A screen shot, taken June 5, 2014, of a blog maintained by Ebony Murphy-Root, a third party petitioner for lieutenant governor.
A UConn-educated literacy advocate, inner-city volunteer and feminist blogger emerged Thursday as potential petitioning candidate for lieutenant governor and running mate of potential midterm election spoiler Jonathan Pelto.
Ebony Murphy-Root, 31, filed paperwork with Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, allowing the Hartford resident and Manhattan private school teacher to embark on a petition drive to get onto the November ballot as a candidate for the state’s second highest office.
Murphy-Root’s blog immediately raised eyebrows in the state’s political establishment, however.
She starts out under the biography section labeling herself as an “UppityNegress.”
Murphy-Root, a Stamford native who attended Greenwich Academy and is black, said she was merely being sarcastic about her background.
“I think people should be able to have a sense of humor,” Murphy-Root told Hearst Connecticut Media Thursday. “I attended prep school growing up. My dad’s a truck driver. So that’s something that I like to laugh about.”
A former charter school teacher, Murphy-Root completed a one-week boot camp in 2012 for aspiring candidates at the Women’s Campaign School at Yale.
“I wanted somebody who was going to be very different,” Pelto told Hearst Thursday. “I want a smart, real debate, a debate that will lead to change, and I think she will be a real partner in that. She is very dynamic. She knows her stuff.”
On Murphy-Root calling herself an “uppity negress,” Pelto said, “It’s in the public domain and she’s certainly a public figure.”
Pelto, a former state representative from Storrs, filed similar paperwork with Merrill’s office Thursday. He has expended significant bandwidth on his “progressive” blog and on Facebook railing against Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy over his education agenda and economic incentives awarded to big business.
The tandem is running under the banner of the Education and Democracy Party, which could play the role of spoiler in what is expected to be a toss-up race for governor and could be a potential rematch between Malloy and 2010 GOP foe Tom Foley.
“I think that’s a testament to how many teachers and citizens feel like their voices have been disenfranchised in the state,” Murphy-Root said. “I think, especially in Connecticut, the Democrats have taken teachers’ votes for granted.”
Murphy-Root said teachers are still smarting over comments Malloy made in his 2012 State of the State address, when he said, “In today’s system basically the only thing you have to do is show up for four years. Do that, and tenure is yours.”
A registered Democrat, Murphy-Root said she voted for Malloy in 2010.
“I really been disappointed in the way he’s just lashed out at teachers,” Murphy-Root said.
Requests for comment were left with Malloy’s re-election campaign and the state Democratic Party, the latter of which declined to comment.
Murphy-Root spoke against Common Core, the controversial testing mandate that some parents want their children to opt out of nationally.
“The Common Core, I believe, has really been taken over by corporate interests,” she said. “It’s hard to know who’s behind it.”
Murphy-Root said Common Core is fixated on scores rather than individual learning.
“It’s a really limited scope in terms of what the outcomes are,” she said.
Pelto and Murphy-Root each must collect 7,500 signatures by 4 p.m. Aug. 6 to have their names appear on the Nov. 4 general election ballot.
The hurdle is relatively manageable compared to the threshold for minority party candidates to qualify for public campaign funding under Connecticut’s so-called clean elections program.
The pair must raise $250,000 in political contributions — the individual giving limit is $100 — and get signatures from about 111,000 registered voters. They would then be eligible to receive $2 million from the Citizens’ Election Fund.
Last November, Murphy-Root penned a column on the website EduShyster.com titled, “Did you grow up around black people?”
Chief among Pelto’s bugaboo’s with the Malloy administration is the governor’s commitment to public school education.
In April, Pelto wrote on his blog, “Malloy’s ‘education reform’ legislation has earned him the title of the most anti-teacher, anti-public education, pro-charter school Democratic governor in the nation.”
Murphy teaches humanities at the prestigious Calhoun School on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, where the annual tuition for 9th through 12th grades is $43,580.
“My understanding is that Ebony is prime example of teachers who have been trained in Connecticut but have been unable to find work here as the number of teaching positions have declined and many urban districting hiring Teach For America recruits – for example, Hartford just signed a contract for another 220 TFA recruits,” Pelto told Hearst. “So they’ll be using recent out-of-state college graduates with 5 weeks experience rather than professional trained Connecticut residents.”
Murphy-Root echoed Pelto.
“There’s just no way that we can compete with that,” she said.
This March, Murphy-Root posed for a photo with Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman following the Hartford St. Patrick’s Day parade that she posted on her Facebook account with the comment, “Love the Lt. Gov.” But in November, she could be pitted against Wyman.
Murphy-Root said she is ready for the crucible of running for public office.
“You know, I’m a tough cookie,” she said. “My dad is a truck driver. I can take whatever they’re willing to throw at me, as long as it’s a fair fight.”