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Sometimes an offhand remark can help bring crystal clarity to an issue. Last week’s revelation of an incendiary email between Colorado lawmakers is a case in point.

If you haven’t heard yet, here’s the inflammatory part of the message Rep. Mike Merrifield (D-Manitou Springs) sent to Sen. Sue Windels (D-Arvada) on December 8:

“There must be a special place in Hell for these Privatizers, Charerizers, [sic] and Voucherizers! They deserve it!”

Merrifield’s disdain for school choice comes as no surprise, only that the disdain is so visceral.

Did I mention that Merrifield and Windels are the respective chairmen of the House and Senate Education Committees at the State Capitol? Well, at least Windels is, for now.  Within a day of the message being posted on the conservative website Face The State, Merrifield had resigned his chairmanship. On closer inspection, though, he really may not have resigned at all. His brief formal announcement said that his duties would be handed over to a colleague “for the remainder of the [legislative] session,” which ends in May.

It appears that the anti-school-choice Democrat is keeping his options open. Perhaps he plans to return to the chair after the fire and brimstone he unleashed has smoldered a bit.

Among the most outraged are many of the parents of Colorado’s 52,000 charter school students—7 percent of the state’s total public school enrollment. Enacted in 1993, charter schools have established deep roots here in Colorado. Acceptance of parental choice in education has continued to spread and grow.

Merrifield specifically lashed out at efforts to import the successful Cesar Chavez Academy charter school model to Hunt Elementary in Colorado Springs. More than 90 percent of Cesar Chavez elementary students score proficient on state tests, though nearly two-thirds of them qualify for free and reduced lunch. Only half the students achieve academic proficiency at Hunt, which serves a similar high-poverty population.

Instead of burning with jealous anger at a successful school model, Merrifield and his colleagues should be working to give parents and educators the freedom to replicate Cesar Chavez and similar schools elsewhere.

Anti-choice legislators like Windels and Merrifield know that attempts to undercut and limit successful charter school alternatives have to be performed quietly. Thus, it’s what we see in the rest of their email exchange that fleshes out the visceral hatred for educational freedom.

In his message, Merrifield discussed their efforts to promote a bill regulating Colorado’s Charter School Institute. The Colorado legislature created the Institute in 2004 as a state charter school authorizer to bypass local school boards that may be antagonistic to greater parental choice.   

Windels publicly has advertised her Senate Bill 61 as a way to improve communications between school districts and the Charter School Institute. Yet in her message to Merrifield, Windels said she wanted to formulate the bill to make a “full repeal” of the Institute possible. Merrifield replied that he hoped for support from newly elected Democrat Governor Bill Ritter, so they could “go for the whole enchilada.”

The email not only shines light on the deep level of antagonism against choice but also the growing divide within the Democratic Party. The education committees are stacked with Democrats in lock step with the unions, yet some of their colleagues clearly disagree.

Take for example Terrance Carroll, a Democrat representative from inner-city Denver who has bucked his party to fight for new and creative schooling opportunities. Carroll received an unflattering mention from Merrifield, who glibly noted that his colleague’s objections would not be enough to save the Charter School Institute:

“Am sure T. Carroll would freak, but who cares, if we have the votes, which I think we would have with Ritter’s support.”

Democrats in Colorado have both significant legislative majorities and the governor’s office for the first time in decades. The recent education committee chair must have felt emboldened to think he could walk over a dissenting member of his own party on his way to bar the doors of new charter school opportunities.

The fight over the anti-choice legislation turned out to be more topsy-turvy than anticipated. After S.B. 61 passed the Senate education committee on a party-line vote, four Democrats joined the entire Republican caucus on the floor to turn Windels’ bill upside down. The amended version sanctioned the creation of more Cesar Chavez-like charter schools. But Merrifield’s committee ripped out the changes and restored the original anti-charter language.

Following the release of the incendiary email, six Senate Democrats have pledged opposition to the attack on the Institute. Having conceded defeat, Windels will let the bill die.

The email’s publication widened the rift within the Democratic Party over the issue of education. Or perhaps more observers just began to notice how wide the rift already was.

Many understandably wish to downplay the problem. The email’s author and one of his apologists say charter school supporters like Representative Carroll should not be offended. They say the infernal comments apply only to a pair of Colorado Springs school board members who are strong political opponents of Merrifield.  But to believe that truth-stretching claim would mean the thousands of kids and parents flocking to charter schools are simpletons and dupes. Were that best-case scenario true, then Merrifield also must believe that many of the students and parents exercising choice have been seduced by a great evil.

If the power to choose a better education is so horrible, Colorado should be blessed with more such misfortune—and fewer officials condemning families who make that choice.

Ben DeGrow (ben at i2i dot org) is a policy analyst for the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden, Colorado.