PCE wants pro voucher State School Board candidates by Thursday for flawed elections, and UEA "monopolizes" the caucus??

Parents for Choice in Education (PCE) appealed to supporters today to file and run for the State School Board. They realize informed advocates of public education on the board often intelligently oppose PCE initiatives to weaken public education and want a majority of sympathetic votes.

The Parents for Choice in Education PAC operates on extremely large out-of-state donations from anti-public ed. organizations and individuals. They literally have no grassroots financial support in Utah. They reported over $209,000 dollars sitting in their PAC account on their August 2011 report, which is the most recent posted at the Lt. Governor's website. This money came from large donations in the election years of 2010 and 2008. (The state switched systems in 2008, and the reports showing the millions of out-of-state money received during the voucher fight in 2007 and the systematic support of pro-voucher candidates in 2004 and 2006 do not show up. I know there's some way to link to the old system. I would be grateful if anyone could post a link in the comments.)

The PCE PAC received $179,000 in 2010. $4000 was from the Conservative Caucus of Utah politicians; the other $175,000 came from two national anti-public education organzations: All Children Matter, founded by the DeVos and Walton families, and The American Federation for Children, a new group (with the same founding board as the National Alliance for school Choice) founded by the same people apparently to avoid the bad publicity from All Children Matter being fined $5.2 million for hidden illegal campaign contributions in Ohio. (It looks like PCE was one of the final recipients of All Children Matter funds before it became defunct) The AFC is apparently also closely affiliated with ALEC and its proscriptive model bills to weaken public education. In 2008, the PAC received just over $342,000. $175,000 came from All Children Matter; $164,000 came from Patrick Bryne, the Overstock.com CEO who contributed millions in 2007 to the voucher campaign and continues as one of the only 3 sponsors of Howard Stephenson's Red Meat Radio program; the other $3424 was donated by the Board Members of PCE.

PCE has poured tens of thousands into State School Board elections before, and appears to be ready to enter the fray this year again. They are looking for candidates in all districts having an election this year: 1, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 15. Here is part of PCE's plea:

Dear School Choice Supporter,

If we want to empower parents with quality school choice options, both public and private, we absolutely must recruit like-minded candidates for the State Board of Education. The innovation and reform necessary to improve our public school system will require a majority of supportive board members - something we currently do not have. This upcoming election provides us with a rare opportunity to change this!

We urge you to please consider becoming a candidate for fthe Utah State Board of Education. If, we ask you to help us recruit good candidates to run for the 9 spots up for election this year.

We need committed individuals to serve who understand how critical it is that we find solutions for an outdated public school system that will better meet the diverse learning needs of our students. 21st century innovation has the power to transform our one-size-fits-all system. The State Board of Education and the legislature have the most direct influence on our state's K-12 education. We can't expect change unless we are willing to get involved!

The whole process for State School Board elections is literally run by special interests, as a committee of industry lobbyists and then the governor get to select which candidates the public gets to vote on in this non-partisan election. This is detailed here, here (with more links to the 2008 vote), and here. (Gov. Herbert has expressed his desire for an open election, but the latest in many attempts to un-rig the elections, HB 331, appears to have had a weird provision for the primary date, increasing costs, and was killed by the House Education Committee without a hearing)

In 2008, there were shenanigans in my State School Board district 13, where the election winner resigned the day the election was certified because he suddenly "discovered" that he didn't live in the district, ensuring that the BYU Education professor who would have otherwise been eligible to contest the seat had no opportunity. The erstwhile winner, C. Mark Openshaw refused to answer opinion surveys and emails while campaigning, literally putting up no signs and making no campaign appearances. His family's blog said he didn't even want to win!

It appears Mr. Openshaw is running again from the state candidate website (Scroll to the bottom), and unopposed, though his paperwork is not linked like the others as of this moment. What kind of school board member was he the last 4 years? I have no idea. Maybe I would actually love his representation on the board, but I have no easy way of knowing. I saw his name mentioned one time in the paper with a lukewarm comment about the upcoming school grading system. The State School Board needs to get some sort of public vote display up on their website showing official votes of each individual on proposals. That would be positive all around and give voters better information on which to base their votes.

Two of the districts, 10 and 12, have no candidates filed today, two days before the deadline. The positive thing is that if only two candidates file for a district race, they get to completely avoid the flawed lobbyist selection board and governor narrowing. The scary thought is that some of these candidates might run unopposed. Who will sign up for an automatic State School Board seat on Thursday afternoon? We'll see how it shakes out.

PCE also encouraged supporters to run for delegates at the caucus with this comment:

The teacher's union works hard to monopolize the caucus system, ensuring their powerful stronghold and dominance over our taxpayer-funded, public school system. YOU can make sure this doesn't happen! Get involved in the legislative process and become a Delegate.

After years of barely fighting off destructive voucher proposals and other bad policy, I only wish public education supporters had more "dominance" PCE. I only wish. If more teachers would run and become delegates, maybe we could get support for more legislators in Utah Valley who value public education like the silent majority does. Our "taxpayer-funded, public school system" needs to continue to serve the public, not the whims of out-of-state multi-millionaires.

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The critics of the Utah County GOP incumbent protection policies were right, plus Houskeeper stirs the pot in District 60 caucus

Linda Houskeeper ran her campaign almost exclusively on changing the insider policies that keep power concentrated in the hands of a few individuals within the Utah County GOP. The automatic delegates were her main focus in cottage meetings and in her speech Saturday at the House District 60 Caucus. Houskeeper is a sincere, motivated person despite lacking some polish while speaking publically, and almost all of the delegates I spoke with shared at least some of her concerns. However, her focus didn’t always put her in the best of light. It made her seem like a one-issue candidate and came off as negative to a couple delegates I spoke with. Brad Daw is very articulate and down-to-earth and comes off as much more well-versed in the issues. Despite all of that, Brad Daw only garnered 60.4% of the delegate votes Saturday, meaning just one person voting differently would have dropped Daw below the 60% threshold, forcing a primary for the Republican nomination.

[Sidebar into automatic or ex officio delegate opinions. Very few delegates thought the practice was completely justified. Brad Daw said in reply to Houskeeper that he believed that all of the automatic delegates were elected at some time and their votes were justified. (Not an exact quote.) I don’t think most bought that. A very involved, conservative delegate explained that he was OK with the elected party officials of the county and state having automatic votes, but not with former party chairs having lifelong voting positions and the discretionary delegates appointed by the party chairman, currently Marian Monnahan, often in reward for things like organizing a fund-raising event. Others agree with Houskeeper that none of the automatic delegates should be allowed—that being elected in a vote of precinct chairs as party education chair or treasurer does not mean that you represent your precinct and should take a slot from someone else.

I fall more to that final side. I think that higher elected officials should be elected again in their precinct if they want a caucus vote, just like the “little guys” who show up and participate. The grass roots nature of the precinct caucuses should be preserved and voice given to those for whom higher political office is not desirable or feasible. I am not worried about the County GOP Chair or the Lieutenant Governor lacking a voice; the current office holders already have influence and a place at the table. Why should they automatically get two?]

The play-by-play:

Brad Daw gave his speech about his accomplishments and was clear and believable as usual. Linda Houskeeper started her speech making points about her being a normal person and not an insider. She recounted her first cottage meeting when Daw was first running for the legislature and that he answered a question about an issue, “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask the party how they want me to vote on that.” Daw is a nice guy, but if true, that is exactly the kind of insider garbage that people are mad about. There was a lot of whispering among the delegates here as they discussed her charge.

She then proceeded to use some homemade paper cut-outs of runners starting at different places in a race to make her point about automatic delegates. It was a good metaphor, but using cut-outs came off kind of silly. She explained how it wasn’t fair that 10 of 95 delegates in District 60 weren’t elected in their precinct meetings (That’s 10.5% if everyone showed up. Only 86 voted, leaving open the possibility that 11.6% of those votes were from automatic delegates.), and then she really started the minor uproar. She turned to Daw right in the middle of her speech and asked him if he would agree to have the automatic delegates in the room disallowed from voting. Everyone was taken by surprise and some delegates audibly gasped. Daw looked shocked and asked the District Chair, Ivan Keller, if he was permitted to answer her. While he deliberated, a particularly outspoken delegate in the back, former Daw primary opponent Calvin Harper, made a motion that the rest of the delegates vote on whether to include the automatic delegates. (He made a few other comments during the meeting as well.) It was seconded, but Keller ruled that it was out-of-order because the rules had already been voted on in committee earlier in the morning. There were a few minutes of confusion, and Lt. Governor Gary Herbert spoke up telling Houskeeper that he was an automatic delegate and intended to vote. Daw eventually replied that he believed all of the delegates had been elected in some fashion and deserved to vote.

Houskeeper then turned to some of the automatic delegates on the front row and asked them if they would voluntarily recuse their vote. None of them agreed. She made a final point about the delegates and finished. The room buzzed with delegates discussing the happenings and there was some argument about the motion to have the delegates vote on the automatic delegates. (If any of this is slightly out of order, sorry. It was a lot to remember.)

We voted and the box was taken to the central counting area along with watchers from both sides. There was free discussion for 10-15 minutes as we waited for the results. Herbert and Houskeeper apparently know each other personally and Herbert tried to broach the issue with Houskeeper. She said, “We just disagree on this issue Gary,” and turned away. Daw was visibly upset and quietly complained about it being a “cheapshot.” I’m not sure if he was referring to the ask-the-party comment or the attempt to disallow the automatic delegates. An automatic lifetime delegate named Ashby (or something very close to that) repeated the point to Daw that everyone had been elected.

And here’s my point. This Ashby guy was the GOP County Chair sometime in the past. He now is an automatic county (and state? I don’t know. Fill me in anyone?) delegate for the rest of his life. One more former chair and lifetime delegate named Shallenberger also lives in our district. I am not sure if he was there. I already explained how I don’t think that Herbert needs an automatic vote and I am making the fairly confident assumption that all 3 voted for Daw. There were other auto-delegates, but I don’t know their names or positions. What if any of the three I’ve discussed had been replaced by a local person from a precinct? Houskeeper would have achieved a primary if only one person voted differently, or if two of those three weren’t allowed to vote. The same situation happened in Rep. Grover’s District 61 and Rep. Tilton’s District 65 where his challenger reached 60% by two votes. I don’t know what percentage of their districts’ delegates are automatic, and it probably wasn’t the factor in Tilton’s race since he was the incumbent, but who knows? The automatic delegates, instituted in 2000 I believe, obviously played a huge role in these precincts and probably changed the results in favor of the incumbents, Daw and Grover.

Additionally, only 2 of the 7 contested races featured someone reaching 70% (including Sumsion who got 96% with his opponent apparently dropping out), which was the more reasonable standard until the year 2001. Another delegate and my father told me the rule was changed because Senator Orrin Hatch had almost been forced into a primary the year before (He was booed at the state convention my father recalled with a chuckle.) and the party insiders wanted to prevent a repeat. The threshold was lowered to 60% EXPLICITLY to protect incumbents, and this is common knowledge among longtime party participants.

If automatic delegates and the lowered threshold for a primary had not been in place, 5 of the 7 races would be into a primary, allowing the party rank-and-file to decide the outcome. That includes Senator Bramble’s race, despite his assertion that "I think misrepresentations and negative campaigning were proven to once again be an unsuccessful strategy…"
Final note—Lt. Governor Herbert addressed our caucus for a few minutes just before the results came back. He talked a lot about making a difference, but his first point was that the county and state party bylaws should match and that he was going to try to remedy the discrepancies. I, for one, will be watching to see if he keeps that promise. He repeated the good news from Friday that Utah has been rated the best-managed state in the nation. He ended by alluding again to the recent intra-party disagreements. He claimed that he appreciated divergent views in the party, but that he wanted to build consensus.

Are vouchers the litmus test for “good” Republicans? Are teachers liberal? Is Craig Frank trying to eliminate teachers from precinct positions?

I didn’t get to pasting in the comments from a fellow teacher that I discussed in my last post. Here they are and it looks like I made a minor error in my previous summarization. Dan Early interrupted the delegate nominee who was responding to a question from the teacher, not the teacher herself.

Last night, at our Republican caucus meeting, when I asked for clarification about the platform, I had a disturbing experience. I was asking about this specific clause of the Utah Republican platform, " Parents have the primary right and responsibility to educate their children, and we support their right to choose public, private, or home education. We support incentives to promote competitive excellence."

I wanted to know if Parents' Choice = vouchers. I support the ideals of parents choosing the best educational experience for their children. I don't think vouchers would be as fiscally sound nor the best way to bring that about. I just don't agree with the means (vouchers) and wanted to be assured that our delegates would continuously be open to other ways to accomplish the end. There was a wonderful delegate that politely and considerately stated her stance and was very accepting of my questions.

However, in the middle of her explanation, another man, who had just walked into our meeting, raised his hand. He introduced himself as a Mr. Early and informed us that he had helped write the voucher bill. Then he proceeded to tell me that I was to agree with vouchers because they embody "Parents' Choice for Education," (the ideals of which I support, just not the voucher means). If I don't agree with vouchers, I should just support delegates that do, for the good of the party. If I won't, then I'm just as bad as a liberal Democrat and should register as one. This came from the mouth of an "observer" of our precinct caucus, not even a resident. He's not even supposed to say a word at our meeting.

When I attempted to speak up to clarify my thinking, he interrupted me (a true member of the precinct) and continued to rant about how the Republicans are the last hold out for vouchers. The ACLU and the teachers' unions are trying to destroy Parents' Choice. Unfortunately, the precinct chair saw it was getting heated and tried to move forward. I was cut off, interrupted, and told off by a person who wasn't even a precinct member! That is unacceptable!

I think that debate and dialogue are healthy and necessary to be an educated and informed citizen. Instead of questioning being perceived as an enemy tactic, it should be possible to disagree with aspects of the platform and still maintain good standing in the party.

Among all of the silly things that happened, the last statement is what I want to focus on. This goes along with the last paragraph of my previous post. Does disagreement with a plank of the party platform equate to treason, heresy, or being a “liberal Democrat?” The faction of the Republican party—and yes, it is a faction—that calls Governor Huntsman a liberal is the most active and dominates the leadership much more than their proportional demographics within the party. As I said, much of that is the reward for showing up and being willing to serve, like what happened in my precinct. Political participation is good and that disconnect is something that needs to be remedied by more of the silent, moderate majority stepping up. But it seems like this over-represented right wing of the party is trying to impose their views as the “doctrinal purity” of the party. Those who disagree, from Senator McCain to Governor Huntsman to delegates who dare speak against vouchers, are being labeled “liberals” or RINO’s (Republicans in name only) and told they shouldn’t be members of the party. Why does the Eagle Forum get to decide what a “true Republican” really is? The party is a willing association of individuals who broadly agree on some or many principles, not a clone factory or a church. And the committees that devised the official county platform are certainly not prophets. If a large percentage of people who self-identify with the Republican Party have more moderate views than you, than why would they or delegates who represent them be RINO’s? I believe that moderate voters who generally vote Republican outnumber the right wing.

Besides the comments to others at the caucus meetings, a commenter here yesterday automatically labeled my blog as “liberal.” Why? A discussion of education issues is a “liberal” thing if it doesn’t advocate vouchers? Support of public education DOES NOT equate to support of the “homosexual agenda,” anti-family values, the U.N., universal healthcare, or any other “liberal” cause. That assumption is offensive to a lot of good people beyond just teachers. Teachers are generally representative of the area they live in. In Salt Lake, you will have a higher percentage of teachers with more liberal views as reflected in the general population. In Alpine District, teachers voted for Romney in the same huge percentages as the rest of the valley and they will probably support McCain and Huntsman in November just like the majority of the people in the valley. About 30% probably vote Democratic, as most elections featuring a Republican and a Democrat in the valley end with a Republican victory 60 something % to 30 something %. The difference I see is that teachers are generally not a confrontational bunch. That’s saying nothing of individuals, but in direct contrast to the common portrayal of the evil UEA, most teachers in my experience don’t like to argue and feel a little uncomfortable in political squabbles. Another teacher I spoke with on Wednesday, from the opposite end of the valley in Nebo District, went home from her caucus nearly in tears after she was attacked and told to join the Democratic Party in response to her opinions on vouchers.

In Pleasant Grove, Rep. Craig Frank stopped by the various precincts to shake hands and leave campaign material for distribution. The materials consisted of a stapled packet with a little card about his record on education (basically voting for increased funding in years of surplus--no mention of vouchers), a copy of the Utah County Party Platform with two sentences highlighted, and a sheet of questions to ask candidates for precinct office. The two highlighted sections in the platform were: On the first page, "To promote excellence, consumer choice in education should be encouraged," and at the end of the second page, "All Republican elected officials, candidates and party officers are expected to endorse these principles and agree to be held accountable to the people and the party."

His questionnaire for candidates included a few basic questions such as asking your position on various issues and who you support for State Representative, Congressional Representative, and Governor. But the first few questions, in the context of being stapled to Rep. Frank’s "Record on Education" and a party platform with highlighted sections emphasizing loyalty to vouchers really bother me, especially coming after the refusal to deal with any ethics reform or conflicts of interest in the past legislative session.

Have you ever been affiliated with another Political Party? If yes, which one and how long ago did you become a Republican?

Do you support the Utah County Party Platform? When is the last time you read the Utah County Party Platform? Are there planks of the Platform you don’t support? Which planks?

What is your occupation? Do you believe your occupation is in any way a conflict of interest to your running for Precinct Leadership or as a County or State Delegate?

What or who do you think is on Rep. Frank’s mind? He claims on his blog that the questions are meant to eliminate "one-issue" candidates and ironically that "The caucus system is designed to “flush out” factionists." Hmmmm... Most would argue that the caucus system enables well-organized factions.

Is he really worried about lawyers or municipal garbagemen or Intel employees becoming delegates? (Although the garbagemen may not appreciate his attempted HB 76…) What if someone supports the plank on the first page that says local governments are most aware of the needs of the people, and therefore opposes his push to privatize municipal garbage service and rec. centers approved by local government and voters? Are they “unclean” too? What jobs would represent a “conflict of interest” and which others would be acceptable to Rep. Frank? I think a realtor or property developer as a politician or delegate can do a lot more to directly benefit themselves than any educator trying to influence education policy. I submit that a teacher who has previously remained unaffiliated like myself, or even recently switched over from the “liberal Democrats,” and opposes vouchers is just as representative of the population as Craig Frank or any other Utah County politician.

What do you think? Do the actions of Rep. Frank look like good government and respect for the will of the people? Or do they more closely resemble cheap jury stacking tactics used by an unethical lawyer in order to avoid legitimate, but uncomfortable questions? Are teachers allowed in the Republican Party?