Voucher proponents in Utah must be worried – and they have good cause to be.
Utah residents will vote this November on whether to keep a private-school voucher law passed by the legislature earlier this year.
How are voucher advocates reacting? They’re out there making reasoned arguments and trying to win people over with persuasion, right? Nope. They have commissioned a telephone “push poll” designed to link opposition to vouchers with advocacy of same-sex marriage.
As the Salt Lake Tribune reported recently, the pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education is calling people up under the guise of conducting a legitimate poll. Responders are asked if they favor vouchers. If they say no, the “pollster” then asks if they would still oppose vouchers if they knew that a “liberal national teachers’ union” that supports same-sex marriage opposes them.
“Push polls” are usually associated with campaigns for public office. They work like this: Candidate X hires a group to pose as a polling firm to attack Candidate Y. The firm makes calls, asking people whom they intend to vote for. If the person responds, “Candidate Y,” the “pollster” says something like, “Would you still vote for Candidate Y if you knew that he favors raising taxes, admires Adolf Hitler and strangles puppies?”
It does not matter that Candidate Y believes none of these things. The idea is to smear Candidate Y in the mind of the voters by tying him or her to unpopular ideas and causes.
So it is with this new voucher push poll. Voucher advocates know that in conservative, Mormon-dominated Utah, same-sex marriage is about as popular as a swarm of killer bees at a cookout. That’s why they are desperately trying to link the concept to voucher opponents.
There’s only one problem: Neither the National Education Association nor its Utah affiliate has endorsed same-sex marriage. (And even if they had, why would this be relevant to the debate over vouchers?)
“When they can’t argue about the issues, they’re going to bring up anything they can that would dissuade people from talking about the real issue, which is vouchers,” Eddy Gattis, NEA public relations manager, said. “They’ve gone from debating vouchers to name-calling.”
Bingo. Voucher proponents in Utah must be worried – and they have good cause to be. After the voucher bill passed in the spring, opponents quickly gathered 131,000 signatures to put the new law to a vote. That’s far more than the 92,000 that were called for by law.
Voucher boosters are probably also aware that in 1988, Utah voters were given a chance to determine the fate of a voucher-like tuition tax credit measure that appeared on the state ballot. Voters trounced it, 70 percent to 30 percent.
Vouchers just aren’t very popular in Utah, and for good reason. The state has very few private schools. Most Mormons, who make up 70 percent of the state’s population, are happy to send their children to public institutions. The church does not sponsor a private school system.
Vouchers passed in Utah not because the people wanted them but because a right-wing pressure group called the American Legislative Exchange Council wanted them. Soon the people will have their say. Here’s hoping that the residents of Utah are too smart to be duped by crude and bigoted push polls.
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