One Florida lawmaker wants to strip away the nonpartisan label from local school board races.
Republican Spencer Roach on Tuesday filed a bill creating a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow candidates to identify their party affiliation on the ballot.
School board races in Florida have been nonpartisan since 1998.
The Fort Myers Republican’s bill comes a month after GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis won re-election by thumping Democrat Charlie Crist by 20 points and Republicans captured supermajorities in both houses of the Legislature.
In this election, as The Free Press reported, DeSantis endorsed 30 candidates for school board, and 25 of them won. His presence in those races may have flipped at least three county school boards to the right.
“There are people who are going to accuse me of trying to advance the interest of one political party over another, right versus left, Republican, versus Democrat. But to me, my motivation for this bill is voter transparency,” Roach told the website Florida Politics.
“I simply believe that in every election, we should do everything we can to make sure the voters have as much information as possible about a candidate before they vote on them.”
“Every election in Florida should be partisan. It should be right up front and transparent what party you belong to,” he added.
The proposal, if passed by lawmakers, would still require support from at least 60% of voters to become law.
If so, it would take effect for elections in 2026.
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