Bill Caption

Relating to the eligibility of persons convicted of certain offenses to serve as a member of a board of trustees of a school district.

Fiscal Notes

No significant fiscal implication to the State is anticipated.

Bill Analysis

Current law prohibits people from serving as a member of the board of trustees for a school district if they have been convicted of paying for sexual acts.

SB 2283 would expand the list of persons prohibited from serving on a school board to include an individual who is convicted, or who pleads guilty or no contest, to a felony or to paying for a sexual act. 

Vote Recommendation Notes

Texas Acton opposes SB 2283 which is overly broad in its attempt to prohibit felons from serving as members of a school board. Felonies under the Penal Code are serious and mostly violent felonies which should rightly result in prohibition from serving on a school board. However, not all felonies are created equal. Consider the following scenario:

An individual is caught cheating in a fishing tournament when he is 20 years old. He is charged with a felony and is convicted. Later, at 50 years old the same individual decides to run for school board. In the 30 intervening years he has become an upstanding and respected member of his community. His youthful felonious fishing folly is in his long distant past and he has nearly forgotten all about it. Should 30 years of becoming an integral part of his community be outweighed by a decades old felony conviction for a crime that most would agree shouldn't be a felony in the first place? Under this bill that is exactly what would happen.

We recommend amending this bill to limit the prohibition to only relate to violent or sexually related Penal Code felonies.