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Indiana lawmakers want to give school board candidates the option to declare their political party on the ballot, ending the traditionally nonpartisan designation of these seats.
But the latest version of the controversial proposal moving through the Statehouse stops short of mandating that school board candidates must be nominated by political parties and go through the primary process like other offices. Those provisions around nominations and primary elections were contained in Senate Bill 287, which narrowly passed the Senate in February and headed to the House for consideration.
On Wednesday, the House Elections Committee removed those provisions and instead inserted the language of its own House Bill 1230, which died in the House earlier this session. The revised Senate Bill 287 now would instead give candidates the option to declare a party, run as an independent candidate, or run as a nonpartisan candidate, with procedures for political parties to challenge these affiliations.
Indiana lawmakers have tried in the past to pass bills on partisan school boards.
Supporters of these measures, including SB 287 author state Sen. Gary Byrne, say a party designation provides voters more information about who they’re voting for.
“It would be great if citizens researched their political candidates. But that simply isn’t reality,” said Juanita Albright, president of the Hamilton Southeastern School Board, in March 5 testimony to lawmakers.
Albright, a doctor, who said she was speaking only in a personal capacity, recounted meeting voters during her campaign who did not know who the school board candidates were or what they stood for.
“If I cannot get my patients to eat healthy and exercise on a regular basis, they’re probably not going to research their political candidates,” she said.
But Senate Bill 287 and other past proposals have faced intense opposition from education officials, teachers, and others who say they unnecessarily inject partisan politics into offices whose primary responsibility is to hire a superintendent and approve a school district budget.
“We’ve never sat around as a table and asked what our partisan political affiliation is. We don’t do that — we focus on kids,” said Heather Reichenbach, board president of Warsaw Community Schools during testimony. “Across Indiana, the overwhelming majority of school boards are successful because they are apolitical.”
Senate Bill 287 now heads to the House for a vote. If the bill passes the House, its significant changes likely mean it will head to a conference committee where House and Senate lawmakers will attempt to agree on a final version.
The House Elections Committee also discussed on Wednesday a bill that would remove student identification cards issued by state colleges and universities from the list of documents that can be used to confirm a voter’s identity at the voting booth. Proponents said the move would mean that college students have to follow the same procedure as any other voter in Indiana.
But the committee heard testimony from several college students who said the move would effectively disenfranchise their peers who live in Indiana the majority of the year, but don’t have driver’s licenses or other forms of state-issued identification.
This proposal, Senate Bill 10, will likely return for a vote next week.
Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.
