Keep Our Schools Off the Partisan Ballot: Why We Recommend No on Amendment 2

Constitutional Amendment 2 is the quietest question on Tuesday’s ballot. It deletes a single sentence from the New Mexico Constitution: “All school elections shall be held at different times from partisan elections.”

Supporters call that sentence a relic.

We see it as one of the last walls between our children’s schools and the party politics that have divided this state and this country.

At a time when partisan divides keep growing, this is the wrong moment to tear it down. We recommend a NO vote.

What the amendment actually does

Since statehood, the constitution has required school elections to be held separately from partisan elections. Today, under the 2018 Local Election Act, school board races are held alongside other nonpartisan local elections, apart from the races for governor, Congress and the Legislature.

Amendment 2, passed by the Legislature as Senate Joint Resolution 1, strikes that requirement entirely. It adds no new language and no limits. That would allow two things:

Bond and mill-levy questions: School districts could place them on the November general-election ballot in even years.

School board races: The Legislature could, by ordinary statute, move school board elections onto the same ballot as partisan races.

The amendment does not itself make school board races partisan. But it removes the constitutional barrier that keeps them separate, and leaves the rest to whatever a future Legislature decides.

Why separation matters

The framers of New Mexico’s 1910 constitution set school elections apart for their own reasons. Their decision has served the state well for a different one: it keeps school board races about schools.

When a school board candidate shares a ballot with candidates for governor and Congress, several things tend to follow:

Party labels fill the information gap. Voters who know little about a school board race tend to rely on whatever cues are around them. On a ballot full of Ds and Rs, that cue is party, even if the board race itself carries no label.

Party machinery moves in. Campaigns organized for top-of-ticket races recruit, slate and promote down-ballot candidates who fit their side. School boards become one more front in the same fight.

National issues crowd out local ones. Even-year campaigns are dominated by national arguments and national money. Questions about reading scores, bus routes and building repairs get buried under them.

School races fall to the bottom of a long ballot. Otero County voters already face two full pages of contests in some years. Voters who are tired or rushed skip races at the bottom, and school questions would sit there.

We have spent this election season arguing that the most effective public servants are the ones who put community ahead of party

Grace Nagamine is running as an independent precisely because, as she says, a broken water system and an overwhelmed child-welfare system “don’t belong to one party.

Neither do our schools. School boards are among the few places left where neighbors with different politics still sit at the same table to solve a shared problem.

We should protect that, not merge it into the partisan ballot.

The case for yes, fairly stated

Supporters make real arguments, and voters deserve to hear them:

Cost: Stand-alone school elections cost districts $125,000 to $250,000 each. Alamogordo Public Schools held its last bond and mill-levy election as a stand-alone all-mail special election in May 2023. Statewide, districts held 12 such elections in 2024 and 2025, according to the Legislature’s fiscal analysis.

Turnout: The same analysis says studies show turnout in off-cycle school board elections can be less than half that of on-cycle elections. Low turnout can give small organized groups outsized influence.

Bipartisan support: The resolution passed the Senate 38–0 and the House 50–9. Voters approved related changes in 2008, 2010 and 2014, though compilation errors kept them from taking full effect.

Flexibility: Districts would keep the option of calling a special election when they need one.

These are legitimate points, especially on cost. If this amendment were limited to letting school bond and mill-levy questions appear on the November ballot, we would likely support it. Even the voter guide notes that a narrower alternative, allowing only bond questions on general ballots, was available.

Why the cost argument does not settle it

Saving a district up to $250,000 every few years is worth something.

But the price of this amendment is not measured only in dollars.

It is a permanent change to the constitution, made in the broadest possible way, to solve a problem that a narrower fix could have solved.

Higher turnout is a good thing. But turnout driven by a governor’s race is not the same as turnout from voters who came to decide who runs their schools. Many of those voters will reach the school questions knowing little about them, and the cues they fall back on will be partisan.

And while the Legislature that passed this amendment may have no plans to make school boards partisan, the amendment does not bind future Legislatures.

Once the constitutional wall is gone, keeping school races separate depends entirely on whichever majority holds power in Santa Fe.

A protection that can be removed by ordinary statute is not much of a protection.

A better path

Voting no does not lock New Mexico into expensive special elections forever. The Legislature can return with a narrower amendment that lets school bond and mill-levy questions ride the November ballot while keeping school board elections separate from partisan races. That would capture most of the savings and most of the turnout benefit without pulling school board races into the partisan cycle.

We would support that amendment. We encourage our legislators, including whoever wins in House District 51 and Senate District 33, to bring it forward in 2027.

Our recommendation

Our schools are not supposed to be red or blue. The people who run them should not be chosen on a ballot built around red and blue. Until the Legislature offers a narrower fix, the safer course is to keep the constitution’s wall in place.

Vote NO on Constitutional Amendment 2.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3. Amendment 2 appears on every Otero County ballot and passes with a simple majority of votes cast on the question. Questions on voting Tuesday visit NMVote.org or with the County Clerk at (575) 437-4942.

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