PHOENIX — Does the political affiliation of a school board candidate matter?
Legislative Republicans think so. They want to make sure voters know candidates’ party registrations.
A measure awaiting House debate would mandate that beginning next year, all ballots include each candidate’s partisan designation. That would be defined as how the candidate was registered 150 days before the election.
Some opponents said they’re concerned it needlessly injects partisan politics into education issues.
But Rep. Matt Gress, a Republican who previously served on the board of the Madison Elementary School District in Phoenix, said it’s too late to keep that from happening.
“That bus has left the yard,’’ he said, pointing out that, at least in the last few elections, both political parties have gotten behind certain school board candidates. Senate Bill 1441 would simply remove any mystery for voters, Gress said.
Sen. Mark Finchem also questioned whether school board races are the nonpartisan affairs they may once have been.
“Sometimes it feels like, to me, that this is just kind of a cover, a fig leaf, that we put on what really is partisan,’’ said the Prescott Republican.
The vote suggests Republicans think listing candidate affiliation will be more beneficial to their adherents than to Democrats: Every vote for the bill so far was from a Republican; every vote against it came from a Democrat.
This comes against a backdrop of an increasing number of political issues entering into decisions being made by school boards. Those have included not just what courses to offer and clubs to allow but what books are removed from school libraries.
Already approved by the Senate, the measure now awaits action by the full House. But its future remains uncertain.
The Republican-controlled Legislature approved a similar measure last year crafted by Justine Wadsack, then a Republican senator from Tucson. But it was vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
“This bill will further the politicization and polarization of Arizona’s school district governing boards whose focus should remain on making the best decision for students,’’ Hobbs wrote in rejecting the legislation. “Partisan politics do not belong in Arizona’s schools.’’
This year’s version is being pushed by Republican Sen. Carine Werner, who also is on the governing board of Scottsdale Unified School District. She said her concerns go back to before she was first elected to the board.
“Looking back to when I was voting for school board members prior to getting involved in politics, I never knew who I was voting for in the sense of what party they aligned with, what their values were,’’ she said.
What convinced her those races already were partisan, Werner said, was that Stand for Children, which advocates for more education spending and has praised Hobbs, spent about $1.4 million supporting not just Democratic legislative candidates but also contenders for school board races in the 2024 election. She also said the Arizona Education Association paid teachers to knock on doors for Democratic candidates.
But Werner also noted that postcards sent to Republican voters promoting what the party called its “golden ticket’’ included not just legislative and congressional candidates but also those running for school boards. And the same was true, she said, in mailings to Democrats.
“That is perfectly fine,’’ Werner said. “But the voters deserve transparency and to know which party the candidate aligns with,’’ something she said should be on the ballot.
Sen. Analise Ortiz did not dispute that school board candidates do get endorsed by various political groups. But the Phoenix Democrat asked why voters can’t do their own research and figure out each candidate’s affiliation and positions on issues rather than simply add a partisan label.
“Why is it not enough to trust the voter to do the background research on these candidates?’’ she asked.
“We have a lot of uneducated voters or people who aren’t involved with the school district that do care about it, but they just don’t have capacity to look into who they’re going to be voting for,’’ responded Amy Carney, who serves with Werner on the Scottsdale school board. She said information about party affiliation ensures “every voter has the information they need to make an educated vote.’’
Sen. John Kavanagh said a piece of that is party affiliation, especially when voters are not familiar with candidates.
“Because one thing that almost everybody with a pulse knows is that if you’re a Republican, you’re going to tend to be conservative and if you’re a Democrat, you’re going to tend to be liberal,” said the Fountain Hills Republican.
Kavanagh said that is probably more true now than in the past.
“The parties have purged the moderates,’’ he said. “So, searching who to vote for, party affiliation is an extremely valuable identifier.’’
Opponents said there may be fallout from having school board candidates run with partisan labels.
Ortiz cited a study from the University of Georgia on what happened in North Carolina after school boards were given the option of switching to partisan elections. It said schools located in districts that made the shift experienced an increase in teacher turnover and an increase in less-experienced teachers.
Ortiz said that implies “dissatisfaction with policies that were implemented by newly elected, potentially more partisan or more political type of boards.’’
She questioned Carney about how such a change would affect Arizona, which already has a teacher shortage.
Carney brushed that aside.
“Putting a party affiliation on a ballot shouldn’t mean anything about how you’re going to govern on a school board,’’ she said. “I don’t think it politicizes the environment any more than it already is.’’
The University of Georgia study also said its preliminary results showed districts that switched to partisan elections “experience reductions in per-pupil spending.’’ But researchers also found a positive impact on school performance measures at the high school level.
