When Maria Chappelle-Nadal filed to run against incumbent U.S. Rep. Wm. Lacy Clay in the August 2 Democratic Primary, she knew she would be out-funded. Less than two weeks before election day, Clay has roughly a half-million dollars to spend on his campaign, while the term-limited state senator has roughly half of $50,000 in her federal campaign treasury.
However, a year ago she had more than $200,000 left in her state campaign fund from her previous races for state representative and state senator. While she could not spend that money on a federal campaign for U.S. Congress, she could donate it to other local campaigns. And that, she did.
“I vowed to support Ferguson activists and young people running for office who understand the challenge we face in terms of race and economic and social inequities,” Chappelle-Nadal told The American. “I really want to have more young people involved in the government process in elected positions, at the local, state and federal levels.”
Of course, she also was buying herself a low-rent version of something her opponent, the son of a political dynasty, is famous for having: a GOTV (get out the vote) machine.
Starting at the roots of the political process, she donated at least $1,000 to 10 campaigns for committeeperson in six St. Louis wards, including Rasheen Aldridge, Megan Betts, Alison Dreith, Matt Carroll-Schmidt, Marty Murray Jr., Tony Zebrowski, Annie Rice, Max Cassilly, Laura Hladky, and Glenn Burleigh. And she plans to fund even more.
“A bunch of people running for committee seats in the city have been inspired by Ferguson and the revolution of Bernie Sanders,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “It’s really interesting that we’re all experiencing the same voice, the same movement.”
She gave much more generously – $25,000 – to a St. Louis County Council race very dear to her heart, Rochelle Walton Gray’s bid to oust incumbent Councilman Mike O’Mara. O’Mara is a close ally of County Executive Steve Stenger, an enemy of Chappelle-Nadal and mutual supporter of Clay’s.
Gray, a term-limited state representative, also faces a well-funded, entrenched incumbent from a local political dynasty. She told The American it was Chappelle-Nadal’s donation that enabled her to launch her campaign to defeat O’Mara.
Chappelle-Nadal also donated handsomely to a number of campaigns for state representative in the 1st Congressional District: Jay Mosley, Bruce Franks Jr., John Collins-Muhammad and Rachel Johns. (Johns filed against a Clay mentee, state Rep. Joshua Peters, but Peters won a residency challenge and had her removed from the ballot. She remains a candidate for 27th Ward committeewoman.)
Chappelle-Nadal said she gave to all of these upstart campaigns because she “wanted to leave a legacy,” but it’s equally clear that she wanted to create a number of contested primaries in the 1st Congressional District. She is banking that new voters brought out by all of these first-time candidates will also vote for change in Congress – for her over Clay.
“Yes, I’m also being practical with the money in my state Senate campaign fund,” she acknowledged.
The Ferguson protest movement and its young, diverse allies is one base for Chappelle-Nadal. She was an early, vocal responder on the streets of Ferguson. Clay remained notoriously absent for nearly a week, arriving only, as Chappelle-Nadal said, after “four days after tear-gassing, two days of buildings burnings, and many days of police harassment and the 1st Amendment being infringed upon.”
Clay rightly takes credit for personally requesting that then Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. come to Ferguson and open Department of Justice investigations into the police killing of Michael Brown Jr. and into the Ferguson Police Department – as, indeed, Holder did.
Chappelle-Nadal, for one, was not impressed.
“When people are in pain in a human disaster, you don’t write a letter,” she said. “You have your staff write a letter and go to where the people are hurting. He wasn’t there.”
Chappelle-Nadal also has built a base in another local activist community, organized around nuclear waste that was dumped in Cold Water Creek and at the Bridgeton Landfill, both in the 1st Congressional District. In the past eight months, she has held 41 town hall meetings on the issue. The Bridgeton community activist group Just Moms also benefitted from her practical generosity, netting a $10,000 donation.
Chappelle-Nadal dipped further into that state campaign fund to send 12 women activists from Ferguson and Bridgeton to the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life. “I want them to have the skill sets they need to run for office,” she said. The institute grooms women to run for office, seek judicial appointments and work in government policy positions.
“I’m building a coalition of truly progressive people who understand race and socioeconomic inequities,” Chappelle-Nadal said. “We need people who are going to stand up and actually say something if something else goes down.”
That’s the future of the community she is investing in. What about her political future, which will be decided on August 2?
In addition to an enormous advantage in cash on hand, Clay – first elected to Congress in 2000, after his father, Bill Clay, stepped down – has much more experience and 15 years of all-important seniority. Chappelle-Nadal does not think Clay should campaign on his seniority.
“If seniority mattered, the Bridgeton Landfill would have been cleaned up a long time ago, along with the Cold Water Creek watershed; African-American unemployment in the district would not be 17 percent; there would not be this high number of homeless people and buildings ripped apart because of decay; the streets would not look like Baghdad – and, I do have to say, I’ve been to Baghdad,” she said.
Clay also has the value of being a known quantity. He did call the killing of Michael Brown Jr. “murder” on live television when the investigation into the youth’s killing was not finished (of course, Police Officer Darren Wilson was charged with no crime). But, in the heat of the moment, Chappelle-Nadal stepped much further over the line of propriety, publicly dropping the F-bomb on Gov. Jay Nixon.
“I said the F-bomb to the governor after being tear-gassed along with 150 young people while he was at the state fair,” she said. “I’m not going to apologize for my advocacy. People need to be present when people are hurting.”
The Democratic Primary election is Tuesday, August 2.
“We need people who are going to stand up and actually say something if something else goes down.” – Maria Chappelle-Nadal
