A week ago, Pennsylvania was on the cusp of a once-in-a-generation change in education, achieved through bipartisanship and cooperation. Today, all of that is in ruins and the level of trust in Harrisburg is lower than ever.
Governor Josh Shapiro campaigned on support for school vouchers and reiterated that support after he won a smashing victory last November. He even went on Fox News to say so and reached across the aisle to Republicans in the state senate to arrive at a compromise budget that maintained spending on government-run schools while establishing a scholarship program for kids in the districts with failing schools.
That was a great bipartisan accomplishment of a goal favored by a majority of Republicans, a majority of independents, and even a majority of black and Hispanic Democrats. Even in Philadelphia, twice as many voters approved of charter schools than opposed them — and that was before the Covid lockdowns. There was reason to believe in hope for kids trapped in failing education monopolies.
But that would require Democrats to shake off the embrace of teachers unions and for the one group that opposes school vouchers — white progressives — to listen to the other parts of their party’s coalition. This, the Democrats — and especially House Majority Leader Matt Bradford — refused to do.
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Facing a budget deadline and knowing Shapiro did not want to preside over chaos, Bradford held firm on his refusal to countenance the vouchers that a majority of House and Senate members support. When Republicans do this, the media calls it “hostage-taking.” And it worked. Shapiro announced today that he would agree to use his line-item veto on the part of the budget that paid for the school vouchers program, allowing the rest to pass with his signature.
That sounds like a strategic, face-saving retreat for the governor, but it is not as simple as that. The budget the Senate passed contained loads of other provisions that the GOP-controlled chamber would not ordinarily have agreed to include.
Last week, Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward told the press, “This budget that we put together was put together with the governor as an agreement, as a whole package. If they pull out our priorities … you’re going to see a very slimmed-down, scaled-back budget, because there were things in this budget that we really didn’t want to do.”
Well, that is exactly what House Democrats did. Faced with a compromise budget, they told Shapiro to choose: pass only what the Dems want, or pass nothing at all. Shapiro blinked and the hostage-takers won.
Bradford and House Democrats showed that the way to win in politics is rigid adherence to party and partisanship.
“Knowing that the two chambers will not reach consensus at this time to enact PASS, and unwilling to hold up our entire budget process over this issue, I will line-item veto the full $100 million appropriation and it will not be part of this budget bill,” Shapiro said in a press release Wednesday afternoon.
Meanwhile, no Republican state senator has any reason to trust Shapiro again. They held out their hand in friendship, did the thing Americans always say we want — moderate bipartisan compromise — and had that hand slapped away by Bradford and House Dems with but a single-seat majority, with Shapiro’s acquiescence. Added to all the two-faced scheming that began the legislative session, and trust is in low supply in the state capital.
When other bills are negotiated in the fall and winter this year, we anticipate the press will fall back to form and place the blame on incalcitrant Republicans who are “allergic” to compromise. They should remember this moment before such finger-wagging.
Bradford and House Democrats showed that the way to win in politics is rigid adherence to party and partisanship. It’s the opposite of the sunny optimism they affected in January, but it’s accurate.
And if the entire 102-member Democratic House caucus stands by Bradford’s power play, they’ll show that they too put party over Pennsylvania’s neediest kids.
Trust, once lost, is not easy to rebuild. There were some in Harrisburg who were trying to do just that, but this double-cross makes it harder than ever before.
Broad + Liberty is a nonprofit media endeavor dedicated to sharing voices and stories that are shut out of other media outlets. @broadandliberty
To those Republicans who threw their fellow Republicans under the bus, and supported Democrat Shapiro over the endorsed Mastriano…How is this working for you?
Mastriano still sucks.
how many democrats switched to republican to vote for mastriano in the republican primary?
Couple of facts wrong here.
First: “That was a great bipartisan accomplishment of a goal favored by a majority of Republicans, a majority of independents, and even a majority of black and Hispanic Democrats. Even in Philadelphia, twice as many voters approved of charter schools than opposed them — and that was before the Covid lockdowns.”
School vouchers have nothing to do with charter schools. Vouchers take money from public schools (including charter schools, which ARE public schools) and send it to (unaccountable) private schools (where student outcomes are the same or worse). Nice try throwing charter schools into the conversation, but it’s a different argument.
Second: “They held out their hand in friendship, did the thing Americans always say we want — moderate bipartisan compromise — and had that hand slapped away by Bradford and House Dems with but a single-seat majority, with Shapiro’s acquiescence.”
Are you forgetting that the House passed its bill not by that one vote, but 117-86, meaning that 15 House Republicans voted for it as well?
Third: “they told Shapiro to choose: pass only what the Dems want, or pass nothing at all.”
I know you probably don’t talk to too many Democrats, but few of them were happy with this budget either. It forced a bunch of compromises on things that Dems were fighting for–mostly things that would improve the gross imbalance in education funding, which Commonwealth Court said was so bad as to be unconstitutional.
This wasn’t what Republicans wanted either, but it still represented a compromise.
Sorry to let facts get in the way of your argument. Please do better next time.
JP has it correct in his response to the entirety of this commentary from the editors of Broad and Liberty. Broad and Liberty, (a news source for CONSERVATIVE/NARROW MINDS) has an agenda to report rather than actual news 🙁
Shapiro helped ‘maintain and improve’ PUBLIC schools, which is what PUBLIC funds are meant to do.
Looks like JP from the AFT thinks differently.
Of course, it is all about the money, not the people.
Give people a chance to lift themselves up, goon.
Josh Shapiro, Democrat leaders, and the teachers’ unions certainty planned this entire matter of course months ago. Good grief! To pretend it was a last-minute situation that Gov Josh Shapiro suddenly had to contend with is laughable. It is almost impossible to believe that Beth Ann Rosica, Dawn Stensland, and others who think Shapiro is a “good man” also did not see this coming from months ago too. Articles like this trying to provide cover for Shapiro as if both unfortunate timing and an impossible situation of feisty Democrats were to blame are an embarrassing joke. The poor children get the brunt of it. And in 2024 the Republicans are going to get trounced.
Anybody that has followed Josh Shapiro knows he is a completely empty suit, devoid of integrity, honesty or principles. Like every other democrat politician, power is absolutely all he cares about, and he will lie, distort and promise whatever is necessary to get a vote. I expect democrats to vote for him because they are complete lemmings, but the “principled” republicans that think he’s wonderful, well, just envision Lucy pulling the football away from Charlie Brown time after time after time.
You would think after Mark Rossi just did EXACTLY THE SAME THING not six months ago that the Grand Old Stupid Party might have learned something. The democrats have to get bored with this soon, the GOSP makes it too easy anymore. Republican politicians in Pennsylvania are nearly too stupid to exist.
What you now see with the budget and education policy is a major reason why democracy in America will not survive much longer. Politics based on the acquistion of power and not the overall good of the citizens ultimately destroys society. You would think the lessons of LA, San Franscisco, Chicago, New York, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia could be learned by the politicians, but no, living in the rarified atmosphere of Harrisburg, they are immune to the effects of sense and reality. I really don’t fully grasp the duplicity of Governor Shapero’s actions on education, there is no way he can hide the fact he is perfectly willing to destroy the lives of children as long it furthers his political ends. He did demonstrate that he has no principles and cannot be trusted in anything. The Democratic Party here in the state slavishly follows whatever big buck lobby is around. Mostly, they have been captured by education unions and outside “progressive” billionaires willing to fund weird social programs that will never touch them. The Democrats in the General Assembly remind me of the robots one sees in photos of the Reichstag in the 1930s. No debasement is too much to endure.
William Penn established public schools in Pennsylvania. It was
an attempt to provide a ladder up for the working class. Now it is just
a ladder to go down into despair.
Do black lives really matter? Progressive Democrats seek power.
They will use marginalized groups for votes.
Then they will abandon them.
Covid restrictions by State Democrats have destroyed a generation of city youth.
They locked them down, took away jobs and deprived them of education.
At the same time let them live in terror by not enforcing laws.
Do black lives really matter? How many hopeful and hard working parents of color must continue to send their
children to government and union poorly managed schools before the electorate wakes up.
Shapiro sold out – that is what white liberals do – and left the most vulnerable behind to wallow in hopelessness.
But Shapiro won on abortion. Sad, so very sad.
From the time Shapiro was a Montgomery County Commissioner up to and including today – no one familiar with him would be surprised at his about face. He is the poster boy for “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Anyone who has voted for Shapiro for Governor has allowed themselves to be fooled multiple times.
How anyone believed that a Dem Governor would go against the teacher’s union in PA is beyond me.
For as long as I’ve lived PA (my entire life) the Dems and the GOP have been happy to share the spoils. But that’s changing. The new Dems want none of that, they want the power of a one-party state. And that’s well within their reach now the Dems have taken over the election process.
CA, NY, MN – here we come. And no one deserves it more than the PA GOP.
All I will say is this: I am not the least bit surprised by what Shapiro has done.