Kate Schaffer, Running for Arkansas House District 10
"Common Sense and Compassion"
I got introduced to Kate Schaffer through my friend Christa. She and I are always talking politics and I asked her what she was doing to volunteer with the political scene and she said, “I do whatever Kate tells me to do.”
So I needed to meet this Kate person who commands my friend’s respect.
Ms. Schaffer met me at Hail Fellow Well Met to discuss her campaign and what inspired her to run for office. She’s very personable and open with her communication. Her family background is from Arkansas. Her mother, who graduated from Little Rock High School before integration in 1942, was an evangelical conservative, and Schaffer remembers that Phyllis Schlafly, the famous anti-feminist came to her home to visit with her mom twice over the years. Schlafly was instrumental in flipping the South in the Long Southern Strategy, using her radio show to convince women that the Equal Rights Amendment was taking away their rights of dependency and that it was bad and dangerous for their freedoms as wives and mothers.
Kate Schaffer still has the “STOP ERA” notepads and the pins that Schlafly gave to her mom because goodness knows that Equal Rights for Women is just plain dangerous. Fortunately, Schaffer did not drink the Phyllis Schlafly koolaid.
Schaffer’s family has a strong history of being civically engaged, even if for completely different causes. She remembers her dad saying, “You VOTE in EVERY election.” Public service was ingrained in her upbringing. I feel as though people have forgotten about the sense of duty and service that we used to have for civic engagement, so it was refreshing to hear that.
Schaffer went to college in Texas and worked with the National Safe Kids Campaign there which eventually led her to work in the same organization in Washington D.C., working towards injury prevention for kids. Now Schaffer is back home in Bentonville and ready to take on the incumbent, Mindy McAlindon from Centerton.
When I looked up McAlindon’s voting record on Vote Smart, these are the votes that I saw that were alarming. These are obviously paraphrased and the parentheticals are mine:
keeping people in jail longer
parents’ bill of rights (parents already have rights)
requiring parental consent for teachers to address transgender students by their chosen identity
Authorizes challenging of school library books
LEARNS Act (that siphons taxpayer money from public schools into Christian private schools)
Authorizes minors under 16 years old to work (This is a law that was started by Frances Perkins in the 1920s because of children dying at work—we kinda need to keep that one).
Making it harder for citizens to get initiatives on the ballot by requiring 50 counties of signatures instead of 15. (why would legislators want to make it more difficult to participate in their democracy?)
requires that the state not do business with companies that follow “certain sociopolitical guidelines.”
Includes “Drag Performances” in the definition of “Adult Oriented Business.”
More bathroom bills
More recently on Twitter/X, I noticed that McAlindon made a Tweet on 11/1/2021 quoting Joseph Stalin.
We have a serious problem on our hands when our Republicans have gotten so lost that they are aligning themselves with Russian totalitarians.
From what I could gather of my time with Kate Schaffer, she wants to focus on governing with issues that matter to Arkansans, extending Medicaid for new moms (hugely important to get our Maternal Mortality under control), tax credits to early childhood educators, streamline regulations for Primary Care Physicians, affordable housing, and strong public schools. This list is in stark contrast to the bullet-pointed list above of what McAlindon is supporting.
You can follow Schaffer on Instagram here and this is a reel of her position on teacher housing in Bentonville:
I’m rooting for Kate Schaffer because she’s awesome and focuses on things that matter and because Mindy McAlindon is scary. We need common sense and compassion and that is what Kate Schaffer is offering District 10.
Get involved with Kate Schaffer’s campaign at Kate Schaffer for Arkansas.
P.S. We still don’t have a ratified Equal Rights Amendment in the United States. Why is it so hard for our country to agree that women should have equal rights? #keepshowingup We have lots of work to do.