They're baaack! Vouchers revived in the Senate

[Ian David]

They're baaack! Vouchers revived in the Senate
Secular Coalition for America
<[e-mail]>to Proglists
4:23 pm (17 minutes ago)

December 15, 2005
They're baaack! Vouchers revived in the Senate
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Dear Secular Coalition activist,



They’re baaack! Vouchers have been revived in the U.S. Senate.



After initial victories against public funds going to private religious schools, the Senate may attach voucher legislation to an emergency supplemental bill tomorrow or Saturday (Dec. 16 or 17). Again, the private school funding is proposed under the guise of dealing only with the emergency situation caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, one member of the voucher advocacy group Alliance for School Choice overplayed his hand, according to the Nov. 19 issue of National Journal: "'Once the precedent is established that private schools can be part of an education relief package when there is a crisis, all that remains is to demonstrate that the New Orleans public schools were in crisis long before the hurricane hit, and most other urban school districts are in serious crisis as well,' Bolick said."



The voucher language is expected to appear in the Senate Appropriations Committee in the next couple of days. The following Senators serve on that committee: Cochran (MS), Stevens (AK), Specter (PA), Domenici (NM), Bond (MO), McConnell (KY), Burns (MT), Shelby (AL), Gregg (NH), Bennett (UT), Craig (ID), Hutchison (TX), DeWine (OH), Brownback (KS), Allard (CO), Byrd (WV), Inouye (HI), Leahy (VT), Harkin (IA), Mikulski (MD), Reid (NV), Kohl (WI), Murray (WA), Dorgan (ND), Feinstein (CA), Durbin (IL), Johnson (SD), Landrieu (LA).



If one of these Senators represents your state, please call and express objection to sending federal dollars to private religious schools in the emergency supplemental bill; or in any other procedural maneuver.



Visit our website at http://www.secular.org/vouchers05.html for more complete background on these voucher attempts. You'll also find links for contacting your Senators.



Best regards,

Lori Lipman Brown

Director/Lobbyist

The Secular Coalition for America
http://secular.org

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The Secular Coalition for America is the nation's first and only lobbying organization for nontheists. Our mission is to increase the visibility and respectability of nontheistic viewpoints within the larger culture and to protect and strengthen secular government as the best guarantee of freedom for all.

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[CatholicEdHead]

1. This and the rest of the usual material

will keep coming back again and again until they get it through.