Williamson County neighbors:
Jared Sullivan here. Please go vote today!
This election really matters. Some kooks are running for school-board seats and other local and state offices, and we should do our best to ensure we have sane representation.
Here’s one mildly confusing thing you might encounter at the polls: you’ll be asked whether you want a GOP or Democratic ballot. This partisan ballot only concerns the state- and federal-level primary races. No matter which party you vote for in the primary, you’ll get the same general-election Williamson County ballot.
(Here’s the Democratic sample ballot; here’s the GOP.)
Someone called me today because they were confused about whether they could vote against Marsha Blackburn in the GOP governor primary and vote against Elliott Franklin for the D-10 school-board seat. And I assured them, Yes, you can do that. Or you can pull a Democratic ballot, as I did, and still vote against the Moms for Liberty cranks running for school board.
ANYWAY! HERE ARE MY CANDIDATE RECOMMENDATIONS
I started this newsletter in response to the Covenant massacre, and I like to think that gun reform could one day enjoy support from both parties. In that (naive) spirit of bipartisanism, I do my best to give credit to sane-ish GOP candidates, like Sam Whitson, whenever there’s one on the ballot, as infrequently as that is these days. I also believe that our democracy would be healthier (that is, not teetering on becoming a neo-fascist constitutional dictatorship) if the GOP wasn’t actively embracing anti-intellectualism, Christian nationalism, presidential cult worship, and a whole smattering of generally Big Stupid ideas.
Alas, that is not the case this election cycle!
So I’d vote for the Democrats straight down the ballot for the Williamson County Commission, the Williamson County School Board, and all state races. The two exceptions are the independents running for school board, Cory Martin (D-8) and Kristi Bidinger (D-6).
You can see my full list of candidate recommendations here.
And, in case you missed it, here’s my post about why Elliott Franklin, a former Moms for Liberty blogger who follows neo-Nazi Nicholas Fuentes on Twitter, would be a particularly bad choice for the D-10 school-board seat. This opinion is widespread! The outgoing Republican D-10 board member, Eric Welch, scorched Franklin’s ass in a Facebook post in which he endorsed Franklin’s Democratic opponent, Jennifer Parker Konyn.
FWIW Randy Allen, the GOP D-2 school-board candidate, seems no less batty; he states on his website, “Schools should not be laboratories for social experimentation or political indoctrination.” But — shocker — he cites no examples of what the heck he’s talking about, because — shocker — Williamson County Schools are not laboratories for social experimentation or political indoctrination. He just wants to ensure literal seven-day creationism is included in all science textbooks, I presume.
Anyway, go vote, then cross your fingers.