ACLU, Unions in Georgia Education

This very perceptive editorial by Jim Wooten presents facts that are hidden within his words. In Georgia, senators and representatives elected to serve the people are in fact flunkies for the ACLU and the Teachers Union.

Fearing “political suicide” at the hands of ACLU and Union forces, state legislators toe the line. Maintaining power through “government monopoly” is their objective!

State shouldn't shut the door on vouchers
Jim Wooten, AJC associate editorial page editor
Published on: 12/11/05

Don't go there, says state Sen. Seth Harp (R-Columbus). "There" is a question: How does Georgia ethically and morally justify an act — spending public money to benefit religious-affiliated colleges, for example — when the [Georgia] state constitution specifically declares that "No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult or religious denomination or any sectarian institution?"

A panel that included two Georgia senators and the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, Debbie Seagraves, explored that question Thursday at a national conference on faith-based social services held in Atlanta.

It was sponsored by the Rockefeller Institute of Government at the State University of New York in Albany. (In the interest of disclosure, I was an uncompensated participant as panel moderator.)

In any number of areas, from child care and protection to social and education services, the state winks and nods at the constitutional prohibition. In the case of students attending religious-affiliated colleges on HOPE grants, for example, state Sen. Doug Stoner (D-Smyrna), the other panelist, offers a distinction: It's not really tax money because it's lottery-funded.

The obvious solution would be to eliminate the language from the state constitution or to modify it, as Gov. Sonny Perdue proposed last year with a 12-word addition: "except as permitted or required by the United States Constitution, as amended."

No Democrats supported that change in the Senate, and it therefore failed to gain the two-thirds approval required for submission to voters. Stoner predicts that a version he's offering, which would also prohibit school vouchers, would attract 16 Democrats.

Perdue asserts, and has from the beginning, that the change he proposed has nothing whatsoever to do with vouchers. And, on this point, the Republican, Democrat and ACLU panelist agreed.

"If a politician wishes to commit political suicide in this state, he would sponsor a voucher bill," said Harp, who is chairman of the Higher Education Committee and vice chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Agreed Stoner: "A quick way out of office here is to push a voucher program."

Seagraves, whose organization (ACLU) opposes any change to this constitutional language, agrees that the issue here is not vouchers.

While they are all in agreement, the plain fact is that Georgia should never, ever include language in the state constitution that precludes an education option that would give responsible, informed parents — regardless of income or station in life — an alternative.

The exclusion would be astoundingly shortsighted; the same as passing a constitutional amendment prohibiting outsourcing of municipal services or any other innovation that threatens a government monopoly.

Yes, this particular crop of political leaders may regard [school] vouchers as suicide, and this particular crop of educators may be frightened to high heavens by the prospect of competition, but attitudes change. Circumstances change.

The relationship between government and faith-based service providers has, for example, undergone a revolution in the past decade. Congress, the U.S. Supreme Court, and certainly the Bush administration are all more receptive to the idea that government can purchase services from faith-based providers, so long as taxpayers are not buying Sunday school.

In just the past two years, 27 states have enacted legislation with references to faith-based organizations, and 63 percent of states now have an individual or office to serve as a liaison, Rockefeller researchers note.

The point is, simply, that if ideas that were once radical to some are mainstream within a decade, it would be absurd to include anti-voucher language in the constitution while trying to correct an existing problem.

The state is on the shakiest of constitutional ground in funneling money to schools and organizations in ways that would seem to violate the sweeping prohibitions in the Georgia Constitution.