Democratic Chairman Calls On Republicans To Halt Attacks On Ritz

Indiana Democratic Party Chairman John Zody says Republicans need to halt their partisan attacks on State Superintendent Glenda Ritz.

There are multiple bills this session that shift power away from Glenda Ritz’s office to the GOP-controlled State Board of Education.  That includes a proposal to allow the State Board to elect its own chair, a position currently filled automatically by the Superintendent.  State Democratic Party Chair John Zody says the measures are an attempt to silence the 1.3 million Hoosiers who voted Ritz into office in 2012.

“From day one, this has been about politics, not about education and not about Hoosiers," Zody said. "It’s arrogant overreach by Republican leaders here at the Statehouse.”

But Senate President Pro Tem David Long says he and House Speaker Brian Bosma have tried to mediate between the State Board and Ritz with no success.  He points to continued dysfunction, and the fact that Indiana’s model of an appointed board with an elected superintendent exists almost nowhere else in the country as evidence of the need for such bills.