State Assembly District 36 race gets heated

Shortly after brothel owner and state Assembly District 36 candidate Dennis Hof sent out a series of tweets aimed at incumbent James Oscarson, the social media company suspended the “How to Be a Pimp” author’s Twitter accounts.

Several posts Monday pointed out Oscarson’s arrest for an incident at a hockey game in Arizona in 1997, and also raised questions on if the lawmaker has anger issues. By Tuesday morning, his accounts were removed from the site.

Hof explained that a person filed a grievance with the social media giant, which resulted in him being banned from the service.

“Someone apparently complained about the info we published about James Oscarson’s arrest for assault and disorderly conduct,” Hof said.

“After providing documentation that the accusation was true, we’re back in business.”

Hof explained that once he sent over documentation of the incident to verify his account of the legal issue, both of his Twitter accounts were back up and running Wednesday evening.

Oscarson addressed the almost two-decades-old arrest and challenged Hof for digging up the incident.

“My opponent, a man who calls himself a ‘pimp,’ seems to think that he’s going to ‘get me’ by threatening to tell people that, over 20 years ago, I had to plead guilty to disorderly conduct at a hockey game,” he said. “At an ice hockey game… I was arrested and had to plead guilty to a disorderly conduct charge, an incident I regret.”

According to Twitter’s guidelines, abusive behavior on the site is defined as sending threats to others or impersonating other accounts, and the social media platform said it may suspend it temporarily or, in some cases, permanently for committing such violations.

Hof has over 20,000 followers between his two accounts, and that platform can be important as he makes his run for state Assembly.

Although Twitter representatives were unavailable to verify, Hof said that he thought that someone in Oscarson’s campaign was responsible for the complaint.

The incumbent’s camp denied that claim.

“We did not tell Twitter anything,” said Laura Billman, Oscarson’s spokesperson. “Whatever Hof did, he did all by himself.”

Assembly District 36 contains portions of Nye, Lincoln and Clark counties. The Republican Oscarson is seeking a third term in the Legislature. Hof is running as a Libertarian.

Contact reporter Mick Akers at makers@pvtimes.com. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.