How the culture wars became the spending wars in Scottsdale’s school board race

November 2022

It used to be that running for a seat on the local school board took a few fliers, a lot of handshaking and several hundred cups of coffee.

But as school boards become a flashpoint in an increasingly contentious debate over what and how children should be taught, that is changing. 

Money poured into school board races across the country in November’s elections at rates previously unseen. While the amounts are small compared to the millions going into statewide and national races, it’s one sign that the culture wars have gone local.

Nowhere is that more evident than in Scottsdale, Arizona, where more money was spent on the 2022 school board election than ever before. 

Citizens United versus everyone else

In 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the landmark Citizens United case, political candidates saw a huge influx of cash. The court rejected an argument that  independent expenditures by corporations violated the First Amendment, which cleared the way for billions to be distributed among candidates from outside sources, such as nonprofits, labor unions and corporations. 

A 2020 report by OpenSecrets said campaigns in the decade following the Citizens United decision were by far the most expensive ever conducted. That has been true for presidential, congressional and statewide races in the years since, and it now appears to be playing out at the local school board level.

This November in Scottsdale, five candidates – three Republicans and two Democrats – vied for two school board seats. 

Each year fundraising for the seats on this particular board has increased. This year, the three Republicans competing outspent both the Democrats by a large margin, and two of them won the election. They breezed past the previous fundraising records.

Winning candidates Amy Carney and Corine Wener and the losing Republican candidate, Andrea Keck, each raised more than $50,000 – at least $14,000 more than any other candidate to ever run for a Scottsdale schools governing board seat, according to campaign finance records. 

Every year for the past eight years, Scottsdale School Board candidates have brought in more money. Open Secrets said more money than ever is coming from outside sources that typically didn’t have a stake in the political game. 

Since the ruling, Open Secrets found that Republican candidates have benefited most from the infusions of cash and the money has helped. Almost always, the candidate who raised the most won. That case is true in Scottsdale. 

Culture wars and turnover tensions 

The start of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted parents in Scottsdale, and across the country, to speak up in ways they hadn’t before. They began demanding more control over what their children were taught, lobbied against masks and virtual teaching, and questioned steps schools were taking to accommodate LGBTQ+ students, among other things. 

Parents took immediate, sustained and sometimes emotional measures to insert themselves into their children’s public education. Some say the pandemic sparked what’s now being called the culture wars. 

Experts said what happened in the Scottsdale school board race wasn’t a surprise. Public education has become more political and school board campaigns reflect that. 

Jann-Michael Greenburg, who was elected to the Scottsdale school board in 2018 and was made board president in early 2021, decided not to run for reelection following a series of harassment from local parents, who, he said, targeted for being Jewish and a Democrat. 

School board meetings were filled with yelling about masks, critical race theory and LGBTQ+ students. He said people targeted him for joining the board even though he didn’t have kids. Greenburg said he worried about his parents’ safety and almost always wore a bullet-proof vest to meetings. 

Amid hyper-polarization, the school district has found it difficult to retain leaders. In the last 25 years, the district has had 13 different Superintendents. Locals say tension and turmoil has led to high turnover rates. Greenburg predicts it won’t get any better once he leaves because harassment has already been passed onto candidates campaigning.

For example, parents who headed the online and in-person harassment of Greenburg and the board over their COVID-19 policies also targeted Robb Vaules, a Democrat running in 2022. They found years-old Tweets and called him a pedophile. 

The other Democrat running, Mary Gaudio, said she and Vaules were targets of a smear advertisement campaign mailed to constituents. The mailer presented anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and urged people to vote for the Republicans running on a joint ticket. 

Outsourcing is the new norm

Amy Carney and Carine Werner, who ran together and espoused conservative Republican-backed beliefs, out-raised their Democrat opponents and earned the two seats up for grabs. 

Both Carney and Werner were top fundraisers in this year’s election, only coming in $5,000 short of the third Republican candidate Andrea Keck, a businesswoman who moved to the area 25 years ago from Chicago after retiring. 

Carney, Werner and Keck each raised more than $50,000 in this year’s campaign for the board seat. They each raised upwards of $14,000 more than any other candidate to ever run for a Scottsdale governing board seat. Pam Kirby, a former accountant, raised the next most, with nearly $36,000 in 2010. 

Guadio claims that they were able to do so because they didn’t have to focus on spending in advertisements or promotions, lobbyists did it for them. 

The mailer sent out urging locals to vote for Carney and Werner was “a hit piece,” Gaudio claimed. 

“It’s a hit piece on me and Robb about our support of Gay-Straight Alliance clubs basically without it saying it actually, because that’s not the language they want to use,” Gaudio said. “They want to cherry-pick things and make us sound like we are pedophiles and groomers. I’ve been called a groomer on Twitter.”

The mailer, which was funded by the Center for Arizona Policy, is an example of the Citizen United ruling at work. The center is a local nonprofit headed by Cathi Herod, who Gaudio called one of the most extreme lobbyists in the state for Republican politics.

The Center for Arizona Policy supported 11 measures in 2022 that passed and more than 200 since 1996, their website said. Their work, which they say is about education the public and providing recommendations to legislative bodies on public policy issues, are centered around “foundational values of life, marriage and family and religious freedom.”

Their most recent audit, from 2020, reported a total net asset of $2.3 million, a $1.2 million increase from 2019. The group’s total support and revenue increased the same year by $1.5 million. 

In an email, Gaudio claimed that Carney and Werner were “getting a lift” from the organization because the mailer was sent out in their support “without costing them a dime.” She said some “interesting characters” dumped a “ton” of money into their campaigns. 

Carney and Werner asked to respond to questions via email but did not respond once they were sent. 

Between the five Scottsdale candidates, over $200,000 was raised for this year’s race. The contenders smashed previous records, which have been on the rise in the last ten years. The Scottsdale schools governing board, like all other public education school board positions, is an unpaid, volunteer position. 

Quarterly filings for the candidates show various campaign expenses to banks, donation operators, social media companies for advertising, local printing companies for merchandise and signage and professional campaign services. 

According to the candidates’ filings, Carney, Werner and Gaudio hired someone to manage their campaign. Gaudio’s total disbursements were $650 to a digital communications and marketing company, Campaign Roots. Carney and Werner, though, paid much more to the Resolute Group, a conservative consultant group. Each of them paid at least $20,000 to the organization for “communication” or “professional services.”

Elections are becoming more political, which means candidates have to be more strategic, which means races are costing much more than they used to at every level of government.

Hyper-local and all over the place

Rydan Girdusky, the founder of the 1776 Project, a Republican PAC formed in opposition to the New York Times’ 1619 Project about slavery, told Marketplace that the group pumps an average of $20,000 into conservative school board candidates.

Marketplace noted that a typical school board candidate in the United States raises $1,000. But as topics of discussion have changed from bus routes to sexual education, that is changing. 

Time Magazine reported on the same issue, noting there were 24 school board races across the country up for grabs on Nov. 8. They cited issues similar to Scottsdale’s, happening in Michigan and Indiana. 

Even other politicians have entered the mix. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has sparked a multi-state movement by banning books and has inserted himself into nonpartisan school races. 

Girdusky told USA Today that school board races have always been political. Teachers’ unions historically support Democratic candidates, the OpenSecrets report said. Girdusky – and the 1776 Project’s money – are just following the trends, he said. 

The trend Girdusky is citing may be disproportionate though. According to the OpenSecrets report, Republicans have received more outside support than Democrats in the decade since the Citizens United ruling – and that holds true in Scottsdale. 

The murky future of the Scottsdale school board

Although Gaudio didn’t win a board seat, she has hopes that the community can move past the animosity generated in the race. She said she’s tired of the nasty back-and-forth between outraged parents and scared board members, which she said doesn’t help students or teachers. 

“The kids are watching,” she said. “Our kids are suffering from this division, we do not need this division.”

“I would hope that moving forward we can all kind of just agree to disagree and move on and do what’s in the best interest of our kids.”

Greenburg, who is leaving his position in December, isn’t convinced it’s going to get better any time soon. 

“Many far-right candidates won up and down the ballot and have already put forward bills and policies that target minorities,” he said in an email. “Even children – especially LGBTQ+ students and students of color – are not safe.”