by Kenya Woodard
Now into their third day of a self-imposed exile in neighboring Illinois, Indiana’s House Democrats say they want another 11 Republican-backed bills soon to come up for a vote to be “killed” along with the proposed “right-to-work” legislation that initially prompted their flight from the state.
Republicans have offered to dump the latter, but are refusing to yield on any of the other bills, including a proposal to allow low- and middle-income families a public means to choose a private school for their children. House Minority Leader Patrick Bauer, a Democrat from South Bend, told reporters that the tax credit scholarship proposal and a bill that limits teachers’ collective bargaining rights are “dealbreakers.”
While it’s common for Democratic leaders to distance themselves from tax-credit and voucher programs, it’s interesting to see Indiana’s Democrats do so. After all, in Indiana, such programs had their roots in the Democratic Party, and those roots don’t go back far.
In a recent column, Russ Pulliam, the Star’s associate editor, points out how it was former Democratic state legislator Louis Mahern, who put the idea on the scene in the Circle City when running for mayor in the early 1990s.
His proposal, Pulliam writes, turned off the teachers union, which threw its support behind his Republican opponent, Steven Goldsmith. Goldsmith served as mayor for two terms.
Mahern tried to resurrect the matter when he got to the General Assembly, but failed, thanks again to the teachers union’s influence. But the idea to level the learning field for Indiana’s poor students didn’t completely die, Pulliam writes:
Mahern’s earlier legislation was backed by business leaders. Although they lost in the legislature, one of them, insurance company executive J. Patrick Rooney, started the CHOICE Charitable Trust in 1990. CHOICE has given private school scholarships to low-income families in Indianapolis Public Schools. The success of CHOICE prompted similar programs around the country.
Twenty years later, the privately funded CHOICE is still pumping, awarding more than $532,000 to 420 students in the 2009-2010 school year alone, according to its website. The Indiana tax credit scholarship bill just wants to bring that Democratic idea to a more scalable, public level statewide.
