Allegations of threats and intimidation have become as much a part of the gun debate in Colorado as the blare of car horns protesting the bills outside the state capitol.
But Sen. Angela Giron reports being threatened from an unlikely quarter: the media.
Giron, a Democrat, said she received a threatening email from the general manager of her local newspaper, the Pueblo Chieftan.
Ray Stafford wrote to her on March 3, urging her to vote against the many gun bills that were to be debated in the Colorado Senate. He introduced himself as being “responsible for the entire newspaper, including the newsroom.”
Giron took that to mean that if she voted with other Democrats to pass the bills out of the Senate, she could expect negative coverage.
“It’s hard unless you come from southern Colorado to understand the influence that that paper has in the community,” she said. “I think this was an attempt to intimidate me and I think it needs to be exposed. And that’s what happened. We exposed that intimidation factor, which I think was pretty clear.”
Senate president John Morse helped expose it by interpreting what he took the email to mean on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show last Friday.
Morse also misrepresented what the email actually said, stating, incorrectly, that Stafford wrote, “I control which stories get done and how those stories get done. And I don’t like these bills.”
“So he threatened her with how he’s going to cover her,” Morse said, “and then followed through, really. She was in the paper and on the front page for a week, practically a week straight, including with pictures that weren’t very flattering, almost deliberately.”
If Stafford’s email was meant to be threatening, it’s the most lukewarm threat that’s come to light so far. Last month Rep. Rhonda Fields was allegedly threatened by a man who promised “death to both” her and her daughter and laced his emails and a voicemail with racial slurs and derogatory terms.
The same man, Franklin Sein, allegedly also threatened another lawmaker using similar language.
Stafford is quoted in the Chieftan saying that there’s nothing threatening in his message and that he did not intend for it to be threatening.
“You have a copy of my email and it’s not threatening at all,” he’s quoted as saying. “In fact, I point out that that was my opinion and I certainly have a right to that opinion and it doesn’t matter what email account I send it from. The fact is the email doesn’t contain any kind of a threat whatsoever.”
“I have never written a legislator before,” he wrote in the email, “but I want you to know that I oppose all of the bills being considered involving guns, ammunition magazines and ownership transfers because I think they’re poorly written and a knee-jerk reaction to recent deaths.”
He went on to say that he is a gun owner, but not a “gun nut.”
“Please do not vote for the current gun legislation,” Stafford concluded. “To vote for it would be an affront to the citizens of this state, Pueblo and America.”
Giron is adamant that the message constitutes a threat because he began by noting that he was responsible for the paper’s newsroom.
“He didn’t threaten me physically,” she said. “But my career? Just tell me if your career was threatened. That’s your livelihood and your reputation and, when I leave here, what I will have. I’m not making much money, but what I’ll have when I leave here is my reputation and the work that I do. That’s my legacy. And the way that’s communicated … is through media.”
Jane Rawlins, the Chieftan’s associate publisher and vice president, defended Stafford’s email. She said he identified his responsibilities at the newspaper because he’s still relatively new to the community.
“At no time did he suggest that he would use his position to slant the newspaper’s coverage,” she’s quoted as saying. “In fact, a careful review of The Chieftain’s coverage of these volatile issues reveals a very deliberate effort to provide balanced coverage.”
Giron said she plans to meet with Rawlins in the future and she hopes she can have a positive work relationship with the paper going forward.
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