Lobbyists

I don't know exactly when it began, but it was around 1990. Bills began to be proposed to the Utah Legislature to give students vouchers to attend private schools. My wife at that time was a schoolteacher in one of the less prosperous areas of Orem Utah and she was greatly opposed to the program. Her main objection was that if public tax money was given to private schools they would take only the better students and would not be willing to take the students who manifested problems at school. This would leave the public schools with the responsibility of teaching all the problem students.

I began thinking about this when in the recent political campaign in New York Times brought up some allegations against John McCain. In essence, he was accused of giving favor, for whatever reason to a certain lobbyist.

I don't know whether he was guilty or not, but I do know that lobbyists have too much influence over the legislation that is passed and the various regulations that are made.

In Utah lobbyists began to influence individual legislators to vote for a bill to give Voucher's to students who wanted to attend private schools. They didn't have much success at first but every two years they convinced more individual legislators to support their position.

These voucher bills were brought up to the legislature in every session until finally in 2006 such a bill was passed. This was not easily accepted by the teachers in the public schools and they quickly organized and got enough signatures on a petition to put a referendum on the ballot which in essence would nullify the voucher bill.

This became the most hotly contested issue in my memory, at least on the state level. I understand that more money was spent trying to influence the voters on this issue than was spent in the last governor's election for the state. I could hardly turn on the television without seeing in an ad either for vouchers or against them. The so-called facts both for and against the program were either exaggerated or were false. I will admit that I was influenced by my wife's arguments but also by many other factors.

The pro-voucher forces pointed out or at least stated that giving vouchers to private students to attend private schools would not take away funds from the public schools. These funds were to come from a different pot of money than that which was dedicated to public schools. It seems to me that it doesn't matter what pocket the money comes from, there is only so much in the public trough and it all comes from taxes.

The pro-voucher forces also pointed out the tax money often goes to private enterprises such as those who build roads and bridges and buildings for the government. They did not point out however that some of the roads bridges and buildings that are built for the government are crappy. I was a state employee for 27 years and during that time worked in five or six different buildings. The best one was a privately built building in which we rented space. The other buildings turned out to be fairly poorly built, I assume because the state didn't have much oversight in the building. If public money is spent on schools I think the government needs to have more oversight on what happens in the private schools that this bill provides. Of course they also need more oversight on the building of bridges roads and buildings, or anything else that the government pays for.

Where does the money come from? The election where this voucher program was rejected took place on November 6, 2007. One of the television stations calculated that $11 was spent on each vote supporting the voucher program and seven dollars was spent for each vote opposing the program. As I drive around the county today I see many buildings with signs indicating they are private schools but there doesn't seem to be much activity around them. On the Saturday before the election I received in my mail three mailings asking me to support vouchers and during the several weeks prior to the election I had numerous phone calls trying to get me to vote for them.

The religious issue is one we cannot really ignore. The largest private schools in our state are run by churches and they obviously educate with the biases of their various religions. I do not believe the state should be involved in such education. I do not intend to knock any religion but I think if they want to provide a religious education they should pay for it and not the taxpayers.

I think the point that I really want to make is that lobbyists have too much influence and they do not really reflect the will of the voters. I don't know what can be done about it, probably nothing. I do feel sorry for the investors who have spent so much money building private schools. Yet I feel that they will spend more money yet hiring more lobbyists to try to influence the legislature to do those things which do not reflect the will of the majority of voters. In a few years the will of the people as reflected by this referendum will be forgotten and a new school voucher bill may be passed. Too bad, so sad.