SENATE BILL: Power to Parents Act (Failed)

[Redalgo]

Would this bill not severely undermine efforts to racially diversify educational environs in a sizable number of districts, result in overcrowding the best schools, and eventually siphon funding away from the schools struggling the most (thus being least attractive to parents) to improve their levels of performance? I am a bit concerned about these things. What are your thoughts, Clarence? Is there a way to circumvent these issues? Or might they not be a priority?

[Redalgo]

I find Clarence's response to be persuasive, and am willing to go along with his plan and see what happens provided the incentive is dropped, the mandate reinstated, and the billion dollars we are going to spend on School Choice Transportation Assistance doesn't come from the Go Green Fund.

Benefits for the regions with strings attached is a serious pet peeve of mine. I consider it corrupt. Either tell the regions they need to do it or recommend it to them without cash to sweeten the deal and pervert their motivations for participation. That being said, if the President vetoes on the grounds of federalist concerns I will not vote to overrule - as his is a stance I sympathize with to some extent.

[Redalgo]

It could promote a political culture in which local bureaucrats are tempted to do whatever will promise them more federal funding, perhaps to the detriment of staying true to their core responsibility in office of serving local communities as best they know how. If the desire here is to experiment and compare, why not begin with some sort of pilot program and then decide whether to proceed on a large scale based on the results?

[Redalgo]

I still don't see how this would harm the leaders' ability to serve their local communities.  If they do not believe it is the right policy and that more harm than good would come from law, even with the funds, then they can refuse to apply for them.  We could also, perhaps through another amendment, ensure that the funds are designated toward restructuring the schools themselves and not used in a way that benefits someone at the expense of the schools.

Schools oftentimes don't receive as many local and regional resources as they feel they need, which creates an incentive for some administrators to accept sources of federal funding - even if the policies attached are considered bad. I'm willing to work with you on this if everyone is willing to agree that the funding ought to be appraised on a school-by-school basis and strictly limited to expenditures on completing the conversion necessitated under this policy. Otherwise I feel obliged to stand by my previous post.

[Redalgo]

I object to this amendment.

[Redalgo]

I would not object if the funding were allocated to schools according to the appraised costs of implementing the policy, and the federal money given via this act would be restricted in its use solely for purposes related to the policy's implementation.

[Redalgo]

Absolutely - you have my support, in addition to my gratitude for your cooperation.

[Redalgo]

Redalgo, is you objection withdrawn should Clarence's amendment pass?

Not yet. The terms discussed with Clarence were not adequately incorporated into the text for the amendment. I took the liberty of addressing a couple other emerging concerns of mine. Once I get feedback from Clarence and Scott we can figure out what to do from there, but I'm not yet on-board with the bill as it presently stands. I am confident however that we will eventually reach a settlement that will give us enough votes for a veto override.

I was thinking something along the lines of this:

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For the record, Senator Clarence has compromised quite a bit thus far and I am open to doing the same once I've received his feedback on this, in addition to the concerns of others here.

Edit: Incidentally, I am willing to split part of the cost with the Go Green Fund if these buses in question are either constructed or modified to operate under the power of (and can readily access fuel supplies of) natural gas, biofuel (provided it gives off less air pollution than natural gas), or sets of rechargeable batteries. Mass transit is clean but I reckon it could and should be cleaner.

[Redalgo]

I was simply going to have it come out of the planned budget surplus. If you would like to discuss options for where to cut some amount of spending to offset that, however, that's okay too. I just assumed that cutting a billion dollars into a ten billion dollar item would seriously jeopardize the success of several other transportation programs for which the details are unbeknownst to me.

[Redalgo]

I have done nothing but try to present my point of view in good faith. To be blunt I am a bit aggravated that I am expected to double duty as President and Senator. This body used to be a place where ideas were debated on their merits and from what I hear here I get the impression that we are doling out Ayes for effort which I find disturbing.

Nobody expects you to be both a President and Senator, and to be fair I try to look for flaws in legislation, and object to them insofar as I (a.) care about the issues at hand, (b.) know about the issues at hand, and (c.) am not letting any legislation which offends my conscience pass through the Senate unopposed. On this particular piece of legislation I don’t much care about where children go to school and am thus inclined to let Clarence have what he wants within reason, know next to nothing about busing children - again making me feel inclined to defer to others’ judgments (researching the matter is a waste of my valuable, finite resource of time given what I perceive to be this bill’s low levels of impact and personal importance), and within the scope of what I already knew earlier on there were no consequences to this legislation that appeared to be morally objectionable (well, at least at the point we would have been at after implementing the amendment(s)). Now I have become relatively uncertain about what this legislation will accomplish again.

As semi-helpful as it is that you welcomed yourself onto the floor to speak on the matter, if the relatively inactive half of the Senate were willing to speak up more frequently maybe  concerns such as those you have expressed would have already been aired by now. Your arguments make me curious to see where this discussion carries on to, and has at least temporarily drawn me back into the camp of opposition, but so long as the atmosphere for debate here is toxic I have no interest in wading into the fray and jeopardizing the continued pleasantness of my splendid summer evening. I am willing to hear out anything folks have to say here, but will not suffer dramatic shenanigans and heated rhetoric over this kind of stuff.

Aside from that, as an afterthought, what does the Senate think of re-purposing the bill to allow parents to have their children attend public schools of their choices provided that it is the parent - not school district(s) involved - who are left to be wholly responsible for transporting their child or children? This would circumvent the cost of taking buses out of their usual ways, would it not? Does anybody else have ideas to bounce off of the President now that he has become firmly embedded in the fabric that is this discussion?

[Redalgo]

I am formally withdrawing my objection, though it seems quite clear to me that further amending is required if this bill is to ultimately get anywhere.

[Redalgo]

I am formally withdrawing my objection, though it seems quite clear to me that further amending is required if this bill is to ultimately get anywhere.

...
 
Also, considering that there current breakdown of the amendment tracker, is 8 by Scott, 3 by me and one by Clarence, it might better not to make it look like Scott has become an unofficial ombudsmen of the Senate. He might start demanding better pay and a larger office. Don't get me wrong, he is amending at a reasonable pace, it is that everyone else sucks at it.

I may try to start offering amendments at some point but I am completely inexperienced with them, easily forget the associated procedures, usually am unclear on what people want until it is either too late or an amendment or two has already been proposed and needs dealing with, and such. In my first term some of this stuff is still fairly confusing to me. xD

[Redalgo]

Given what I've read here over the past few days I now... er... agree with Napoleon?

Edit: Ah, nevermind. I misread it after all.

[Redalgo]

Ya - I don't recall when he is getting back though.

[Redalgo]

From what I have read, I'm now inclined to oppose the bill in any of its proposed forms. No ideas come to mind on how to salvage the provisions so that its overall impact is suitably positive. Sorry. D:

[Redalgo]

Nay

[Redalgo]

Nay