The Money Behind The Voucher Movement
I’m more interested in discussing the current Utah voucher plan on its merits than in getting involved in ad hominem attacks or name calling. That said, it is important for everyone to know how we ended up stuck with this whole mess. Referendum One at Accountability First is doing an excellent job investigating where the PCE money came from that was used to buy enough pro-voucher legislators in our state to get HB 148 passed.
I believe everyone has the right to spend their money however they want in order to advocate for policies and politics they support. I have no grudge against out of state billionaires who can easily buy legislators with huge campaign donations in our small state. I just think it is important for everyone to know that normal Utahns didn’t give us this ill conceived law. Utahns have defeated private school subsidy schemes every time they’ve been brought up in our state for 20 years. We’re in this situation because of a few wealthy out of state ideological crusaders who decided our state would be an inexpensive place for them to buy some legislators. They found their candidates and we got stuck with enough house members who were willing to go against the oft expressed desires of most Utahns in order to get a voucher plan passed here. For more details on how all that happened click here.
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Not to bust your chops or anything, but isn’t it a bad idea to complain that the money is from out of state when the NEA is planning on dropping a cool $3M on anti-voucher efforts? Just saying…
Comment by Jesse Harris — August 29, 2007 @ 8:03 am
Jesse,
Fair enough. You should note that I’m griping about an out of state group that bought legislators and you guys are complaining about a group directly lobbying the voters of the state of Utah. A bit of a difference.
You’re right though…out of state interests are funding both sides of the debate right now.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — August 29, 2007 @ 8:18 am
Jesse, there are major differences between pro-voucher money and NEA “plans.” First, all NEA money is currently just rumored and there have been no financial disclosures yet to back up the assertion that the NEA is giving millions to UtPS. On the other hand, we do have the PAC reports for PCE which do confirm that almost all of the money for PCE came from out of state.
Secondly, PCE is playing offense here, and the UEA, Utah PTA, and others have been playing defense for Utah students and teachers for the past twenty years or so.
Comment by Davis Didjeridu — August 29, 2007 @ 9:36 am
To break this down and nutshell it:
The PCE ALREADY owns the Utah GOP.
The NEA is just window shopping marketing firms.
Huge difference.
Comment by JM Bell — August 29, 2007 @ 10:36 am
Jeremy: I agree that it’s all about the money now. The merits and demerits of the program stopped being talked about a long time ago.
DD: The WSJ seems to think it’s verifiable enough to print. That just about makes it fact.
Bell: That’s good rhetoric but it doesn’t reflect the reality that about a third of GOP members in the House voted against vouchers.
Comment by Jesse Harris — August 29, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
Jeremy, thanks for the direction to my research. Reading your note has given me another idea, and I’ll follow up on it and plan to post something later this week on it. (I’ll give you credit for the point when I get to it.)
As you noted, we’ve almost lost sight of the real content of the voucher referendum. I admit that I began looking at this issue specifically to understand the proposal, which led to wanting to understand the bigger issue, which then led to who was funding this issue before we ever got to this spring’s referendum petition. And like I wrote the other day, at that point it was like pulling a loose thread on a sweater. I’m still picking through articles from all over the country about who’s paying for the voucher proposal.
I want to mention one other thing too. I read about the rumor that NEA is sending money into Utah, and I brought it up last Sunday with one of my neighbors who is a teacher. She made a good point, and I accept it. She said UEA is made up of thousands of Utah teachers, and its Utah members pay association dues to UEA and NEA. So when NEA sends any money into NEA, she said it’s just sending Utah teachers’ money back to them. That’s different from a pro-voucher group in Michigan or Virginia, that isn’t made up of any “members,” sending big checks to get certain candidates elected based on a nationwide agenda, or to get a referendum passed that supports their agenda. To be honest, I see the difference too.
And Davis is exactly right. When (or if) that money appears, then there’ll be a record of it and we can talk about that then. At the moment, we have plenty of records of ACM money pouring into Utah. I worry that the “rumor” of NEA money will become a tool that our PCE friends will use like a ghost to haunt our debate about the proposal, without it ever being here, and keep everyone distracted from what the proposal really does and doesn’t say.
Again, thanks.
Comment by Anonymous — August 29, 2007 @ 1:59 pm
Jessie - I grant that not every Republican on the hill has been bought, but, my point was, in fact, the Utah GOP not every single little legislator.
I think that if EVERY Republican were bought, there would have been no way to get enough signatures to get the petition passed. The Utah GOP, however, took hundreds of thousands of PCE money and spent it on dishonest (sometimes outright lying) attack ads during the 2006 season.
That, IMHO, is being bought and staying bought.
Comment by JM Bell — August 29, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
Jeremy,
It’s a good thing for you to bring this up. I don’t want money from outsiders influencing my state. We should put limits on these kind of external influences as regards any political issue. But I agree with Jesse that the NEA is an outsider as well.
I think it’s important at this point, especially because it is now a referendum, that we not use the fact that some out-of-state outfit supported or opposed it as a basis for arguing that it must be bad or good.
We should substantially argue the voucher issue on its merits. I happen to think it’s a good thing (although ironically my wife and I don’t plan to use it, as our kids are in an excellent public charter school).
Comment by Frank Staheli — August 29, 2007 @ 3:45 pm
Jesse and Frank,
Come on guys! I’ve tried to keep my arguments substantive. I just mentioned this stuff because it is important to know how we got stuck into this situation. Most Utahns don’t want subsidies for private school attendees. We’re only stuck with this debate now because of the out of state anti-public school voucher crusaders and the politicians they purchased.
Comment by Jeremy Manning — August 29, 2007 @ 4:48 pm
I still find it ironic that so many “fiscally conservative” Republicans so adamantly want this taxpayer-funded subsidy of another “free-market economy” market. What’s up with that? Sort of reminds me of how so many anti-gay Republicans turn out to be…well, not so anti-gay after all.
I just don’t want my tax money going towards church schools. Don’t even use the COL Takashi example of “Pell Grants for attending BYU and Notre Dame”…those are not madrassas. The fact is, this bill would enable the funding for FLDS whacko-type schools.
Comment by Part of the Plan — August 29, 2007 @ 5:12 pm