Democrats’ Scheme in Mississippi Fails
This push was an elaborate scheme, dressed up as “fairness,” to transfer control of education funding from the legislature to the courts.
The left will argue that if schools were fully funded, the issue would never go to the courts. Yet the practical effect of this proposal would be to provoke a court fight — to govern by lawsuit.
Mississippi’s Initiative 42 was horribly skewed to the left, and its proponents were flush with money. One national teachers’ union produced a slick ad campaign that appeared weeks before the opposition’s began. Polling language showed that if people didn’t read the ballot initiative carefully, the opposition — led by Republicans — got killed.
The Democrats’ pitch was that politicians never provide enough money for schools, so voters should approve the initiative and they would receive more education funding. Republicans made a simple but important case: The initiative would not produce more money for schools, just more power for a judge.
Real Clear Politics
11/8/15
