(R-New Hampshire State House, District Strafford County No. 24)
New Hampshire State House member Susan DeLemus is one of six New Hampshire legislators who belong to Sovereign Citizen-style groups. Sovereign Citizens call the federal government illegitimate and often use intimidation and “paper terrorism” harassment tactics to push far-right ideology and political goals drawn from the Posse Comitatus (see Chapter 4 for details on the Posse Comitatus).
DeLemus is a member of the Common Law Jury of new-Hampshire (sic), a Facebook group with 402 members. Administrator David Johnson espoused the Sovereign Citizen claim that the 14th Amendment is unconstitutional and draws the Sovereign Citizen distinction between state and “14th Amendment” citizens. The Facebook group advocates the creation of “common law juries for each county” to counter their conspiracy theory that the “INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND” controls the American judicial system (their emphasis). [See Constitutionally-Constructed Nationalism, Sovereign Citizen in Chapter 4 for more details].[14]
Susan DeLemus became involved in Posse-style politics at least four years before being elected to the New Hampshire statehouse in 2020. She joined the Common Law Jury of new-Hampshire in 2016.[15] By 2018, she joined the Posse-influenced groups, LaVoy Finicum; One Cowboy’s Witness #LibertyRising (7,740 members), American Patriot Voice (374 members), Rural Land Rights Advocates (RLRA) (2,626 members), It Matters How You Stand -Group (811 members), National STAND BY ME for Liberty Community (2,973 members), and Verdict Watch (506 members). She also has joined the far-right paramilitary III% United Patriots of New Hampshire (82 members*) and the secessionist New California San Bernardino (77 members)[16]
Jerry DeLemus, Susan’s husband, has been deeply engaged in such politics even longer. In May 2017, he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for his role in far-right rancher Cliven Bundy’s 2014 standoff with federal agents. Bundy refused to pay grazing fees on federal lands for more than two decades, arguing that the federal government did not have jurisdiction and only county sheriffs could enforce laws. His delinquent fees and trespassing ultimately led to an armed standoff. Jerry DeLemus pleaded guilty to “one count of conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and one count of interstate travel in aid of extortion.” According to his plea agreement, DeLemus had brought firearms and other armed activists to Nevada from New Hampshire and performed security for Bundy.[17]
Susan DeLemus has voiced support for the Posse Comitatus notion of the county sheriff’s ultimate power. After posting an article defending the armed takeover of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge titled “Utah Sheriff Warns BLM: ‘I Will Deputize Everyone And Arrest all Federal Agents,’” DeLemus commented, “This is EXACTLY why we need Constitutional Sheriffs!!!” [capitals in original]).[18]
Since 2016, DeLumus has also posted material from KrisAnne Hall, the far-right “constitutionalist” who claims that the 14th, 15th, and 19th Amendments are unconstitutional. In 2017, Delemus re-posted Hall’s declaration that “Nullification exists, nullification works, and nullification is the RIGHT of every State to stand against the unconstitutional assertion of power by the federal government…The feds don’t have the manpower or the resources to enforce their laws and regulations.… Once we really know it then we realize all we need to do is to refuse to comply.”[19]
Of concern, given this embrace of Hall’s ideas about nullification, Susan DeLemus serves as clerk of the House Committee on State-Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs.[20]
In 2020, Susan DeLemus also took up the COVID Denial cause. In May 2020, amidst the rise of the first wave of COVID Denial activism, she joined Reopen NH (4,746 members*). In February 2022, she joined the group FREEDOM CONVOY TO DC – NORTHEAST ROUTE (95,242 members).[21] DeLemus mocked Democratic legislatures for wearing protective masks and placing partitions in the legislature to impede the potential drift of the virus.[22] She wrote, “Ivermectin is safe,” a reference to the horse and sheep de-wormer that many in the movement claim, absent scientific study, is a cure for COVID-19.[23]
Beyond COVID Denial, Susan DeLemus also sponsored a variety of far-right bills. For example, in 2021, she co-sponsored the “Anti-Sanctuary Act” to bar jurisdictions from adopting limits to cooperation with the federal government’s enforcement of immigration laws.[24] In addition, DeLemus voted against a bill to bar “provocations based on a victim’s actual or perceived” gender identity “from being used as a defense in manslaughter cases” and for a bill prohibiting the state from enforcing federal gun regulations.[25]