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Conservative Kenosha school board member highly suspicious of ‘clerical error’ that allegedly got him ousted

February 23, 2023 | | Print Article

A conservative Wisconsin man who was recently elected to the Kenosha Unified School District school board for what was supposed to have been a 3-year term has since been ousted because of a “clerical error.”

The “clerical error” led Eric Meadows and his supporters to believe that he was running for a 3-year seat. But that, evidently, wasn’t the real case.

Meadows was technically running to replace former board Dan Wade, who stepped down earlier for unclear reasons.

But while updating the school board contests for this spring, the Wisconsin Elections Commission realized that Wade had had only one year left in office, meaning his term in office has already expired.

Meadows was not pleased by the news.

“My reaction is shocked. Needless to say, it was not something on my radar. I feel betrayed, and I think I’m worried about the voter intent. The voters are being ignored in this whole process,” he told local station WDJT earlier this month.

Speaking on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends First” this Thursday, Meadows said he suspects the decision to oust him is political in nature.

“The timing of this is rather suspicious. I think that might be the case. They discovered the error shortly before I could’ve been on the ballot for the spring election,” he explained.

He meant that had the Wisconsin Elections Commission discovered the “clerical error” earlier, then Meadows could have simply signed up to run for reelection again in the spring. But the commission discovered the error too late, so now he’s screwed.

“A lot of people are certainly disappointed. I’m certainly disappointed in what happened. I’m on a minority on the board. There’s a couple of us who kind of think the same way I do, but the rest think very differently, it seems. So I’m in the minority. So I don’t know if they’re trying to get rid of me because of that. I couldn’t say,” he added.

Listen:

Speaking next, his attorney, Erick Kaardal of the Thomas More Society, dropped another bombshell.

“The school district doesn’t have a really authentic legal position. What’s happening here is they made two mistakes. They said that the term was for three years, then later they said it was for one year,” he said.

“But they missed the deadline for putting it on next month’s ballot, so they’re going to have the successor elected next year. Meanwhile, they want to vacate his office and appoint someone to replace him, when obviously under Wisconsin law, he’s entitled to keep that seat until a successor is elected,” he added.

In other words, the school board would rather keep the seat empty for an entire year rather than let Meadows remain in it. Never mind that they’re the ones who made the error and “missed the deadline.”

The good news is that Meadows is fighting back legally and ready to take the case to the Wisconsin State Court.

“The argument will be played out in Kenosha County Circuit Court … and [the] Wisconsin State Court, and the argument will be are election of school board members mandatory or can the school board just vacate elected members whenever they want and appoint replacements. It seems like an unconstitutional power grab,” Kaardal remarked.

Continuing the discussion, host Todd Piro then asked Meadows to list some of the positions he’s taken that may have upset local leftists.

“I got into the school board race simply because I want a better education for my daughter. They were threatening to close schools and mandate masks, and I got involved at that point to fight against that,” he replied.

“I’m a very pro-parent choice conservative. I’m a very fiscally-minded conservative. I want to restrain spending in our district. And I think that might have upset some people,” he added.

The discussion concluded with Piro asking Kaardal whether the American people writ large should be concerned about what happened in Kenosha.

“I think the progressives are seriously committed — with hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions — to win elections at all costs, even violating the law. And this is just another example,” the attorney replied.

“And we’re seeing this more and more in local races, as we’ve seen them in national and state races. So we should be very concerned. In fact, the Thomas More Society has a whole new subject area on election integrity, and this is just one of about 100 lawsuits we’re pursuing nationwide,” he added.

Vivek Saxena
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