What's on your ballot? - May 12, 2015
May 10, 2015
By Ballotpedia staff Follow @ballotpedia
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| Elections on May 12, 2015 |
| California |
| Delaware |
| Mississippi |
An unusual group of elections will appear on ballots across the country on May 12, 2015. On the West Coast, school board member Sonja Cameron faces a recall election just five months after her appointment. In the South, Mississippi's 1st Congressional District has a special election to fill the vacancy left by the death of Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R). Finally, the Northeast region will see Delaware voters fill eight seats in five school board elections.
Swift recall election:
Sonja Cameron, Area 5 representative of the Twin Rivers Unified School District Board of Trustees, was barely sworn in before a recall effort was launched, seeking to remove her from office. She was appointed to the position on December 8, 2014, following former trustee Cortez Quinn's departure after pleading no contest to charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a paternity case and accepting illegal loans and gifts from a school district employee.[1]
Recall proponents have stated their problem is not with Cameron, personally; rather, they are upset over the appointment process used to select her for the seat. A key supporter of the recall, Sacramento County Democratic Party Chair Kerri Asbury, argued, "It's not about the person. It’s about the process."[2] Criticisms of the process include that the appointment did not appear on the board agenda, the meeting did not include a period of public comment and the trustees' scores of the candidate interviews were kept secret. Board President Rebecca Sandoval defended the process, noting that the final vote was taken in open session and that a community meeting had been held on December 1, 2014, in Area 5 for public comments.[2]
Basim Elkarra, who also applied for board consideration to replace Quinn, filed to run against Cameron in the recall election. While the board is a nonpartisan body, Elkarra serves as an elected member of the California Democratic Party executive board.[3] Cameron is the chief operations officer and co-founder of the Pacific Charter Institute, which serves 1,619 students.[1] The recall effort was allowed to move forward, despite the fact that supporters submitted slightly less than the required number of signatures. The shortfall in signatures was the result of 40 to 50 signatures being misdated as 2014 instead of 2015 at the beginning of the new year.[4]
Mississippi Congressional Seat:
Though the last two general elections for Mississippi's 1st Congressional District resulted in big wins for Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R), the special election to fill the seat following his death could result in a runoff on June 2, 2015, if no candidate receives a majority of the vote.[5] A crowded field of 12 Republican challengers and one Democratic candidate could split the vote enough to prevent any from receiving a majority, along with giving Walter Zinn, the sole Democratic candidate, a better chance of making it into the runoff.[6]
Delaware school board elections:
The Delaware school board races vary dramatically in competitiveness. The Appoquinimink School District is experiencing its most hotly contested election in 16 years, with six candidates brawling over the at-large seat vacated by incumbent Julie Johnson. One challenger, Joanne Christian, previously served on the board from 2002 to 2012, when she did not seek re-election. Elsewhere in the state, both the Christina School District and the Red Clay Consolidated School District elections feature at least one unopposed candidate, and the District D seat in the Colonial School District failed to net a single candidate.
Note: Click on the links below for more details about each race and election results.
California
Recalls
- See also: California elections, 2015
- Sonja Cameron recall from the Area 5 seat of the Twin Rivers Unified School District Board of Trustees
Delaware
School boards
- See also: Delaware elections, 2015
- Delaware school board elections - five districts with eight seats up for general election
Mississippi
Congress
- Special election to fill an open seat left by the death of Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R)
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 The Sacramento Bee, "Twin Rivers taps charter school leader Sonja Cameron to fill board vacancy," December 9, 2014
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Sacramento Bee, "Democratic Party joins recall fight in Twin Rivers school district," January 2, 2015
- ↑ American Muslim Civic Leadership Institute, "Basim Elkarra," accessed February 17, 2015
- ↑ The Sacramento Bee, "Twin Rivers Unified to hold May election for trustee post," January 23, 2015
- ↑ National Journal, "Mississippi Rep. Alan Nunnelee Dies at 56," February 6, 2015
- ↑ WMC Action News 5, "May 12 election set to fill north Mississippi US House seat," February 24, 2015
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