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Vouchers loss tough and ironic for Bush

By STEVE BOUSQUET
Published January 7, 2006

Jeb Bush hates to lose.

Imagine how he felt losing the school voucher battle to the teachers union that has fought him every step of the way since he first ran for governor in 1994.

Bush lost the legal fight Thursday when the Florida Supreme Court ruled vouchers unconstitutional, just as the union and its allies predicted seven years ago.

In the end, the case known as Jeb Bush vs. Ruth Holmes came down to a basic conflict between Bush's idea of spending public money to send children to private schools, and a state constitutional requirement for a "uniform" and "high quality system of free public schools."

Florida voters put that language in the Constitution in 1998.

The ink was barely dry on the voucher law when the unions and their allies marched into court and filed lawsuits the following summer. They argued that the Constitution prohibits diversion of public money to private schools, the same argument five of the seven justices embraced Thursday.

In the wake of the Supreme Court's smackdown, a new political struggle begins. In his final year in office, Bush and his allies will try to resuscitate vouchers, while the men seeking to succeed Bush will stake out starkly different positions on the question.

The victorious union attorney, Ron Meyer, speculated about the tactics Bush and the Republican Legislature might try.

"I'm sure we will see efforts made to figure out ways around this, whether they're devious plans or other kinds of plans," Meyer said.

From the start, the voucher battle has been deeply rooted in partisanship. It pitted a strong-willed Republican governor with a starkly different view of education's future against a union tethered to the Democratic Party and the political past.

The party, and the union, were left out in the cold after the Republicans completed a rise to power following Bush's victory in 1998.

Bush held the unions responsible for chronic mediocrity in Florida schools, and he accused union leaders of using scare tactics on their own members. The union said Bush was aiming to dismantle public education at a time when teachers felt demoralized and were struggling with overcrowded classes and low pay. (Bush and legislators cut taxes by $1-billion the year vouchers became law.)

Nothing quite crystallized the powerlessness of the union and the party as that 1999 session. Bush steamrolled his A-plus plan, with vouchers as the most controversial part, through a compliant Legislature (though a few Senate moderates, such as Jim King of Jacksonville and Don Sullivan of Seminole, raised warning flags).

Over the years, the political battle grew increasingly personal. Union leaders such as Pat Tornillo said teachers felt "beaten up" by Republicans. GOP lawmakers sought to curb the union's influence, at one point making it harder for the union to collect dues from teachers' paychecks.

The Bush-union battle reached its zenith in the 2002 race for governor, when the teachers union largely directed the campaign of Democrat Bill McBride of Tampa, who opposed vouchers.

When the union ran a pro-McBride TV ad, the Republicans filed a complaint charging the spot amounted to an illegal donation. The case was settled two months ago with no penalties.

After learning of the court defeat, arguably the biggest setback of his seven years in office, Bush was stoic. He said he never saw the fight in personal terms.

"I believe in the power of ideas, and I believe in what I believe," Bush said. "Many teachers agree with our approach. The union leadership has not. I don't take it personally at all. Not at all."

And for pure irony, there it was on Page 66, the last page of the Supreme Court's ruling, in the list of lawyers who filed friend-of-the-court briefs on behalf of the union and its allies: "Bill McBride, Tampa, Florida, on behalf of the National PTA," among others.

"I was not surprised," McBride said Friday. "From a lawyer's perspective, it has always been clear to me that the best read of the Florida Constitution would prevent vouchers in the form that they've been pushed by Gov. Bush."

Steve Bousquet is the capital bureau chief of the Times.

[Last modified January 7, 2006, 01:12:01]