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Indiana is set to join the handful of states running partisan school board elections after a squeaker of a final vote Thursday—pending a decision from Republican Gov. Mike Braun.
All 50 members of the Senate rushed to participate in the 26-24 concurrence tally, with one straggler bursting into the chamber just before Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith closed the voting machine. The GOP supermajority barely nabbed the constitutional minimum of 26 to avoid a tie-breaking vote from Beckwith, who presides over the Senate.
“My gosh, the wokeness they have in these school boards, even in Republican areas,” remarked Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis. “If you don’t believe this harms our kids, look at our scores.”
“We don’t know who the best people are with the best philosophy, and why shouldn’t we know that?” he asked. He was among those supporters who believe school boards are too liberal.
Forty-one states provide for nonpartisan school board elections, according to Ballotpedia. Five allow for either, depending on the district, and four do partisan elections.
Senate Enrolled Act 287 would add Indiana to the latter group by requiring partisan designations on general election ballots.
Opponents argued the changes would introduce or exacerbate partisanship in schools.
“We heard the quiet part out loud: this bill is about fear of … diversity of thought, fear of challenging the status quo,” said Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington. “Why else would we turn school board elections into party primaries? To push out the independent thinker, to challenge or to silence the community member who doesn’t check the right partisan box but knows how to lead with expertise, experience and integrity.”
Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, asserted the legislation attempts to “fix a problem that doesn’t exist in my community.”
“My four school boards—I can tell you probably within 90% certainty what I think their political affiliations are—but it’s never an issue,” she said. “… Those school board members focus on the policy and how to get our K-12 kids to where they need to be to be successful.”
Author Sen. Gary Byrne, R-Byrneville, said it actually “gives the voters what they want.”
“If you’re getting your phones lit up from the school board association or maybe the superintendents—the voters want this,” he told his colleagues just before the vote.
The measure would require nominating petitions to state the candidate’s political party affiliation, that the candidate is independent of a party, or that the candidate choses to be listed as nonpartisan. Partisan hopefuls would have letters next to their names on general election ballots, while independent and nonpartisan candidates would get blank spaces. Straight-ticket voting—in which voters can choose a party’s entire slate of candidates with a single ballot mark—wouldn’t apply.
But that’s not how the proposal originally accomplished its goal. It would’ve required school board candidates to run in partisan primary elections until House lawmakers stripped that out and resurrected their own pared-back language.
The Senate seemed inclined to agree to the House’s overhaul when it filed a concurrence April 1, but that was withdrawn April 10. Senators then voted to dissent. A conference committee, tasked with drawing up a compromise, met Monday—but on Tuesday, the dissent was rescinded and replaced with another concurrence.
That motion sat on the Senate’s calendar for two days. Byrne skipped it multiple times as lawmakers key to the vote were absent.
Much of the opposition, particularly among Republicans, centered on federal employees.
Sen. Eric Bassler feared the legislation would disqualify many of his constituents—his district hosts a U.S. Navy base—from running in partisan school board elections by implicating the federal Hatch Act.
“These are the exact people that this body should want to run for school board,” Bassler, R-Washington, said. “These are engineers. These are scientists. These are experts in finance.”
But the Hatch Act is “already in play today,” Byrne said.
He cited a January U.S. Office of Special Counsel opinion, which finds that an election labeled “nonpartisan” becomes partisan if a single candidate is endorsed by or “acts in concert” with a party.
When Brown asked him if the Hatch Act has already forced Hoosier federal employees off their school boards or out of races, he replied, “I cannot tell you that.”
He said the legislation may bring “attention” to the Hatch Act so that “maybe it will come into play now more often.”
Indiana judicial staff could also be blocked from school board service under state rules.
The proposal retains another partisan feature.
A candidate claiming affiliation with a political party would have to meet Indiana’s two-party rule: the candidate’s most recent two primary votes must match the party sought to represent. If not, a county party chair’s OK is required. That could block thousands of Hoosiers from running under specific party designations.
A provision allowing for higher school board member pay remains. It nixes the current $2,000 maximum and instead ties compensation to 10% of starting teacher salaries. The state-mandated $40,000 salary floor would double school board pay—but legislation headed Braun’s way would set a $45,000 minimum and further boost compensation for school board members.
The Indiana Capital Chronicle is an independent, not-for-profit news organization that covers state government, policy and elections.
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