Several Pennsylvania legislators - 4 of 5 of whom are Republicans - have received threats and harassment after being featured in a Wanted-style poster for their opposition to a property tax bill, HB 76.
From the Centre Daily Times:
(State Rep. Kerry) Benninghoff said he received a letter implying he would be shot at a public meeting if he didn’t support the plan. Later, a postcard addressed to his daughters arrived at his office with the return address of his rented Harrisburg apartment.
“The second one was a little alarming,” Benninghoff told the Centre Daily Times on Thursday. “Probably I was the only one to take note (of the return address). That’s the way you sent a message (of) ‘I know where you live and I know you have children.’
What did Benninghoff (a Republican, by the way) do to become the target of such threats, you ask? More below . . .
He is the chairman of the House Finance Committee that voted for a competing property tax bill while not bringing HB 76 up for a vote. His reasoning for not supporting HB 76, which eliminates property taxes, is that it would "create a significant shortfall in the state budget."
Imagine having such a pedestrian reason when LIBERTY itself is at stake!!
Supporters of the bill had been pressuring Benninghoff for months before the wanted posters appeared.
“They were trying to use it as intimidation, basically,” he said. “It just continued to the point they were getting really aggressive. They would call my Bellefonte office and scream at my staff.
“The whole group isn’t like this,” Benninghoff said. “There are a handful of zealots.”
The group he means is the Pennsylvania Taxpayers Cyber Coalition (PTCC), which originally posted the Wanted-style poster. To be fair, the poster does
not say Dead or Alive on it. The administrator of the 5000-member PTCC, David Baldinger, says the group does not condone threats or harassment.
“There’s no accounting for the outliers and I can’t keep an eye on everyone,” he said. “There’s going to be some nut-bags out there.”
Indeed, in the anti-tax movement, there
are going to be some nut-bags out there. The problem is, their numbers seem to be increasing, and so is their audacity. Republicans aren't even safe from them anymore.
Read more about Pennsylvania's property tax debate in ThirdandState's diary: http://www.dailykos.com/...