Rep. Ellen Read BANNED from the State House

On April 17, 2026, New Hampshire State Representative Ellen Read of Rockingham District 10 became the first Representative in state history to be formally banned from the chamber, gallery, and anteroom of the State House on non-session days.Her offense? A single word — f**k — spoken in a public hallway while she watched sexual assault survivors be given three minutes apiece to testify on her own bill, HB 1633, while paid lobbyists from a single opposing organization were given twenty minutes and a second turn at the end.Rep. Read is herself a survivor. Four years ago, she walked out of a New Hampshire hospital after her own assault, never having been told of her legal right to evidence collection. HB 1633 is the bill she wrote in response — a bill that would simply require hospitals, police, and prosecutors to hand survivors a palm card listing the rights they already have under state law. The NH House has passed it three times. Most recently, 340 to 1. The Senate just killed it.Below, you’ll find Rep. Read’s full video statement on her banishment, and her written op-ed as published in InDepthNH on April 16, 2026. Both are her own words, unedited by me. I publish them here as a matter of public record, because the people running this state have made abundantly clear they would rather she not be heard at all.Read them. Watch. Share.Because a right kept secret is not a right. And a representative kept silent is not silent — she is being silenced. There is a verb there. There is a choice somebody is making.Let’s make them make it in the daylight. Get full access to The Gracie Gato Podcast at gracieformermrsgato.substack.com/subscribe