Legislators planning to change election laws for Iredell County residents
HB 1035, formerly SB 818, has been recently amended to change the method of replacing Iredell County school board members who vacate their position on the board if the person chosen is not accepted by remaining school board members. Until now, the political party of the board member who vacated his or her seat has had the authority to select a new board member when a vacancy occurred. Now NC legislators seek to take away the control of selecting a new person from the corresponding political party of the member who left and giving that authority to the clerk of superior court. This would occur if there was any failure of the board to seat a selected board member. In other words, if the school board members did not agree with the selection, an appointee would select a new board member. In my opinion, this is taking away the voting rights of every voting resident in any district who deserves to have representation on the school board by a democratic process. Having one chosen by an appointee is unfair to the 16,260 voters in district two and close to the 149,700 voters in Iredell County. Couldn’t it be possible that the clerk of the court might not even represent the same political party as the member who resigned? How is the clerk of the court even connected to the school board?
In the case of the selection of Matthew Youngblood District 2, the temporary school board chairman, Doug Knight, stated that correct procedures were not followed in selecting the new board member. However, prior to the vote, local party leaders consulted state Republican Party officials regarding the proper procedure. They were instructed to limit voting to Executive Committee members residing within District 2, and the committee followed that legal guidance. For that reason, supporters of the nomination disagree with the claim that the selection process was improper.
Vickie Sawyer is not included in the group of 13 NC senators and three chairmen who worked to construct this bill. However, as she stated that she would “fix” the bill, she must have directed the change in election laws for Iredell County as she is the only senator who represents Iredell County, and she would most likely have input into any bill involving Iredell County. In my opinion, the change was made to remove freedom of selection from Iredell County voters. This bill has already passed in the NC Senate. The bill has not yet come to the NC House floor.
HB 1035 is going to be discussed by the House Rules Committee possibly on Tuesday, June 23. Here are the names of the chairs of the committee with their office numbers. Chair: Rep. John Bell 919-715-3017 Vice Chairs: Rep. Tricia Cotham 919-733-5886, Brendan Jones, 919-733-5821 Erin Pare’ 919-733-2962 If you agree that the voters in Iredell County deserve to have the power to select people to replace school board members who vacate their positions, you can call them and let them know your opinion about taking away the rights of Iredell County voters.
There are three men who represent Iredell County who are North Carolina representatives in the General Assembly. Their names are Todd Carver, Jeffery McNeeley and Mitchell Setzer. If any one of the three representatives for Iredell County will show his concern for the voters in Iredell County and refuse to support HB 1035, when it moves to the floor of the NC House, it will not pass. The rest of the bill can remain after removing the paragraph changing election laws in Iredell County. If this bill should pass, it will drastically change election procedures in Iredell County. How will this process of giving power to an appointee and taking it away from the local political executive board members who live in the district affect the voters in Iredell County? Removing local party control over the appointment process cannot have a good result.
Iredell Statesville schools district enrollment has been greatly reduced in the last ten years, even though the population in Iredell County has grown by 25%. Reading and math scores for many students in Iredell County has decreased in the last ten years. According to North Carolina Report Card, going up until 2026 enrollment, most metrics show a decline since 2015. Superintendent James was hired in 2020. Two thirds of the district performs well, one-third does not. No effective changes have been seen to move this downturn in academic achievement around. There are ten low performing schools out of 32 traditional schools. Clearly ISS schools would benefit from some new direction. Matthew Youngblood will be a great addition to the ISS School Board.
Paula Mimnaugh