Republican lawmakers target Arizona school boards group

PHOENIX (AP) — The Arizona School Boards Association, which successfully sued the Arizona Legislature to invalidate key parts of the state budget last year, is now being targeted by Republican lawmakers who have long opposed its efforts to lobby for local school boards.

A Republican-controlled state Senate committee on Tuesday advanced a bill that would ban the more than 200 school boards that are association members from using taxpayer money to pay yearly membership fees.

The sponsor, Republican Sen. Kelly Townsend, said it is just wrong for tax dollars to be spent lobbying for partisan issues at the Legislature.

Townsend and Republicans on the Senate Education Committee also pointed to a letter sent this summer to President Joe Biden by the national school boards group as a key driver of the legislation. The letter asked Biden to use federal law enforcement to crack down on the growing number of threats against school board members from parents who opposed mask mandates and other COVID-19 restrictions.

The wording of the National Schools Boards Association letter led to national blowback against the group and its state members, some of which quit the organization even after it apologized.

Republican Sen. Paul Boyer, who chairs the Senate committee, sparred with the association's lobbyist over why the organization did not end its affiliation with the national group. Boyer pointed to the letter's request for Biden to invoke terrorism laws to go after parents who threatened board members.

“You said the speech was problematic,” Boyer said to Chris Kotterman. “Certainly, likening parents to domestic terrorists is more than problematic.”

Kotterman agreed, noting that the letter's language was an “extreme problem."

But Kotterman, school board members and people who...