The left really is going over the top in their attacks on nominees to the Trump Administration. Today, Mother Jones did a hit piece on Cameron Quinn for being too connected to conservatives or even a closed conservative group. Their primary source for much of the article seems to be her LinkedIn page and quotes from people who do not know her.
Instead of debating what they say Cameron has done, we’ll list a few things that the Mother Jones intentionally omitted from herLinkedInpage:
- Cameron ran Domestic Programs for the Peace Corps for almost two years. Mother Jones obviously omitted this because they want to portray her only as a Republican activist and not someone who worked for a liberal- and Democrat-favored program like the Peace Corps.
- Cameron worked for years for the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, a bipartisan group seeking to make our elections better. For example, the current Co-Chair Donald R. Sweitzer is a former DNC Political Director, union official, and staffer for Ted Kennedy's Presidential campaign. House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer is also on the board.
While Mother Jones omits that bipartisan work from the LinkedIn pagethey sourced for other parts of their story, they also mischaracterized other things she actually did in the field of election law:
- There was an effort in Fairfax County, Virginia, while Cameron was Registrar to get activists inside polling places to interfere with efforts to cast a secret ballot. While partisans and groups can electioneer outside polling places, some Democrat and Virginia liberal groups wanted poll watchers to be able to talk to voters inside polling places and even to follow them into voting booths under the guise of “helping” them. This is the kind of potential intimidation tactic that many liberal groups rightly oppose and why all poll watcher trained by every group on the conservative side emphasizes that poll watchers cannot talk to voters in the polls, only election officials can. And for voters who need assistance, Virginia has specific statutory proceduresto protect the voter from intimidation. Cameron simply did what all good election officials across the country of both parties do: stop potential electioneering and voter intimidation inside the polls.
- The article also discusses voter ID. Cameron was an academic advisor to the prestigious Carter-Baker Commission on voting (the "Commission on Federal Election Reform"). This commission, led by former President Jimmy Carter, recommended voter ID. When citing Cameron’s work for voter ID, we find it interesting they omit the Carter-Baker Commission's report, which is still regularly cited today, and instead discuss a group that has been out of existence for over a decade.
Cameron has worked with and been a leader for RNLA for years, though never while she was an election official. Cameron is a consensus builder, careful, conscientious, intelligent, and hardworking. She will make a great Counsel for Civil Rights for the Department of Homeland Security. Mother Jones could have asked us about her but instead of talking to people who knew Cameron, they choose to excerpt and distort parts of her LinkedIn bio and talk to political operatives who oppose all things related to President Trump.