- Wyoming Republican House Speaker Albert Sommers refused on Friday to let a piece of school choice legislation onto the state House floor, despite it passing the state Senate.
- School choice advocates are pressuring Sommers after the decision because the bill had the support it needed in the state House to pass, they told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
- “Sommers is saying that elected officials and unelected bureaucrats should have a greater say than parents. This is a failure of leadership by Speaker Sommers. Refusing to allow a vote on this bill was a blow to kids trapped in schools that aren’t working for them. Wyoming,” Jason Bedrick, a research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF.
School choice advocates are pushing back against newly elected Wyoming Republican House Speaker Albert Sommers’ decision to hold up a piece of universal school choice legislation that would make every K-12 student eligible for a voucher.
When refusing to let SF 143 onto the Wyoming House floor, Sommers argued on Thursday that because similar legislation had already failed in the House Education Committee in 2022, it made “no sense” to bring the bill forward. Sommers should have advanced the bill because it was a focus of the Legislature in 2023 and had the support of the state House, school choice advocates told the DCNF. (RELATED: Wyoming Republicans Trade Barbs As School Choice Bill Stalls)
“The most local form of control is when families choose the learning environments that align with their values and work best for their children,” Jason Bedrick, a research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at The Heritage Foundation, told the DCNF. “Sommers is saying that elected officials and unelected bureaucrats should have a greater say than parents. This is a failure of leadership by Speaker Sommers. Refusing to allow a vote on this bill was a blow to kids trapped in schools that aren’t working for them. Wyoming families deserve better.”
Under the legislation, all K-12 students, regardless of income, would have been eligible to receive scholarships of up to $6,000 through an Education Savings Account (ESA) to pursue an education outside of the public school system. Funds could cover all related education costs such as private school tuition, tutoring services, textbooks and school uniforms.
The state Senate sent the legislation, brought forth by 33 co-sponsors, to the Wyoming house on Feb. 6 in a 17-14 vote. Members of the Wyoming House attempted to recall Sommers’ holding of the bill on Friday, but failed to garner the support to do so.
Sommers also refused to allow the “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which would prohibit lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation in K-3 classrooms, onto the state House floor arguing that it overstepped school board control. The legislation, modeled after Florida law, passed the state Senate in January in a 18-12-1 vote.
“Republicans control more than 90% of the Wyoming House and school choice is on the GOP platform,” Corey DeAngelis, senior fellow at the American Federation for Children (AFC), a group working towards more school choice, told the DCNF. “The bill has the votes to pass and it already passed the Wyoming Senate. Speaker Sommers is ripping away education freedom from every Wyoming family by blocking this bill to fund students instead of systems.”
No. A majority of the House cosponsored the universal school choice bill.
It already passed the Senate.
The Speaker should put it to a vote and empower all Wyoming families with education freedom. https://t.co/yZ4IZbkVkK
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) February 27, 2023
Under Sommers’ leadership, legislation will fail to make it to the state House floor if it is similar to previous bills that have already been killed, if he fundamentally disagrees with the bill or if it is unconstitutional, he told the Cowboy State Daily.
“Fundamentally, I believe in local control,” Sommers told the outlet. “I’ve always fought – regardless of what really the issue is – against taking authority away from local school boards, town councils, county commissions. And in my view that’s what this bill does.”
SF 143 mirrored the nation’s most expansive school choice program in Arizona which currently allows all K-12 students to receive taxpayer-funded vouchers if they choose to leave or are already outside of the public education system. Arkansas Republican Gov. Sarah Sanders is pushing similar legislation that gives vouchers of $7,413 to students outside of the public school system and allows more students to be eligible each year.
“Speaker Sommers should read the room,” DeAngelis told the DCNF. “As other red states advance education freedom, Wyoming’s ‘Republican’ House Speaker is unilaterally blocking universal school choice even though a majority of the chamber cosponsored the bill. A school choice revolution is sweeping the nation, but Wyoming families might miss out because one man decided to prioritize the system over the students.”
Sommers did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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