Question We are a group of parents wanting to get a group together to find good candidates and support them for the school board in 2006 when 4 of the 5 seats are up for election. I want to make sure we are doing things the right way and am very unsure of how to go about it except to bring everyone together to discuss the current problems and issues. Can you offer advice on the best way to do this? Do we need to do anything formal? Do you have to register? My intent is not to fundraise for candidates, but to throw our voting support in their direction, help encourage people to vote and of course for the candidates that we like, and to be able to exert some pressure on the decisions that are made.
Answer If you are looking for candidates to run, go to groups, churches, friends, etc. that think the same way you do, and convince them to run. An expenditure of time and money will be necessary. The people can run as individuals or as a team.
If there will be multiple candidates, you will want your four candidates to be easily found on the ballot. Depending on the election laws, you may want to run them as a "ticket."
In elections where you must get signatures on a petition to get their names printed on the ballot, you may want to print all four candidates' names on your petitions (if this is allowed), and then you can reduce the number of man-hours spent gathering signatures, and their names will appear together on the ballot in the same order you have them printed on the petitions.
The problem with running on a ticket, is that if a problem with one of the candidates occur (he says something stupid, an old arrest becomes public, missed back taxes, whatever) then the entire "team" takes the hit.
If there are only going to be one or two other candidates running, then you may want to have your people run as "individuals," but publically say nice things about the others, and maybe pass out literature for them along with their own as they go door to door.
There are economic advantages when running as a team (namely sharing the cost of literature, posters, etc.), but there are also disadvantages if the local citzenry thinks some group is trying to "take over" the school board.
You will have to decide whether you will want to run a "stealth" campaign, or a campaign where everyone knows you're running as a team.
Since you're asking me this question, I will assume you are conservatives, and I can guarantee you that the local teachers union will find candidates to run against yours once they become aware that your group is organized for a particular slate of candidates.
As for the regestering thing, each jurisdiction is different, but generally you wouldn't have to register as a political committee until you cross some monetary threshold in favor of your candidates, but check with your county clerk's office to be sure.
Initially announce that your unofficial group is looking for candidates, find people that believe what you believe and seem interested, and then convince them to run. If you happen to have more people than openings (in this case 4) talk the weaker of the candidates out of running. The last thing you want, is to have 6 of your people running for 4 slots, as this will guarantee that the school teacher/administration/staff vote will be victorious when they vote in a block for their 2,3, or 04 candidates.
