Debbie Lesko is the Betsy DeVos of Arizona. She hates public schools and wants to privatize them. She is active in ALEC, the rightwing corporate bill mill.

Read about her campaign for Congress here, in an article by Graham Vyse in The New Republic.

“Lesko resigned from the state Senate in January to focus on running for Congress, and she’s now the Republican nominee in the April 24 special election for Arizona’s Eighth Congressional District. A darling of the Koch brothers in her own right, she’s the clear favorite to replace former Representative Trent Franks—a Republican who resigned in disgrace last year over sexual-misconduct accusations. Conventional wisdom says Democrats don’t have a shot in this heavily conservative district. It includes former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s political base, and Trump carried the district by 21 points in 2016. But after Conor Lamb’s victory this month in a Pennsylvania district Trump won by about the same margin, Democrats are allowing themselves to hope. “Arizona can be harder than Pennsylvania,” Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, recently said on Pod Save America. Yet, Pfeiffer argued, the two districts have “essentially the same political dynamic.” “There could be a real shot here,” he said. “There’s a good candidate who won the primary a couple weeks ago.”

“Pfeiffer was referring to Hiral Tipirneni, an Indian-born emergency-room physician and advocate for cancer research, who won the Democratic nomination with a moderate message. Even the conservative publication Newsmax calls her “a strong candidate,” which might explain why the Republican National Committee just invested $281,250 in this race along with $170,000 from the National Republican Congressional Committee and $100,000 on the way from the Congressional Leadership Fund. These investments come as polling by Lake Research Partners shows Tipirneni down 14 points, but Lesko’s record should motivate local Democrats looking to notch another upset victory. “Debbie Lesko has made it clear she’s representing ALEC,” Tipirneni told me. “She’s representing the Koch brothers. She’s representing her lobbyists.”

Could the Big Blue Wave that Elected Ralph Northam in Virginia, Doug Jones in Alabama, and Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania topple Lesko?

Most families in Arizona send their children to public schools. Do the public school parents in Lesko’s district know that she wants to defund their public schools?

Lesko has promoted vouchers in Arizona.

“Arizona was the first state in the country to enact Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, also known as Education Savings Accounts, in 2011. Championed by the state’s Goldwater Institute, a libertarian think tank also tied to the Kochs, these accounts allow families taking their child out of public school to put 90 percent of the child’s share of state education funding toward private education—tuition, tutoring, or other expenses. Eligibility for the program was initially limited to a small group of students, including those with disabilities, but Lesko’s law opened it up to all 1.1 million of Arizona’s public-school kids.”

Parents have blocked implementation by putting a refendum on the ballot. Vouchers have never won a public vote. The vote frightens voucher advocates.

The state’s voucher program operates with little or no oversight or accountability. Parents have used their debit cards to buy legitimate school supplies, then returned them for credit and spent state money on personal expenses. At least one report says the ESA was used to pay for an abortion.

The special election for the Congressional seat will be held on April 24. If you live in her district, be sure to vote.