At least two dozen Democratic lawmakers in vulnerable districts across the country are refusing to say whether they would support another round of school closures under the guise of COVID-19.
At least 24 of the Democrat representatives across the nation who narrowly won their districts last November and are currently targeted by the GOP for the 2022 midterms refused to respond to The Federalist’s repeated requests for comment on school closures, which influential teachers organizations and the corporate media have already hinted at.
Instead of offering any affirmation that they will stand with parents fed up with school closures, the representatives all passed on the opportunity to declare whether they believe all schools should be open for in-person learning this fall, regardless of any pressure from the CDC, teachers unions, and the White House to do otherwise.
Among those who declined to answer are Arizona Rep. Tom O’Halleran, whose voters believe education is “the number one issue facing the state“; Iowa Rep. Cindy Axne, who supported Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s attempt to steal another House seat to lengthen her hold in the lower chamber; and Pennsylvania’s Conor Lamb, whom CNN’s Jake Tapper tried to give a leg up after meddling in his GOP opponent’s election decisions last fall.
Others include:
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- CA-10 – Josh Harder
- GA-06 – Lucy McBath
- GA-07 – Carolyn Bourdeaux
- IL-14 – Lauren Underwood
- IL-17 – Cheri Bustos
- ME-02 – Jared Golden
- MI-08 – Elissa Slotkin
- MI-11 – Haley Stevens
- MN-02 – Angie Craig
- NV-03 – Susie Lee
- NV-04 – Steven Horsford
- NY-19 – Antonio Delgado
- OR-04 – Peter A. DeFazio
- PA-07 – Susan Wild
- PA-08 – Matt Cartwright
- TX-07 – Lizzie Fletcher
- TX-32 – Colin Allred
- VA-02 – Elaine Luria
- VA-07 – Abigail Spanberger
- WA-08 – Kim Schrier
- WI-03 – Ron Kind
Many of these Democrats are in states with public schools that offered little-to-no in-person schooling in the 2020-2021 school year. According to Burbio’s school reopening tracker, blue states with districts controlled by shaky Democrats, such as California, Illinois, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington, kept their students home in front of digital devices for most of the school year. Even some of the most rural districts chose to accommodate only a simple hybrid learning schedule by the spring, which allowed kids limited days and times to be in the classroom instead of staring at a screen but still stopped short of a full-time return.
The Democrat representatives’ refusal to answer basic questions about following the real science on in-person learning could affect their re-election chances. Polling suggests parents in nearly every state have been outraged for months that their children did not receive adequate schooling for almost a full year, despite science on coronavirus transmission among children indicating that a return to classrooms was possible and necessary.
These 24 representatives were already facing a re-election battle that caught the attention of the National Republican Congressional Committee due to their districts’ lack of support for President Joe Biden or the fact that they barely slid by in 2020. Now they could face an even bigger battle to please their voters, who are ready for kids to go back to school.
