Kiera Butler. At the time, that statement felt a little bit edgyβlike DeVos was saying the quiet part out loud. Harriet Hageman R-WY told the crowd of maybe or so mostly white women. Does that mean that a ragtag group of moms singlehandedly turned the abolition of a behemoth government agency into a run-of-the-mill conservative talking point?
Not exactly. On that issue and many others, Moms for Liberty has had a major assist from powerful conservative groups that share their goalsβand are shaping the Republican agenda for Founded in by three former school board members in Florida, Moms for Liberty rode the rising tide of anti-mask sentiment in the tumultuous year after schools were closed during the pandemic.
Over time, Moms for Liberty grew in both membership and influence. Today, the group counts , members across chapters in 48 states. The organization groomed some members to run for local school boards, gradually expanding their influence throughout communities. Last year, all of the Republican presidential candidates, including former president Donald Trump, spoke at their annual conference in Pennsylvania. In its marketing, Moms for Liberty comes off as a group of like-minded people, mostly women, who all happened to come together because of a shared concern for children.
Its conferences have been sponsored by the GOP training group the Leadership Institute and the conservative powerhouse think tank the Heritage Foundation. I asked. One reason for this lackluster lineup could be the fallout from a series of scandals in A group from a chapter in Kentucky posed for a photo with the white nationalist group the Proud Boys.
Those members were later removed from the group. Last year, a chapter leader in Indiana quoted Hitler in a newsletter. But the most damaging setback came in late , when Christian Ziegler, chair of the Florida GOP, was accused of raping and illegally filming a woman who had been involved in a sexual relationship with him and his wife, Bridget Ziegler, a founding member of Moms for Liberty. Unsurprisingly, no one mentioned the sex scandal or any of the other ones at the town hall event.
