Years ago, Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley voted against Oregon’s charter school legislation. He lost. Later, he and his wife applied to send two of their kids to a newly forming charter school. The school was late in starting up, so he lost again as the application wasn’t acted on.

“But now that Willamette Weekly leaked the application, it’s getting lots of attention. Merkley first denied the report. Then, when the actual applications were produced, well, he stopped denying.

“It’s funny how politicians who vote lockstep with teachers’ unions and the establishment monopoly school system keep on undermining their own publicly espoused positions. They keep voting with their dollars and good sense in their private lives . . . against the bad sense of their official loyalties. It’s a revelation of attitude: Merkley and other such politicians believe that choice is only for the few. Them.” – Paul Jacob, Common Sense, 3/26/08