Next week early voting for the primaries starts on April 5. It would be best to vote in person on May 3, but for those who cannot make it, in person early voting is from April 5-May 2.
Today has been frustrating, because I need to address an issue that is popping up. I saw a post on Telegram with Stand for Health Freedom’s voter guide, and to say I was shocked at their recommendations would be an understatement. Then I checked other social media sites to find back and forth arguments among people regarding their voting guide. Some people appear to be as surprised as I was to see their recommendations.
For the past 7 years, I haven’t really went against another group working for freedom, but either Stand for Health Freedom did not do an appropriate vetting process of candidates, or they have a VERY different view of medical freedom candidates. A view that does not help our state remove incumbents that have not served us. I was already surprised by their endorsement of Jake Teshka when he has been weak and has a great primary challenger against him, Sarina Williams. But their guide is full of establishment Republican In Name Only candidates. Due to that, I feel I have to address this. The people have worked too hard to be misled to vote for status quo.
I have been talking about how Rep Matt Lehman supported the Senate amendment to gut the guaranteed religious exemption from HB1001. He said he supported the Senate amendment during the hearing. He played both sides and gave lip service to medical freedom leaders. He pretended to be on their side, but he didn’t try and change HB1001 when it went to conference committee to consolidate the House version with the gutted Senate version. He pushed the gutted version through with zero changes. Actions speak louder than words. Myself and others have recommended people in district 79 vote against Rep Matt Lehman and vote for Russ Mounsey who has promised to write legislation for medical freedom and go against leadership when it comes to protecting freedoms. This is a priority district to get Matt Lehman out, but Stand for Health Freedom recommends Matt Lehman over his freedom loving challenger. It’s unbelievable to be honest.
Another priority is District 56 to get out Dr Brad Barrett. His challenger, Mark Pierce, has also promised to write legislation for medical liberty. Unfortunately, Stand for Health Freedom is recommending Dr Brad Barrett who has a poor record of medical freedom including writing and helping pass bills giving more control to the health department. That’s another shocking recommendation. He wrote one amendment against vaccine passports last year, but he didn’t push for it and seemed relieved that it didn’t pass. He is against us.
Stand for Health Freedom has also went against Rep John Jacobs by recommending the GOP establishment backed challenger, Julie McGuire. The GOP is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote McGuire and get rid of conservative and medical freedom supporter, Rep John Jacobs. Jacobs has written many bills and amendments that helped kill bad bills. He has a proven record of writing bills for medical freedom and speaking at freedom events. It’s truly shocking that Stand for Health Freedom is recommending voting against John Jacobs.
Just because a politician completes a survey with the “right” answers, doesn’t mean they support medical freedom. For example, if Nancy Pelosi completes a medical freedom survey with the right answers, should we believe she is telling the truth and would be against mandates?!? No, because her record/actions and her words don’t match supporting freedom. It’s common sense and it’s a matter of realizing when a politician is lying to get what they want, re-elected.
Additionally, Stand for Health Freedom is supporting Rep Randy Lyness, who doesn’t have a primary challenger so it doesn’t matter, but my friend and I personally met with Randy Lyness last year about supporting SB74 since he’s on the Labor and Employment committee, and we wanted his vote He said he was probably going to get his covid shot, and he said people can go get another job if they don’t want to get an employer mandated vaccine. He was not supportive of SB 74 which was an employee exemption bill. Why would Stand for Health Freedom support him? What vetting process did they use before telling people voting recommendations? I can tell you that he personally said he did not support SB 74 for religious exemptions for workers. Just because he jumped on the bandwagon with HB 1001, which the state religious exemption was removed from it anyway, doesn’t mean he is on our side.
There are more RINO recommendations from them that I’m not even going into detail for. It is really weird.
I think people need to contact Stand for Health Freedom and get an explanation. Either their guide was not vetted appropriately, they have a different view of medical freedom, or some type of compromise has happened. Having a few recommendations that are off isn’t a big deal, but having many is odd. Voting recommendations come with a big responsibility to lead people in the right direction.
Several groups in Indiana have worked hard to get freedom loving candidates to run in the primary against the status quo legislators who no longer serve us. There are at least 30 good candidates running against our go along to get along legislators. It is disappointing to see another group supposedly working on getting people to vote for health freedom, to recommend incumbent candidates who are poorly supportive of medical freedom per their voting records. What is the point of having primary challengers if the people are told to just vote for the incumbents who have not helped stop government over reach the past two years?!?
I have made a voter guide that has been vetted with a lot of hard work and time. The long Voter Guide is 21 pages, and it contains a link to the new maps, a link to register to vote, and a link to find where to vote early in person if you can’t make it on May 3. It has all the state Representative, state Senate, and Congress districts with primary challengers. Not all districts have a recommendation, because for some there aren’t any candidates for medical freedom.
For those that want to get to the point, here is a Quick Voter Guide with District Number and Name of the candidate recommended. Not all districts are on this guide, only those with a good primary challenger are on this.
I make no money off my work, and I have no conflict of interests to disclose. I’m not saying taking donations as a nonprofit is bad, I’m saying I make no money out of this. I am grass roots, and I have been at the State House to testify for freedom every year for the past 7 years. This isn’t a competition on who gets a voter guide shared around the most. It is about who is making the appropriate recommendations when it comes to medical freedom. I have shared legislator reviews from other groups that are appropriate.
It pains me to go against another group, but their voter guide is inappropriate if you want change and want medical freedom. It goes against the hard work that many leaders in the state have done to support freedom challengers. I would share Stand for Health Freedom’s absurd voter guide for you to see, but I don’t want them to say anything to me about a copyright or something.
Please be very careful about who you listen to when it comes to voter recommendations. Do your own research and talk to your local candidates.