Mega-Donor Who Backed Stacey Abrams-Linked PAC Showers Clarice Schillinger Campaign With Cash
In Pennsylvania, mega-donor Paul Martino poured exuberant amounts of cash into school board races during the 2021 election cycle. “I am committing to writing up to 50 $10,000 checks to 50 concerned parents, activists, and organizers across the state who want to start their own political action committees and influence their school board races,” Martino said last August.
In order to do so, Martino partnered with Clarice Schillinger, an activist who founded the Keeping Kids in School PAC. “We are a bipartisan, diverse, multi-county community of thousands of parents, grandparents, and caregivers in Pennsylvania who are fighting for our children not to become a forgotten generation,” reads the group’s mission statement.
Their primary aim was and is to keep schools open for in-person learning at all costs. “We believe that a full return, five days a week, in person instruction should be a CHOICE for families and is ESSENTIAL for our children’s welfare,” the mission statement continues. “We also believe that advocacy for full time, in person education starts with school boards, and we serve to support individuals running for school boards and local government offices who want to keep our kids in school.”
With Schillinger, Martino founded the Back To School PA PAC. The group backed several Republican candidates and organizations this past cycle, but Martino was proud to point out that nearly one third of the candidates/organizations backed by the PAC were Democrats. In interviews, both Martino and Schillinger touted this figure while Martino told The Delaware Valley Journal that the group’s staff was “politically mixed.”
One Democrat group that received a check from Martino and Schillinger’s PAC was BlackWall PA, a self-described “black diaspora progressive” organization with links to Stacey Abrams. “Along with our allies, we are unapologetically pushing a black diaspora progressive agenda,” reads the group’s mission statement. “Allies” listed by BlackWall PA include “social justice groups” and “anti-racist individuals.”
https://nationalfile.com/mega-donor-backed-stacey-abrams-linked-pac-showers-clarice-schillinger-campaign-cash/