Legislative hostage-takers
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em>"Wouldn't this be a great world if insecurity and desperation made us more attractive?"
-- Aaron Altman
"Broadcast News" (1987)
Yes, if the world worked that way all those politicians at the state Capitol would be irresistible. Alas, the opposite is true -- insecurity and desperation are plain to see.
And it's no more apparent than in the battle over the school-voucher referendum. Its supporters in the Legislature are starting to show their stress in big, bright colors that are impossible to ignore.
It was reported by Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News last week that Rep. Dave Clark, majority leader of the Utah House of Representatives, said a new universal health insurance proposal by Beehive State business leaders and health care experts could be doomed to failure in the Legislature if Utah's business community doesn't support vouchers. Clark's comment came during an August committee meeting on the health proposal.
That's political extortion at its worst, if it's accurate -- and there's reason to believe it is, since Clark didn't deny having made the statement when questioned by the newspaper's reporter.
Lawmakers like Clark who voted for vouchers have a lot riding on the referendum's success. If it's defeated Nov. 6, they'll not only be embarrassed that their campaign failed, but it will be a direct public rebuke of their philosophy regarding public and private education.
More to the point, though, attaching the success of vouchers to the opportunity for progress on health care reform in Utah is offensive. One has nothing to do with the other -- outside the world of petty politics. If other voucher-supporting lawmakers agree with Clark, they would sink low enough to hold health care reform hostage because business leaders have not, as lawmakers view the situation, sufficiently supported vouchers.
This is no small thing. Under the auspices of the United Way of Salt Lake, elected officials, business leaders and health care experts from up and down the Wasatch Front have pooled their expertise to craft a proposal they hope will come before the Legislature in 2008. Among other issues like housing, income and financial education, a subcommittee of the group has tackled a universal health-insurance plan that individual Utahns and companies could participate in on a voluntary basis. Its details have not yet been finalized, but it promises to be a good basis for discussion about how to provide affordable, improved health care to all Utahns who want to be involved.
We believe both issues -- vouchers and health care reform -- are too important to fall victim to political gamesmanship. Each should survive or perish on its own merits.
Neither business interests nor voters should be cowed into backing vouchers for reasons unrelated to improving the quality of education in Utah.
That's something to remember when you go to the polls Nov. 6.
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