Matt Rosendale Joins Democrats in Voting Against Parents Bill of Rights

U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., speaks at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washingt
AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
Sean Moran

Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT) was one of five House Republicans to vote against the Parents Bill of Rights Act, a major priority for the House Republican Conference.

The House last week passed H.R. 5, the Parents Bill of Rights legislation, a bill that seeks to provide more curriculum transparency for parents and would attempt to give parents more control over their children’s education.

“That’s what today is all about: It’s about every parent, mom and dad, but most importantly about the students in America,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said when they announced the legislation.

The bill was a central part of the Commitment to America, which was the House Republican legislative agenda that the GOP touted ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. The majority party in the House, in this case, Republicans, typically reserve the first ten bills for their most important bills.

The bill would, according to a GOP press release enable the following:

  • Right to know what’s being taught in schools and to see reading material
  • Right to be heard
  • Right to see school budget and spending
  • Right to protect their child’s privacy
  • Right to be updated on any violent activity at school

Although the bill passed through Congress’s lower chamber, five House Republicans opposed the bill, with most believing it would only empower the federal government’s control over Americans’ education.

Rosendale, along with Reps. Ken Buck (R-CO), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Mike Lawler (R-NY), and former House Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Biggs (R-AZ) voted against the bill.

Largely, these Republicans voiced that the answer to an increasingly woke education system should not be empowering the federal government.

Rosendale said, “The answer to an out-of-control education system is not turning more control over to the federal government!”

Democrats unanimously voted against the legislation, believing that the legislation is more about injecting “MAGA” ideology down Americans’ throats.

“This legislation has nothing to do with parental involvement, parental engagement,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on the House floor ahead of the vote. “Parental empowerment has everything to do with jamming the extreme MAGA Republican ideology down the throats of the children and the parents of the United States of America.”

“I think what we’re seeing here today is the Republicans’ attempt, Republican Party’s attempt, to take some of the most heinous legislation that we are seeing passed on the state level to attack our trans and LGBT as well as people from marginalized communities right to exist in schools,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said about the legislation.

“Congress has a constitutional authority to write laws. What a mockery and betrayal of that duty it would be to pass this stunt of a bill that doesn’t address a single priority of parents, bans books, undermines teachers and hurts our kids, Democrats are the party of parents and families,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), said.

The National Education Association (NEA) also urged lawmakers to oppose the bill.

Other conservatives had similar opinions against the bill.

Gaetz said, “From Wokeness to funding to bathrooms to Critical Race Theory, the federal government SHOULD NOT be involved in education. I don’t want to strengthen the federal Department of Education. I want to abolish it. I don’t want Congress more involved in decisions that are best made…”

A spokesman for Biggs told Breitbart News the bill violates the principles of federalism, and the congressman believes the federal government is too involved in education.

On Thursday, Buck said the bill has a “fatal flaw” in that it “seemingly reinforcing parents’ rights, the bill undermines the critical principle for conservatives — federalism, the bedrock of our liberty.”

Buck explained his opposition to the bill in an op-ed for the Washington Times:

The overwhelming majority of the House Republicans will now be on record supporting the idea of expanded federal powers in your child’s education. I have no doubt the Democrats will remind them of this poison when they are back in charge and want to pass federal education bills.

Lawler contrasted with the other dissenters, saying the bill had a “late amendment to the bill — that unnecessarily targeted children.”

It is unclear which amendment Lawler decried, but Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) was able to add two amendments to the bill that would have schools notify parents if the schools were to permit transgender students in girls’ sports or allowed them to use girls’ bathrooms.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), when asked on Friday by reporters about the criticism that it empowers the government, said, “It’s infusing parents into education. This is nothing about Washington.”

Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.

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