CTA Republican Caucus

Written Dissent on the Issue of Banning Local Choice in Local Elections

On the matter regarding Section XI, Voting Methods, paragraph C, line 3e of the CTA
Procedures & Requirements for Chapters & Service Center Councils, we the
undersigned do DISSENT from the prevailing opinion.
At the July 2024 Board of Directors meeting, a recommendation from the CTA Elections
Committee was brought forward and a motion to amend by substitution was made. The
following motion was made and prevailed.
Amend by substitution:
From:
CTA strongly discourages the use of a school district’s internet system, lines and
equipment for electronic/online voting.
To:
No district-provided emails may be used for online voting.
At the August 2024 meeting of the Board of Directors, a motion to amend the July language
by addition was made and prevailed. The impetus of the motion is to delay the
implementation of the adopted July language from August 2024 to August 2025.
At the October 2024 meeting of the Board of Directors, a motion to amend the July
language by substitution was made and failed. The impetus of the motion was to revert to
giving local associations choice in the utilization of district email as a vehicle for local
association elections. The motion was as follows:
Amend by substitution:
From:
No district-provided emails may be used for online voting.
To:
CTA believes best practice is to use personal email for electronic/online voting. CTA
strongly discourages the use of school district email for electronic/online voting.

Our dissent is based on the assertion that the language adopted at the July Board meeting
causes harm to CTA constituencies while providing no benefit in return; impedes local
autonomy by removing a viable choice of voting method in the implementation of local
elections allowed by section 3543.1(b) of the Educational Employees Relations Act

2

(EERA)1
; and that the delay of implementation does nothing but delay the harm and
negative impact to local associations.
The July language makes no consideration to local associations that have existing
agreements with their districts under EERA. No eNort was ever made to identify the number
of locals with these agreements or how many locals would be negatively impacted by this
new language. No research was ever conducted, no surveys were ever administered, and
no attempt to weigh the negative impact against any assumed benefit was ever made prior
to the adoption of this new election rule.
Moreover, no evidence of harm regarding the practice of utilizing district email during
electronic voting was ever produced. No evidence of district meddling during electronic
voting was ever referenced. No complaints of any kind regarding the use of district email
during electronic voting were ever received. No acknowledgement that a district interfering
in union elections is already an unfair labor practice under EERA was ever discussed or
considered by the members of the prevailing side.
It is understood and the original language and the October motion imply that it is best
practice to utilize personal email over district email for communication with members.
However, the new language makes the best practice the absolute rule with no
consideration to the political climates and realities experienced by some of our local
associations. The ban on the utilization of district email as a vehicle for electronic voting
will suppress voting in chapters with high numbers of conservative members. The new
language will negatively impact local associations by dramatically reducing local election
participation rates in the local associations most vulnerable to anti-union attacks. There
are locals with members who do not want to receive email from CTA but value the work
their local associations do and want to participate in the elections of their site
representatives and executive boards. These locals do collect personal email but have
made the local decision to utilize district email to capture a greater majority of their
membership during the local voting process.
This new language will also impact small, rural locals. Those on the prevailing side failed to
take into consideration rural communities where the most reliable WIFI exists in the school
districts themselves. According to the Public Policy Institute, in 2024, two in three
households have broadband access, leaving some very rural communities with little to no
broadband access at all. Some local executive boards of small, rural locals have made the
1 Employee organizations shall have the right of access at reasonable times to areas
in which employees work, the right to use institutional bulletin boards, mailboxes,
and other means of communication, subject to reasonable regulation, and the right
to use institutional facilities at reasonable times for the purpose of meetings
concerned with the exercise of the rights guaranteed by this chapter. - EERA, section
3543.1(b)

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decision to use the district email system because it works better for them and their
membership. They have chosen a viable option that works best for them. CTA Board
members on the prevailing side, who have never been in those communities, never spoken
to local leadership, and have no understanding of the dynamics aNecting the
memberships, have taken that option away and have done so with no relevant rationale.
Because of this, locals in our most rural communities will experience a suppression of
voting participation and members will be disenfranchised.
CTA should be a bottom-up organization. Our governing principals should be based on the
idea that those closest to the problem are the best suited to solving the problem. We’ve
long held the belief that local associations are connected to CTA by overarching rules of
ethics, conduct, and union principals but are autonomous in every other way. We are a
confederation of local associations bound together in the truest sense of the word union.
Our strength lies in the autonomy of our local associations working together in the pursuit
of common goals. We are at our strongest when we trust our local leaders to govern their
local associations because they understand the dynamics of their members, the dynamics
of their districts, and the dynamics of their school boards. This new language makes no
consideration for local autonomy. Its enactment was made with no local association input
and no inclusion of local association voices or perspectives. Instead, this new language
was birthed by members of the CTA Board with limited perspectives and limited
understandings of the communities most impacted by this new language. The July
language is a demand to comply to a rule that doesn’t fix a problem, doesn’t grow our
organization, and doesn’t benefit the members of CTA.
The language change is a draconian, heavy-handed solution to a practice that was never a
problem in the first place. On the contrary, the language creates new problems for local
associations across the state and creates new potential election challenges for a CTA
Elections Committee that is already overburdened and overworked. The motion to delay is
an acknowledgment and admission that the ban on the use of district email will cause
harm to some local associations. The eNort to delay implementation is only an attempt to
kick the proverbial can down the road. The delay oNers no notice of the rule change to local
leaders, nor does it oNer assistance or support to the problems the change will cause when
enacted. Rather than delay the harm, we should avoid it altogether. The decision to
approve the new rule is disappointing, unneeded, and undemocratic. Real harm will be
caused, local autonomy is being displaced and because of this, we respectfully dissent.

Jesse Aguilar
CTA Board of Directors,
District H

Angela Der Ramos
CTA Board of Directors,
At-Large

Wendy Eccles
CTA Board of Directors,
District K

Shelly Gupton
CTA Board of Directors,
District E

Mike Patterson
CTA Board of Directors -
District D