In recent years, elected officials have faced threats and suffered a deterioration in mental health. While coverage of such incidents often focuses on federal and state officials, local leaders have come under attack as well.
The Elected Leaders Coalition is trying to help local officials work through those challenges, one small group at a time – for now.
Skippy Mesirow is a member of the Aspen (Colo.) City Council. He’s also the founder of the Elected Leaders Coalition and has spent the past six months directing the first cohort of a new ELC initiative called The Pride.
“It’s a one-year commitment but a lifetime opportunity,” Mesirow said of the program. Participants “cultivate a space that is truly safe, open and peer level, where they get a sense of bonding and community they can’t get anywhere else.”
The program welcomes both elected officials and staff, who separately negotiate the hazards that come with their roles in government. Participants gather once per month for 90 minute sessions covering three areas: skill training (such as overcoming personal blocks, dealing with hate and communication), group coaching and peer counselor support.
“I did not know then that the root of my desire to eat was coping mechanisms cleverly designed by my subconscious to protect me. They were the first of my unconscious self-medication strategies, nor would they be the last whose side effects I had to overcome,” Mesirow explains on the ELC website. “Over the following few decades, I remade my life, delved deep into the heart of my traumas, and turned crisis into creation and roadblocks into building blocks.”
And now he is trying to use his own growth experiences to help others to create a better political system. “I want to keep people from dropping out and burning out,” he said.
ELC surveyed participants at the six-month mark to determine whether the program has been successful. And measuring against a benchmark survey conducted at the beginning of the program, Mesirow sees positive results, even though not everyone was able to stick with the program.
“We lost a couple cohort members early on. We know the work is challenging. Most of us [at the local level] are overwhelmed,” he said. “It’s hard to look in the mirror sometimes.”
In fact, ELC grew out of Mesirow’s own desire for self-improvement, going all the way back to his years in youth football, when he was punished by a coach for being too heavy.
Everyone still in the program said they have seen either significant or slight reduction in mental health symptoms since the cohort first started meeting. And everyone also said the program has helped them with professional relationships.
“We have seen across-the-board improvements with colleagues across the council table including people they’ve had challenges with … as well as staff and the public,” Mesirow said.
Of course, working with a dozen people isn’t going to bring about nationwide change – but ELC has a plan for that.
“We need to roll out more cohorts. We need to get more data,” Mesirow explained. “We need to be more robust and reflect the larger kaleidoscope of elected leaders.”
In addition to The Pride, ELC runs a number of other programs that offer similar learning opportunities without the long-term commitment. For example, it offers multi-day “immersive” retreats for local governments or regional gatherings.
“We are trying to get enough data by the two-year mark to support what types of intervention will be the most efficacious in driving mental health and mental well-being,” Mesirow said. “That’s where we can be the best for our community.”
People interested in participating in the cohort kicking off in January can sign up now.
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.