OUR VIEW: Let’s make a deal, Norma: When labor unions stop trying to hijack school board elections, Republicans will consider your demand that they surrender their First Amendment rights too.
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In the Jefferson County school board election there has been a recent kerfuffle over the JeffCo GOP attempting to fundraise to support the Republican candidates in the non-partisan election. It's nothing more than a dog bites man story, as the ones doing the complaining are the same people supporting the Democrat candidates. What it reveals about school board elections, and the heavily lopsided political machine backing candidates receive, is far more telling.
The issue revolves around the JeffCo GOP sending out a fundraising solicitation for education reform candidates Jim Powers and Preston Branaugh and copies of the education documentary "Waiting for Superman." Supporters of their opponents cried foul, saying county parties should not be so heavily involved in ostensibly non-partisan races.
If that's their caveat, then we are waiting for their complaint that the JeffCo Democrats had paid for a booth at a recent public event where they pimped their candidates for school board. That booth surely cost the JeffCo Dems money to rent, meaning they have now raised funds to support their favored candidates' campaigns. We won't hold our breath waiting for that complaint.
What this campaign kerfuffle really exposes is the lopsided nature of school board campaigns. While liberal candidates and supporters of the status quo can count on the backing of the powerful teachers' unions, school reform candidates like Jim Powers and Preston Branaugh have little to no organizational backing available to them.
The GOP has taken on the cause of school reform as a party, and as such it should be expected that county GOP organizations would want to support candidates for school board that are in line with the GOP's policy priority of education reform.
Democrat candidates can look to the teachers unions, in addition to their party apparatus, and Republican candidates have only the local GOP. Yet, it's somehow a scandal that a Republican county party is backing Republican school board candidates? Puh-lease. It's a non-partisan race, not a non-political one.
Oh, and by the way, who the hell cares what Norma Anderson thinks anyway?
Remember our question in an earlier story about what Sal Pace would do if Barack Obama’s approval rating were in the 60 percentiles? The same is true of Norma Anderson. She’s been the token Republican malcontent for years, and what she says matters not.
Let’s make a deal, Norma: When labor unions stop trying to hijack school board elections, Republicans will consider your demand that they surrender their First Amendment rights too.