In Alabama two weeks ago, the state Legislature pulled an old switcheroo in conference committee to push through a sweeping but focused statewide school choice bill. The bill provides a tuition tax credit (refundable) to any students in districts where there are officially “failing” schools, to attend any school, public or private, of their choice (assuming they meet any other eligibility requirements). It also allows individuals and businesses to take a tax credit for donations to what amounts to a scholarship fund, to be used for the same purpose.
The problem is, the “choice” elements of the bill were not part of the original bill in the state House or the state Senate (instead, it was a narrower “school flexibility” bill, good in itself, but not involving any widespread parental choice). The broader elements of the bill were appended to the bill in conference committee, with almost no debate, and then rushed through both the House and Senate floors with almost no debate, but with huge majorities.
The state education union filed suit, claiming the procedures used violated both the state Constitution and the sate’s unique “Open Meetings” law. While I don’t discuss the constitutional issue here (I don’t think the complaint holds water), I do explain on WKRG-TV in Mobile why schoolchildren will be the winners, and why the law will probably succeed legal challenge based on the Open Meetings law, but also be a short-term political detriment to the Republicans who pushed it through. For school choice advocates, not just locally but nationally, this Alabama brouhaha won’t fade away any time real soon, and it bears close scrutiny on numerous levels. I personally think it is a wonderful bill. But the politics of it all are likely to be dicey for a while. Anyway, again, please watch this very short news segment (3:39) for an overview.
In my weekly spot last Thursday on the terrific WKRG-TV, channel 5 news in Mobile, I explain why, just possibly, this battle over the “sequester” might end better for Republicans politically than did the Gingrich “government shutdown” battles of 1995-1996. It could be that Barack Obama has overplayed his hand, and overplayed his warnings.
Two weeks ago on the local news in Mobile (the great WKRG), I explained some of the numbers behind the budget. Watch here. What I said then still applies. I noted that if Barack Obama only went a little way back towards an apples-to-apples domestic discretionary spending equivalence with what that Scrooge (NOT!) Bill Clinton thought was acceptable, we would be more than $250 billion (over ten years) closer to an agreement, before doing any of a number of other cost-saving measures.
Anyway, the clip is just about 150 seconds long.
I’ll have more to say on this subject soon; for now, suffice it to say that it is Obama, not Boehner, who is being entirely unreasonable (and irresponsible) in these negotiations.
All over the country, there are reports of problems getting ballots to military personnel and contract civilians working abroad. This has been a problem for two years, largely because the Obama administration refuses to fully enforce the law requiring a certain set of procedures to help the ballots get there on time, etctera.
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