April 24, 2009 12:10PM # The Sunshine State Lives Up to Its Name By [Andrew J. Coulson](https://www.cato.org/people/andrew-coulson) --- SHARE Just when I was getting so jaded by federal education politics that I could have been displayed as [part of this exhibit](http://www.china.org.cn/culture/2007-09/13/content_1224291.htm), the Sunshine State comes along and brightens my day. It’s not just that [the Florida Assembly voted to strenghten its k‑12 scholarship tax credit program](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/florida/AP/story/1014064.html) yesterday, *it’s that the vote was 94 to 23*. In addition to almost universal Republican support, the bill garnered the votes of half the entire state Democratic caucus! As I wrote on this blog last year, “[the \[school choice\] times they are a changin’](https://www.cato.org/2008/08/26/the-school-choice-times-they-are-a-changin/).” Democrats in Washington don’t understand that yet. Perhaps [they spend too much time with DC’s NEA lobbyiests](https://www.cato.org/2009/03/19/nea-to-dems-hey-we-paid-good-money-for-you/). Whatever the reason, the long term health of the Democratic Party depends on its celebration of its pro-school-choice state-level leaders. If the DNC embraces those state leaders and their policies, it will grow a heart, a brain, and a spine all at once, and secure its viability for the long term. If they don’t, [the national party’s current wretched treatment of poor families](https://www.cato.org/2009/04/15/duncan-the-mercenary-obama-the-coward/) and cowtowing to education establishment special interests will drag it down to an ignominy from which it will not soon recover. And as someone who prefers a balance of power between the two major political parties to the dominance of either, I really *don’t* want to see the DNC ride the NEA’s bandwagon off a cliff. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).