Kansans who care about their local school boards will oppose changes to local elections through the end of this legislative session.
“While both of those arguments are undoubtedly true, they are a decoy. The real goal is to change the nature of local leadership.
“Right now, in low-turnout local spring elections, reasonable people are elected because extremists do not bother to go to the polls. It just is not on their radar. They have paid little attention to hyper-local races. Meanwhile, good citizen-candidates muster their votes through networking, low-budget advertising and door-to-door campaigning. The winners tend to be pillars of their community who support a continued high quality of life, without a particular agenda, other than well-funded excellence…
“The vast majority of voters who go the polls in a high-turnout election in the fall in even-numbered years will likely not have a clue about who is running for school board, community college trustee or city offices. With all the hoopla over the bigger offices, the efforts of grassroots candidates will be buried beneath an avalanche of expensive mailers, high-budget advertising, ubiquitous yard signs and robo calls. The messages of local candidates will be lost.”
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/steve-rose/article20038644.html
Update: the bill to move local elections has passed the House and Senate.