Bills seek to term limit school board members

Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.

Two bills moving through the Florida Legislature aim to put eight-year school board term limits on the ballot in November.
House Joint Resolution 157, sponsored by Representative Anthony Sabatini, passed the House 79 to 39 on Thursday, Feb. 20. Its companion bill – SJR-1216, sponsored by Senator Joe Gruters – passed the Senate Rules Committee 9 to 8 on Monday, March 2.
HJR-157 and SJR-1216 seek to amend Section 4 of Article IX of the Florida Constitution and create a new section in Article XII to limit the terms of office for district school board members.
Section 4 reads in part that each school district must have a school board composed of five or more members chosen by vote of the electors in a nonpartisan election for appropriately staggered terms of four years, as provided by law.
The amendment to Section 4 reads, “A person may not appear on the ballot for reelection to the office of school board member if, by the end of his or her current term of office, the person will have served, or but for resignation would have served, in that office for eight consecutive years.”
The new section in Article XII makes the term limitation effective on the date that the electorate approves the measure, adding that “no service in a term of office which commenced before Nov. 3, 2020, will be counted toward the limitation imposed by this amendment.”
The Florida-based U.S. Term Limits (USTL), the nation’s oldest and largest pro-term limits group, praised the Florida House and Senate for their approvals of the measure.
“This is a tremendous step forward,” said Nick Tomboulides, executive director of USTL. “School board term limits will elevate new voices and ideas to give all students the great education they deserve. We applaud putting this on the ballot and letting the people decide.”
According to the USTL, a 2018 McLaughlin and Associates poll found that school board term limits were the most popular and bipartisan issue in Florida, with support from 82 percent of voters. That broke down to 85 percent of Republicans, 80 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Independents.
Governor Ron DeSantis has endorsed the eight-year school board proposal, writing that “No elected office, whether federal or local, is ever better off when run by career politicians.”
School board term limits were one of amendments that the Florida Constitution Revision Commission proposed for inclusion on the November ballot in 2018. Prior to the election, however, the Florida Supreme Court threw out the amendment because it bundled the term limits with several other non-related issues.
Proponents of the legislative measure say that the lack of term limits has allowed school board incumbency to grow unabated for decades. In 2018, 85 percent of school board incumbents on the ballot were re-elected. One school board member, Keith Hudson of Columbia County, has held power continuously since 1976 (44 years), according to the USTL.
In Jefferson County, School Board Member Shirley Washington, first elected in 1990, has been in office 26 years, according to the elections office. Charles Boland, first elected in 1998, has been in office 22 years. And Sandra Saunders, first elected in 2008, has been in office 12 years.