Representative Brandei Schaefbauer (R-3/Aberdeen) just won’t let go of the issue of people knowing where she and her fellow legislators live.
Undeterred by House Judiciary’s killing last week of Governor Larry Rhoden’s ill-advised attempt to charge people with criminal stalking for publishing the addresses of legislators and other privileged public officials, Rep. Schaefbauer this week filed House Bill 1305, which would make it a Class 6 felony to “disseminate the employment, home, or school address or location of a current or former public officer, or the officer’s family or household member” without the public officer’s consent and with intent to harass, intimidate, threaten, or otherwise make those protected individuals afraid. HB 1305 would also allow any such aggrieved current or former public officer to sue for “punitive, special, and general damages, including damages for emotional distress, and reasonable attorney fees and costs.”
SDCL 22-1-2 defines “public officer” as “any person who holds a position in the state government or in any of its political subdivisions, by election or appointment, for a definite period, whose duties are fixed by law, and who is invested with some portion of the sovereign functions of government”.
I once served as a trustee of the Lake Herman Sanitary District. I am a former public officer. HB 1305 would thus protect me. Pass HB 1305, and Republican spin blogger Pat Powers would have to remove from his website his references to my wife’s place of employment or face prison time and a lawsuit for his harassment of my wife.
HB 1305 mentions “location” separately from “address”. Read closely: HB 1305 appears to make it a felony to let people know where Representative Schaefbauer is at any time, now while she is in the Legislature, or after she leaves office, for the rest of her life. So if I go to Pierre to blog the Legislature, spot Schaefbauer at a local bar with lobbyists, and tweet a picture identifying the Pierre pub and saying, “Hey, fellas, one more drink, and I think you’ll have her vote!” I face charges and brittle Brandei’s lawsuit.
The public has a right to know what their public officials are up to. The public has a right to know that their elected representatives actually live in their districts and are eligible to hold office and represent them. And no one should get a lifetime pass to sue anyone who tweets or blogs or otherwise reports about them. Representative Schaefbauer’s HB 1305 is a stunningly overly broad attempt to grant herself and other public officials lifetime protection against reasonable public scrutiny.
Since she is continually doxed by Earth hater Pat Powers how can we blame her?
Its difficult. The killings in Minnesota prove it. Judges need it. However anyone can look up where I live, my political party, etc. So what. I prefer pepperoni and black olive any doxxers out there. Maybe it’s Hawaiian?
When people on bar crawls first allowed themselves to be tracked I thought that was nuts but I’m older.
Calling in on visits to the St Charles should be fun, not felonious. Lewandowski and Noem hooking up on the campaign trail did in her campaign, but the lovely duo are still together. Nobody threw rice at Gary Hart on the monkey business. Just good reporting. Destroyed him but that was a different time.
Heck just give this business to AI to solve. Everything can be solved by AI right?
The bill is extremely loosely drawn, as you point out, but if you are in a position where you are making controversial decisions or speaking out or petitioning on public matters you do face some added vulnerabilities. But we have the examples of Americans all the way back to the founding who understood that standing up for a point of view that was not popular with certain people in power came with some risks.
This bill wants to protect some officials and their families from such problems, but it can be a problem for any citizens who stands up on any issue that is controversial. It certainly happened to Deb Rogers and me on the nuclear waste and sewage ash controversies. Threatening or abusing a citizen who stands up against some pet issue of some tightly-wound constituency also deserves some sanctions. Some petition circulators and signers in the nuclear waste fight faced threats and intimidation. We sought a bill that mirrored the protections for voters already in state law to protect petition ciruclarors and signers, but the legislators didn’t bother to stand up for their constituents against Chem-Nuclear.
I would vote “no” on this bill unless it applied to everyone. which would be impossible to do. But I think you could find a solution by extending some protections for voters that are in state law to public servants, and preople engaged in First Amendment activitiy,
I shudder, though, about going after family members of anyone. That should never happen.
I
SPOKEO + AI will tell me her address (Unit #2 right, Brandei?), phone, etc.
This is an answer to a problem that does not exist. They are not privileged public officials; they are humble public servants. As Donald Pay wrote, they know there are some risks.
Those rascally Republicans already pack their pistols in the Capitol Building and I’m sure they carry everywhere else. What are they afraid of?
It’s local officials who are commonly known and live in the same towns and go to the same churches and send their kids to the same schools as their constituents and I haven’t heard of anyone being afraid. The city council reps home numbers are printed in the local paper. Meetings are accessible to the public and if our humble public servants have offices those numbers should be available.
Sometimes people have teenage daughters (and sons). Lots of creepy old guys out there wanting both i.e. Epstein.
Don’t dox, anyone. Shouldn’t need to be a law.
When I was a humble public servant as a schoolteacher, a small percentage of students/parents threatened me. Over a 30-year career, there were a handful or so. However, they were serious threats, and I had to deal with them through the chain of command.
I wonder if the public servants in Pierre have had their tires on their cars slit. I wonder how they would respond to “I’m going to slit your throat one day.” I imagine they’ve never been cornered in their office with an irate person twice their size, only to be rescued by the custodian who accidentally left the front door unlocked.
Maybe they should get protective insurance like other public servants I know.