N.H. lawmaker who claims police can’t arrest her for speeding meets resistance from fellow Democrats

Ellen Read, a New Hampshire state representative who claimed “legislative privilege” should shield her from being prosecuted after she was caught driving 107 mph, issued a statement late Monday asserting that her car “simply cannot go that fast.”

The statement, released by spokesperson Gracie Gato and posted on social media, also falsely described two speeding-related traffic citations as “a closed matter,” contradicted Read’s own court filings, and criticized the Boston Globe’s reporting. The statement said Read introduced legislation this year to “require critical thinking in public schools exactly so people would be able to see through bad journalism like this.”

The Globe’s story, published Monday, detailed Read’s efforts to fight the citations, including her claims that she can’t be prosecuted for traffic stops that occurred while she was commuting to or from the State House.

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Alexis Simpson, the Democratic minority leader in the New Hampshire House, whose office had previously declined to comment, issued a statement Tuesday regarding Read’s traffic stops and subsequent claims.

“No one is above the law, whether it is a president claiming executive immunity or a state representative claiming a special privilege to break the rules and recklessly endanger the lives of others,” Simpson said. “I have full faith that the court will appropriately handle the facts of this case and proceed accordingly.”

Most state constitutions include provisions offering legislators some degree of immunity. New Hampshire’s says lawmakers cannot be arrested or held to bail while going to or from the Legislature. Even so, Read’s claims struck some colleagues as far-fetched.

Joe Sweeney, a Republican serving as House deputy majority leader, said the legislative privilege exists to ensure lawmakers can fulfill their duties without undue interference, not evade the consequences of routine traffic enforcement that doesn’t actually impede their legislative work.

In her statement, Read implied without evidence that the Globe’s critical coverage was retaliation for her having advocated for an investigation into “a corrupt domestic violence network.”

But Kathy Sullivan, former chair of the New Hampshire Democratic Party, rejected the idea that coverage of Read’s traffic stops surfaced because of Read’s beef with the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. Sullivan wrote on social media that the story came to light because Read drove in a manner that endangered public safety.

“She should have apologized and taken responsibility for being irresponsible,” Sullivan said. “Now she’s making it worse.”

The Globe’s reporting was sparked by Read’s own appeal of the traffic stops, which was among public filings at New Hampshire Supreme Court.

In April,Read was banned from certain areas of the State House on non-session days after yelling a profanity in the hallway outside a legislative hearing where representatives from the Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence and from the attorney general’s office testified in opposition to legislation she was sponsoring. The House speaker concluded Read’s conduct had “caused alarm to legislators, staff, and members of the public,” InDepthNH reported at the time.

Read had been accused of a similarly disruptive outburst in January 2024, immediately after a witness testified in opposition to a rent stabilization bill she was sponsoring. In video from that committee meeting, Read can be seen following the witness out of the room before a commotion erupted in the hallway. Read allegedly shouted at the witness, prompting a temporary halt to the hearing, the New Hampshire Journal reported.

In June 2025, when Read was pulled over for allegedly driving 92 mph in a 65 mph zone on Interstate 93, she allegedly yelled at the officer, claiming he didn’t understand the New Hampshire Constitution and didn’t have any authority to stop her, given her status as a lawmaker traveling from the State House, according to Major Christopher Bashaw with the Rockingham County Sheriff’s Office.

The person currently acting as Read’s representative in court, Dana Albrecht, who is not an attorney, declined to identify an emergency situation that might have warranted her driving 107 mph on I-93 on the afternoon of Dec. 2, 2024. He also declined to say whether Read yelled at the sheriff’s deputy during the traffic stop on the morning of June 5, 2025.

The statement Gato released on Mondaynight, which described details related only to the first traffic stop, said “a distinguished State House employee” had been on the phone with Read “throughout the stop” and later testified that Read never became hostile toward the officer. The statement didn’t offer details about the second stop, which is the incident in which Bashaw said Read yelled at the officer.

House Clerk Paul Smith said Tuesday he had been on the phone with Read during the first traffic stop and later testified about what he heard. He said he wasn’t involved in the second traffic stop, as the House was in session at that time.

Mileage records show Read received reimbursement for commuting to the State House in Concord on June 5, 2025, though records from the House’s roll call votes list her as having an excused absence from the session.

The statement from Gato said Read’s 2009 Toyota Yaris is a four-cylinder economy car with more than 440,000 miles on the odometer. As such, the vehicle “cannot even maintain traffic speed” on Interstate 89 northbound, the statement said. Read contends she was driving about 85 mph in the 65 mph zone on I-93 and the deputy relied on an estimate to accuse her of driving 107 mph.

Regardless, the evidence presented at a bench trial in August 2025 led a judge to find Read guilty of negligent driving, a non-criminal violation, after prosecutors charged her with going 100 mph or faster, according to court records. Her sentence included a $1,240 fine and the threat of having her driver’s license suspended if she got another moving violation within two years.

The latest statement from Gato claimed Read decided to “end the case” and “did not appeal” the trial court’s rejection of her legislative privilege claim with regard to the first traffic stop; however, that contradicts Read’s own court filings.

Although it’s true that Read didn’t appeal immediately after being found guilty, the petition that Albrecht filed with the Supreme Court on her behalf in April pertained to both underlying cases. The petition specifically asked the justices to review the denial of Read’s legislative privilege claim from the August 2025 bench trial.

The Supreme Court declined on June 11 to hear Read’s constitutional claims. Albrecht filed a motion for reconsideration on June 24, but the Supreme Court rejected that motion on July 2.

The statement from Gato falsely claimed the citations stemming from these two traffic stops “are a closed matter.” Court records still list both cases as pending. In the first case, Read has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 12 to evaluate the deferred component of her sentence. In the second, she faces a speeding charge that still needs to be re-scheduled for a bench trial.

Albrecht said in an email Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s mandate hasn’t been docketed by the trial court. In the meantime, the speeding case “appears to be on hold” and could remain so “indefinitely,” he said, though he also emphasized that he has no formal legal training.