School Board hopefuls run on Moms group’s lie

Thursday, July 25, 2024

The local Moms For Liberty chapter and the two candidates it has endorsed have so little to offer our community that the fate of their whatever-it-takes campaign to retain control of the School Board now depends on a lie.

Their willingness to resort to such dishonesty in a desperate attempt to win an election next month should disgust all of us, given that these iron-fisted ideologues want to shape the future of our children’s education to fit their extreme partisan vision.

It might also be illegal – at least for the candidates, Rob MacCallum and Kevin McDonald – who are so consumed with their wrongheaded cause that they put their names to a blatant lie in a recently disseminated campaign ad.

But that’s all they’ve got.

One lie.

One ridiculously false claim that MacCallum’s District 3 opponent, incumbent Peggy Jones, doesn’t want to protect girls’ sports, locker rooms and restrooms in our schools.

One last-gasp, now-or-never attack on Jones, who dutifully chose principle over political expedience and courageously stood alone against the shameless, Moms-promoting publicity stunt brought to the dais in May by Jackie Rosario, the group’s most devoted puppet.

And they continue to spread their lie via social media, group text messages, email blasts and campaign literature, ignoring Florida Statute 104.271 (2), which prohibits candidates from making – “with actual malice” – false statements about an opposing candidate.

They do so even after being warned that the law states: If an “aggrieved candidate” files a complaint and the Florida Elections Commission determines the opponent is guilty, a civil penalty of up to $5,000 shall be assessed.

For those who don’t know: The U.S. Supreme Court has defined “actual malice” as knowingly false or with reckless disregard for the truth.

Both MacCallum and McDonald, though, continued to stand by their claims last week, despite indisputable audio-video evidence that proves they’re not being truthful about Jones’ reasons for opposing a nothing-of-substance resolution Rosario placed before the board at its May 20 meeting.