Sen. Kelly Townsend arrived home late Monday evening after a long day at the state legislature followed by some family obligations. But she was not home long before discovering social media users were debating whether or not Townsend had encouraged voters to engage in violence during comments earlier in the day.
“So public, do what you got to do,” Townsend (R-LD16) said during a floor session discussion on the contempt resolution against Maricopa County and what voters could do if they were displeased with the representation from their elected officials.
All it took was one person to tweet a suggestion that Townsend’s comment “sounds like” a threat and suddenly the state senator was trending. In fact, Townsend’s comment was retweeted more than 600 times over the next several hours.
The same type of voter options -such as recalls- were mentioned by a male senator during the same floor discussion without any furor.
But the initial tweet about Townsend’s comment failed to mention the context -she was discussing how voters have options to respond to elected officials who do not represent their constituents- nor the other eight minutes of her explanation of her resolution vote.
“I specifically referred to the combining of efforts of various groups willing to work together to propose ballot measures and start the recall process of those refusing to do their job,” Townsend told Arizona Daily Independent. “This very night people have pledged over one-quarter million dollars to recall certain elected officials.”
Despite the uproar, Townsend says she would give voters the same advice.
“I will say once again, ‘Public, do what you have to do,’” she said, adding a “note to Democrats: that means by legal means unlike your BLM / Antifa tactics.”