Good for Whom?

The Sun has declared the General Assembly session good to John Leopold.

Of course, I would note that it was absolutely poor to the people of Anne Arundel County. Limiting the people's rights to participate in the School Board Selection process and infringing upon their Constitutional rights of free speech through banning sign-waving is nothing anybody involved in these processes should be proud of...

Meanwhile, the Capital has declared the School Board bill to be a "victory" for the county:

The school board bill, pushed by Mr. Leopold, will create an 11-member School Board Nominating Commission to choose nominees for five-year terms on the board beginning July 1. The governor could fill vacancies only from that list of names.

After being appointed, a member of the board would have to be approved by the voters at the next general election.

The legislation also increases the board to nine members with one more at-large seat and establishes salaries for everyone but the student representative. Under the bill, which goes into effect July 1, the board president would receive $8,000 a year and the other members would get $6,000.

"It is really monumental," Mr. Busch said. "It brings us into a modern era of our school board selection."

Nobody can explain to me how having an election process that barely allows for public participation and putting the nominating process in the hands of unelected (and more than likely liberal) elites brings anything into the modern era. This is a tremendous step backwards in the realm of public participation in that the people have even less voice in the process than they did before. Had the delegation supported the McConkey amendment that would have allowed challengers to file to run against the appointed members of the Board, myself and other supporters of allowing parents and taxpayers to actually participate in the process would have deemed it sufficient.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire has talked about petitioning the bill to referendum once it is signed. I hope that he follows through with this...