Just days after the close of testimony in the Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board case, the people got a chance to put in their two cents via school board elections, choosing between the
incumbentswith their “intelligent design policy”, or the
contendersof the Dover CARES campaign. The results, courtesy of the York Dispatch:
----- Dover ----- B Reinking Dem. 2754 H Mc Ilvaine, Jr. Dem. 2677 B Rehm Dem. 2625 T Emig Dem. 2716 A Bonsell Rep. 2469 J Cashman Rep. 2526 S Leber Rep. 2584 E Rowand Rep. 2547 2-Year Term L Gurreri Dem. 2623 P Dapp Dem. 2670 J Mc Ilvaine Dem. 2658 E Riddle Rep. 2545 R Short Rep. 2544 S Harkins Rep. 2466 2-Year Unexp P Herman Dem. 2542 D Napierskie Rep. 2516 6 Out of 6 precincts
The Democratic slate contains the challengers to the current board members.
It should be noted that the incoming board members from the Dover CARES campaign have a platform plank saying that “intelligent design” will be taught in Dover public schools. However, the venue of such instruction will not be the science classrooms, where it was out-of-place, but rather an elective course on comparative religion, where it fits perfectly.
Does this then mean that if the Dover school board loses Kitzmiller, the probability of an appeal is now lessened? Does the newly elected board get to decide that, or does the previous board?
Is that what it looks like…a sweep?
Notice that Bonswll had the 2nd lowest vote tally (and only three votes from last place of all candidates).
Gotta love instant karma!
It definately looks like a sweep. One can only hope the next elections in Kansas look this good.
What do people think is the best course of action given a likely religion-friendly majority on the Supreme Court?
With a more reasonable complexion in Dover, should the ACLU stop things now, proceed to an appeal or let things go on the the SCOTUS with the attendant risk that this entails? Or should they leave this likely victory on the books and then take on Kansas, who I see have voted today to “do a Dover” whilst redefining science to include the supernatural as well!
Let’s hope that whatever happens, the York Daily Record lets Mike Argento loose on those Kansans!
Yup, it sure looks like a sweep.
A couple important points, I think: - when Creationists say that people, and not the courts, should decide what gets taught in their own schools they are telling you only half of the story. The other half is that the vast majority of voters do not normally vote for school board elections, which makes these extremely susceptible to well-organized special interest campaigns, such as those of fundamentalist Creationists. Whenever the importance of a school board election with respect to the teaching of solid science vs Creationism is made clear to the public, turn-out increases and the science side almost invariably wins. It happened in Dover today, it happened in Kansas after the 1999 debacle, and hopefully will happen in Kansas again next year. When people really get to cast an informed vote about their school programs, they regularly choose science over pseudoscience.
- Shameless Alan Bonsell, who practically perjured himself in the Harrisburg court, had the lowest vote tally of all candidates for the 4 year seats (which is good) and still he got only a few hundred votes less than the Dover CARES winners (which is, in my mind, almost unbelievable). It seems one can never underestimate the Creationists’ tolerance for lies and unethical behavior, when ideology is on the line.
For a case filed during the Clinton administration that loses in a lower court, who do you suppose now gets to decide whether to appeal it, Janet, John, or Alberto?
I can’t even tell what I’m looking at, here. Who should we be rooting for?
Comparing the results in Dover with surrounding communities, I think I see a budding strategy for Democrats at the local level (who fairly got stomped everywhere except in Dover) - start an ev/cre “debate” in your district. Get the creationists to start warbling, taking stands that even many Republican voters cannot stomach. At the local level, we know each other. And we’re much less likely to vote for the neighbor who is acting, um, loopy. And it seems as if nothing brings out the loopy like creationism.
(Yeah, yeah, Bonsell got far too many votes. But compare Dover with neighboring communities. There are sane Republicans out there. People who are embarrassed by the antics that the district gave us in this trial.)
JonBuck,
In this particular election the creationists are the Republicans (red) and those who wish to replace them are Democrats (blue).
Note for the record that some of the winning Dover CARES candidates are in fact Republicans running on the Democratic slate. I guess the local GOP decided that all was peachy with the incumbents, and did not want to replace them.
I read one article earlier that four of the Democrats are really Republicans (sane ones, anyway).
The people have spoken and rejected the teaching of a scientifically vacuous concept.
I’d like to think that part of Harkins’ loss in this race was her testimony on the witness stand that she didn’t remember a darned thing from various of the school board retreats that she went on. It seems to me that paying people to attend the equivalent of “lost weekends” on the public’s dime is not a good investment.
Depending on how soon they are seated under local law, the new board could choose to settle with the ACLU by firing the Thomas More Law attorneys, withdrawing the objectionable material and statement from the curriculum (and coming to some accomodation on legal fees and costs) this would eliminate the need for the trial judge to rule. Even if that doesnt happen if the ACLU prevails the new board may be disinclined to appeal thus precluding a chance for a more widely applicable precedent.
Depending on how soon they are seated under local law, the new board could choose to settle with the ACLU by firing the Thomas More Law attorneys, withdrawing the objectionable material and statement from the curriculum (and coming to some accomodation on legal fees and costs) this would eliminate the need for the trial judge to rule. Even if that doesnt happen if the ACLU prevails the new board may be disinclined to appeal thus precluding a chance for a more widely applicable precedent.
What do people think is the best course of action given a likely religion-friendly majority on the Supreme Court?
The best course of action is for the peddlers to realize that their snake oil just wasted a lot of Dover’s time and money. They should pack up their garbage and go home and ask their alleged deity for forgiveness.
The US Supreme Court may be “religion friendly” but let’s be clear: the people on that court are, almost to a person, not crony nitwits like Harriet Miers or insufferable morons like the former Dover school board members.
They are exceedingly intelligent human beings and I don’t doubt that they will see right through the Discovery Institute’s pathetic shell game, just as Judge Jones surely did.
I saw Justice Breyer giving a speech to appellate judges on C-Span and he, for one, is keenly aware of the difficulties facing scientists because poor public education has led to a similar crisis in the public’s perception of the judiciary. As he put it, people simply do not understand what judges do.
This sort of ignorance is the black bruise on our country’s cheek from which the vampires at the Discovery Institute ritually engorge themselves. We see how the geniuses on Kansas’ Board of Education want to solve the problem: slitting their wrists.
Idiots.
Better yet, could the new board ask the trial judge to render a directed verdict against the school district, the get some precedent on the record?
How many people are on the school board? Is it eight or ten? Are there any ID proponents left at all?
Who, exactly, are on the new school board?
What’s all this “2 Year term” and “2-Year Unexp” business? Are the other members voted in for shorter or longer periods?
“The US Supreme Court may be ‘religion friendly’ but let’s be clear: the people on that court are, almost to a person, not crony nitwits like Harriet Miers or insufferable morons like the former Dover school board members.”
While I’m no fan of Alito, his appointment to the Supreme Court would create a majority Catholic SC bench. That would be good news for the pro-evolution contingent as the Catholic church has explicitly endorsed natural selection / Darwinian evolution.
(And, no, I don’t approve of any religious test for the bench. I’m just pointing out that under the current scenario, a pro-creationist or intelligent design majority us unlikely to form in the SC.)
What DorkBot asked. How many people from each list get on the board? Or is it the eight highest vote totals from any list?
There are eight current board members and all of them have been voted out of office. Clean sweep.
This is phenomenally naive. Scalia dissented from Aguillard, as did Roberts’ mentor Rehnquist.
P.S. This article completely destroys the thesis that the Catholic Church can be counted on to be “pro-evolution”:
Well, the Thought Police have won one.
If the new board don’t appeal - is their an increased likelihood they could pursue the Thomas More attorneys or the DI for compensation if they are saddled with the plaintiffs’ legal fees? - or has Dover had enough of this kind of attention?
No, the incumbents got voted out.
If you go to the Dover CARES campaign web site, you will find that “intelligent design” *will* be taught in Dover schools, in the appropriate context, which is an elective comparative religion course. No censorship going on there.
Well, the Thought Police have won one.
Well thank God for the thought police. Otherwise we would have religion masquerading (badly) as science being taught in classrooms. If this is what the thought police do, where can I sign up?
The new school board now controls what happens on the defendants’ side of the case. I’m thinking that TMLC may be out of a job. Unfortunately, the school district may still be on the hook for any legal fees awarded.
The ideal outcome here, I think, is for the board and the plaintiffs to agree to let the judge come to a ruling, but that regardless of the ruling, the board will drop the old intelligent design policy and each side will bear its own costs. It really would be a shame for all of the hard work the plaintiffs went through to be for naught.
Even though a district court ruling is not a binding precedent, it has precedential value because it is published and available for other courts to review. For instance, Judge Overton’s ruling in McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education is frequently referred to in other cases involving creationism.
We’ll see what happens, though. It wouldn’t surprise me terribly to see a settlement in short order.
No.
See:
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It’s just bots (mouse over their names and check the link in the status bar). Can’t PT just block comments from anyone whose name starts ‘kaka’ or ‘google pr’? They spam PT constantly.
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