A Christian cell phone company plans to take over Texas school boards

Patriot Cell, a North Texas-based cell phone service reseller that markets itself as “America’s solely Christian conservative wi-fi supplier” was the driving monetary pressure behind the election of 11 new school board members in 4 suburban North Texas districts.

Driving the information: Patriot Cell helped elect the vast majority of members in Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, which not too long ago handed a controversial new set of conservative insurance policies dubbed “Do not Say Trans.”

Why it issues: The insurance policies, which embrace prohibitions on lecturers discussing something associated to important race principle or “gender fluidity,” are a part of a serious push from each Patriot Cell’s political arm — Patriot Cell Motion — and the state GOP.

  • “In the end we wish to increase to different counties, different states and be in each state throughout the nation,” Leigh Wambsganss, government director of Patriot Cell Motion and vice chairman of presidency and media affairs at Patriot Cell, informed conservative speak present host Mark Davis earlier this summer season.

The large image: Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon has informed conservatives that to “save the nation,” they want to goal school boards, repeatedly spotlighting Patriot Cell.

  • “The school boards are the important thing that picks the lock,” Bannon stated throughout an interview with Patriot Cell’s president, Glenn Story, on the Conservative Political Motion Convention in Dallas earlier this month, in accordance to NBC Information.

Between the traces: School districts are the entrance line within the political battle for Texas. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke has rooted his marketing campaign on school funding and security, whereas Gov. Greg Abbott has made fears of conservative mother and father a cornerstone of his bid for re-election.

What occurred: Earlier this yr, Patriot Cell Motion employed two nationwide GOP consulting companies — Vanguard Area Methods and Axiom Methods — to assist goal school board races within the suburbs of Tarrant County, the largest conservative county within the nation.

  • The PAC spent greater than $600,000 backing 11 school board candidates working in Southlake, Grapevine-Colleyville, Keller and Mansfield — all of whom gained their races.
  • The group despatched out 1000’s of political mailers warning that sitting school board members had been endangering college students with “woke” ideologies. One advert featured a photograph of a kid and the phrases, “They don’t seem to be after you, they’re after me.”

What we’re watching: Final week the Republican Occasion of Texas made a fundraising attraction praising GCISD’s new insurance policies, saying the occasion is “working to convey this conservative coverage” to each school district within the state.