Thursday June 8, 2023
You Cannot Lose by Running | Summer Reading for Spotsy's School Board | New Dominion Podcast | Juneteenth
CANDIDATE PROFILE: “You Cannot Lose by Running”
Another independent is trying to change the rules of politics and elections. It’s an uphill battle, but Elizabeth Melson is fine with that.
Drive just west of Fredericksburg along Route 3, and between the entrance to Chancellorsville Battlefield and the junction with State Highway 29 one passes through some of the most fecund lands east of the Appalachians.
Along the way you’ll pass Salubria, a Georgian mansion associated with Daniel Boone and his wife Rebecca, near where they settled in the late 1750s after fleeing the Cherokee war in North Carolina. Boone worked at Salubria hauling tobacco from the estate to Fredericksburg.
You’ll also pass lots and lots of farms, meaning Boone would probably feel not-too-out-of-place even today in this land near the center of the new 28th Senate District, Indeed. this stretch is representative of this largely rural district as a whole, which has Warrenton to its north, Orange to its south, and Culpeper almost squarely in the middle. The district includes the large ex-urban community Lake of the Woods to its east, and stretches west beyond Madison to the mountains.
It’s also home to Elizabeth Melson. During the day she runs Farm-to-Table solutions, a marketing company that helps farmers, artisans, and chefs promote their products. She’s also heavily involved in helping to promote farmers’ markets in Warrenton and Haymarket.
A 2018 article about her in the Fauquier Times called her an “agricultural dynamo.”
She’s looking to add another title - Giant Slayer.
An independent candidate for state senate in District 28, Melson knows she’s facing a tall order.
Long-time state senator Bryce Reeves holds the Republican nomination in the 28th, and a war chest approaching $650,000 according to VPAP. Melson, by contrast, will do well if by November she cracks $50,000 in funds.
So why do it if the odds of winning are near zero?
“People deserve a choice,” Melson tells F2S.
Like a growing number of Americans, Melson has become frustrated with the political parties, which are “more focused on gaining power of the three branches in Richmond” than in solving constituents’ problems, she said.
This description unwittingly fits almost word-for-word with a recent book about political independents called the Independent Voter, which is co-authored by Omar Ali of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
I previously wrote about this book in December for the Free Lance-Star. Ali told me at that time:
“Independents make up 40% to 50% of the population …. They are not people in the middle, and they’re not closet Democrats or Republicans…. Instead, they’re people tied together by a shared concern that there’s something wrong with the partisan control of the political process.”
Melson has seen this problem play out in a number of areas that directly affect her and those people her business helps support. For example, in 2018 two pieces of legislation (HB 825 and SB 962) were introduced that could potentially have ended the work-around that many farmers used to consume unpasteurized milk. (For the full backstory, see this piece at newsleader.com.)
Melson saw this as a move to limit consumer choice, and help monied interests that powerbrokers are beholden to. She was heartened, however, when an uprising of farmers was inspirational in ultimately having the bills killed.
Her sense that lawmakers have sacrificed finding solutions for holding on to power is what’s driving her run.
And she believes that finding solutions is key to getting us out of the hyper-partisanship we find ourselves in.
Asked about the book-banning movement that has ensnared Spotsylvania County, and is rearing its head in Orange and in Madison, Melson agrees that she is “concerned about content.” But she’s also concerned about banning books, “especially books based on history.” So she stops short of taking books off shelves, instead favoring solutions that limit access to titles if parents so choose, and allowing other parents who don’t object to allow their children to read the books.
She takes a similar path with school choice. Her own child has been home schooled, attended private school, and public school. She favors school choice, but not at the expense of the public school system.
So instead of taking state and local funds and giving them to parents as vouchers, she prefers using tax breaks to help parents educate their children where they choose.
Building a coalition
Melson doesn’t blink at the assertion that she faces a near impossible task in beating Reeves. He has name recognition, money, and a track record of legislative success.
But Melson feels she’s tapping into something deeper. Something more than simply giving people a choice at the polls. (When she entered the race, there was no Democratic candidate - that has since changed.)
She’s working to change a system that for her, and many more, simply doesn’t work to find solutions that matter to the people in her district.
So she runs. And if she loses?
“You cannot lose by running,” she says.
She has a point. And a growing sector of the populace is with her.
Enough to win the 28th? Probably not. This time.
But in politics, as in life, change is the only constant.
COMMENTARY: Spotsy’s poorly educated school board and unqualified superintendent need to do some summer reading
We recommend Be Free or Die
by Martin Davis
To hear white evangelical Christians and hyper-partisan Republicans tell it, America’s schools and school boards are dominated by “woke,” leftist, Democratic (read “socialist” by their definition) ideologues. Works well for cheap campaign slogans - but it fails to reflect reality.
A 2017 study by the Brookings Institute that surveyed more than 5,000 democratically elected school board members across 49 states showed just the opposite.
Almost half of school board members were moderate or nonpartisan. Just 19% were liberal, and 31% were conservative.
There is no comparable study to show where we are today, but given the current revolt against classical education, it’s not hard to imagine that the portion of conservative school board members has grown. (That may well be changing, however, as the passions that pushed them into power in 2022 are waning, and they are beginning to lose local races.)
There’s no doubt where Spotsylvania’s school board sits - somewhere just to the right of Mussolini.
As I noted in the May 23 issue, while issues around sexuality are what energized voters to put Lisa Phelps, April Gillespie, Kirk Twigg, and Rahbi Abuismail in power, their Supreme Leader Mark Taylor is now threatening to expand the battle lines.
“The inclusion of sexually explicit content is not the only basis upon which materials may be contested,” he recently wrote. “We must clarify, modernize and maintain other pathways for challenges in our policy.”
Critical Race Theory and a white-washing of American history are almost sure to be among the other topics that Taylor wants to use to take still more books off bookshelves.
After all, ensuring white history dominates students’ educations is at the center of Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s push to Make Virginia White Again.
Ever the optimist, I believe we could cut this issue off at the pass - as all those white cowboys did in the movies of old - with just a bit of education. To wit, a summer reading recommendation for the school board and Taylor.
Be Free or Die: The Amazing Story of Robert Smalls' Escape from Slavery to Union Hero
Illiterate, enslaved, and fearful his wife and child would be sold away, South Carolinian Robet Smalls did what the confederates couldn’t have imagined. He took control of a steam boat, sailed through Charleston Harbor, the reached the Union blockade to deliver the ship to the Union army.
That his scheme as not discovered, or stopped by any of several sentries who were in position to sound an alarm that something was off, or was blown out of the water by confederate canons and then by Union canons which didn’t immediately recognize Smalls are friend is the stuff of legend.
His life was the stuff of American Dreams, and the harsh reality of slavery in America.
Despite serving in the South Carolina house of representatives and senate, and then five terms in the U.S. Congress. Despite founding the Republican Party in South Carolina. Despite being a leading advocate for bringing Black Americans into the Union Army. Despite providing the Union navy not only with a valuable ship and its canons but valuable information as well that led to an assault on Charleston.
Despite all this and so much more, Smalls lived his life as a second-class citizen, always aware at any moment violence could end his life, and that economic opportunities he should of had were denied him.
This book, however, paints no juvenile picture of slavery. Among the Union soldiers and Northern politicians Smalls moved among and worked for, some were as dismissive of him and any white Southern planter.
When news of Smalls’ feat with the Planter (the ship Smalls stole) hit the New York papers, there was expressed doubt that a black man could have masterminded such a daring operation.
When he should have earned a princely sum in prize money for turning a confederate vessel over to the Union, politicians conspired to significantly short-change him.
And too often, he was addressed in patronizing terms. Even by President Lincoln.
The history of slavery in America is complex, multilayered, and very poorly understood by most Americans. (It will be even less-well understood under the new history and social studies standards Gov. Youngkin pushed through.)
Smalls’ story reflects that complexity. And it doesn’t take much to see from his story how the systemic and orchestrated effort to deprive Smalls his due - as well as what was due every other hard working formerly enslaved person - crippled Blacks’ ability to build wealth throughout the late 19th century, and well into the 20th century.
One wonders how reading this book would make any white student feel “guilty.”
This is the hard reality of the country that we are now entrusted with caring for and advancing to the next generation.
There’s nothing “exceptional” about a governing system that destroyed an entire group of people for nothing more than their skin having a deeper pigmentation.
There is, however, something exceptional about a country that can face that past and grow stronger from it. (To see what an exceptional country does when confronting the genuine horrors of its past, look to Germany. In this arena, Americans are in no wise “exceptional.”)
Be Free or Die helps us all do that.
But only if we allow people to read it, and dare open our minds to the truth of our past.
This school board and Taylor could do that. But they aren’t likely to do so.
And why? The answers lie in understanding why those who surrounded Smalls couldn’t treat him as an equal or learn from him, either. They couldn’t tolerate the thought that someone not like them - whether by race or world view or culture - could embody the ideals of exceptionalism better than they.
And that reason is precisely why Taylor, the four majority members of the school board, and no one less than the governor himself, are committed to making sure your young adults never learn it, either.
THE NEW DOMINION PODCAST: What Precisely Is the Value of Education?
Governor Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) eliminates the college education requirement for thousands of Virginia state jobs. Is this a bad thing? Or is it a market reaction to the value of both a high school and college education? Marty and Shaun hash out the details.
Juneteenth in Spotsylvania
Over the past decade, Juneteenth has grown in the public imagination. What was an unknown event even to many Black people 10 years ago, is now growing into a celebration that is rightfully taking its place along July 4 in the pantheon of American celebrations of freedom.
Learn more about Juneteenth and its history from this National Geographic story.
This year, one of the region’s largest celebrations will be held at the John J. Wright Educational and Cultural Center Museum in Spotsylvania County. Scan the QR code in the image above, or visit the website, to learn more and to join in the activities.
Invite People to Join F2S
Big things are afoot with F2S, with details coming in the next month.
Invite your friends to join our rapidly growing audience. It’s as simple as passing along this link (https://thelocalburg.substack.com/p/welcome-to-f2s), or the following QR code, and asking folks to sign up.
Excellent piece of writing and a great reading recommendation. It is terribly sad that Taylor et al will have absolutely nothing to do with either your writing or your recommendation.