October 22, 2020 09:19 AM UTC

'Tis The Season To Threaten Your Tenants And Employees

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• by: Colorado Pols

9NEWS reports on a story that’s quickly going viral as the clock to Election Day 2020 ticks down:

The landlord of a trailer park in Fort Morgan allegedly sent a note to residents warning rent would most likely double in price if Joe Biden becomes President.

9NEWS received several emails from Fort Morgan residents concerned about the legality of the letter, calling it a form of voter suppression.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office confirmed they have received a complaint, and told 9NEWS they passed it along to the Attorney General.

Here’s the note as delivered to residents of Ed Pagel’s Trailer Park of Fort Morgan:

Got that? Voting is your choice–just know we’re going to double your rent if you vote the wrong way! If that doesn’t meet the textbook definition of voter intimidation, all we can say is it should.

The situation at Ed Pagel’s Trailer Park in 2020 is remarkably similar to an op-ed that now-Colorado Sen. Rob Woodward wrote ahead of the 2012 election. Not a “threat,” Sen. Woodward and his brother insisted, just “some facts” about how Barack Obama’s re-election would “affect” their business. The Casper Star-Tribune reported then:

The Woodwards own Bagelmakers and Subway restaurants in Wyoming and Colorado. Tim lives in Laramie and Rob in Loveland, Colo. They presented a possible bleak future for their 41-restaurant chain and 341 employees in an op-ed piece published in the Laramie Boomerang, Oct. 24. Citing decreased earnings and minimal job growth if the ACA stands, the Woodwards vowed to terminate a majority of their employees by 2014, [Pols emphasis] predicted more than $600,000 in penalties per year and expected to liquidate two-thirds of their restaurants because of additional costs if Obama wins Tuesday’s election.

Needless to say, nothing happened after Obama’s re-election in 2012 that resulted in any such thing. But what do you think a threatening notice like this from an employer or landlord feels like to receive as an employee or a tenant? This is not a dialogue between equal parties–it’s classic exploitation an unequal relationship out of childish political pique, and says much more about the author of the threatening note than anyone else. Unfortunately, in Rob Woodward’s case his threats to lay off employees if Obama won re-election were eventually rewarded with a seat in the Colorado Senate.

Let justice be served–and we hope our readers never pay rent to or draw a paycheck from such people.