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A state lawmaker was assassinated last year. Who is keeping others safe?

Grace Panetta

This story was originally reported by Grace Panetta of The 19th. Meet Grace and read more of their reporting on gender, politics and policy.

Political violence is on the rise — making the job more dangerous for state lawmakers and posing new challenges for state law enforcement officials. 

Every high-profile act of violence sets off new waves of threats and fears of more — the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September sent chills down the spines of elected officials throughout the country. But Utah, where he was killed, was already ahead of the curve on addressing threats to lawmakers and high-profile public officials.

Nine years earlier, it had set up a new unit to track and prevent violence against public officials.

The unit follows a four-step process, said Taylor Keys, a spokesperson for the state Department of Public Safety: It receives and identifies reports of threats and concerning behaviors, gathers the facts, assesses the individual’s risk of posing a real physical threat, and then manages the risk with intervention and case management. 

In the days after Kirk’s assassination at Utah Valley University, Utah lawmakers reported receiving an uptick in threats. Keys said the agency “regularly reviews” security measures and safety plans for lawmakers and “will continue to leverage new technologies, training, and security features in the coming years to safeguard lawmakers.”

But many states aren’t as proactive and prepared as Utah. Most state legislatures are in session only part-time, and many of the state enforcement agencies charged with protecting them are stretched thin and lack standardized procedures for reporting threats, collecting data and conducting regular training. 

A spate of high-profile violent attacks over the past year threw this reality into stark relief. 

Last April, an arsonist attempted to burn down the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion in an attack targeting Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro. In June, a gunman assassinated former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, before wounding state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette. Republican Indiana state lawmakers who resisted a White House-led push to redraw congressional lines in the state reported receiving threats. And Kirk’s killing rankled lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

And for some lawmakers, the environment is becoming untenable: Two recent reports show that harassment, abuse and violence are leading factors driving women and younger legislators, especially, to exit office. 

State legislatures shape consequential policy and serve as a critical pipeline for higher office. But serving in office and entering the pipeline to power poses increasingly high risks to personal safety, especially for groups already underrepresented in the halls of power. While being a state lawmaker is a part-time job with a part-time salary in most states, lawmakers can’t opt out of being a full-time public figure.

“Elected and appointed officials live in a risk environment by nature of their job and their outward, public-facing positions,” said former Lt. Col. Tim Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol, who spoke to The 19th in 2025 before he retired from the agency after more than 46 years in law enforcement. “Within the last year and a half to two years, that’s moved into a threat environment.”  

The 19th spoke with experts and reached out to state-level law enforcement agencies in all 50 states to capture a comprehensive picture of the scope of political violence against state lawmakers and how law enforcement is responding. Officials in a dozen states told The 19th how they identify and respond to threats, what data they collect, and how they’re adapting their responses and procedures to an ever-evolving landscape.

How did states respond? Jump to their answers here.

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As political violence is on the rise, many states are scrambling to keep pace. Political violence, Cameron said, was a major topic of discussion at the International Association of Chiefs of Police conference he attended in 2025.

“Anyone charged with executive protection is really looking closely at what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and looking to utilize technology to leverage that in every way they can,” he said. “So it is going to be a challenge moving forward. And nobody has enough people.”  

A February report from the nonprofit organization Future Caucus, based on interviews and surveys with 89 young lawmakers in 31 states, found that threats of violence “have become a serious deterrent to both candidate recruitment and retention,” especially for women, lawmakers of color and LGBTQ+ lawmakers. 

“This is a four-alarm fire,” said Layla Zaidane, the president and CEO of Future Caucus, which supports young state lawmakers in bridging divides and working on policy across the political aisle. 

“They can stomach the low pay. They can stomach no staff. They can handle even trying to figure out the toxic polarization and transcending that,” Zaidane said of young lawmakers. “But political violence was the thing that, when you add it all together, was the decider of: ‘I don’t know if I’m going to run again, I don’t know if this is worth it.’”

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The rise in violent incidents is having an outsized impact on women, who make up half of the United States population but account for only a third of state lawmakers; even fewer women of color are represented in the political arena. 

And when it comes to hyperpolarization and the increasingly toxic and hostile climate in state capitols, “women bear the brunt of this, multi-fold, compared to their male peers,” said Aparna Ghosh, the founder and executive director of the Ghosh Innovation Lab, a nonpartisan organization that conducts research and builds tools to support diverse and representative state legislatures.

A report the Ghosh Innovation Lab published last summer, based on 60 interviews and a nationally representative survey of over 300 women legislators, concluded that the assassination of Hortman “exposed a crisis that has been building for years.” Women lawmakers, the report found, “face systematic harassment, threats, and violence that compromise their safety, well-being, and democratic participation.” 

The report found that 93 percent of women lawmakers said they experienced some form of harm or abuse in office, 59 percent said it disrupted their legislative duties and 32 percent said it impacted their desire to stay in office.   

“It’s not just about an incident, but it’s about the everyday things that add up that push them out of office,” Ghosh said. “This is a huge problem for democracy, because this constant harm that women are facing is eroding the intent to run for office, so it’s eroding democracy in some way.”

In the wake of Hortman’s assassination, several states have weighed legislation that would allow lawmakers to have their home addresses and other identifying information removed from public records. And as federal campaign spending on security expenses has continued to climb into the millions, 25 states now officially or informally authorize state candidates to use campaign funds for personal security, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Vote Mama Foundation.

The role of law enforcement has also come under scrutiny, with the Ghosh Innovation Lab report concluding that state capitols and law enforcement “systematically fail to protect women legislators.”

The top safety shortcomings identified by women legislators surveyed for the report were a lack of training in handling threats (53 percent), the absence of a panic button for reporting incidents (46 percent) and unclear reporting procedures (42 percent). They also cited inadequate technological solutions, insufficient legal support, buildings feeling overly exposed, too few security officers and poor coordination with law enforcement.  

“Whatever training they’re getting is their own responsibility, and that’s part of where the system breaks down,” said Ghosh. “It’s two things: One is that we’re not a proactive system, we react to incidents, that is one huge thing. And the second is it feels like safety and security is a legislator problem, not an institutional problem.”

At the federal level, the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) protects members of Congress, often in coordination with local law enforcement, and issues regular public assessments indicating that threats against federal lawmakers are on the rise. 

But far less is known about the risk environment and security landscape for state lawmakers.

States have widely varying levels of security for their state capitol complexes and different open carry rules. A 2024 review from the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau found that 39 states use metal detectors in their capitol buildings, 31 use X-ray machines to scan packages and belongings and 10 require visitors to have photo identification.  

Many states have dedicated capitol police forces, specialized units within state police or highway patrols responsible for protecting lawmakers and executive officials, or both. Local sheriff’s offices and police departments also respond to reports of threats from state lawmakers.

“The big problem is that there’s no standardization in the protocols and processes, and this is the gray zone where the system breaks down,” Ghosh said.   

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To get a clearer picture of the protection landscape, The 19th asked these questions to state agencies responsible for protecting state lawmakers in all 50 states: 

1. What steps should a lawmaker take if they receive a threat?
2. What are the agency’s processes for identifying and responding to threats?
3. Does the agency collect data or produce threat assessments on threats to public officials, including state lawmakers? If not, are there plans to start collecting that data and/or to make it public, as the U.S. Capitol Police does?
4. Has the agency implemented or plans to implement any additional security measures, safety plans or training for state lawmakers/capitol protectees in the wake of the Hortman and Kirk shootings? 

Representatives of law enforcement agencies in 27 states responded to The 19th’s inquiries. Representatives of agencies in four states declined to comment, and 19 did not respond to requests for comment. Of the agencies that responded, many declined to share specific security plans or details but said they were committed to ensuring the security of state elected officials and those working at and visiting state capitol complexes.  

The basics are the same: All agencies said lawmakers should immediately report a threat to a state, capitol or local law enforcement agency. But where lawmakers report threats can vary depending on whether the legislature is in session and the nature of the threat: a lawmaker might report a threat to the state capitol police or the highway patrol if the legislature is in session, or to their local police or sheriff’s department if they’re in their home county. 

All the law enforcement officials emphasized that keeping evidence of threats is important. 

Chris Loftis, a spokesperson for the Washington State Patrol, also said lawmakers should preserve “all evidence, including emails, voicemails, and social media posts” and are “advised not to engage directly with the individual making the threat.”

States use different methods to identify and trace threats. Many said they work with other agencies to monitor, identify and respond to threats. New York State Police spokesman Beau Duffy said the agency has a team of social media analysts who identify threats. Sgt. Ricardo Breceda of the New Mexico State Police said they use a variety of sources, including law enforcement databases. 

“Our response depends on the nature and severity of the threat and can range from routine follow-up investigations to the activation of specialized tactical teams if necessary,” Breceda said. 

Some officials and courts have found that some harassing and abrasive rhetoric directed at public officials falls under the First Amendment’s free speech protections, a finding that has at times frustrated lawmakers. Zaidane pointed to a 2021 case in which a man charged with making a threat to a Michigan state legislator’s office was acquitted after his lawyer said he was “just blowing off steam.” 

“I think, at a minimum, better enforcement of laws and coordination with law enforcement would make lawmakers feel like the system has their back,” Zaidane said. “Like there are still bright lines that we should not cross in America and that we are committed to upholding those.”

Another thing lawmakers want more of, Ghosh said, is data.

For over 20 years, the U.S. Capitol Police has published annual public threat assessments detailing the number of threats they investigate. In new data released in January, the USCP’s Threat Assessment Section reported investigating nearly 15,000 “concerning statements, behaviors, and communications” against lawmakers, their families, staff and the U.S. Capitol complex in 2025, marking the third consecutive year the USCP has investigated more threats. 

But most state law enforcement and state capitol security agencies either don’t collect or don’t publish such statistics. Utah is one of just a few states in the country that collects statewide data on threats to state lawmakers and produces assessments. The lack of comprehensive data from official sources makes it difficult to know the scope and scale of political violence against state lawmakers. 

“They want that kind of tracking and monitoring system,” Ghosh said of women lawmakers. “They want security briefings annually.”

Some state agencies told The 19th they don’t have a full picture of how threats are reported and investigated across their states because jurisdictions respond differently to threat reports. Several others said they do centrally collect that data but don’t release it for security reasons. 

“We collect data, but sometimes we’re not aware of the other complaints that potentially could be made to the sheriff of whatever respective county,” said Cameron of the Wyoming Highway Patrol. 

Some state agencies share data with other law enforcement authorities, including through fusion centers. 

Ghosh said women lawmakers also want more official safety training from law enforcement — many told her that they spend thousands of dollars out of pocket for self-defense and security training. 

“They want systems to back them up and say, ‘We’re going to prepare you for what’s coming,’ even if it doesn’t happen,” Ghosh said. 

Many states are working to expand security as well as training for lawmakers in the wake of the Minnesota shooting, though most declined to share specifics. 

Cameron said that in Wyoming, the conversation about improving protective operations “never stops.” The state Highway Patrol has a trooper focused on protective intelligence who attended a threat intelligence course at the U.S. Marshals Service headquarters in Crystal City, Virginia, and investigates threats against lawmakers, he said. 

“We’re constantly training our people. We recently instituted a special response team, more or less a SWAT unit, but they’re cross-trained to do executive protection,” he added. “Sometimes we’ll activate some of those members, so our [executive protection division] has additional personnel, either for advanced work or on site work or escort work.”

He said he’d like to see more adoption of drones and drone technology, an area where law enforcement in the United States is “behind,” to protect the state capitol and lawmakers. 

Ghosh said the women lawmakers she’s spoken to need three things to carry out their work: to feel prepared, protected and nurtured.  

“It’s simple things, right?” she said. “Their safety needs to feel well supported and ready to do the work that they’re meant to do. They want these three things, and when it breaks down is when they’re unable to do this work.”