NASHUA, NH – Democratic candidate for governor and former Manchester Mayor Joyce Craig and current Nashua Mayor Jim Donchess have often joined together to tackle issues facing their respective cities. On Thursday they met on the steps of Nashua City Hall to call attention to a supporter of Republican candidate Kelly Ayotte, a member of the conservative Moms for Liberty movement, who appears in her campaign ads.
They were joined by former Manchester Central High School Principal John Rist and Manchester School Board member Sean Parr, a Democrat who ran for the District 20 State Senate seat before losing to Pat Long in the primary, to voice their concerns and reinforce their support for New Hampshire educators.
Brittany Leclair-Ping a Republican candidate for the NH Senate District 20, has been associated with the Free State Project and Moms for Liberty group. The group has 310 chapters in 48 states with 130,000 members.
Leclair-Ping appears in a television ad supporting Ayotte. The ad features Leclear-Ping putting responsibility for Manchester’s homelessness crisis on the former Mayor. She also described her tenure as “disastrous.”
In 2021 Governor Sununu signed the “Right to Freedom From Discrimination in Public Workplaces and Education” bill into law which contained language forbidding the teaching in public schools of “divisive concepts” related to race and gender. The law was a response to Republican fears of “critical race theory” in school curriculums. The law was overruled in federal court this year.
In response to that law Moms for Liberty offered a $500 to anyone who “catches” a teacher breaking the law, which is the foundation of Craig’s complaint. On Nov 12, 2021, the following was posted on the Moms4LibertyNH Twitter account: “We’ve got $500 for the person that first successfully catches a public school teacher breaking this law, Students, parents, teachers, school staff… We want to know! We will pledge anonymity if you want.”
Parr, drawing contrast with Ayotte and Leclair-Ping, said, “Joyce Craig is a supporter of our teachers, and she’ll fight hard for our students to make the best education possible. I reject any sort of rhetoric that puts our teachers in danger, that chills their teaching and makes them worried about going into the classroom.”
Mayor Donchess noted the law was overturned, and strongly objected to the association between Moms 4Liberty with the Ayotte campaign. Donchess said objecting to the teaching of things like our history of slavery, or of women not being able to vote is not “divisive,” it is part of a good public school education.
“We cannot have a thriving state without a good public school system and we need someone in the governor’s office who will support our public schools and not join people who are trying to destroy it,” said Donchess.
Craig called out Leclair-Ping for being “a member of Moms for Liberty, an organization that went viral for putting bounties on teachers. That is unacceptable.”
Describing her approach to education as governor she said, “Unlike my opponent, I believe public tax dollars should go toward public education, not private and religious schools. I oppose our state runaway voucher program that is costing taxpayers millions of dollars for private and religious schools,” Craig said.
“As governor, I will ask for Frank Edelblut’s resignation on day one because we need a Commissioner of Education who actually believes in public education and who won’t undermine our educators,” Craig said.
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