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The House of Representatives approved the nation’s first federally funded voucher program by a single vote last night, sending the Senate a plan that would provide $10 million in private school tuition grants to at least 1,300 D.C. children next year.
The five-year pilot program won final passage on a nearly party-line vote of 209 to 208, after angry complaints from Democrats about the tactics of the House GOP majority.
House Republican leaders scheduled the vote to begin after 8 p.m., coinciding with a debate among Democratic presidential candidates in Baltimore that several House members who oppose vouchers — including debate participants Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) and Dennis J. Kucinich (Ohio) — had planned to attend.
Republicans then held open the vote for roughly 40 minutes in a frantic effort to round up the last votes needed to overcome anti-voucher forces. They prevailed at last when Rep. Ernie Fletcher (R-Ky.), who had voted against the voucher plan on the House floor last week, cast a “yes” vote on the measure, breaking a 208 to 208 tie.
According to this WP article, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a voucher opponent who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, which sponsored the debate, also missed the vote.
Pathetic that the Republicans scheduled this to create a conflict with the debate. Kucinich, Gephardt and Cummings made the wrong choice, in my opinion.
I caught most of that debate on C-Span today. The LaRouche protestors really infuriated Lieberman, eh? Not surprising. He impresses me as a button-down kind of guy. Now I know he has a short-temper as well.