SB587 Aligning School Board Elections with General Receives DO PASS from Committee, Returns to Senate with Amendment

SB587, sponsored by Senator Eddie Joe Williams, aligning school elections with the general, needed 11 votes to receive a DO PASS from the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs. On Wednesday (3.27), it received exactly the votes it needed and was returned to the Senate with amendment.

The irony, more committee members voted (20) than did all the voters in Clay County in the last school election (13). When the measure comes before the full House, more will vote on the bill than voted in the last school elections of at least at least eight counties (Clay, Conway – 96, Madison – 22, Marion – 54, Ouachita – 58, Pike – 53, Randolph – 49, Sevier – 29).

With school election data not available through the Secretary of State’s Office, we requested the most recent registered, general election and school election voter numbers from each of Arkansas’s 75 counties. To date, 21 have responded, with ten coming in with school election turnout less than 1% of registered voters. By contrast, the state general turnout was 66%.

Unfortunately, the roll call vote broke along party lines, with 11 Republicans voting Yea and 2 Republicans joining all 7 Democrats in voting Nay or Not Voting.

Dan Farley, Executive Director of the Arkansas School Boards Association, and Mike Mertens of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administrators spoke against the bill.

Arkansas Learns strongly supports this bill. Members are encouraged to take action (tracking, voting, commenting, writing legislators), by clicking here and registering for Arkansas Learns’ legislative action site, powered by Votility. For convenience, register using your same login and password as ArkansasLearns.org.

Parental and community involvement in public schools begins with the election of those who govern them. It’s not the school board members’, administrators’, or teachers unions’ schools, though they have long dominated these low turnout, insider elections. Public schools belong to the people – parents, property taxpayers, citizens.

It is inexplicable that those who fight Voter ID bills on the basis of voter suppression would continue to support a system which generates voter turnout 10,000% lower than the general election. Nothing suppresses votes more than holding an election NOT on Election Day.

Make no mistake, the administrators and incumbent school board members are already putting great pressure on Members of the House to vote Nay, arguing that only their “informed voters” should decide school elections. That discriminatory argument is exactly what gave rise to the poll tax and voter literacy tests. It took the Voting Rights Act to finally end the supremacists’ hold on elections and open them to all voters.

Many county clerks are also vigorously opposing, saying it would be too hard on them. Even if that were true, which it isn’t, when did we start making our decisions concerning our democracy based on the ease of our county clerks? They were elected to conduct elections, not stifle them.

If you, like we, believe our state’s motto – Regnat Populus (The People Rule), encourage the Members of the House to vote Yea on SB587, and hold our local school board members just as accountable as every other elected official in Arkansas.

Members, House of Representatives:

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Please thank those Committee Members who voted Yea, and encourage those who voted Nay or chose not to vote to reconsider when the bill comes to the floor. And in all communications with legislators, especially those with whom you/we disagree, please be courteous and respectful in hopes of winning their support for other important issues. You may not live in their respective districts, but neither do those who worked/work to get them to vote in the self-interests of adults over the best interests of students. 

Thank Committee Members Voting Yea

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Committee Members Voting Nay or Not Voting

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