Memo to Marie Biggs, a Democratic precinct chair in Collin County, Texas: You need to cease misrepresenting the nature of the recent election to the Collin College Board of Regents.
I returned home today after spending a couple of nights way and found a single-sheet flyer in my front door. It speaks to the need for Democrats to get out and vote for three candidates running for the board of regents: Megan Wallace, Scott Coleman and Stacey Donald.
“Turnout has been extremely low,” Biggs wrote in her note. “That means we have a chance t beat the MAGA Republicans on the Collin College board,” she wrote.
Hold on a second, Ms. Biggs! The college board is elected on non-partisan ballots. No one runs as a Democrat or a “MAGA Republican.” A regent or a candidate for the board can adhere to policies that tilt one way or the other.
However, to call on voters to “vote for the following Democrats” constitutes a gross misrepresentation of the election.
It reminds me of a ploy I witnessed in Amarillo in the late 1990s in the race for mayor, another non-partisan office. A candidate seeking to defeat incumbent Mayor Kel Seliger sent out literature asking “all good Republicans” to vote for her. I was editing an opinion page at the local newspaper and we called out Mary Alice Brittain for doing the same thing that Marie Biggs did this weekend. Brittain lost the race for mayor … and then disappeared.
Listen up, Ms. Biggs: Take care in characterizing these campaigns.