Oregon lawmakers propose criminal penalties for alarming, threatening public officials

As threats of violence against public officials continue to rise nationwide, Oregon lawmakers want clear criminal penalties for those who attempt to intimidate a public official or their family.

Lawmakers on Monday heard testimony on Senate Bill 1530 and Senate Bill 1516, sponsored by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which would make threatening a public official, including a candidate for public office, a crime of aggravated harassment. That would be the least severe category of a felony, carrying potential sentences of up to five years in prison and a $125,000 fine. The latter piece of legislation includes the provision in a broader public safety legislative package which also empowers magistrate judges to make pretrial release decisions.

Both measures specify that the person who issued threatening phone, electronic or written communications must intend to subject the official to “alarm” by conveying a threat to the public official or their family that vows to inflict serious physical injury. Although the bills would also include local prosecutors and assistant attorneys general, they would not go so far as to include other occupations who have reported rising safety concerns with their public-facing jobs, including teachers, health care workers and journalists.

“This bill is designed to look specifically at school board members, city councilors, county commissioners, elected legislators and their families,” said Sen. James Manning Jr., D-Eugene. “I myself am a victim of a bomb threat. Does that mean anybody can say anything to you as an elected official, and you say, ‘Oh, that’s just free speech’? At some point, we gotta get serious about this.”

More than 40% of state legislators nationwide reported experiencing threats during their last term and most recent campaign season, and a similar percentage reported that the increased hostility affected their willingness to work on controversial issues or run for reelection or higher office, according to a January 2024 report from the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice.

Tillamook County Commissioner Paul Fournier, who is also a former sheriff’s deputy, told lawmakers that a man with several stalking complaints in his area ended up following him and his family and swerving into his partner’s car. In one threat, the man equated three county commissioners to the three little pigs and said he was  “gonna blow our house in” Fournier said.

“Had this been in statute prior to this, I could have pointed to this for our district attorney that’s a little hesitant to prosecute,” Fournier said.  

Lawmakers and local officials in Oregon and nationwide have reported multiple high-profile threats in recent years. Manning and two other Democratic state senators received bomb threats a day after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September. The Oregon State Police eventually determined the threats were false and investigators found no explosives at their residences. Former U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican who now serves as U.S. Labor secretary, also received a bomb threat in 2024. 

Rep. Dacia Grayber, D-Portland, who recently reported that a person showed up to her home to discuss a policy matter she was not directly involved with, told the Capital Chronicle that she often receives “hostile communications” via her office or phone calls and occasionally in person, though they are rarely threats of bodily harm.

Oregon law already allows election workers to withhold their addresses from public disclosure, and individuals who harass election workers for their duties face potential misdemeanor charges. Although lawmakers last year considered a similar piece of legislation to what they discussed on Monday, amendments agreed to by both chambers of the Oregon Legislature removed the criminal statute lawmakers put forth.

The new bill’s introduction also follows legislation to restrict disclosure of lawmakers’ residential addresses in documents such as campaign finance records uploaded by the secretary of state, though that information can still be obtained through a public records request. The Oregon House coincidentally passed that legislation along bipartisan lines in June hours before a gunman shot and killed Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman. 

Public defender, Oregon Department of Justice and free speech advocates weigh in

Ethan Nelson, intergovernmental relations manager for the city of Eugene, told lawmakers about an analysis from the Oregon Department of Justice suggesting that the bills would likely stand under a 1999 Oregon Supreme Court precedent. But Grant Hartley, director of Oregon’s largest public defense firm based in Multnomah County, challenged that consensus. 

Hartley, a board member of the Eugene-based Oregon Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, offered the hypothetical of an individual warning a public official who works with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they are harming their immigrant neighbors and “will get what you have coming to you and will suffer yourself.”

“That is a threat of serious physical injury, but there is no imminence, there is no I’m going to come and get you tomorrow,” Hartley said. “That is what the Supreme Court…. said was necessary in these types of situations. And I think that that is even going to be a bigger deal when we are talking about political speech, which often has more constitutional protections.”

Hartley’s scenario, however, was similar to one statement by former state Sen. Brian Boquist, a Republican from Dallas who carried a gun in the Legislature and participated in a 2019 Republican-led walkout. 

At the time, Boquist told the senate president that “If you send the state police to get me, Hell’s coming to visit you personally.” He also told a reporter that he told the state police superintendent to “send bachelors and come heavily armed” if officers would try to compel his presence at the Capitol. Some of his fellow senators required him to give advance notice before he entered the building because lawmakers and Senate staff said they feared for their safety.

Guns are no longer allowed in the Capitol, and a panel of federal judges in September 2024 tossed out a nominal $1 in damages and more than $375,000 in attorney fees awarded to Boquist. That reversed a decision by a federal judge who found that the Senate Committee on Conduct had violated Boquist’s First Amendment rights.

A leading free speech group and a First Amendment expert also did not explicitly agree with Hartley’s position.

“The First Amendment does not allow the government to restrict speech simply because of the possibility that someone might misuse information to do something illegal,” said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in a statement. “Because the proposed amendment to the aggravated harassment statute concerns physical threats, it appears to be constitutional.”

David Hudson, a professor of law at Tennessee’s Belmont University, said that obtaining a conviction under laws such as the ones Oregon has proposed will require meeting the bar of proving that a defendant has made a “true threat.” That is a statement which frightens or intimidates someone enough that they believe they will be seriously harmed by the speaker or someone on their behalf. The most common type of state laws addressing aggravated harassment charges, however, relate to “stalking-type behavior,” he said. 

“There is confusing terminology with regard to these laws as to the use of the terms threats, harassment, and stalking. Part of this problem is that states use different nomenclature for similar type conduct,” he wrote in an email. “I do think there is a general trend of increasing penalties for those who engage in negative conduct toward public officials — a sense among many legislatures that there is a greater need to increase penalties and protect government officials.” 

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