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Stockard on the Stump: Pulling out all the stops to avert a Tennessee voucher disaster – Tennessee Lookout [1]
['Sam Stockard', 'More From Author', '- February']
Date: 2024-02-23
The new voucher bills are here. The new voucher bills are here.
Nobody uses phone books anymore, so we’re stuck with the highly-anticipated private-school voucher bills.
And guess what, they’re all different.
Yes, we have three versions of voucher bills: a grand vision from the House in the form of an omnibus bill (dropping any time now) designed to bring in every vote possible, the governor’s bare-bones version, which says $7,000 for every child in the state to go to private school, and a spruced-up option from the Senate, which includes some items that could put even top GOP leaders at odds.
Lawmakers have been meeting recently with Gov. Bill Lee at the Tennessee Residence, according to a report from State Affairs Tennessee, formerly known as the Tennessee Journal, after an email showed Rep. Paul Sherrell, R-Sparta, needed a ride to the gov’s house. Can he not ask his buddies for a lift, since he votes for all their bills?
But based on the variations in these voucher bills, House Republicans and the governor aren’t seeing eye to eye.
“It truly is an omnibus education bill,” House Majority Leader William Lamberth, R-Portland, said Thursday. “There’s tons of things in there that we’ve heard from school superintendents throughout the state for the last several years that they would like to give them flexibility to cut down on bureaucracy, to help our teachers better educate our children and help our children get a great education.”
According to House Speaker Cameron Sexton, the House version increases instruction time, reduces state-mandated testing and cuts bureaucracy, an “all-encompassing approach.”
House Republicans also want to add half a billion to K-12 spending to boost teacher pay, along with funding the vouchers.
The question is whether they heard any superintendents and county school board members say they want $140 million diverted to private schools the first year and hundreds of millions more afterward.
The other question for rank-and-file House members is, “Which school are you closing?” After all, they’re under immense pressure from leadership to vote for Lee’s voucher plan. Why else would Republican leaders spend weeks putting together a plan to sell the governor’s private-school vouchers? Because they know most members and their constituents don’t like the idea.
Thus, they’re resigned to running a fool’s errand.
The governor’s bill does mainly what he unveiled months ago, more than $7,000 to up to 20,000 students the first year with a slight financial requirement.
Lee’s plan, though, has no test requirements, unlike the Senate version, which does force voucher students to take some type of test, possibly the state standardized test to see how kids are faring.
But while Senate Education Committee Chairman Jon Lundberg, R-Bristol, wants the Senate measure to include a section allowing students to attend any school in their district or in neighboring counties, that could be the ultimate monkey wrench.
“The crux of what we’ve all talked about, what the governor proposed, is parental choice and involvement. I think that’s the key part of that,” Lundberg said Thursday.
The Senate also wants to align funding with Tennessee’s K-12 formula while the governor would create a separate fund to boost private school enrollment. Sorry, I meant to say they want to help students who think they want to attend a private school.
It’s not clear whether students who transfer from one public school to another would get the $7,000 to cover costs. But why not spread the love?
The first committee vote is expected to be taken in two weeks, a deal likely to give us an inkling of how votes will go on the House and Senate floors.
One thing leadership doesn’t want is another tie vote on the big day, followed by arm-twisting, vote-flipping and a nice FBI investigation. After all, the governor doesn’t have much money at his discretion this year to start buying votes.
He’d better get on the horn and call Glen Casada. Oops, I almost forgot, Casada pushed Lee’s Education Savings Account bill through the House in 2019 after making lots of promises and setting up a slush fund to reward his cronies. But he had his seven-month shot at the House speaker’s job and couldn’t hold on. Or maybe he fell victim to a Capitol coup.
Speaking of tight votes
The “Glo-Jo” no-no bill – which Sen. Richard Briggs swears doesn’t target Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville, as she runs for U.S. Senate and re-election to her House seat – passed the Senate Thursday by the slimmest of margins.
In a 17-15 vote, senators approved the bill keeping someone from running for two elected seats on the same ballot and from holding two elected positions at the same time.
Briggs, a Knoxville Republican, contends voters expect candidates to serve in a certain office when they run for it.
“What this is really all about is respecting the voters and also the democratic process,” Briggs said.
Other Republicans, such as Sen. Page Walley, R-Savannah, argued that small communities could suffer because they have people who serve on multiple elected bodies such as a city council and a county school board.
“Voters are wise enough to know what they want,” Walley said.
The Lookout’s analytical team, though, believes this bill drew a tight vote because some Republicans want to see Johnson kept off two ballots and others in the supermajority want their buddies to be able to run for more than one office at once.
Johnson, a Knoxville Democrat who barely avoided House ouster in 2023 (or Houster as we now call it), pointed out Thursday she has already been certified as a candidate in Knox County for her House seat and for the U.S. Senate race against Republican U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who has made overtones about a vice presidency.
“As far as I know, things can’t be retroactive,” Johnson said, meaning she doesn’t think she could be removed from the ballot.
But you never know what could happen at the Capitol. Pull enough votes and you could move the Cordell Hull Building to Linden. It would go well with the Commodore Hotel and Buffalo River. Which is probably why Johnson said she “absolutely” would go to court to keep her name in the hunt for both seats.
No, Opryland’s not coming back
For those who never rode the Wabash Cannonball or Flume Zoom, this bill ain’t giving you another shot at Opryland’s corkscrew roller coaster.
What HB1692 will do, though, is give the Department of Tourist Development nearly free rein to keep documents secret. It’s a bill emanating from Gov. Lee as he continues the effort to streamline government (hide things) for the benefit of the public (his bureaucrats).
The House State Government Committee passed the bill this week, despite concern among members about closing more records, after Tourism Commissioner Mark Ezell explained that it’s really just to keep nosy people from seeing proprietary information when the state is recruiting tourism business or “destination development.”
“The negotiation process is what’s important to be protected. Sometimes that negotiation process can last longer than the immediacy of the negotiation because a city or a company is trying to go multiple places,” Ezell told the Lookout after a Wednesday vote. “With our event fund, we are competing against other cities and states.”
The department’s mega-event fund is designed to partner with a city or community to offer incentives for things such as a Super Bowl, according to Ezell.
Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, isn’t concerned with the tourism department keeping trade and proprietary information undercover. She’s not worried, either, about negotiations remaining secret leading up to a contract.
Still, she said the bill will give the tourism commissioner wide latitude “on a case-by-case basis” to make any record the department deems “sensitive” confidential for 10 years. And while Ezell might say he won’t hide basic information such as reports on a project’s success or future investments, the exemption allows it.
“All we’ve asked is for them to define more specifically what it is they want to keep confidential and put that in the bill instead of (making it) open-ended,” Fisher said.
For the sake of government efficiency, I bet it won’t happen.
The fun never ends
If you’ve lived around these parts for any period, you’ve heard of John Lewis (Cordell Hull sits on Rep. John Lewis Way), Nashville lunch counter protests, Birmingham church bombings and the Edmund Pettus Bridge march in Selma that turned into a beating of epic proportion.
But not Rep. Jody Barrett.
Introducing a bill this week to keep people from blocking bridges (obviously, a public safety concern, except when people are protesting human rights violations), Rep. Gloria Johnson asked Barrett if he knew what happened on “Bloody Sunday.”
“I don’t know the answer to that question because I don’t know the exact details and what the intent was of the individuals at that time,” Barrett said. “But again this is a public safety bill and what this bill is trying to do is protect people that are bystanders, that aren’t there for protest.”
He could have answered the question by saying Alabama law enforcement beat the crap out of people fighting for civil rights 55 years ago. But alas, he didn’t.
Instead, the same guy who voted against ousting Rep. Johnson last year – which apparently irked everyone in the House Republican Caucus – is changing his public persona to win back Dickson County voters.
You sure don’t want to make it seem as if you have any compassion, which I’m sure Barrett does. That won’t fly in this Legislature.
Narrowing the list
State Sen. Bill Powers, R-Clarksville, said Thursday he will not seek the 7th U.S. Congressional District seat being vacated by U.S. Rep. Mark Green.
For family reasons, Powers said he plans to remain in Tennessee and not go for the congressional post. Former Rep. Brandon Ogles is the only person to announce candidacy for the Republican primary.
Last week’s Stump started with the reference to legendary Austin Peay basketball player Fly Williams, now in prison, and the old cheer, “The Fly is open. Let’s go Peay.”
In Powers’ case, maybe the new slogan should be, “The Fly is closed. Hold your Peay.”
“Don’t come around here no more. Whatever you’re looking for.” *
(“Don’t come around here no more.” –Tom Petty_
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[1] Url:
https://tennesseelookout.com/2024/02/23/stockard-on-the-stump-pulling-out-all-the-stops-to-avert-a-tennessee-voucher-disaster/
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