An announcement: I am running for Congress

Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a letter and mailed it to every family of my daughter’s New York City private school, the Brearley School. In that letter I expressed a series of objections, most importantly, to the school’s obsession with race and identity, and to its sweeping mission change after the summer of 2020.

Brearley had been a school devoted to the highest levels of academic achievement, to free speech and open discourse, and to the development of intellectually curious and courageous girls. Seemingly overnight, Brearley transformed into a political institution determined to turn its students into progressive activists.

I never expected my letter to be read by anyone other than the parents of the 656 families to whom I sent it, but it went viral. My words were read by millions of people across America and they helped ignite what we now call the parent’s movement and the fight against woke education.

For those of you that have been following my story for two years, thank you for sticking with me. Many of you have become friends, and for that I am grateful. For those of you that have found this Substack in recent months, thank you for joining me on this journey.

Today, I announce a new chapter in this story we are writing together. I am running for Congress as a Republican in my new home state of Florida to help take this fight for our children and our country to the federal government.

When my Brearley letter went viral, I unexpectedly became a national figure fighting on the front lines of the culture war: K-12 education. From the beginning, I had people whisper the word “politics” in my ear. At the time, however, my belief was that helping to form a grassroots movement of parents was far more important.

I have spent the past two years speaking with parents and with parent groups all across the country, educating them on what is happening in our nation’s schools, and helping guide them in their battles with their private schools and their public school districts. I have also worked with many of the national groups that have sprouted up to fight against woke schools. Organizations such as Moms for Liberty, No Left Turn in Education, Parents Defending Education, and Parents Unite have done terrific work in this fight, and I am proud to call each of them an ally.

I have also spent much of the past two years thinking about our country’s democracy and trying to understand why it seems to be failing. The issues facing our schools and our democracy are inseparable, and I have come to the realization that we are missing all five of the requirements necessary for our democracy and our Republic to properly function.

Successful democracy demands an educated citizenry that shares some common values and common purpose. Our education system has failed us, producing a populace neither knowledgeable nor appreciative of our country’s founding values.

Second, our citizens must be able and willing to have civilized debates and discussions about the important issues affecting the country. Cancel culture, censorship and a polarized media have silenced free speech and made debate on most issues nearly impossible.

Third, democracy requires that its citizens have faith in the fair elections of its political leaders. Many on both sides of the aisle have lost faith that elections reflect the will of the people.

Fourth, the decision makers within government must be accountable to the citizens. Today, the majority of the laws and regulations to which we are subject are the work of an unaccountable administrative state.

Finally, our nation cannot survive without wise and virtuous leaders who are willing to put the concerns of their country and their constituents above their own, and who are capable of favoring long-term welfare over short-term interests. Our leadership class is made up mostly of career politicians hungry for power and money, and beholden to special interests.

I believe that very few of our political leaders understand the issues facing our country. They don’t understand what is happening in our education system. They don’t understand the Marxist and anti-capitalist foundations of woke ideology. They don’t understand how this ideology has captured nearly all of the institutions of our country. Most importantly, they don’t understand that the culture war is fundamentally a battle over America’s founding values and a fight to save western civilization. The culture war must be won.

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Last summer, my wife, my daughter and I moved to Florida. Like so many thousands of others, we are political refugees from the progressive mismanagement of New York. New York City was our home for 25 years, and giving up on it was a difficult decision. But as I wrote shortly after our move to Florida, New York City is no longer a place to raise a family.

Florida, in contrast, has been a literal and figurative ray of sunshine. Life here is normal, vibrant and happy. The economy is thriving and the population is booming. Restaurants are opening, cultural institutions are expanding, and businesses are moving in. Moreover, I believe that West Palm Beach has the potential to become America’s financial capital as Wall Street’s investment firms continue to flee New York. The future here is bright.

I am running in Florida’s Congressional District 22, located in Palm Beach County. The district has become the Republican fundraising capital of America and is home to Mar-a-Lago and of course, Donald Trump. 

Palm Beach County is also the new home of more than 16,000 New Yorkers who have arrived since the beginning of 2021, according to state driver’s license data. They’ve helped propel Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, whose signature issue has been fighting illiberalism in our schools and institutions, to re-election last year. DeSantis’s 3% margin of victory in Palm Beach County made him the first GOP gubernatorial candidate to prevail in the area since 1986. Clearly, his message resonates here. 

My likely opponent in the general election is six-term Democratic incumbent Lois Frankel, who, like many in her party, shows little interest in the challenges that today’s parents navigate from the day their children start kindergarten. Last month, Frankel voted against a parents’ bill of rights in Congress - a proposal that would require school districts nationwide to, among other things, publicly list their curricula, their library catalogues, and notify parents when a school employee refers to their child by a different name or gender pronoun.

In a published statement touting her ‘No’ vote, Frankel dismissed the proposal as a “political stunt.”  This attitude is fundamentally misaligned with the interests of parents and grandparents in this district - and across the country. Residents of Florida’s 22nd deserve a congressperson who better represents them.

I am not naïve of the challenges of running for Congress. The road will be long and hard, and much unpleasantness surely awaits. My Republican primary opponents will likely try to paint me as insufficiently right-wing, deficiently Floridian, and excessively elitist. In the general election, I fully expect the smears of racist and white supremacist, homophobe and transphobe, MAGA and carpetbagger to be thrown my way.

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Two years ago, I wrote the Brearley letter out of a sense of duty. Other parents were fearful to speak up, and I was professionally uncancellable. Today I run for Congress out of that same sense of duty. Americans are desperate for grownup leaders who will stand up to the woke mob, who are not afraid to speak truths, who will fight for our children and for parental rights, and who respect the founding values of our country.

I don’t pretend to possess every answer or know the solution to every issue, nor will every supporter or constituent agree with all of my positions. What I can promise is honesty, courage, and good judgement, and in that spirit, I make the following pledge to my fellow Americans:

I vow to be a voice for rescuing our nation’s children from political indoctrination in their schools and from the teacher's unions who are hellbent on turning them into progressive activists.

I vow to be a voice for parents whose rights to guide their children’s education, well-being, and values are under attack from our government and our public school system.

I vow to be a voice for free speech and free expression against insidious cancel culture and oppressive censorship brought on by the unholy marriage between the government and Big Tech.

I vow to be a voice for sanity against a transgender cult that seeks to mutilate and sterilize our children, destroy girl's and women’s sports, and is hostile to the concepts of basic biology.

I vow to be a voice for prudence against the religion of climate alarmism that aims to destroy our economy with childish and counterproductive energy policies.

I vow to be a voice for small businesses and their workers who are burdened by stifling regulation and who are at the mercy of large monopolistic corporations that are subsidized and favored by the Federal Reserve and our federal government.

I vow to be a voice for a robust military, once proud and strong, now underfunded, undermanned, underappreciated, and crumbling due to an infestation of woke ideology.

I vow to be a voice for the interests of our country against an elitist and globalist agenda that seeks to eradicate the nation-state and usher in a bureaucratic, technocratic, and totalitarian nightmare.

Lastly, I vow to be a voice for returning our republic to the values and ideals on which it was founded.

Over the past two years, many of you have so generously offered to support my efforts fighting to reclaim K-12 education. I have always been reluctant to take money without a plan for how to use it, and thus have said no. Now, however, I do request your financial support. As most of you know, the success of a congressional candidate is hugely dependent on fundraising. Any amount you can give is enormously appreciated.

To support my campaign, please visit andrewgutmann.com. There you can also learn more about me, and the issues on which I will be campaigning.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you for being on this journey with me. Together we will continue to work to rescue our children from woke indoctrination, and to preserve the values that made America the freest and most prosperous country the world has ever seen.

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As always, please feel free to email me at andrew@speakupforeducation.org, follow me on Twitter @AndrewGutmann and support my Congressional campaign at andrewgutmann.com.