House Speaker Matt Ritter said Monday there will be no disciplinary action against Anne Hughes after the state representative was charged last week with sixth-degree larceny over several lawn signs promoting Republican Darrell Harris. Ritter said he spoke with Hughes and was assured the sign-taking was a one-time occurrence.
The decision leaves Hughes facing the criminal case, but not a separate punishment from House leadership. Ritter said, "I've talked to Rep. Hughes and been assured this won't happen again," then added, "We move on."
The case centers on signs police said were placed along Judd Road and state Route 59, then traced back to Hughes with an AirTag. Hughes apologized for the incident in a Facebook post on Saturday and said she should have complained about the placement of the signs on public property to local police or to Harris's campaign instead of taking them.
That apology matters because the complaint she says she should have made points to the real dispute underneath the charge: where the signs were and who should have handled it. The state Department of Transportation recently warned campaigns that signs are not allowed on state property, including highways, roadways, railways, transit facilities and rights-of-way, while Easton town ordinances allow political signs along town-owned roads after Labor Day but require them to come down immediately after elections.
Hughes, a Democrat in her fourth two-year term representing Easton, Redding and Weston, is now left with the charge and Ritter's decision that the matter ends with the conversation they had. What happens next belongs to the court case, not the House, and Ritter has made clear he is not planning to add anything to it.
