Battle for the 2024 mom vote comes to Philadelphia

Presented by Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (CASE)

BATTLE OF THE MOMS — Moms for Liberty is having a busy month.

— The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled the organization an “anti-government extremist group” at the forefront of a movement to seize control of public schools. One of the group’s chapters in Indiana apologized after featuring a Hitler quote in a newsletter.

— And later this week, one of the country’s fastest-growing conservative political outfits will gather its supporters and Republican presidential candidates at a dayslong rally in Philadelphia. A struggle for the hearts, minds and votes of American mothers ahead of the 2024 election is fully underway.

— Former President Donald Trump is set to be the keynote speaker at Moms for Liberty’s “Joyful Warriors” summit. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also has a speaking slot. So do former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy — as well as a Democratic challenger to President Joe Biden: anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

— “This election is, I think, probably the most important election of my lifetime,” Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice told your host. “There are a lot of other parents around the country that feel the same way.”

— Moms for Liberty is not the first organization to capitalize on the political moment surrounding schoolchildren and families.

— But the group’s ability to marshal much of the GOP presidential field to its second-ever national conference illustrates the power of a Florida-founded group that has harnessed pandemic-driven rage, social media and culture war politics to skyrocket to conservative stardom. The group now claims 285 chapters in 45 states and a membership that exceeds 115,000 people.

— Its designation as an extremist group has even sparked fierce resistance from conservative politicians, school officials and media outlets while energizing fundraising. “If @Moms4Liberty is a ‘hate group,’ add me to the list,” Haley tweeted this month. Tickets to attend this week’s event are sold out.

— Yet after a June like this one, don’t expect Moms for Liberty to immediately unite around one presidential candidate.

— “American parents and kids are winning if all of these candidates care about the issues that we care about,” Justice said of the organization’s star-studded speaking list. “And we want to make sure we know where they stand.”

IT’S MONDAY, JUNE 26. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. Over the past 13 months, the Supreme Court has been hit by a series of challenges that have rocked the institution itself, undermined relationships on the bench and fundamentally altered the way it is viewed by the public and treated by the media.

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Campaigns

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEK — There will be protests in Philadelphia.

— People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy group, is organizing demonstrations outside the Moms for Liberty conference with help from allied groups including the Campaign for Our Shared Future, MomsRising, and Red, Wine & Blue. A “Drag Queen Story Hour” and a giveaway of books restricted or pulled from school libraries are also planned.

— It’s part of an emerging liberal counter-offensive to Moms for Liberty’s opposition to library books and classroom curriculum that address race, gender and sexuality — as well as its strategy of endorsing scores of local school board candidates with help from notable Republican donors.

— A new “Save Our School Boards” initiative from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is the latest entry to a growing list of national efforts to influence hyperlocal, low-turnout elections that catapulted to new prominence during the 2022 midterms and this spring’s initial off-year elections.

— “This program is very much an effort to create a national school board slate,” the PCCC’s director of candidate services, Hannah Riddle, told your host. Pennsylvania will be “a huge focus” for the school board campaign this year, she said. Races in Virginia, Ohio, New York and even Texas are also on the campaign’s radar.

— Moms for Liberty has plans to endorse candidates running for elected state superintendent and school boards, Justice said. But the national organization won’t pick a presidential candidate, she said.

— “We’ve got moms in South Carolina that love Nikki Haley and [Republican Sen.] Tim Scott and would love to see them be elected president. We’ve got moms that are big RFK fans,” Justice said. “We’ve got moms who are huge DeSantis fans, or moms who voted for Trump twice and want to vote for him again. We try to be respectful of our membership. We’re not a top-down organization, and it just would be impossible to be able to endorse.”

Children's Health

A VACCINE MANDATE ENDS — The federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine and testing requirements for Head Start programs are officially no more, under a final rule from the Department of Health and Human Services’ children and families administration that takes immediate effect today.

— Earlier this year, a federal judge struck down the Biden administration’s Head Start vaccine requirement — dealing a fatal blow to a mandate that courts had already blocked in half the country, that program advocates opposed and that the government watered down in January.

— The government cited last month’s expiration of a national pandemic health emergency as one factor behind its decision to formally scrap the requirement. But the rule’s immediate effective date is also intended to help Head Start programs use the summer to hire and recruit staff without “any confusion or uncertainty created by the continued presence of the Covid–19 vaccination and testing requirements.”

— In November 2021, an interim final rule from the HHS Administration for Children and Families ordered Head Start patrons who were 2 years and older to wear masks, with some exceptions. Child care programs’ staff and contractors were also ordered to quickly get vaccinated against Covid-19 — or undergo regular tests for the virus.

— Conservative state officials sued to block the rule. The Senate even passed a resolution that disapproved of the rule, drawing a White House veto threat. The Biden administration then issued a final rule in January that removed the universal masking requirement but kept the vaccine mandate in effect and under review, prompting this spring’s court ruling.

Supreme Court

FOR YOUR RADAR — As the public awaits Supreme Court rulings on the fate of Biden’s student debt relief plan and the role of race in college admissions, the justices may soon announce whether they’ll take up another case that promises to upend the charter school industry.

— The court was scheduled to discuss “Charter Day School, Inc. v. Peltier” last Thursday. Religious liberty groups, some school choice organizations, plus 10 attorneys general in Republican-led states had asked the justices to intervene after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a charter dress code that required girls to wear skirts.

— The legal fight has now entangled public religious charter schools and constitutional limits between church and state, after Oklahoma authorities’ landmark decision this month to approve a public and directly taxpayer-funded Catholic school that teaches religious principles like a private institution.

— Charter schools are public campuses that receive taxpayer dollars and don’t charge tuition, but they have significant autonomy to operate independently and privately — outside the bounds of some state and local regulations that apply to traditional public schools.

— Some religious-liberty and school-choice advocates have seized on that distinction to argue that charters are therefore not “state actors,” and are instead private entities that do not act on behalf of the government. If that’s true, proponents argue, states would have to permit public religious charter schools.

— The Biden administration last month urged justices to deny the conservative-led petition to review the North Carolina case. “A holding that [Charter Day School] is not a state actor would allow States to evade constitutional constraints by delegating core governmental functions to private entities,” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar and a group of Justice Department attorneys stated in their brief to the court.

— At least four of the Supreme Court’s nine justices must vote to accept a case, according to the court’s practice. Courts have found it difficult to discern whether an entity is a state actor, the Congressional Research Service has noted.

In Congress

THE REAL SPENDING DEADLINE — It’s only June, POLITICO’s Caitlin Emma and Jennifer Scholtes report, and already Congress is threatening to ruin New Year’s Eve.

— If the House and Senate fail to clear a dozen annual spending bills by midnight on Dec. 31, the recent bipartisan debt limit deal would trigger an automatic 1 percent across-the-board funding cut if a short-term spending patch is in place.

— That would be a severely difficult accounting conundrum for federal agencies — and a potential political landmine for Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden, who both have a lot to lose in 2024.

— Even the deadline for those cuts could get a bit convoluted, however. While Jan. 1 is technically the trigger date for a drop in spending levels under the debt agreement — unless Congress passes a new funding bill in time — top appropriators say the actual reductions wouldn’t kick in until the end of April.

— Regardless, lawmakers see the new year as the main pressure point for funding negotiations.

Report Roundup

— Analysts from the Urban Institute outlined five “race-neutral approaches” that colleges and universities can use if race-based affirmative action is overturned. They include class-based affirmative action, targeted recruitment, and test-free or test-optional admissions policies. Schools will need to consider a combined series of approaches, Elise Colin and Bryan J. Cook write.

— The school choice movement faces a “pivotal moment”, Nicole Stelle Garnett and Michael Q. McShane write for the Manhattan Institute, now that universal education savings account programs have taken hold in more than a half-dozen states. They argue that difficult, but essential, implementation efforts that follow enactment will determine whether these programs achieve “their transformational potential.”

Syllabus

— Work rules for benefits programs deter low-income people from college, advocates say: The Washington Post

— How the Supreme Court paved the way for the nation’s first religious charter school: USA Today

— Federal judge blocks Florida from enforcing ban on minors attending drag shows: POLITICO

— Miami-Dade school board OKs first step toward classical education in elementary schools: Miami Herald

— Agriculture Department announces emergency boost for school meal programs, food banks: POLITICO Pro