Partisan school board bill passes out of Indiana Senate, heads to Gov. Mike Braun's desk
The Senate voted 26-24 on Thursday to give final legislative approval to Senate Bill 287, which will require school board candidates to declare a political party when running in a general election.
Bill author Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrneville, said Thursday school boards should be partisan because school board races see lower voter turnout because voters don't know the political party of the candidates. Further, school boards are already partisan, Byrne said.
'Like it or not, this is something that voters want to know about the candidate,' Byrne said. 'Some people who are against this bill say school boards shouldn't be partisan. I don't think this bill makes them partisan, I think that they already are partisan.'
Senate Bill 287 was amended in the House Elections and Apportionment committee to reflect House Bill 1230, authored by Rep. J.D. Prescott, R-Union City, which removed the primary election requirement and states that in the general election a school board candidate can choose to be listed as a Republican, Democrat, independent or nonpartisan.
When the bill was heard by the House, it was amended further to state that if a candidate chooses to be nonpartisan, then a blank space will appear on the ballot where party affiliation would be listed.
If the board member who leaves the board was a Republican or Democrat, then a caucus should be held to replace that member. Independent or nonpartisan candidates can be replaced by the sitting school board members, according to the bill.
Under the bill, board members would see a pay increase from $2,000 to 10% of the lowest starting salary of a teacher working in the district.
Initially, the Senate filed a motion to dissent from the House amendments to the bill, but the dissent was rescinded Tuesday and a concurrence was filed. That allowed the bill, as amended by the House, to advance for final consideration by the Senate.
A concern with the bill, Byrne said, has been that it would trigger the Hatch Act, a federal law that prevents federal employees from running in a partisan election. But, Byrne said the Hatch Act already impacts school board candidates because once a candidate includes political language on campaign literature or is endorsed by a political party then the race becomes partisan.
Further, Byrne said the House amendment allows for nonpartisan candidates to be placed on the ballot. Byrne suggested that it could help federal employees running in a school board race.
According to the Hatch Act, even if a federal employee ran as a nonpartisan candidate, if other candidates declare a party then the race becomes partisan and the federal employee couldn't run.
Sen. Eric Bassler, R-Washington, said assuming all the school board candidates run as a nonpartisan candidate then a federal employee could run in the school board race. But, once one candidate declares a party, then a federal employee couldn't run, he said.
Bassler said the legislature should want federal employees to run for school boards because they have expertise in engineering, science, finance, management and leadership.
'I would hope that we would be begging these kinds of people to run for our school boards,' Bassler said. 'This bill does a significant disservice to our young people. We should be striving to have the best people run for school board not eliminating some of the best people from running for school board.'
Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, asked Byrne if the Hatch Act has impacted school board races under current law, and Byrne said he hadn't heard of such an impact. Brown said the Hatch Act will have a greater impact under Senate Bill 287 because it will make all school board races partisan on the ballot.
Brown said she was concerned about the loss of talented school board members if the bill becomes law. In her district, Brown said a school board member's political beliefs aren't an issue because they 'focus on the policy and how to get our K-12 kids to where they need to be to be successful citizens of the world.'
'I can't support this bill because it unnecessarily eliminates so many candidates, so many current school board members quite frankly, that we need because of the expertise to stay on these boards,' Brown said.
Sen. Michael Young, R-Indianapolis, said 'wokeness' on school boards 'harms our kids,' and he pointed to student test scores as an example of the harm done.
'Do nonpartisan school board elections hurt us? Yeah, it does. We don't know who the best people are with the best philosophy,' Young said.
Sen. Rick Niemeyer, R-Lowell, said he voted against the bill because he didn't like that it removed the primary process.
Sen. Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, said after the vote that she strongly opposed the bill because it 'doesn't help a single child learn to read; it won't solve the teacher shortage; it won't fix the crumbling facilities or raise wages for our bus drivers or cafeteria workers.'
'This bill directly injects politics into one place that it absolutely does not belong, and that is in our public schools. We heard the quiet part out loud. This bill is about fear of difference, fear of diversity, fear of diversity of thought, fear of challenging the status quo,' Yoder said.
Sen. Fady Qaddoura, D-Indianapolis, said 'today is a sad day in the history of the state of Indiana' with the passage of the bill.
'Today, we placed politics above students, above parents and above our educational system,' Qaddoura said. 'It's extremely disappointing that today we decided to do what is politically expedient over what is courageously right.'
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