From Josh Marshall at TPM:
Here’s a troubling story out of Texas. Democrat Mike Siegel is running against Rep. Michael T. McCaul (R) in Texas’s 10th district. This evening I saw a tweet from Siegel which said: “Just learned that my field director was arrested while delivering our letter. He told police he was working for me and the officer asked, “what party is he?” Now Jacob is under 48 hour investigatory detention in Waller County.”
That didn’t seem right, especially the part about getting arrested after being asked what party he’s affiliated with. So I managed to get Siegel on the phone to get some more details.
Here’s the tweet in question, along with the letter the Siegel campaign was presenting. You should read the TPM story, which was the first to pick up on this, to be followed by the Chron:
Mike Siegel
A field director for Democratic congressional candidate Mike Siegel was arrested at the Waller County Courthouse Wednesday after he delivered a letter demanding the county update the status of students at a nearby college whose registrations were thrown into question the day before.
Jacob Aronowitz, Siegel’s field director, was released after about two hours, according to Lisa Seger, the Democratic nominee for Texas House District 3, who arrived at the courthouse after the arrest.
The letter, addressed to County Judge Trey Duhon and Elections Administrator Christy Eason, took issue with Eason’s decision to require the students fill out a “change in address” form to correct the registration issue.
The arrest stemmed from Aronowitz’s decision to take a photo of a clerk receiving the letter, apparently to confirm it had been received, Siegel said in a phone interview. The clerk objected to having her picture taken and complained to a nearby bailiff, Siegel said.
“The bailiff then stopped Jacob as he was trying to exit the building in the stairway and apparently called the police,” he said.
Aronowitz then called Siegel, who is an attorney. Siegel said he heard Aronowitz repeatedly ask why he was being held and whether he was free to go. At one point, Aronowitz told a detaining officer that his lawyer, Siegel, was running for Congress.
“They say, what party is he from?’” Siegel said. “I don’t know why that was relevant.”
Though Aronowitz was released, county officials kept his phone, according to Seger, the state House candidate.
This subsequent tweet announced Aronowitz’s release. This is some backwater Boss Hogg crap right here, and you can only imagine what Aronowitz’s plight might have been if he wasn’t in a position of privilege to begin with. Not to be crass, but Waller County still has Sandra Bland’s blood on its hands. We need to hear a lot more from county officials about why this happened and what they’re going to do about it. We also need to have more reporters asking these questions. The DMN and a subsequent post from TPM have more.
(FYI, I interviewed Mike Siegel back in May, prior to the primary runoff. Go listen to that if you haven’t already.)