WEREN'T VOUCHERS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE PRESIDENT'S WORST DEFEATS?:

House Approves a Voucher Plan for Poor Washington Students (THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, September 6, 2003)

The House narrowly approved private-school vouchers for poor Washington students today, recharging a debate that has implications beyond the capital.

Under the House plan, passed on a vote of 205 to 203, the federal government would for the first time put aside public money for students to get private schooling. A similar measure for Washington students is making headway in the Senate, where it has the support of not only the Republican majority but also some Democrats, and President Bush has championed the idea. [...]

Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's nonvoting delegate to Congress, said Washington residents did not want to be the subject of a national experiment.

"If you vote for vouchers," Ms. Norton said, "you will send a signal to every private school in the country, to every organization of private schools, that this is the time to bring pressure to get the same private-school deal that the District of Columbia got."

Representative Danny K. Davis, Democrat of Illinois, said: "It's D.C. today. It's Chicago tomorrow, St. Louis, New Orleans, Los Angeles next week, then it's all of America."

The message, Mr. Davis said, "goes far beyond Washington, D.C."

But an amendment by Ms. Norton to strike the $10 million choice provision died on a 203-to-203 vote.

That's strange, Ms Norton's own mayor--the leader of the District--favors the plan.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 6, 2003 7:19 AM