Good Bill, Bad Bill

The Capital took note today of the dueling School Board bills that have been introduced in the General Assembly this year. But it can be broken down simply; there is a Good Bill, and there is a Bad Bill.

The Good Bill is SB28/HB395 bill that we have discussed previously, put forth by Senators Simonaire and Greenip, and Delegates McConkey, Costa, Dwyer, and George. This bill will create a legitimately elected Board of Education in Anne Arundel County. And they should be commended for introducing a bill that provides a legitimate election process.

The Bad Bill is HB1114/SB324, put forth by the Delegation Chairs at the request of John Leopold. This will, as have all of the other bills supported by Leopold over the years, codify the existing process that has so much wrong with it in the first place. This, incidentally, is nearly exclusively supported by Democratic legislators.

The Leopold bill is supported by the Chamber of Commerce and the Teacher's Union. "This is a consensus compromise...It's the first time both groups have been singing from the same sheet of music," he says. And I bet they do. Because Leopold wants to hand out one seat on the nominating commission to each group. The Leopold/Democrat plan would hand out seats on the commission in the following manner:

• 5 appointed by the Governor, one each from Legislative Districts 21, 30, 31, 32 and 33.
• 1 appointed by the County Executive
• 1 from the Teacher's Union
• 1 from the Annapolis/Anne Arundel Chamber of Commerce
• 1 from the Anne Arundel County Council of PTAs
• 1 from the Anne Arundel Community College of Board of Trustees
• 1 from the Association of Educational Leaders
  

And then the appointees will have to face a yes/no vote during the General Election. If they lose the vote, the Commission will have to appoint somebody else. Leopold wants to give special interests the keys to the kingdom.

And once again, as I have stated before, this is actually less representative than the current process. Leave it to Leopold and the Democrats to want and try to make the process worse than it already is. The appointment process is still controlled by the same interests currently controlling the process. And once again, despite Leopold's protestations and the Speaker trying to mislead voters into thinking that the process is similar to electing Circuit Court judges, people don't actually get to vote in a real election.

No wonder Leopold had to get into bed with Democratic interest groups and Democratic legislative leaders to get it introduced...

This is why HB28/SB395 is the strongest bill to help schools, children, and taxpayers in Anne Arundel County. Only this bill will give parents, teachers, and taxpayers alike the opportunity to decide who is going to be responsible for education in our county. And it provides for real, fair, competitive elections; not the farce that HB1114/SB324 want to call competitive elections. HB1113/SB324 is nothing more than codifying the status quo.

The delegation hearing on both bills is on Friday. I urge you to call your legislators and tell them that your support a truly elected school board, not one that empowers an appointed commission of special interests...