Source: WFDD
The North Carolina General Assembly passed a law earlier this month that requires the Guilford County Board of Education to seat a Republican candidate who had previously been rejected four times, according to WFDD.
In addition to forcing the board to fill a vacant seat with a rejected Republican candidate, the law will also make five other counties’ school board elections partisan.
House Bill 88 was introduced in February by Guilford County Republican state Reps. Jon Hardister and John Faircloth as a way to end a months-long stalemate with the Guilford County school board, WFDD reported.
When former Republican board member Pat Tillman became a commissioner last November, he left behind an open spot on the board and it was up to the county GOP to find and recommend his replacement.
The school board rejected Guilford County Schools teacher Michael Logan four different times, citing concerns about racial prejudice on multiple social media posts attributed to him, according to WFDD.
Despite the county GOP recommending an apparently racist teacher, and the board rightfully rejecting that recommendation four times, Hardister and Faircloth decided it was time for the state government to step in and force the board to appoint an unqualified, unwanted candidate. For being in “the party of small government,” as Republicans always like to proclaim, they sure do love big government.
The new law will result in Logan being seated anyway, and it will also result in Ashe, Cabarrus, Henderson, McDowell and Mitchell counties having to make their school board races partisan.
Guilford County Democratic state Rep. Amos Quick called the bill “a monster” and voted against it, WFDD reported.
“This bill went away one thing as it often does, comes back another thing, but it started out about one man not being impaneled by the Guilford County Board of Education,” he said. “And it is not fair to other communities to be added into this. As well as it’s not fair to the Guilford County Board of Education to not be allowed to solve its own problem.”
House Bill 88 passed by a 67 to 48 margin.
