Baby Steps
John Boehner smirked as he walked the floor of the House of Representatives. Congressmen and women shuffled about, talking with their colleagues and friends. A few at a time would make their way to the Speaker’s rostrum, casting their votes aye or nay. Boehner prowled the floor with keen eyes. He sought out crucial swing votes from both parties, intercepting them before they reached the rostrum. It was a last-minute effort to find a majority of 218 votes needed to pass the legislation. Boehner wasn’t used to whipping up votes, but that was his lot today. It was September 6th, and the House was voting on the Education, Opportunity, and Accountability Act.
Education reform was one of Al Gore’s top priorities when he took office. America had fallen behind in science, math, and technology in public education and risked losing their spot atop the world’s economic ladder. China’s economy was growing at a shockingly fast rate and was on pace to overtake the United States sometime in the 2010s. Europe was also growing, especially in the area of exports. America needed to do something to catch up. Both Democrats and Republicans saw the need for reform, and both candidate Gore and Governor Bush prominently included education reform in their platforms. As President, Gore believed education reform would be his “lasting legacy.”
Gore tasked Education Secretary, and former North Carolina Governor, Jim Hunt and domestic policy aide David Osborne with crafting an outline for reform. Hunt and Osborne led an “education taskforce” that many conservatives tried comparing to the “Hillarycare” health reform taskforce in the 1990s. The label didn’t stick, partially because most Americans supported making changes to public education (at least theoretically.) Gore’s team spent weeks meeting with teachers, administrators, business leaders, and college presidents in an attempt to develop a comprehensive strategy for reform. While the public focused on taxes, Gore kept one eye on education.
Hunt and Osborne handed their proposal to the President at the end of March. It contained three major parts: Accountability, Character, and Innovation. The first element of the package contained proposals to shut down routinely “failing” schools, end the prioritization of longevity in promotions, and greater emphasis on teacher evaluations. Character focused on improving discipline and character education in public schools. The final element, innovation, was the central element to the overall proposal. This included the hiring of 100,000 new teachers, increases in teacher pay, greater funding for school construction and upgrades, incentives for saving for college, expansion of unemployment benefits for higher education, and the creation of 401(j) accounts for college savings. All told, the proposed reforms would cost less than $200 billion.
With Washington focused on tax cuts, education reform was put on the backburner. Congressional leaders were reluctant to make a move on any issue besides taxes until the debate was resolved. Following Gore’s veto at the end of May, and the failure to override it, Democratic leaders pushed for discussion of education reform. The President presented his plan to Congressional leaders at a summit in June, and called on them to take action. Democrats were quick to embrace Gore’s plan. It contained many popular elements, and despite union opposition to increased accountability, had the support of the grand majority of the caucus. Republican support was lukewarm at best. Many conservatives opposed what they saw as an expansion of federal power at the expense of the states. Others were more supportive of the bill due to its focus on accountability and support for charter schools. With Republican control of Congress, Gore would have to go through his rivals if he wanted any chance to get the reform measure passed.
The June Congressional roundtable was a tense affair. Republican leaders were wary to embrace any elements of the Gore plan. They had declared a war on the President during the tax debate, and were reluctant to show any signs of weakness. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay was a particular critic of the reform outline. He called it “a massive intrusion into the realm of the stats that doesn’t fix the underlying problem with public education: a lack of local control and choice.” Most of the Republican leadership team offered more tepid criticism, calling for vouchers and opposing some of the more audacious elements of the President’s proposal. Democrats fought back. House Whip David Bonior labeled the legislation “a good starting point, but it’ll mean nothing if you guys strip everything substantial out of it.” Gore was active in mediating the debate and kept the rhetoric fairly mild. But there was enough underlying tension to concern Chief of Staff Ron Klain, who told the press that “we’re cautiously optimistic. It’s going to take a lot of hard work to pass this thing.”
One Republican who was quite willing to work with the White House was the Chairman of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. John Boehner was once a rising star in the Republican Party. He was an author of the Contract with America and led the House Republican Conference for four years. Boehner was on the short-list to become a prominent party leader. But then he overplayed his hand. In 1997, with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich’s popularity at all-time lows, Boehner led an attempted coup. When Gingrich discovered the plot to oust him from the Speaker’s chair, Boehner was voted out of the chairmanship. He spent several years in the wilderness before ascending to the top of the Education and Workforce Committee after the 2000 elections. Boehner was now in a position of power and could shape significant legislation.
President Gore called Chairman Boehner two days after the contentious Congressional summit. They spoke for over an hour on policy details and partisan politics. Both the President and the Congressman shared an interest on the minutiae of governing, along with a mutual desire for greater cooperation between the Executive and Legislative branches. Boehner was willing to craft a bipartisan education reform bill with the ranking Democrat on the Education Committee, George Miller, as long as Gore was willing to give up elements of his proposal. Always the pragmatist, the President acquiesced. This private conversation reflected Gore’s willingness to work with Republicans in a way that his predecessor did not. Gore was an intellectual and believed that he could reason an answer to any given problem. He wasn’t a master of persuasion, but he was a sharp academic who understood the concerns of Congressmen and Senators (after all, he had been one.) Those skills would serve him well in the fight for education reform.
Boehner held the first hearings on education reform in mid-June. Their purpose was to receive a more conservative perspective than the Hunt-Osborne Commission’s report. A litany of charter school administrators, home schooling advocates, and proponents of vouchers appeared before the committee. Finally, after several weeks of hearings and behind the scenes negotiating, Boehner presented the Education, Opportunity, and Accountability Act (EOA). Boehner had reached an agreement with Congressman Miller to craft a bill that would appeal to the mainstream of both parties. It contained many elements of the President’s proposal: establishing a grading system for schools, shutting down repeatedly failing schools, allowing students in those schools to transfer out, tax breaks for spending on higher education, and greater funding for early education programs like Head Start. Conservative elements of the legislation included the creation of a dozen voucher “pilot programs” around the country, a greater focus on teacher accountability, and greater curriculum flexibility at the local level. All told, the cost of the legislation was about $150 billion. This sum turned off many on the right, but most Republicans and Democrats signed on to support the bill. The Education and Workforce Committee referred the bill to the House floor at the end of July by a vote of 36-13. Every Democrat besides one (Dennis Kucinich, who opposed the more conservative elements of the bill) supported the Boehener-Miller proposal. The Republicans were more divided. Boehner was able to gain the support of 15 committee members, though 12 dissented. Michigan’s Pete Hoekstra spoke for many when he claimed “I came to Congress to shrink government, not to grow it. That’s exactly what this bill does, and I don’t care if it makes my party look better, because it hurts my country.”
While education reform picked up steam in the House, the Senate moved to consider legislation as well. The HELP Committee, chaired by Vermont’s Jim Jeffords, held hearings on the topic as early as February. Jeffords and Ted Kennedy actively supported the President’s version of reform and took up the No Child Left Behind Act (a name panned by many on the right) in June. Their version of the bill did not include the voucher program or as much flexibility for the states. Jeffords was opposed by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, who sought a bill much more in line with Boehner’s compromise legislation. He went so far as to refuse taking up his bill if it cleared the committee. That threat was enough for Jeffords. He had been on the outs of his party for several years, and had repeatedly challenged Lott’s obstructionist mentality. Seeing his power as a committee chairman disappearing, Jeffords secretly met with Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in early July. The two senators made a deal that would greatly change the structure of the legislative branches upper body. Jeffords would leave the Republican Party and become an independent (he could not stomach becoming a Democrat). He would in turn caucus with the Democrats, giving them a majority in the Senate due to Vice-President Joe Lieberman’s tie-breaking vote. In return, Jeffords would retain his chairmanship of the HELP Committee until he was able to complete education reform. At that point, he would hand over control of the committee to Ted Kennedy and become chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee. Jeffords announced his decision at a press conference during the Senate’s July recess. Quoting Ronald Reagan, Jeffords stated “I haven’t left the Republican Party; the Republican Party has left me.” With the support of now-Majority Leader Daschle, the HELP Committee marked-up their version of education reform by a vote of 14-7, with three Republicans joining a unanimous Democratic bloc.
Congress’s August recess was a time of extensive lobbying by the President and supporters of education reform. Gore toured the country, visiting schools and businesses. His speeches focused on economic growth: “To compete, we must innovate. And the path to innovation is in our schools.” He stressed the growth of competing economies and the necessity to improve teacher quality. The President was joined by a plethora of Senators, Congressmen, Governors, and business leaders who agreed that leadership in Washington was needed to spark change at the local level. Bill Gates summed up the purpose of reform when he stated “There’s a real need for qualified, high-skill workers. If we don’t improve, China or some other country will. That’s where the jobs of the future will go.” Behind the scenes, Chairman Boehner lobbied for support within his own caucus. Speaker Hastert was willing to get behind the legislation, though both Majority Leader Dick Armey and Whip Tom DeLay opposed it. Therefore, it would be up to Boehner to whip votes and ensure that enough Republicans supported the bill to get it through. That would be a trick task, as many on the right began to mobilize against the bill. At town-hall meetings throughout the country, far-right conservatives called the legislation everything from socialist to fascist to “an attempt to indoctrinate our children!” This opposition began to move some Republicans towards opposing the bill, despite the support of business interests. As Congress reconvened in September, Boehner hoped he had the votes to shepherd his signature legislative achievement out of the House and to the more supportive Senate.
When the House reconvened in September, the first matter of business was the EOA. With a Democratic Party united in support and a Republican Party divided, hopes were high that the legislation would pass. Boehner walked the House floor, talking with Republican swing votes about the merits of the bill. Speaker Hastert remained largely silent, as he had throughout the majority of the debate. The conservative opposition mainly hailed from the South, where state’s-rights activists railed against what they saw as more big government from Washington. Democrats remained almost entirely supportive of the legislation. Those on the left had been largely placated by the legislation’s increases in spending on school construction and teacher hiring programs. Some, like Vermont Independent Bernie Sanders, were unwilling to accept the provisions in support of school choice which he claimed were “a Trojan Horse for a full-blown voucher system” in the future. But with the strong support of the President and a lack of vocal opposition from Republican leaders, the fate of the bill was never truly in doubt. By a vote of 309 to 125, the legislation passed. 95 Republicans joined 214 Democrats in support of the measure. Only eight Democrats broke ranks to join the majority of Republicans who opposed the reform.
The Education, Opportunity, and Accountability Act looked like it was on its way to being a major legislative victory for President Gore. His other major goals; a patient’s bill of rights, campaign finance reform, and fast-track trade authority, remained tabled due to Republican opposition. But at least he could sign his name on a major, if not truly progressive, law. The Senate had taken up debate on the more liberal Jeffords-Kennedy bill, which was unlikely to break a Republican filibuster, but would soon move to consider the House version. Projections were that the bill would arrive on the President’s desk well before Christmas. In a year of hard fought battles and bitter partisan division, Al Gore finally appeared to be more than just a lame-duck President. It was September 6th, and the political divisions in Washington, D.C. were about to look very small indeed.
