Word started trickling in Tuesday afternoon. Finally, a bill had been introduced in the General Assembly that would move elections for local school boards to . . . Election Day.
Imagine that. Holding elections on Election Day--when people go to the polls to vote.
As things now stand, unfairly, elections for school boards in Arkansas fall in September. And it's not hard to understand why. Teachers' unions, principals' unions, the school boards' associations and the rest of the stultified educational establishment in this state want to maintain their tight grip on those elections. They've got a vested interest in keeping turnout in school elections low enough so they can continue to dictate the outcome. Why invite We The People--that is, all qualified voters--to vote in school elections? We'd only get in the way of these vested interests. Yes, better to restrict the electorate to a size the establishment can control.
The result has been to send a message to the rest of us when it comes to school-board elections: Keep Out.
Why settle for democracy when you can rig the system to make sure your crowd wins every time? It works, too. Of the two elections for Little Rock's school board last year, there were only a little more than 700 votes cast in one and maybe 600-plus in the other, if we recall. If that's democracy, what would a rigged system be?
If school elections are hidden away in September, the various unions can make sure their people get to the polls while the rest of us voters and taxpayers are distracted by football games, school plays and dove season.
If only 50 people show up to vote in a school-board election, the unions have to remind only 26 of them to vote the unions' way--and the outcome is assured. And they win that seat. And, using the same not very subtle approach, the next seat that comes up for a vote. And another and another. Till the unions and their allies control the whole board. The way they did Little Rock's school board for all too long. And look what a fine mess that little arrangement produced, failing schools and all.
A proposal now wending its way through the Legislature--House Bill 1422--would change all that. That bill, sponsored by state Representative Nate Bell and state Senator Jane English, would move these elections to November, when more voters would be paying more attention. And the people would rule, as in Regnat Populus, the state's motto. Which too often is honored only in the breach.
The various unions in the select world of education can't stand the idea of reforming school-board elections. Their plans would be ruined by the mere voters! Can't have that. Who do these voters and taxpayers think they are, anyway--the people?
The usual alarms have been raised. Union bosses are telling their people to contact lawmakers. Kill this bill dead! Their power to rule depends on it.
Somebody forwarded us an email from a panicky type in the educantists' well-ensconced camp. It's titled in all caps: CALL TO ACTION.
This would-be Paul Revere warned that the voters were coming, the voters were coming! And how terrible that would be. Because, according to the Talking Points attached to the email, if this HB 1422 passes, all hell would break loose:
--Voting would be chaotic. Don't you know that some school-board districts don't mesh perfectly with state House and Senate districts?
Big deal. Those who run the elections in this state have long done a good job of making sure the right voters get the right ballots anyway.
And do you know who else might represent districts whose boundaries don't coincide exactly with those of legislative districts? Well, there are mayors. And county judges. Sheriffs. And maybe your own local alderman or city director. And 'pert near everybody else on the ballot. Somehow, for all these years, elections have been held and public officials duly elected in Arkansas anyway. Without the masses being thrown into confusion every Election Day.
--Moving school elections to November would increase the costs of running for office.
Gosh, you mean candidates would have to go to voters to explain what they stand for? What an unfair burden.
--The cost of holding these school-board elections as part of the general election in November, where they've always belonged, could cost more than for a quiet election in September.
How, pray tell? How would just adding some more names to a ballot already prepared cost more than holding a whole, separate election? The writer of these Talking Points didn't say.
--The general election is too late in the year. School boards evaluate superintendents in November and December, while these elections would now come in November.
Oh, please. If it's too big a crunch, then evaluate superintendents in January. Or maybe May or June, after the school year. Whoever wrote these Talking Points must have been grasping for any reason, or rather excuse, to keep the old, unfair and undemocratic system.
That memo/leaflet making the rounds also complained that elections for local school boards would start to resemble the rough-and-tumble of real elections. Yet this state also holds nonpartisan judicial runoffs in November, and while they can be vigorously contested, as elections should be, at least the people get a real say.
For all too long, only a handful of voters have taken part in these school-board elections, and many of them have a financial interest in how those elections turn out. When teachers' unions dominate school-board elections, and elect their own to represent the public in negotiations with, yes, teachers' unions, what you have is a classic example of self-dealing. It's time the people put an end to it.
Taxpayers have an interest in these elections, too. And if HB 1422 becomes law, they might even get a real say in them.
Editorial on 02/27/2015