Photo by Claire Nakkachi on Unsplash
by TERRENCE FRASER & EMILY SCHMIDT
Earlier this fall we fielded a call from our colleagues at Marketplace, who were wondering what we could dig up on campaign contributions. Interestingly, they were less interested in the big money flowing into high-dollar U.S. House and Senate races. Instead, they wanted us to help them examine how campaign fundraising is influencing school board campaigns.
It turned out that fundraising for school boards is not-much-reported, and not well documented. Who wins school board races does have big implications for how schools approach everything from COVID-19 policies to teaching about race, sexual preference and identity and science.
Given that schools will likely continue to be a battleground for social issues like these, we thought it might be useful to provide a glimpse into some of what we found in our foray into the financing of school board campaigns in the three areas that Marketplace was particularly interested in: Texas, Michigan, and Los Angeles.
Texas
Conservative Christianity has consistently been influential in political elections over the decades. Recently though, it has reached the uber-local level in this year’s school board elections across the country. Countless Christian leaders endorsed and contributed to the campaigns of candidates who represented and supported conservative values.
In Tarrant County, Texas, however, it wasn’t just Christian leaders getting involved in school board elections; Patriot Mobile, “America’s only Christian conservative wireless provider,” was active in elections across the county where it’s headquartered. The company’s founder, Chris Wilson, worked on numerous political campaigns, including those of several high-profile politicians like Mike Lee and Ted Cruz.
At the beginning of 2022, Patriot Mobile launched its own super PAC, Patriot Mobile Action. Its mission is to “independently [research] candidates and [advocate] on behalf of those who stand for Christian conservative values.”
For the May school board elections, the PAC endorsed 11 candidates from four school districts in Tarrant County—Carroll, Keller, Mansfield and Grapevine-Colleyville. All candidates have since won and stepped into their elected positions.
According to Transparency USA, a database that tracks campaign finances for state-level candidates and PACs, Patriot Mobile Action has raised over $1 million and spent almost $800,000 as of October. The largest donation the PAC received from a single individual came from Byron Bradford, who ran for Tarrant County Commissioners Court Judge but lost the Republican primary in March. He donated a total of $120,000.
The PAC’s first quarter spending amounted to about $390,000, according to campaign finance reports submitted to the Texas Ethics Commission. By the end of March, Patriot Mobile Action spent $38,500 for each candidate from Mansfield, Keller and Grapevine-Colleyville. In addition, they spent $20,875 on candidates for Carroll Independent School District.
We also decided to take a closer look at the ads Patriot Mobile Action launched leading up to the election. According to Meta’s ad library, the PAC began specifically advertising candidates on Facebook and Instagram in mid-April just before early voting started.
These ads came in multiple variations, but they shared similar messages—the endorsed “patriotic” candidates would empower parents, stand for academic excellence and keep critical theory out of the classroom. They also stood for conservative values, including first amendment protections, second amendment rights, the sanctity of life and support for first responders and military.
Now, whether or not advertising support secured the win for each of the candidates is unclear. What is clear, though, is Patriot Mobile Action’s growing hand in elections at the county and state levels. Leading up to November’s midterm election, the PAC pitched in $37,000 to advertise for Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s campaign and $74,000 for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s campaign among others.
Michigan
This election season, former U.S. Education Secretary, Betsy Devos, heavily funded education-related ballot petitions in her home state of Michigan. These proposals, if enacted, would have created education scholarships (or vouchers) following each student—similar to programs that have been passed across the U.S. Supporters of the proposals say they will increase educational choice for families across Michigan. Opponents say that by drawing government funding away from public schools, the proposals would weaken education in the state and make quality education accessible to fewer students.
In 2022, the Devos family contributed at least 9.7 million dollars to a ballot question committee called Let MI Kids Learn. The committee pushed for two ballot measures encouraging privatization and school choice, both of which ultimately failed in this fall’s elections.
Let MI Kids Learn missed its deadline to submit 500,000 petitions that would have created the ballot proposal to be voted on during the November elections. And while Devos and Let Mi Kids Learn hoped to have the Michigan state legislature adopt the measure, that is likely impossible now with the Democrats in control of both chambers of the state legislature come 2023. [Update: In an apparent defeat, Chalkbeat reported Let MI Kids Learn had withdrawn petitions for the school choice ballot initiatives.]
Los Angeles (School Board District 6)
In Los Angeles School Board District 6, representing East San Fernando Valley, Kelly Gonez barely held on to her seat on the school board, despite outside forces outspending her opponents by nearly half a million dollars, according to LAist.
In terms of contributions, as of Sept. 26, 2022, Gonez had raised $300,000—including donations from Joe Drake, chairman of Lionsgate Entertainment; Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix; and Amy McIntosh, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education. Gonez also received contributions from Kindel Gagan, a firm that lobbies the Los Angeles city government on behalf of corporations, such as Amazon, AT&T and Chrysler.
By the same date, Marvin Rodriguez, who only narrowly lost the election, largely self-funded her campaign by donating $10,000 to herself.
Jess (‘Jesus’) Arana, an LA police sergeant-turned-candidate for District 6 School Board, raised $36,000 in campaign donations—virtually all from school police and police unions. Here’s a list of notable donors:
Long Beach Police Officers Association PAC
San Francisco Police Officers Association PAC
Los Angeles School Police Association
L.A. School Police Management Association. PAC
Union City Police Officer's Assoc. PAC
CA Coalition of School Safety Professionals PAC
Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs State PAC