May 21, 2026

The endorsement coalition behind Measure H is unusually broad

Endorsements aren’t a substitute for an argument. We’ve spent most of this site building the actual case for Measure H — the contingency plan, the funding chasm, the LCFF/basic-aid mechanics, the polling, the ballot mechanics. If those don’t add up to a Yes vote on their own merits, no list of endorsers is going to change that.

But the coalition that’s coalesced behind Measure H is unusually broad, and the breadth itself is worth thinking about. When elected officials at every level of government, every sitting RVSD trustee, the League of Women Voters, the teachers’ union, and the Marin County Democratic Party all reach the same conclusion, the people who reach a different conclusion deserve to do so with full awareness of who’s on the other side.

Here’s the full list, with brief context.

Federal and state elected officials

Jared Huffman, U.S. House Representative, CA-2 (the seat covering Marin County)
Mike McGuire, California State Senator
Damon Connolly, California State Assemblymember

These are the federal and state representatives whose constituents include the Ross Valley voters voting on Measure H. They don’t routinely endorse local school measures — they typically reserve endorsements for measures with broader policy implications or unusual local stakes. Endorsing Measure H, all three signaled that they consider this measure unusually consequential.

Huffman in particular has been involved with Marin school-funding policy for two decades — first as a state assemblymember, then as a member of Congress. His endorsement of Measure H reflects familiarity with the district’s specific situation and the LCFF/basic-aid mechanics that constrain it.

Marin County leadership

Brian Colbert, Marin County Supervisor, District 2 (the district that includes Fairfax and San Anselmo)
John A. Carroll, Marin County Superintendent of Schools

Carroll’s endorsement is the most operationally significant. As county superintendent, he runs the Marin County Office of Education — the institution that required RVSD to file the three-tier contingency plan and that monitors the district’s interim budget reports. MCOE’s intervention authority means Carroll has detailed visibility into RVSD’s actual financial position, including projections that aren’t public. His endorsement of Measure H is, in effect, an institutional signal from MCOE that the closure-and-receivership warnings the district is making aren’t campaign rhetoric.

Town councils

Steve Burdo, Mayor, Town of San Anselmo (also an RVSD parent and a signer of the official Argument in Favor)
Yoav Schlesinger, San Anselmo Town Council
Tarrell Kullaway, San Anselmo Town Council

San Anselmo’s mayor and a majority of its town council are on record supporting Measure H. Burdo’s role is dual — he’s both the mayor and a parent in the schools, and his testimony at the February 11 board hearing was on the record: “give you the strongest support at the highest level you think you can pass.”^[1]

The Fairfax town council has not made a unified endorsement public; individual council members have expressed support but the council as a body has not formally taken a position as of this writing.

RVSD school trustees

All five sitting RVSD trustees endorse Measure H:

Rachel Litwack, RVSD Board President
Chris Landles-Cobb, RVSD Board Clerk
Shelley Hamilton, RVSD Trustee
Daniel Cassidy, RVSD Trustee
Anna Marsh, RVSD Trustee

Marsh’s position is worth noting. She dissented from placing Measure H on the ballot at the February 11 board vote — but for the opposite reason from the No campaign: she preferred a larger, $600 increase to “better meet the district’s urgent need to restore fiscal health.”^[1] Despite that dissent, she now endorses Measure H as drafted, because her policy disagreement was about whether the ask was too small, not too large.

That’s an unusually consistent board signal. The five trustees who collectively voted to place Measure H on the ballot — including the one trustee who dissented because she wanted more — all endorse passage.

Trustees from neighboring districts

Emily Ulhorn, Tamalpais Union High School District Trustee
Jenny Holden, TUHSD Trustee
Ida Times-Green, TUHSD Trustee
Brad Honsberger, Miller Creek SB Trustee; President, Marin County School Board Association
Mo de Nieva-Marsh, San Rafael City Schools, Area 3 Trustee

Trustees of other districts endorsing a parcel-tax measure in a neighboring district is unusual. Trustees typically have institutional reasons to stay out of other districts’ campaigns — they have their own measures to pass, their own boards to manage, their own relationships with their own communities. The fact that trustees from TUHSD (the receiving high school district for RVSD students), Miller Creek, and San Rafael City Schools have all publicly endorsed Measure H suggests they see RVSD’s situation as particularly urgent — RVSD students will move on to TUHSD high schools, and the consequences of an RVSD collapse aren’t contained within the K-8 grades.

Honsberger’s specific role — president of the Marin County School Board Association — gives him visibility into the financial situations of all 17 Marin districts. His endorsement carries the weight of that perspective.

Civic organizations

Marin County Democratic Party — the official party endorsement for Measure H
League of Women Voters of Marin County — non-partisan civic organization; LWV’s president Becky Bingea signed the official Argument in Favor^[2]
Ross Valley Teachers Association — the union representing RVSD teachers, who agreed to a no-COLA contract this year as part of the district’s effort to balance the budget
YES Foundation — the local education foundation that raises ~$700,000 annually for RVSD programs

The League of Women Voters endorsement is particularly notable for the Yes campaign because LWV is non-partisan and rigorously evaluates measures on their merits. LWV doesn’t endorse every school parcel tax — they pass on measures they consider poorly structured or fiscally unjustified.

The teachers’ union endorsement, paired with the no-COLA contract, is a credibility signal: teachers have already absorbed real-dollar pay cuts as a sign of good faith. They’re not asking voters to fund teacher raises that the district hasn’t tried to control through other means; they’re asking voters to fund recovery from cuts the union has already accepted.

Why the coalition matters

Three reasons the coalition is worth taking seriously:

1. The opposition coalition is much narrower. The official Argument Against Measure H was signed by five individuals — A. Sean Aguilar, Denyce Volger-Codoni, Jeff Wells, Richard Barham, and George Jackson — and is supported organizationally by the Coalition of Sensible Taxpayers (CST), a fiscal-watchdog group. CST’s institutional opposition is real and substantive, but the opposition coalition does not include any sitting elected officials, any school trustees, the League of Women Voters, the teachers’ union, or any major civic organizations.^[2]

2. These are people who have visibility into the district’s actual situation. The county superintendent (Carroll), the trustees (RVSD’s five), the neighboring trustees (TUHSD, Miller Creek), and the teachers (RVTA) all have direct or institutional access to the district’s financial position. They’re not endorsing Measure H based on the campaign mailer. They’re endorsing it based on what they know about RVSD’s books and the contingency plan.

3. Endorsements aren’t transferable, but they’re informative about what the institutional consensus is. Voters who trust their elected officials, the LWV, the teachers’ union, or the local press to read complicated policy questions accurately should know that all of those institutions have read this one and reached the same conclusion.

The honest counter

The opposition argument isn’t “the Yes coalition is wrong about the facts” — CST and the ballot signers don’t dispute the contingency plan, the reserves trajectory, or the funding gap. The opposition argument is “even given those facts, this dollar amount is too aggressive at this moment.”^[3]

That’s a defensible position. Voters who hold it aren’t anti-school. But it requires holding it against the institutional consensus that the cost of being wrong is the contingency plan’s Tier 3 outcomes — and that consensus is what the endorsement coalition reflects.

Our read

Endorsements don’t decide elections, and they shouldn’t decide your vote. But when the federal representative, the state senator, the assemblymember, the county supervisor, the county superintendent, the mayor of San Anselmo, three town council members, every sitting RVSD trustee (including the one who voted against placing the measure on the ballot), trustees from three neighboring districts, the Marin County Democratic Party, the League of Women Voters, the teachers’ union, and the local education foundation all reach the same conclusion, that’s worth knowing as you make your decision.

That’s why we recommend a Yes vote on Measure H.

Sources

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