{"id":188287,"date":"2023-09-27T07:27:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-27T11:27:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=188287"},"modified":"2023-09-27T07:35:37","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T11:35:37","slug":"cultural-marxist-democrats-now-routinely-using-lawfare-like-this-against-conservative-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=188287","title":{"rendered":"

RED ALERT!<\/span> Cultural Marxist Democrats Now Routinely Using Lawfare Like This Against Conservative Candidates<\/span><\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Virginia Democrat Used Gov\u2019t Position To Play Role In Reprimand Of Her Conservative Opponent, Records Reveal<\/h1>\n

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A conservative history teacher is running for office. After a Democrat operative complained to the school about her tweets, it coordinated with her political opponent on the investigation.<\/h3>\n

By Luke Rosiak
\nTHE DAILY WIRE<\/p>\n

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Virginia Senate candidate Stella Pekarsky. Campaign website<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A Virginia school board member seeking a promotion to the state legislature may have used her position in an attempt to sabotage her election opponent \u2014 a teacher in the school district she presides over, records show.<\/p>\n

Democrat Stella Pekarsky, who currently serves on the Fairfax County School Board, was personally involved in discussions over whether to punish Julie Perry, a history teacher who is running against her in this year\u2019s District 36 Senate race, according to\u00a0emails and calendar entries<\/a> obtained by The Daily Wire through a Freedom of Information Act request.<\/p>\n

The records show a Pekarsky donor sent Centreville High School Principal Chad Lehman a complaint objecting to conservative social media posts the history teacher made as part of her campaign. Lehman forwarded the complaint to the school board\u2019s Assistant Superintendent Penny Gros, who said she would seek guidance about what to do. That guidance appears to have come from none other than Pekarsky, and it was followed by a memo reprimanding Perry and threatening her job.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour behavior negatively impacts the goals of this department and others,\u201d the reprimand said, citing the campaign posts. \u201cAny action that brings the school system into disrepute may be just cause for dismissal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts said the conduct of Pekarsky and taxpayer-funded employees could constitute serious misconduct intended to impact the election, saying it is improper for individual board members to be involved in the discipline of specific teachers \u2014 much less their own campaign opponents.<\/p>\n

The initial complaint came on May 7, not long after Perry announced that she was running for the same seat as Pekarsky, from Robert Rigby, a substitute teacher who is close with Pekarsky. Rigby wrote to Principal Lehman to say that he had filed a complaint with Child Protective Services (CPS) against Perry, citing a social media post she made regarding scientific research that found that autistic children are especially prone to transgenderism.<\/p>\n

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\"Stella<\/p>\n

Stella Pekarsky with Robert Rigby \/ Facebook<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lehman forwarded the complaint to his supervisor, Gros, who said she would \u201cfollow up tomorrow after getting some guidance.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, CPS alerted the school that it had dismissed the complaint as unfounded. But soon after, a second complaint was made asking the school itself to take action.<\/p>\n

That complaint came on May 11 at 3:15 p.m., when Vanessa Hall \u2013 a local Democrat activist who was\u00a0appointed<\/a>\u00a0to a sex-ed committee by the school board \u2013 emailed Lehman pointing to Perry\u2019s \u201cnumerous social media posts that are homophobic, transphobic, and deeply hurtful to the entire community.\u201d It said that the tweet \u2014 in which Perry said she had personally seen how trangender ideology affected an autistic student \u2014 showed that \u201cshe is using students for her political gain.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lehman again forwarded the email to Gros, and calendar entries obtained by The Daily Wire indicate that she within an hour was meeting with Pekarsky to discuss Perry. Gros\u2019 calendar shows a \u201cPhone Call: Stella (re: Julie Perry)\u201d for 4:00 to 4:30 that day, according to emails and calendar entries. And at 4:29, Gros replied to Lehman that she was ready to discuss how to proceed, saying, \u201cI am available if you are.\u201d<\/p>\n

A FOIA request for references to Perry in Gros\u2019 account showed no evidence that she consulted anyone else other than Pekarsky for \u201cguidance\u201d on the matter.<\/p>\n

The next week, Lehman summoned Perry to a meeting in which Hall\u2019s complaint and the fact that a CPS complaint was filed were used as evidence that she had brought the school system into \u201cdisrepute,\u201d even though CPS dismissed the complaint, according to a summary memo that Lehman placed in Perry\u2019s personnel file.<\/p>\n

The reprimand ordered Perry to avoid any posts on social media that reference her teaching position.<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving forward, you must avoid social media posts that draw a connection to \u2026 your role as a teacher at Centreville High School,\u201d it said. (Pekarsky\u2019s own website\u00a0says she is a teacher<\/a>, even though, according to public records, she does not have a\u00a0teaching license<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Pam Kirby, a former member of the Scottsdale, Arizona, school board who now leads the Arizona Coalition for School Board Members, said it would be abnormal for an individual school board member to be involved in the discipline case of a specific employee.<\/p>\n

School board members have \u201cno authority\u201d as individuals, \u201cthey only have authority as a body\u201d through votes, she told The Daily Wire. \u201cIt\u2019s abusing your role as a school board member, whether there\u2019s an election or not. That authority is given to the superintendent, and the board manages the superintendent,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0governance manual<\/a>\u00a0outlining the role of the Fairfax County School board members requires members to agree to \u201cdelegate authority for the administration of the schools to the Superintendent\u201d and \u201crefrain from using the board position for personal or partisan gain and avoid any conflict of interest or the appearance of impropriety.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI will respect the confidentiality of privileged information and make no individual decisions or commitments that might compromise the board or administration,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

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\"Virginia<\/p>\n

Virginia Senate candidate Stella Pekarsky. Source: Fairfax County Public Schools<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The board\u2019s\u00a0Conflict of Interest Policy<\/a>\u00a0further states that \u201ca School Board member shall disqualify himself or herself from participating in any transaction on behalf of the school system if he or she has a personal interest,\u201d noting that \u201cviolation of the State and Local Government Conflict of Interests Act, which is the basis of this policy, may result in enforcement action by the Commonwealth Attorney, including but not limited to criminal prosecution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Virginia\u00a0law<\/a>\u00a0says a public official may not \u201cuse for his own economic benefit or that of another party confidential information that he has acquired by reason of his public position\u201d or \u201cuse his public position to retaliate or threaten to retaliate against any person for expressing views on matters of public concern.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the Fairfax County Public Schools rulebook, it says that a dispute over how policy applies to an employee personnel matter would only reach the school board after\u00a0six layers of appeals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Violations of rules for board members can result in the \u201cremoval from any leadership or committee positions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pekarsky, who is squaring off against Perry for the Senate seat representing western Fairfax County with early voting starting this week, acknowledged in a statement that the CPS call by her donor was a \u201cmisuse\u201d of the CPS system, but claimed she did not know about it. \u201cI have recused myself from anything to do with any internal school system process involving her,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A FOIA request of Pekarsky\u2019s emails including Perry\u2019s name showed no email saying she recused herself from anything<\/p>\n

Pekarsky did not deny the \u201cPhone Call: Stella (re: Julie Perry)\u201d immediately following the CPS complaint, and did not explain the records or what would have been discussed if not the CPS complaint, instead suggesting that her opponent is a Nazi.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for FCPS defended the contact between the school and Pekarsky. \u201cThere is an expectation that all Fairfax County Public Schools regional area superintendents keep their magisterial school board members informed about matters that could be of community concern at any schools under that member\u2019s purview,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cSuch updates are informational.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Karen Hilz, a former school board member in Franklin County, Virginia, who has run trainings for school board members, said \u201cThe pecking order is assistant superintendent, superintendent, board. So why wasn\u2019t it elevated to the superintendent to inform the board? \u2026 And did they reach out solely to [Pekarsky] or inform all board members? If it\u2019s for information purposes you inform all school board members.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said the conduct by political activists, FCPS staff, and Pekarsky was \u201cwithout a doubt election interference.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously there\u2019s a relationship there, is what it seems to me, and they were collaborating on what to do with an opponent, which is totally inappropriate,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Perry said a successful CPS complaint would mean \u201cthey would have fired me immediately, ripped my teachers license away from me, I would have never gotten another teaching job, and there\u2019s a chance I would have gone to jail,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The school district initially attempted to conceal the identities of both Hall and Rigby under FOIA, before conceding that it had no justification for withholding Hall\u2019s name. It continued to conceal Rigby\u2019s name, saying CPS complaints are private under the law.<\/p>\n

But Hayden Fisher, a lawyer who is running for another state Senate seat as a Republican, noted that\u00a0Virginia law<\/a>\u00a0also says a complainant\u2019s identity can be unmasked if the complaint was \u201cin bad faith or with malicious intent.\u201d Representing Perry, he made that argument in court.<\/p>\n

On September 8, a Fairfax County judge\u00a0compelled CPS<\/a>\u00a0to provide the name of the complainant for his review. The judge said he would investigate whether the person is tied to Pekarsky, and if he found connections, the complaint would likely be presumed to be malicious, Fisher said.<\/p>\n

Perry deleted the tweet after only an hour, meaning it was seen by few people and the two complainants were likely working together, Fisher said.<\/p>\n

Public records reviewed by The Daily Wire show that Hall, who emailed a complaint to the principal, is one of four officers of a Democrat activist group called\u00a04 Public Education<\/a>. Another officer of that group is Rigby, raising the possibility that Rigby filed the CPS complaint, with Hall following up with a school-specific complaint when the CPS complaint did not work.<\/p>\n

Rigby last year served as an advisor to the Pride Liberation Project, which said it would\u00a0harbor minors<\/a>\u00a0who wanted to run away from their parents, saying, \u201cIn the event of you needing to leave your home, we can provide you with emergency housing from a supportive, Queer friendly adult.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rigby acknowledged to The Daily Wire that he made the CPS complaint.<\/p>\n

Rigby has donated more than\u00a0$9,000<\/a>\u00a0to Virginia Democrats since 2018, including more than $800 to Pekarsky. He donated to Pekarsky\u2019s Senate campaign three days after Pekarsky spoke to the assistant superintendent, and one day before the principal summoned Perry to threaten her with discipline.<\/p>\n

That means the judge may rule the complaint malicious. But that might not come until after the election, with voting beginning September 22 and ending November 7.<\/p>\n

Perry said \u201cthere have to be consequences\u201d that punish election interference.<\/p>\n

___
\nVirginia Democrat Used Gov\u2019t Position To Play Role In Reprimand Of Her Conservative Opponent, Records Reveal<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Virginia Democrat Used Gov\u2019t Position To Play Role In Reprimand Of Her Conservative Opponent, Records Reveal<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=188287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}