How do Policies Make Politics? School Vouchers, Charter Schools, and Anti-Unionism

Recent reforms to the US education system have seen the widespread adoption of school vouchers (programs offering money for parents to spend on private K-12 education) and charter schools (publicly-funded but privately-managed schools). One effect of these programs is that they transfer public resources from a heavily unionized sector (neighborhood public school teaching) to some of the least unionized (private and charter school educators). Unsurprisingly, teacher unions oppose such programs while the Republican Party and new President-elect pledge to expand school vouchers and charters. In challenging teacher unions policymakers undercut one of the Democratic Party’s major supporters. If, as Schattschneider famously remarked, “policies make politics”, then we should expect rational politicians to use policies to structure future politics to their own advantage. Yet contrary to expectation many Democratic legislators have voted for school vouchers and support charter schools. Why? This paper analyses statistically an original dataset of legislator voting patterns on school voucher and charter authorization bills, 1985-2016, to pinpoint the conditions under which Democratic legislators vote for policies that “make politics” to the advantage of Republicans over Democrats.