Welcome to the Tuesday, June 10, 2025, Brew.
By: Lara Bonatesta
Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:
- Indiana to become 10th state to hold partisan school board elections
- Gabby Chavez-Lopez and Anthony Tordillos running in runoff election for San Jose, California City Council on June 24
- President Trump has nominated 13 judges since the beginning of his second term
Indiana to become 10th state to hold partisan school board elections
On May 6, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun (R) signed Senate Bill 287 into law, making Indiana the 10th state to require or allow partisan school board elections. The law will take effect on July 1.
Currently, candidates in over 90% of school board elections across the country run in nonpartisan elections, including in Indiana.
Once SB 287 takes effect on July 1, Indiana will be one of six states that allow both partisan and nonpartisan school board elections. The other states are Georgia, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee.
Four other states—Alabama, Connecticut, Louisiana, and Pennsylvania—require school board candidates to run only in partisan elections. In 41 states, school board candidates run in nonpartisan elections only. That number will fall to 40 on July 1.
The new law in Indiana requires candidates to state their party affiliation or lack thereof when they file. Candidates can run under the banner of a political party, such as the GOP or the Democratic Party, or as an independent. Candidates can also state that they have no affiliation and are not running as an independent.
SB 287 passed 54-40 in the House and 26-24 in the Senate. In the House, 54 Republicans voted yes, 14 Republicans and 26 Democrats voted no. Three House Democrats and two House Republicans were absent, and one House Democrat abstained. In the Senate, 26 Republicans voted yes, and 14 Republicans and all 10 Democrats voted no. Indiana has a Republican trifecta. Republicans hold a veto-proof majority in the General Assembly.
State Sen. Gary Bryne (R), who wrote the bill, said school boards are already partisan: “SB 287 is about accepting the reality and no longer pretending that our school boards are something they haven’t been for a long time.” Bryne said, “Like it or not, this is something that voters want to know about the candidate.”
State Rep. Carey Hamilton (D), who voted against the bill, said, “I think about all of the people I have known in my community who have run for school board in the districts in my community because it’s a nonpartisan position.” State Sen. Eric Bassler (R), who voted against SB 287, said it would deter qualified individuals who don’t want to identify with a political party from running: “We should be striving to have the best people run for school board, not eliminating some of the best people running for school board.”
SB 287 is not the first Indiana bill that would have allowed school board candidates to run in partisan elections. A similar bill died in committee in 2023.
As of 2023, there were 291 public school districts in Indiana, with a total of 1,692 school board members. Those school districts operated 1,769 schools with 997,869 students. Nationally, there are 13,187 public school districts and 83,183 school board members.
National context
In our May 5 edition of the Daily Brew, we took a look at the landscape of partisanship in school board elections and where lawmakers are considering change. Here’s an update on that report.
Legislators in at least 14 states have introduced at least 19 bills on candidates using party labels in school board elections this year.
In addition to the one in Indiana, noteworthy bills this year include the following:
- In Arkansas on April 10, Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R) signed HB1724, which adds school board members to the list of offices elected in nonpartisan elections. School board elections in Arkansas were already nonpartisan, but the bill also made changes to school board election dates, among other things.
- Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed SB1441 on April 18, which would have required school board candidates to have their party affiliation listed on the ballot based on their voter registration 150 days before a primary election instead of appearing without a party designation.
- In Georgia, Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed HB73 on May 13, which makes future Seminole County Board of Education elections nonpartisan starting August 1, 2025
Other than the bills that became law in Arkansas and Georgia, as well as one that was introduced in Florida, all bills introduced this year would make some or all school board elections in their respective states partisan. Republicans sponsored all 16 bills. Eleven bills are in states with Republican trifectas, and the remaining five are in states with divided governments. Legislators introduced seven bills on party labels in school board elections in 2024 and three in 2023.
Debates over partisan or nonpartisan school board elections have also played out in the world of ballot measures. Last year, for example, voters in Florida defeated Amendment 1, which would have required school board candidates to run in partisan elections. The vote was 55% in favor and 45% opposed, but in Florida, ballot measures must clear a 60% threshold to take effect. Florida had partisan school board elections until 1998, when voters approved Amendment 11 64-36%.
We also wrote about the debate over partisan school board elections a year ago in Hall Pass, Ballotpedia’s newsletter on school board politics and education policy. Click here to sign up.
Click here to see all legislation related to school board elections in 2025. To learn more about the rules governing party labels in school board elections in every state, click here.
Gabby Chavez-Lopez and Anthony Tordillos running in runoff election for San Jose, California City Council on June 24
As part of our ongoing coverage of elections in America’s most populous cities, today we’re looking at a June 24 runoff election in San Jose, California.
In that contest, Gabby Chavez-Lopez faces Anthony Tordillos in a runoff for District 3 on the San Jose City Council.
Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos advanced to the runoff from the nonpartisan special general election on April 8. Chavez-Lopez received 30% of the vote, and Tordillos received 22.2%. The two advanced to a runoff because neither received more than 50% of the vote. Tordillos advanced over third-place finisher Matthew Quevedo by six votes.
The special election was called after former incumbent Omar Torres resigned in November 2024. Torres resigned after the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office charged him with three counts of child molestation.
Politico’s Dustin Gardiner and Blake Jones wrote that the election would “determine if progressives or moderates hold a majority on the City Council. Moderates have a one-seat advantage, and if progressives win the council runoff, it would complicate the mayor’s agenda (likely forcing him to take more policy measures to the ballot).” The publication described San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan as a moderate with an “anti-establishment brand of Democratic politics … [including] proposals to arrest homeless people who repeatedly refuse shelter or to tie some city employees’ pay raises to performance metrics.”
Mahan endorsed Tordillos after initially endorsing Quevedo. According to Politico, progressive groups and labor unions, such as the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, endorsed Chavez-Lopez.
On May 22, the San Jose Chamber of Commerce and the San Jose Downtown Association hosted a candidate forum. Chavez-Lopez and Tordillos said they would both vote against Mahan’s proposal to arrest homeless people refusing shelter. Chavez-Lopez said she would vote against a pay-for-performance model for city employees, while Tordillos said he would support it.
Chavez-Lopez is the executive director of the Latina Coalition of Silicon Valley. Tordillos chairs the San Jose Planning Commission and is a software engineer for YouTube. An editorial in The Mercury News said, “Tordillos and Chavez-Lopez largely agree on San Jose’s issues. They both believe homelessness remains too rampant; housing, too expensive; building, too bureaucratic; downtown, too blighted; and the feeling of safety, too distant.” They differ on how to solve those issues.
According to San Jose Spotlight, Chavez-Lopez said, “District 3 deserves a representative who knows the neighborhoods, understands the challenges firsthand and has a track record of delivering real results. I’m going to continue to meet voters where they are, listen to their concerns, and offer the proven leadership they’re looking for.” Tordillos said, “Mayor Mahan and I don’t agree on every issue. But coming from the world of tech, we share a belief that data should drive policy discussions, and elected officials should be evaluated by the results they deliver on housing, homelessness and crime.”
San Jose is the 10th most populous city in the U.S. and has a council-manager system. Click here to see our full coverage of the 2025 city elections in San Jose, California.
President Trump has nominated 13 judges since the beginning of his second term
The confirmation process for the first federal judicial nominees of President Donald Trump’s second term is underway.
As we mentioned last month, on May 1, Trump announced that he would nominate Whitney Hermandorfer to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, marking his first judicial nomination since he began his second term.
Since then, Trump has nominated or announced plans to nominate 12 other judges, including five for U.S. District Courts in Missouri, five for U.S. District Courts in Florida, one for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, and one for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. On June 4, the Senate Judiciary Committee held its first judicial nominations hearing of the 119th Congress for Hermandorfer and four district court nominees.
As of June 1, the Senate has not confirmed any of these nominees. This is the fewest confirmations through this point in all presidents’ second terms since President Bill Clinton (D).
As of June 1, 2017, the first year of his first term, Trump had made nine judicial nominations, and the Senate had confirmed two.
As of June 1, 2021, the first year of former President Joe Biden’s (D) first term, Biden had nominated 18 judges, and the Senate had confirmed none.
When Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, he inherited 40 lifetime federal judicial vacancies. Biden inherited 46 such vacancies when he took office in 2021. Trump inherited 108 vacancies when he was inaugurated in 2017.
There are currently 49 vacancies (or 5.6%) out of 870 active Article III judicial positions. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, there are 12 upcoming vacancies in the federal judiciary, where judges have announced their intentions to leave active judicial status. Click here to see our federal vacancy count from June 1.
The president nominates Article III federal judges for life terms, and the nominees are subject to Senate confirmation. Article III judges include judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. courts of appeal, U.S. district courts, and the Court of International Trade.
Click here to learn more about federal judicial appointments over time, and here to see a list of Trump’s federal judicial nominees.
Correction: In the May 29 edition of The Daily Brew, Ballotpedia reported that REINS Act and other administrative state-related provisions were included in the version of HR 1 that passed out of the House on May 22, 2025. Those policies were removed in the amended version of the bill.