Pa. voucher issue grows in intensity
HARRISBURG -- During budget negotiations, legislative aide Tricia Graham was walking down a Capitol hallway with House Majority Leader Mike Turzai when his cell phone "blew up," she recalled.
The campaign director for a Washington group pushing for school vouchers had Tweeted the Bradford Woods Republican's phone number as part of a last-ditch effort to get a voucher program passed before the Legislature recessed on Thursday. Turzai was flooded with calls.
Posting someone's cell phone number on the Internet to generate mass calling "is wrong on so many levels," Turzai spokesman Stephen Miskin said. Brendan Steinhauser, a campaign director for FreedomWorks, said he thought he Tweeted Turzai's office number, adding the move "wasn't intentional" and should not be "such a big deal."
But it shows how the voucher issue intensified over the final weeks before lawmakers recessed for the summer with the voucher plan -- one of Gov. Tom Corbett's priorities -- never coming to a vote in either chamber. Supporters vow to try again in September.
Corbett is trying to do what fellow Republican Gov. Tom Ridge was unable to do in two campaigns for vouchers between 1995 and 2001. The program would give parents the ability to choose their child's school by using taxpayer money to provide tuition vouchers to low-income children in failing schools.
The Senate proposed a school voucher program in January. The bill stalled in committee in April.
While some people targeted Turzai as the obstacle, he said Senate Education Committee Chairman Jeffrey Piccola, R-Dauphin County, "had made it clear it (education reform) was a Senate initiative."
Amid last-minute pressure from Corbett, a House member proposed a scaled-back version further limiting the number of income levels and schools included. The governor's spokesman called it a "likely compromise."
The compromise fell apart, and Piccola blamed the House, saying the Senate made proposals to the House but they were "unable or unwilling to engage in any meaningful discussions to finalize this proposal."
Citing the fact that the Senate never voted to send House members a bill, Turzai said "Piccola couldn't get the job done ... so he was looking for someone to blame."
Rep. Tom Quigley, R-Montgomery, said more involvement from Corbett earlier in the session could have helped move the program through, but he realizes Corbett was absorbed by the budget and other key issues.
"They clearly didn't have their act together to get it done," Steinhauser said.
Analysts had other ideas.
Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling & Research, said the timing of the push "could not have been worse," given budget cuts to public schools.
Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based Democratic consultant, said "the devil (was) in the details" -- even among those who agreed on the general concept.
"You certainly have Republican members who may favor the concept, but they're getting a lot of pressure from their local school boards who have serious concerns," Ceisler said.
Joseph DiSarro, political science professor at Washington & Jefferson College, called the teachers' unions a "well-organized interest group" that was able to "just flex their muscle and ... put a stop to" school voucher legislation.
PSEA spokesman David Broderic said FreedomWorks and other organizations exerted resources that were "far more dramatic than ours."
