Candidates urging ‘local’ control ironically backed by an outside group
Candidates who ran for Ocean City school board said they want to maintain local control over education.
They inferred or flat out said decisions should not be imposed by the state Department of Education. In the big picture, that is silly.
The state controls so many aspects of public education through setting standards, policies and curricula school boards in New Jersey must follow. While there are ways boards can decide to tailor educational offerings to their respective districts, an overwhelming amount is controlled by state mandates. The vast majority of those mandates are followed without dissension. Over the years, many local school board members have lamented that what they control is limited.
But referring to local control in an election can be quite specific.
For some of the candidates, that means control over the few policies or standards that have generated some controversy, such as the sex education parts of the Health and Physical Education Standards adopted last year, or policy 5756 about how districts deal with LGBTQIA+ students.
Three candidates, endorsed by the conservative national group Moms for Liberty, used that local control message about the Health and Physical Education Standards to win seats on the board in last November’s election.
After a fractious 10 months with those three new members on the board, voters had the chance to swing the balance of power to them among the nine Ocean City representatives. To do that they could re-elect Robin Shaffer, who is serving a one-year unexpired term, and elect two of his running mates on their “Conservative Family Values” slate.
Voters did not. They did not choose his running mates for two of the three seats up in the election and Shaffer is hanging on to his seat by a thread. He is only four votes ahead of Cory Niemiec, who ran on an informal slate with Michael Allegretto and Jocelyn Palaganas.
Allegretto and Palaganas finished 1-2 well ahead of the field. Unofficial results have Allegretto with 1,985 votes and Palaganas with 1,685, Shaffer with 1,416 and Niemiec with 1,412. (In last year’s election, Shaffer beat two other candidates by a wide margin for the one-year term.)
Official results will be posted around Nov. 22 after provisional ballots and mail-in ballots postmarked by election day but not received by election day are counted.
What the results of the Nov. 7 election infer or flat out reveal is that while voters may not favor the outsized influence of the state, voters also don’t support the outside influence of a national group, Moms for Liberty, with its national agenda.
When Shaffer and two other Moms for Liberty candidates, Catherine Panico and Liz Nicoletti, won last year, they and their supporters touted their victory as vindication for their agenda. Therefore, this election shows the opposite is true.
An important thing to note, however, is that while there are clear winners and losers in any election, when looking at votes cast, those who lose also represent a constituency.
That is true in the biggest of elections.
When Donald Trump lost the presidential election to Joe Biden in 2020, and when Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, the results swung power to one side but it didn’t mean the loser was without substantial support.
The same holds true in local elections, such as the one for Ocean City school board.
The board will continue to have representatives of different constituencies, but some agendas should be left at the door.
Big win for Republicans
While New Jersey is bluish-purple, last week’s elections showed Republicans continue to hold sway in this part of the state, giving GOP organizations reason to celebrate.
In Cape May County, voters chose Republicans by a more than 2-1 margin — Mike Testa for state Senate, Antwan McClellan and Erik Simonsen for state Assembly, E. Marie Hayes for surrogate and Will Morey and Melanie Collette for County Commission. Republican Sheriff Robert Nolan ran unopposed, as did Bob Barr for an unexpired County Commission seat.
The results go well beyond the huge voter registration margins Republicans have over Democrats in the county.
The results were closer in neighboring Atlantic County, but it was another sweep for Republicans: state Sen. Vince Polistina won re-election, as did Assembly members Don Guardian and Claire Swift. Dennis Levinson was re-elected county executive, Republican Joe O’Donoghue beat incumbent Democratic Sheriff Eric Scheffler, and John Risley and June Byrnes were re-elected and elected, respectively, to the County Commission.
Although too many people across the U.S. treat those with party affiliations other than their own with increasing anger and distrust, it is worth remembering that democracy is built on the foundation of divided government.
Democrats hold a 25-15 majority in the state Senate and a 52-28 majority in the Assembly that gives them outsized control, but a strong minority party is needed as a check to that power.
