If you want something to bet on this month, it’s starting to look like a sure thing that the Guilford County Republican Party will be successful in its effort to fill the Guilford County Board of Education’s vacant District 3 seat with teacher Michael Logan.

This is despite the majority on the school board, all Democrats, who have repeatedly voted to keep Logan off the board.

Republican NC Rep. Jon Hardister said he expects a version of a bill he filled last month will become law on Tuesday, March 14 and the bill eliminates the need for the school board to vote on a replacement.  The bill allows local parties to seat whoever they choose with no vote necessary for the selected person to take the seat.

Hardister said that the local bill – which only applies to the Guilford County School board – preserves the original intent of the law.  He said legal experts at the NC School of Government and other attorneys say that a vote to appoint  was merely an administrative act and it was never intended that the school board could reject the party’s pick.  Instead, he said, the vote is just a perfunctory check box acknowledging that this person is filling the seat.

“That is a ministerial act,” he said.

Hardister said the normal recourse for this kind of inappropriate action by the Democrats on the Guilford County school board would be to go to court and have a judge reject the school board’s efforts to keep Logan out of the seat.

“But that would draw it out more,” he said.

Hardister said that, while the case worked its way through the courts, it would leave District 3 without representation for an even longer period of time. The bill Hardister introduced will fill the seat at the first Guilford County school board meeting after the bill becomes law.

“I feel very confident it will pass,” Hardister said, adding that he hopes to see some fair-minded Democrats back the move since it truly is an effort to preserve the original intent of the law.