D.C. School Voucher Bill Passes in House by 1 Vote
Grant Plan for at Least 1,300 Students Goes to Senate

By Spencer S. Hsu and Justin Blum
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 10, 2003; Page A01

The House of Representatives approved the nation's first federally funded voucher program by a single vote last night, sending the Senate a plan that would provide $10 million in private school tuition grants to at least 1,300 D.C. children next year.

The five-year pilot program won final passage on a nearly party-line vote of 209 to 208, after angry complaints from Democrats about the tactics of the House GOP majority.

House Republican leaders scheduled the vote to begin after 8 p.m., coinciding with a debate among Democratic presidential candidates in Baltimore that several House members who oppose vouchers -- including debate participants Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) -- had planned to attend.

Republicans then held open the vote for roughly 40 minutes in a frantic effort to round up the last votes needed to overcome anti-voucher forces. They prevailed at last when Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.), who had voted against the voucher plan on the House floor last week, cast a "yes" vote on the measure, breaking a 208 to 208 tie.

Fletcher said in a statement that he switched sides after the bill's sponsors agreed to negotiate with the Senate to make the vouchers available only to low-income children who are "trapped in a failing school." The current version of the bill says that preference will be given to children from low-performing public schools.

Under the legislation, children in families earning up to 185 percent of the poverty limit, or $34,000 for a family of four, would be eligible for taxpayer-funded "opportunity scholarships" of up to $7,500 per student.

Supporters argued that the program would free several hundred children from a failing, 68,000-student D.C. public school system and, through competitive pressure, force reforms on a powerful teachers union and an indifferent education bureaucracy.