And I would bet that people with experience managing political campaigns could confirm this theory. I believe James Craig (and his campaign strategy team), felt he had a better chance at winning if he was able to position himself as our protector against a right wing extremist, rather than as a mediocre white man with a lukewarm voting record, running against a woke liberal PTA mom. Compared to me, James looks like the right leaning representative. I believe JCTA and their high-paid consultants came up with this strategy to split the vote in order to strengthen their campaign messaging, and James went along with it, possibly committing election fraud in the process. Why do I think this?
Because they’ve done it before.
Now that the US supreme court has ruled that Alabama must create a second majority Black congressional district in compliance with Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, does that open the door for other cases and examples to gain traction? Could Kentucky be next?
If it can be argued that gerrymandering has been taking place at the state level, what about at the local level?
For example, did a JCPS Board Member* put his thumb on the scales of the redistricting of the school board seats for his own personal advantage in his 2022 reelection campaign?
*Full disclosure, I ran against James and lost in 2022, so what I’m about to share with you may sound like sour grapes. But please do your own research because the evidence is there. My candidacy is what afforded me proximity to the situation to be able to gather evidence, call them out, and catch them in the act of covering it up. This lead is just the tip of the iceberg.
Could he (and others advising and enabling him) have tampered with an election? I think the evidence speaks for itself. The real question becomes motive.
Watch the April 29, 2022 JCPS board meeting where they voted on redistricting their boundaries due to population shifts found in the 2020 Census.
I’ve posted the entire meeting here, but I’ve queued it up to the 3:36:30 mark where the entire board discussion and vote takes place:
https://www.youtube.com/live/6rszs2LFVqA?feature=share&t=12990
Key takeaways:
In the video, you will note that 3 of the other 6 board members stated that they preferred the consulting firm’s proposed scenario 2, but they could live with Scenario 1. Even though others, like Diane Porter and Chris Kolb, saw the greatest population shifts since the last Census, they and others did not feel as strongly about which of these options to adopt, so they did not push the issue.
- James Craig made prior arrangements with the Board Chair to make the motion to adopt scenario 1.
- If James hadn’t made the first move and shown his passion for scenario 1, there is no doubt scenario 1 would not have passed.
What’s so special about Scenario 1 that caused James Craig to get in touch with the board chair ahead of time to make sure she knew to call on him first? I watch a lot of board meetings and I can’t remember this ever having been done before, at least not by him. Why does he care so much when his district was least impacted by the population shifts?
Here’s one even more curious fact about the redistricting:
- Scenario 1 moved two precincts in the bottom left quadrant into James Craig’s district, District 3. The other scenarios, including scenario 2, did not.
Here’s another curious fact:
- Steve Ullum lives in one of those two precincts that ended up being moved into District 3. Steve Ullum is the outspoken anti-mask, anti-CRT, book banning “Let them learn” liberty caucus candidate who ran for that seat and lost in November. Scenario 1 changed the district Steve lived in, making him eligible to run for a school board seat that year, instead of waiting another two years to run against Sarah McIntosh, the district where he lived before the board approved Scenario 1.
When I asked James Craig why he made that motion at a public gathering for Kate Turner last year, he and Board member McIntosh deflected and LIED. WHY?
Please watch this 16-minute video I compiled, including key clips from the board meeting above, which I shared during last year’s campaign.
I am quite certain I caught these same individuals tampering with the JCPS tax initiative that was on the ballot in 2020. That’s another story for another day. I’m still pulling those receipts together.