One person’s dirty politics is another’s fair comment. But when campaign material spreads misinformation and fear that undermines public safety, it crosses a line that ethical people must reject.
Such a campaign came to Snohomish County this week, the product of an Olympia-based Republican political action committee, the Speaker’s Roundtable. Automated telephone calls were made to about 10,000 homes in Lake Stevens, Marysville, Mill Creek, Everett and Bothell with a dire and official-sounding warning: A Level 3 sex offender had been released in the community. The 30-second message went on to blame two local Democrats – state Reps. Hans Dunshee and John Lovick – for refusing to vote on a bill that would put child rapists in prison for life.
Folks in Lake Stevens already knew that a Level 3 sex offender, Jeffrey Derrel Henderson, had recently moved into their community. But for everyone else who received a call (it was left on recording machines if no one was home), a seed of false fear was planted. In some homes, no doubt, children heard the message.
To say that Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart, himself a Republican, is angry is putting it mildly. His office has fielded dozens of calls from folks who are scared, irate and want to know what the sheriff is going to do to protect them. Snohomish County Prosecutor Janice Ellis is outraged, too, saying that the calls have terrified citizens and could lead to vigilantism.
The man behind the campaign, Kevin Carns of the Speaker’s Roundtable, apparently doesn’t give a rip. He told Bart as much in a phone call. “His quote to me was, ‘It’s going to get worse,’” Bart said.
That could mean TV spots and mailings of fake sex-offender notices similar to ones that landed in 25,000 Washington mailboxes in January. Those postcards accused certain House Democrats of being soft on sex offenders for refusing to go along with a cynical political ploy on the first day of the legislative session. That’s when Democrats rejected a motion to bring a 106-page sex-offender bill to the floor for a vote without any committee hearings. The motion was never going to pass; it was a move to make Democrats appear soft on sex offenders. By session’s end, a tough and sensible compromise on sex crimes passed nearly unanimously.
Ellis calls this baseless fear-mongering “appallingly amoral,” and she’s right. The GOP candidates who this campaign aims to benefit, House candidates Mike Hope and Robert Legg, should loudly denounce the effort. So should all current House Republicans, whose reputations stand to be sullied by it. It’s not nearly enough to say “I had nothing to do with it.”
This garbage undermines serious efforts to protect citizens through effective notification. It’s not just bad politics, it’s despicable.
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