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D.C. School Voucher Bill Passes in House by 1 Vote
The House of Representatives approved the nation's first federally funded voucher program by a single vote last night, sending the Senate a plan that would provide $10 million in private school tuition grants to at least 1,300 D.C. children next year.
The five-year pilot program won final passage on a nearly party-line vote of 209 to 208, after angry complaints from Democrats about the tactics of the House GOP majority.
House Republican leaders scheduled the vote to begin after 8 p.m., coinciding with a debate among Democratic presidential candidates in Baltimore that several House members who oppose vouchers -- including debate participants Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) -- had planned to attend.
Republicans then held open the vote for roughly 40 minutes in a frantic effort to round up the last votes needed to overcome anti-voucher forces. They prevailed at last when Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.), who had voted against the voucher plan on the House floor last week, cast a "yes" vote on the measure, breaking a 208 to 208 tie.
Fletcher said in a statement that he switched sides after the bill's sponsors agreed to negotiate with the Senate to make the vouchers available only to low-income children who are "trapped in a failing school." The current version of the bill says that preference will be given to children from low-performing public schools.
Under the legislation, children in families earning up to 185 percent of the poverty limit, or $34,000 for a family of four, would be eligible for taxpayer-funded "opportunity scholarships" of up to $7,500 per student.
Supporters argued that the program would free several hundred children from a failing, 68,000-student D.C. public school system and, through competitive pressure, force reforms on a powerful teachers union and an indifferent education bureaucracy.
"This is a triumph of the power of an idea over big money," said Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), one of the bill's three sponsors. "Poor children don't have a lot of political action committees representing them. They are up against a lot of dollars, a lot of campaign money."
Voucher opponents accused House Republicans of trying to "cheat" their way to victory. Pointing to the closeness of the House vote, they claimed that they had growing momentum for the fight that will come later this month when a similar measure reaches the Senate floor.
"This sends a very powerful message to the Senate," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who joined a majority of the D.C. Council and school board in opposing vouchers despite the support the measure received from Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D), council member Kevin P. Chavous (D-Ward 7) and Board of Education President Peggy Cooper Cafritz.
"Do not flip-flop on vouchers," Norton warned Republicans inclined to vote for vouchers in the District but not in their own communities. "You will pay the price. We will try to see to it that you do."
Supporters "have completely miscalculated the sentiment in this House and in the Senate for public education and against draining any money away from it," Norton said, adding that the private school vouchers are "hard to explain in members' districts back home" when federal public education reforms are underfunded by $9 billion and local budgets are strained.
Gephardt and Kucinich missed last night's 8:23 p.m. vote so they could participate in the 90-minute Democratic presidential debate at Morgan State University, which began at 8 p.m. Also attending the debate was Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a voucher opponent who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, which sponsored the debate.
GOP leaders declined requests by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) and the black caucus to reschedule the vote, Democratic aides said.
Gephardt campaign spokesman Erik Smith said Republican leaders "clearly" created the scheduling conflict in an effort to deplete the opponents' ranks. Opponents had nearly succeeded in killing the House measure Friday, but Norton's motion to strip the voucher funds from the legislation failed on a 203 to 203 tie.
"Look, this is a tie vote. . . . They knew the [presidential] debate was tonight. They knew there would be a couple dozen [black caucus] members that wanted to attend," Smith said. "It's not rocket science. This is the way this Republican House leadership operates."
A spokesman for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) dismissed the allegation as partisan spin. "We're not that smart. . . . They're giving us too much credit," Jonathan Grella said.
Smith initially said that Gephardt planned to skip the debate so he could vote. After the debate, he did not return calls seeking comment. Officials in the Kucinich campaign also did not return calls.
D.C. Council member Adrian M. Fenty (D-Ward 4), a voucher opponent, said Gephardt and Kucinich should have been on the House floor instead of in Baltimore. "They had a responsibility to be there and to defeat this," Fenty said.
Pelosi and Hoyer urged members to vote against vouchers and to take the extraordinary step of opposing the District's $5.6 billion 2004 budget if necessary. The budget, to which the voucher plan was attached, ultimately passed on a 210 to 206 vote.
Three Democrats broke ranks with their party and voted for the voucher provision last night, while 15 Republicans crossed the aisle to vote against it. No House member from Virginia or Maryland crossed party lines.
In the Senate, Democrats debated their strategy on the voucher issue, which now appears unlikely to reach the Senate floor before next week at the earliest.
Norton said that instead of waging a filibuster, Senate Democrats would hold an open debate on the merits of the voucher concept.
But a Senate Democratic aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the strategy remained undecided. While Democrats want to make clear that they seek an open debate, the aide said, "all tools remain available to Democrats to defeat this legislation."
— Spencer S. Hsu and Justin Blum
D.C. School Voucher Bill Passes in House by 1 Vote
Washington Post
-09-10
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51656-2003Sep9.html
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
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