Sen. Joseph Lieberman’s first D.C. news conference of the 112th Congress will be a bipartisan affair with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio. The topic? School vouchers.
President Barack Obama plans to make education reform a central plank in his State of the Union speech tonight, so the two lawmakers will be trying to seize that opening.
But Obama has long opposed the voucher program that Lieberman and Boehner will be promoting in their joint appearance-a pilot initiative that funds scholarships for students in the District of Columbia to go to private schools instead of public.
Boehner told Politico that if Obama is “sincere” about bipartisanship, he’ll support legislation that he and Lieberman will be introducing Wednesday to “reauthorize and save” the D.C. voucher program. But some say the move will simply cast fresh doubt over the ability of lawmakers to come to an agreement on revamping the much-despised No Child Left Behind law.