St. Louis CofCC Blog

* As it was expected for quite a long time, Haley Barbour was re-elected as Governor of Mississippi, but Ernie Fletcher was bounced out in Kentucky.

* The real action yesterday was in the initiatives and referenda.  New Jersey rejected a bond measure for stem cell research, Oregon rejected a cigarette tax for children’s health care, both measures showing perhaps that Democrats have put themselves on the wrong side of the ledger on both issues.

* Now on an issue that most Republicans have put themselves on the wrong side of:  Vouchers.  The voucher question in Utah lost, and lost rather significantly.  The neo-con blogosphere was hoping that it would pass because Utah is politically the most conservative state, and in its defeat, the state’s teachers’ unions are gloating because they think this shows that even “conservative” Utah supports public schools.

They’re both misreading it.  The voucher issue failed (like it should have) BECAUSE Utah is a conservative state whose people are suspicious of public education.  In any circumstance, with government money comes government control, and in Utah’s circumstance, with its rapidly-growing Hispanic population, the vouchers would also mean that private schools become sharply more Hispanic.  A voucher program in Utah (or just about anywhere) would spell disaster for the largely white private K-12 education system.

Vouchers have to be just about the stupidest idea that anyone calling themselves a “conservative” of any gradation have ever emitted from their brain (or from the other end).  When people actually get to vote on them, they almost universally reject them, and largely for conservative reasons.  What a cracker jack way for “conservative” power-brokers to make friends with their base.

Interestingly, this voucher proposal in Utah was “revenue-neutral” for public schools, in that it had mechanisms to reimburse public schools for the tax and other monies they would lose based on a pupil leaving them and using a voucher to attend private schools.  Yet, the state teachers’ unions opposed them anyway, so we now have proof that money isn’t their chief concern.