NJ Education Report

Today’s Star-Ledger has the political backstory on the fragile state of the Opportunity Scholarship Act, otherwise known as the voucher bill. While advocates had been optimistic about its chances of making it through the Assembly, Speaker Sheila Oliver backed away at the last minute. Chock it up to the acrimony engendered by the passage of pension and health benefits reform. Democrats felt they had given enough, and alienated too many voters in the process.

Explains the Ledger,

The episodes involving vouchers and wineries show how Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) has struggled to balance competing relationships with the power brokers that greased her political rise and the restless Democrats within her own caucus. And they reveal how controversial cuts to public worker benefits cast a long shadow on the Statehouse, altering the political landscape and shifting unrelated issues off track.