She is one of the most important political players on the North Texas scene, but she doesn’t hold public office. She is helping to lead a conservative revolution quite significant in its scope.
Leigh Wambsganss of Southlake is chief communications officer with Patriot Mobile.
Patriot Mobile is a Grapevine-based cellphone company that supports local conservative candidates through a political finance committee. One main goal is to restore prayer in the schools.
The company’s separate general purpose political action committee supports school board candidates who, when elected, may attempt to steer their boards to ban certain books, remove protections for LGBTQ individuals and alter the curriculum taught on American history.
A portion of NBC News’ six-part series on this movement in a podcast called Grapevine features Patriot Mobile and Wambsganss
Wambsganss declined to talk to NBC, but she is willing to answer questions from The Watchdog. Our interview was edited for space and clarity.
What’s your connection to Patriot Mobile Action, a separate entity that is a general purpose political finance committee?
I’m founding board member and executive director.
After leading a coordinated effort in four area school districts — Grapevine-Colleyville, Southlake Carroll, Keller and Mansfield — the natural question is what’s next? More school districts? Cities? Counties? State leaders?
You call it a coordinated takeover of four school districts. That’s not how we conservatives see it. We see it as turning four school districts back to the parents and taxpayers of those school districts for the best interest of the students’ education. We believe in parental rights and every taxpaying parent should have a say in their children’s education. Government does not own children. Children are a blessing from God to their parents.
So what’s next?
I get the “what’s next?” question all the time. The 100% truthful answer is we prayerfully approach what God wants us to do next, and He does not always answer on our preferred timing.
[The PAC] has already been involved in more than school district races, making a serious impact in Tarrant County’s November 2022 general election. We played a significant role in turning what was going very purple, back to red.
Our focus has been on Tarrant County because it’s the largest red county left in the nation, larger than 15 states and critical to keeping Texas. It’s also one of, if not the, highest Democratic targets in the nation.
Put your movement in historical context.
We see this historical movement as the unraveling of the decades long extreme leftist political takeover of America’s public schools. This takeover didn’t occur overnight, and it won’t be solved overnight. It is a movement that must continue to work for decades to undo the decades of damage that political interests have done in their infiltration of the American public school system.
Patriot Mobile contributes to these candidates?
No, not correct at all. Please differentiate between Patriot Mobile and Patriot Mobile Action. They are separate legal entities. The total amount that PM donated to PMA is public record on the Texas Ethics Commission website.
PMA has not contributed one penny to any candidate’s campaign. PMA advocates “on behalf of” candidates we believe will work hard for the betterment of their schools, city, county and state. In other words, we run our own campaigns. So, all of the incorrect reporting on that needs to be called out. Hopefully, you can do that.
Moving away from money, I see part of the reason behind your success is that people don’t usually follow school board elections. Taking advantage of long-standing voter apathy, you can win with a lot less votes.
That used to be the case, yes, and that’s how public education got in this mess. But now it’s quite the opposite. The blessing of COVID’s school shutdowns is that parents started to see the harmful material that was being fed to their children disguised as educational curriculum. This was pure political indoctrination.
This situation organically created the Mama Bear movement across the country and people engaged at the ballot box. Southlake launched the movement.
What are the long-term goals of the movement?
On the school board front — to have an educated citizenry that values American exceptionalism. This requires a robust education in all of the reading, writing, math, sciences, etc., but critical to that is true world and American history.
The true founding of America must be taught. The horrors of slavery in the world and America must be taught. The Holocaust must be taught. If we do not teach our children about the mistakes throughout history, they are bound to repeat it.
On the general election front, our goal is to elect conservatives who will stand for freedom, our Constitution, and our state and nation’s sovereignty.
I did listen to episodes 1 and 2 because people were texting me saying, the narrators were “spreading the same lies about Grapevine-Colleyville ISD.” The unethical creators of that podcast have never represented both sides.
In that podcast, I Iearned about the “7 Mountains Mandate.” Do you agree with that as a goal? Is that a significant part of the movement? (Note: Under this belief, there are seven spheres of cultural significance, and followers strive to make each of the spheres led by Christians. The spheres are family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.)
To be honest, I need to learn more about it to speak to this issue. But I will say this, Christians are commanded to be the hands and feet of Jesus in all aspects of life. That includes in our personal lives, in our homes, with our finances, in our workplaces, in our communities, etc.
Turning to school prayer, do you really think that having kids say prayers will change the modern world in a significant way?
I believe more prayer in every aspect of life would be of great benefit to the modern world in significant ways. We are seeing massive revivals across our country on college campuses and across the world with people realizing they need to get back to God. Prayer is so important.
In 2 Chronicles 7:14, we are told, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I forgive their sin and heal their land.” Our land needs healing. Our people need to humble themselves in prayer. It would improve every aspect of our society.
So yes, unequivocally, children praying can change the world in significant ways.
I’m Jewish. If we become officially a Christian nation, where do I fit in?
We are already a nation founded on Judeo-Christian values. Extremists have a hard time digesting that everything isn’t mutually exclusive. As a huge supporter of the First Amendment, I will fight for your right to practice your religion, regardless if it’s not the same faith as mine. That is what America is all about.
In this age of the internet, how is banning books successful? In the podcast, one student is quoted as saying that controversial books get passed around among friends. A former student says, “Get rid of the books. Fine. We are going to find each other. We’re going to connect, and we’re going to spread our stories in a million ways.”
I really don’t know what the answer is. I don’t think any conservatives are out to shut something down. What they do care about is that tax dollars aren’t spent on putting Gender Queer and other equally sexually explicit books in the hands of children in tax-funded public schools.
What is the media missing about your movement?
Mainstream media demonizes Christians and conservative activism, while they have turned a blind eye to the millions of dollars pouring into local politics for many, many years. It would take an investigative reporter about an hour to start following the money, yet that is never done. I’d love to see you dig into it.
Leigh Wambsganss, thanks for your time.
