For immediate release
February 20th, 2019
Contact: Stacey Selleck
New Poll: FL Voters Say 8 is Enough for School Boards
MELBOURNE, FL – Florida voters love school board term limits – and say eight years is enough – according to a brand new poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research for U.S. Term Limits. Today, HJR 229, the resolution to term limit school board members passed 11-4 with bipartisan support in the Florida House Oversight, Transparency and Public Management committee.
Statewide, 77 percent of Florida voters approve of an amendment to the Florida Constitution to term limit all school board members. That includes support from 85 percent of Republicans, 67 percent of Democrats and 76 percent of independents.
Among voters who back term limits, 84 percent say school boards should have a limit of eight years like Florida’s governor, cabinet and state legislature. Only 10 percent prefer a 12-year limit.
“These results are bipartisan, overwhelming and decisive,” said Nick Tomboulides, Executive Director of Melbourne-based U.S. Term Limits. “It’s time for the state legislature to listen to the people and put eight-year school board term limits on the ballot.”
The poll comes on the heels of bills filed in the State House (HJR 229) and State Senate (SJR 274) to let voters decide the issue in 2020.
School board term limits did make the ballot in 2018 as part of Amendment 8, which was created by Florida’s Constitution Revision Commission. Before the November election, however, the state Supreme Court threw the amendment out – objecting to the non-term limits parts of the measure with which it was bundled.
This Pulse Poll of 800 likely voters in Florida has an accuracy of +/- 3.5% with a 95% level of confidence.
View Pulse Opinion Poll Results here.
View the text of HJR 229 here.
View the text of SJR 274 here.
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U.S. Term Limits is the largest and oldest term limits advocacy group in the country. We connect term limits supporters with their legislators and work to pass term limits on all elected officials, particularly on the U.S. Congress. Find out more at termlimits.org.