Minnesota's limited felon voting rights legislation under attack by right-wingers who likely expect felons would in majority vote against right-wing BS.
Again a fully open site, stating in part, at the beginning of the item:
For many Minnesotans, the only races on their Nov. 7 ballot will be their local school board election, but the stakes are high.
Multiple factors are driving intensity of these nominally nonpartisan races:
First, education is at the center of a
swirl of culture war issues Republicans have been driving in the past
few years, including opposition to rights for trans children and the
teaching of the role of race and white supremacy in American history.
Jamie Kokaisel, a South Washington
County School Board candidate, has a chatty blog detailing her thoughts
on culture-war topics like diversity in schools, feminism and
single-parent households.
“Our current government leans
Progressive, and they are incentivizing single-parent families, sex
outside of marriage, promiscuity, abortion, and a gender fluid
lifestyle,” Kokaisel wrote in one blog post.
In a statement she gave for the
Minnesota Parents Alliance voters’ guide, Kokaisel implies that public
schools can improve if they become more like private schools.
“Once I saw how GREAT education could
be in the private school models, it became very clear to me that
fundamental GOODNESS was missing in the public school,” said Kokaisel,
who unsuccessfully ran for South Washington County School Board in 2021.
The conservative movement group
Freedom Club has referred its supporters to trainings provided by the
Minnesota Parents Alliance, which says it’s a nonpartisan group with
members who have supported Democratic candidates. But most of the school
board candidates the MPA endorsed in its 2023 voters’ guide have ties
to the GOP and/or the conservative movement, or promote right-leaning
messages and ideas.
The MPA, which has in the past
partnered with conservative organizations like the Center of the
American Experiment and the Child Protection League, has emerged this
year as a key asset for right-leaning candidates, including a published
voters’ guide with endorsements. Cristine Trooien, MPA executive
director, said in a statement to the Reformer
that the group endorses candidates regardless of their political
affiliation “who are willing to set divisive issues aside and refocus on
academic achievement and ensuring students can reach their highest
potential in a values-neutral environment.”
Still, many of the MPA’s endorsed
candidates have ties to local Republicans and promote the same
messaging: strengthen parental rights, prioritize academic achievement
and keep left wing politics out of school.
For example, two MPA candidates in
the Anoka-Hennepin School Board race — Linda Hoekman and Scott Simmons* —
are endorsed by the 31st and 35th Senate District Republicans, and in
their Minnesota Parents Alliance endorsement statements, they say they want to strengthen parental rights.
It takes a bit of thought, but "parental rights" is a euphemism for VOUCHERS, WE WANT VOUCHERS, TO RELIGIOUSLY INDOCTRINATE OUR CHILDREN ON THE PUBLIC'S DIME.
As noted many times, childless taxpayers pay for public schools where the aim is to assure a minimal competency among adult voters, post schooling, to keep democracy alive by their voting cogently after becoming informed of candidates and issues to where intelligent voting is possible. Those childless taxpayers should not see their money directed toward VOUCHER-ENABLED public funding of religious indoctrination they might despise.
Some would undermine public schools, for selfish reasons.
Those who would undermine public education's leading toward intelligent voting are called Republicans.
(Opinions can differ.)
Closing thought: VOTE ERIN! Hokeman has more road-side signs. Erin has more brains and a sounder outlook. If you doubt that "more brains" suggestion, let them both take an IQ test. On top of that, Erin is experienced. Hokeman sees the job from the outside looking in. Erin's there now, deserving reelection.
BOTTOM LINE: Erin is not the extremist. Hokeman is.
_____________UPDATE___________
This MPA insurgency has, as noted by the MnReformer item, ties to Freedom Club.
Freedom Club is a pay to play operation, costing thousands to be a "member." Their membership request form, as linked, allows a Gold membership for five grand, or a Silver membership for three grand, or take a hike, not wanted if not paying the price.
The questions were well founded, as Liberty Minnesota
PAC was not considered a well-funded or well-known political
committee until the mailings started to appear across the state in
September.
According to campaign finance reports, Liberty
Minnesota PAC spent less than $3,000 for the entire election cycle in
Minnesota in 2014.
In the time since the mailings first started to
appear, evidence continues to build and shows Alex Kharam, the executive
director of the Freedom Club and the company he founded earlier this
year, The Greenbrier Group, worked with Liberty Minnesota PAC on the
project.
Earlier this year, Kharam helped launch the website Alpha News. Alpha
News has included negative stories on several of the Republican
incumbent House members who were targeted in the Liberty Minnesota PAC
mailings.
[...] One of Freedom Club's founding members, Bob Cummins,
was also one of the largest funders of the campaign against same-sex
marriage in 2012. In the 2014 cycle election cycle, the Freedom Club
raised over $1.2 million from about 50 donors (with nearly 70 percent of
the total coming from Cummins and his wife, Joan).
The Freedom Club has been a well-funded group and
Kharam's involvement in criticizing incumbent Republicans may be a sign
that groups are preparing endorsement or primary challenges to incumbent
Republican members of the Minnesota House of Representatives.
This would be a costly distraction to Republicans who
hope to save their resources as they face a presidential election next
year. Historically, this is a political environment which has been
favorable to the Minnesota DFL.
Eggers also declined in October to comment about his discussions with Kharam about the mailings,nor would he offer any specifics on Kharam's involvement.
But it is clear Eggers and Kharam have discussed working on joint projects between the Freedom Club and Liberty Minnesota PAC.
In an email sent in March by Eggers to Kharam and
provided by a source for this story, Eggers requested of Kharam that he
"[p]lease let me know if there is anything Liberty Minnesota...can do to
be of service to you or Freedom Club."
This is extreme. Daudt was chosen by his Minnesota GOP caucus to be Speaker, i.e., the consensus was he represented the party's norm, and would be its top MN House organizer. To be more extreme than Kurt Daudt takes one hell of a lot of extremism. With Bob Cummins as their Daddy Warbucks. BALLOTPEDIA:
According to City Pages, which dubbed Cummins "The Sugar
Daddy" in its 2008 list of the 10 most powerful Minnesota Republicans,
he “is that most curious of political animals: He asserts his influence
through money alone and seeks no special attention for it. He's never
run for office; he doesn't write op-eds or speak to the media; he's not
on the lecture circuit. He is a strict conservative, an evangelical
Christian, and as CEO of Primera Technology, a very wealthy man.”[1]
Career
[...]
As of November 2015, Cummins is President and CEO of Primera
Technology Inc., and he also serves on the boards of Providence Academy
and the Freedom Club.[2][7][8]
Providence Academy. Is it any wonder that in the MnReformer quoting above the flak for the MPA putsch opined -
“Once I saw how GREAT education could be
in the private school models, it became very clear to me that
fundamental GOODNESS was missing in the public school,” said Kokaisel,
who unsuccessfully ran for South Washington County School Board in 2021.
A GREAT private school model, ProvAcad is a pay-to-play Catholic school, where VOUCHERS would be a boon to operations. Cummins' money behind it and still, a substantial tuition which voucher-mongering could lessen, for ones wanting religious indoctrination instead of sound, uniform public schools.
Erin has no ties to Bob "Daddy Warbucks" Cummins, nor to costly private religious schooling.
There's substantial money invested in all those Hokeman signs, and readers are encouraged to see if they can find online her campaign financing disclosure. Likely she is self-financed.
Hoekman has over 25 years of experience as a high school physics and chemistry teacher, the majority of which she has previously worked in Anoka-Hennepin (AH) schools. She has been connected to the AH district reaching back to her own years as a student; Hoekman graduated from Blaine High School. She earned her teaching degree from the College of St. Benedict. Upon graduation, Hoekman was hired at Champlin Park High School, and later earned a Master’s of Education from the College of St. Scholastica.
A lifelong Anoka County resident, Hoekman and her husband of 25 years, Charley, have lived in Ramsey for 19 years. Two of their children are Anoka High School graduates and their third child graduated from PACT Charter School in Ramsey.
According to Hoekman, she has been active in the community in capacities that align with her mission of educating and encouraging youth competitors. She has coached swimming and softball, and advised robotics and Korean Dance Club. In the community, she has also been a scout leader and supported youth faith initiatives. She instructed religious education and confirmation at Epiphany Catholic Church in Coon Rapids, where she has been a parishioner most of her life. In her spare time she enjoys fishing and playing games with her family.
Teaching in the district for years, sending one of three children to a private school. Catholic, so likely thinking of Catholic schools and vouchers. That is a guess. She's not outright said so. Writing, "Anoka has a long tradition of excellence, it is time to restore excellence as our goal," begs the question - if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and if you say it is broke, how? She writes no specific criticism of the status quo, and has stayed with that status quo over an entire teaching career. Erin is the incumbent. She represents continuity on the Board level. What's Hokeman's complaint?
Seven candidates are running in three districts this year. Classroom
safety, parental rights, and the academic achievement gap are among the
issues coming up in the elections.
Anoka-Hennepin Education Minnesota, the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and the SEIU Minnesota State Council endorsed Erin Heers-McCardle (District 1), Susan Witt (District 2), and Michelle Langenfeld (District 5).
The Senate District 35 Republican Party (which overlaps with the
school district) and the nonprofit Anoka-Hennepin Parents Alliance—which
describes itself as promoting academic excellence, school safety, and
“parental rights on political, religious, and moral issues”—endorsed Linda Hoekman (District 1), Zach Arco (District 2), and Scott Simmons (District 5).
That's it. There is more on Ballotpedia, but the endorsements show it is
a partisan situation, even though not partisan in the sense of
candidates running as identified party candidates. Clearly, however, the endorsements
show the functional equivalent of two slates. Education Minnesota and
labor for one set. The Republican Party itself, and this so-called
"Parents Alliance," for the other set.
Education
Minnesota has done the job, and even the signage leader - career
teacher - Parents Alliance candidate is not saying the current Board's not getting things done.
It is this "parents"
buzzword thing for something different than what's worked well over the
years and evolved and adapted to moods of the times. A putsch of some fashion, with the ultimate intention suspiciously kept
silent.
With that indirection one can guess, indeed one has to guess, and Crabgrass sees yet another scripted nationwide vouchers putsch, and finds it a major worry.
