In bizarre twist, controversial school board member forces runoff election despite pulling out of race
BATON ROUGE – A longtime member of the East Baton Rouge School Board earned enough votes to force a runoff election for her seat despite bowing out of the race a little over two months ago.
Connie Bernard, who has served on the school board for more than a decade, announced in September that she was ending her bid for re-election. However, thanks to the last-minute timing of her announcement, state election rules meant it was too late for her to formally withdraw from the election, and her name stayed on the ballot.
Her opponents were Joseph Britt, an independent, and Katie Kennison, a Democrat. Each Bernard and Kennison took in about 35 percent of the vote, with Bernard getting a slight edge in the actual vote count.
According to the Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office, Bernard can now formally exit the race and allow Kennison to win the election by default, if she still wishes to leave her seat.
WBRZ reached out to Bernard after the election, who said she planned to release a statement sometime Wednesday.
Over the past several years, Bernard has faced calls to give up her seat, with some of that criticism coming from her fellow board members.
Bernard first made headlines in 2018, when she was caught on video berating a group of high schoolers hosting a party at a neighbor’s house. In that video, Bernard was seen going on a profanity-laced tirade and grabbing one teen by the neck. She was criminally charged and ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor related to the outburst.
Though she stepped down as school board vice president weeks after that incident — citing her husband’s declining health as reason for the move — she stayed on as a member of the board.
In 2020, Bernard was the target of a recall petition after she was caught online shopping during a school board meaning where attendees were discussing racism and other serious issues. She also made controversial comments at that meeting about Confederate General Robert E. Lee, which came during a discussion about renaming Lee High School.