politico.com, March 3rd, 2016
Education reform passes committee, Fitz and Seaborn flex muscles
Passing through the HELP Committee by a large margin of 19-3, two republicans and one democrat voting against, the end of a year long bipartisan push for Education reform may finally be in sight. President Walken teamed up with the committee Chairwoman Nicole Kershaw (D-CA) and its ranking member Jim Simon (R-SD) to get a comprehensive consensus bill through committee by last July, with a floor vote by the time congress returned from summer recess. Those deadlines were inevitably not met, but the reform leaders never gave up hope and after several more months of hard work it appears passage may be in sight.
As it stands now, the bill will include many things that both democrats and republicans wanted out of reform, yet that inherently entails that it also contains poison pills for both sides. Democrats got prized items like free community college, student loan debt relief, and expanded access to financial aid, while Republicans got teacher tenure reform and expanded charter school funding. They worked together to reach an agreement on a reform of how the property tax funds K-12 education to make funds more equally dispersed. They were also able to reach a compromise in order to further help fund the bill, in requiring Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to pay income taxes. While this was certainly a conservative idea of funding the plan, liberals accepted it in order to make the bill revenue-neutral.
As part of tenure reform they compromised in grading current teachers with tenure over five year period to ensure they deserve it, while giving others the option to still get it; and then both making tenure stronger for those who have it but making the requirements to get in the future more stringent. This idea was built out of President Walken's belief that tenure stands in the way of both students and teachers and became a sticking point in the legislative process. However, it is here where the bill hit its biggest land mine and became a potential proxy war between two potential Presidential candidates.
When liberals such on the HELP Committee began to waver, such as William Wiley (D-WA), Robert Greys (D-OR) and Vic Huntington (D-NV), 2014 Presidential candidate Jimmy Fitzsimmons (D-MA) stirred the pot by encouraging them to abandon the efforts. Sources close to Fitzsimmons say he wanted to hand a blow to President Walken going into the midterms. Senator Kershaw almost had a bill ready in September before liberals bolted, and likely feared a similar outcome. Yet her close friend and fellow California senator Sam Seaborn met privately with those wavering senators and strongly pushed them towards signing off on the bill. In the end, Wiley and Huntington voted in favor while Greys was the lone democrat in opposition.
Republicans were led by Simon along with committee members Dylan Garrison (R-OH) and Max Lobell III (R-GA), who is also the minority whip. While they don't love paying for community college, they got on board primarily for tenure reform and political cover provided by President Walken. The fact they got the whole thing financed through one of their long sought revenue sources, GSE's, also made it easier to swallow. The only nay votes were Dylan McNamara (R-MS) and Patrick Stacy (R-TN). The White House has taken more of a background role in the talks since the fall when the reform effort lost steam, but press secretary Kate Moore said that President Walken was pleased and was meeting with senate leaders tomorrow to discuss the next steps.
Now the bill moves to the senate floor, and with strong support from President Walken, proponents hope it will pass swiftly. The House has been working on a similar bill, but Speaker Gelsey has been content to let the senate take the lead. There is still expected to be some resistance from both the far left and right, and the further escalating of tensions between Fitzsimmons and Seaborn, which started when the latter refused the former's offer of VP in 2014, will certainly be a storyline to follow.
