Partisan school board and city council elections? Some legislators want to make it happen

For as long as most county school boards and city councils in Kentucky have been elected, they’ve been on the ballot without Republican or Democratic partisan labels.

That could change if Senate Majority Floor Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown, gets his way.

“I believe the voters need to be informed, and the best way you can inform them is tell a person what party you’re a member of when you’re on the ballot,” Thayer said on Kentucky Tonight recently.

Thayer told viewers on Kentucky Educational Television in late December that he was working on a bill with Rep. Matt Lockett, R-Nicholasville, to make all city council and school board elections partisan. County government elections, from the county fiscal court to sheriff to coroner and more, are already generally partisan.

It’s not a new idea, but Thayer’s vocal support signals a new level of effort behind making school board and city council elections partisan. Last year, a similar measure to make school board and city council elections partisan was filed by Rep. Thomas Huff, R-Shepherdsville, but didn’t get anywhere.

Huff’s bill aimed to make all city council elections partisan “regardless of the form of government,” meaning that it would apply to even Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government council elections. Thayer, when asked if his proposal would apply to merged governments like Lexington and Louisville – the state’s two biggest cities – said that it was still to be decided.

Democrats see the effort as another chapter in a recent history of Republican attempts to build on their newfound, and widely-held, political power in the state. The GOP holds 80-20 and 31-7 majorities in the House and Senate, respectively. The Republican Party now holds 93 of the 120 important county judge-executive posts as well.

And Thayer did not mince words in saying that he believes the bill would, at least for city councils, weed out some Democrats.

“Part of the problem with the way we elect city council people in Kentucky is it’s nonpartisan. I still believe that there are more Democrats than Republicans in the city positions. I think there’s a lot of tax raisers there, and I don’t want to be responsible for allowing city councils across the state to increase the tax burden on Kentuckians,” Thayer said, adding that he thinks cities often pass more liberal policies than the populace would like.

House Minority Caucus Chair Cherlynn Stevenson, D-Lexington, framed this desire as a Republican attempt at power grabbing.

“I think they just want whatever gives them an advantage in the moment,” Stevenson said, pointing out that in years’ past Louisville Republicans have pushed bills to make Louisville Metro Council races nonpartisan.

Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear agreed.

“That’d be awful. We have so much partisanship in our society right now, neighbors yelling at neighbors, why would we make anything more partisan than it currently is? That means that you’re putting an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ above people getting along and getting things done,” Beshear said when asked about the prospect.

He also mentioned being concerned about efforts to make judicial races in Kentucky partisan, a desire of some Republicans including Thayer but is less likely due to the fact that the nonpartisan nature of those elections is mandated by the state constitution.

The organizations representing Kentucky’s school boards and city councils, it seems all but assured, will stand against the bill.

The board of the Kentucky League of Cities, the organization that lobbies on behalf of all cities in the Commonwealth, voted against the measure last session according to KLC Executive Director JD Chaney.

Currently, cities can decide on their own whether or not they want to elect their councils in a partisan manner. According to Chaney, the number of Kentucky’s 400-plus cities that do so are in the single digits, and it just shrunk with Madisonville recently opting to switch to nonpartisan elections.

Director of Advocacy for the Kentucky School Boards Association Eric Kennedy said that his organization, which helps represent the interests of school boards in Frankfort, is against such an effort. To Kennedy’s knowledge, school board elections in Kentucky have always been nonpartisan.

“It would be, in our view, a distraction from what’s right for kids and the management of a school district,” Kennedy said.

What are the odds?

Many key players in the House, and some in the Senate, haven’t yet engaged in serious conversation about the bill.

House Elections Committee Chair Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, said that he hasn’t explored the topic closely, aside from it being mentioned recently. However, like Stevenson, he mentioned that Louisville-area Republicans like himself had launched an effort to make some local races nonpartisan recently.

House GOP Floor Leader Steven Rudy, R-Paducah, was similarly noncommittal on the bill.

“We haven’t had a full discussion with the caucus about it, but we’re open to any discussions on different policies,” Rudy said.

Sen. Stephen West, R-Paris, who is the new chair of the Senate Education Committee, said that the idea was mentioned at the Senate GOP caucus’ retreat. He added that he wasn’t yet sure if he’d support the bill or not, but “would probably be more likely to make judicial races partisan.”

Kennedy said that he believes making school board elections partisan could present a constitutional issue. Though not as clear-cut as judicial elections, he cited a key 1989 Kentucky Supreme Court opinion that states that “the fundamental mandate of the Constitution and Statutes of Kentucky is that there shall be equality and that all public schools shall be nonpartisan and nonsectarian.”

“That opinion examined all aspects of what common schools are in Kentucky under the Constitution, and one of the things that they determined was that the system of ‘common schools’ had to be free from partisan political influence,” Kennedy said. “So, part of what has informed our stance for all these years is that we’re not entirely sure it would be constitutional to make the local school board offices partisan offices in Kentucky.”

Another potential issue for lawmakers to keep in mind, Kennedy said, is that the process for choosing a party nominee for school board – whether it’s a primary election or the party picking its own candidate – would be cumbersome, time-consuming and could lead to more in-fighting within the county party.

Spokespeople for Senate President Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, and House Speaker David Osborne, R-Prospect, did not offer comment as to the position that either chambers’ top member holds on the idea.

What do local officials think?

Frankfort City Councilmember Katrisha Waldridge has won three consecutive terms on the capital city’s governing body, running in a sometimes-crowded nonpartisan field.

Despite the nonpartisan nature of the race, partisanship seeps into Frankfort city politics. And it’s already somewhat representative of the city’s partisan makeup – a deep blue dot situated within a county that, as a whole, leans Democrat.

Waldridge thinks the current system shouldn’t change, and that doing so would make an already somewhat-partisan process completely partisan.

“Local Government is for the local people and local taxpayers. To continue to find ways to divide and control our communities, governments, and voices is a disservice to Kentucky. Instead of focusing on dividing communities, maybe Senator Thayer should concentrate on setting higher standards and qualifications for candidates to run for office and not try to find an easy way for unqualified candidates to win office by party affiliation,” Waldridge said of the proposal.

In Woodford County, a Central Kentucky suburban/rural community, school board chair Dani Bradley also said that the idea doesn’t hold much appeal for local officials.

“I think introducing parties into school board issues would be just another divider at a time when we need more unification than division,” Bradley said.

School boards have, of late, become a lightning rod for public debate about the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Bradley said that masking, in particular, became a highly politicized issue when most boards were “just trying to do the right thing to keep kids safe.”

One of Thayer’s arguments for the necessity of the bill is that many local elections are determined via “popularity contests” given the dearth of information voters currently have about prospective council members’ and board members’ policy platforms.

“I think all races should be partisan. I think the more we can do to inform the voter, the better and more consistent results we’re gonna get. What’s the best way to give a voter information about a candidate? Tell them what party you’re a member of.”

Bradley disagreed.

“I think voters have a lot of different avenues to seek out information and in small counties oftentimes they know people running for these seats and can go and talk to them about their positions on the issues,” Bradley said.