State Rep. Ellen Read, a Democrat from Newmarket, is fighting two separate speeding cases by arguing that a provision in New Hampshire’s 1784 Constitution prohibited law enforcement from stopping her while she was traveling to or from legislative duties. The dispute has sparked fresh debate over whether elected officials enjoy special protections that ordinary citizens do not.
According to court filings, Read was stopped in December 2024 after authorities alleged she was driving more than 100 miles per hour on Interstate 93 in Windham. A second traffic stop followed in June 2025 when she was accused of driving 92 mph in a 65 mph zone in Londonderry. In both encounters, Read informed officers she was returning from legislative business and later argued that the stops themselves violated constitutional protections afforded to members of the General Court.
“The plain reading of the Constitution says that legislators cannot be stopped on their way to or from their duties,” Read told Fox News Digital. “It says nothing of being ticketed or arrested at the end of the commute, and nothing about prosecution.”
At the center of the case is language adopted nearly 250 years ago stating that members of the House and Senate shall not be “arrested, or held to bail” while traveling to, attending, or returning from legislative sessions. Read’s legal filings contend that because she was detained during protected travel, all evidence obtained from the traffic stops should be suppressed.
Her court filings go even further.
“Under the plain language of the New Hampshire Constitution, defendant was unlawfully detained/seized/arrested in violation of her Legislative privilege,” one motion argued. “All evidence illegally obtained should be suppressed, and the charge dismissed.”
Read insists she is not seeking immunity from prosecution and says her challenge is focused solely on the legality of the traffic stops themselves. “It was always the commute itself that was meant to be protected… Not the legislator protected from breaking the law,” she said.
The argument has found little success so far.
A judge rejected Read’s constitutional defense in the first case. Court records show she was ultimately convicted of negligent driving, ordered to pay a $1,240 fine with part of the penalty deferred, and required to complete a safe-driving course while avoiding further moving violations. The New Hampshire Supreme Court later declined to immediately take up the constitutional question, though it left open the possibility of a future appeal.
The controversy has also generated scrutiny because of the speeds involved. According to reporting by The Boston Globe, one deputy allegedly clocked Read at 107 mph on Interstate 93. Read’s office has disputed that claim, arguing the officer estimated her speed rather than measuring it with radar and noting that her 2009 Toyota Yaris had more than 440,000 miles on the odometer. Her office also criticized the lack of body-camera footage and encouraged motorists to use dash cameras.
Legal observers note that legislative privilege provisions were originally designed to prevent local authorities from interfering with legislative sessions by detaining lawmakers on dubious civil claims. Whether those protections extend to routine traffic stops remains largely untested in New Hampshire courts. Read herself has described the dispute as a constitutional question that the state’s highest court has never definitively answered.
For now, the speeding tickets remain, the constitutional challenge remains unresolved, and New Hampshire voters are left watching a debate over whether a trip home from the State House should come with a legal speed exemption no ordinary driver could ever hope to claim.
