Preface

The original publish date of this letter predates my only meeting with Tony Cook.

Near Christmas of 2019 I got a very strange voicemail from an unknown number that turned out to be none other than my state rep that went something like this,

This is Tony.

I’m going to be in Westfield next week. If you have some time we should talk.

During this meeting I had to listen to him tell me all the great things he and the others in the GOP were doing and if there was any issues I was having it was most assuredly with the

“Other people” in the Republican Party that don’t value the same things he does. Now in 2022 you are leading the charge to build distrust of our Indiana Public Education System. Whether it’s HB1134, SB167, HB1072, or whatever other forms of legislation you have passed against public education, educators, and our students through these years.

Mr. Cook,

It’s Ken Tucker.

Please don’t delete.

We’ve never met. We’ve talked via email over the course of the last 5 years. I first contacted you in 2014. I don’t recall the contents but would assumed it had something to do with the state of education in our State. You were from the education profession as well. I hoped to have an advocate for education in the statehouse. My emails have continued over that span. Most recently, over this last year I’ve emailed with general concern not for me but that of our State. Especially as it pertains to our public education system. I continue to look for ideas, ask questions, and seek any information from any person or group about how we can fix our public schools.

Much like many of the other representatives I have contacted your replies were usually off putting. You’ve been misrepresenting me in Indianapolis since you have taken office. Every email I sent to you over education I figured at the very least you would be knowledgeable, seeing that you were a teacher, principal, and superintendent and would be able to provide some insight. Much to my surprise. You haven’t. At the very least I thought you would be a credible source to your colleagues about public education. You haven’t.

I thought you would be

an advocate for teachers and for

Public Education

By the looks of things.
You haven’t

I joined Twitter this past Spring in hopes of joining the conversation in real time about the issues our state is facing. You are now the first politician to block me on Twitter.

If you’re on Twitter. I encourage you to view the few tweets I sent him, or comments I made, and please let me know if I did anything that would warrant my elected representative to outwardly block any public support, questioning, or general acquisition of knowledge from me about what it is he is doing as my representative.

In Tony’s case it’s never been much. At least not for me as a professional educator for sure. Either way you are the third Indiana politician that I will go on record saying does not represent me.

First and foremost it was Mike Pence.

Next, was Mike Braun.

Now, you

One good thing about you blocking me is that it really motivates me to continue to earn enough votes from the people of our shared district to get rid of people like you in Indianapolis and in Washigton D.C. The people who claim to represent me, my family, and my friends in and from Indiana.

Currently, I’m running to replace retiring Susan Brooks as Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. But, if you do win your next election and I lose mine, I make this promise to anyone who cares I’ll run against you in twenty twenty two.

About my latest email. I don’t take back calling you a coward in reference to your time as my representative. I know it’s hard to go against your friends. I do however feel bad that in my email I wasn’t more specific as to why I think you are a coward. I did not mean to infer you were a coward your entire life. So, if you did take it that way.

I apologize.

For anyone else, if you’d like to know more about Indiana’s District 32 representative feel free.

Thanks for reading,

Ken