Scott Schmerelson Wants to Continue the Republican Revolution?

By Elizabeth Badger

The candidate for school board in the San Fernando Valley was a lifelong Republican, who walks, talks and votes like a Republican to this day. Nevertheless, he knew 2020 would be a Blue Wave election year, so he switched his party before launching his re-election campaign.

But now just weeks before the election, and according to the LA City Ethics website, he has written a $1,000 check to an organization called “Continuing the Republican Revolution.” If Schmerelson had truly changed his political heart, why would he support an organization that wants to continue Trump’s radical Republican agenda?

As a life-time Democrat and longtime leader in the Los Angeles Democratic Party, I am dismayed that Schmerelson is trying to be all things to all people and seems to have a whole lot of Democrats fooled. But don’t kid yourself. I know how Schmerelson wound up hoodwinking Democrats into believing he was one of them, and it wasn’t pretty.

I served as a delegate to President Barack Obama’s two national conventions, I was elected to the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee seven times over 15 years.

Nevertheless, when I ran against Schmerelson in the March primary, I was not even allowed to speak to my party to inform them of Schmerelson’s history as a Republican. The party apparatus seem to take its marching orders entirely from UTLA, which had endorsed Schmerelson, in his last race, when he ran as a Republican and, who I believe, urged him to change his party in order to keep their endorsement.

Since Schmerelson has been on the board, he has taken money from the police union and voted to uphold random wanding, which, I believe, might target and injure more of our African American children. He opposed a resolution to study magnet enrollment patterns to decrease school segregation but could not explain why he opposed it. And he has made a number of sexist remarks and claimed that males are discriminated against, as much as females. Really, you think so?

As a lifelong Democrat, I am endorsing Marilyn Koziatek, who is a mother of two young boys in the LAUSD public school, just as I am. There are currently no parents of public school kids on the school board, and I believe parents have the interests of kids at heart, especially the most vulnerable and special needs children who have consistently been left behind, especially in this recent Pandemic.

As for Scott Schmerelson, beware of a "wolf" in sheep’s clothing. Or in this case, a Republican pretending to be a Democrat when talking to Democrats, and according to the most recent Los Angeles Ethics reporting, a Republican when making a $1,000 donation to a Republican organization!

-- Elizabeth Badger was a primary candidate for the LAUSD school board seat in District 3. She's a mother of six children, a small business owner and the founder of the nonprofit Minority Outreach Committee. She serves on the board of the North Los Angeles County Regional Center and has been elected to seven terms on the Los Angeles County Democratic Party Central Committee.