The PA Freedom Caucus fought the “Education Establishment” at all levels this past week – both at the K-12 level and in higher education.
First, at the K-12 level. Democrat Josh Shapiro was just elected governor of the Keystone State last year and he obviously has ambitions to run for president in the future. But unlike most Democrats of his stature, he actually ran on the promise of expanding school choice in PA, reiterating that position several times in his first 100 days in office.
Recently, the Republican-controlled state senate passed a budget that includes a $100M appropriation for school vouchers and scholarships that primarily gives expanded educational opportunities to lower-income children. The only problem is that the Democrat-controlled state house refused to vote for it despite constant pressure from our Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus.
Instead of using his bully pulpit to support school choice as he promised to voters, Josh Shapiro decided to cave to his party and the teachers’ unions and announced he would line-item veto the appropriation, denying thousands of Pennsylvania’s children the chance at a better future.
It’s a “read my lips” type of broken campaign promise and it didn’t happen by accident. Teachers’ Unions donated $775K to Gov. Shapiro, nearly $120K to the House Democrats Campaign Committee, a $123.5K check to Democrat House Speaker Joanna McClinton, as well as five figure checks to other House Dem leaders. They are getting exactly what they paid for.
Oh yeah, and Gov. Shapiro sends his kids to a $30K-per-year private school. Choice for him but not low-income families in the commonwealth.
Read this Twitter thread from State Freedom Caucus Network Comms Director Greg Price for more info (it currently has over 1.4 million views).
Second, the PA Freedom Caucus is also fighting the woke liberals running Penn State, Temple, and Pitt University. Several weeks ago, the PAFC announced that it would oppose funding for these schools if their medical centers continued to support transgender services for minors.
Thanks to the PAFC’s efforts, the scope of the fight has expanded. Now lawmakers want to know why these universities are exempt from the state’s open record transparency laws. Why do these schools keep raising tuition when taxpayer funding is given specifically so tuition isn’t raised?
The universities have arrogantly decided to dismiss all of these commonsense concerns. They are hoping the Democrats, using blunt force, can just push their funding bill through. But the PAFC-led coalition of state lawmakers have BLOCKED the funding proposal. Not once or twice, but three times.
We are now in the stage of battle where things will get nasty. Democrats will try to pick lawmakers off of the opposition. They will likely use procedural tactics to jam their agenda through. They will do whatever it takes to pass the funding bill…anything except telling the universities to accept much-needed reforms. One thing is for certain though…the PA Freedom Caucus isn’t going to buckle. Stay tuned for more as this story develops.
South Dakota
We’ve written extensively about the eminent domain fight in South Dakota. A company with ties to China wants to seize the property of landowners for a carbon capture pipeline so that ethanol plants in Iowa can improve their ESG scores.
The SD Freedom Caucus has been at the forefront of this fight. They have publicly demanded that Gov. Kristi Noem call a special session of the legislature to protect these landowners.
Just yesterday, the SD Freedom Caucus was part of a massive rally at the state capitol in which several lawmakers and landowners spoke in opposition to the proposed pipeline. They collected over 2,000 signatures for a petition calling on Noem to announce a special session. And they personally delivered them to her office.
The SDFC will continue the fight to protect the property rights of their constituents.
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Keep fighting,
Andy Roth
President
State Freedom Caucus Network
P.S. Your help is critical in building out a network of patriots and freedom fighters throughout our nation’s state capitols and in your home state. Please consider a contribution and join us as we work to advance the cause of liberty.
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