February at Cap Fax

Once the General Assembly came back in session in February, I was so swamped with work to do that I fell way behind on my posts. Here is catch up of my week-to-week coverage of the internship, starting with February:

February 21-27: This week the House debated a bill to end General Assembly scholarships. The bill was sponsored by Rep. Mark Walker, who represents a seat that is a big target for Republicans. The debate was very pointed and critical throughout. This is a particularly close issue for many black legislators, who see these scholarships used by the poor people in their district who could not otherwise afford to attend a state school. Nonetheless, these scholarships have been abused and given to political donors and friends, as was revealed during the U of I admissions scandal. Also, the scholarships are not really scholarships, just students who get tuition waivers and are a further unfunded liability for public universities. All told the General Assembly scholarships amount to $12 million dollars of unpaid tuition to state colleges and universities. For these scholarships to be truly fair, they would have to be paid for by the state and audited for abuse. The importance of these scholarships in helping provide opportunities to go to college for the poor people in their districts really has nothing to do with the GA Scholarship themselves, but rather they highlight the lack of access to higher education for those of lower and middle-incomes.

February 14-20: This week the House passed a bill that would require the General Assembly to approve sales of state assets that exceeded $1 million, which would include Thomson prison. This was an important issue to pay attention to because Thomson prison has been highly-politicized as the site to place Guantanamo detainees. Rich told me once to watch what the House and Senate were doing and to let him know if something important happens. I asked him how to know if something is important and he said he did not know. This is something important, and it helped me learn what it is he is looking for, and what the media is looking for.