“School voucher effort falters in Legislature”
By Pat Forgey
Juneau Empire
April 3, 2012
An effort to amend the Alaska Constitution to allow public money to go to religious schools stalled in the House of Representatives Monday, as supporters acknowledged they didn’t have enough support to pass it.
The House had been scheduled to vote on House Joint Resolution 16, but the measure was pulled from the calendar just before the scheduled vote.
“We didn’t have the votes to pass it,” said Rep. Wes Keller, R-Wasilla, the resolution’s chief sponsor.
The measure would ask the public to amend the Constitution to allow for publicly funded vouchers for private schools, including religious schools, something now explicitly prohibited.
Constitutional amendments require a supermajority of 27 votes in the House to pass and be sent to the voters.
Keller’s proposal may have suffered a blow earlier Monday, when House Speaker Mike Chenault, R-Kenai, said he had “concerns” with it, though he didn’t say he’d oppose it.
Among the issues Chenault raised were whether some schools would be left with handicapped and other expensive-to-educate students, and whether there would be fairness in options available to students.
Most Democrats, and some Republicans, have already said they’d oppose it, often citing an unwillingness to take money away from public schools.
“In a year when funding is critical for public schools, it is especially frustrating to see this proposal,” said Rep. Beth Kerttula, D-Juneau.
Chenault told reporters Monday morning, just hours before the scheduled vote, that he had concerns about how such a measure might be implemented and whether it would be fair to all students.
If a child was able to take a voucher to any school and was admitted to any school regardless of what conditions or issues they may bring, being handicapped or other issues, I could probably support that,” he said.
Chenault said he was worried
WASHINGTON, DC – In a stunning turn of events, the Obama Administration today reversed course on the issue of school choice and vouchers, detailing an ambitious plan to create national school choice options through a competitive grant program for states.
In an attempt to win back her crown as Miss Congeniality among anti-school-choice Democrats, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) strolled to the well of the Senate yesterday evening to stab her fellow Mainer, Sen. Susan Collins, in the back by voting against the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Ms. Collins is one of the program’s chief champions. Despite the courage demonstrated by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, and Joe Lieberman – who voted FOR the voucher program – Sen. Snowe’s status as the lone Republican vote against the program was anything but courageous. Whether she likes Sen. Collins or not – or whether she wants to curry favor with Democrats or not (she does), Sen. Snowe’s vote today left DC kids… snowed under.
In the only public “debate” on the Senate Floor today regarding the highly-successful DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan demonstrated that he’s worn out his welcome in Washington, DC (at least in the non-Congressional parts of town). By telling families that if they want to send their kids to private schools (and thus, get an education) – they need to pay for it and by, strangely, saying that “if North Dakota were a country”, the state’s science scores would be second in the world—he proved himself equally bizarre and out of touch.
Despite the adage that you get more bees with honey, I will not sit idly by and allow Congressman Jose Serrano, Democrat from Bronx, NY, write an opinion for 
