The Waltons don’t give up easily. That 44-52 House defeat of an expansion of the Arkansas school voucher program didn’t end the matter this session.
Doubt me? Check the Facebook pages of Laurie Lee and Gary Newton, lobbyists well-oiled over the years by Walton and other fat cat money ($250,000 a year in Newton’s case), who are raging on.
Laurie Lee, the old Fayetteville school library book banner, wants to blame the “teachers union” and greedy superintendents. Never mind that there isn’t a functioning teachers union local in Arkansas. Newton is encouraging home schoolers and private schoolers to register for public schools to show what a benefit these students are to the state budget by NOT attending public schools.
Money continues to talk, in other words. Some of the targeted 12 Republican legislators aren’t too happy about being singled out for abuse. Rep. Joe Jett, the former Democrat, is one.
A note to all businesses, groups or entities. If you hire a lobbyist or consultants that outright lies about members of the house or maliciously attacks them in social media , I will never support any of your efforts.
— Joe Jett (@joe_jett) March 19, 2021
Jett is talking about Lee. He tweeted earlier in response to her criticism:
This is just not true. I never promised anyone my vote for HB1371. I promised I would keep an open mind during discussion. I would expect better out of a consultant. https://t.co/GdfrGmIit1
— Joe Jett (@joe_jett) March 18, 2021
Expect better out of the billionaires’ mouthpieces? Joe Jett is smarter than that.
The way this “scholarship” scam works is that rich people get a direct tax credit for every dollar they put into the fund to pay for private school vouchers. They get to pay tax only to support private school vouchers. Those who don’t choose this public school-damaging path pay for ALL state services with our income tax dollars. It would be as if I got the legislature to set up a fund to pay for abortions financed by dollar-for-dollar tax credits for taxpayers.
FYI: The following figures haven’t been updated, but some past research about the Billionaire Boys Club by the AEA, which mirrored some of my own past work, is useful to understand the voucher network:
Another notable consulting firm the non-profit Arkansas for Education Reform has hired is Trace Strategies. Trace Strategies, owned and operated by lobbyist Laurie Lee, received $205,756 dollars from Arkansans for Education Reform in 2016, according to the organization’s tax documents.
Lee is also the registered principal officer and Chairman of the Board of The Reform Alliance. The Reform Alliance is a registered non-profit which manages Arkansas’s voucher program, the “Succeed Scholarship.”
In 2017, Walton Family Foundation gave the Reform Alliance a nearly $1.5 million grant. The Reform Alliance then paid Lee’s company Trace Strategies $180,000 for “Campaign Advisory” services. It should be noted that Lee’s daughter also works at The Reform Alliance, and the nonprofit’s principal address is listed as Lee’s home on the Arkansas secretary of state’s website.
The Reform Alliance also receives a percentage of the taxpayer dollars it manages for administration. The Reform Alliance also lobbies for pro privatization legislation, and the “Succeed Scholarship.” [Like right now.] This voucher program has been expanded every year since it was first created. In the 2019 Legislative Session, the funding was doubled to $3 million dollars, despite lawmakers acknowledging there is no way to determine if the students participating in the program are receiving a quality education. Lawmakers also passed a bill to study the program, but elected to increase in the amount of public tax dollars that can be spent on the program by $1.5 million before the study could begin. The Governor has since approved $1.8 million in funding for the program, and is expected to fully fund the $3 million appropriation. To be clear, this means the state is handing millions of your tax dollars to a nonprofit with no transparency and which hired its own chairperson as a contractor.
Lee and Newton want $4 million more this year, to pay for 600 more private school vouchers (who decides who gets them? Laurie’s outfit. Are the schools accountable? Not by state standards.) and the legislation allows the fund to rise 25 percent a year. In 10 years, with 25 percent compounding, the fund would grow to $37 million. I bet Joe Jett understands compound interest. Rep. David Tollett, a Republican school superintendent from Lexa certainly did in his impassioned speech against this billionaires’ dream legislation.