Blog

In order to pass, this bill had to have at least 63 votes.  The following 63 “representatives” voted for the education finance bill in the House. Did they represent you? Barker, Bradford, Bruchman, Brunk, Couture-Lovelady, Carlson, Carpenter, Cassidy, Christmann, Claeys, Corbet, Crum, E. Davis, DeGraaf, Dove, Edwards, Esau, Estes, Gandhi, Garber, Goico, Grosserode, Hawkins, Hedke, Highland, Hildabrand, Hoffman, Houser, Howell, Huebert, Hutton, Johnson, Jones, Kahrs, Kelley, Kiegerl, Kinzer, Kleeb, Lunn, Macheers, Mason, Mast, McPherson, Meigs, Merrick, O’Brien, Osterman, Peck, Powell, Read, Rhoades, Rothlisberg, Rubin, Ryckman Jr., Ryckman Sr., Schwab, Seiwert, Suellentrop, Thimesch, Thompson, Todd, Vickrey, Waymaster. Absent or...

We oppose inclusion of the ALEC corporate tax credit scholarship provision.  There was a hearing on this provision in the House Education Committee, where it received insufficient support to move out of the committee.  Here’s a portion of our testimony from that hearing (footnotes didn’t copy over but we referred to substantial research): Our concerns regarding this bill are extensive and stem from the explicit preference among some elected officials to turn over a significant portion of the K-12 public school system to private entities. To begin, we are disturbed to see that this is an ALEC (American...