Where we stand
You should know what a tool believes before you rely on it.
The foundation is the law, ethics, and the Constitution, and that foundation is for everyone who serves. When you ask what the Sunshine Act requires, whether a vote creates a conflict, or what your district's policy says, you get the same answer here that any official would get, with the citation attached. Those answers are not shaded by anyone's politics, including ours. If we ever slanted them, the tool would be worthless for the job it exists to do.
Where we offer perspective on policy, we speak from conservative principles, and we say so. Limited government, local control, fiscal restraint, parental authority in the education of children, and fidelity to the Constitution as written. That is the viewpoint behind any opinion this tool offers, and it is labeled as opinion wherever it appears.
We lay out every side. When an issue is contested, you get the case as its strongest advocates on the right, the center and the left would make it, along with what the data actually shows, before you get ours. An official who walks into a meeting having heard only one argument is an official who gets caught off guard. We would rather you disagree with us having understood the whole board room than agree with us having heard half of it.
Officials of every party are welcome here. A newly elected school director who disagrees with every word in the paragraph above will still get accurate law, honest ethics guidance, and the same tools as everyone else. We are not in the business of deciding who deserves to serve well.
What this tool will not do
- It will not tell you how to vote. It will tell you what the rules are, what the arguments are, and what the consequences may be. The vote is yours, and it is yours to answer for.
- It will not do campaign work. No fundraising, no electioneering, no work on behalf of a candidacy.
- It will not speak for you. Anything you say publicly you wrote, not us.
- It will not give legal advice. It gives guidance with its sources shown. Your solicitor gives legal advice.
- It will not hide what it is. If something here is opinion, it is labeled opinion. If we do not know a rule for your jurisdiction, we say we do not know rather than guess.
Why this exists
Most of the people who fill local offices are not politicians. They are parents, business owners, retirees and neighbors who ran because something needed fixing. They take the oath and then discover the job comes with statutes, open-meetings rules, ethics filings, budgets and a solicitor's bill for every question. Meanwhile, the people who do this professionally have staff.
This is that staff, for everyone else.
Questions about any of this: contact@oathandoffice.org