How MAGA-fueled political polarization affects congressional member safety
By Michael Jones
While Pete Aguilar, the number-three House Democrat was in California celebrating Thanksgiving with his family, he was texting across the country to members within the House Democrats Caucus he was just elected to chair for another two-year term.
Several House Democrats in Connecticut, Rhode Islan, and Massachusetts were targeted at their homes after similar threats were made against nominees of President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet days earlier. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) would later reveal some members were victims of swatting—a practice in which people make false 911 calls in hopes the operator taking the call will deploy tactical police units to a particular address—and each threat was signed with “MAGA” at the end of the message.
“We all sign up for these jobs with these kind of twin pressures of wanting to help our country and wanting to help our community,” Aguilar told me last week. “And so we don’t want anything to come in the way of doing that work. And this is a reality of public life at times, and it’s something that we need to do—take every precaution imaginable.”
Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT), who received a threat, told me the threats impacted her family.
“It’s ridiculous,” she told me. “I mean, I have a teenage son who doesn’t even want to check the mail now. And putting yourself out and running for public office does not mean that you sign up for stuff like that, and we should have some type of security protocol for in the district.”
I wish I could tell you the threats were confined to Thanksgiving week. But I pitched this story to my editors days before the United States Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger told senators at an oversight hearing on Wednesday examining the department that more than 700 threats against members were made in November alone, with at least 50 swatting cases.
On the same day as Manger’s hearing, Nancy Mace, the South Carolina congresswoman who’s been on an anti-trans crusade for several weeks, was spotted in the Capitol basement and outside the House chamber after she claimed she was assaulted by a foster youth advocate who said he did nothing more but shake her hand as he asked her to protect transgender rights.
And while the facts of the case are still in dispute, what’s clear is that the reason the incident is troubling is because it’s within the realm of possibility given the political climate we’re in.
Following the Thanksgiving incidents, Jeffries, who, along with other congressional leaders, has a security detail through the Capitol Police’s dignitary protection division, called on Congress to protect all members and their families, an ask he reiterated this week.
“I have not been briefed on the [Mace] incident but have made it clear that members of Congress should be provided maximum protection as we move forward in this environment of intensifying political violence,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “No member of Congress should be accosted or assaulted or attacked based on their political beliefs. This is a democratic free society and the reports, at least of the alleged assault and attack on Nancy Mace, are very troubling but I have not had the opportunity to speak directly with her.”
Threats against members have been on the rise for the past five years. In 2023, the Capitol Police’s Threat Assessment Section, the unit that investigates threats against members of Congress, looked into more than 8,000 cases, including investigations into concerning statements and direct threats. Threats decreased to 7,501 in 2022 after high levels in 2021 (9,625) and 2020 (8,613). TAS investigated 6,955 cases in 2019 and 5,206 in 2018.
The threats target members from both parties and are fueled by increased violent political rhetoric and the false sense of anonymity some people feel on social media.
Manger agrees with members that increased security when they are back home or at events away from the Capitol. He pressed senators to double the number of officers in the division that protects leadership, for example.
“Who knew that threats would go through the roof? Who knew that the tactics [of] folks that want to disrupt the lives and disrupt the work of members of Congress, would result in having 50 people swatted in the last month, people disturbed in the middle of the night in their homes?” Manger said. “The heightened threat level in this country has not gone down, and so we do need additional resources.”
Until the Capitol Police receives those resources, Hayes worries the candidate pool could exclude people from diverse communities and working-class backgrounds.
“I ran for office to do the work, to legislate for people. And the fact that that comes with serious safety concerns for your entire family is just unreasonable,” she said. “And for the people who can’t afford to put in place their own private security, it really limits the pool of people who would sign up to do this work.”
While the threat investigations data for this year isn’t available yet, threats typically surge during an election year. And with less than six weeks until Inauguration Day and Trump suggesting that members of the Jan. 6 Committee should be prosecuted for investigating an insurrection he incited while he stacks his cabinet with loyalists like Kash Patel to weaponize the FBI against Trump’s political enemies, the situation could get worse before it improves.
“The data kind of spells us out, right?” Aguilar said. “If past is prologue, that’s something that we have to be prepared for. That’s something that we need to work to ensure that our members know that that’s coming up and know that that’s in front of us.”
Michael Jones is an independent Capitol Hill correspondent and contributor for COURIER. He is the author of Once Upon a Hill, a newsletter about Congressional politics.
