Jeff's Lunchbreak: Texas Primary Results for SBOE

TEA Logo The primary elections took place in Texas this past Tuesday. You can find general discussion on it plenty of places (such as here), but most news stories don't spend a lot of time on the State Board of Education (SBOE), if they mention it at all. If you've followed this blog, you'll know that I've discussed the SBOE a few times before. An extreme right-wing faction has pulled some sleazy and dishonest stunts over the past few years, from last minute back door dealings that not all board members were privy to, to trying to inject creationism into science, to trying to change history standards to some alternative reality.

This is a unique year. Normally, only a few of the SBOE seats are on the ballot each year. But because of the recent redistricting here in Texas, all 15 seats are up this year. Although several of the extremists were voted out in recent elections, this is still an opportunity to help expunge the remainder, and the primary is the first step.

The Texas Freedom Network has a very good summary of all the candidates and who won each district, and I'd highly suggest you go take a look. Here's a very short summary.

District	Republican nominee	Democratic nominee
1	Carlos "Charlie" Garza (Uncontensted, Incumbent, Extreme Right)	Martha M. Dominguéz
2	Laurie J. Turner	Runoff - Ruben Cortez, Celeste Zepeda Sanchez
3	David Williams (Uncontested)	Marisa Perez
4	Dorothy Olmos (Uncontested)	Lawrence Allen (Uncontested, Incumbent)
5	Ken Mercer (Incumbent, Extreme Right)	Rebecca Bell-Metereau (Uncontested)
6	Donna Bahorich (Uncontested)	Traci Jensen
7	David Bradley (Incumbent, Extreme Right)	none
8	Barbara Cargill (Incumbent, Extreme Right)	Dexter Smith
9	Thomas Ratliff (Incumbent)	none
10	Runoff - Tom Maynard, Rebecca Osborne	Judy Jennings (Uncontested)
11	Patricia Hardy (Incumbent, Uncontested)	none
12	Runoff - Geraldine "Tincy" Miller, Gail Spurlock (Extreme Right)	Lois Parrott (Uncontested)
13	S. T. Russell (Uncontested)	Mavis Knight (Uncontested, Incumbent)
14	Sue Melton	none
15	Marty Rowley (Extreme Right)	Steven Schafersman (Uncontested)

So, it's kind of a wash. A few extremists lost in the primaries (Veronica Anzaldua - 1, Randy Stevenson - 9, Jeff Fleece - 10, and incumbent Gail Lowe - 14), but a few others won, including David Bradley who has no Democratic opposition.

With the redistricting, I got put into a new district, so my representative on the SBOE has changed. I'm a little disappointed, because I was looking forward to voting out my previous representative, Gail Lowe, who has been involved in a lot of the shenanigans (though she did redeem herself somewhat in the Science Instructional Materials adoption). But at least now I have the opportunity to vote for Steven Schafersman, though I doubt he'll win given this region's political leanings.

Now it's time to wait and see how the runoffs turn out, and then the real election. I honestly don't care if the Board is made up of Republicans or Democrats, as long as they're not extremists who put their own ideology ahead of our children's educations.

More Info

Here's a humorous take on the SBOE from the Daily Show from a little while back.

Here are a few links to external sites with good information on the recent election.

And here's a list of all the times I've discussed the SBOE or TEA.

(Social Studies standards)