If it gets off the ground, the Urban Progressive Caucus will embrace sworn enemies on the school choice issue who have fought bitterly in public and print. Hubbard and Chappelle-Nadal, who fight like step-siblings on the school choice issue, are said to be working together to support a candidate for chairman of the new caucus or a more egalitarian way of organizing the group altogether.
Chappelle-Nadal won’t budge on the school choice issue, but she isn’t hiding from Hubbard that she plans to rehabilitate his progressive voting record (as tabulated by Missouri ProVote) – from his recent Republican-esque 44 percent up to 80 percent (the 2006 progressive index of state Rep. Tom Villa, Hubbard’s most likely white rival in the state Senate race he seems determined to enter).
It’s believable. With the surprising resurgence of the Democratic Party, we will see many opportunists who had been leaning across the aisle, hoping to get ahead, come on back home where they know the food tastes good (and is much less likely to be poisoned). Hubbard also is said to have been made uncomfortable by the degree of control the school choice PAC All Children Matter are trying to exert upon him in exchange for generous campaign donations.
Brother Hubbard, that’s what it feels like to be co-opted by Republicans. Remember that feeling, brother man. Please avoid it in the future.
Given that former All Children Matter bean counter Ed Martin now has his puppet-master hand up the neck of Gov. Matt Blunt, school choice advocates should be expected to come back next session with renewed force. Compromise seems to be one angle they are exploring, as Hoskins is said to be negotiating with the NEA regarding a rewrite of the bill from last session that would guarantee a certain amount of funding for public education. But, hey, isn’t that, like, already guaranteed?