from reps who had endorsed his State Senate candidacy. One Democrat, Rep. Sandra Balomenos Keans, left before the vote because she had another meeting at noontime. Youssef gave an hour of what has been described as "Final Founding Testimony."   I was surprised this testimony lasted only an hour.  This is probably the end of his testimony, although the committee has to finalize the Majority and Minority Reports on August 2, 2012, which is a nontrivial task.



See Also:


Home

The Forgotten Liars

2012 Session