Partisan school board bill advances in House committee
On Wednesday, the House Corporations, Elections and Political Subdivisions Committee voted 8-1 to approve Senate File 98, 'School board trustees-party affiliation.' Bill sponsor Sen. Jared Olsen, R-Cheyenne, told the committee that the measure would require the political party affiliation of a candidate for school board be printed on a general election ballot, effective July 1.
'Clear voter alignment (through) partisan labels helps voters quickly identify candidates whose values and priorities align with their own,' Olsen told the committee.
Further, Olsen said he believes the measure would increase voter engagement.
'Partisan elections are more likely to increase voter turnout, because we tap into political parties' efforts to get out the vote,' Olsen said.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray approached the committee to say that he stands 'fully in support of Senate File 98.' Under current state law, school board trustees are on the nonpartisan ballot, requiring that no political party affiliations be listed. He did express concern that 'timing of political party affiliation' be considered.
In 2024, there were four to seven days where allowed party changes overlapped with the filing period for school board positions.
'I'm a little bit worried. I don't think the statute is clear,' Gray said. 'Somebody (could switch) after the primary, and then they can file for the school board in that new affiliation.'
Gray said that he would prefer the bill include language that a candidate must file affiliated with the party they belonged to in May of an election year.
Civics 307 blogger Gail Symons told the committee, though, that when people change party affiliation, they stay – although in past years, lawmakers have debated crossover voting, discussing ways people might 'play the game' to get elected under a party to which they don't belong, she said.
'Using actual voter data … they don't move over and go back,' she said.
The committee did not consider an amendment regarding filing date, but Gray said he would continue working on "proposed language" for a committee of the whole amendment on the House floor.
Several members of the public spoke against the bill, saying it was unnecessary. Jenny DeSarro, executive director of the Equality State Policy Center, as well as Brian Farmer, executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association, urged the committee to leave school board elections nonpartisan, much as they did when the bill passed through the Senate.
Brian Farmer
Brian Farmer, Wyoming School Boards Association executive director
'If you take a look at any school board agenda, the vast majority of what they're dealing with doesn't matter whether the person is Republican or Democrat,' Farmer said.
Mary Lankford with the County Clerks Association of Wyoming said that she did not have a policy stand on the bill but that she would propose some administrative amendments: The first would be to include language for party affiliation on filing applications, as well as a correction to the ordered list of partisan offices on a ballot.
Rep. Nina Webber, R-Cody, made a motion to amend the bill as proposed by Lankford. The amended bill passed in a 8-1, with only Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, voting against it.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
a few seconds ago
- Washington Post
A deadly steel accident brings Pennsylvania rivals together
Salena Zito is a columnist for the Washington Examiner. CLAIRTON, Pa. — At 10:47 a.m. Monday, every worker in every U.S. Steel facility across the country — from the headquarters in downtown Pittsburgh to the plants in Gary, Indiana, and Fairless Hills in Bucks County — stopped what they were doing to observe a moment of silence. It had been one week since an explosion at the largest coking operation in North America took the lives of two men, Timothy Quinn and Steven Menefee, and injured 10 others. At the Irvin Plant in West Mifflin, a siren blew, then it blew again. In the three minutes in between, the people present stood with their heads bowed in prayer with quiet tears. At the coke works in Clairton, it was even harder: The pain was fresh, personal, gutting. Only the processes that could not safely be stopped weren't silenced. Unless you have worked in a steel mill — or another job for which you walk into danger every day, such as firefighter, police officer or soldier — it is difficult to adequately convey the love these workers have for one another and the aspiration their craft requires of them. But their unity in grief comes after months of strife that divided not just the workforce but the entire state, including the business leaders and elected officials now tasked with helping pick up the pieces. The explosion occurred just two months after President Donald Trump approved U.S. Steel's nearly $15 billion deal with Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel. The agreement has lifted hopes for steel communities, but the negotiations were divisive and ran headlong into the presidential election. The proposed sale split local union officials and rank-and-file members, who supported it, from their international president in Cleveland, who led the opposition. It also surfaced long-simmering tensions between company management and state elected officials. No two men butted heads more than Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Montgomery County Democrat, and U.S. Steel CEO David Burritt. Their differences came to a head on Nov. 19, exactly two weeks after the election. Shapiro, who months earlier had said he could not support a deal between Nippon and U.S. Steel, gathered several of his top staffers, as well as key players from both companies, at his office in the Capitol in Harrisburg to discuss the future of U.S. Steel. It didn't go well. In fact, it went so badly that Shapiro unceremoniously ejected Burritt from the room less than 10 minutes after the meeting began, both men told me. Burritt smiles about the moment now; at the time, though, he admits he was not amused. He recalls that the meeting began with Nippon executive Takahiro Mori giving the group an assessment of the virtues of the deal between Nippon and U.S. Steel. Burritt was then slated to follow with a discussion of what would happen if the deal did not go through. Burritt's presentation was not as smooth as he would have liked. He wanted to show how the Nippon investment was in the best interest of the community. But his remarks veered into complaints, he says, about how 'it's been difficult for us to do business in Pennsylvania' because of state and local regulations, including a high-profile fight over permitting in Allegheny County. It was partly for these reasons that U.S. Steel had already announced its next-generation plant would be built in Arkansas. The governor took offense and, Burritt recalls, said something to the effect of: 'You've disrespected the workers, you've disrespected me, and, if you continue like this, you're going to have to leave.' The CEO says he answered back a little too bluntly — he is a very blunt man — and Shapiro told him to get out. So he did. Shapiro is known to be prickly sometimes, but he says Burritt is the only person he has ever thrown out of his office. Still, in his gut, he knew someday the two could work together. 'I never, ever, ever close the door on dialogue with anyone,' Shapiro says, then deadpans: 'Well, literally, the door did close on him when he left my office.' But, he adds, 'I think in this business, my job is to find ways to bring people together.' That someday did not arrive when the deal was finalized between the U.S. Steel and Nippon: It happened last week when Burritt called Shapiro to brief him on Clairton. Within moments of the news of the explosion, both men were working together to face the tragedy. Burritt was on the scene immediately, going directly to the heads of safety and manufacturing. His calls back and forth with the governor were earnest. Both men were at the plant the next day to address the loss of life. Both tell me their goal is to get to the bottom of what happened so it does not happen again. Shapiro says he will hold Burritt to that pledge, and Burritt says he holds himself to it. So often, the intersection of business and politics is presented in terms of malign influence one way or the other: campaign donations, election endorsements, overregulation, political opposition to industry and its practices. But, more often, business and politics intersect at the level of personality, with individuals building relationships over time to try to find policy that works for both sides. We rarely read about that. It's often boring. But the tragedy in Clairton last week highlights how strong personalities in the private and public sectors can bring comfort, move things forward and even give people hope. In Pennsylvania, it's also what's expected. Darrin Kelly, the head of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, was on the scene within an hour and praised how the two men found a way to come together. 'They both showed up the next day, they committed to making sure they got to the bottom of whatever happened, and they behaved like adults when that was something that the men and women here needed,' says Kelly, whose local AFL-CIO affiliate includes more than 100,000 workers across several western Pennsylvania counties, including members of the local United Steelworkers union. It's the Pennsylvania way, says Kelly. He's not wrong. Our politics has created what outsiders see as strange bedfellows, but those who live and work here see it as normal. Sen. John Fetterman, a Braddock Democrat, established a relationship with Trump that perplexes the D.C. press. Fetterman and his wife, Gisele, met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago ahead of the inauguration, with Trump telling me he found Fetterman impressive. Shapiro was considered for the Democratic ticket that ran against Trump in 2024, but he called the Nippon and U.S. Steel deal a 'BFD,' and credited the president for his negotiating skills and willingness to engage with the governor's office. Shapiro and Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pennsylvania) are set to do yet another AI-energy event together in Pittsburgh next month. Shapiro says his meeting with Burritt ahead of the news conference, and their subsequent conversations, showed no traces of any lingering animosity. However, he stresses that as governor, he has a duty to get to the bottom of what happened. The company's early explanation is that a valve failed as it was being flushed for planned maintenance, but a U.S. Steel spokesperson added in a statement that 'this investigation is in its early stages.' 'I think it's important that we work together,' Shapiro says. 'I will hold him accountable for the commitments he made to me and the community to provide a full accounting for what happened or why it happened — and to fix whatever the situation is so that when those steelworkers go back into the plant, they can be assured that they are safe.' He adds he expects Burritt will do just that: 'He gave me his word, and I take him at his word.' Burritt, for his part, was pleased with the governor last week, praising 'his comportment, his [reaching] out, and his compassion and his focus … in search of truth.' The CEO struggles to keep his emotions in check when talking about the men and women who work in the plants at U.S. Steel. On Saturday, he attended the memorial service for Quinn; on Tuesday, for Menefee. 'These men and women work in difficult situations together for an extended period of time; they are rugged, tough and reliable, and every day they go into the plant not knowing what will happen,' he says. 'Unless you've actually worked with these people and seen what they go through every day — they earn their pay, they earn their benefits. They are worth every bit.' As for speculation that the fatal explosion raised questions about the plant's future, Burritt dismisses it out of hand. 'That plant will be around for a very, very long time,' he tells me. In managing the aftermath of the explosion alongside Shapiro, Burritt says he will honor the code of conduct that started with the Gary Principles, named after Judge Elbert Gary, the first chairman of U.S. Steel, who created a corporate code of ethics for the then-new company more than 100 years ago. 'We were the first company that we know of that had an explicit code of conduct,' Burritt says. 'It is safety first, trust and respect, environmental stewardship, excellence and accountability, and then lawful and ethical conduct.' Plus, it's easy to remember: It spells out 'steel.'
Associated Press
a few seconds ago
- Associated Press
The Texas House OK'd GOP-favored redistricting. California intends to counter with map of its own
The national redistricting battle enters its next phase Thursday as California Democrats are scheduled to pass a new congressional map that creates five winnable seats for their party, a direct counter to the Texas House's approval of a new map to create more conservative-leaning seats in that state. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has engineered the high-risk strategy in response to President Donald Trump's own brinkmanship. Trump pushed Texas Republicans to reopen the legislative maps they passed in 2021 to squeeze out up to five new GOP seats to help the party stave off a midterm defeat. Unlike in Texas, where passage by the Republican-controlled state Senate and signature by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott are now all that's needed to make the maps official, California faces a more uncertain route. Democrats must use their legislative supermajority to pass the map by a two-third margin. Then they must schedule a special election in November for voters to approve the map that Newsom must sign by Friday to meet ballot deadlines. The added complexity is because California has a voter-approved independent commission that Newsom himself backed before Trump's latest redistricting maneuver. Only the state's voters can override the map that commission approved in 2021. But Newsom said extraordinary steps are required to counter Texas and other Republican-led states that Trump is pushing to revise maps. 'This is a new Democratic Party, this is a new day, this is new energy out there all across this country,' Newsom said Wednesday on a call with reporters. 'And we're going to fight fire with fire.' Texas Democratic lawmakers, vastly outnumbered in that state's legislature, delayed approval of the new map by 15 days by fleeing Texas earlier this month in protest. They were assigned round-the-clock police monitoring upon their return to ensure they attended Wednesday's session. That session ended with an 88-52 party-line vote approving the map after more than eight hours of debate. Democrats have also vowed to challenge the new Texas map in court and complained that Republicans made the political power move before passing legislation responding to deadly floods that swept the state last month. A battle for the US House control waged via redistricting In a sign of Democrats' stiffening redistricting resolve, former President Barack Obama on Tuesday night backed Newsom's bid to redraw the California map, saying it was a necessary step to stave off the GOP's Texas move. 'I think that approach is a smart, measured approach,' Obama said during a fundraiser for the Democratic Party's main redistricting arm. The incumbent president's party usually loses congressional seats in the midterm election, and the GOP currently controls the House of Representatives by a mere three votes. Trump is going beyond Texas in his push to remake the map. He's pushed Republican leaders in conservative states like Indiana and Missouri to also try to create new Republican seats. Ohio Republicans were already revising their map before Texas moved. Democrats, meanwhile, are mulling reopening Maryland's and New York's maps as well. However, more Democratic-run states have commission systems like California's or other redistricting limits than Republican ones do, leaving the GOP with a freer hand to swiftly redraw maps. New York, for example, can't draw new maps until 2028, and even then, only with voter approval. The struggle for — and against — Texas redistricting Texas Republicans openly said they were acting in their party's interest. State Rep. Todd Hunter, who wrote the legislation formally creating the new map, noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has allowed politicians to redraw districts for nakedly partisan purposes. There was little that outnumbered Democrats could do other than fume and threaten a lawsuit to block the map. Because the Supreme Court has blessed purely partisan gerrymandering, the only way opponents can stop the new Texas map would be by arguing it violates the Voting Rights Act requirement to keep minority communities together so they can select representatives of their choice. House Republicans' frustration at the Democrats' flight and ability to delay the vote was palpable during the Wednesday vote. House Speaker Dustin Burrows announced as debate started that doors to the chamber were locked and any member leaving was required to have a permission slip. The doors were only unlocked after final passage more than eight hours later. Republicans issued civil arrest warrants to bring the Democrats back after they left the state Aug. 3, and Abbott asked the state Supreme Court to oust several Democrats from office. The lawmakers also face a fine of $500 for every day they were absent. ___ Riccardi reported from Denver. John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Sara Cline in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, contributed to this report.
Bloomberg
a few seconds ago
- Bloomberg
Turkey Set for Gas-Exploration Deal After Wooing Ex-Libya Foes
Libya's eastern parliament is poised to let Turkey explore for energy in the North African nation's waters, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be a dramatic about-face that's the latest sign of warming ties between Ankara and the region. The House of Representatives in Benghazi is set to vote in the coming weeks on the 2019 pact that set out the terms of an exploration agreement, said people in Turkey and Libya familiar with the deliberations. Most obstacles to the accord have been removed, they said, declining to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue.
