Tag: Nashua

As reported earlier this month New Hampshire voters chose the first openly transgender state legislator, Stacy Laughton of Nashua, who represents Ward 4 .  That didn’t sit well with some apparently so the Laconia, NH Daily Sun dug into her past and discovered that prior to her transition, she served 4 and a half months of 2008 in jail on a felony conviction of conspiracy to commit credit card fraud.

She was also convicted of tire slashing and at one point reportedly admitted she faked illness to gain an ambulance ride from Weirs Beach back to the heart of Laconia.

Neither of those latter incidents were felonies of course.

According to NH State law convicted felons can vote and run for public office as long as they are not incarcerated and have successfully completed any court-ordered probation.

Nashua, New Hamphire voters elected the first transperson ever to the New Hamphire House of Representatives on Tuesday.  Stacy Laughton, 28, places gender issues at the top of her agenda, but wants to be treated like any other woman on the House floor.

Laughton has been politically active since she was a teenager.  When she lived in Laconia, she was unsuccessful in several attempts at securing city positions and one attwempt at a run for the State House while running as a Republican.  

She worked on John Kerry’s campaign in 2004 as an independent.  Her shift in allegiance had a lot to do with Gov. Craig Benson’s budget cuts.

He cut welfare funding, he cut special ed funding, he cut a lot of these vitally important programs, and these were programs that I knew lots of people who were on, and I started to see their lives change, but they didn’t change for the better.

–Laughton

Laughton became a Democrat in 2010 and was elected as a selectman in Ward 4 in Nashua, where she now lives.  Several friends and mentors suggested a run for higher office, but it was newly-elected Rep. Maggie Hassan’s plea for people to run which ultimately caused her to do so.

This area of New Hampshire needed somebody like me, somebody who understands the complex issues that this district faces, somebody who understands what it’s like to live with a lower income, somebody who knows the people in the area.

–Laughton