The Art of the Possible
Politics is about pushing the limits
So I wrote a long piece on universal school choice over the weekend just in time for the bill to fail on the Senate floor. That’s ok, that’s how the political process works. You pick yourself up and get ready for the next battle. It was still worth my time to research and write because it helped me clarify my thoughts on the issue, and I hope it was useful for you as well. For those who disagreed, I hope we continue to find common ground in our shared fight for liberty in the Gem State.
Allow me to tell you a tale of two responses I received to my position on this bill.
One response questioned why I wanted to move so fast. Why not push smaller incremental bills that made minor changes? Perhaps those would have had a better chance of passing. We can’t change too much too fast!
The second response dismissed the bill as pointless. Until public education is entirely reformed or even abolished, nothing will change. The problem is government, so we need to get government out of education.
Consider that both positions opposed SB1038, but for very different reasons. One thought it went too far, the other thought it did not go nearly far enough. That should give you an idea of the range of political discourse in our state. That doesn’t even count the left!
The great German Chancellor Otto van Bismarck said that “Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable - the art of the next best.” You can rarely get everything you want in politics, because it involved compromise, it involved bringing people on board with your agenda, people who have their own goals and motivations.
The heart of Bismarck’s expression is that if you can’t get everything you want, you must satisfy yourself with the best you can get. For Bismarck that meant a unified German empire that did not include Austria. What does it mean for us?
On the matter of education reform, it looks like SB1038 was a bridge too far, winning only twelve votes in the Senate, six short of a majority. However, that was not a guaranteed outcome. Arizona, Utah, Florida, Iowa, and several other states have already passed similar bills, so it’s not like this was something radical. Idaho is considered to be a very red state, so why shouldn’t we consider the same legislation that has already passed states who are not quite so red?
There are two lessons to take away from that vote. First, it gives us an idea of what our current legislature will accept. Assuming everyone who debated against the bill acted in good faith (which is not always the case) then we can work with them to craft a bill that is acceptable to a majority. Incrementalism - making small changes each year rather than going for everything in one bill - can sometimes work. It’s how the left turned my former home state of Washington, once a libertarian paradise, into a gun control tyranny. On the other hand, it could give lawmakers cover to say we fixed it! and remove enthusiasm for fixing deep problems. We must tread carefully.
The second lesson from the vote on 1038 is that it clearly identifies who should be replaced in the legislature. Many people campaign as conservatives, but once in office they vote to expand government and give away tax dollars to big business, while doing nothing to protect children or give families more flexibility to leave the established system. It doesn’t matter what a candidate says on the campaign trail, or what they write in their newsletters to constituents; what ultimately matters is how they vote, and that is what voters will take into account during the next election.
Politics is the art of the possible, but we don’t know what is possible until we push the limits. It requires careful attention to strategy and tactics, but the successes in other states prove that it can be done. In a world gone mad, it is up to us to do what we can to restore sanity and liberty where we can.
Thanks for your thoughts on this Brian and especially your reference of Otto van Bismark. What a great reminder! Now I must do some catch-up reading there.
In several of your commentaries you have noted that Idaho is considered "Red" and that is true. But there is more than one definition of "Red." To tie my point to a bill, I will go to 1038. I "may" have reluctantly voted for it if I were in the senate. But it was never a "Conservative" bill. It was a bill for a conservative cause - school choice, I support that. But as Conservatives we want other things too.
1038 did not reduce the size of government, nor the budget, nor regulation. It seemed to create new things to do what we were already accomplishing without any of.
So it is with many Idahoans. They are "Red" and want more conservative action - less drama, less entanglements, cut taxes, fund the essentials, balance the budget and go home. Where is the grass roots demand for 300 new laws, new spending, new bureaucracies - none of which is a conservative approach?
With 1038, we couldn't even get our most ardent and fundamentalist beneficiary on board. That was clue to a wrong bill, badly conceived, and over-priced. The option is not to change out the senators who voted against the bill, but rather those who attempted to foist on Idaho's Red populace the wrong kind of "Red." We are Idaho Red, not pissed California Red.
Meanwhile my house payment goes up $80 a month in April due to property taxes.. Where is that bill? I can homeschool my granddaughter without the government's help. I can go to the library with her and supervise her reading choices. I can walk over to her school and review what is available to her there. So I don't need new government help with those things. What I cannot do is pay less property tax than what I am billed. That's Idaho Red.
To me, this was never a conservative or liberal effort. This is about ethics and protecting children from exposure to elements of society that they don't need exposure to via the public school system. It seems to me that those who have chosen to make a political statement around this have only self interest invested and nothing more. Your tax dollars are the same regardless and mine are being spent to corrupt children. That bothers me.
My preference would have been to give parents an option to remove their children from the agenda and environment that public schools provide and educate them elsewhere without being burdened with additional tuition to do so. Sure, they have a choice now but only if they can afford it. They, like you, pay taxes and have a mortgage payment.
Like it or not, government in Idaho has and will continue to get larger as witnessed by the governor's grab for yet more tax dollars in the name of, you guessed it, education. Make no mistake, he's Idaho red alright commonly known throughout the rest of the country as periwinkle at best and borderline to outright blue by common definition.