There’s a good reason that Meg Scalia Bryce and her surrogate, in-house Dominion lawyer Simon Davidson, are desperate to hide her right-wing backers and her partisan agenda. They know that if Albemarle County voters learn the truth, they won’t support Bryce.
Bryce made multiple donations in 2020 to Republicans via WinRed, while also voting in Republican primaries in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2020, according to the Virginia Department of Elections. Bryce’s top contributor is Richard Baxter Gilliam, a coal mining baron and Republican megadonor who has given over $10 million dollars to conservative candidates and causes, including $350,000 to Glenn Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign. Bryce has also received donations from the chair of the Albemarle GOP and Ann McLean, a former Youngkin administration official who resigned in disgrace after praising pro-Confederate monuments and falsely asserting that slavery was not the primary cause of the Civil War.
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Bryce also seeks to deceive voters by falsely claiming that she is not campaigning with other candidates from a political party. In June, Bryce appeared at a campaign event with far-right Republican state Senate candidate Philip Hamilton, who is anti-vaccination, has pushed legislation that would involuntarily out transgender and nonbinary children and admitted to being at the Capitol complex during the Jan. 6 insurrection. This event was hosted by Albemarle City Elders, which according to its own website seeks to bring about a “Biblical Model of City Governance.” Notably, the event was never publicly disclosed by Bryce’s campaign; it only came to light when Hamilton posted it on his campaign’s Facebook page. The post later mysteriously disappeared, which raises the question: Did Hamilton take it down at Bryce’s request?
Furthermore, Bryce is deceptive in asserting that she is not running on any ticket or seeking political endorsements. Hamilton, the GOP candidate, endorsed his “fellow conservative” Bryce in an Oct. 3 Facebook post. And earlier this week, the Albemarle County Republican Committee publicly endorsed Bryce and Joann McDermid, running for the White Hall District, encouraging their supporters to “vote for a conservative.” This page then was edited hours after it was brought to light, dropping the references to Bryce and McDermid, but it’s impossible to erase Bryce’s Republican affiliation and support from the public record.
The Bryce campaign’s attempts at deception continue at early voting. The Albemarle GOP has set up two tents: one for “official” Republican candidates and another for alleged “nonpartisan” candidates. But the same volunteers are delivering, setting up and staffing both tents each day, passing out two different sets of sample ballots. This is clearly designed to hoodwink voters into believing Bryce is not a Republican.
Bryce’s deception even extends to her own name. She invokes her maiden name, Scalia, for right-wing audiences and events like the Noah Webster Education Foundation — which, incidentally, is headed by a former chair of the 5th District Republican Committee, whose spouse is a paid staffer for right-wing extremist Rep. Bob Good — but omits it for campaign communications to voters she suspects won’t view it as positively.
Bryce’s policy positions are equally extreme. She opposes Albemarle County Public Schools’ anti-racism policies, and her campaign has accepted thousands of dollars in donations from the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against these same policies, who are represented by a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group. She supports the Youngkin administration’s model policy that would roll back legal protections for transgender and nonbinary students in public schools. And despite the pleas of teachers and staff, including bus drivers, she refuses to support collective bargaining for school employees so that educators can negotiate for better teaching and learning conditions
Unlike Bryce, Allison Spillman is honest about her partisan affiliation and values. She is proud to have the endorsement of the Albemarle County Democratic Party, as well as every major Democratic elected official and candidate in the county. She has also earned the support of the Albemarle Education Association PAC.
The response of the Bryce campaign, and their surrogates and allies, to these undisputed facts is straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook: They try to bully anyone who dares speak the truth about her. When I helped establish Albemarle Parents Promoting Learning, or APPL, with like-minded parents concerned about Bryce’s extremism and then created a website to share this information with Albemarle voters in late summer, I knew that I would be publicly identified and attacked in an attempt to intimidate me. And that’s precisely what happened. I’ve been called evil, slimeball, attack dog and scum, among other things. But Albemarle parents refuse to be silenced. APPL invites voters to learn the facts about Bryce at www.albemarleparents.com.
Christopher B. Seaman lives in Crozet and is the Robert E.R. Huntley Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University School of Law. He is the director of the political action committee Albemarle Parents Promoting Learning, or APPL. Seaman served as the volunteer campaign manager for Elect Allison Spillman until mid-July; he is not currently a member of any candidate’s campaign team. All statements in this column convey his own opinions, not those of his employer, Washington and Lee University.
