THE JUSTIFICATIONS vary, but the examples are legion. In December in Florida, local politicians faced threats over housing developments. Police shot a Montanan in March after she brandished a gun at a judge. A police chief in North Carolina retired in May after getting violent threats over the death of a police dog. Threats of political violence are becoming more common. The Capitol Police investigated more than 9,000 made against members of Congress last year. It is still vanishingly rare, though, that such threats are acted on.
On June 14th Melissa Hortman, the speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, and Mark Hortman, her husband, were murdered in their home outside Minneapolis. The gunman injured another state legislator and his wife, went to the homes of others and had a long list of possible targets, including Democratic members of Congress and Planned Parenthood clinics. The next day Vance Boelter, who is 57, was arrested and charged with murder. He has not yet entered a plea. Any motivations remain somewhat unclear: according to the complaint, Mr Boelter texted his family that he had gone “to war”. But police have not found “a Unabomber-style manifesto”, Joe Thompson, the prosecutor, said at a press conference. “His primary motive was to go out and murder people.”
This sort of political violence is becoming as unsurprising as school shootings. In 2022 a man broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi, then the speaker of the federal House of Representatives, and attacked her husband with a hammer. The same year an armed man went to the home of Brett Kavanaugh, a Supreme Court justice, planning to murder him. Earlier this year Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, was the victim of arson. And, of course, last year Donald Trump was twice targeted by gunmen.
State and local politicians are especially vulnerable. More than 40% of state legislators have been threatened or attacked in the past three years. Survey data suggest it is becoming more common. Statehouses, where legislatures sit, are the front line of the culture wars. Kelly Cassidy, a state representative in Illinois, has said she avoids leading gun-control bills because “my kids were too little, the threats were too common and too on-point”.
State lawmakers’ addresses are often available online (the homes of the victims of the attacks in Minnesota were listed on official websites). Their offices are easily accessible, too. Unlike many corporate workplaces where interlopers may be blocked by turnstiles or security desks, “Most of the district offices are like strip malls and so it’s direct access to the public,” one Florida state representative, Anna Eskamani, told researchers. Whereas high-ranking members of Congress or cabinet members may have security details, local politicians rely on nearby police or pay for their own extra security.
Many harassers remain anonymous. But researchers have managed to collect some data. Whereas most crimes are committed by young men, those who threaten public officials are noticeably more middle-aged, with roughly two-fifths over 38. Lilliana Mason, who researches political violence at Johns Hopkins University, reckons that older folk are “sitting at home being fed misinformation all day”. Lessons can be gleaned from the bullies’ targets, too. More Republican than Democratic state legislators say abuse has got worse. Experts theorise that much of this comes from their own voters. One moderate Republican state legislator told researchers at the Brennan Centre, a non-partisan law and policy institute, that anti-abortion activists made death threats against her children.
Harassment “doesn’t need to be [physical] for it to have really significant impacts on political participation and civic engagement”, says Roudabeh Kishi, who studies political violence at Princeton University. Almost half of local officials questioned in her team’s surveys say they are less willing to work on controversial topics. Two-fifths were less willing to run for re-election. Persuading people to run in down-ballot races is already a challenge. Salaries and status are modest: state lawmakers earn just $51,750 a year in Minnesota.
Some changes are being made in the aftermath of the attacks there. North Dakota has removed legislators’ home addresses from their biography pages. The Wisconsin and New Hampshire statehouses are increasing security. Some improvements can be simple, like training Facebook-loving local politicians to avoid inadvertently revealing too much personal information. But bigger changes will require a cultural shift. Being a state legislator is “supposed to be a somewhat boring job, we didn’t need to ask them to be heroes”, sighs Ms Mason, the researcher. “Increasingly they feel like they have to be.”
