GOP Dealt Twin Defeats in Congress on Education Bills

Congressional Republicans suffered a double defeat on education reform Tuesday, rebuffed in the House on a plan to give private school vouchers to low-income families and in the Senate on a proposal to create tax-sheltered savings accounts that also can be used for private school tuition.

The twin setbacks came as the GOP was scrambling to put a Republican stamp on national education reform, an issue largely dominated by Democrats that polls have shown is surging toward the top of voters’ concerns.

The defeat in the Senate had been expected, but the House vote came as a surprise. House Speaker Newt Gingrich had been counting on the vote as a symbolic statement of Republican resolve on the issue, even if the bill’s chances of becoming law were small in the face of uncertain Senate sentiment and a certain veto by President Clinton.

In a rebuke to Gingrich, 35 Republicans joined 192 Democrats and one independent to kill the school voucher plan, 228 to 191. Only four Democrats voted with the 187 Republicans for the plan.

When the final vote was announced, a roar swept the Democratic side of the House chamber.

Earlier in the day in the Senate, the GOP’s education-related savings account program died a quieter death. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) shelved for the year a bill that would have let Americans create tax-sheltered savings accounts to pay for an array of educational expenses, including private school tuition, transportation, tutoring, uniforms and computers.

Lott took the action after failing--for the fourth time in recent days--to get the requisite 60 votes to cut off a Democratic filibuster against the proposal.

A House-Senate conference committee, meanwhile, remained deadlocked Tuesday over President Clinton’s plan to develop national math and reading tests for all schoolchildren.

The partisan skirmishing over education policy comes as Congress is preparing to adjourn for the year and members are jockeying for advantage on a cutting-edge campaign issue for 1998.

“Education is the critical issue of this Congress,” said Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.), who parted company with his fellow Democrats to co-sponsor the sidetracked Senate bill on tax-sheltered savings accounts.

The defeated House bill, known as “Help Empower Low-Income Parents” (HELP) scholarships, would have allowed states to tap into an existing $310-million-a-year pool of federal funds to provide vouchers to families with incomes at or below 185% of the federal poverty level (the poverty level is $16,050 a year for a family of four and $10,610 for a family of two).

Under existing law, the federal money is used for instructional materials, library books, curricula development, magnet schools, dropout assistance, literacy programs and general reform activities.

Republicans promoted vouchers as a means of providing parents in impoverished neighborhoods with a choice of where to send their children. They contended that the resulting competition would improve all schools--public, private and parochial.

Opponents said that the bill would allow tax dollars to finance private and religious education and thus violate the constitutional doctrine of church-state separation. They also argued that vouchers would further drain funds from public schools.

Among the few Democrats to champion the HELP “scholarships” was Rep. Floyd H. Flake of New York. He said that he backed the program because “it gives students in poor communities that are underserved by the public education system the opportunity to escape the schools that have failed to educate them.”

Rep. James M. Talent (R-Mo.) agreed. “Thousands of low-income students are trapped in schools where they don’t learn, where they aren’t safe and where no one with money would ever send their children,” he said. “We have lost generations of students to our inner-city public schools. We can’t write off another.”

“Good schools should not feel threatened by what we’re doing,” said Rep. J. C. Watts (R-Okla.).

But the bill’s opponents argued otherwise. Rep. Matthew G. Martinez (D-Monterey Park) said that the measure would “leave our public schools in ruin.”

“This is an attack on the public school system. There’s no doubt about that,” added Rep. W. G. “Bill” Hefner (D-N.C.).

The Senate proposal on savings accounts shelved by Lott was approved by the House last month on a 230-198 vote, largely along party lines. Detractors, including the Clinton administration, denounced it as “bad education policy and bad tax policy” and a GOP giveaway to the wealthy that would deprive the federal government of millions of dollars in taxes.

The bill would allow families, relatives, companies and charities to set up and contribute to “education savings accounts,” using after-tax dollars. Withdrawals and the earned interest would not be taxed.

According to Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation, more than 70% of the tax savings would go to families making $75,000 or less.

Lott vowed to bring up the measure next year.

Still another initiative due for consideration this week in the Senate is a House-passed voucher program giving 2,000 low-income families in the District of Columbia the option of sending their children to private schools.

Times staff writer Sam Fulwood III contributed to this story.