WE WANT TO EASE THREATS, MAKE PUBLIC SERVICE SAFE

The Nov. 8, 2022, midterm elections have come but not quite passed as ballots continue to be counted across the country. One thing is for certain, though. Between now and the more highly charged presidential election of 2024, all elected officials, from presidential candidates and members of Congress to members of local school boards, will be on the receiving end of a record onslaught of vitriol and hate directed at them from the very citizenry they would like to represent.

Roughly one-third of all Americans think that violence against the government is justified, according to a December 2021 survey by The Washington Post and the University of Maryland. This is twice what it was just a decade before. This growing hostility towards government and decreasing faith in nonviolent discourse is manifesting in a significant increase in threats and harassment against elected leaders at all levels. In the five years following Donald Trump’s election in 2016, recorded threats against members of Congress increased more than tenfold, according to data from Capitol Police. And research by the National League of Cities found that over 80 percent of 112 local elected officials surveyed in 2021 reported having personally faced harassment, threats and violence and 87 percent claimed to have “observed an increase in attacks on public officials in recent years.” The Mayors Innovation Project found that 94 percent of mayors of cities with populations over 10,000 inhabitants reported receiving psychological violence at least once in 2021, with women three times as likely to be attacked as their male counterparts. Around the country, public servants are retiring from public life in the face of this hateful onslaught.

Members of elected bodies across San Diego County have been subjected to acrimonious correspondence and personal attacks during meeting public comment periods. As hateful speech increases, so does the risk that words become action and threats become violence. In the past several years alone, Poway Unified School District officials have had their offices breached, a Coronado school board member has had her car vandalized, two Carlsbad City Council members have been stalked, and some officials filed restraining orders to protect themselves and their family members.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that threats and harassment directed at local officials is growing in intensity and frequency. But it is past time to move beyond anecdotes. Without accurately and fully understanding the scope and scale of the problem, we will not know if things are getting better or worse, or if proposed solutions are making a difference.

The range of efforts to track and study political threats across the country are — for the most part — oriented around particular positions of elected office, such as congressional leaders or mayors. A recent exception is a new nationwide longitudinal research study using public event-based data.

Our new research, funded under a grant from the University of San Diego is — as far as we understand — a first-in-the-nation attempt to fully measure threats and harassment towards nearly all elected officials across a specific geographic space — in this case, San Diego County.

We are surveying all city councils in the county along with their mayors, the county Board of Supervisors, all 42 school district boards, five community college district boards and the San Diego County Board of Education. In addition to these surveys, we are conducting interviews, analyzing social media and reviewing traditional media for reporting on threats and harassment.

Our approach is intentionally both data-driven and story-driven. We need to know the numbers, but we also need to know the impact on people’s lives and how threats and harassment are shaping the democratic institutions upon which our communities depend.

As an outcome of this work, we aim to organize a series of community conversations beginning in 2023 to spur greater dialogue across San Diego County on the integrity of our governing systems. We have already seen at least one individual in our own backyard who has removed herself from public service following threats and harassment.

Across the country, the level of threats and harassment is having a chilling effect on those in public service or those seeking to more directly work with and for their community.

Our hope is that our research can help the San Diego community to work in lowering the threat environment and make public service safe for all. With a deeper look at the political intimidation and the threats our local politicians may be facing, we can provide a clearer vision of what can be done to alleviate this; begin conversations that allow for open, honest dialogues in our communities; and build the strong community we strive to be a part of in San Diego

County.

Stay tuned.

Locke is the director of the Violence, Inequality and Power Lab at Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, Kroc School at University of San Diego. She lives in Oceanside. Luna is the director of the Institute for Civil Civic Engagement, a partnership between the University of San Diego and the San Diego Community College District. He lives in

Coronado.