The View from Hillsboro - Advocating for Public Schools

Oregon House: Our Own "Nuclear Option"

I began a very long day in Salem, yesterday. I was with a group of school advocates from the Oregon PTA and Stand for Children, who attended the House floor discussion on HB 2727. Iw was fascinating to see the pure arrogance of the republicans and of the speaker Minnis to eliminate the right of the minority of being heard. And the total lack of attention that the majority pays to the "special interest groups" such as the 19,500 students in the Hillsbor school district.
The Democratic minority had proposed a minority version of House Bill 2727 that replaced the content of the bill and replaced it with a proposal for 5.4 billion funding for K-12 education. Personally I don't like the idea of amendments to bills that don't have little to do with the original bill. I have seen to many bad ideas being attached to reasonable bills in the US Congress, and I don't like seeing that happen here in Oregon.

But the idea that the amendment was not in order because of its content never came into the discussion. The republicans moved to postpone the bill to August 31, which really means postponing it forever, since there is no way that the legislature will be in session by then.

The most disturbing thing to me was the power grab by the republicans, who hold a slim majorith in the house. Democrats have no right to propose amendments and have an up or down vote. This wholesale elimination of the rights of the minority is similar to what the republicans in the US senate are planning for the next few days, something they call the "nuclear option".

We had four months of intense debate in the legislature and around the state regarding K-12 school funding. The revenue estimate has been revised many times, including a very positive one last May 13. School districts are finalizing their budgets for the next year, as required by law. So why are Derrick Kitts and the republicans in the house delaying the vote on the K-12 funding even further? We need stable and adequate funding, and we need to know what the funding for the next biennium is going to be. The time for action is now.

The discussion on the house floor was revealing. One one side of the isle, representatives were quoting school superintendents on the level of funding needed to avoid cuts, usually above 5.4 billions, in some cases significantly higher. They were pointing out the urgency of the decision. On the other side of the isle there was deafening silence, broken occasionally by the annoyed comments of a republican legislator that wanted to limit the discussion to the August 31 date, and nothing else.

posted by Unknown @ 4:22 AM