Weak Non-Reformer

IT would be something of an understatement to say that the Bush education-reform program is distressing Hill conservatives. When House Republicans met on May 2 to be briefed on the details of the latest compromise, Rep. Jim DeMint from South Carolina ruefully summed up the feelings of a good number of his colleagues: “When the president talked about reform, we didn’t realize he intended to ‘Leave No Democrats Behind.’”

Later that morning, DeMint attended a meeting of the House Education and the Workforce Committee to consider the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.” The first order of business in the small hearing room packed with lobbyists and administration officials was to consider a Democratic amendment to eliminate a modest private-school- choice provision from Chairman John Boehner’s version of the bill. The amendment was adopted—with the support of five Republicans as well as the committee’s 22 Democrats. The Democrats had removed the final obstacle to their support for the bill— as H.R. 1 was stripped of the only remaining reform conservatives felt could justify their support of a plan the Heritage Foundation was now dubbing “an expensive version of the status quo.”

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Kate O'Beirne

IT would be something of an understatement to say that the Bush education-reform program is distressing Hill conservatives. When House Republicans met on May 2 to be briefed on the details of the latest compromise, Rep. Jim DeMint from South Carolina ruefully summed up the feelings of a good number of his colleagues: “When the president talked about reform, we didn’t realize he intended to ‘Leave No Democrats Behind.’”

Later that morning, DeMint attended a meeting of the House Education and the Workforce Committee to consider the “No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.” The first order of business in the small hearing room packed with lobbyists and administration officials was to consider a Democratic amendment to eliminate a modest private-school- choice provision from Chairman John Boehner’s version of the bill. The amendment was adopted—with the support of five Republicans as well as the committee’s 22 Democrats. The Democrats had removed the final obstacle to their support for the bill— as H.R. 1 was stripped of the only remaining reform conservatives felt could justify their support of a plan the Heritage Foundation was now dubbing “an expensive version of the status quo.”