When it was time for Sadaf Jaffer to weigh a re-election bid to the New Jersey Assembly, her top concerns had little to do with fundraising or policymaking.
Her decision to leave elective politics was largely based on a startling consideration: her family’s security.
One of the first Muslim members elected to the state legislature, Jaffer had become a target of mounting threats, harassment and intimidation while political opponents sought to brand her as “extreme.”
“It was scary because that’s not something, especially as a Muslim in the United States, you want that word affiliated with you at all,” Jaffer said. “I have a young child, and I was concerned about her safety.”
In an increasingly polarized political environment, security has increasingly become a major consideration for incumbent lawmakers, prospective candidates and government workers, especially women and people of color, officials told the 2024 National Press Foundation’s Women in Politics Journalism Fellowship.
Jaffer joined Gowri Ramachandran, deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Elections & Government Program; and David Millard, chief of Threat Assessment and Criminal Investigations Sections for the U.S. Capitol Police. They outlined a growing and troubling threat – not just political threats to individual lawmakers – but to the process of governing.
“The concerning communication, the targeted violence, the negative rhetoric, it across the board is affecting all of our members of Congress,” Millard said.
“Anytime someone wants to…target somebody for harassment, the first thing that they’re looking at is a person’s characteristics. For women, of course, that’s gender. People of color is usually their race. So, what we are seeing grow is the type of rhetoric that is targeting these folks.”
Ramachandran, a lead author of a recent Brennan Center report examining the intimidation of state and local officeholders, found that 43% of state legislators experienced threats within the past three years.
“I think it’s really important to note because we actually didn’t just ask about threats,” Ramachandran said. “We actually asked about threats, harassment, insults, and physical attacks, and we provided definitions of all of those things. And so, the numbers are even higher if you look at things like insults and harassment.”
And women were “especially likely to report that the abuse deterred them from doing media appearances and interviews, which obviously is really important in an election year.”
“That disparity was pretty big… 28% of women reported it was deterring them from doing media appearances or interviews versus 17% of men among the state legislators. Women also were more likely to say they were deterred from holding events in public spaces.”
Especially concerning, Ramachandran said, were findings that “really high numbers of people across the board” were less willing to address controversial issues, including reproductive freedom and gun regulation, citing the targeted abuse.
Access the full transcript here.
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