San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Threats persist against officials long after vote
PHOENIX — For months, the four elected Republicans and one Democrat on the board overseeing Arizona’s most populous county have been facing threats and harassment for backing election results that saw Democrat Joe Biden win the state.
That fury from some supporters of former President Donald Trump moved on last week to a GOP state senator, who had to change his phone number, flee his house with his wife and young son and get police protection.
The focus on Sen. Paul Boyer came after he was the lone Republican who voted against a measure to subject the GOPdominated Maricopa County Board of Supervisors to arrest for refusing to honor a Senate subpoena. It required the county to hand over ballots and votecounting machines to the Senate so they could triplecheck the results.
County supervisor Clint Hickman, a Republican who has endured protests outside his house and graphic threats of violence since the November election, has held his tongue. But with the new attacks on Boyer, he says he’s had enough.
“I’m talking now because they’re doing it to a state senator who had no idea what he was probably stepping into,” Hickman said in an interview.
Hickman described hateful and vicious threatening messages he’s received, a phalanx of 90 people protesting within 15 feet of his home’s front door and continuous attacks that have left his family fearful. All were from Trump supporters who questioned election results that saw a Democrat win Arizona for the first time since 1996.
Republican Supervisor Bill Gates, who spent 8 years on the Phoenix city council before joining the board in 2017, said the public vitriol against him and other board members started when they imposed a mask mandate to slow the spread of the coronavirus last June, then tapered off. But after Trump’s Nov. 3 loss, it took off again with a vengeance.
“It’s just awful. The lines are gone. Nothing is out of bounds,” Gates said, noting “horrific” things written in response to his simple posting of a family Christmas card on his social media.
Gates said as a longtime elected official he is used to seeing security for presidents, governors and even the Phoenix mayor.
“But county board of supervisors?” he said. “Do we really expect the members of the board of supervisors to be subjected to death threats? It’s not really what you sign up for.”