16 state legislators have joined ‘far-right’ Facebook groups

Sixteen members of the Connecticut General Assembly are listed among hundreds of state lawmakers from around the country who are members of extremist or conservative-leaning social media groups, according to a new national report.

The report by the progressive Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights found that nearly 900 state legislators in all 50 states have joined at least one of 789 far-right Facebook groups, particularly in Western and Southern states, where many are still in denial over the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The Facebook groups, identified by IREHR, are separated into categories that include those that are COVID-19 deniers, those that descended from the Tea Party, constitutionally constructed nationalists and those that emphasize the 2nd Amendment, among others. Others are directly tied to QAnon and government conspiracy theories.

While a few of the General Assembly’s outspoken conservatives are aligned with the “Stop the Steal” and the Connecticut Tea Party, the majority of the 14 House members and two state senators listed in the report — all of them Republicans — joined schoolrelated groups including the 6,900-member #Open CT Now, labeled by the IREHR as “COVID Denial,” and anti-lockdown groups.

Republicans, including state Rep. Tom O’Dea of New Canaan, who was listed, and House GOP Leader Vincent Candelora of North Branford, who was not, said belonging to a Facebook group doesn’t necessarily indicate an elected official’s positions. They also said the Facebook groups may be less extreme than the report suggests.

“Those aren’t far-right Facebook pages,” said O’Dea, a lawyer who serves on the legislative judiciary, transportation and environment committees. “I am not anywhere near a COVID denier.”

With Open CT, for example, “I agree with everything they wrote,” O’Dea added. “Shutting down small businesses and leaving open the big-box stores did not make any sense. I have a bipartisan reputation that I am proud of and I take umbrage with the IREHR.”

O’Dea has also been active in pushing for the rights of parents to decide whether their children should be masked in schools — a position the state adopted effective Feb. 28.

Lawmakers enrolled in school-related groups listed in the report include Sen. Eric Berthel of Watertown and Reps. Gale Mastrofrancesco of Wolcott, Greg Howard of Stonington, Anne Dauphinais of Killingly, Ben McGorty of Shelton, David Wilson of Litchfield, Craig Fishbein of Wallingford, Irene Haines of East Haddam, Kimberly Fiorello of Greenwich,

Mike France of Ledyard (the GOP candidate to challenge U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney), Nicole KlaridesDitria of Seymour and

Rosa Rebimbas of Naugatuck.

The report indicates that Dauphinais, one of the most conservative members of the House, belongs to four groups including an anti-vaccination site and the Connecticut Tea Party. Veteran state Rep. Doug Dubitsky of Chaplin belongs to both Stop the Steal and the CT Tea Party.

First-term Rep. Mark Anderson of Granby belongs to 10 of the identified Facebook groups including the 16,400-member Stop Critical Race Theory, and two Constitution-related groups said to be influenced by the ultra-right hate group Posse Comitatus. Veteran state Sen. Rob Sampson of Wolcott belongs to 11 groups, mostly characterized in the report as opposed to masks and COVID deniers, as well as the Tea Party.

The report found that

875 legislators around the country have joined at least one far-right Facebook group that might advocate “for changes that would significantly undermine political, social and/or economic equality along class, racial, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, immigration status or religious lines.”

The groups include white nationalist, paramilitary, QAnon, anti-immigrant or Stop the Steal, as well as others that do not engage in nationalist or racist proselytizing, but do encourage opposition to government mask and vaccination rules and other public health efforts to contain COVID-19, the report indicates.

“Given the specific nature of the data used in this report and recognizing that not all far-right aligned legislators belong to Facebook groups, IREHR researchers believe the findings almost certainly understate the breadth of the problem,” the report says.

The study highlights 10 people it identifies as ultraconservatives including Arizona state Sen. Kelly Townsend who has been associated with right-wing paramilitary groups and attempts to rewrite the Constitution. Townsend also proposed legislation to redistribute Arizona’s 11 electoral college votes to Donald Trump, claiming that the 2020 election “was marred by irregularities so significant as to render it highly doubtful whether the certified results accurately represent the will of the voters.”

Connecticut’s Democratic-dominated state legislature in recent years has rejected ultra-conservative efforts on voter rights, vaccine opposition and pandemic denial.

While Connecticut conservatives haven’t been so bold as elected officials in red states, their enrollment in the Facebook groups indicates the need for more public vigilance, said Cheri Quickmire, executive director of the election watchdog Common Cause in Connecticut.

“Extremism isn’t only in certain states like Florida and Arkansas, but it’s alive in Connecticut,” Quickmire said Friday while reviewing the report. “I find this disturbing.” She recalled the controversy last year over the teaching of American history in Guilford schools that resulted in a coalition of Democrats and unaffiliated voters winning seats on the local Board of Education.

Democratic State Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo on Friday said she wasn’t surprised that the 16 Republican members of the General Assembly were named in the report.

“Regardless of their reasons for joining, the effect on the members of those groups is to endorse their extremist views on LGBTQ issues, militias, antisemitic conspiracies, militant COVID denial,

Stop the Steal and more,” DiNardo said.

“The voters of Connecticut consistently support human rights, access to health care, sensible public health measures and gun policies and believe that the 2020 election was fair,” she said. “These radical groups are dedicated to setting us back. The information from this study will be quite valuable when voters go to the polls in November to send the strong message that extremism has no place here.”

But Candelora, the House Republican leader, said lawmakers often join groups just to see what a section of their districts’ residents are discussing.

“I think generally speaking public officials keep in touch with not just their constituencies, but with the different issues out there,” Candelora said Friday. “Associating with and ‘liking’ pages doesn’t necessarily determine someone’s political positions. I don’t even know what pages I have liked in the past.”

Candelora noted that he has joined local liberal Facebook groups to see what they are focused on. “It’s important to know what’s going on in the state and towns,” he said, stressing that Connecticut Republicans don’t fit into the definition of extremists that Democrats around the nation are trying to pin on the GOP in this election year.

“A report like this is trying to create that narrative,” Candelora said.