Democrats Oppose Vouchers and Support Our Public Schools
The Washington County Democratic Party (WCDP) denounces Governor Lee’s call for a Special Session that unnecessarily ties much-needed hurricane relief funding for Northeast Tennessee to his appalling, public-school-destroying voucher program and racist immigration policies. We further condemn how local Republican county mayors, including Washington County Mayor Joe Grandy, are bowing down to Tennessee GOP pressure to support the voucher scam and bigoted immigration policies in order to get the hurricane assistance our communities deserve.
“Teachers, parents, and school boards (including the Washington County and Johnson City School Boards) across Tennessee overwhelmingly oppose the proposed educational voucher program. Even local Republican State Representatives have shared publicly that a bipartisan majority of people in Washington County (75% of residents!) are against it because it is proven that it will reduce student achievement and defund our public schools,” said Sylvain Bruni, Chair of the Washington County Democratic Party. “Yet, Mayor Grandy endorses this program instead of prioritizing County over Party! And Governor Lee’s political maneuvers to ensure passage by conditioning it to hurricane relief is outrageous and despicable. Partisan politics should never hold community relief hostage.”
Democrats believe that public taxpayers’ dollars should fund public education in Tennessee, not the out-of-state oligarchs funding the voucher campaign (that will enrich them) and Governor Lee’s and Speaker Sexton’s campaign accounts. Democrats believe that immigration policy should follow the existing bipartisan framework crafted by Republicans and Democrats in Congress in 2024. And Democrats believe that the urgently needed hurricane assistance should be its own accelerated bill, which will receive wide, bipartisan support. Governor Lee’s quid pro quo has no place in getting recovery aid to hurting East Tennesseans.
WCDP calls on our community to reach out to Mayor Grandy to reject the voucher program and to Representatives Hicks and Alexander to vote against the voucher program, bad immigration policy, and their being tied to hurricane assistance funding. We need three separate bills that address three separate issues.
- Mayor Grandy may be reached at 423-913-8521.
- Representative Hicks may be reached at 615-741-1717.
- Representative Alexander may be reached at 615-741-2251.
