In my first post, I promised I’d look for a recap of the school board races from Franklin Strong. Here he is.
I’ve been covering Texas school board elections for seven cycles, and as I have documented over and over again, book bans, attacks on educators and public schools, and attempts to target LGBTQ students do not fare well at the polls. Since dominating the May 2022 cycle—in which organized local groups backed by big-money PACs caught districts flat-footed—extremists repeatedly have been told “no” by Texas voters.
But Saturday night’s election results were next level.
Voters across Texas clearly and consistently punished the people who have been restricting students’ reading and learning. They delivered a message: Texans are sick of book bans, sick of attacks on educators and librarians, sick of leaders waging culture war battles at the expense of good governance.
Consider:
The Fort Bend ISD board of trustees implemented one of the state’s most restrictive book policies last year; on Saturday, voters sent incumbent Rick Garcia, who advocated for the policy, packing. The architect of that policy, resigning trustee David Hamilton, threw all of his weight behind a hand-picked successor, Cheryl Buford. She lost to FBISD parent Angie Wierzbicki, who vocally opposed the new book policy.
In Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, trustee Tammy Nakamura has led efforts to restrict books in the district; she even said she keeps a list of “poison” teachers she wanted run out of the district. And in Katy ISD, board president Victor Perez spearheaded that district’s anti-book crusade. Both lost their seats last night.
Humble ISD candidate Tracy Shannon, who claims responsibility for getting more than 1000 books removed from the district, also lost. So did Clear Creek ISD’s Scott Bowen, who argued for more restrictive policies in his local public library.
Maybe most shocking results of all were in Keller ISD, where a hyper-conservative majority has ruled the board unanimously for years. Keller ISD’s board was installed in 2022 by Patriot Mobile, a Christian-Nationalist phone company that dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into school board races in North Texas. That board has been a disaster, but partisan, extremist candidates kept winning in Keller—until Saturday night. This cycle, all of the candidates favored by the board’s Patriot Mobile bloc lost, and the results weren’t particularly close.
That was a trend for the night, as all three Patriot Mobile trustees in Mansfield up for election lost handily. In fact, of the eleven trustees Patriot Mobile boasted about electing in 2022, seven lost their seats last night.
There’s more, so read the rest. Not every result was good, and as Strong warns the Lege is still out there wilding, so it’s not like we can relax. But the attacks on books and libraries from 2021 and 2023 largely followed bad school board election years, so maybe the results this year will serve to slow their roll a bit. We can sure hope, and we can also keep working to make that a reality.
I mentioned yesterday that one of the disappointing results was from Spring Branch. Diana Martinez Alexander, who was one of the good guy SBISD candidates who unfortunately fell short, sent me this message to remind us all that there’s more to it than what I had suggested:
I would say there is progress in SB – the northside slate won all four northside schools. So the people have spoken and confirmed the results of the judge’s ruling. This is the first time there was a full Latino northside slate. The numbers tell a story – of hope, a desire for change, and a wish for proper representation.
Diana is one of many folks out there doing a lot of hard work to make progress happen in places like Spring Branch. I very much appreciate the perspective.
The Lone Star Project expands on some themes.
Authoritarian MAGA candidates backed by extremists groups True Texas Project, Patriot Mobile PAC, and other hate-baiting agents fell on their faces this weekend. In race after race, these groups launched divisive attacks designed to divide communities against each other – and Texans promptly voted them out. Saturday’s election results are as good an indication as any that Texas is tiring of MAGA extremism. Lone Star Project backed smart, commonsense, community-oriented candidates, and the results speak for themselves.
Maybe the best example is the Tarrant County City of Mansfield where incumbent mayor Michael Evans smoked his opponent who was heavily financed by out-of-town MAGA agitators. Mayor Evans focused on unity, public service, and the mainstream policies that help everyone in a diverse community. Mainstream common sense leadership beats MAGA hate and extremism.
They linked to some news stories about the races in the D-FW area. This might be my favorite.
Voters across Tarrant County delivered a resounding message in local elections, rejecting a slate of conservative-backed candidates in several high-profile, nonpartisan races.
In the three largest cities in Tarrant County, all 11 candidates endorsed by the county Republican Party were defeated, according to Fort Worth Star-Telegram columnist Bud Kennedy.
“It’s surprising,” Kennedy said. “It just shows that there was some pushback already to the administration in Washington. We expect the midterms to go against the party in office in Washington, but it’s so surprising to see it start in these city and school elections. I think some of it, too, was pushback against partisan elections.”
[…]
In Grapevine, incumbent trustee Tammy Nakamura, backed by conservative PAC Patriot Mobile, lost her reelection bid to Matt Foust.
Kennedy described the overall election as a landmark for Democrats in the battleground county that has historically been a Republican stronghold.
“This was one of the real watershed elections for Democrats in Tarrant County in many, many years,” Kennedy said. “Democrats are celebrating for the first time in a long, long time in Tarrant County.”
If Kennedy wrote about this for the Star-Telegram I couldn’t find it, but he did make some comments on Twitter. All I can say is from his lips to God’s ears.
Finally, sigh, we have to talk about Starbase.
SpaceX employees and residents who live at what was formerly known as Boca Chica Village, or Kopernik Shores, voted Saturday to incorporate as a municipality.
The early vote was 212 to 6.
The election was initiated in December after Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr. received a petition from more than 10% of the several hundred eligible voters who are residents of Starbase.
Since the petition met requirements of the Texas Local Government Code, the county judge was required to call an election.
Starbase will now be incorporated as a Type C general law municipality, or one with more than 201 but fewer than 4,999 residents.
The move comes as state Reps. Janie Lopez, R-San Benito, and Adam Hinojosa, R-Corpus Christi, are pushing a bill to allow Starbase to control weekday closures of Boca Chica Beach — instead of Cameron County, which is opposed to the proposal.
See here for the previous update. That’s some kind of “Landslide Lyndon” margin right there. Of course there’s an angle to override what the existing government can do. Off to a great start, they are. The Trib has more on the main characters if you’re interested.