WASHINGTON — Republicans are looking to turn anger over California school closures during the coronavirus pandemic into a red wave for the 2022 congressional elections.
The GOP is laying plans to saddle its top targets in California — Democratic Reps. Josh Harder of Turlock, John Garamendi of Walnut Grove, Katie Porter of Irvine and Mike Levin of San Juan Capistrano — with the state’s comparably slow reopening of in-classroom teaching.
Republicans believe sustained outrage over the issue in California can make for a potent campaign message in November 2022 as they fight to retake the House and Senate, especially in the suburbs and among women, where the GOP lost significant ground during the Trump administration.
They’re betting closed classrooms will have staying power in those groups even after schools reopen. After all, they point out, other blue states like New York and Washington widely opened in-class instruction earlier than California, and many California private schools have found ways to bring students on campus for longer stretches than the state’s public schools.
“My wife and I have raised seven kids. Anyone who tells you this is over the second they go back in the classroom, they obviously don’t have kids or they’re lying to themselves,” Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, told McClatchy.
“Especially when you look at the achievement gap between people who can send people to private schools, versus parents who feel helpless because not only are they in blue states that has them closed, but they can’t even put their kids in a competitive level playing field with their peers,” he said.
Pat Reilly, a parent advocate for Open Schools California, a state advocacy group started in the fall to push for school reopenings, said she identifies as a lifelong Democrat, but that Republicans are hitting a sore point.
She declined to say if this issue might prompt her to vote for a Republican, but said “suburban women and women in general are going to be upset if their kids are not in school.”
“This is going to be most effective where kids were out of school the longest,” said Reilly, a mother of two teenagers in the Berkeley Unified School District. “So the message is get the kids back in as soon as you can, and you’ll stop the bleeding.”
But even Republicans concede schools should be back to normal by November 2022, meaning their message carries risks for the party because it might not be at the top of voters’ minds.
Many congressional Democrats also insist they want schools to reopen, but they emphasize that classrooms need to be safe, a message school districts have cited in keeping campuses mostly closed.
“If it is true that by fall we’re going to be moving toward in-person learning, then November 2022 is a long time away from that,” said Lisa García Bedolla, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Education. “So will the fatigue and emotion and frustration that exists now will still be there next year? That’s tough.”
California is behind the curve on reopening schools.
It’s one of few states that still has a partial school closure in effect. Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for schools to reopen, but they have to meet key metrics set by the state. Even then, the decision is still up to local districts that can continue to decline to reopen.
People shouldn’t be so sure that schools are going back to five-day in-person learning again, Reilly said, which is what parents like her want. Newsom and state Democrats released a plan for reopening this week, which would give school districts $2 billion in incentives to open schools by April 1. Open Schools California called the plan a “failure.”
“There’s nothing in that legislation that forces schools to open, and they’re suggesting that you could have hybrid schools open through 2023,” Reilly said.
However, it’s not clear that parents want schools fully opened right now. While more parents support opening schools versus remote learning in national surveys, parents are about evenly split three ways when asked in early February if they prefer all in-person learning, hybrid learning or all remote learning.
Reilly maintains this is a huge priority for a nonpartisan movement of parents who are pushing for accountability in schools. Opening schools immediately, five days per week, is the only way to lessen Democratic losses at this point, she said.
“I think it is folly to imagine that congressional Democrats will not be held accountable for this,” Reilly said. “And honestly, when it comes to parents who are exhausted after nearly a year of not having our kids in school, they’re wanting their leadership to represent them and do something about it.”
House Democrats say they are the ones actually looking our for schools, citing their passage of the latest COVID-19 relief bill. No House Republican voted for it.
The bill included $170 billion for schools — $21 billion for California schools specifically — but much of that money is for later years and not available right away in 2021. Schools receive that money regardless of whether they reopen for in-person learning.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines in January — right as President Joe Biden took office and former President Donald Trump departed — saying it was safe for schools to reopen if they met certain safety guidelines. The guidelines still say it is safe for some schools to reopen if they take precautions and local infection rates are low.
“With the new administration, there is clarity about the requirements for reopening schools,” said Rep. Garamendi, who is a new target for Republicans this year. “That was never there under the Trump administration. They gave us confusion and chaos.”
Democrats also say they want schools reopened. Harder’s staff pointed to about a dozen tweets he’s sent on schools in the last month, with many saying it was a top priority to get schools reopened safely. Porter sent a letter in July 2020 with then-Sen. Kamala Harris calling on the Trump administration to develop a plan on how to reopen schools.
Levin has two children in public school. Porter is a single mother of three children in public schools and Garamendi has adult children working in education as well as 10 grandchildren in schools.
“You want to make school reopening an issue?” Garamendi asked. “Good, let’s do it.”
Republicans, meanwhile, say Democrats are not only failing to push Biden’s administration to call for full school reopenings, but also are prioritizing the demands of teacher unions that want to keep remote learning in the pandemic over the needs of children.
Harder and Porter received a little more than $20,000 each from teacher unions last election cycle. Levin took about $15,000 and Garamendi took $5,000.
Republican Emmer said the GOP plans to highlight those contributions ads aimed at those Democrats’ constituents.
“California voters are going to know that those Democrats chose to put their political interests ahead of their constituents and the school kids in their district,” Emmer said. “That’s going to come back and haunt them.”
Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, said he thinks Republicans will struggle to defeat Democrats based on their positions on school reopenings in 2022. But he says the GOP could have some success by accusing them of “being in bed with teacher unions.”
“We have a situation in California where you have a strong interest group, which contributes to one party in the Legislature, is driving policy decisions,” Fuller said. “So voters might scratch their heads and think, who is running the state? And that would not be helpful for Democrats with independent voters in the suburbs.”
