Early this year, Illinois state Rep. Nicole La Ha introduced a bill to help state lawmakers keep their home addresses private in the face of rising threats. She had no idea how quickly she’d be in need of such legislation.
A local man was arrested last month after allegedly making threats to kill her and harm her family. It was the third time the Republican lawmaker had received threats of violence since taking office less than two years ago.
Speaking on the phone Monday afternoon, as additional security measures were being installed in her home, Ms. La Ha says she’s “still trying to figure out what this means for me.” She used to bring her two children with her to political events, but has pulled back on that in recent weeks.
Why We Wrote This
Attacks in Minnesota are stirring wider concern about safety for elected officials. Local officeholders are now grappling with how to increase their security, in a job that requires interacting with the public.
Her experience is an increasingly common one for state lawmakers across America.
The murders in Minnesota of former Democratic state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband and attempted murders of Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife this past weekend are the latest acts in a wave of political violence that has touched elected officials from the president on down to local politicians in both parties.
President Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt last July; another apparent attempt was thwarted in September. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s home was attacked in April by an arsonist. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was brutally attacked in their home in 2022.
The officials targeted in those events were all national figures and had security details. Local officeholders, on the other hand, have far less protection afforded to them – and, as the weekend’s shootings made clear, are increasingly vulnerable in the current environment. Many are now grappling with how to stay safe while doing a job that necessitates interacting with the public.
“People want to point to Trump or Democrats, but we are all in this,” says former Minnesota state Sen. Paul Gazelka, a Republican, who served as the Senate majority leader during Ms. Hortman’s tenure as the Democratic House speaker. “We’re in a bad place.”
Mr. Gazelka and Ms. Hortman led Minnesota’s legislature together through the pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the riots that followed – a time when, Mr. Gazelka says, anger and frustration in America really began ramping up. Although they were leaders of opposing parties, Mr. Gazelka says they became friends, and he confided in her about the death threats he received. The two had texted about the end of the legislative session in May.
“She rarely lost her cool,” says Mr. Gazelka, who recalls Ms. Hortman as thoughtful, honest, and empathetic.
Death threats against politicians of all stripes have been on the rise for some time now. According to the U.S. Capitol Police, the number of violent threats against members of Congress reached an all-time high last year, for the second year in a row. Local election administrators and officials, many of them nonpartisan, have faced a skyrocketing number of threats since the 2020 elections, as have federal judges.
The increase in political violence comes even as violent crime overall has dropped dramatically. Over the past three decades, violent crime overall is down by nearly half and murder is down by one-third, according to FBI data.
Technology as a driver of risk
Carol Rollie Flynn, a former executive director of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) Counterterrorism Center, who has long studied political terrorism, says that the increasingly polarized and vitriolic political environment – driven by social media – has been an obvious contributor.
Technology hasn’t just helped radicalize people – it’s also made it easier to execute attacks, with bomb-making and attack plans just a few clicks away and the location of public figures easier to find. Ms. Flynn now runs a private risk analysis consulting firm that helps high-level executives keep their information and whereabouts private online. That’s not so feasible for politicians, who need to be out there making themselves available and meeting constituents.
“If one of my close relatives were a state legislator or a small town mayor, I’d say, ‘Be careful,’” she says. At a minimum, she recommends they have metal detectors at events, hide their home addresses, and scrub their social media as much as possible.
Ms. La Ha, who won the 2022 Mrs. America beauty pageant, is accustomed to being in the spotlight. But she wasn’t prepared for how vitriolic state politics would be when she assumed her legislative seat in late 2023. She’s stopped using her married name in public, she says, to give her children some anonymity and protection.
One of the first people to reach out to her after her family was threatened was fellow state Rep. Bob Morgan. The Democrat had been at the Fourth of July Parade in Highland Park in 2022 when a man opened fire on the crowd, killing seven and wounding 48.
In the wake of that tragedy, he introduced legislation to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in Illinois. His work on that bill, which became law in early 2023, provoked “a significant number of direct death threats, both on social media, but also to my home.”
“I continue to get threats,” Mr. Morgan says. “It’s unfortunately just a very ever-present part of my job.”
He’s implemented a variety of home security protections and works closely with local law enforcement. He now alerts police and hires private security for some public events. But he recognizes that these precautions can only do so much. “We’re now getting to a place where there’s not a real protocol or a step that you can add that would have prevented this, and that’s pretty frightening.”
Actions to enhance privacy
Mr. Morgan and Ms. La Ha reconnected Monday morning and discussed reviving her legislation in a bipartisan fashion. Currently, state elected officials have to include their home addresses on their ballot petition forms in order to prove they reside in the community they’re running to represent. Ms. La Ha’s bill to change that is modeled after similar efforts to help judges shield their home addresses from public view – a move that’s become necessary as judges have increasingly become targets in recent years.
Across the country, state officials are looking at similar measures and other ways to boost security.
On Monday, Minnesota’s campaign finance regulator removed from its website information on street addresses for candidates in response to requests from legislators. Colorado’s secretary of state temporarily took down its campaign finance database out of concern that it contained personal information about candidates. And the North Dakota Legislative Council removed legislators’ home addresses from their biography pages.
Still, hiding one’s home address is difficult at best. A notebook found by authorities in the alleged Minnesota shooter’s car contained lists of commonly used internet search engines for personal information.
In Ohio, Democratic state Sen. Casey Weinstein says there’s increased security at the state capitol and that the Ohio State Highway Patrol has boosted patrols around legislators’ homes. “It definitely makes me feel grateful that we’re all getting that little extra protection right now,” he says.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine confirmed in a text that his administration had “taken additional measures” to protect lawmakers since the tragedy in Minnesota, while declining to discuss details for security reasons. Asked if he’d ever seen a period in his half-century in office where local elected officials had to worry for their safety like today, he simply responded: “no.”
“Democracy and Donuts,” undeterred
Mr. Weinstein has frequently used his own home in Hudson, Ohio, for political events, with flyers prominently displaying his address. To him, it signals accessibility – and trust. Supporters come to his house, where he lives with his wife and three young children, to pick up yard signs or attend petition-signing events.
This Saturday, he’s been planning to host a “Democracy and Donuts Drive-Thru.” It’s a convenient location for both his constituents and for him. Like so many other state legislators, Mr. Weinstein works a full-time job in the private sector in addition to his public service.
There have been times during his 10 years in office that he’s considered hiding his address, or stepping away from public service altogether. He thought about it in 2022, when more than two dozen men protested in trucks outside his home. He thought about it again when he heard about what happened in Minnesota.
“We usually fly below the radar,” says Mr. Weinstein, speaking of state legislators. “It raised an alarm, and an awareness for me about the environment we’re operating in.”
Nonetheless, Mr. Weinstein posted on his Facebook page Monday that this weekend’s event would take place in his driveway as planned. He doesn’t want extremists to ruin the relationship he’s built with constituents – and he wants to continue encouraging young aspiring lawmakers with families to run for office. But he’s making a few changes, too: Saturday’s driveway event will be the first one with hired security.
