Indiana Democratic Party 8-8-20 Weekly Radio Address

Chairman John Zody and the Indiana Democratic Party 8-8-20 Weekly radio address:

We can only rack this up to one thing – Statehouse Republicans bowing to right-wing special interests – and Donald Trump and Mike Pence – to force school districts to make a dangerous choice: re-open and force in-person education or lose a lot of your funding.

TRANSCRIPT:

This is Chairman John Zody, bringing you the weekly message for the Indiana Democratic Party. 

As the new academic year begins, Hoosiers across the state are going back to school, either in-person or virtually. Teachers, administrators and parents are doing their best to keep children safe and make the very best decisions possible to make sure that our students thrive in our state’s public schools. 

As a parent, I can tell you this time is filled with uncertainty. Not because of anything schools are doing – but because the pandemic is uncertain and unpredictable and continues to impact our state and nation five months on.

That’s why our government must do everything it can to reassure parents and our public schools that we are in this together. Unfortunately, Governor Holcomb and Statehouse Republicans don’t seem to agree.

This week, Senate President Pro Tem Rod Bray sent a letter to school leaders telling them to remember that state law says that schools who don’t offer enough in-person education could face a 15% budget cut. When passed, this law was intended to hold accountable virtual charter schools that lack accountability – it was not designed to punish our public schools for doing their best to keep educators and students safe.  That seems lost on Sen. Bray and other Statehouse Republicans – as he said he doesn’t support a special session to fix this problem.

We can only rack this up to one thing – Statehouse Republicans bowing to right-wing special interests – and Donald Trump and Mike Pence – to force school districts to make a dangerous choice: re-open and force in-person education or lose a lot of your funding.

And where’s Governor Holcomb in this? He says he supports fully funding our schools, but there’s no action behind that statement. The Governor has the ability to call the General Assembly back for a special session to fix this once and for all. But it’s crickets on that front.

These are the choices voters have in November: a party in control that is trying to force schools back in session because that’s what Donald Trump wants, or Democrats who believe that the last thing we should do right now is create more and more uncertainty.

The choice is clear. Interested in helping? 

Volunteer for a candidate running for state office. Sign up at indems.org/join, and we’ll get you plugged in. Please follow the IDP on Facebook and Twitter. Simply search INDEMS – that’s I-N-D-E-M-S on Facebook and Twitter and follow us to get the latest news about our candidates and what we’re doing to hold our counterparts at the Statehouse and in Washington accountable. 

Thank you for listening.