Fairfax County School Board Member Laura Jane Cohen (Springfield District) said yesterday’s court order dismissing the legal challenge to remove her from office confirmed that the entire case was no more than a political campaign without any legal support.

“This dismissal is long overdue,” Cohen said. “In fact, it was a case that never should have been filed in the first place. Elected officials cannot be recalled because of differences of opinion. We have elections to decide who should represent us on school boards. There was never any legal basis for this recall petition. It was all politics driven by massive dark money contributions and even paid signature gathering.”

A Fairfax Circuit judge dismissed the petition at the request of a court-appointed special prosecutor, an elected Republican, who said the petition was “not based on facts sufficient to show probable cause for removal.”

The removal petition was filed in December 2021 in Fairfax Circuit Court and was essentially identical to one seeking to unseat another Board member that was summarily dismissed in August 2021.