Jesse White – 12/26/11

This page was last updated on December 27, 2011.

Op-Ed: Look Out for the Undertow; State Rep. Jesse White (D-46); Beaver Countian; December 26, 2011.

Mr. White lost in Beaver County in both 2006 and 2010. On Facebook, Mr. White describes his “Political Views” as “Moderate.” Sure. “Moderate,” “centrist,” etc. are leftyspeak for “liberal,” “progressive,” and other leftisms. On his campaign website, Mr. White describes his “style” as “fiery and aggressive.” According to his biography on his official website, Mr. White “operates his own law practice, White & Associates.” Despite the name, White & Associates appears to be a “one-man band.” Mr. White’s biography also indicates “He worked … in the legal department for the United Steelworkers of America in Pittsburgh.” Mr. White was convicted of defamation and invasion of privacy in April 2011.

Previous White pieces I critiqued are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Mr. White sometimes spams his opinion so you may find his pieces on his campaign website, the Beaver Countian, and/or Canon-MacMillan Patch.

Mr. White leads off with, “As we approach the one-year mark, I thought it would be appropriate to see how many of these [Republican] big-ticket items have been crossed off the list.” Unless I missed it, Mr. White has not written about Democrat accomplishments in 2011.

The first item Mr. White addressed was “Privatization of Liquor Stores.” While Mr. White is clearly opposed to the Commonwealth getting out of the liquor/wine business, he doesn’t tell us why the Commonwealth should be in this business in the first place. Mr. White wrote, “The current system generates $485 million in revenues per year, employs lots of people and actually keeps prices much more competitive than conventional wisdom would have you believe. As a result, there is a general feeling of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.” The correct response to this is, “so what?” Getting out of the liquor/wine business should not be about employment, prices, or revenue. It’s about the principle of limited government and the government has no business selling liquor/wine any more than it does groceries. While some may consider it to be a minor intrusion, anytime the government takes over what should be a private-sector function we lose a little individual liberty. Using Mr. White’s logic, shouldn’t the Commonwealth get into any business it thinks will enhance revenue, “employ lots of people,” and can charge “prices much more competitive than conventional wisdom would have you believe?”

The second item addressed was “School Choice.” Mr. White wrote, “Remember all the talk about school vouchers and charter school expansion in the 2010 election? Yeah, neither do I- mainly because it never happened.” Mr. White needs to get better news sources or a better memory. I don’t know about all voucher and charter school supporters, but then-gubernatorial candidate Tom Corbett mentioned the issue enough for the Beaver County Times to criticize his position. Mr. White continued, “This issue is more about the very deep pockets of campaign donors who stand to benefit financially from such legislation, so we suddenly started hearing about the imperative need to save some kids from failing schools. Aside from the clear implication that it would be better to help some kids at the expense of an overwhelming majority who would presumably be left behind to fend for themselves.” Keep in mind “the very deep pockets of campaign donors who stand to benefit financially” are behind anything Mr. White doesn’t like.

Whether intentional or not, with his position Mr. White (along with the Beaver County Times) appears to support a least-common-denominator approach to K-12 education. That is, if every family can’t get its kids into the schools they want, then no one should have the opportunity. Though this position is completely consistent with an effect of leftist ideology (Drag the top down; don’t raise the bottom.), it appears to run counter to at least a couple of other lefty positions.

The left always rails about “the rich” having opportunities not available to the rest of us. Currently, school choice is an option only for affluent families unless a less financially affluent family can make major sacrifices in other areas. After all, how many families can afford to pay tuition twice, once via school taxes and once to the chosen private school? Charter schools and vouchers make school choice possible for everyone yet lefties oppose them. Why?

Since he’s a lawyer, I’m surprised Mr. White didn’t mention the legality of vouchers with respect to Pennsylvania law. Article III, Section 15 of the PA Constitution says, “No money raised for the support of the public schools of the Commonwealth shall be appropriated to or used for the support of any sectarian school.” Article III, Section 30 says, “No appropriation shall be made to any charitable or educational institution not under the absolute control of the Commonwealth, other than normal schools established by law for the professional training of teachers for the public schools of the State, except by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House.” As I wrote in my critique of “No quick fix” in 2007, “Regarding vouchers being used to send students to church-run schools, that’s a problem. I’m no lawyer, but I believe Article III, Section 15 [of the PA Constitution] would have to be repealed or amended. That’s quite a hurdle. It’s also a shame since a survey I did of local Catholic schools a couple of years [ago] found their tuition was considerably less than public schools were spending per student. A possible workaround could be tax credits.” Even vouchers for non-sectarian schools could be a problem under Article III, Section 30.

The final item on Mr. White’s list was “Marcellus Shale Impact Fee.” Some previous articles about Marcellus shale by Mr. White with my comments are here, here, and here. There’s nothing new in this piece.