Weekly Briefing  We are citizens, not customers   Why the fight
over school vouchers is about more than education  The House
Education Committee voted 27-21 yesterday to approve a
controversial bill that would bring school vouchers to North
Carolina. As has been the case with many contentious actions
taken by the General Assembly this session, the committee vote
came at the conclusion of a strange and disjointed debate that
lurched back and forth, in no particular order, between sound
bites from the public (“comments” or “testimony” would be too
generous given the tiny time slots allotted to each speaker),
awkward snippets of dialogue and questioning between committee
members (and between members and legislative staff), truncated
attempts at a couple of amendments and a handful of coherent
speeches.  Included in the latter group was a strong statement
by a Republican Representative from western North Carolina named
Chris Whitmire. As Clayton Henkel reported on The Progressive
Pulse blog:  The Transylvania Cou