Court Dismisses Baseless School Board Recall Cases

Failed Demagogue, Ian Prior, Nearly Silent in Defeat

From the start, everyone – Democrats, Independents, and even some Republicans – knew it was nothing more than a stunt: a right-wing charade to win national headlines by harassing the duly elected Loudoun County School Board members who didn’t embrace the regressive vision of education dictated by Ian Prior and Fight for Schools.

Well, in the end, they lost. And lost badly. 

Before the hearings could even get underway this morning, the presiding judge dismissed the cases saying there was insufficient evidence to support the offenses Prior and his fellow cultural warriors alleged School Board members Brenda Sheridan and Altoosa Reaser committed or found the allegations insufficient to require any discipline. 

After nearly a year of unwarranted lies, accusations, and national headlines, the court found the Fight for Schools recall petitions to be built upon a tissue of imagined slights.

“I will never be able to put into words the toll this process took on my family, and on the families I serve,” said Reaser. “What I can tell you is that this type of malicious court filing has a chilling effect on democracy.”

There’s the temptation to call their misbehavior a cheap stunt; but, it wasn’t cheap. It cost Sheridan and Reaser public ridicule; it cost Loudoun County derision in Richmond and nationally; it cost the taxpayers’ resources to process these unfounded allegations; and, perhaps most importantly, it cost the time and energy of School Board members who should have been focusing on educating our children.

If Prior and his pals had any decency, they would apologize to Loudoun’s citizens for their baseless attacks, and for knowingly misleading his followers. 

But, obviously, that’s too much to expect from a failed demagogue: hours after the court’s ruling, Prior’s usually boisterous Twitter feed was silent, though he did issue a statement saying he’s now focused on the race this fall in the 10th Congressional District, where Rep. Jennifer Wexton seeks her third term. We must work hard to assure that he has no more success there than he did in court.