There was the perceived need to champion white inclusion in mostly white Greenwich, for example. And the time Ms. MacGillivray, in opposing transgender athletes in scholastic sports, told the school board that the men on her college ski team were consistently stronger and faster — and “even one of the male ski racers” who was “gay,” she said, “out-skied any girl or woman on the racecourse every time.”
There is also the committee’s connection to the Greenwich Patriots, a hard-right group that at times seems like the id to the Town Committee’s ego. The Patriots contend that Covid-19 vaccines are unsafe, rail against “highly sexualized, pornographic and profanity-laced content” in schools, and serve as a conduit for Mr. Trump, promoting his events and sharing his specious claim that the 2020 election was stolen.
“In case you are wondering,” the group’s daily newsletter once advised, “election fraud was rampant in the 2020 election in all 50 states, including in Connecticut.”
False. More than 1.8 million Connecticut residents voted in the 2020 election, but the state’s Elections Enforcement Commission has received just 31 complaints alleging irregularities. Three resulted in fines, with the rest dismissed, pending or found inconclusive.
A Different Kind of Platform
One way that the Town Committee severed its moderate past was by declining to participate in the candidate debates sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Greenwich. The league’s local chapter was “clearly biased” and dominated by Democrats, Ms. MacGillivray said, with a tendency to take “strident, vocal positions on political issues” like voting rules.
The chapter’s president, Sandy Waters, a former Republican member of the Greenwich school board, disputed every point. The nonpartisan organization’s not-for-profit status allows it to support policy issues such as early voting, she said, and the decision by Republicans not to participate hindered the pursuit of an informed electorate.
