the choice in this year<u+2019>s presidential election is tying many voters in knots<u+2014>it<u+2019>s unethical versus unthinkable, as a friend of mine put it. but massachusetts citizens are facing a decision that<u+2019>s not nearly as difficult. it<u+2019>s a no-brainer: whether to allow the state<u+2019>s high-performing, immensely popular, mission-driven, public charter schools<u+2014>now capped at 120 statewide<u+2014>to replicate and expand. that<u+2019>s the issue in the state<u+2019>s second ballot measure, and the obvious answer is yes. yet here we are, less than a week from the election, with question 2 slated to affect the fates of 30,000 low-income children who desperately want the education that massachusetts charter schools have to offer, and we observe the new liberal lion of the senate, elizabeth warren, conspicuously siding with its opponents. <u+201c>many charter schools in massachusetts are producing extraordinary results for our students and we should celebrate the hard work of those teachers and spread what<u+2019>s working to other schools,<u+201d> sen. warren noted in a september statement . but then she announced that she<u+2019>s <u+201c>very concerned about what this specific proposal means for hundreds of thousands of children across our commonwealth, especially those living in districts with tight budgets where every dime matters. education is about creating opportunity for all our children, not about leaving many behind.<u+201d> this despite ms. warren<u+2019>s longstanding support for school choice as a means to keep a child<u+2019>s zip code from limiting opportunity. so what happened? why did she flip? we might apply the reasoning of ms. warren herself. in 2004 she talked to bill moyers on tv about the impact of campaign donations on (then-senator) hillary clinton <u+2019>s decision to vote for a major bankruptcy reform bill even though mrs. clinton had opposed a similar bill as first lady. mr. moyers asked why she thought sen. clinton voted for it. ms. warren : <u+201c>as senator clinton, the pressures are very different. it<u+2019>s a well-financed industry. you know a lot of people don<u+2019>t realize that the industry that gave the most money to washington over the past few years was not the oil industry, was not pharmaceuticals. it was consumer credit products. those are the people. the credit-card companies have been giving money, and they have influence.<u+201d> mr. moyers : <u+201c>and mrs. clinton was one of them as senator.<u+201d> ms. warren : <u+201c>she has taken money from the groups, and more to the point, she worries about them as a constituency.<u+201d> mr. moyers : <u+201c>but what does this mean, though, to these people, these millions of people out there whom the politicians cavort in front of as favoring the middle class, and then are beholden to the powerful interests that undermine the middle class? what does this say about politics today?<u+201d> ms. warren : <u+201c>you know, this is the scary part about democracy today. . . . we<u+2019>re talking again about the impact of money. the credit industry on this bankruptcy bill has spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying. . . .<u+201d> this raises an obvious question: does sen. warren regard the wealthy teachers unions as her own <u+201c>constituency?<u+201d> one that counts more than the middle-class and low-income families who are desperate for the high-quality education that massachusetts charter schools offer? it<u+2019>s not hard to imagine. according to the opensecrets website, during ms. warren<u+2019>s senate campaign in 2012 , the massachusetts teachers association spent over $128,000 helping her, and the american federation of teachers spent $76,000. that may be in addition to some in-kind services the teachers unions provided, such as knocking on doors for candidate warren. observe that those are the same unions leading the charge against question 2. partly that<u+2019>s because charter schools in massachusetts, as elsewhere, don<u+2019>t hire unionized teachers and so union leaders don<u+2019>t want any more of them. bay state charters are also embarrassing to the union leaders and their school-establishment counterparts because the charters do so much better than corresponding district schools on every known measure of student performance. it sure appears that ms. warren is now <u+201c>beholden to the powerful interests that undermine the middle class.<u+201d> ms. warren<u+2019>s office denied repeated requests for comment on her changed schools stance. elsewhere, she has declared that her opposition to question 2 is because of specific concerns about its impact on <u+201c>tight budgets.<u+201d> yet that argument has been debunked again and again. if sen. warren doesn<u+2019>t want to look like a hypocrite<u+2014>like the kind of beholden politician she often rails against<u+2014>she has a choice. she can change her mind on question 2. or she can return the $204,000 in union help. that would be a strong signal that she is standing on the strength of her convictions, rather than doing the bidding of powerful interests. mr. petrilli is a visiting fellow at stanford university<u+2019>s hoover institution.
elizabeth warren, the prisoner of <u+2018>powerful interests<u+2019> - wsj
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