Who are the candidates that signed the Moms for Liberty Pledge in Rhode Island?
The Washington County Chapter of Moms for Liberty has
been busy collecting candidates up and down the ballot in Rhode Island,
challenging for elected positions on at least one school board, two town
councils, Rhode Island’s House of Representatives, and the United
States Senate. 
This is NOT part of their agenda
In all likelihood, many other candidates would find themselves
aligned with the values of Moms for Liberty, labeled a far-right extremist group by the Southern
Poverty Law Center. So far only ten nine Rhode Island
candidates have signed onto the Moms for Liberty Pledge.
What
are parental rights? Lauren Gambino offers a decent explanation
in The Guardian, writing:
“Republicans
are leaning into the education culture wars, championing policies that they say
will give parents more of a say in their children’s education, from the
subjects they are taught to the books they read, with hopes of appealing to
suburban voters who recoiled from the party during the Trump years. In their
telling, Republicans are the defenders of America’s schoolchildren whose
education is threatened by a leftwing ideology that promotes activism, racial
history, and gender fluidity over academic outcomes.
“But
critics and many educators say conservatives are using the term “parents’
rights” as a guise to advance a right-wing education agenda that undermines
public schools, whitewashes American history, and marginalizes LGBTQ+ students.”
The
Washington County Chapter of Moms for Liberty has been vocal against trans
rights and supported the banning of books from school libraries. They have also
opposed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives.
The ten nine
Rhode Island candidates who have signed the pledge so far are:
Diane
Tefft –
Candidate for Chariho Regional School District
In
a two-way race, Tefft, a Republican, will go head-to-head with Democrat Gregory
Avedisian. Tefft’s name is misspelled on the Moms for Liberty website.
Louise
Dinsmore –
Candidate for Chariho Regional School District
Louise
Dinsmore is a co-chair of Chariho Forgotten Taxpayers, a conservative
group that hosted Nicole Solas, a Rhode Island anti-trans parents rights
activist and a senior fellow with the Independent Women's Forum, created to promote a
“conservative alternative to feminist tenets.” “Who am I really?” asked
Dinsmore at the Solas event, “I'm a vocal taxpayer and Richmond resident
concerned about how my tax dollars are being spent by the town and the school
district.” Though Dinsmore plays up her fiscal conservatism, signing the Moms
for Liberty Pledge and hosting Nicole Solas shows that she is also interested
in the culture war.
Dinsmore’s candidacy for a seat on the Chariho Regional School District is interesting considering that the co-chair of Chariho Forgotten Taxpayers, Clay Johnson, (a #ParentsUnitedRI candidate) was illegally placed on the School District after a resignation, and was only replaced with the rightful winner of the election after a court battle and Rhode Island Supreme Court decision.
[See: With ties to hate groups, #ParentsUnitedRI offers slate of
conservative extremists for local office and Conflicting laws leave contested Chariho School Committee
vacancy up to RI Supreme Court]
Anthony
D’Ellena –
Candidate for Narragansett Town Council
D’Ellena
is the 2022 Field Organizer for Rhode Island Republican Party and
Vice Chairman of the Narragansett Republican Town Committee. He
has testified at the State House in favor of
Representative Patricia Morgan’s anti-trans legislation.
D’Ellena’s
Twitter is a hotbed of inflammatory right-wing rhetoric.
Catherine
Canavan –
Candidate for Narragansett Town Council
Canavan
is an anti-wind turbine activist spreading the false narrative that wind
turbines kill whales.
Helen
Sheehan
Though
she signed the Moms for Liberty Pledge and currently serves on the Richmond
Town Council, Sheehan is not running for re-election.
Jasmin
Roy –
Candidate for Hopkinton Town Council Town
Roy
is the Vice-Chair of the Washington County Chapter of Moms for Liberty and she
testified at the State House in strong support of Representative Patricia
Morgan’s anti-trans bills.
Jessica
Drew-Day –
Candidate for State Representative, District 33
Drew-Day
is running against Representative Carol Hagen McEntee, a Democrat. She is
the recently elected president of the South Kingstown Republican Party.
Though she signed the Moms for Liberty Pledge, Drew-Day is on the right side of
the Bonnet Shores Fire District issue.
Lisa
Marie Leavitt –
Candidate for State Representative, District 31
Republican
Marie Leavitt is challenging Democratic incumbent Julie Casimiro in
District 31.
Examples
of Marie Leavitt’s attitude towards the LGBTQ community and book banning can be
seen on her Facebook campaign page:
Patricia
Morgan –
Candidate for United States Senate
Both
of the Republican candidates challenging Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for his
Senate seat have signed the Moms for Liberty pledge.
Representative
Patricia Morgan is the primary sponsor of anti-trans legislation in the Rhode
Island House of Representatives. This year she disrupted the committee hearing
her bill by loudly talking during public testimony. [See: Representative Morgan disrupted the committee hearing of her
bill]
Though
she claims that her bills are designed to protect children, during her
testimony she said, “I wish we could say it till 26, but I'm at least hoping
that we can say till 18 because we shouldn't be allowing it.”
Raymond
McKay –
Candidate for United States Senate
Both
of the Republican candidates challenging Senator Sheldon Whitehouse for his
Senate seat have signed the Moms for Liberty pledge.
Though
McKay portrays himself as a fiscal conservative with strong views on
immigration, signing the Moms for Liberty pledge shows that he is not immune to
the allure of being anti-LGBTQ and banning books.
As
of this writing, the Washington County Chapter of Moms for Liberty has not
officially endorsed any of the above candidates. Instead, these candidates
voluntarily signed onto the Moms for Liberty Pledge, signaling their support
for the values and goals of the Moms for Liberty organization.
There
are parallels and connections here to another right-wing effort to use
“parental rights” as a wedge issue in local politics. Two years ago I wrote about #ParentsUnitedRI, a right-wing hate
group that stood against LGBTQ rights, opposed the teaching of history through
any kind of racial lens, and fought against COVID-19 precautions throughout the
pandemic. In that piece, I showed that the group had ties to overt white supremacist
hate groups like CORR (Citizens Organized to Restore Rights)
and Super Happy Fun America (SHFA).
Some
of the same people involved with that effort have signed onto the Moms for
Liberty Pledge, including Representative Patrica Morgan, Jessica Drew-Day, and
Helen Sheehan. This latest effort is just a recast of the same old idea:
conservative operatives tearing a page out of the right-wing playbook and
trying to take power through town councils and school committees. It’s
important to know who you’re voting for.
STEVE
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