Ohio perennial losing Senate candidate Josh Mandel got himself tossed from a Boehner Country school board meeting in Butler County after attacking school board members and refusing to wear a mask.
U.S. Senate candidate Josh Mandel was escorted out of a Butler County school board meeting Monday evening after school officials said he staged an event to "disrupt a public meeting."
A video of the meeting is available on the Lakota Local Schools' YouTube channel. At nearly an hour and a half into the recording, school board candidate Darbi Boddy said she would like to have Mandel speak on her behalf.
Mandel walked up to the microphone and began by criticizing the district for not publicizing its finances on the Ohio Checkbook, a website created during his tenure as state treasurer that details spending by public institutions. Board president Kelley Casper interrupted Mandel and asked him to stop speaking.
As Mandel continued, Casper announced that the board would take a recess and the video cuts out.
"I'm just trying to stand up for kids," Mandel said in a video he posted on Twitter.
Public hearing participants must be residents of the Lakota Local School District, according to the board's bylaws, or "be the resident's designee and be introduced as such, and have a legitimate interest in the action of the Board."
Mandel, a Republican from the Cleveland area, is running in a crowded primary to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Rob Portman. He paints himself as a fighter who isn't afraid to disrupt the status quo and often uses social media as a platform for misinformation and controversial statements that attract attention.
"Forcing kids to wear masks in schools is a total trampling of the freedom and liberty of the kids and the parents," he said in an interview on Tuesday. "It is not the role of a school official or politician to tell moms and dads how to raise their kids."
In another video of the incident, provided by Mandel's campaign, Mandel spoke about the district's mask requirement and gender politics. Casper told the crowd that the board's bylaws allow Boddy to designate someone to speak on her behalf, but instead she had stated she "wanted to yield her time."
Mandel is then escorted out of the meeting by two Butler County Sheriff's officers. According to the board's bylaws, the board's presiding officer may request the assistance of law enforcement officers to remove "a disorderly person when that person's conduct interferes with the orderly progress of the meeting."
Mandel did this knowing he'd get thrown out, and knowing he'd be able to get it on video. He's in a race to see which white male asshole can be the biggest, most hateful, most Trumpy moron in the race so that red Ohio will elect him in 2022. He's up against equally awful bigot and antisemite JD Vance, author of "Hillbilly Elegy" and the soon to be upcoming tale, "How I sold my soul to Donald Trump and lost an election."
It's free publicity when Mandel pulls stunts like this. Expect a lot more of this as the race heats up over the next six months and change as we get closer to the primary in early May. Using a school board meeting as a prop is going to be the least of their sins.
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