Who are the candidates that signed the Moms for Liberty Pledge in Rhode Island?

It’s important to know who you’re voting for.

State Representative Patricia Morgan is running for United States Senate

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. 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.