By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
MARCH 8, 2022 | Gwinnett voters will elect two members of the school board in 2022, and this vote will be in a nonpartisan election.
However, we feel the change in the law to require a nonpartisan election is flawed. You see, the people writing the new regulations never considered the best way to have a nonpartisan election. They just went along with the requirements in the only other non-partisan election in Gwinnett, where judges are elected.
The flaw in the system is that we’ll be picking new members of the school board when the least number of people are voting, at the primary election in May, instead of at the General Election in the fall.
Can you imagine that Sen. Clint Dixon, who spearheaded the new legislation, was so intent on making the School Board election non-partisan that he never realized that it would come when the least number of people are voting?
In the 2020 primary election in Gwinnett, 159,800 people cast ballots. In the General Election, 416,458 Gwinnettians voted. That’s a difference of 256,658 more people voting in the General Election! That’s a whopping difference! Abraham Lincoln said: “Trust the people.” It’ll be far better to have heard the will of the larger majority of the people in picking board members. Yes, trust the people.
We must remember that the primary is a method to nominate a party candidate to oppose the other party candidate in the November election. It just so happens that Georgia for some reason also elects non-partisan judges during the primary. However, one of GwinnettForum’s Continuing Objectives for Gwinnett County is to require judges elected in the General Election, when a much larger number of voters would be picking the judges.
We have little problem with having school board members elected on a non-partisan basis. However, it appears that the new change is an attempt by Republicans to continue to elect closet Republicans to the board.
It also flies in the face that Gwinnett must have had a pretty good school board in past years, since the Gwinnett school system has been repeatedly ranked among the best systems in the entire nation. The guidance given by the partisan-elected school board must have been pretty good. It makes you ask of the method of picking board members: “If it ain’t broke, why fix it?”
Georgians have seen some bad legislation proposed during this session of the Legislature. Without labeling the school board non-partisan change as good or bad, its introduction is another reason Georgians should re-examine just how much time it wants to give legislators to serve in the Georgia House or Senate.
Yes, we’re thinking of another of our Continuing Objectives, the one which proposes that the Georgia Legislature ought to meet once for 40 days every two years, instead of the present once a year every year. What a relief that would be for the Georgia voters! They would benefit in allowing only half the time the legislators have to introduce bad legislation. Right now, meeting every year, over and over many bad legislative bills are introduced each session. Luckily, many do not pass. No doubt each voter can name one or two bills of bad legislation, which the voter hopes does not pass.
So, let’s limit the time the legislators have to foul up our Constitution, like in Texas, when the legislature meets once every two years.
Meanwhile, we’re hoping that the 2022 school board election, while nonpartisan, attracts good candidates. Gwinnett legislators should see to it that the time of electing non-partisan school board members be at the General Election, when significantly more Gwinnettians vote.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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