{"id":12908,"date":"2020-05-25T19:13:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-25T23:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12908"},"modified":"2020-05-25T19:52:40","modified_gmt":"2020-05-25T23:52:40","slug":"who-signed-the-anti-austin-letter-and-who-did-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=12908","title":{"rendered":"Who Signed the Anti-Austin Letter \u2013 and Who Did Not"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s common for elected officials to endorse candidates in school board races. What\u2019s decidedly uncommon is for elected officials to issue anti-endorsements \u2013 in essence, telling voters NOT to vote for a candidate. But that\u2019s what just happened minutes ago, as a collection of MoCo county officials and state lawmakers sent an open letter<\/a> opposing a school board candidate to Maryland Matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Folks, just when you think you have seen it all \u2013 you have not!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The target of these elected officials is first-time school board candidate Stephen Austin, who is running for an open at-large seat. Austin says on his website<\/a> that he is \u201ccommitted to keeping kids in neighborhood schools\u201d and has opposed MCPS\u2019s school boundary analysis. Representatives of One Montgomery attacked him<\/a> in Maryland Matters for allegedly \u201cfomenting fear and division\u201d over school boundaries, an accusation he has denied<\/a>. A large group of elected officials are now urging voters to reject him, writing<\/a>, \u201cThere are good choices to represent all perspectives in the upcoming race for Board of Education, At-Large. Stephen Austin is not one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many elected officials have signed the letter but many have not. Here is the list of signers and non-signers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

County Officials Who Signed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

County Executive Marc Elrich
Council Member Gabe Albornoz (At-Large)
Council Member Tom Hucker (D-5)
Council Member Will Jawando (At-Large)
Council Member Nancy Navarro (D-4)
Council Member Craig Rice (D-2)
Council Member Hans Riemer (At-Large)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

County Officials Who Did Not Sign<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council Member Andrew Friedson (D-1)
Council Member Evan Glass (At-Large) – Note: Glass endorsed Lynne Harris<\/a>.
Council Member Sidney Katz (D-3) – Note: Katz endorsed Sunil Dasgupta<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Senators Who Signed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Cheryl Kagan (D-17)
Senator Nancy King (D-39)
Senator Ben Kramer (D-19)
Senator Will Smith (D-20)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Senators Who Did Not Sign<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Senator Brian Feldman (D-15)
Senator Susan Lee (D-16)
Senator Jeff Waldstreicher (D-18)
Senator Craig Zucker (D-14)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegates Who Signed<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegate Lorig Charkoudian (D-20)
Delegate Charlotte Crutchfield (D-19)
Delegate Bonnie Cullison (D-19)
Delegate Lesley Lopez (D-39)
Delegate Eric Luedtke (D-14)
Delegate David Moon (D-20)
Delegate Kirill Reznik (D-39)
Delegate Vaughn Stewart (D-19)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegates Who Did Not Sign<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Delegate Gabe Acevero (D-39)
Delegate Kumar Barve (D-17)
Delegate Al Carr (D-18)
Delegate Kathleen Dumais (D-15)
Delegate David Fraser-Hidalgo (D-15)
Delegate Jim Gilchrist (D-17)
Delegate Anne Kaiser (D-14)
Delegate Ariana Kelly (D-16)
Delegate Marc Korman (D-16)
Delegate Sara Love (D-16)
Delegate Julie Palakovich Carr (D-17)
Delegate Lily Qi (D-15)
Delegate Pam Queen (D-14)
Delegate Emily Shetty (D-18)
Delegate Jared Solomon (D-18)
Delegate Jheanelle Wilkins (D-20)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s noteworthy that not a single state legislator from Districts 15, 16 and 18 signed the letter. These districts are home to the wealthiest neighborhoods in the county and have the highest achieving high school clusters<\/a>. Austin lives in Bethesda and has raised most of his campaign funds from these areas. (More to come on that tomorrow.) These facts are probably not aligned in coincidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. It\u2019s common for elected officials to endorse candidates in school board races. What\u2019s decidedly uncommon is for elected officials to issue anti-endorsements \u2013 in essence, telling voters NOT to vote for a candidate. But that\u2019s what just happened minutes ago, as a collection of MoCo county officials and state lawmakers sent an … Continue reading Who Signed the Anti-Austin Letter \u2013 and Who Did Not<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,219],"tags":[1545,941,2338],"class_list":["post-12908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-board-of-education","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-school-board","tag-stephen-austin"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-3mc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12908"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12912,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12908\/revisions\/12912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}