We are so accustomed to the deceptive practices of the New Hampshire Democratic Party that it takes a lot for one of its intentionally misleading talking points to surprise us. Last week, we found ourselves surprised. Voters ought to be disgusted.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives debated a bill last Thursday that was intended to provide state prisoners with a means of shortening their mandatory minimum sentence.

House Bill 1654 would have authorized early release for prisoners who complete a GED or high school diploma while behind bars. Any prisoner to complete either degree could receive 90 days off his or her minimum sentence.

New Hampshire has what is called “truth in sentencing.” Convicts are sentenced to a range of time, say three-to-six years. The law requires that they serve at least the minimum.

That was mandated after a public outcry years ago over prisoners being released well before their sentences were completed.

HB 1654 would have created a loophole in the truth in sentencing policy. By lopping off the last three months of the minimum sentence, it would turn a high school degree or GED into a “get out of jail free” card. This was recognized weeks ago as the bill made its way through the legislative process. The bill failed in the House on Thursday for precisely that reason.

During House debate, Majority Leader D.J. Bettencourt, R-Salem, tried to have the bill set aside for future discussion. When the House rejected that effort, here is how the New Hampshire Democratic Party portrayed that vote via its official Twitter feed: “House rejects majority leader's attempts to table bill encouraging inmates to get an education.”

Now, if you didn't know anything about the bill, you would think that House Republican leaders were opposing education programs for inmates. They were actually opposing early release.

And of course, the Democratic Party did not dare officially support the bill. Rather, it mischaracterized the bill so it could misrepresent Republican opposition to it. How cowardly.

This is reminiscent of the 2010 fight over SB 500, the bill that granted automatic parole for most convicts. Gov. John Lynch and the state Democratic Party insisted that the bill did not offer parole to child sex offenders. It did. They insisted that parolees would be intensely supervised. The bill did not guarantee that. The bill passed with Repubilcan support bought with those false assurances. (It was later repealed.)

Spin is a permanent part of politics, and both sides indulge in it. But the New Hampshire Democratic Party goes beyond what any fair-minded person would consider acceptable spin. It operates a perpetual disinformation campaign in which it endeavors to win votes by systematically deceiving, and even lying to, the people of New Hampshire. Rank-and-file New Hampshire Democrats are thereby tainted as dishonest by association with their party's habitually deceitful leadership. The party is better than this. Its members ought to demand a higher standard of behavior from their state leadership.