Kansas Democratic House candidate with history of blackmail threatens to vote with GOP
If 20-year-old Kansas House candidate Aaron Coleman’s admitted history of revenge porn, bullying and blackmail haven’t turned off Wyandotte County voters — and he says it hasn’t — then maybe his threats to vote with Republicans in Topeka unless his fellow Democrats agree to help him in various ways won’t bother them, either.
But a series of Facebook Messenger messages between Coleman and Democratic state Rep. Cindy Holscher makes clear that his attempts to manipulate, threaten and, yes, blackmail, are not all in the past.
Initially, Holscher was trying to help him “gracefully exit” the race at the request of some of his family members. She was also trying to help her party persuade Coleman to move aside.
Campaigning as a Bernie Sanders Democrat, Coleman won his party’s August primary over seven-term incumbent Rep. Stan Frownfelter. Normally, Coleman would almost certainly be headed to Topeka in January to represent Wyandotte County’s heavily Democratic House District 37.
Only, there is nothing normal about this situation. Coleman’s abusive behavior — some of it as recent as last year — should have already disqualified him, as The Star Editorial Board has said repeatedly. But these messages raise new questions about whom this dangerously troubled young man will be representing if he does get more votes than Frownfelter, who is now running a write-in campaign.
The exchange actually goes back to June, when Holscher asked Coleman to take down and apologize for a Facebook post that said he would “laugh and giggle” if a former GOP lawmaker died of COVID-19. After some back-and-forth, he grudgingly did as she asked.
Getting an ‘ego boost’ from news coverage
On August 13, after the first editorial about Coleman’s history of sexual harassment appeared in The Star, he wrote Holscher to say, “I’m deeply sorry for what I did in middle school.” He was sorry, he said, that he’d bullied and verbally abused a young woman who later attempted suicide. “I’m working on becoming a better person,” he told Holscher, “and hope everyone will join me on this journey of personal growth.”
Then, though, when Holscher said she hoped he was getting help, he lashed out at her, and asked if her obvious belief that 14-year-olds were fully mature and accountable meant she’d be working on legislation that would require kids that age to be tried as adults.
On Aug. 26, The Star reported that an ex-girlfriend, Taylor Passow, said that Coleman had slapped, choked and urged her to commit suicide, too. Not years ago, but in December of 2019. On New Year’s Eve, Passow told The Star, he’d tried to goad her into ending her life. “Air out the clip into your head,” he texted her.
Passow also told the Topeka Capital-Journal that earlier in December, after she’d texted him that she wanted to hitchhike to visit him, he responded, “I hope you get abducted raped chopped up and have ya pieces scattered and Burnt in different locations.” Another time, she said, he’d threatened her that, “If you get pregnant, I will have to kill you and the baby.”
He answered some of those allegations by saying that while yes, he had been abusive to Passow, he hadn’t choked her.
On Aug. 27, Coleman told Holscher he was getting “an ego boost” from some of the media coverage.
On Aug. 28, Holscher started pushing harder to get Coleman to see that he had to get out of the race. Even if he won, she said, he would probably not be seated.
Coleman said that if Democrats didn’t welcome him, well then the Republicans would: “when it comes to Republican leadership expelling me from the chamber, I believe I have as many disagreements with the Democrats as the Republicans do. And I would tell speaker Rykman this,” he said, referring to Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr. “I’m sure I’d make plenty a fool of the Democrats, for purely ideological reasons, if they continue every attempt to simply upset me Once I’m inevitably sworn in. And the GOP seeing how I’ve been scorned, would likely allow me to remain.”
Expected job, donation from Kansas Democrats
He also began trying to cut a deal, at first saying he might exit the race in return for policy concessions from some Democratic write-in candidate other than Frownfelter.
“But in addition to policy concessions,” he told Holscher, “I’d also expect (one particular potential candidate) to be gracious and stop telling lies saying I harassed her… Also, since I’m the only name on the ballot, In addition to those concessions from (the potential candidate) listed above, I would also expect something from the KDP (Kansas Democratic Party) too — possibly a job I want or some $ donated to an organization of my choice.”
What kind of an organization? “I’d like to start my own chapter of social Democrats USA. It’s a membership group focusing on Medicare for All, green new deal, legalized cannabis, black lives matter, pro-Palestine, etc. I was told the KDP might give the chapter 50k.”
No way, Holscher told him. “KDP doesn’t have anywhere (near) that kind of $ for investment.”
Instead, Holscher suggested, what about a donation in his name to an organization that supports victims of intimate partner violence? Maybe, he said, but then insisted that his history of that kind of behavior isn’t a dealbreaker for his future constituents.
“Believe it or not, just like with Joe Biden and Donald Trump, there are people in my community who don’t care about any allegation against me as long as I admit to them, apologize and work to do better. People in my district tell me that makes me a lot more mature than either candidate for president.”
His point that the public doesn’t get too worked up about violence against women may be one of the only things Coleman has said that’s true, though I hope voters in his district prove both of us wrong about that.
Anti-bullying, harassment prevention platform
Anyway, he said, “I’m hoping to reshape my image” by running on a platform of anti-bullying and sexual harassment prevention.
That’s not going to work, Holscher told him, because “voters will have a hard time taking those points seriously considering how recently some of the activity has transpired.”
He didn’t see it that way, and messaged her again to say, “Highly unlikely that ⅔ of the chamber would vote to evict me. I’m too great of an asset to the Republicans if I end up self destructing because Democrats won’t mentor me.”
Don’t count on it, she said. “Rs would be thrilled to evict you and have that seat vacant with no vote.”
Others have done worse and served anyway, he told her: “I’m sure I could broker a deal with GOP house leadership. Allowing me to stay on, in exchange for throwing bombs — heck it might get so bad the Democrats will just have to let me caucus with them to just get me to stop throwing bombs.”
“Does that mean you would vote with the Rs?” she asked.
“I’m open to negotiations,” he answered, and for instance might vote against Medicaid expansion because it doesn’t go as far as Medicare For All. “I’m hoping Democrats will try to befriend and help mentor me instead though, so I don’t have to lean towards the Republicans for mentorship.”
“But,” Holscher said, voting with Republicans “goes against all of the policy issues you’ve put out there. How is that representing the people of the district?”
“I’ll do what I have to do to survive,” he messaged her back. “If Democrats can’t tell me, ‘we’ll block your eviction’ — I may end up begging house leadership for mercy.”
Voters don’t care about character, he says
And again, he told her, voters don’t care what he’s done. “I’ve been knocking doors recently, they don’t seem to care about it even if still...People are sick of politics being all about character.”
Coleman also said it was too late to get his name taken off the ballot. When she countered that that wasn’t the case, he shot back, “True, but I’m thinking that I’m a shoe-in (sic) for November.”
Finally, on Sept. 9, he wrote Holscher again to say he was going to start trying to convince Democrats that if they don’t help elect him, what they’ll get isn’t Frownfelter but Republican write-in candidate Kristina Smith. “Just f.y.i. From here on out I’m going to be posting about my Republican Challenger, mentioning her by name, every single day tying her to Trump...It’s a double edged sword but I want to scare Democratic voters into voting #BlueNoMatterWho.”
When I asked Coleman, via email, about his messages threatening to caucus with Republicans and make trouble for Democrats, he answered, “I disagree with that gross mischaracterization, and taking out of context of my remarks. You’re on a witch hunt, and people are sick of it. Moving on. Stan shouldn’t have been lazy.”
The Kansas Democratic Party and Democratic House Caucus have long since denounced Coleman, but the Wyandotte County Democratic Party still had not until after this column was published. Wyandotte County Chairman Jacques Barber, who had promised to stay neutral in the race, said in an initial interview, “I’m in a pretty tough situation” because “we desperately need to hold on to the seats we have.”
He said on Thursday that the messages I’d just read him between Holscher and Coleman “makes it more difficult to stay quiet. Those are things I had not heard before. This new information concerns me, and other things that keep creeping in.” The most recent news story about Coleman reported that he’d been charged with threatening a school shooting in May of 2015.
After talking to Holscher and to Coleman, Barber called me back to say that he now feels he has no choice but to come out against Coleman and for Frownfelter. “Additional things kept coming out,” he said. “I was trying to maintain some level of decorum, but the assertions he’s made against the party and his threats to vote with Republicans are completely unacceptable. Of course we want to hold onto the seats we have, but not at this cost. The party does have values.”
What I’d ask voters to remember is that overlooking criminality because you agree on policy will in all cases get you even less than you think you bargained for. And if any of Coleman’s potential constituents really are “sick of politics being all about character,” they couldn’t be more wrong.
This story was originally published October 16, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Kansas Democratic House candidate with history of blackmail threatens to vote with GOP."
