Fear, dread, determination: How MN lawmakers are thinking about their jobs in shootings’ wake

When police knocked on Minnesota Sen. Jim Abeler’s door about 3 a.m. Saturday, he didn’t think twice about walking out in his pajamas to talk to the officer.

But after learning that a gunman had killed House DFL Leader Melissa Hortman and her husband and shot Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Abeler said, he and other public officials can no longer be so trusting.

“It’s nothing we’ve ever had to think about before,” the Anoka Republican said.

“The president worries about it. Congress, they kind of worry about it. But not the rank-and-file, midlevel state officials or now the City Council members, they would have to be thinking about this, too.”

Threats and online harassment against elected officials are not unusual in divisive political times, and security concerns flared during the pandemic, following the murder of George Floyd and after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. But the recent shootings, allegedly by a man who had compiled a list with dozens of officeholders’ names, have left Minnesota politicians profoundly shaken.

For some, the episode has made them even more determined to continue their work. For many, though, it has prompted questions they never imagined they would have to consider about how to keep themselves and their families safe.

Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, said legislators are feeling exposed and vulnerable.

“When you called me and I answered the phone — I’m in the middle of being on my computer right now to try to delete my address from the internet,” she said.

Gustafson isn’t just worried about her own protection, but her family’s, too.

She said she’s thinking about the tensions between safety and accessibility that come with the job — such as when she appears at community events and parades — that she never gave much thought before.

She said she also considers how normalized vile behavior toward officials has become.

“You do get some pretty crazy things sent to you, but we all sort of go, ‘Well, unfortunately that’s the norm and those things happen,’” Gustafson said. “I just feel like people don’t look at us like we’re people sometimes.”

A 2023 Brennan Center for Justice survey of state lawmakers across the country found that 43% had experienced harassment and threats with specific intent to cause harm to the legislator, their family or staff in their current term or its preceding campaign.

The vast majority had experienced insults, and 4% had experienced attacks.

More than a third of the lawmakers said they faced more abuse than when they first took public office, and roughly a third said the abuse had become more serious.

Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, is not unfamiliar with threatening political situations. In 2022, he was physically thrown out of an event by the right-wing group Action 4 Liberty. During his first bid for office, he said, he got a dozen death threats.

But those threats did not seem truly scary, he said. And he never thought about someone harming his family until now.

Since the shootings, West said, he has “religiously” locked his home’s sliding glass with a wooden dowel and is keenly aware that he let his concealed carry permit expire.

“It’s been a very stark change of my mindset that happened instantaneously,” West said.

Brennan Center researchers said intimidation of public officials not only risks putting them in harm’s way but threatens representative democracy at every level of government.

“Threats and attacks constrain how freely officeholders interact with constituents, narrow the spectrum of policy positions they feel safe to support and make them less willing to continue in public service,” the researchers found.

Minnesota lawmakers say that after the attacks here, they are thinking more about potential dangers in the day-to-day scope of their jobs.

Sen. Erin Maye Quade, DFL-Apple Valley, said that as someone who entered high school when the Columbine, Colo., massacre happened and has worked in reproductive rights amid extremist threats, the idea that violence could occur in those settings has always been on her mind. But she said she hasn’t worried about tangible threats in the same way at the Legislature.

She said she has faced racial harassment and threats of sexual violence throughout her time in office, which have always felt bad. “But it all felt very yelling into the void before now,” she said.

Now, she’s worried about whether she could put her family, friends and constituents in harm’s way.

“If I go to the Fourth of July parade, do I put other people there at risk? Do I put the people who are walking in the parade with me at risk? Do I put the parade-goers at risk?” she said.

Maye Quade said she’s also been focused on how things got to this point.

“I want to identify root causes,” she said. “I don’t want to lock down the Capitol. I want to not have violent extremists be inspired by violent rhetoric.”

In this environment, one of the most important actions all leaders can take is call out violent and harassing rhetoric, said Gowri Ramachandran, deputy director of the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government program. Especially, she said, when the rhetoric comes from members of their own political party.

“One of our primary policy recommendations is not a legislative fix,” Ramachandran said. “It’s just that leaders, business leaders, community leaders, other politicians, should really call this abusive behavior out and point out that that’s not how we resolve our policy differences in the United States.”

Abeler said some of his colleagues are considering whether to stay in public service. Their spouses are raising concerns, he said, and they’re now thinking, “I didn’t sign up for this, to get shot serving my ... community.”

West said the shootings gave him pause about continuing the work. But just for a moment.

He said he believes Hortman wouldn’t have wanted people to leave public service, even if she would have understood the safety concerns.

West said he will be more situationally aware when he returns to the Capitol.

“I probably will think about it every day for the rest of my time,” he said of his safety concerns. “But I am very motivated to keep going.”

On Wednesday, Rep. Kristin Bahner, DFL-Maple Grove, posted on Facebook that she is resolved to continue serving amid her grief, revealing she was among the lawmakers whose house suspect Vance Boelter allegedly visited early that Saturday.

She said they will not let “fear or division win,” adding Hortman would have wanted people to come together.

“I know for my part my resolve to honor her legacy by serving my state and my community remains steadfast, and unwavering,” Bahner wrote. “My response to bad trouble visiting my door will be met with good trouble.

“I will continue to lead for my community and work to improve the lives of all Minnesotans.”