We’re not Florida: Veto-bait school voucher bill shows zealotry of lawmakers vs. wisdom of Kansas voters | Opinion
Kansas is about to get a crash course in why voting matters, especially in a state with a deep-red Republican Legislature.
The House of Representatives on Wednesday gave a close pass to a bill to establish a voucher system so that parents disgruntled with “woke” public schools could take tax money and use it for private-school tuition or home school.
Now some on the right will probably object to my calling this a “voucher” bill, but it is one in everything but name. And I’m genuinely disinterested in playing the lawmakers’ semantic game of pretending these are “education savings accounts.”
If you’re like me, your savings account consists of your own money that you earned, won or inherited, not an annual infusion of taxpayers’ dollars from the government, which is what House Bill 83 would provide.
The bill would phase in over several years, starting with parents of low-income students but eventually shifting tax dollars to families with incomes of $200,000 or more. Support for the bill comes from several corners, but the Catholic Church and various front groups for Koch Industries have led the charge.
Under HB 83, parents could apply to divert their children’s base state aid, currently a little over $5,000 of public money a year, to the school of their choice (or their own pockets if they home-school).
As I said in an earlier column, this wouldn’t be the worst thing that could happen, if it freed the public schools from the outsized influence of MAGA loudmouths demanding the whitewashing of American history, persecution of LGBT students and faculty, book banning and replacing science curriculum with religious doctrine.
But there’s no guarantee that even if they get what they want, they’ll go away. Key lawmakers have already pulled their kids from public schools, but still see themselves as the authorities on how and what your kids should be taught.
Details still need to be worked out between House and Senate voucher plans, but assuming it gets to the governor’s desk, Laura Kelly is almost certain to veto it — despite House efforts to sweeten the deal for her with extra funding for special education and raises for teachers.
House Republicans got the bill through on a slim majority, 64-61. That keeps the ball rolling, but it’s a mile short of the 84-vote supermajority that would be needed to override the governor’s veto.
I can’t say for sure what would happen if Derek Schmidt had been elected governor instead of Kelly — he was kind of squishy on school choice during the campaign.
But it’s certain that veto would have been a much tougher call for Schmidt than Kelly. I can say for sure that Kelly’s predecessor, Slingin’ Sammy Brownback, would have signed HB 83 without a second thought. If Kris Kobach had beaten Kelly 4 1/2 years ago, it would probably already be state law.
The closeness of the House vote resulted from one of those strange alliances that sometimes happens, teaming up urban Democrats who fear defunding the public schools with otherwise conservative rural Republicans. The ruralists don’t have any private schools to benefit from vouchers and in many cases, the school district is about the only productive thing going on in their towns.
The lesson here is that we’re not Florida or Texas, where MAGA legislatures are matched with belligerently conservative governors and running amok.
Our Legislature is Florida/Texas radical, mainly because the members drew their districts to be as right-wing as modern data-mining can make them. And after losing the governor’s race and the Value Them Both anti-abortion amendment, they’re working on legislation to limit your voting privileges and shape the electorate more to their liking — more veto bait for the governor.
But the people of Kansas have shown themselves to be a different kind of conservative — the older kind defined by fiscal responsibility and slow and measured change — not some hyped-up culture wars.
So mark the battle of school choice, 2023, as a victory for divided government and constitutional checks and balances.
See you in 3 1/2 years when we’ll fight it all over again with a new governor.
