Free Republic

<p>Memo to Ralph Neas: People for the American Way doesn't decide whom the Democratic Mayor of Washington meets with. The Mayor does. And he resents being told otherwise.</p> <p>We have that from a spokesman for D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, who calls just plain "silly" a letter from the liberal lobby warning his Hizzoner about his scheduled appearance yesterday before a conference of the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of free-market state legislators in Washington for their annual meeting.</p>

...unlike the members of the public education/Democrat political machine, Mayor Williams has a true regard for the supposed objects of the public education debate - the children. For far too long, big government liberals have gotten away with portraying themselves as having concern for the welfare of the children, when what they really seek is an ever-growing budget for the education bureaucracy. "The children" end up merely as fodder to be fed into the system in order to keep its engines running. Worst of all, the budgetary patterns of recent years have established a scheme that essentially guarantees continued academic...

In his recent bestseller, The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell describes the magic moment when an idea, product, or trend achieves mainstream status. Cell phones, for example, "tipped" in 1998. Cellular technology and sales improved steadily throughout the 1990s, but it wasn't until 1998 that people realized the phones were everywhere. News from the nation's capital suggests 2003 could be the "tipping point" for school choice. If that's the case, events in the District of Columbia may impact Arizona politics. Anthony Williams — the Democratic mayor of a city where Republicans are outnumbered nine to one — recently bucked party loyalties...

Like Mayor's Hair, Robbery At NE Barbershop Is Cut Short "The owner of Campbell's Barber Shop, where Mayor Anthony A. Williams recently got a new hairstyle, apparently keeps more than a razor and scissors at the ready...."

When Washington D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams announced on May 1 that he supported school vouchers programs, it made headlines. How could it not? A Black Democrat, mayor of one of the most staunchly Democratic and heavily African-American cities in the U.S., was endorsing an idea long championed by conservative Republicans. What it didn’t create was a local uproar. There were no major protests from D.C. citizens. No one on the Mayor’s staff quit. Few rivals dared attack him. “Could it be … a majority of African Americans prefer school vouchers to other educational improvement plans?” asked Washington Post columnist Courtland...

"Mayor Anthony A. Williams is asking the D.C. Council to approve $338 million in city government funding for a new ballpark and renovations to RFK Stadium, a package larger than he had previously disclosed and millions of dollars more than other areas bidding for a team have offered," according to The Washington Post. "The two other bidders, Northern Virginia and Portland, Ore., offered less than $300 million in public funding for a stadium. Williams had previously said that he would not go higher than that amount." In "Squeeze Play: Do Baseball Stadiums Need Our Bucks to Get Built?", Raymond J....

<p>Eleanor Holmes Norton is stark raving mad. The congressional delegate from the District of Columbia accused her fellow Democrat, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, of "selling out" last week because he supports a Bush administration-backed school choice proposal that would free thousands of poor black students from rotten public schools.</p>

Eleanor Holmes Norton is stark raving mad. The congressional delegate from the District of Columbia accused her fellow Democrat, D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, of "selling out" last week because he supports a Bush administration-backed school choice proposal that would free thousands of poor black students from rotten public schools. The D.C. School Choice Act, sponsored by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., would provide $45 million over five years for means-tested educational scholarships for up to 8,300 students in the beleaguered D.C. public school system. President Bush has earmarked a total of $75 million for similar programs across the country. Mayor...

Low-income students in Washington, D.C., could get as much as $11,000 apiece in private-school tuition under a plan proposed by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). The D.C. plan dwarfs other tax- supported vouchers available to students elsewhere. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, a Democrat, last week spoke out for the first time in support of voucher. Observers say this is a dramatic change in course and an indication that the city is willing to try the experiment for some of its 67,000 students. Under the plan: o Vouchers would be available to students whose families earn less than $52,000 for a family...

The unlikely new leader of the drive to give vouchers to D.C. schoolchildren is himself a product of Catholic schooling and a politician drawn more to possibilities of experimentation than to the comfort of the tried and true. A day after stunning much of the city, and much of his staff, by abruptly announcing his support for President Bush's school voucher plan, District Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) sought to shed more light on what he portrayed as an ideological transformation. At the root of his new position, he said, was a readiness to try to new approaches to fixing...

Buried in the president's budget this week was enough money to dramatically transform educational opportunity for children in the nation's capital, one of the worst school systems in the country. As part of his continuing program to leave no child behind, President Bush has proposed a modest $756 million to promote school choice programs in the District of Columbia and several other cities. But the proposal faces tough opposition from Democrats beholden to teacher unions, who see school vouchers as a mortal threat. Nowhere could there be a starker contrast between what's good for kids and what's in the...