Lawfare Archive: Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders with Maya Kornberg

Summary

Podcast Summary: Lawfare Archive – Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders with Maya Kornberg

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Lawfare Podcast
• Host/Author: The Lawfare Institute
• Episode: Lawfare Archive: Intimidation of State and Local Officeholders with Maya Kornberg
• Release Date: May 11, 2025

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Introduction

In this episode of The Lawfare Podcast, hosted by Tyler McBrien alongside Quinta Juresic, the discussion centers around a pivotal report from the Brennan Center for Justice addressing the alarming intimidation faced by state and local officeholders. Maya Kornberg, a research fellow at the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program and one of the report's authors, joins the conversation to delve into the study's findings, methodology, and the broader implications for American democracy.

Methodology of the Study

Survey and Research Approach

Maya Kornberg outlines the comprehensive methodology employed in the report, emphasizing the extensive efforts to capture a diverse and representative sample of state and local officials across all 50 states.

• Sample Size: Over 1,350 local officeholders and more than 350 state legislators surveyed.
• Supplementary Data: Conducted approximately three dozen in-depth interviews with state legislators to gather personal narratives.
• Diversity: Ensured representation across different parties, races, ethnicities, genders, and geographic regions.
• Partnerships: Collaborated with Rutgers' Center for Public Interest Polling and Princeton's Bridging Divides Institute to enhance survey outreach and credibility.

Notable Quote:

"Together, the data in the report represents information from a diverse group of folks, over 1700 people from all 50 states." — Maya Kornberg [04:41]

Findings on Threats and Abuse

Prevalence of Abuse

The report reveals a staggering prevalence of intimidation:

• State Legislators: 89% experienced threats, attacks, or abuse.
• Local Officials: 52% faced similar intimidation tactics.

Disproportionate Impact on Marginalized Groups

Women and people of color are disproportionately targeted:

• Gender-Based Abuse: Women in state legislatures are nearly four times more likely to encounter sexual abuse compared to their male counterparts.
• Racial and Identity-Based Abuse: Abuse often manifests in misogynistic, racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic, and homophobic ways, directly targeting the individuals' identities.

Notable Quote:

"More women and people of color than men or white people reported that they were subject to abusive language relating to their children and their families." — Maya Kornberg [09:27]

Impact on American Democracy

Erosion of Representative Democracy

The intimidation has profound implications for the fabric of democracy:

1. Legislative Hesitancy: Approximately 39% of local officeholders and 21% of state legislators are less willing to legislate on contentious issues.
2. Reduced Civic Engagement: 40% of local and 20% of state officials are reluctant to engage with constituents due to fear of abuse.
3. Attrition Rates: Around 39% of local officials are less likely to seek reelection, with this figure rising to 50% among women, threatening diverse representation in governance.

Notable Quote:

"If legislators do not feel that they are safe to legislate on issues that are important to them and to their constituents, then that severely hampers the strength of our democracy." — Maya Kornberg [38:57]

Aggravating Factors Contributing to Intimidation

1. Gun Regulation

Increased Presence of Firearms

The deregulation of guns has heightened the dangers faced by officeholders:

• Safety Risks: Legislators report fears of gun violence in public legislative spaces.
• Policy Hesitancy: Fear of backlash deters officials from pursuing gun regulation, exemplified by a legislator stepping back from gun control initiatives to protect her family.

Notable Quote:

"There's armed members of the public who can sit in legislative galleries in her state, and she felt like she was a sitting duck when that happened." — Maya Kornberg [16:53]

Regulatory Constraints and Recommendations

Despite Supreme Court rulings like New York Rifle and Pistol Association vs. Bruen limiting gun regulation, Maya emphasizes the potential for implementing common-sense measures:

• Prohibited Areas: Banning open carry in legislative chambers to prevent intimidation.
• Tailored Policies: Creating narrowly focused regulations to enhance safety without overstepping constitutional bounds.

Notable Quote:

"The Supreme Court's 2022 decision... severely constrains gun regulation, but it does leave room for common sense limits to protect civic engagement." — Maya Kornberg [20:01]

2. Social Media Harassment

Vector for Abuse

Social media platforms are identified as primary arenas for harassment:

• Engagement Reluctance: Legislators avoid online interactions to escape abuse.
• Policy Implications: Calls for social media companies to prioritize safe public discourse and address harassment through updated policies.

Notable Quote:

"Legislative bodies and office holders and social media companies should prioritize the freedom to safely engage in public discourse as they update their policies to reduce serious harm online." — Maya Kornberg [23:13]

Challenges with Law Enforcement Support

Mixed Experiences with Protection

Officeholders report varying levels of support from law enforcement:

• Positive Interactions: Some officials, like North Carolina State Senator Natalie Murdoch, report swift and reliable protection.
• Negative Experiences: Others, such as Colorado State Representative Jennifer Bacon, feel unsupported and perceive threats as punitive responses to their policies.

Notable Quote:

"You don't get to pick and choose who you protect, but it's hard not to feel like it's a punishment for our policies and for having the nerve to say Black Lives Matter." — Jennifer Bacon [32:37]

Recommendations for Centralized Security Measures

Maya advocates for the establishment of a centralized security agency to:

• Consistent Protection: Provide objective and evidence-based security measures.
• Data Collection: Implement transparent monitoring systems similar to the U.S. Capitol Police's approach for Congress members.

Historical Context and Current Trends

Normalization of Political Violence

While political violence has historical precedents in the U.S., the current increase in intimidation marks a concerning trend:

• Post-January 6 Insights: Events like the assault on Pelosi's husband and simultaneous threats across multiple state capitals underscore the escalation.
• Normalization Risks: There is a danger of such abuse becoming routine, undermining the democratic process and discouraging public service.

Notable Quote:

"It should not be normal that our elected representatives are afraid to do their jobs, and it should not be normal that people are afraid to run for office because they are afraid for the safety of themselves and their families." — Maya Kornberg [48:00]

Timeline of Escalation

The increase in abuse has been particularly noticeable in the recent years:

• COVID-19 Pandemic: Heightened tensions during public health measures contributed to aggressive protests and targeting of officials.
• Aftermath of Insurrection: The January 6th events acted as a catalyst for a surge in political violence against officeholders.

Breaking the Vicious Cycle

Policy Recommendations

Maya emphasizes several strategies to mitigate the cycle of intimidation:

1. Public Leadership Stance: Encouraging leaders to vocally oppose abuse and advocate for safe environments.
2. Mental Health Support: Providing accessible mental health services for officials and their staff to cope with the stresses of abuse.
3. Legislative Action: Implementing policies that allow for security expenditures and enhance protective measures.

Notable Quote:

"One of our key policy recommendations is that public leaders should stand up and speak out against abuse and raise awareness about this problem." — Maya Kornberg [50:59]

Encouraging Cross-State Learning

Drawing from successful measures like California's address confidentiality for public officials, states can adopt best practices from one another to bolster protection and reduce abuse.

Conclusion

The episode underscores the critical threat that intimidation poses to the integrity of local and state governance in the United States. By presenting the findings of the Brennan Center's report, Maya Kornberg illuminates the urgent need for systemic changes to protect officeholders, thereby safeguarding the democratic process. The discussion advocates for comprehensive policy reforms, enhanced security measures, and a cultural shift in how political discourse is conducted, both offline and online.

Key Takeaways:

• Intimidation of state and local officials is widespread and particularly affects marginalized groups.
• The erosion of safe political engagement threatens the very foundation of representative democracy.
• Addressing this issue requires multi-faceted solutions, including policy reforms, mental health support, and proactive leadership.

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This summary provides an in-depth overview of the podcast episode, capturing the essence of the discussions and the critical insights shared by Maya Kornberg.

Transcript

[Lawfare Host]

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[Maya Kornberg]

Foreign.

[Caroline Cornett]

I'm Caroline Cornett, intern at Lawfare, with an episode from the Lawfare Archive for May 11, 2025. Last month, an arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro's official residence forced the governor and his family to to evacuate in the middle of the night. Police have since charged the perpetrator with attempted murder, arson, and terrorism. For today's Archive episode, I selected an episode from February 22, 2024, in which Quinta, Jurassic and Tyler McBrien sat down with Maya Kornberg to discuss a report on the intimidation of state and local office holders, which found that 89% of state legislators and 52% of local officials experienced threats, attacks, or other forms of abuse in the past three years. They talked about the risks and threats these office holders face how these threats are distorting democracy and more.

[Tyler McBrien]

I'm Tyler McBrien, managing editor of Lawfare, and this is the Lawfare podcast February 22, 2024 as a new report on the intimidation of state and local officeholders from the Brennan center for justice points out, the January 6th insurrection at the Capitol seemed to mark a new peak in extremist intimidation targeting public officials. But it was hardly the only act of political violence to break the period of relative stability that followed the assassinations of the 1960s. Citing the 2017 shooting of Representative Steve Scalise, last year's hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, and many other cases, the report paints a troubling picture of today's climate of political violence in America. To talk through the report and its implications, lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Juresic and I sat down with Maya Kornberg, a research fellow at the Brennan Center's Elections and Government Program and one of the report's authors. We discussed how Maya and her team surveyed so many state and local officials across a number of jurisdictions, the pervasive risks and threats those officeholders face, and how these threats are distorting US democracy as a whole. It's the Lawfare podcast, February 22nd intimidation of state and Local Officeholders with Maya.

[Quinta Juresic]

Kornberg to start off, I wanted to ask you about the very sexy question of methodology. How did you go about conducting this survey? There are so many state and local officials out there operating across many jurisdictions, which is precisely why I think it can be tough to get a handle on how trends like these are affecting them. So was it difficult to collect this information?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah, that's an excellent question, and one that we spent a lot of time thinking about. We conducted two large national surveys, a national survey of over 1350 local office holders and a national survey of more than 350 state legislators. Then we also thought that it would be really important to supplement the survey data with the rich personal stories that you can only really get from people sharing their lived experiences and in depth interviews. So we conducted collected also three dozen interviews with state legislators. Together, the data in the report represents information from a diverse group of folks, over 1700 people from all 50 states. And it was really important for us in our sampling strategy to ensure that it also represented, to the extent possible, people from different parties, different races and ethnicities, different genders, different parts of the country. And as you noted in your question, this is not the easiest group to survey. As we note in our own research, they are tremendously overburdened with work, and a lot of these offices are under sourced. And so we took great care in our outreach strategy to both disseminate the survey through our own networks, through networks of allies. We also went to the National Conference on State Legislatures and promoted the survey there as well. I also want to note that for the state legislature survey, we partnered with the center for Public Interest Polling at Rutgers, and for the local survey, we partnered with the Bridging Divides Institute at Princeton. And these partners were also tremendously helpful in terms of getting the survey out. So that was a real effort on our part, and I think it shows in terms of the numbers and also the demographics of the survey respondents. And then after the survey was collected, we also took great care in our waiting procedures to ensure that the findings were representative in terms of region and party and gender and race and other key parameters to make sure that we're telling a comprehensive and accurate story.

[Tyler McBrien]

Yeah, thanks, Maya. As you just laid out so well, it's just quite the undertaking, quite the resource mobilization. So, as a way to start to get at some of the meat of the report, I'm curious, what motivated its production? What questions did you go into this hoping to answer?

[Maya Kornberg]

So, first of all, I should note that I think we're all seeing on the news even that there's just so many instances now of violence. I mean, perhaps the most famous one being the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband. And so there's very much a feeling that we're increasingly living in this climate of violence. And so in this context and in this climate, the report set out to answer four key questions, I would say. So the first question that we were interested in is to what extent state and local elected office holders and candidates and their families and their staff are experiencing insults and harassments and threats and attacks associated with their public roles. And then we were also interested in whether office holders from historically marginalized backgrounds faced disparate levels or different kinds of abuse and the ways in which this abuse manifested. And then finally, as is noted in the title of the report, the Threat to Democracy, we care a lot about not just the magnitude of the problem, but also the impact on the democracy. This is really, really important, how this is reshaping our democracy and threatening our democracy. So we ask about the impact of this abuse on office holders, willingness to do things like run for reelection or hire office, to take on certain policy positions, to interact with the public. And these are all really key considerations relating to the health and the strength of representative government in the United States.

[Quinta Juresic]

So I want to dig in on one of those aspects that you mentioned there, which is the variations in the different kinds and volumes of threats experienced by officials in different roles and of different backgrounds and identities. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[Maya Kornberg]

First and foremost, I want to note that we found that abuse is pervasive across gender and race and other identities. A lot of state and local officeholders are reporting that they're experiencing some kind of abuse, but we did find that women and people of color are experiencing more abuse, and they're experiencing different kinds of abuse. There's different examples of this, but I'll just give two to start with. First of all, more women and people of color than men or white people reported that they were subject to abusive language relating to their children and their families. And then women in state legislatures were nearly four times as likely as men to experience abuse of a sexual nature. And then I might add, that abuse directed at women, people of color, religious minorities, LGBTQ individuals often really conveyed the hate in misogynistic, racist, anti Semitic, Islamophobic, homophobic ways that really specifically targeted this element of their identity.

[Tyler McBrien]

Yeah. I want to drill down on one aspect of identity that you didn't just mention, which is the identity of state and local officeholder as opposed to federal officeholder. I'm curious if you could just talk about the distinct challenges that office holders face at the state and local level. In your lead in, you mentioned the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband, for example. And those are the ones that often get headlines. But what are state and local officials facing in particular?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah. So I might just start before answering the question by noting that we chose to focus on state and local office holders because these are many times stepping stone positions for national office, particularly for women. And. And so I think there was a story of a systemic problem that then continues when we look at national office as well. But that starts especially when we're thinking about the impact of this on attrition. That starts with local and state offices in terms of unique challenges. One of the things that office holders spoke to us about was not having enough resources to help combat this abuse. And one of the things that we argue in the report is that states should permit campaign spending on security. You know, things like home alarm systems, camera systems, ride shares for staff, things like that. And this actually is permitted in federal campaigns. The Federal Election Commission already allows candidates for federal office to suspend campaign funds on personal security. And we note in the report that after the January 6th insurrection, candidates for Congress increased their campaign spending on security by more than 500%. But not all states have these same allowances for campaign spending. And we also heard from many state and local officeholders that this abuse is not just targeted at them when they're in office. It starts in the campaign. And so having the resources to install some of the things that can help people feel safer and can help guard against some of these kinds of attacks, I think for officeholders and for staff is really important on the state level. And then I might note also that the US Capitol Police already tracks and collects data on threats against members of Congress and it publicly reports the number that it investigates this data. This centralized data allows the US Capitol Police to identify trends and then to allocate their security resources. Many of the state legislators and local legislators that we spoke to and surveyed noted that it would be very helpful to have some kind of central security agency distinct from local law enforcement that they could go to. And we note in the report that monitoring and data collection, the kind of thing that the U.S. capitol Police is doing for members of Congress, can be really important in terms of creating really evidence based and responsive decisions when it comes to allocating resources and responding to this violence.

[Quinta Juresic]

So one of the things you also found in looking at sort of how these threats diverge across different demographics is that, and I'll just quote from your report here, Republican state legislators reported more increase in the volume of abuse than did Democrats. And my understanding from your report, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that the majority of the abuse in question that you're talking about here is actually from within the GOP itself. So it's legislators facing harassment from constituents, from other people in the party because of their refusal to fall in line with the party, rather than abuse from across the aisle. Can you talk about this dynamic and why it might vary across party lines?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah. So as you noted, this is a problem that affects both Democrats and Republicans. But we did find that more Republicans than Democrats experienced an increase in the volume of abuse over the past few years. And indeed, many attributed this to kind of backlash within their party for not extreme supporting, extreme policy positions. And I think it's important to look at that in the context of our broader finding about the way in which this violence impacts people's willingness to take on contentious issues. Many times these are really hot button and partisan issues as well. So for example, many legislators that we spoke to said that they were less willing to legislate on things like reproductive rights or gun regulation or COVID 19 policy for fear of abuse. And one example that really stayed with me is a state legislator we interviewed who said that she took a step back from leading bills on gun regulation while her children were small because she faced such frequent and specific threats. And we heard similar stories when it came to, again, as I mentioned, other contentious issues. And so within this climate, when it comes to how violence interacts with these policy issues, I think that that is a huge part of the story when we hear from legislators. Well, there's a lot of backlash when I don't want to support certain policies. That's something that we actually heard from legislators on both sides of the aisle.

[Tyler McBrien]

In your report, you lay out a couple what you call aggravating factors that are exacerbating this climate of violence as you've described it. I want to first focus on one of the big ones in the report, which is gun regulation and the increase in gun carrying, especially at political events. Can you speak to what you heard from respondents in terms of that hot button issue of guns?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah. So as you mentioned, guns are a huge aggravating factor. And according to many of the local and state office holders that we spoke to, the deregulation of guns has made the abuse that they are facing more dangerous for them and their families. And I might just tell one specifically harrowing example. Among the many legislators that told us about the fear of gun violence while working, one said that there's armed members of the public who can sit in legislative galleries in her state, and she felt like she was a sitting duck when that happened. So that is really something that a lot of people noted is something that really scares them and something that really prevents them from being able to do their job without fear of violence. And so in this context, we do have a recommendation that states should regulate open and concealed carry of guns where office holders interact with the public in order to reduce this risk. We note that states should prohibit people from unnecessarily carrying guns in locations where constituents and their representatives conduct core business related to democracy, things like state houses where people can sit in the galleries. And this would really help in terms of office holders feeling safe. And then guns come into the story. Again, as I noted earlier, when it comes to legislators also reporting that they are afraid to take on gun regulation as a policy issue for fear of violence, like the story that I just told of the legislator who, for fear of violence that she or her family would face, took a step back from gun violence control legislation when her children were small. That was not the only story that we heard about this so guns really enter the picture in a big way, both in terms of a major source of fear and also as a policy issue that legislators are afraid to take on in many instances because of the fear of backlash.

[Tyler McBrien]

Yeah, I was really struck by how guns do cut across, you know, aggravating factors, but also one of the hot button issues that office holders run away from, which I think makes the recommendation in the report for gun regulation all the more compelling. But I wanted to get on the table some of the constraints that you note in terms of that recommendation, especially from the Supreme Court and other state supreme courts. Can you talk about the realistic aspects of that regulation and some of the constraints that. That states would deal with when trying to regulate guns in public spaces?

[Maya Kornberg]

So, as we note in the report, The Supreme Court's 2022 decision in the New York Rifle and Pistol association versus Bruin case severely constrains gun regulation, but it does leave room for common sense limits to protect civic engagement. And so all of our recommendations are really given with an eye to how states can be enacting some of these common sense limits. We quote Washington State Senator Patty Kuder in the report. She introduced a bill prohibiting open carry in the Capitol and told reporters that the purpose of openly carrying a weapon is to chill other people's voices. And it works. There are ways that states can be acting within this environment. And I might again highlight another wonderful quote from the report from State Senator Aaron Mae Quaid, who said, I would love to ban guns from at least the chamber itself or the gallery of the chamber. And then after acknowledging the constitutional constraints, after Bruin said that there is. She said, I think that there is a narrowly tailored policy that would prevent people from carrying guns above the people who are voting on legislation. And so we argue that there is still space for states, even in this new environment, after Bruin, to be doing a lot of things that can help keep their legislators safe and help really guard their democracy and the integrity of the discussion and the decisions made in these democratic spaces?

[Quinta Juresic]

Yeah. One more point on the guns issue, and then I want to talk about one of the other aggravating factors you mentioned, which is social media. On the question of guns. I mean, I will say one thing I've been really struck by and continued reporting about January 6th is how much the role of DC's relatively strict gun laws compared to Virginia and Maryland really seems to have potentially saved lives. There's reporting now about a second shot filed on January 6, expert from the shot that killed Ashley Babbitt, which was this Second shot appears to have been by a rioter, but that was the only one. And there's reporting about Oath Keepers leaving their long guns across the river in Virginia because of D.C. gun laws. So obviously January 6th is a particularly extreme example and maybe a little different in kind than the harassment and abuse that you're describing here. But I do think that in some ways it's kind of a demonstration of what stricter gun laws can do.

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah, I think that there's as you note that and many other examples of why it is so important to be creating gun laws that can help keep people safe and the real ways in which they have real impact those laws when they're passed.

[Quinta Juresic]

So let's then talk about social media. You point to that as another sort of aggravating issue in addition to sort of threats of physical violence from firearms. How is that playing out out in what you're seeing here?

[Maya Kornberg]

So as we note in the report, many legislators and local office holders identify social media as a major vector for abuse and a major space where this abuse takes place. And many of them as a result have indicated that they are hesitant to engage with citizens online out of fear of this abuse. And so we argue that legislative bodies and office holders and social media companies should prioritize the freedom to safely engage in public discourse as they update their policies to reduce serious harm online. And again we note that this is something that they will need to do in response to at least several cases being heard by the Supreme Court this term that relate to this topic. Two of these cases consider when and how the government can influence social media companies content policies. And two others ask when public officials use of social media constitutes government activity such that the officials decisions to do things like blocking commenters or deleting posts should be subject to first amendment restrictions. And so this is something that is already top of mind. And of course even beyond these cases, we're seeing with recent congressional hearings and other things in this arena that there is a lot of discussion and appetite for social media companies to be taking a hard look at some of their policies and creating a space in which people can feel safe to engage. So this is really coming at a time when I think that there is a lot of appetite for change in that arena.

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That's H Y-R-O-W.com, code RO. Yeah, an interesting thing about this is, you know, you put out this report at a time where a lot of social media companies are backtracking on the support that they provide for users and what's called trust and safety, you know, the kind of programs and systems to cut down on this kind of harassment. So Twitter, of course, is the, or X I guess I should call it, is the poster child here. That musk, as a sort of ideological matter and as a cost cutting measure, has really just slashed Twitter's trust and safety teams. There have been a lot of reports of sort of increased abuse on that platform and then across other platforms as well. Even big companies like Meta have really, really cut into their budgets for this kind of thing. Whereas at the same time, I think it's fair to say you see political pressure, which manifests to some extent in the NetChoice cases that you're mentioning, these sort of state level laws that aim to restrict the ability of platforms to moderate content. So it seems to me like there's kind of a parallel concerning trend where there's both an increase in the use of social media as a vector for abuse and harassment and a pullback from major social media platforms in how willing they are to, to moderate that harassment. I'm curious, does that sound right to you?

[Maya Kornberg]

I can't comment on the willingness of the social media companies because that's not really something that we take on in our report head on. But I do agree with your assessment that social media is, especially in this digital era, in which conversations are increasingly moving online, a really important arena to handle if we want to be keeping people safe, especially in the context of our report's findings that it is a major, as you said, vector for abuse and harassment and something that many legislators themselves spoke to in terms of its kind of viral nature and kind of unique landscape in spreading this abuse. So again, a really, really important arena for policymakers and social media companies and others to be looking into as they craft responses.

[Tyler McBrien]

So, Maya, we have these aggravating factors that we just talked about which are contributing to heightened risks of violence, which are troubling enough. And then I think at the same time we also have, the report mentions a general lack of safety protocols and resources, challenges to mitigating this risk that state and local officeholders have, especially women and, or people of color who are, who are office holders. There are many great reasons for that or many compelling reasons for that that you point to in the report, including the fact that many women and people of color don't have the same personal or donor wealth to draw on. But one factor I want to, to make sure we dig into that I found really interesting was these Mixed experiences with law enforcement. I want to quote Colorado State Representative Jennifer Bacon, who said, I don't feel supported by the police. You know, you don't get to pick and choose who you protect, but it's hard not to feel like it's a punishment for our policies and for having the nerve to say Black Lives Matter. So I want to, I want to just open the space to hear more about what you heard from respondents, either in the survey or in the interviews, about their experiences with law enforcement in terms of them being charged with their protection.

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah, I think that's a really, really important point in this conversation. And I think it's important to note there's that quote from Representative Bacon about her negative experiences with law enforcement. But I would say that office holders described mixed experiences with law enforcement. Another quote by North Carolina State Senator Natalie Murdoch in which she said, I have great relationships with my local law enforcement. She notes, not everyone does, but she says, I can call my police chief or my sheriff and they would be here in two seconds. And so there were really mixed experiences. And this is part of the reason that we argue that it is beneficial to have some kind of centralized and transparent mechanism for accountable authorities collecting data and monitoring abuse so that they can be making more objective and evidence based decision making. And again, some of the legislators themselves called for a centralized security agency distinct from local law enforcement precisely because of the negative interactions that they or their constituents have experienced. Experienced with the police. So our recommendation for monitoring systems is very much informed by this and we argue that the monitoring of abuse needs to also be done in a way that is publicly available and that the monitoring authorities should have to report publicly on their tracking methods and findings and the actions taken in response. And that this kind of evidence based decision making grounded in data can help combat this problem that, as we note in the report and as I've noted already in this conversation, is a problem that disproportionately impacts women and people of color and other marginalized communities. And so this, I think, very much relates to some of the experiences that people have had with law enforcement.

[Quinta Juresic]

I have to say, for a while, for La Fare, I wrote about sort of online harassment, not in the political space, but, you know, just experiences of people who had been harassed or exploited online and how, what their interactions with law enforcement were like. And this reminded me of a story from, I want to say, 2014 or 2015 of a woman who'd received, you know, really horrible death and rape threats on Twitter and called her local police department and their answer was just what is Twitter? And they sort of didn't have the adequate resourcing understanding of the platform sense of what to do to really deal with that. So obviously, I think everyone knows what Twitter is now. We've come a long way in that sense. But there maybe is some kind of similarity in the extent to which law enforcement at the state and local level, as currently constituted, just kind of isn't set up to deal with this problem. And that gets to another issue that I wanted to address. And you kind of touched on this in talking about your recommendation for some kind of centralization. To what extent is this a problem that is sort of made worse by the fact that American government is so decentralized? There isn't a single system through which people can be protected. There's not a single funding system. There are a lot of local offices that are trying really hard to do good work and just don't have the adequate training and budgeting.

[Maya Kornberg]

Well, I think with this, as with so many other national and international problems, federalism can also be a source of strength. We note in this report, and I think it's important to note this here, that this violence faced by politicians and the disparate impact of violence on women, on people of color, on marginalized communities is not a uniquely American problem and is a problem that many other governments around the world are grappling with as well. And then when it comes to the United States, I think that there's a real space for states to also learn from each other, as certain states implement solutions that others can learn from. So, for example, we discuss in the report that states can and should make office holders home addresses and other personal information confidential except when they are needed for public accountability. And we note that California recently extended address confidentiality to public health officials who face threats during the COVID 19 shutdown. And so this is an example of California acting in a specific context, and states can learn from this example. And California also lifts address confidentiality for specific law enforcement needs, but of course requires that investigators keep the information out of public records. So again, when we talk about address confidentiality and what states can be doing on a state level, and when we talk about a lot of these issues, not just on this problem, but I think in general, I think there's a lot of room for shared learnings and policy innovation when we have a problem that in this instance we can learn about federally and kind of across states, but also, again, an international problem in which we can really be part of an international conversation about how to keep Politicians safe and strengthen our democracy.

[Tyler McBrien]

And Maya, you've mentioned a few of the potential ripple effects as we've gone along, but I want to be really clear eyed about the stakes here. What are the knock on effects? What does this all mean for American democracy and the health of our civic space? What are some of the dangers here? Beyond, of course, the immediate harms to officials and their families and their staff. What's the big picture stakes here?

[Maya Kornberg]

So we note that this abuse is hurting democracy in three really crucial ways. First of all, because of abuse, about 39% of local officeholders and 21% of state legislators in our surveys said that they were less willing to legislate on contentious issues. And this is critically important to representation. If legislators do not feel that they are safe to legislate on issues that are important to them and to their constituents, then that severely hampers the strength of our democracy. Secondly, we know that there's a problem of civic engagement. Civic engagement is, of course, another crucial tenet of democracy. We can't have a healthy democracy if politicians can't engage with citizens. They need to be engaging with them in order to understand their opinions, in order to relay to them what they're doing in order to advance the perspectives of the community. This ongoing conversation with constituents beyond periodic elections is really, really important to building a healthy democracy. And yet we find that 40% of local and 20% of state office holders in our survey said that the abuse made them reluctant to engage with their constituents. And again, this went for in person as well as online engagement. And then lastly, there's a problem of attrition, which is hugely important when we think about descriptive representation. So that is the way in which our representative bodies are actually representative of the demographics of the country. So about 39% of local office holders in our survey said that they were less likely to run for reelection as a result of the abuse. And for women in local office, it was even higher. We had about half say that they were less likely to run for reelection. And now, given what I noted at the beginning of the conversation, that we know that especially for women, local and state positions are often stepping stones to national office. The fact that this abuse is making women less likely to run is really problematic as a pipeline issue. When we're looking at a Congress that is already not representative of women, and we're looking at a lot of other offices that already have women severely underrepresented. And again, women are just one underrepresented group. We know that a lot of other marginalized communities I noted people of color, but also our report and research talks about young people as well. Other groups that are already underrepresented now face these additional barriers to getting into public life and into kind of advancing to higher office. So that is just a very clear danger to our democracy, given that we know that a healthy and strong democracy is one in which we have representative bodies that are representative of our communities themselves.

[Quinta Juresic]

There's another aspect of this that just occurred to me while you were talking and that's whether this, in addition to kind of pushing out people who have been historically underrepresented in government, this also might push out people who don't have the money to provide for security on their own dime. I'm remembering, I think there was some reporting from McKay Coppins at the Atlantic about Senator Romney shelling out an enormous amount of money for security for his family, for his wife and children as well as himself. And of course, that's something he can do because he is independently quite wealthy. But especially for someone thinking of taking a position in state and local government, that's not going to be possible for someone who doesn't have an enormous amount of cash at that disposal and is working with perhaps a limited public or campaign budget. Is that an aspect of this as well, do you think?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yes. And so that is something that kind of our research beyond the report has shown that the costs of this, the real costs of this distort representation. And we found that lower income respondents were less likely to report that they had installed some of the many different safety precautions that one can install than higher income. And that suggests that some of the precautions that legislatures, legislators, I'm sorry, take in response to the hostility may be less accessible to those with lower incomes. And of course, we also know that there are already disparities, again with earnings in this country, disparities that are, you know, age and gender and race related. And so I think that this is a real problem that can be discussed kind of in that context as well, because many of the kind of responses that legislators told us that they took kind of to keep themselves safe do cost money. And again, all the more reason why it's important for states to be rethinking some of their campaign spending rules to allow for candidates to be spending on these really important security measures.

[Tyler McBrien]

I want to widen the framing a little bit. I was really interested in how you opened the introduction of the report with a bit of historical framing, mentioning January 6 as just the latest peak in political violence, but of course, mentioning the history of political violence in the US from presidential assassinations rather, to violence in the 1960s. So I know it wasn't the explicit focus of the report, but I'm curious how you thought about where our current moment of political violence stands in the greater historical context. I think on the one hand, someone could read this and say perhaps a bit glibly, you know, well, it's not so bad. There are no assassinations. Isn't this just sort of the cost to pay to play as a politician? So, interested in your thoughts on how our current moment may be different or a bit of a continuation of the past?

[Maya Kornberg]

Yeah, I think that's a really important question. As you know, political violence is not new. It is certainly not new in this country. But to me, one of the most alarming findings of the report is that many of the state and local officeholders are reporting an increase over the past period in abuse, and last month marked the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection. And since then, you know, we've seen so many instances. You know, I noted the hammer attack against Nancy Pelosi's husband, but, you know, there were also incidents of kind of swatting that have included state senators as well as judges and election officials, and simultaneous bomb threats at 18 capitals on January 3rd and so on. And so there is just a tremendous amount of violence. And the risk is that the abuse that office holders face, you know, could be kind of normalized, and it should not be normalized. It should not be normal that our elected representatives are afraid to do their jobs, and it should not be normal that people are afraid to run for office because they are afraid for the safety of themselves and their families. That should never be seen as normal. And so in this climate in which we're seeing an increase in the number of office holders who are saying that they experience abuse and have experienced kind of more and greater abuse in the last period. I think that it's a real call to action that we need to handle this now before it balloons further. And though this may not be a new problem, there are signs that it is an increasing problem, and it is definitely not something that we should ever think of as a normal part of politics.

[Quinta Juresic]

And over what time frame do you think that this really started? Obviously, you mentioned January 6th. That's obviously kind of the most extreme example. I feel like I started noticing a real uptick during COVID when you started seeing sort of really aggressive protests against public health officials, for example, or officials implementing public safety lockdown measures. Is there a point where this really starts to tick up in your view, or is it just kind of a slow process over the last few years?

[Maya Kornberg]

So I should note that our survey asks respondents about kind of the, the recent period that they've been in office or been running and running for office. And so, you know, we, we saw that over 40% of state legislators reported that the amount of abuse that they experienced increased since first taking office. And so that's kind of the, the way that we looked at this problem. Now that is, I would argue, actually extremely alarming because that shows that even in the most recent period that many, many officeholders are noting that they have experienced more or greater abuse. Now, in terms of the kind of longitudinal data, you know, and really looking at this problem over the course of many years, you know, researchers have looked at this problem kind of in discrete periods. But I would argue that we actually need to be collecting more data and again, all the more reasons why states should be monitoring this and collecting data. That would allow us to answer your question, that would allow us to look at and see over the course of decades or even more than decades, how is this problem changing and how are certain policy solutions helping and perhaps reducing the amount of violence. So, again, I think that there's a real need to be collecting more data across kind of longer timeframes.

[Tyler McBrien]

First, with apologies to the listeners for the bleakness I think this next question will probably take on. But, but I was struck by something you said a few minutes ago about this normalization of political violence in political culture and how there can be this dynamic of a vicious cycle aspect or an inertia to these threats and intimidation. And once norms are broken or the Overton window is shifted, it seems to sort of be like a snowball rolling downhill. It's just picking up steam. So I guess as a way to get at some of these policy recommendations that we haven't mentioned yet. How do you break or how do we break this vicious cycle?

[Maya Kornberg]

So one of our key policy recommendations is that public leaders should stand up and speak out against abuse and raise awareness about this problem. And that's one of the goals of our report as well, to raise awareness about the problem and about the importance of addressing this problem, both for the safety of office holders and also for the strength of our democracy itself. I think it's important to note that many of the office holders that we spoke to actually indicated that this was one of the things that they found most helpful when other public leaders took a stand against abuse, especially when that support came from across the aisle. And so I don't think it cannot be understated. Kind of in addition to these laws that need to change and some of the other recommendations that we make in the report, it cannot be understated. The importance of raising awareness and of more and more public leaders taking a stand and saying this is not acceptable and we need to be addressing this problem. That is one of the key ways, I think, that we can fight against this normalization that you note before we close.

[Quinta Juresic]

You have a bunch of other recommendations, some of which we hadn't talked about. Is there anything in particular that you want to flag for listeners in terms of how you think state and local governments should go about addressing this problem?

[Maya Kornberg]

So I might also note the importance of mental health services. Many of the office holders that we spoke to noted the real toll that this takes on the mental health of themselves and their staff and their families. And mental health support for legislators and staffers who experience abuse would help not only public servants but also their constituents because the stress of the abuse affects the whole community. And I'm going to quote former Representative Scott of Kentucky who said legislators need something like an employee assistance program. I didn't have anyone I could go talk to that was a professional, a mental health professional about what I was experiencing and I couldn't afford it myself. And so we need to be making mental health support available to legislators. And this is just critically important to not only their health and the health of their family and their staff, but also the health of the communities that they represent.

[Tyler McBrien]

Well, that seems like an important point as any to end on. So Maya, I really want to thank you for joining me and Quinta and thank you to Brennan for all the work that went into this important report.

[Maya Kornberg]

Thank you so much for having me, Tyler and Quinta.

[Tyler McBrien]

The Lawfare Podcast is produced in cooperation with the Brookings Institution. You can get ad free versions of this and other lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter through our website, lawfaremedia.org support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters. Please rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Look out for our other shows, including Rational Security, Chatter, Allies and the AfterMath. Our latest Lawfare Presents podcast series on the government's response to January 6th. Check out our written work at Lawfare Me. The podcast is edited by Jen Patya and your audio engineer. This episode was Noam Osvan of Goat Rodeo. Our music is performed by Sophia Yan. As always, thanks for listening.

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