Concerning that bill to help fund future busing!

WEDNESDAY, JULY 3, 2019

Campaign cons voters again! Yesterday, we cited an exciting possibility:

According to the Washington Post, the Harris campaign seemed to be saying that Candidate Harris does support mandated busing as a way to fight "segregation" in our public schools.

We suggested that this might turn out to be a certain campaign's latest con. That said, the passage in question was this:

VISER AND LINSKEY (7/2/19): Harris’s debate thrust put Democratic candidates in a position they have not experienced for decades—having to contemplate a position on busing. Harris on Sunday said that she still supports busing and sees a modern-day use for it.

“The schools of America are as segregated, if not more segregated, today than when I was in elementary school,” she told reporters in San Francisco on Sunday. “And we need to put every effort, including busing, into play to desegregate the schools. . . . There’s no such thing as separate but equal, and so busing is one of the ways by which we create desegregation and we make it more equal.”

Harris’s campaign on Monday said that she supported federal resources for busing and cited legislation from Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio). That legislation would authorize $120 million for a variety of purposes, including one to expand school busing services.

In a public statement, Harris said that she still supports busing to "desegregate" schools. According to Viser and Linskey, her campaign cited the (rather puny) Murphy-Fudge bill as evidence of that fact.

Has any other Democratic campaign ever conned us liberal voters on such a regular basis? When we scrambled to peruse the Murphy-Fudge bill, we found that its press release had started off like this:

MURPHY, FUDGE INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO INCREASE DIVERSITY IN SCHOOLS

Thursday, September 6, 2018:
WASHINGTON–U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge (Ohio-11), a member of the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce, on Thursday introduced the Strength in Diversity Act, legislation to promote diversity in schools. Specifically, the legislation authorizes $120 million in grants to support new and expand existing voluntary community-driven strategies to increase diversity in schools.

The word "voluntary" was sitting right there, right in the opening paragraph! Way back when, it was mandated busing which Biden opposed, with Bernie Sanders (and quite a few others) not too far behind.

The Murphy-Fudge bill is known as the "Strength in Diversity Act." Eventually, the press release listed the various measures its rather limited funds could be used to support:

Specifically, the Strength in Diversity Act:

Authorizes $120 million to provide planning and implementation grants to support voluntary local efforts to increase socioeconomic diversity in schools. Grants could fund a range of proposals, including (but not limited to):

Studying segregation, evaluating current policies, and developing evidence-based plans to address socioeconomic and racial isolation

Establishing public school choice zones, revising school boundaries, or expanding bussing [sic] service

Creating or expanding innovative school programs that can attract students from outside the local area

Recruiting, hiring, and training new teachers to support specialized schools

Supports school districts, independently or in collaboration with neighboring districts, as well as regional educational authorities and educational service agencies.

Once again, Murphy and Fudge stressed the fact that the bill would fund voluntary efforts. Except for its puny level of funding, there's certainly nothing wrong with this bill. But this bill has nothing to do with the kinds of mandated busing programs Biden opposed long ago.

This bill wouldn't fund the kinds of programs Biden opposed long ago. Just a guess—the types of "bussing service" this bill would help fund would be the kinds of busing a district might provide to help kids travel out of their home neighborhoods to attend highly diverse magnet schools.

Such busing services help enable "public school choice" and the revision of pre-existing, narrow school boundaries.

When we read the Washington Post, we assumed that statement by the Harris campaign would turn out to be its latest con. Viser and Linskey should have noted the obvious problem with the misleading thing they'd been told.

Support for this bill doesn't contradict anything Biden ever said, even back in 1974, which was a long time ago. Has any Democratic campaign ever been this consistent in its repetitive cons?

For whatever it's worth: Sanders was listed in the press release as one of the bill's three co-sponsors, along with Elizabeth Warren. Harris may support this innocuous bill, but she wasn't so identified.

For ourselves, we're sick to death of these kinds of cons. "We humans were always wired this way," despondent top experts have told us.