Last week, the state senate in Mississippi considered a bill to authorize vouchers. Governor Tate Reeves was enthusiastic about the bill, and Republicans control both houses in the Legislature. It appeared to be a slam-dunk.

But while the state’s House of Represntatives passed the bill, 17 Republicans defected to oppose it. The voucher bill passed by a narrow margin in the House, 61-59.

The Senate gave the bill short shrift.

It was defeated in committee without a single vote in favor.

The Mississippi Free Press wrote:

Mississippi Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, entered a motion to vote on advancing the bill to the Mississippi Senate floor. The Republican-led committee held a voice vote on the motion, and none of its members spoke in favor of the bill, including Wiggins.

“The nos have it. The bill dies today,” DeBar declared.

Governor Tate was furious.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, harshly criticized DeBar and Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, the Senate president, for the bill’s defeat in a Facebook post Wednesday morning, saying that after 23 years in office, he had “never been more disappointed in elected officials” than he is now with the Senate Education Committee chairman and the lieutenant governor.

“They killed a Republican legislative priority shared by conservatives all across this country and they worked closely with the Democrats to do it,” Reeves wrote. “Even worse—they tried to do it in the dark and hide it from MS conservatives on a deadline day.”

The Mississippi Democratic Party celebrated the legislation’s failure.

“Today’s vote shows what we can accomplish when we stand together for Mississippi’s children against well-funded special interests,” Mississippi Democratic Party Chairman Rep. Cheikh Taylor, D-Starkville, said in a Tuesday press release. “Our public schools are the cornerstone of every community in this state, and this unanimous rejection sends a clear message: Mississippi will not abandon the students and families who depend on quality public education—no matter how much out-of-state money tries to buy our legislators.”

Public school educators were happy to see the bill die.

“Our concern with HB 2 is that it moves Mississippi away from a shared public commitment to education and toward a model that fragments funding and responsibility,” Union Public School District Superintendent Tyler Hansford said in a Jan. 29 Newton County Appeal opinion article. “Public dollars should be used to sustain public systems that serve all students and communities, not to convert a public good into a marketplace transaction.”

Other parts of the education legislation passed:

On Tuesday afternoon, the House Education Committee passed a $5,000 teacher pay raise that includes an $8,000 pay raise for licensed special education teachers in special education classrooms. That bill, House Bill 1126, also includes a structured cap on school superintendents’ salaries, changes to PERS’ years of service requirements, an increase to the Mississippi Student Funding Formula base student cost and a pay raise for school attendance officers’ starting salaries.

The Senate passed three education bills on Jan. 7: a $2,000 teacher pay raise bill, legislation to bring Mississippi Public Employees’ Retirement System retirees to the classroom and a bill making it easier to transfer from one public school district to another. DeBar said at the time that he would like to expand the Senate’s proposed pay raise to $5,000. All three bills await action in the House.

Mississippi Today reported:

The House’s education bill that includes wide expansion of school choice policies is dead, its fate decided after 84 seconds of deliberation by a Senate panel.

But as the House leadership and proponents of school choice have continued their press, reaching a fever-pitch in recent weeks, Senate leaders have made clear they are opposed to voucher programs that siphon money away from public schools — so opposed that there was no discussion when the committee considered the bill.

“I’m not going to discuss it much other than to say we’ve looked at it in depth and … this committee has passed most everything (else in House Bill 2),” Senate Education Committee Chairman Dennis DeBar said.

After DeBar, a Republican from Leakesville, received no questions, Sen. Brice Wiggins, a Republican from Pascagoula, made a motion to vote on the bill.

After a chorus of “nay” from committee members, DeBar said, “The bill dies today.”