« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

MEMBER DIARY

58 Senators Vote Against Poor D.C. Kids

Even beneficiaries of school choice turn their back on 1,700 children

By: Robert Bluey (Diary)  |  March 10th, 2009 at 10:01 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The U.S. Senate had the opportunity tonight to give 1,700 low-income children in the District of Columbia the chance for a better education. Instead, voting mostly along party lines, 58 senators sided with liberal special interests to defeat an amendment saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who attended a private high school and sent his kids to private school, inserted a provision in the $410 billion omnibus appropriations bill that puts the program in jeopardy. An amendment offered by Sen. John Ensign (R-NV) would have stripped the language, but the Senate defeated it tonight, 58-39.

The 58 senators included four Republicans: Mike Crapo (R-ID), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Arlen Specter (R-PA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Their action tonight doesn’t end the program, but makes it much more difficult for 1,700 mostly poor black students to achieve the educational dreams that these scholarships offer.

Remember the names of the 58 senators below. Tonight they voted against 9-year-olds Breanna and De’Andre, 11-year-old Paul, 12-year-olds Fransoir and Sakeithia, 14-year-old Dominique, and 16-year-old Rashawn. Shame on them.

NAYs —58
Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Burris (D-IL)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Crapo (R-ID)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)		 Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hagan (D-NC)
Harkin (D-IA)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lincoln (D-AR)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)		 Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)
Tags: , , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • http://www.thepoliticalclass.com The Political Class

    …of the kids voted.

    • Rod_Patrick

      Dems. Who knows?

  • anotherindyfilmguy

    Fiscal responsibility has to start somewhere, even if it is veiled racism on the left etc… they wouldn’t want those kids to stand in the way of the pork going to their districts now would they?

    It’s not like Congress really wanted to break the US economy and all that… I guess everything has limits and a program that actually does something, well that’s just to much to expect when we’re talking about raping the rest of the country to serve those supportive special interests back home in with the congresscritters in their pockets etc…

    Hypocrites…

  • stanpulle

    Rides the backs of the poor to power. Over one-third of public school teachers send their kids to private school- no different than what the Clintonistas, the Obamots, and the Jesse Jacksons do. Let the poor eat the crap that our public school system dishes out. The Durbins, Feinsteins and Boxers of this world need to be horse-whipped and dragged through main street with a scarlet letter “H” for hypocrite and liar strung around their necks.

  • Carol Tarasewicz

    I wish the people in those states would remember this when it is time to reelect these clowns. None will, Once the dems are in office, it is as if it’s for life, that’s how it is here in MA,.

    I am not in Barney Frank’s district. But he was reelected with almost 70% of the vote and he had two opponents. You do not know how hard it is for a congressman or senator from here to have any opponent, never mind two. Tonight I had Bill O’Reilly on and someone from Investor’s Business Daily said Barney should be in jail. I get those daily but hadn’t read that one from the 6th yet.

    I sometimes spend too much time here on Red State. I had to share Saturday’s email about the San Francisco mayor with a few friends, where do you find these things? I was laughing out loud when I read that one.

  • red4ever

    Oh heavens no, let’s leave them in failing schools where they have to pass through metal detectors to get to class and the police are arresting students on a regular basis. Nope, can’t have that.

    Why?

    Because we have to fund scholarships for foreign kids:
    http://chronicle.com/news/article/6092/clinton-announces-million-dollar-scholarship-program-for-palestinian-students

  • tankertodd

    They also don’t care about helping each American have an equal shot at success.

    Pigs.

  • icbm

    voting for such a bill? Is he actually a liberal Republican, or did he get bought off with pork?

  • Rapunzel46

    Mike Crapo and, Lisa Murkowski??????? Snow and Specter don’t surprise me, but more and more Murkowski is voting democratic.

    • pilgrim

      I’m not saying that excuses her for her vote. I’m just saying that her along with six other Republican members of this committee had an interest in getting the omnibus bill passed with no amendments to go back to the House. There were six Republican members of the appropriatiions committee who voted against final passage. I haven’t a clue to explain Crapo’s vote.
      http://appropriations.senate.gov/members.cfm

      • Praying

        the Dems HAD to kill all the amendments (and the appropriations committee went along with them) because Harry Reid promised queen Botox – er Nancy Pelosi that the bill would be passed exactly as it came out of the House. She didn’t want it to have to come back to the house for another vote (I guess she was worried more of her members constituents would have had time to write them and tell them to vote against it?). So it’s pretty much politics as usual – the politicians win, the American people lose. I am getting very tired of this. I want TERM LIMITS!!

  • bobojake

    Every one of these Senators should have their shoe strings tied together and then have a 50 yard race to get their purple kool-aid.
    When Senators votes are controlled by thugs we are in big trouble. Not one of them has any shame or consciences left. God pity our poor children.

    • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

      They will approve endless Billions for Education that never ever improves the Education Kids get…. but never ONE DIME for Parents to have a say/control in using to get better education for their kids…. School Administrations are a joke, recycled failed teachers that cover for each other and work to drive up one another’s salaries….

  • http://groups.yahoo.com/group/republican587/ Elizabeth Christian

    n/t

  • maddog

    Is Arlen trying to lose the primary? Seriously. It’s as if he’s provoking a backlash. He has to understand that poking us in the eye so closely together is bound to hurt, Sure he’s done that in the past, but he eased up on In election years in a cynical and phony attempt to placate enough of us conservatives. Besides this is the kind of bill where opposing it should not upset his lefty allies to much (not nearly as much as voting against card check will)

    Run Pat, run

  • avgamerican

    I believe I read once that at some time around the turn of the century 1900, those against our system of representative democracy feared that its prosperity would stomp out the marxist elitist systems. To stop it a grand scheme was plotted to infiltrate our education system. Liberalism really means power and control. It pertains to ignore the natural prospertiy effects of Judeo-Christian democracy in exchange for secular humanistic controlled totalitarianist socialistic systems. In short, if given the choice enough of us would choose a loving God and His promises over evil and it’s control. This is one reason why marxism praised atheism as it’s state religion. Here is a big clue for the overly arrogant educated narcissists. Our founding fathers were not atheists. They believed in representative democracy. Karl Marx and Lenin were atheists and founded totalitarian socialism. Liberalism is simply another name for marxism. It has been the dominat belief system in our education system for decades and it is now assuming power in our country, and it will destroy us unless stopped.

    • mom2oneson

      why republicans are for mandatory attendance laws and gov funded schools and republicans also want the gov to fund private schools.

      I’ve seen two first ladies have a “reading” campaign but to my knowledge neither one called the educational system out on it’s goal to produce a illiterate adults and they didn’t provide an accurate solution. Children do not learn to read by listeng to their parents read. They do not learn to read by having books in the home. Those things are usually present but they are not the factors that make them learn how to read.

      I wish I could write better because every time I see some type of bogus “we need more money or we need earlier education for literacy” article, I want to write a letter!