September 21, 2011 09:29 PM UTC

GOP All-In for "Non-Partisan" School Board Elections

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• by: Colorado Pols

We’ve previously discussed the fact that the Jefferson County Republican Party has become the driving force behind the campaigns of Jeffco School Board candidates Preston Branaugh and Jim Powers. Indeed, county Republicans have made it no secret that they will do whatever it takes to gain Laura Boggs a majority on the school board.

Case in point, we received a fundraising letter today from county GOP Chair Don “There’s No I in That” Ytterberg in which he tells GOP donors that the party is going to pursue those two school board seats pretty aggressively. You can read the entire letter here, but we’ve excerpted it below.

Enclosed please find a copy of Waiting for Superman, an extraordinary documentary about the state of public education in America. If you are a conservative, I’m sure you will connect with this thought-provoking film because it identifies pressing issues facing Jefferson County’s own public schools that can only be addressed by electing new, committed, professional leadership to the county School Board.

Even if you do not have children in school, I’m sure that you understand that businesses cannot be successful without educated workers. The crisis today is that 60% of Jefferson County tenth graders cannot pass Colorado’s standardized math test.

These results ARE NOT because of insufficient funding! The Jefferson County school budget was over $1.1 billion in 2011. Despite declining enrollment, that’s nearly double the 1990s levels. Where did this money go? Mostly, it went to increased administrative costs. We now have approximately 8,000 administrative employees for our 80,000 students. That’s lower than the student-teacher ratio!

This year, two successful businessmen, Preston Branaugh and Jim Powers, are running for the School Board. With six kids between them, they are committed to turning around our Jeffco schools. You also need to know that the Jefferson County Republican Party is promoting their candidacy.

Although School Board races are called “non-partisan,” Democrats and other liberal organizations select and promote candidates that are sympathetic to the unionized educational establishment. I prefer to call these races “unbranded,” instead of non-partisan, because the only “non-partisan” aspect is that the candidates do not identify their party on the ballot.

Please know that this campaign is not about opposing the many fine teachers in our community; it’s about providing Board Members with professional management skills who can guide the operations of the 35th largest school district in the United States.

We really love that Ytterberg included a copy of Waiting for Superman in this fundraising pitch. We just hope he had to individually purchase copies of it; piracy concerns aside, if Ytterberg bought dozens of DVDs, he indirectly funneled a not insubstantial amount of cash into the pocket of director Davis Guggenheim. Guggenheim, you’ll recall, also directed An Inconvienent Truth and Barack Obama’s biographical film shown during the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Sure, Superman explores education issues that are at odds with some education activists and labor unions, but it was still directed by a prominent Democrat. Would it be a stretch to say that Ytterburg’s purchase of Waiting for Superman with party funds indirectly supports Al Gore and An Inconvienent Truth? Probably. It’s still funny no matter how you look at it.

Above that, though, this fundraising letter shows just how far Ytterberg and the county party have thrown the gauntlet in their support of Branuagh and Powers. If there was any doubt before, it’s unmistakable now: these are the Republican candidates for seats on the nonpartisan, er, “unbranded” Jeffco School Board. Ytterberg said it best himself, “You need to know that the Jefferson County Republican Party is promoting their candidacy.”  

Yttenberg’s letter also included an invitation for a fundraising event for Branaugh, Powers, and the party. Laura Boggs will be featured there as a speaker. That’s ironic: at a fundraiser dedicated to “electing new, committed, professional leadership to the county School Board,” Laura Boggs is speaking.  Boggs, you’ll recall, is the only school board member in county history to be censured. Her behavior has been described as “erratic, disrespectful, and inconsistent.” She previously snuck into a Jefferson County teacher’s union meeting and hid behind a tripod with poster paper on it. She also took over the classroom of a Green Mountain High School teacher and told students that “school is stupid.” It’d be a tough sell to describe any of Boggs’ actions on the school board as “committed” or “professional.” “New,” perhaps.

Maybe that’s just the point: Jeffco Republicans aren’t running candidates like Laura Boggs in 2011. They’re running candidates like Jim Powers and Preston Branaugh. They’re running candidates who probably won’t go off the deep end and do something that reflects poorly on the party. They’re running candidates who seem electable. The Colorado GOP and its constituent organizations at the county level did a pretty good job of grooming candidates in the 90s and early 2000s; they had a successful track record of promoting those who could get elected and best represent the party to an independent voter bloc. Those days are gone, but is Yttenberg’s treatment of Branaugh and Powers indicative of a return to a more comprehensive candidate selection process? Maybe.

It could also be that the Jeffco GOP realizes that elected officials like Laura Boggs make the Republican party as a whole look really, really bad. Branaugh and Powers may be important to the party so that Laura Boggs and candidates like her aren’t the first thing independent voters will think of going into the 2012 election. Ytterberg may indeed be trying his best to stave off a total Tea Party takeover. That “new leadership” he wrote about? That might mean “not like Boggs” more than it means “Republican.”

As for the Jeffco Dems? They’re not as wholeheartedly pushing the whole party label thing on their slate. They don’t have to, though. Jill Fellman and Lesley Dahlkemper each have extensive political experience, and more importantly, connections to their own fundraising networks. They can throw fundraisers without any help. They don’t need to rely on their party to win as much as their Republican counterparts do. That doesn’t mean they’re safe; in Jefferson County, Branaugh and Powers might just manage to pull off wins. If so, for the first time in a decade, it might be because of their party, not despite it.