A Shocking Approach To Lobbying A Lawmaker

There’s no shortage of gimmicks and handouts from lobbying groups trying to get legislators to understand their positions. Clean energy boosters give rides in a fuel cell-powered bus, while dairy farmers offer cheese samples.

But Jay Kehoe takes things a big step further. He Tasers people.

People like the head of the General Assembly’s Judiciary Committee.

Whom he took down with a Taser in the middle of a public hearing at the Legislative Office Building.

A former Glastonbury police officer, Kehoe is a lobbyist for Taser International, based in Scottsdale, Ariz. As an East Coast representative, he has been to Massachusetts, Maine, Connecticut and other states touting the safety and effectiveness of Tasers as a tool of law enforcement and self defense.

“Electronic defense weapons,” the unbranded term for Tasers, incapacitate a person’s muscles for five seconds by pumping an electric shock through two metal prongs that can be fired from up to 30 feet away.

The most basic version available, the Taser C2, looks like a plastic gun, sells for $299.95 and comes with a training DVD. You can get it in one of four snazzy colors: Black Pearl, Titanium Silver, Electric Blue or –- for the ladies — Metallic Pink.

Close to 10,000 Tasers are in use by law enforcement across the country. Unlike pepper spray, Kehoe argues, Tasers are effective no matter what part of the body they hit. Unlike guns, he says, Tasers are non-lethal.

“The Taser has never been identified as the cause of death for anybody,” he said.

Misconceptions

Kehoe’s job is made much more difficult by a handful of rather graphic displays of Taser abuse by law enforcement officials that have been posted on the Internet, many of which lead to glaring newspaper headlines and what he views as misconceptions among the public. When Kehoe came to testify in front of the General Assembly’s judiciary committee March 16, he said there were “all kinds of misconceptions” among committee members as to the danger of Tasers.

One of the people who has been watching those videos is Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D-East Haven), the committee’s co-chair. A former state prosecutor, Lawlor favors a bill restricting sale of the devices to law enforcement officials.

“I don’t think that private citizens should have them. It just isn’t appropriate,” Lawlor said. He and the committee are also considering a bill with new rules for police, aimed at preventing Taser misuse of the Internet-video variety.

So with the two anti-Taser measures on the table, Kehoe came to the committee to make his pitch. And, seeing Lawlor’s skepticism in his product, he made a bold offer, or one might say, a dare.

How would Lawlor like to be Tasered, right then and there?

Not one to back down, Lawlor accepted. In the middle of a room normally reserved for drawn-out judicial nominations, he removed his tie and dress shirt and stood ready in his undershirt.

Kehoe’s Taser performed as advertised. When the prongs stuck into his back, Lawlor let loose a groan and dropped hard into the waiting arms of volunteers immediately beside him like he was being saved by a televangelist.

Afterward Lawlor said it felt like he’d been mechanically and soundly punched in the back for five straight seconds, paralyzing him.

“There’s a little bit of blood on your T-shirt, but it doesn’t really hurt,” he said. Lawlor recovered in just a few minutes.

For Kehoe, the Tasering was an impressively bold move that brought terrific drama, but also a lot of risk. No matter how much he believes in his product –- and how clearly that belief is communicated by the demonstration –- isn’t there some risk to publicly decapacitating the committee chair?

Kehoe, who drives a Hummer with the license plate TASER, doesn’t think so. He said he’d done it thousands of times to prove the device’s safety.

“I’ve Tasered legislators, news reporters, judges. I’ve Tasered probably 3,500 people,” he said.

“You never truly understand it until you get a hit from a Taser.”

Unfortunately for the company, the device doesn’t seem to have had the intended political effect on Lawlor. He said that although the Taser was far less painful than a stun gun (which he has also experienced), if he had not had volunteers beside him he could have seriously cracked his skull on the fall.

“It didn’t really change my views. It’s not much different than I thought,” he said. n

Jonathan O’Connell is a Hartford Business Journal Staff Writer.