Tim Steller’s column: Tucson legislator gets threats, dishes abuse

In a New York Times story focused on her, Hernandez, a Democrat who is running unopposed for state Senate, said threats have forced her to take numerous security measures and even to put off trying to have children.

“Would we be OK with bringing a family into this environment?” she told the Times. “Quite frankly, the answer right now is no.”

The story was part of a larger Times project on the wave of threats and intimidation against public officials around the country. It painted a sympathetic picture of Hernandez, as well as Phoenix Democratic Sen. Analise Ortiz, as victims of this dangerous social trend that in some cases has gone beyond threats to actual violence.

The story’s focus on Hernandez, though, did not sit well with people in Tucson who have tangled politically with her and her supporters recently. They say Hernandez and her close supporters themselves have dished out abuse and intimidation as recently as the period around the July primary election and going back years.

One of the recent episodes: On July 10, Hernandez posted on social media a photo of Scott Blades and Jess Losoya, alleging that the Tucson men, unnamed in the post, had stolen one of her signs and asking for their identities.

They had not taken her sign, though. They had taken down one of the original “Evil Torta” signs posted around town, handwritten on paper and placed next to a campaign sign for Rep. Adelita Grijalva.

“Threats and acts of violence against individuals for their beliefs is wrong, and should be condemned,” Blades told me in a text. “Also, I have experienced firsthand that Rep. Hernandez herself has fabricated facts in order to claim to be a victim while victimizing others. I have experienced her publicly lying about me personally, which has caused others to threaten me, which she is aware of, but still refuses to admit her lies."

In fact, as of Friday, that post was still up online, although many commenters had told Hernandez her allegation was wrong.

In an email, Alma Hernandez did not address specific instances of alleged intimidation or abuse by her or her close supporters:

“Anyone who runs for or serves in public office deserves to be safe, as do all Arizonans. It’s frankly sad and pathetic that within hours of a New York Times story about the threats including death threats me and many other elected officials have faced, extremists are yet again attacking me but this is why that extreme fringe keeps losing. I’m focused on getting a Democratic majority and making Arizona a safe place for all.”

In the Times story, she said the threats had come from the far left and far right of the political spectrum, and her brother Daniel said much of it stemmed from antisemitism. Hernandez is Jewish and an outspoken supporter of Israel.

I asked Alma Hernandez for specific examples of threats, but she did not provide them. One well-documented incident occurred in December 2023, when someone spread flyers around her neighborhood that criticized her stance on Israel, encouraged people to talk with Hernandez about the war in Gaza and included her home address.

In a separate incident, during Daniel Hernandez’ 2025 campaign for Congress, someone shot out the window of a staffer’s car sitting outside Alma’s home where Daniel was meeting with staff. But it was never established what the motive was for that shooting, whether targeted or coincidental.

The Hernandez siblings, including sister Consuelo who is a state representative, form the core of an alternative political bloc in Southern Arizona. Though they’re Democrats, they’ve often been in conflict with the progressive wing led by Grijalva and Tucson Mayor Regina Romero.

The public tension between Blades, a Democratic activist who supports Grijalva, and Hernandez, goes back to Hernandez’s brother Daniel’s run for Congress. It brings up another incident involving Alma Hernandez.

In Bisbee, Blades attended an event where a woman questioned Daniel Hernandez over Israel. Alma Hernandez verbally confronted the woman in a face-to-face argument, Blades said, and as he filmed the confrontation, Daniel Hernandez grabbed his phone and threw it down.

Insults and intimidation

Alma Hernandez’s key supporters, too, have intimidated and insulted her opponents, attorney Mo Goldman and Perez said.

Among the supporters Hernandez’s campaign embraced is Robert Rowley, who has a long history of violent and inflammatory rhetoric, documented in the Democratic Party, including making a throat-cutting gesture to another attendee at a party meeting.

After reading the Times article, Perez, who ran against Hernandez for the Democratic nomination for state Senate, compiled a list of eight incidents in which he said Hernandez or her key supporters overstepped normal bounds of behavior.

Among them was the curious incident at Drachman Montessori School, across from Hernandez’s house, that led to her supporting a bill that would have made teachers and professors personally liable for alleged antisemitism in their classrooms.

By Hernandez’s telling last year, one of her inspirations was the fact that a Palestinian flag appeared in the window of a classroom at Drachman Montessori K-8 School, across the street from her house.

“I would love to know what is being taught in that classroom,’’ Hernandez said at the time. “That flag is not a flag of a country, for those of you who confuse it. It is a political statement which should not be allowed in our public schools.’’

The definition of antisemitism in the bill was so broad that it would have made normal discussions of issues in the Middle East risky for college professors, and Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the bill.

The part of the story Hernandez didn’t tell, perhaps because she didn’t know, is that the Palestinian flag in that classroom was a response to her own Israeli flag, flying in front of her home directly across the street from the classroom. The teacher in that room told me he had a Syrian refugee student who would look angrily at Hernandez’s Israeli flag, because of the ongoing war in Gaza, and talked about tearing her Israeli flag down.

The teacher’s response, to support the student, was to put up the Palestinian flag in his classroom.

Thin line between victim, perpetrator

This is a common pattern in incidents involving Hernandez: Her avid support of Israel, including displaying an Israeli flag on her House-floor desk, has angered some people, especially during the war in Gaza. She or her close allies then label the angry responses antisemitism and possibly threats.

“These are total provocateurs,” said Mo Goldman, a Tucson immigration attorney who supported Perez in his race against Hernandez. “They’re provoking the anger against them. Whether Alma likes it or not, sitting at the state Capitol with the Israeli flag on your desk is going to enrage people.”

After Perez lost the race, one of Hernandez’s close supporters, Tony Zinman, posted an angry denunciation of people like Goldman, who is Jewish and the grandson of survivor of Nazi concentration camps. Zinman compared him to a “kapo” — Jewish turncoats who worked for Nazis at German prison camps.

“We Jews don’t believe in hell, but if there was one, there would be a special place for the Kapo Jews on her (Hernandez’s) opponent’s campaign team,” Zinman said. “They are a Shanda (disgrace) and should be ashamed to show their faces in the wider Jewish community.”

Goldman said of Hernandez and her allies: “You play this victimization card all the time, but when the shoe’s on the other foot, you refuse to acknowledge you’re bullying other people. You don’t apologize.”

None of this justifies threats against Hernandez or any other candidate or elected official. That’s crossing the line and should be condemned, reported and prosecuted if possible. But in her case, the line between victim and perpetrator is awfully thin.