Nevada bill aims to protect candidates from incitement to violence

Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.

CARSON CITY — Assemblymember Hanadi Nadeem, D-Las Vegas, encountered a surprise during her campaign for the Nevada Legislature last year when she came across a roadside sign using misconstrued facts to link her to terrorist sympathizers.

Nadeem, the first Muslim woman elected to the state’s legislative body, said she was grateful her husband was driving the car, given the shock that took over at that moment.

She asked him to pull over so she could further examine the sign depicting her in a hijab, which she does not regularly wear. It also included a plug for a website accusing her of religious extremism.

“When somebody is going low, you go high,” Nadeem said, reflecting on the experience. “Just leave it, just ignore it. Keep doing your work, and prove everything right through your work.”

During the campaign, Republican challenger Brandon Davis created a website attacking Nadeem as “too dangerous.”

The site, which has since been disabled, questioned her service on the board of a group that hosted a Texas event attended by Pakistani-Kashmiri diplomat Masood Khan. The site referenced the conservative outlet The National Review deeming Khan a “dangerous radical.”

The site also featured a repost from Nadeem’s social media appearing to support incarcerated former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, who was jailed in a manner that some people claim was a political conspiracy. The site mentioned Khan’s charges and previous comments, such as one in which he said he didn’t want to label Osama bin Laden as a terrorist. (The former prime minister’s case, however, doesn’t break neatly along party lines, as lawmakers across the aisle have called for Khan’s release, fromformer U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev.)

Critics condemned the campaign against Nadeem as Islamophobic. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, released a report last week that said Islamophobia was on the rise after it received a record-breaking 8,658 complaints.

Nadeem said the attacks on her incited other people to threaten her life and put her husband and five children in danger.

Following her motto to “keep doing your work,” Nadeem has introduced Assembly Bill 123, which she said would prevent a candidate from going through an experience like hers.

The legislation, which had a committee hearing this week, would conform existing harassment standards, ensuring it’s a misdemeanor offense to target a candidate for public office with messaging intended to cause or induce bodily injury to the candidate or their family. There was no immediate vote on the bill.

The proposal would require a candidate who believes they have been threatened to write to the secretary of state, who would investigate and issue a report within 30 days. The case would be turned over to the state attorney general’s office if prosecution was deemed warranted.

Under existing law, a person can be found guilty of misdemeanor harassment if they knowingly make certain threats — something the bill’s critics pointed out.

Assemblymember Jovan Jackson, D-North Las Vegas, said he received messages during his run for North Las Vegas City Council in 2022 attacking his identity as a Black man.

He used a text messaging app to campaign, and some people replied with racial slurs and messages threatening his life.

“As elected officials, we’re all familiar about being attacked about our identity or maybe even our character, our decisions,” Jackson testified at the hearing.

The proposed bill would ensure those who run for office “receive some level of protection,” said Jackson, a co-sponsor of the legislation.

The secretary of state and the attorney general’s offices were neutral on the proposal.

“A point of nuance in the bill is we would not want it to seem like the secretary of state’s office is able to definitively say a crime has occurred, because that’s not necessarily within our investigative authority,” Chief Deputy Secretary of State Gabriel Di Chiara said.

Nadeem said the bill has bipartisan appeal and she was confident it would receive the support necessary for its enactment. “It’s going to save all of us,” she said.

The Nevada Republican Party came out in support of the bill.

“We think it is very important that there be no impediment to candidates being able to run for office without the fear of threats and violence,” state party National Committeeman Jim DeGraffenreid said.

Davis, who lost his Assembly race to Nadeem in November, submitted testimony against the bill, calling it “unnecessary, vague and dangerous to free speech in Nevada’s elections.”

“During a heated campaign, an opponent could falsely claim fear and file a complaint,” Davis said in written testimony. “Even if dismissed, the damage to the accused’s campaign is irreversible. This is not about safety — it’s about political suppression.”