There are three races in the State Board of Education that Democrats have a shot to flip based on recent election results. We are pretty familiar with SBOE6, so let’s take a look at districts 5 and 10. The Statesman does the honors.
Ken Mercer
The Republican-dominated State Board of Education could see up to two-thirds of its members replaced this election cycle. It would be a seismic political shakeup for a body that often tackles divisive issues, such as sex education, evolution and racial topics.
Four Republican members on the 15-member board are retiring, two Democrats are seeking higher office and four incumbents are facing opponents. The board is tasked with adopting curriculum for all Texas public grade schools, approving textbooks, signing off on new charter school operators and managing the $44 billion Permanent School Fund.
“Typically, what we’ve seen is the far right faction voting together as a bloc,” said Dan Quinn with the Texas Freedom Network, a liberal group that closely monitors the board’s more controversial decisions. “But we’re seeing probably the last of the old guard, religious right faction on the board leaving the board this year,” referring to Barbara Cargill, R-Woodlands, and Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, who were elected in 2004 and 2006, respectively.
Both Central Texas seats are up for reelection – Mercer’s District 5 and District 10, represented by Tom Maynard, R-Florence, who has drawn a Democratic opponent for the November election but is running unopposed in the March GOP primary.
[…]
The Republicans running to replace Mercer, who is retiring, are Inga Cotton, executive director of San Antonio Charter Moms, which connects families to charter school resources; Lani Popp, a speech pathologist at the Northside school district in San Antonio; and Robert Morrow, an ardent opponent of Donald Trump’s presidency who was recently blasted by the Travis County GOP for what they say is his use of vulgar, misogynist and slanderous language.
The Democrats running for Mercer’s seat are Rebecca Bell-Metereau, a Texas State University professor of English and film who’s making her fourth run for the board, and Letti Bresnahan, a former school board president at San Antonio’s North East school district and a director of continuing medical education at University of Texas Health San Antonio.
The Democrats running for the chance to challenge Maynard for District 10 are Marsha Burnett-Webster, a retired educator and college administrator, and Stephen Wyman, a school bus driver.
At least two Republican seats on the board have a possibility of flipping to Democrats this year – Mercer’s district, which includes parts of Austin, as well as District 6 represented by Donna Bahorich, R-Houston, who is not running for reelection.
In District 6, the percentage of votes for a GOP candidate has declined since at least 2008, from 79.3% to 54% in 2016.
Mercer’s percentage of votes also has dropped each time he has run for reelection, from 71.1% in 2006 to 49.6% in 2016, when he prevailed against Bell-Metereau and Ricardo Perkins, a Libertarian. Mercer’s district includes all of Texas House District 45, which flipped from red to blue in 2018.
“The demographics of the district have changed over the past. Northern Bexar County, Comal County, Hays County, southern Travis County have had tremendous population growth, and those tend to be suburban voters and (those) who have moved from out-of-state,” Cotton said.
The two Democrats seeking other office are Lawrence Allen, running in HD26, and Ruben Cortez, who is challenging Eddie Lucio in SD27. Both were re-elected in 2018, so they will only step down if they win this year. All SBOE seats are up in 2022, in the same way that all State Senate seats are up in the first cycle after redistricting; I’m honestly not sure offhand if there would be a special election in 2021 to fill out the remainder of those terms, or if the Board appoints an interim person.
The Statesman story doesn’t consider SBOE10 to be competitive. It’s the least flippable of the three, but it’s in the conversation, especially if Dems have a strong year. For sure, if we flip SBOE10, we’ve run the table and Dems have taken a majority on the Board.
The story has some quotes from the candidates, so read on to learn more about them. One last point I’ll make is about the lack of straight ticket voting, which Dan Quinn from the Texas Freedom Network noted. Putting aside the partisan question, which I still consider to be open, SBOE races are pretty close to the top of the ticket. In order, there will be the three federal races – President, Senate, Congress – then the statewide races, which this year is Railroad Commissioner and seven judicial slots, and next after that is SBOE. Look at the results from 2012 to see what I mean (I’m using those instead of the results from 2018 because there were no non-RRC statewide offices on the ballot in 2012). The order in which the results appear is the order of the races on the ballot. People may not know much about the SBOE races, which admittedly may make some of them skip it, but they won’t be especially taxed by the effort it takes to get to that race.
It will be interesting to see what the Republicans, either in the Leg or the LRB, will do with the SBOE map in redistricting. My guess is SBOE 5 will become a Travis County voter sink, which will help shore up SBOE 10, and SBOE 9 will be used to shore up SBOE 12, which is the one that got away in 2018. I have no idea if they will crack or pack SBOE 6 though.
I doubt Republicans in the legislature care at all about SBOE districts. I seem to recall that they did not even enact a plan after the last census, and a court had to draw districts to even out population, using as a vehicle a lawsuit by Tincy Miller from the Dallas area who was on the SBOE.