Why Didn’t Lower Merion Dems. Endorse Incumbent Laurie Actman?
On Tuesday night (March 2), the Democratic Committee of Lower Merion Narberth (DCLMN) endorsed three newcomers (Kerry Sautner, Anna Shurak and Melanie Schafmeister) for the upcoming (May 18) School Board Primary. Laurie Actman was conspicuously absent from the list of endorsed candidates.
Actman was first elected to the Board in 2013, and was seeking a third term. She is the first School Board incumbent to whom DCLMN has denied their endorsement since Democrats took control of the Board in 2003.
In the first round of voting, Sautner, Shurak and Schafmeister reached the 60% (50 votes out of 82) threshold required for endorsement. Actman and Kim Garrison came in fourth or fifth place (Chairman Jonathan Shapiro would not reveal vote totals for either round of voting), and won the right to compete for the endorsement in the second round.
However, neither Actman nor Garrison was able to garner the required 60% of the votes in the second round of voting. So the Committee only endorsed three candidates for School Board, and declared an Open Primary for the fourth seat.
Actman has not yet announced if she intends to stay in the race and run unendorsed.
Was she being punished for her support of “In-person?”
There was speculation expressed on the Facebook Group LMSD Parents for In-Person Education that the Committee torpedoed Actman’s candidacy because she broke with LMSD Superintendent Robert Copeland and the eight other members of the Board over Copeland’s plan to delay the return of students to the classroom.
Or are there other explanations?
One big difference between incumbents and challengers is that incumbents have a track record to run on; and sometimes having a track record can provide a huge advantage, and at other times not.
In-person vs. Remote wasn’t the only controversial issue that might have caused some Committee people to turn their backs on Actman’s candidacy. For example, there was LMSD’s attempt to take Stoneleigh, the Board’s handling of open space and crowding issues at Penn Wynne School, “The Lights” at Lower Merion High School, LMSDs litigation against the township, and the so-far unsuccessful defense of the Wolk Law Suit, for which LMSD has spent God-knows-how-much in legal fees with nothing to show for it. And then again, it’s just possible that Committee members were just in the mood to see some fresh new faces on the School Board.
The Open Primary Factor
Before the Committee started to vote for endorsing candidates, there was a vote to amend the rules. The amendment would have given the Committee the option of voting for an Open Primary before each of the three contested races were voted on. Although the amendment failed by a vote of 50-32 (61%-39%), the Pro Open Primary Faction was able to demonstrate that they no longer represent a mere fringe element of the Committee.
If there were 32 votes for the earlier procedural motion, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to speculate that there might have been at least as many as a dozen Committee people who voted for No Endorsement in either of the two rounds. If that were true, either Garrison or Actman would have needed more than 70% of the head-to-head vote in second round, in order to get to 60% of the total vote.
Disclosure – The author is a member of DCLMN and proposed the amendment to change the rules.
I would like to know the parties of each member of the school board
All Democrats.