By Adam Pagnucco.
With the retreat of the Washington Post editorial board from local affairs, the most prominent endorsement in MoCo politics belongs to the Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA), which represents teachers and associated employees in MCPS. MCEA’s Apple Ballot is the most recognized political brand in county politics and is trusted by voters far afield from MCPS as emblematic of public education. The union devotes significant effort to distributing it both online and through the hands of a volunteer army. No other political program in Montgomery County, and perhaps anywhere else in Maryland, compares to it.
The Apple’s rich juices are therefore the object of lust by the vast majority of MoCo politicians. The stakes are particularly high in next year’s county executive race, which features an open seat and strong competition among seasoned candidates. The natural favorite to receive it is Council Member Will Jawando. First, he is attempting to run as the most progressive candidate in the race, a pole position for which he is vying with his colleague Evan Glass. Second, he is chair of the council’s Education and Culture Committee, a perch that gives him many opportunities to champion MCPS. Third, he has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to fund education with tax hikes. In 2023, he voted against a property tax increase intended for MCPS because he believed it was not large enough. Last May, he called for an income tax increase to pay for MCPS. This is big stuff, folks – almost all Democratic politicians say they want to fund schools, but how many want to regularly raise taxes to do it?
That said, Jawando has some hurdles to jump before grabbing the Mighty Apple. Here are four.
Last year, Jawando endorsed and raised money for a school board member that MCEA was trying to defeat.
In 2024, MCEA was determined to defeat three school board members running for reelection, one of whom was two-term District 4 incumbent Shebra Evans. MCEA endorsed PTA leader Laura Stewart (who ultimately won) while Jawando supported Evans. That’s not all – he even sent out an email soliciting money for a fundraiser she held weeks before the election. That email is reprinted below.
For many endorsing organizations, this would not be a big deal. But for MCEA, it is – and few offices are more important to them than the school board. MCEA demonstrated this by including the following question in its questionnaire for county candidates this cycle:
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The Apple Ballot has been successful due to strong brand recognition and the trust the community has in educators to know what our schools and communities need. The strength of the Apple Ballot is diminished when candidates and elected officials on the Apple Ballot endorse non-Apple Ballot candidates. Recognizing the importance of educator voice, especially in education-specific elections, will you refrain from endorsing non-Apple Ballot Board of Education candidates?
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Jawando would have run afoul of this question if it had been asked in the past. If he is seeking the union’s endorsement, he should explain to them why he went against them on one of their core priorities.
Jawando took thousands of dollars from an “anti-worker law firm” that was condemned by MCEA.
In August 2023, then-MCPS Superintendent Monifa McKnight hired Jackson Lewis PC to examine the district’s handling of the Joel Beidleman scandal, in which a principal was promoted despite complaints of sexual harassment against him. MCEA was outraged, branding Jackson Lewis “an anti-worker law firm that has assisted organizations overcome sexual harassment claims in the past.” As someone who once worked on union organizing campaigns, I was familiar with Jackson Lewis’s extensive “union avoidance” practice and revealed that Jawando had taken thousands of dollars from the firm and two of its attorneys. The incident also generated a huge conflict as Jawando was chair of the council committee that was due to review Jackson Lewis’s report while he had been taking its money for his political campaigns.
Jawando responded by calling Jackson Lewis “a reputable law firm.” He later told the Washington Post that he would return their money “to get rid of the distraction.”
Jawando defended a superintendent that MCEA detested.
MCEA has had ups and downs with MCPS superintendents over the years. The union famously forged a strong alliance with Jerry Weast to get big budget increases and has a generally cordial relationship with Thomas Taylor. But labor-management relations hit rock bottom under Taylor’s predecessor, Monifa McKnight. MCEA was furious at her handling of the Beidleman scandal, blasting the district for failing to protect students and staff from “an alleged predator,” claiming that MCPS had “severely damaged its reputation as an employer” and condemning “corruption, malfeasance, and unsafe working conditions in MCPS.” The union’s problems went much further than Beidleman and extended to broader unhappiness with McKnight’s management style and decision-making. In January 2022, 94% of participating MCEA members voted no confidence in McKnight’s leadership – and that was a year and a half before the Beidleman eruption.
So when the school board finally decided to move against McKnight, MCEA said that the board “appears justified” in seeking her resignation. Jawando expressed no such sentiment, instead commenting that “Dr. McKnight should be afforded due process, as with any employee.”
But he went further than that. Weeks after MCEA’s statement supporting McKnight’s ouster, Jawando said this during the council’s recognition of Black History Month.
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As we seek to navigate what is seemingly a multi-pronged attack on the Black community, from efforts to erase and water down our history related to race, limiting access to the ballot box or attacks on DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – and on Black leaders themselves. We find ourselves this month in dire times. The forced resignation of Claudine Gay, an impeccable scholar, as president of Harvard University, who was the first Black woman and person in more than 387 years to lead that institution, has shaken us.
We’re not immune here, where in this body just last year, we celebrated Dr. Monifa McKnight as a trailblazer for Black history and less than a year later, she was forced to resign.
These attacks have shaken us. They remind us that it’s not enough to celebrate our great leaders and artists in a performative way. But we want real recognition and equality and equity.
I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t give voice to that in this seat today. I know I’m not the only African American in this room who has felt that way this month and all year. So I would ask that as we celebrate Black History Month, let’s remember it’s not just a celebration, it’s a commitment to true diversity, equity and inclusion. To lifting up racial equity and social justice. To supporting our leaders and not tearing them down. That’s what I hope we will all remember this Black History Month.
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The above remarks can be seen at the 1:29:10 mark of the video embedded below.
The judgment of history has not been kind to McKnight. The Beidleman scandal cost taxpayers more than $2 million (most of which was paid to her), the electric bus contract she championed was recently deemed illegal by the state school board, and her administration presided over mushrooming health insurance deficits, double dipping by employees and colossal background check failures. Does Jawando believe she was treated unfairly? And does Jawando believe MCEA’s criticism of her tenure was unjustified?
Jawando broke a union boycott last month.
Last May, UNITE HERE Local 25, which represents hotel, restaurant and casino employees in the Washington region, announced a boycott of the Montgomery Conference Center at the Bethesda Marriott because it did not have a union contract. The issue eventually led to the passage of county legislation so the entire county council would have been well aware of the boycott.
Despite labor protests, the conference center has continued to hold events. One of them was the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce’s Business Awards Dinner on November 12. The chamber posted photos of the event on Flickr. The three below show Jawando in attendance.
One source told me that a giant inflatable rat was used outside this event. (For some reason, the rat did not appear in the chamber’s photo list or its event program.) If that’s true, that would have been a powerful reminder of sanction by the labor movement.
To be fair to Jawando, he was far from the only elected official at the event. Also in attendance were Council Members Gabe Albornoz, Marilyn Balcombe and Andrew Friedson, Senators Cheryl Kagan and Ben Kramer and Delegate Lily Qi.
So do the above facts add up to a significant problem for Jawando? Only the members of MCEA’s Representative Assembly, who decide their endorsement, can say. They have to weigh these problems against Jawando’s support for school funding and advocacy for new revenues. There is also the matter of how he compares to his opponents, none of whom are locks themselves. One possibility is that no county executive candidate reaches a 58% super-majority of the Representative Assembly, which would result in no endorsement. That happened in 2006, when MCEA sat out the county executive race while still making several endorsements for council.
We shall learn the fate of the Apple Ballot, and perhaps the election itself, soon enough.