Shaun Brown is currently under federal indictment for felony charges, and it has recently been revealed that she is part of a cynical plot to divide the Democratic vote in November. It’s no coincidence that a Republican raised most of the signatures she needs to get on the ballot this November despite her past as a Democratic candidate.

Shaun Brown was the Democratic Nominee for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District in 2016. She lost by 23 points in a district that most observers, including the Cook Political Report and the Democratic Party, believe is now a swing district. And that was before she was indicted for stealing money from a program designed to provide meals for poor children. Yes, seriously.

Photo from The Virginian-Pilot

The Daily Press reports that

“B rown is accused of overstating reimbursement claims while operating her nonprofit JOBS, a sponsor for a government program that provides meals for low-income children. The original federal indictment filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in December alleges that Brown filed the false reimbursement claims with the Virginia Department of Health in 2012 when the department was state administrator of the meals program. The indictment says the claims led to an overpayment of $803,000. The indictment also alleges that Brown directed employees to falsify “meal count sheets” documenting the number of meals served...”

I want to be clear that I am a very firm believer in innocent until proven guilty and remaining skeptical until we have as much evidence as possible. Jumping to conclusions is a huge problem, especially in politics where attacks and rumors may be politically motivated. However, an indictment is serious, far more serious than, for example, the accusations leveled against Hillary Clinton in 2016. Those accusations against Hillary never made it as far as an indictment, which requires a grand jury to look at the evidence of a crime and determine that the evidence is substantial enough to warrant formal charges and a trial. Of course, before the trial we can not declare Brown to be guilty. At the same time, an indictment is a valid reason to not want her to be the Democratic candidate. Sorry, but it is just a pragmatic concern. A candidate who may be a felon simply can not win this race…or many other races for that matter. If she is found innocent then all is forgiven and nobody should hold that against her in the future, but she needs to be found innocent before she runs for Congress. (Although it seems quite likely that she is guilty, given the numerous witnesses testifying against her in an hours long cross-examination several days ago).

However, what people should hold against Brown is her reckless decision to run anyway as an independent. She announced her intent in late March, and explained that it was due to the DCCC endorsing Elaine Luria in the primary. I think that the DCCC made a horrible mistake in endorsing in primaries. In fact I think that endorsement may end up costing Democrats this seat, especially because it may depress the Progressive vote. My support, writing, and volunteering went to help Karen Mallard, the more progressive choice in the primary. However, running as a spoiler as Brown is doing does nothing to help progressives, fight against biased primary processes, or help the Democratic Party become more democratic. If anything, this sort of stunt will be used as an excuse by the Democratic establishment to continue to bias primaries in favor of one candidate, since they can now say “Well we might need to stop a candidate who is under indictment or something like that, so we need to be involved in primaries”. I am sympathetic to many of the policy positions Brown takes, but I can not support her now, or in the foreseeable future.

What if, instead of burning all of these bridges, Brown had tried to reform the Democratic Party by endorsing local progressives, or working with a group like Our Revolution to canvass around the state? What if she had given her fund-raising list to Progressive Democrats in the region? Perhaps she could have been lending support to Shelly Simonds last November, who lost by a random name-drawing in a tied race, and given us a 50–50 split in the House of Delegates. Brown had a chance to make a real difference, help the Commonwealth, and get more Progressive candidates elected. As a Progressive myself it pains me to see Progressives give up the opportunity to do so much good, and push for so much change, for the sake of something as petty and counterproductive as this.

Given this stunt, how did Brown even get enough signatures to make the ballot? Well, it turns out that people working for Scott Taylor, the Republican who defeated Brown in 2016, have been helping Brown collect the signatures she needed to make the ballot. In fact, four employees of Taylor’s campaign were involved in helping collect signatures for Brown. And they didn’t just gather a few of the signatures, they actually gathered over 570 of the 1000 signatures she needed! These four staffers were paid over $1,200 each by Taylor’s campaign the week after gathering signatures. Shaun Brown appears to have made the ballot thanks for this tactic, as she was desperately gathering signatures up to the last minute, including getting 50 herself on the day of the election. If real Democrats had supported her she wouldn’t have had such a struggle, and she wouldn’t have had to rely on Republicans to help her. Scott Taylor’s campaign admits that he knew this was going on, although they claim the work was volunteer and that the payment was coincidental. When asked about whether Taylor knew of this plan, Taylor’s spokesman Scott Weldon admitted to the Pilot, “Yep, of course he knew.”

What type of Democrat, or Progressive, could live with themselves after benefiting from such a transparently Machiavellian tactic from a right-wing politician that was clearly designed to undermine Democrats?

I believe that VA-2 is only truly in play if there is a Democratic wave this November, but if it is in play, the 1–3% of the vote Shaun Brown gets may well make the difference between victory and defeat. Let’s hope it doesn’t make a difference in determining control of the House of Representatives. If Brown committed the felonies for which she has been indicted, she deserves to live in infamy. If she is innocent and costs Democrats the Second District for the sake of some misguided revenge, she has no place in the Democratic Party. Vote for Elaine Luria in November. She wasn’t my choice in the primary, but she is by far the best choice on the ballot.

Update: On August 1st a mistrial was declared in the case against Brown. The jury had found 11–1 that she is guilty; however, a unanimous decision was required.