PROTEST SIGNAGE: A protester holds a sign comparing Gov. Sarah Sanders to former leader Orval Faubus. Brian Chilson

It’s altogether unprecedented for a governor to openly campaign for school board candidates, but Gov. Sarah Sanders‘ weaponized partisanship is also unprecedented, so we shouldn’t have been surprised.

As Conway voters go to the polls today for their last chance to vote on two nonpartisan school board seats, the Republican governor is jumping in to cheer on the book-banning, anti-trans candidates against the challengers hoping to pull the Conway board out of a culture war cesspool and refocus on serving students.

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Sanders’ picks for school board, Jennifer Cunningham and Bill Milburn, have been part of the campaign to push anti-LGBTQ+ policies and remove books from district libraries and classrooms. While school board races in Arkansas are nonpartisan, both Milburn and Cunningham have touted their conservative bona fides. Milburn has suggested he’s the right choice for Christian voters, and Cunningham has joined the piling on via social media against a transgender woman.

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Newcomer challengers Sheila Franklin and Trey Geier say they’re more interested in academics, teacher recruitment and safety. You know, regular school board stuff.

Not since Orval Faubus put his thumb on the scales in the Little Rock School District elections in the wake of the Central High integration crisis has a governor interfered so openly in a local school race. At the time, Faubus’ segregationist picks lost, moderates won, schools reopened and classrooms were integrated.

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This attempted Republicanization of the Conway School Board matches similar efforts to radicalize the courts. Arkansas judicial races, nominally nonpartisan, have already gone over to the dark side, with dark money to pay for it. Attempts by Democrats to shine light on these shady doings have so far failed.

A bill that would have made school board elections in Arkansas partisan was filed this past legislative session, but was amended to take the partisanship piece out. Not that it matters in Conway, where a right-wing patriot cabal seems dead set on turning a public school district into a Christian extremist training camp.

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