Observation on last night's Board of Education Candidates' Forum

In the last 15 years, the Montgomery County Public Schools system has successfully implemented health education and other policies, following the wisdom of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association, that support and embrace students whose sexual orientation is not “straight” or whose gender identity is not “cisgender." 

At Bethesda Magazine‘s October 26 Board of Education Candidate Forum, candidate Esther Wells was “asked if MCPS addresses LGBTQ acceptance in age-appropriate ways, and if the district provides appropriate supports and resources for LGBTQ students.”

Rather than answer the question directly, Ms. Wells said would “engage with all stakeholders and ensure everyone feels that they are able to have a voice and are able to be part of the curriculum process and that ultimately our students are ready for the real world, and they are aware of sexuality, their sexuality and their identities, at age-appropriate times.”

 

Left unsaid by Ms. Wells was how her perspectives on sexual orientation and gender identity would impact on how she proceeds with such engagement. Ms. Wells states on her campaign website that she serves “as the Chairman & President Trustee of the Board of a multi-million dollar non-profit in Gaithersburg, MD.”   The website of that organization states that the non-profit "opposes all forms of sexual immorality, including . . . homosexuality." 

This information should give voters great pause with respect to how Ms. Wells would approach these issues.

(The other candidates present --  Scott Joftus, Grace Rivera Oven, Karla Silvestre, Brenda Wolff, and Julie Yang  -- repeated their endorsements of the MCPS policies (candidate Valerie Coll, who was not present, has previously given such endorsement).

For more background, see https://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2022/09/two-problematic-montgomery-county-md.html

Board of Education (and other) Endorsements for November 8

As someone who has been involved with Montgomery County Public Schools matters since 1984, I find that friends (and sometimes my friends’ children) ask me my opinion in Board of Education elections.  In this blogpost, I say who I am voting for and why. (Remember, District candidates must live in their District, but all County voters can vote in all the contests.) 

At the end of the blogpost, I have a few observations on other State and County contests.

 

MONTGOMERY COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION  

 

AT-LARGE AND DISTRICT 5

                                         

     Karla Silvestre                                                                 Brenda Wolff

 

I plan to vote for Karla Silvestre for re-election to the At-Large seat and Brenda Wolff for reelection to the Fifth District seat.  The last few years have presented unprecedented challenges, and while I suspect that no one has been in agreement 100% of the time with the decisions made by the Board and MCPS, I think they have done a good job under very trying circumstances.  And the fact that Ms. Silvestre and Ms. Wolff have chosen to run for re-election is a credit to their commitment to our community.  From my perspective as Co-Chair for Maryland Advocacy for Metro DC PFLAG, their commitment and performance on LGBTQ+ matters have been exemplary. See my previous posts here and here.

 

Ms. Silvestre’s opponent in the November 8 election, Mike Erickson, has been reluctant to say anything substantive about where he stands until a few days ago.  Indeed, as I discussed in a September 22 blog post, he completely ignored the Metro DC PFLAG questionnaire.  That certainly made me suspicious of what his views might be.  Finally, on October 17, Bethesda Beat finally got him to respond to substantive questions, and many of his answers were disturbing to say the least.  So supporting Ms. Silvestre for reelection is an easy call.

 

Ms. Wolff, who currently serves as Board President, has been a steady leader in these turbulent times.  Her opponent, Valerie Coll, also gave excellent answers to the Metro DC PFLAG questionnaire, recently retired after decades as a classroom teacher, was impressive in the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum, and is well-respected by people I respect. I suspect she would make a good member of the Board.  But Ms. Wolff’s experience will be very important going forward, particularly given the passing of long-time Board member Patricia O’Neill last year.  So I am supporting Ms. Wolff.

 

DISTRICT 1

                                                              Grace Rivera Oven

 

The District 1 contest is the only one that does not have an incumbent.  I plan to vote for Grace Rivera Oven, who has a long history of positive community activism in Montgomery County, and gave full-throated support to the great progress made regarding LGBTQ+ matters in recent years.  See my previous post here.  Her opponent, Esther Wells, on the other hand, gave vague answers.  I had hoped that the League of Women Voters Forum would include a question that would challenge some disturbing matters regarding Ms. Wells’ views, but time did not permit the asking of a probing question.  I paste below the question that I hoped would have been asked.

 

For the last 15 years, MCPS has successfully implemented health education and other policies, supported by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association, that support and embrace students whose sexual orientation is not “straight” or whose gender identity is not “cisgender."  Legal challenges to such policies were rejected by the courts in January 2008 and August 2022 .

 

This progress was summarized in the Metro DC PFLAG questionnaire sent to you last spring, to which all of you responded.  (Mr. Erickson, who is not here this evening, did not respond.)

 

Four of you made clear your full-throated support of this progress.  One candidate gave answers that, for the most part, were not responsive and notes on her campaign website that she serves “as the Chairman & President Trustee of the Board of a multi-million dollar non-profit in Gaithersburg, MD.”   The website of that organization states that the non-profit "opposes all forms of sexual immorality, including . . . homosexuality."

 

Here is our question:  Would you continue on the course taken by MCPS with respect to LGBTQ+ matters?  Or do you believe that homosexuality is immoral and, if elected, would you seek to reverse or weaken MCPS's affirming policies or urge inclusion of doctrines regarding "reparative" or "conversion" therapy, which have been rejected by every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association with respect to sexual orientation and gender identity? [1]

 

A recent piece published by Progressive Maryland further shows why Ms. Wells would not be a useful addition to the Board.  

 

DISTRICT 3

Scott Joftus                                                                                                    Julie Yang

Scott Joftus, a former teacher and education consultant, was elected last year by the other Board members to fill out Pat O’Neill’s term, and he is running to keep the seat.  His challenger, Julie Yang, is a former teacher and counselor in MCPS.  Both gave very good answers to the LGBTQ+ questionnaire.  Each would bring strengths to the Board.  Mr. Joftus appears to have very good ideas and experience in administering school systems, background which certainly would be valuable.  Ms. Yang’s work in the MCPS system and her obvious enthusiasm would bring new energy to the Board.  I still have not decided who to vote for.  Both are good choices, but for different reasons.

 

OTHER CONTESTS

No one who knows me will be surprised that I intend to vote for everyone on the Democratic ticket.  I do have comments on two of the contests. 

 

The Republican candidate for Montgomery County Executive, Reardon Sullivan, seeks to make the case that Marc Elrich has been an ineffectual Executive, and that he (Sullivan) would do a better job.  I think Mr. Elrich has done a good, if not perfect, job in these extremely difficult times.  I had no problem at all voting for him in the primary, and will enthusiastically support vote for him on November 8.  Mr. Sullivan has urged Democrats who voted for David Blair in the primary to vote for him.  Decades ago, when Republican leaders in Montgomery County were moderate liberals (Jim Gleason, Gilbert Gude, Connie Morella), this might be an attractive argument for many Democrats.  Mr. Blair (himself a former Republican), however, has endorsed Mr.Elrich.  This is not at all surprising, since Mr. Sullivan is not out of the old Gleason/Gude/Morella mold.  Instead, he appears to be rooted in the extreme right-wing, having launched his Facebook advertising campaign with citations to analyses from a Family Research Council propaganda arm.  See my previous post here.

 

The Washington Post, having endorsed Democratic Gubernatorial and Attorney General nominees Wes Moore and Anthony Brown over their very right-wing (a charitable characterization) Republican opponents.  But the Post also endorsed for State Comptroller the Republican candidate, former State Senator and current Harford County Executive Barry Glassman, over the extremely well-qualified Democratic candidate, Delegate Brooke Lierman.  The Post’s principal rationale was that Mr. Glassman, unlike the Republican candidates for Governor and Attorney General, is not an extreme election-denier, and that “one-party government” is never a good idea. There are several reasons for why this endorsement lacks merit.  For example, while in the State Senate, Mr. Glassman voted against the Civil Marriage Protection Act, codifying marriage equality; against the Fairness for All Marylanders Act, which protects transgender people; and against a fairer minimum wage. So he is not what I would consider a moderate Republican – a species which, sadly, is close to extinct.  Brooke Lierman is a quality choice.  To elect a Republican for the sake of bi-partisanship because he is not crazy like other Republican nominees is too low a bar.  We should and can do better.  So I am voting for Brooke Lierman for Comptroller, along with the rest of the Democratic ticket.

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[1] (Note:  Since 2018, it has been unlawful in Maryland for licensed health care practitioners to "practice" reparative or conversion therapy on minors.  One of the issues raised years ago regarding the health education curriculum was that it should have included the doctrine that, through conversion therapy, "gays could become ex-gays."  MCPS rejected this argument, for the reasons that led Maryland and many other jurisdictions to ban licensed health care practitioners from practicing the discredited notion on minors.) 

 

The Republic we may not be able to keep

In 2013, this letter was published in the Washington Post:  

"Benjamin Franklin famously replied to the question of what kind of government had been created by the Constitutional Convention by saying, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Republican Party proposals to tie electoral college votes to the results in already-gerrymandered congressional districts would, if enacted, create a dangerous crisis of legitimacy that could cause us to lose that republic.

"The 2000 presidential election result already placed the legitimacy of the electoral college system on the edge of a cliff, since Al Gore won the popular vote by more than half a million votes. In 2012, under the Republican proposals, Mitt Romney would have been elected president even though Barack Obama won the popular vote by nearly 3.5 million votes. That would have pushed the legitimacy of the electoral college over that cliff.   

"A republican form of government cannot survive if it does not have popular legitimacy."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/retaining-popular-legitimacy/2013/01/28/eaf15e24-673c-11e2-889b-f23c246aa446_story.html 

There was a time when the Republican Party recognized that it could go too far in rigging the system to force losing Presidential candidates on the American people.  The boomlet described in early 2013 disappeared when it became clear that such an approach would strain to the breaking point the legitimacy of the American electoral system.  But recent developments demonstrate that the Republican Party, or at least its leadership, no longer cares about that legitimacy.  

In 2020, Pa voters gave Biden a majority of more than 78,000 votes over Trump. 

Michigan voters gave Biden a majority of more than 154,000 votes over Trump. 

 

Wisconsin voters gave Biden a plurality of more than 20,000 votes over Trump.

 

Georgia voters gave Biden  a plurality of more than 11,000 votes over Trump. 

 

Arizona voters gave Biden a plurality of more than 10,000 votes  over Trump. 

 

In each of these states, gerrymandered state legislatures have created permanent Republican majorities. I say "permanent" because of the failure of the US Supreme Court to adjudicate the unfairness of such partisan gerrymandering. See Rucho v. Common Cause, 139 S.Ct. 2484 (2019).[1]

 

If the gerrymandered state legislatures in those states (or even just Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin) had been able, post-election, to set aside those elections - elections which are mandated by those  states’ laws - then Donald Trump would be President. This, even though Biden won a majority of the popular vote nationally by a margin of more than seven million over Trump (twice the margin that Obama won over Romney). 

 

Yet, the US Supreme Court will soon consider a case which could result in a ruling that (gerrymandered) state legislatures may unilaterally set aside the voting results in Presidential elections.  Moore v. Harper is a challenge to the ability of the North Carolina Supreme Court to review a state legislature's most recent gerrymandering.  The theory pressed by the plaintiffs is the so-called Independent State Legislature theory.  If adopted by the Supreme Court, it easily could be used by gerrymandered state legislatures to cancel the popular vote results for the Electoral College and send its own slates of electors to the Electoral College.  In other words, a victory for Trump or any other Republican in future presidential elections. See here.

 

The question now is whether the Trump-dominated Supreme Court will go along with this breaking of American democracy.

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[1] “Significance: While state courts, Congress and state legislatures remain free to regulate partisanship in redistricting, claims of excessive partisanship are beyond the capacity of federal courts to resolve.

     “Summary: Ending the line of partisan gerrymandering cases that began with Davis v. Bandemer, a majority of justices held that because of the difficulty in ascertaining how much partisanship was too much, the question was too difficult for federal courts to answer—rendering such claims “non-justiciable” in federal courts. The majority opinion noted that this ruling applied only to federal courts, and that Congress, state legislatures and state courts may be better equipped to handle such questions. This ability to regulate partisanship in redistricting extends to ballot measures that circumvent the traditional legislative process.”

 https://www.ncsl.org/research/redistricting/redistricting-and-the-supreme-court-the-most-significant-cases.aspx

The disappearing "Commons": The need for local newspapers of wide distribution

 One of the great losses in public discourse in recent years has been the demise of local newspapers like the Gazette Papers in Montgomery County. The Gazette was a weekly, distributed free to every household in Montgomery County, regardless of ideology.  It was supported by advertising, of which there was a lot.  When the post-Graham era owner of the Washington Post, which had owned the Gazette Papers, decided to close them down -- and then later to take down the valuable web-based archive -- he did our community a great disservice.

This was brought home to me in the process of doing what so many fellow-septuagenarians must do:  Go through old boxes of papers and at least cull them down so that their children will not someday have the burden of doing so.

In 2005, I was involved in the struggle to update the Montgomery County Public Schools' health education curriculum to include accurate information on sexual orientation and gender identity.  When MCPS was blind-sided by a lawsuit that derailed the process, there was a huge amount of public debate of the matter, particularly in the pages of the Gazette, which provided a full and fair forum for this debate.  That debate, I believe, helped the public make up its collective mind by listening to all sides, and similarly helped public officials -- both elected and appointed -- to figure out the best course of action.  As it eventually did, adopting a far more comprehensive curriculum that followed the wisdom of every mainstream American medical and mental health professional association. See here.

Below is a picture (as I note above, the Gazette archive is no longer available) of the May 25, 2005 Community Forum/Letters to the Editor page.  Would that there were such widely distributed venues today.

P.S.:  The letter copied below is from May 15, 2005 page. It provides what I would like to think is a quaint, if disturbing, outlook.  Ten years later, for example, the United States Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to bar same sex couples from marrying.  But it appears that this sort of mode of thought is still active in many places, and even in the McConnell-stacked Supreme Court.