{"id":200020,"date":"2025-11-30T21:38:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=200020"},"modified":"2025-11-30T21:38:50","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T02:38:50","slug":"bill-would-add-political-parties-to-boe-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2025\/11\/30\/bill-would-add-political-parties-to-boe-races\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill would add political parties to BOE races"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Susan Tebben\/Ohio Capital Journal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio lawmakers have brought back up a bill that would add party labels to candidates in local school board elections with a newly added amendment that would eliminate all elected seats on the State Board of Education, making the entire body governor-appointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate General Government Committee last week heard from supporters of Ohio Senate Bill 107, a bill whose original intent was to add partisan affiliation to school board races.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With changes made in the committee, the bill would also follow through on state operating budget action from this summer, in which the General Assembly approved a measure to reduce the board to five members, all appointed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently, the board is made up of eight appointed members and 11 elected members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under the budget measure, the spots filled by elected members will disappear when the current officials\u2019 terms expire or in the event of a vacancy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three appointed spots to be eliminated will be lost when the three earliest terms expire, or a vacancy occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2023, the the legislature officially eliminated a significant amount of the roles for the board, leaving them with authority to address educator discipline and school district territorial disputes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The changes came as board officials and the state\u2019s superintendent of public instruction sounded alarm bells about the financial state of the board, concerns that have continued through this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of the measure to give partisan labels to local board candidates included Lisa Breedlove Chaffee, who said she was a member of a group called Parents Rights in Education, and parent of a former Hilliard City Schools student.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaffee was one plaintiff in a lawsuit against the school, saying teachers in the district were having \u201cinappropriate\u201d conversations with students regarding LGBTQIA+ identities. That lawsuit was later dismissed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the matter of school board members, she said holding elections for those races without partisan labels leaves voters without the ability the vet the values of the candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe see names on ballots, but no clues about a candidate\u2019s values or potential biases,\u201d Chaffee told the committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn today\u2019s climate \u2014 marked by national flashpoints over curriculum, parental rights, and even basic literacy \u2014 that\u2019s no longer acceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She argued the information would empower more Ohioans to vote, and those voters to do more research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked whether she felt like it would actually lead voters to choose candidates based on party alone, she acknowledged that people often vote the same party all the way down the ballot, but this bill would make people feel more comfortable voting in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m guilty of it, if I don\u2019t see an \u2018R\u2019 beside someone\u2019s name or an \u2018I,\u2019 I don\u2019t vote in that particular race, so I think this will actually encourage people to vote more, and I hope people will do their research to begin with,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ohio chapter of conservative group Americans for Prosperity submitted testimony urging support for the bill, and calling party affiliation \u201ca key piece of information that helps voters understand a candidate\u2019s general philosophy, approach to governance, and likely policy positions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy requiring party designation, S.B. 107 ensures that voters are not left guessing about where candidates stand on important issues,\u201d wrote Hannah Kubbins, legislative director for the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill was introduced in February, and last week\u2019s hearing was the first public comment on the measure, indicating there will be further hearings for those who oppose the bill and other interested parties.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Susan Tebben\/Ohio Capital Journal Ohio lawmakers have brought back up a bill that would add party labels to candidates in local school board elections with a newly added amendment that would eliminate all elected seats on the State Board of Education, making the entire body governor-appointed. The Senate General Government Committee last week heard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-07 02:19:33","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200020"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":200037,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200020\/revisions\/200037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}