Attack heightens legislators’ fears
Lawmakers say threats have risen, but security remains ‘inadequate’
WASHINGTON — The voicemail messages left at Rep. Martha McSally’s office were explicit: “Our sights are set on you. Right between your (expletive) eyes.” Another said, “Your days are numbered.”
A female caller recently warned Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., that he would soon know her name — because shewas coming for him.
And after a gunman opened fire Wednesday on Republicans playing baseball — seriously wounding GOP Majority Whip Steve Scalise — a staffer of Rep. Claudia Tenney opened the New York congresswoman’s email to find this ominous message: “One down216 to go.”
As the country’s polarized political environment has intensified since President Donald Trump’s election, members of Congress report receiving more death threats than ever before.
That’s led to renewed calls for beefed up security and other changes to enhance members’ safety, particularly when they travel away from the protective environment of the Capitol. The shooting only added to a growing sense of urgency already felt by lawmakers in both parties, who in recent months have faced unusually loud and belligerent audiences during town hall meetings in their home districts.
“The security of members of Congress is embarrassingly inadequate,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., who was practicing with the Democratic baseball team some miles away from the GOP team Wednesday morning. Richmond, who as a chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus has received numerous threats, has raised the security issue repeatedly with House leadership of both parties.
“I know it costs money, and I know the American people want us to be as frugal as we can, but there are real costs associated with member security,” he said.
Witnesses have said the shooting, which left four others injured, would have been muchworse had Scalise not been present. As a member of the GOP leadership, Scalise is one of the few lawmakers assigned a security detail, which immediately confronted the gunman until police arrived.
House Speaker Paul Ryan told lawmakers during a private session on Capitol Hill after the shooting that he is considering their proposals.
One lawmaker, Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., an early Trump backer, said on local radio in Buffalo he would start carrying a gun when he was out and about, despite local firearms restrictions in Washington, D.C.
Many lawmakers said they are less concerned about their time in the capital, where they are under the watchful eye of police who patrol the Capitol grounds, than incidents back home. They worry about protecting thinly staffed district offices that are often simply storefronts in local shopping centers.
Security costs are high and even the most prominent lawmakers would be hard pressed to come up with the funds to pay for private teams to trail them at events or stake out their homes, where many lawmakers have received personal threats on their families.
At the same time, surrounding themselves with bodyguards and a security perimeter risks alienating constituents who are accustomed to open-door policies at district offices and being able to chat up their representatives after a church service.
Congress was back at work Thursday, withhearingsandvotes, but the mood was somber. Wounds were apparent as the baseball team’s coach, Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, and his staff member Zachary Barth, both hobbled on crutches through the halls. Feelings were raw at a morning meeting of House Republicans. Lawmakers of both parties pledged to do better at toning downthe rhetoric.
Threats on lawmakers are not necessarily new – an Elvis impersonator sent an apparently ricinlaced letter to Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., in 2013andthenext year a bartender suggested spiking thenHouse Speaker John Boehner’s drink.
But since the start of the year with Trump in the White House, lawmakers say they have received a barrage of emails, Facebook posts, tweets and phone calls threatening them with bodily harm.
McSally, who represents the Tucson-area districtwhere former Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffordswas shot in the head during a meet-and-greet outside a grocery store in 2011, said shewas stunned at the death threats she received in May, particularly for an area so familiar with grief. Six people died in the attack against Giffords.
“It’s not about me, it’s about what’s going on in our country and our community,” she said in an interview Thursday. In her case, the male caller was swiftly arrested— he told authorities hewas angry at the congresswoman for voting in support ofTrump.
“My life has been in danger in the past,” said McSally, a former Air Force fighter pilot and the first woman to command a fighter squadron in combat. “I was definitely not afraid. But I was also saddened. And just deeply concerned about what I see going on in our society right now.”
Without additional funding, many congressional offices report taking their own precautions.
Staff for Kinzinger, the Illinois Republican, say they are keeping more detailed logs of the threats that are coming in almost daily via social media. Someare non-specific remarks. Others are turned over to police.