Judge NISD candidate on more than Jan. 6
Should someone who denied the results of the 2020 presidential election, and was present at the subsequent violent insurrection at the Capitol, be considered a credible candidate for local office? What if the candidate regrets participating in that event?
These are the questions spurred by Amy Hoffmann’s candidacy for a seat on the Northside Independent School District Board of Trustees.
Hoffmann was among the thousands of supporters for former President Donald Trump in Washington D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021, to oppose certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. They’d been lured to the Capitol by Trump’s lie that the 2020 election had been stolen from him. Hoffmann told Expressnews metro columnist Gilbert Garcia that it was the first political rally she had attended and her first time in Washington D.C.
That day, Hoffmann posted a collage of photos from that event on Facebook, writing, “Hundreds of thousands of Patriots showed up to protest the election fraud. It was amazing!”
When Trump gave the marching orders, Hoffmann was among those who set out for the U.S. Capitol, but she said she stayed for only a few minutes and wasn’t there when the violence erupted and made Jan. 6 one of the darkest dates in American history.
Anyone participating in the storming and defacing of the building — assaulting police officers; searching, with violent intent, for Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other members of Congress — should be prosecuted and incarcerated. They should also, in the eyes of voters, be disqualified for public office.
This is what makes Hoffmann’s situation intriguing. She has said she only stayed at the Capitol for a few minutes, and while her description of the rally stretches credulity — “It just sounded fun,” she said. — she also told Garcia she now regretted being at the Jan. 6 rally, admitting she got caught up in the emotions.
“I think it’s like anything. You want your person to win. And when your person doesn’t win, obviously you want to grasp at any straws that explain why your person didn’t win. And since then, I’ve just accepted, like, ‘Hey, that’s it, we lost,’ and gone back to life.”
Democracies can’t function unless the losing side accepts the results. Hoffmann is a first-time political candidate whose life is intertwined with NISD. Her parents taught in the district. Her five children have attended NISD schools, and she has been active in the PTA for 13 years.
Last year, she represented City Council District 4 on the Parks, Recreation & Open Spaces Committee for the city’s bond program, advocating for additional funding for greenway trails. Hoffmann is an ardent supporter of public schools, and she opposes vouchers.
It’s an impressive resume for a school board candidate, but it would also mean nothing if she had been charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, which threatened our democracy.
That’s not the case here. We believe many, likely most, of the participants in the rally didn’t go to Washington D.C expecting violence. Nothing has disproved Hoffman’s account that she left before the riot began.
This doesn’t relieve Hoffman of questions about her decision to attend the rally, what she thinks of Trump now, much less the persistence of the Big Lie. Her answers are pertinent to voters. But so, too, are her reflections and insights about that fateful day and how her political views have changed.
To be clear: This is, by no means, a recommendation of Hoffmann’s candidacy. She faces David Salcido, a U.S. Army veteran, for this District 1 Northside ISD race. We plan to meet with both candidates. But when people have admitted to a mistake, or a lapse in judgment, they should be offered the grace to atone and the space to learn and grow.
And from there, NISD voters will make the decision they think is best for their district and students.
Hoffmann’s decision to attend rally clouds her trustee candidacy.