NC Senate makes Johnston County, other school board elections partisan
Republican state lawmakers want to make Johnston County school board elections partisan over the objections of the district’s education leaders.
In April, the school board rejected the Johnston County Republican Party request to ask the General Assembly to make its elections partisan. But this week, the state Senate added partisan school board races in Johnston and Gaston counties to a bill that would make Columbus County school board elections partisan.
The Senate approved House Bill 116 in a voice vote on Thursday. The bill returns to the House, which previously approved the legislation, to see if it concurs with the Senate’s changes.
Sen. Benton Sawrey, a Johnston County Republican, said the entire county legislative delegation requested the change. All the Johnston County state lawmakers are Republicans.
“Adding partisan labels on the ballot has widespread support in the county,” Sawrey said in an interview Wednesday. “This change gives all voters consistent information about party affiliation and allows us to conduct elections in the same manner that we elect our county commissioners.”
If adopted, it would go into effect for the 2026 school board elections.
Are partisan school board elections “poison”?
Johnston County is North Carolina’s seventh-largest school district. It has more than 36,000 students.
In recent years, the district has made headlines for how Ronald Johnson was convicted of extortion charges and removed from the school board.
School board chair Lyn Andrews did not immediately return a voicemail message and email on Wednesday from The News & Observer requesting comment on the legislation. Andrews, a registered Republican, was one of the members who voted down the resolution requesting the election change.
School board member April Lee called it “underhanded” how the election change was inserted into a bill on Tuesday. Lee, who is registered as unaffiliated but was supported by Democrats, had voted against the resolution.
“Even if you agree that our Board of Education elections should be partisan, do you agree with how this is being done?” Lee said in a Facebook post Tuesday. “I know as a voter, I don’t. Sneaking things in shouldn’t be the way we do things.”
The change is opposed by groups who say school board elections should be nonpartisan.
“What this bill does, it injects state and national politics into our school boards,” Mark Swallow, a member of the liberal activist group Democracy Out Loud, said at the Senate Elections Committee meeting on Tuesday. “They do not need this poison. It does does not help our students’ education.”
GOP making more school board elections partisan
The Republican-controlled General Assembly has sharply increased the number of partisan school board elections. State lawmakers have focused on making school board elections partisan in Republican areas, including Catawba, Craven, Henderson and Union counties.
Prior to 2013, only 10 of North Carolina’s 115 districts had partisan school board elections, according to EducationNC. But 52 school districts held partisan elections last November.
The Johnston County Republican Party has promoted the switch to partisan elections as a way to win all seven school board seats. In an April Facebook post, the Johnston County GOP pointed out that the only non-Republicans elected countywide sit on the school board.
Five of the school board seats are held by registered Republicans. One seat is held by a Democrat. One seat is held by an unaffiliated voter.
“Recent polling data from Differentiators Data, a premier North Carolina-based data and political intelligence firm, shows that 85% of all Johnston County General Election Voters prefer to have partisan labels on the ballot for County School Board Races,” the Johnston County Republican Party said in a Facebook post Tuesday. “Further the data shows that Republicans prefer partisan labels by 86% and UNA by 87%.”
Differentiators Data is a conservative consulting firm that has worked with dozens of powerful Republican political and business clients.
School boards didn’t ask for election change
Johnston County school board elections have been nonpartisan since state lawmakers passed legislation in 1997. According to a 1997 News & Observer article, school leaders hoped the change away from partisan elections would lead to the election of more minorities.
“Johnston County has grown from 80,000 people to 240,000 people since we made the change from partisan to nonpartisan several decades ago,” said Sawrey, the lawmaker. “We owe it to our voters to make sure that they can easily identify some of the core values of a particular candidate.”
But Swallow of Democracy Out Loud pointed out that neither Gaston County’s school board nor Johnston County’s school board had requested a move to partisan elections.
Swallow said the change is likely to result in the election of more Republicans and fewer women to the school board.
“We all know school boards are to oversee and guide public education, ensure that schools are well run, resources are used wisely, high standards of academic performance are met while representing the whole community, and encourage the hire and retention of good teachers,” Swallow told lawmakers. “This bill doesn’t help with any of that.”
This story was originally published May 21, 2025 at 12:52 PM.
