Rodriguez to File Bill to Move School Board Elections

There's an old saying about the road to hell being paved with good intentions. I was at a meeting the other day where Sito Negron, staffer for State Senator Jose Rodriguez, indicated that the Senator was going to file a bill to move school board elections to November.

And I think its a terrible idea because it will make rich business people more influential and grassroots candidates less competitive.

We are coming off of an election cycle where they moved city council elections to November general elections.

The idea was to get more people to vote in municipal elections. Whoever came up with the idea had good intentions - but its not better for the community. At some point you will start to get a more educated electorate that is engaged and knows the issues and the candidates.

Maybe.

Someday.

If that happens eventually (I'm not convinced it will to be honest) it will take a lot of election cycles to become a realization. Elections have consequences and as such, some pretty bad decisions may take a long time to undo as a result.

We already don't pay enough attention to school board elections despite the fact that they are very important elections. School boards leverage the largest part of your tax bill. They are unpaid positions. The public corruption scandal was birthed at school districts.

Moving the elections to November has a terrible consequence. It makes those elections much more expensive as a candidate. That means money will play a bigger role. Rodriguez should know this by now. He made a sizable contribution to Eric Stoltz who was taking on incumbent City Rep Claudia Ordaz Perez. But the size of the contribution became inconsequential because the city council races were moved to November and you need more money as a city rep candidate to get your message out to voters.

So moving the school board elections to November means that candidates will need even more money to have their votes heard. It takes those offices out of the reach of regular El Pasoans. Gone will be the days that an average parent will be able to serve their community on a school board.

Only the independently wealthy or those with wealthy or business-bakers will be able to run. And that is something we should be afraid of. Charter schools are looking to have a foothold in our community. If you watch the movida going down in EPISD you can see that it is wealthy people that aren't representative of the El Paso population that appear to be lining things up to give charter schools a foothold in our community.

So if you're a wealthy person who wants to get charter schools into the community, the easiest way to become a part of that cash cow is to make financial contributions to charter-friendly trustee candidates.

And let me remind you all of something else really important. These positions don't pay. Do you really want them to be beholden to business interests that elect them?

I realize that Rodriguez has good intentions. He wants to save some money. But what we lose in the long run is far more expensive. We've got to keep school board elections within the reach of regular folks and not in the pockets of big business.