This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Before considering the major flaw in the bill that seeks to restructure the way members of the Utah State Board of Education are chosen, note the positive.
Senate Bill 78 does Utah the great favor of removing the process that filtered candidates for the state board, first through a committee made up of a who's who of special interest groups, then through the office of the governor, before the poor peons, er, voters had any say in the matter at all.
A federal judge ruled that arrangement inconsistent with the First Amendment, holding that the principle of free speech is violated when candidates know they have to say the things that will please the nominating committee in order to even hope for a spot on the ballot.
SB78, which has passed the Legislature and awaits the governor's signature, would replace that anti-democratic system with something Utah has far too little of: Open elections. If the bill becomes law, anyone who fancies one of the 14 seats on the body that sets policy for the state's system of public education can file for office and answer to no one but the electorate of their individual districts.
If there are more than two hopefuls for any board seat, the state's normal June primary election will winnow the field to two. The winner will be chosen in November.
That, anyway, is the way it would work this year. But unless something changes, the bill would change the system again for the 2018 election. Then, and thereafter, the state school board race would become a partisan affair, with most candidates first seeking the Republican, Democratic or other party nomination.
That would be too bad. Dragging the state school board into the largely tribal and often nasty arena of partisan politics won't help Utah improve its public school system. It will only warp the process from one that attracts people who are interested in education to one that bends to the will of the hyper-partisans who already have way too much to say about who runs government around here.
There is some small hope, perhaps, that the 2017 Legislature could remove the partisan election provision from the law before it kicks in the next year. There is also the suggestion that Gov. Gary Herbert should veto SB78, call the Legislature into special session and urge it to pass a bill that makes all future school board races nonpartisan.
None of those alternatives, attractive as they are, seems likely to occur in the partisan atmosphere of the Capitol.
A nonpartisan election would be better. Much better. But even a partisan affair would be an improvement over the old way, and much more democratic.
If Herbert has any reason to believe that a nonpartisan system would win legislative approval, then he should veto the bill and use his influence to get the better bill approved. If not,then he should sign it. And the rest of us should hope that the Count My Vote initiative designed to make Utah's political parties much more representative will change that system for the better.