Culture wars start to roil elections for California's community college trustees

Elections for community college board seats rarely make the spotlight in California. After voting for candidates for president, U.S. Congress, and the state Legislature, many voters skip the community college races altogether.

In Southern California, culture wars are starting to influence some of those races on this year’s ballot — and fueling hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations. Debates over issues such as the display of pride flags also reflect tensions across many of California’s K-12 school districts, where similar topics have sparked hours-long public meetings, lawsuits, and a new wave of political action and election spending at the local level.

The community college races aren’t as contentious as some school board races have been, said Larry Galizio, the president and CEO of the Community College League of California. Of the nearly 230 community college board races taking place this November, more than half of them have just one candidate, according to a CalMatters analysis of public data. Small or rural community college districts often have the lowest levels of participation. If there’s only one candidate for a position, counties typically cancel that race, and the sole candidate wins, by default.




https://calmatters.org/education/higher-education/2024/11/california-community-college-3/