"Rep. Carl Wimmer is floating a bill that would increase the size of the State Board of Education from its current 15 members to 29 members. It would model the 29 board positions on the current 29 state senate districts. Worst of all, it would require candidates for the State Board of Education to declare party affiliations and subject these candidates to the political convention process (and ultimately straight party ticket voting)."Read Senator Scott McCoy's entire post, Politicizing the State Board of Education is a Bad Idea at UTAH SENATE DEMOCRATS.
9 comments:
As a blue dog democrat and a state delegate to our party – I feel less and less as part of our party as we move further to the left which will only decrease our numbers in Utah.
Making school board races to partisan elections is, in my opinion, a good thing.
By making candidates accountable not only to the voters but also to political parties we are creating a check and balances system as to who runs and who doesn’t. This move will actually empower voters by making them more aware of races and will give both parties a mouth piece to creating and formulating policy.
The Senate district model is a fair one.
A dis-heartened democrat
Anonymous 1 is a John Birch neo-con--and a liar.
I have learned where I live almost anyone including a dead blue dog can go to the Utah State Dem. Convention.
Let's take a vote school board races should be controlled by their parties is a good thing. Maybe a referendum is needed. So far at least, anonymous 1, you lose 2:1.
Just one more thought, can't you folks come up with a better than handle than 'anonymous'?
Anon #1 is a democrat like I'm the Queen of England.*
*I am not the Queen of England
Anon #1: I am sorry you feel the party is moving to the left as a general matter and that you are feeling not at home in the Utah Democratic Party. But, I fail to see how this is connected to making the school board races partisan. I frankly don't see it as a liberal or conservative issue. I think an independent, nonpartisan school board is a better model. I would not want it to be different if we happened to have Democratic Leadership in the majority. To me it goes both ways, even though I trust Democrats on education more than I do Republicans.
As for Wimmer's plan, I don't doubt that a senate model would be "fair" if we are going to politicize the school board races. (This is assuming that the districts would not be gerrymandered by the majority to ensure a Republican majority on the Board; which we all know will happen.)
As a starting principle, I don't think we should politicize these races, so I don't doubt that we could come up with a "fair" system, I just don't think we have a problem with the current system, which I think is "fair" right now. The folks who don't think it is "fair" somehow are the Republican leaders who are not getting their way because the independent school board is acting independently.
I still have nor heard a great justification for changing from the currtent system. Perhaps Anon #1 could provide one; preferably one that is education focused.
Scott
Mr. Blue Dog,
Your argument is the lie and spin that Utah Republican leadership wants Utah voters to hear and believe so they can continue to dominate Utah politics.
I have also observed that this blog has been targeted by those who would pretend to be dis-heartened Democrats when they are actually not even associated in any way with the Party.
Not so many weeks ago Rob acknowledged that angry white male, single mom, and old fashioned Democrat were actually one person. I think that person is you.
Your language explaining why you believe that our school board should be partisan, and that the Utah Democratic Party is pulling to the left comes directly from the right, and confirms three things.
#1: You are very in tune with the language Utah Republican leadership is using in their attempt to punish the board for not going along to get along, and...
#2: That you are not involved in any way with the Utah Democratic Party, and...
#3: Right-wingers will lie through there teeth whenever a Democrat makes a logical and truthful statement.
Look at which party is again trying to build a bigger government. It sure isn't the democrats.
Senator McCoy,
Isn't it fascinating that during the whole voucher debate, the pro-voucher camp constantly talked about those darn democrats, those darn liberals who wanted to take "choices" out of the hands of parents when it came to educating their children. You know, they accused us of being partisan about education instead of caring about kids.
And now... I fail to see how making school boards partisan actually helps their argument.
Kim Burningham won his school board election by a big margin. Even though he is a Republican, and very popular in his district he probably wouldn't have made it through convention.
There is the reason Wimmer and other Republican legislators want to turn these races partisan.
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