12/09/2024
Another insightful report from the Journal over the weekend reveals that Gov. Lee is making a hard push to expedite his school voucher bill by trying to call a special legislative session at the beginning of the year in January. Apparently, Lee thinks a "move-fast-and-break-things" approach to strong-arm another voucher vote as the first dedicated order of business when the legislature returns is his best bet for passage.
More troubling, however, is the fact that calling a special session just for school vouchers would allow House Speaker Cameron Sexton to rig specially-appointed House committees and stack them with pre-vetted, known voucher supporters—thereby circumventing regular order and the normal committee process that would be in place under a regular session of the House. As astute readers may recall, the voucher bill that failed earlier this year got stalled in the House Finance Committee before it could even come up for a floor vote, as some of the more fiscally cautious members of that committee rightfully had deep reservations about creating a $150 million taxpayer hand-out program for private schools.
As we've pointed out before, the cloak-and-dagger political gamesmanship that Lee and Sexton seem intent on deploying in order to run roughshod over pro-local schools, small-town Republican legislators should be a red flag that Republican voters in this state simply don't want to de-fund their neighborhood classrooms in order to enrich out-of-state school voucher special interests. But as long as the lobbyist and out-of-state money keeps flowing, without disclosure or accountability, in Nashville, legislators will always be more tempted to cash in on the school voucher payday than listen to their own voters back home.
An honorable mention, however, goes to State Rep. Tom Stinnett, as the Journal observed his victory in August over school voucher sell-out candidate Jason Emert dealt a significant blow to Lee and Sexton's school voucher mafia. We feel confident Tom will stick by us and our high-quality local schools whenever a voucher vote may come.
[From Blountly Conservative]
