In an attempt to win back her crown as Miss Congeniality among anti-school-choice Democrats, Olympia Snowe (R-ME) strolled to the well of the Senate yesterday evening to stab her fellow Mainer, Sen. Susan Collins, in the back by voting against the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program. Ms. Collins is one of the program’s chief champions. Despite the courage demonstrated by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Bill Nelson, Mark Warner, and Joe Lieberman - who voted FOR the voucher program - Sen. Snowe’s status as the lone Republican vote against the program was anything but courageous. Whether she likes Sen. Collins or not - or whether she wants to curry favor with Democrats or not (she does), Sen. Snowe’s vote today left DC kids… snowed under.

(In another bit of Maine news, yesterday, the state legislature again denied families another form school choice when their Education Committee endorsed an “innovative schools” bill which had all references to charter school removed before moving on to the main body.)

(Watch Wednesday’s Senate hearing on the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program by clicking on the image to the right.)

The views, opinions and data of a varied group of six were shared on and off with six US Senators today about why the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program should continue.

When he began, the Committee Chair, Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) took time to communicate his dismay that invited opponents of the OSP did not participate. While their views were papered all over the hearing room in lengthy memos and letters with officious sounding names like The National Coalition for Public Education (and filled with dozens of real and shell groups purporting to support all matters ranging from Judaism to feminism, to parentism, to agnosticism!), “not a single one of the six groups opposed to this program accepted our invitation,” offered Lieberman. “I say that with regret, because we wanted to hear both sides.”

Latasha Bennett, a single mother of two, teed off her testimony with a compelling argument about the tragedies faced by her own family, and the violence still present in the public school her kids would attend were it not for the scholarship. Her young daughter will not enter Kindergarten until next year, but has been able to attend the Naylor Road Annex for pre-school thanks to a Department of Housing Services voucher she receives.

Wait, did she say her Pre-K-er gets a voucher?  That’s right, we often forget that most cities indeed offer vouchers for childcare and Pre-K, subsidized by the government.  In fact, DC also offers housing vouchers, and job training vouchers. Oh, and our citizens can have babies - with federal funding - at religious hospitals.  But I digress…

More “Notes from The Hill: Wednesday’s OSP Hearing”