It's nonpartisan for a reason

Happy Tuesday!

OK, first off, don’t even try. Unless you’re quite familiar with where I’m standing for today’s photo, you’ll never guess. It’s not Citrus County. I’ll explain below.

(And, yet I am quite positive that at least a few JWC readers will, in fact, know this location. We have some explorers in the bunch.)

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One campaign tactic that rattles my cage: School Board candidates ignoring the will of the people by sliding their political affiliation into the discussion.

School Board races are nonpartisan, as voters in this state decided in 1998 when they amended the state Constitution. There were numerous reasons at the time, but the bottom line was voters simply thought School Boards would run better if they checked their Rs and Ds at the door.

A proposed constitutional amendment in 2024 reverting to partisan School Board elections had majority yes votes, but not with the required 60%. So, nonpartisan School Board races are still the law of the land.

Now. I’m not here to make the argument one way or the other, OK? I see benefits of both. One major benefit of nonpartisanship is it removes even the possibility of a doctored closed primary, as we’ve seen with County Commission races.

But, again, this isn’t a hill for me to die on. 

However, as any Citrus County candidate of the last 39 years will tell you, I’m a stickler for election rules and their intent.

So. In my mail arrives a flyer for School Board candidate John Thrumston. It’s your standard political mail piece; I don’t know how many of these he sent out, but it certainly does the job.

One thing caught my eye and slowly raised my blood pressure. His note to voters starts off, “My background includes service as a former Republican County Commissioner…”

Whoa, Nellie.

Why is he mentioning the R word in a nonpartisan race? Why not just say, “former County Commissioner?”

This is exactly what voters wanted to stop. Injecting partisan into nonpartisan. (For clarification, School Board candidates are not stripped of the political parties in which they’re registered, they’re simply not to flaunt them on the campaign trail.)

If you think I’m a silly pain in the wazoo about this, there’s a certain person in our community who is quite familiar with how I feel about injecting partisan into the nonpartisan race. I’m reluctant to identify this person because we get along great today and I don’t want to do anything to mess that up.

During a particularly tight School Board race in my Chronicle years, this candidate insisted that we mention party affiliation, believing voters would be more likely to support their campaign and not the opponent. We stood firm. I believed then, and I believe today: It's nonpartisan for a reason.

Look. Don’t like nonpartisan School Boards? Amend the Constitution. Until then, keep the Rs and Ds in timeout.

(Gee, Mike, that’s rather strong about a mail piece. Yup. That’s how I feel about injecting partisanship into the nonpartisan School Board.)

— Took a drive Monday to Cedar Key, locale of many wonderful Deb memories. I decided to go alone after taking a similar Bunny Road Trip (formerly “Travels with Bunny”) to Cedar Key on Saturday and just exploring the island. That’s when I remembered you can drive right next to the airport, which sits on the Gulf. 

Funny, I’ve visited Cedar Key numerous times and have never seen a plane take off or land. I also interviewed a candidate for Congress many years ago who lived across from the runway, and he was quite the colorful character. Cedar Key visits never get old.

— The County Commission meets at 1 p.m. today. Here’s the agenda. I may attend, or I may watch from home. Joys of retirement.

Have a great Tuesday, friends.

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