Florida’s Amendment 1, explained

Tampa Bay Times | By Nina Moske | July 18, 2024

Partisan school board elections will appear on the ballot this election.

School board elections in Florida have been nonpartisan for decades, but a constitutional amendment on the ballot this November could change that.

Proponents say the measure would increase transparency and aid voters. Opponents say it would bring unnecessary division to Florida schools.

Here’s what to know.

What would the amendment do?

The amendment would require school board candidates to disclose their political party. It would apply to elections during and after November 2026, as well as primaries leading up to the general election that year.

The state Legislature passed the measure in 2023. It will need 60% voter approval in November to become part of the Florida constitution.

Four states — Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana and Pennsylvania — label school board candidates by party. Five others give districts the option to run partisan or nonpartisan elections.

What do supporters say?

Backers say the change would bring greater transparency to school board elections.

Rod Thomson, a Republican political consultant from Sarasota, said school boards are already dominated by partisan politics.

In recent years, talk of hot-button issues like book bans, mask mandates and gender identity have divided families and board members, often along party lines. Once sleepy meetings have stretched into hours-long, fiery debates.

Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 made school board races part of the partisan battlefield, endorsing 30 Republican school board candidates. GOP political committees also poured money into campaigns that year. Democratic leaders and organizations endorsed dozens of candidates and donated, too.

“To say that you don’t want to politicize school board races is almost a moot statement,” Thomson said. “It’s too late.”

Thomson said the proposed change would provide voters with useful information when deciding whom to support. He said many voters are already overwhelmed by national and state politics, and lack time to research school board candidates.

“Whether we like it or not, ‘Democrat’ or ‘Republican’ identifies for busy voters in a down-ballot race where that candidate’s views are, and if they align with the voter,” he said.

Florida Rep. Spencer Roach, a Fort Meyers-area Republican who sponsored the school board measure, agreed. Roach said party labels would help voters vet candidates, and said candidates “should be proud to go out and espouse the values of their party’s platform on education.”

What do critics say?

Opponents say the measure would divide already-fraught school boards.

“People want their school board meetings to be boring again,” said Damaris Allen, executive director of Families for Strong Public Schools. “They do not want to walk in and listen to people screaming and upset.”

Allen, a Hillsborough public school alum and parent, said partisan races favor candidates with more money and discourage grassroots campaigns. As politicians like DeSantis endorse school board candidates, large donors have funneled money into races, Allen said.

“The people who we elect are always concerned with the people who got them there,” she said. “If it’s grassroots, low-dollar, they’re concerned about the people they serve. If it’s high-dollar major funders, candidates are beholden to them.”

Allen said she also worries about changes to primary elections.

In Florida, voters must be registered with a party to vote in that party’s primary election. Allen said many young voters are registered without a party affiliation.

“The people who are closest to the issues are going to have the least amount of voice in the elections,” she said.

Were school board elections always nonpartisan?

Florida historically held partisan elections, but more than 2.2 million voters in 1998 approved a ballot measure to make the races nonpartisan.

Though the politics of education are today more inflamed, the arguments for and against partisan school board elections are largely the same. Opponents of the 1998 amendment said partisan labels were useful to voters, while proponents said they wanted politics out of schools.

In a 1997 meeting of the Constitutional Review Commission, commissioner Paul Hawkes said there’s “an automatic assumption that if it’s partisan, it’s bad.” Hawkes opposed the measure.

“I regard the schools as a kind of a sacred trust… and I regard the role of a school board member as a sacred responsibility,” replied commissioner J. Stanley Marshall, who sponsored the proposal. “I don’t think partisanship ought to be involved.”

Marshall, a Republican and former Florida State University president, helped Gov. Jeb Bush craft his education agenda.

The measure on the ballot this November has been overshadowed by other amendments on abortion and marijuana. Thomson and Roach both said they don’t know if the measure can reach the 60% support it needs to pass.

But Allen is confident and said she has spoken to many young people who oppose the amendment.

“People are reasonable,” she said. “And this is exhausting.”