Former GOP lieutenant governor candidate and schools activist charged with punching teen at boozy Bucks party

A former GOP candidate for Pennsylvania lieutenant governor and leader of a political action committee that fueled conservative opposition to school boards has been charged with assault after allegedly punching a teenager at a boozy birthday party she threw for her 17-year-old daughter.

Multiple teenagers were assaulted by intoxicated adults during the Sept. 29 party at Clarice Schillinger’s Doylestown home, according to a police affidavit. Police say that Schillinger’s intoxicated boyfriend punched one teen in the face and assaulted another. That teen also was punched in the eye by Schillinger’s intoxicated mother, who also chased that teen around the kitchen, the affidavit said.

As teenagers tried to leave the home on Liz Circle, Schillinger — who police said had supplied the more than 15 minors at the party with a basement bar stocked with vodka and rum, played beer pong with them and encouraged them to take shots with her — ordered them to stay.

She then punched one young man in the face three times, according to the affidavit, which said video footage showed Schillinger lunging toward a group of teenagers in the foyer and having to be restrained.

Police charged Schillinger on Oct. 26 with simple assault, harassment, and providing alcohol to minors. The charges were first reported Thursday by the Bucks County Courier Times.

Schillinger directed a request for comment to her lawyer, Matthew Brittenburg, who said in a statement: “Ms. Schillinger has dedicated her life to public service. Additionally, she has always been a law-abiding citizen. Ms. Schillinger looks forward to the opportunity to defend against these allegations.” Court documents show a hearing is scheduled for Jan. 29.

Schillinger’s mother, Danette Bert, and boyfriend, Shan Wilson, were charged with simple assault and harassment. Those charges were withdrawn, and both pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct earlier in December, court records show.

Schillinger, 36, rose to prominence amid a burgeoning conservative movement opposed to pandemic safety measures, which has since shifted to accusing the public education system of indoctrinating students with liberal ideals.

She was tapped by Bucks County venture capitalist Paul Martino in 2021 to lead a political action committee, Back to School PA, that poured more than $500,000 of Martino’s money into school board races. While the PAC billed itself as bipartisan, most candidates who received its donations were Republicans, at a time when conservatives were marshaling opposition to public schools over so-called critical race theory.

Schillinger ran for lieutenant governor in 2022, but lost the May GOP primary.

Schillinger then became executive director of a federal PAC started by Martino, Back to School USA, which pledged to combat “liberal teachers’ unions and special interest groups that are responsible for indoctrinating our children.”

The PAC “plans to invest in the races across the U.S. where the public school unions are backing candidates,” Schillinger said earlier this year. In the first half of 2023, it raised and spent about $20,000; a website for the PAC that existed earlier this year has since been taken down.

Martino didn’t respond to a request for comment Thursday about whether Schillinger still worked for the PAC.

The affidavit describing the charges against Schillinger, which says footage from two different cell phones captured some of the assaults on teenagers, notes that it wasn’t the first time police had been dispatched to an alleged underage drinking party at the home, which she is renting.

Less than a week earlier, on Sept. 24, police found beer cans around her property and in the street. About 20 minors fled when police showed up that night, according to the affidavit, which said Schillinger was “intoxicated and uncooperative.”