Voters across New Hampshire are receiving letters, purportedly from local “neighbors,” urging them to vote in school-board elections next week, but they’re actually a form letter from a leftist group named Granite State Progress.
“Dear Neighbor,” reads one letter received by Jessica Williams, of Wolfeboro, last week. “I wanted to reach out to you about something really important to me: public education.” The letter appears to be handwritten and signed “in solidarity,” by Edie DesMarais, a Wolfeboro Democrat who was a member of the New Hampshire House of Representatives from 2017 to 2020. Education is so important to DesMarais that she signed a form letter.
Identical letters, all available to read at granitestateprogress.org, have been received by voters in at least 17 school districts across the state.
“Dear Neighbor,” begins a letter received by voters in the Exeter Regional School District. “I wanted to reach out to you about something really important to me: public education.” Supposedly signed by Molly Cowan, the vice chair of the Exeter board of selectmen, the letter is exactly the same as DesMarais’s—except for the name at the bottom (and the candidates endorsed).
In the letter received by Williams, DesMaris goes on to endorse Brodie Deshaies, the young Republican who replaced her in the House as Wolfeboro’s state representative. Deshaies is now running for the at-large seat on the Governor Wentworth Regional School Board.
“We need leaders who will support a strong public education and represent the values we hold in our community. So I’m asking you to go out and vote for Brodie Deshaies.”
When I asked Deshaies what he thought about being endorsed by a progressive group, he replied, “It’s a local nonpartisan race, and I appreciate voters casting their party affiliation aside and voting based upon the issues.”
Why would progressives like Edie DesMarais (she repeatedly voted to create a state income tax when in the House) support a Republican for a local school board election?
Granite State Progress’s mission statement includes this declaration: “We work year-round to challenge conservative propaganda and make sure that progressive perspectives are heard.” Their website’s banner image features women wearing pink “pussy” hats.
One issue that Deshaies and the Left appear to agree on is late-term abortion.
In the New Hampshire house of representatives, Deshaies, 23, is a sponsor of a bill this session, HB 1609, that would gut New Hampshire’s Fetal Protection Act. Enacted only last summer, the bill prohibits abortions after six months. Prior to that, abortion was allowed up to the moment of birth. Deshaies’s bill removes an ultrasound requirement from the law, essentially negating the six-month limit (since the baby’s age cannot be verified).
But perhaps the key reason that progressives are supporting Deshaies is that his opponent for the at-large school-board seat is a pro-freedom, pro-parent activist who has been battling the school board over mask mandates since the summer of 2020. Her name?
Jessica Williams.
Williams is a small-business owner in Wolfeboro and a mother with two children in the Governor Wentworth Regional School District. School Board chairman Jack Widmer, of Tuftonboro, has repeatedly threatened to arrest her for her advocacy at board meetings. I documented this in an article at The Federalist in June 2021:
Last month, the chair of the Governor Wentworth Regional School Board called the police on Williams because Williams was sitting by herself in a school auditorium unmasked. Wolfeboro Police Chief Dean Rondeau responded to the call but didn’t arrest Williams.
“I don’t think a judge would look kindly on removing a member of the public from a public meeting for not wearing a mask,” Rondeau said.
Last September, Widmer again called the police on Williams, this time because she and several dozen other parents attended a school board meeting in the large school auditorium without masks. Chief Rondeau issued summons to Williams and four others, citing Williams in particular for trespassing and interfering with government operations. The charges were never brought to court.
The Governor Wentworth Regional School Board’s actions are not out of line with other school boards. “Don’t forget, the National School Board Association called parents domestic terrorists,” Williams says.
Deshaies, who was still in college when Covid-19 hysteria began, has been on the sidelines in the fight over mask mandates during the past two years. He told me in October 2020, “If I have to wear a mask to get people to vote for me, I’ll wear a mask.” He was wearing a mask at the time. We were outdoors, standing on the sidewalk.
Williams is running for a seat on the school board that has repeatedly tried to use the power of the state to silence her “power to the parents” message, so it makes sense that the far-left in New Hampshire is all-in for her opponent, Deshaies.
“Granite State Progress has previously attacked me and called me and other House Republicans, ‘racist’ (and to be clear, I’m not a racist),” Deshaies stated in an email.
“I’m the only candidate in this race who has not attacked their rival,” he added. However, Deshaies took to Facebook later that day to accuse Williams of waging a “smear campaign” against him for posting an image of the letter she received from Granite State Progress. “When some can’t win with honesty, they resort to dishonesty. It’s clear my opponent has become desperate.”
In another post, to the Wolfeboro Community Group on Facebook, Deshaies blasted Williams: “At the end of the day, you can’t lie your way to victory. You can only show voters what you stand for. This race is truly one about character and integrity. It’s about who will put the community (our parents, students and teachers) first. I will not attack my opponent. I believe that level of desperation shows lackluster leadership capabilities.”
Calling your opponent “dishonest” and “desperate” and accusing her of lying is an attack, of course, but this is politics and all’s fair in politics.
On Tuesday, March 8, voters in Brookfield, Effingham, New Durham, Ossipee, Tuftonboro, and Wolfeboro will choose between the young Deshaies and the firebrand Williams.
