Tim Scott: “Considering this as legislation that will give parents the right to select a private school of their choice is an…”

“Considering this as legislation that will give parents the right to select a private school of their choice is an absolute distortion. It will give a select, privileged few an opportunity to select the school of their choice if they can afford the difference between what the voucher is and the cost of the education. Furthermore, Mr. Speaker, we talk about the polls that show support. What we ought to do is look at the referendums that have been taken across the country where people have had an opportunity to reflect for an entire campaign and get educated about the idea, not just a knee-jerk reaction to a poll. When we look at the referenda when people go to the polls and vote, these ideas are rejected by margins of approximately 3 to 1. And so we ought to look not just at knee-jerk reaction to the polls, we ought to look at what these bills actually do. I associate myself with the comments of many of the others. I just wanted to point out one little trickery in this bill. There is a provision that declares that receipt of the voucher shall not be considered as assistance to any school. That kind of language looks innocuous on its face, but it will provide that the Federal Government cannot enforce antidiscrimination procedures against those schools. For example, religious and national origin discrimination cannot be enforced. Racial discrimination cannot be enforced by the Federal Government. There would have to be individual suits, one after another.”