Former Washington, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee has had her fingers in a lot of education legislation this year. Her "Students First" organization lobbied on
Ohio's SB 5, eliminating collective bargaining for public employees. It lobbied on a package of bills in
Michigan, including one limiting collective bargaining. She was involved in a Tennessee collective bargaining bill—involvement including co-authoring an op-ed with former GOP Senate Majority Leader
Bill Frist.
But through it all, she's tried to keep her opposition to collective bargaining somewhat under wraps. She hedged on her support of Scott Walker's anti-worker bill but wished Walker had been a little more diplomatic about the whole thing. Students First denied involvement in the Michigan collective bargaining bill much of the time, but worked closely with Republicans to develop a package of four connected bills in which it was inextricably included. And so on.
In essence, Rhee has been edging out of the closet on this issue, showing her opposition to collective bargaining first and foremost through her actions, but slipping every now and then and letting it come through in her words. That's what happened in Tennessee over the weekend, in which she talked about her support for school vouchers privatization, and:
She also praised the Tennessee legislature for its recent stances on education, calling its work "aggressive and courageous laws."
That would be a clear reference to the Tennessee bill eliminating collective bargaining and preventing teachers' unions from making campaign contributions or lobbying the state legislature; it was passed at the same time as a bill allowing corporations to give direct contributions to political candidates. To this point, Rhee has been working the "Democrat who saw the light" angle as she works overwhelmingly with Republicans. That image has deteriorated to the point where she had to shore up her credentials as a non-Republican by hiring DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan to shill for Students First. But at this point, you have to wonder why she's making the even a halfhearted effort to pretend she's anything but a John Kasich-Rick Scott-Scott Walker Republican when it comes to education issues.
