* Former Trump advisor…
…Adding… In case you’d rather not click on that account to read the full statement…
- Bailey Campaign Statement on Richard Irvin, the hand-picked candidate for Governor of hedge fund mogul Ken Griffin, just telling the girls and parents of Illinois that he is fine with allowing boys and men to invade female sports competitions.
During Tuesday night’s undercard debate, NBC 5’s Mary Ann Ahern asked, “Should [men] be banned from being able to participate in women’s sports.” Irvin tried to squirm and equivocate, just as he does whenever asked whether or not he voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. But Ahern pressed him, thankfully, and his answer was shocking. He declared, “the governor should not have a say.”
Next door to Illinois, the solid General Assembly of Indiana just voted to override the veto of a squish Governor Eric Holcomb. Richard Irvin openly promises to be just that kind of sellout. In reality, we should not be surprised at Irvin’s extremist stance. He wants to permit boys and men to ruin female sports because he subscribes to the far left, liberal agenda of the Democrat Party he has supported for years, voting as a Democrat in 7 of the last 8 elections in Illinois. Richard Irvin reveals his true, radical self, from supporting militant BLM to lavishing praise on J.B. Pritzker to sacrificing our girls at the altar of woke, politically correct madness Illinoisans deserve better than a career Democrat who plays tough on TV. Darren Bailey is the true conservative champion in this race who will stand up to keep our communities safe and protect our children from a radical political agenda.
Huh. I thought Sen. Bailey was all about local control. I mean, he said this that very same evening…
Government needs to be pulled out of our schools. Get the unfunded mandates out of the way and let local school boards and parents come together and decide how they want to educate their children in their schools.
* The Irvin campaign sent me to the debate video. This starts at the 42:40 mark…
Mary Ann: Should transgender girl athletes be banned from participating in women’s sports? Mr. Irvin?
Irvin: Each sport agency has to determine what’s best for the competition and fairness in their particular agency.
Mary Ann: Should, again, the question is, should transgender girl athletes be barred?
Irvin: It’s about fairness. It’s about making sure these competitions are fair for everyone. Each organization, whether it be basketball, whether it be football or whether it be swimming has to determine what is fair and who should compete. It should be totally local and the governor should not have a say. This shouldn’t be something we should legislate from the governor’s office. It should be something we determine that parents and local school districts are allowed to make for themselves.
And Irvin’s position would do nothing to protect those athletes’ interests at the state level.
- Nick - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:19 am:
Small government for me big government for thee
- Bruce( no not him) - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:22 am:
I support local control, as long as the locals agree with me.
What’s so wrong with that? /S
- Ron Burgundy - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:27 am:
You can just feel the utter contempt coming off these people as they discuss children. Children. It disgusts me. I thought they were about protecting children? BS. Rather than concerning ourselves with the mental health and development of ALL our children, we’re worried about who gets what trophy. Seriously?
The supposed concern for girls’ sports is progress I suppose. A generation ago these same types would be arguing against their existence as well.
- 47th Ward - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:30 am:
Crime. High property taxes. Unfunded pensions. DCFS in turmoil. Broken families. Mental health crises. Broken roads and bridges.
But *this* is what we’re discussing. On a scale of 1 to 100, transgender athletic fairness ranks somewhere below 129 as far as I’m concerned.
Seriously, is this really a problem a governor ought to be involved in? It makes my head hurt.
- SWIL_Voter - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:37 am:
My daughter hates the idea that she isn’t allowed to compete against the boys in baseball and will be forced to play softball. If she can compete against the boys why shouldn’t she? These bigots never spend five seconds thinking about this stuff. It’s all just reaction. So they’ll force trans men to compete against girls because their birth certificate says female? Just stupid stuff
- Ryan - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:39 am:
So basically, this is the “who licks Trump’s bootstraps the most” campaign. Noted.
- Ron Burgundy - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:42 am:
To add, I know several trans children and their parents. From what I can see, the ones I know are among the most popular students at their respective schools and their classmates are overwhelmingly accepting. Perhaps if the adults just stayed out of it, everything would be fine.
- MoralMinority - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:45 am:
Back in 1977 at North Clay Grade School, the tallest member of the Fifth Grade basketball team was a girl. In fact there were four girls on the team. I guess Darren Bailey didn’t have as much concern then about girls and boys participating in sports together because he was on the team himself. And his father was acting school board president. I think his concern is more about someone identifying as “trans” than with biological boys ruining girls’ sports events. What hypocrisy, especially in grade school sports. Tempest in a teapot to stir up the base.
- Arsenal - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:46 am:
All of these dinguses who prattle on about the sanctity of women’s sports couldn’t pick Candace Parker out of a two-person line up.
- Jocko - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:52 am:
==he is fine with allowing boys and men to invade female sports competitions.==
First CRT, now this. Any more boogeymen you want to protect us from? Perhaps the Irish (h/t to Blazing Saddles)?
- Flyin' Elvis'-Utah Chapter - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:54 am:
Bailey is a true conservative-
“Government should stay out of our lives, unless of course it’s something I like or loathe, then there should be a constitutional amendment barring/legalizing it.”
- Stix Hix - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 9:58 am:
==Get the unfunded mandates out of the way . . .==
To me, unfunded mandates are things we should have been doing without being told to do them.
Our former Super hated them because they interfered with her getting the raise she felt we owed her.
- Demoralized - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:02 am:
Republicans are all about local control until they aren’t. They’ll weaponize the government whenever they deem it necessary.
- Norseman - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:08 am:
What Demoralized said[banned exclamation point]
- TheInvisibleMan - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:20 am:
He’s for whatever type of control allows for the advancement of the theocratic state.
When the state rules are favorable to theocracy, then only the state rules are to be followed.
When the local rules are favorable for theocracy, then only the local rules are to be followed.
This isn’t hard. Government is secondary to his goals, and that of the republican party.
It only seems conflicting to us outsiders because we aren’t looking at this through the eyes of advancing a theocracy. We are looking at it through the eyes of representative democracy.
For the goal he is attempting, this is entirely consistent.
- Amalia - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:23 am:
I have serious questions about women’s sports now, but I’m so glad the Rs are not my people.
- Paddyrollingstone - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:24 am:
Amen, Ron Burgundy.
Whenever I see trans kids and their rights being discussed I remember what MLK said:
I am expert in recognition of a simple eloquent truth. That truth is that it is sinful to brutalize any of God’s other children, no matter from what side the brutalization comes.
- SWSider - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:28 am:
I’m glad the DGA wants this man to have the megaphone of being the GOP gov nominee for the next 6 months
- Pundent - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:28 am:
Bailey’s campaign has always been about moving in whatever direction the winds of the base are blowing. Not all that different than the former President. Inconsistency is a feature not a bug.
- cermak_rd - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:35 am:
I know a trans-woman in my band. She’s cool. She’s 50+ years post transition and is perfectly normal. Why do they want to make her and children like her miserable?
Also I hate this get government out of school. You know who pays for the schools? The people, including people without children in those schools. You know how a conglomeration of people run something like a school system and prioritize what’s important? Politics.
- vern - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:46 am:
Worth pointing out the particular cruelty of replacing what MAA said, “transgender girl athletes,” with “[men]” in Bailey’s statement. Bailey can’t admit that transgender girls are girls, and he can’t even admit that children he hates are children at all. And he can’t allow Mary to do so either, so he puts his own slurs in Mary’s mouth.
- H-W - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:51 am:
There are important, unspoken issues here, right? The Illinois Board of Education works directly under the Executive Branch, and its members serve at the pleasure of the Governor. I can only guess either candidate would maintain that office, and use it to direct public education in ways that contradict the idea of local authority. In this context, both candidates expressed preferences for local rule contradict the role of the Governor’s Office and it’s Board of Education (and the IBHE as well).
Just last year some were advocating that the Illinois High School Association ought to be able to run high school sports independent of the Governor’s office. The issue was whether local school boards were compelled to follow an Executive Order, or whether they should be allowed to ignore the Governor’s office and follow the will of the independent IHSA. In this context, the issue of Executive Authority is again the primary issue, not whether we should have had contests during an epidemic. Addressing the authority of the Governor in regulating public schools would be a better question (i.e., should Illinois turn over its public schools to the rule of independent agencies and local communities?).
It seems to me the issue of not allowing genetically defined males to compete in genetically defined female sports is similarly a straw horse issue that ignores the more important issue - Executive authority over the public schools. I know some people are taking this question on gender identity very serious. I get that. But perhaps the moderator should have focused more on the authority of the Governor’s Office over public education, and less on a where the candidates stand on transgendering (the process of aligning bodies and behavioral practices with social identities).
It would seem in this case, the moderator was more focused on propagating divisiveness, than asking the more important question of prospective leadership over the public schools.
- Northsider - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 10:52 am:
Bailey is Exhibit #2,633,837,763 why I will never vote Republican.
- Pundent - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 11:16 am:
=But perhaps the moderator should have focused more on the authority of the Governor’s Office over public education, and less on a where the candidates stand on transgendering (the process of aligning bodies and behavioral practices with social identities).=
Except that’s not the argument the GOP wants to have. I agree that the question itself doesn’t warrant the attention Ahern put on it. But the GOP wants to make this an essential part of their platform and governing. We don’t see as much evidence of it in Illinois given the minority status the party enjoys. But there’s ample evidence around the country.
- Highland IL - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 12:27 pm:
Darren Bailey doesn’t allow girls sports at his “skuul”.
- Amalia - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 12:53 pm:
anyone being faced with the issue of sports for girls and women in a political debate might start with asking about support for sports for girls and women. for example, is there a disparity between dollars for sports for men vs. women at the Illinois public universities ? answer is yes. and what can be done about that? (dollars for scholarships, recruiting, and more, per a study done by a national women’s sports group). the issue of trans women and girls in sports is one which both the right and the left are wrong on….it needs more study and innovation than is given now. But I’m betting the Republicans bleating about trans and sports for girls and women really have not be supportive of sports for girls and women. they are just posturing, not solving.
- JS Mill - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 1:12 pm:
= their classmates are overwhelmingly accepting. Perhaps if the adults just stayed out of it, everything would be fine.=
Absolute best comment and should be required reading for everyone. Bravo.
I have worked I. Schools for a very long time and the statement above is an immutable truth of the galaxy.
@Stix Hix- I cannot speak to your supt, but I sense you are wrong. Unfounded mandates are ways that the politicians force schools to do their dirty work without taking the blame.
- Stix Hix - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 2:07 pm:
JS Mill–I hope to meet you someday and know I would enjoy learning from you. Stay well.
- Norseman - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 2:18 pm:
Stick, I’ve already learned a lot from JS Mill from reading his posts on this blog. A go to person on education matters.
- Norseman - Friday, May 27, 22 @ 2:19 pm:
Darn autocorrect, it’s Stix.