WASHINGTON — White House budget director Peter Orszag says a state legislature can’t apply for funds from a key pot of education money from President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus plan if its governor fails to do so.
With governors facing a Friday deadline to seek their states’ shares of $48.6 billion in the recovery package’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, Orszag’s opinion puts more pressure on a handful of Republican governors who oppose the stimulus plan Obama signed into law Feb. 17.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, and the White House on Wednesday each released Orszag’s response to Graham’s request for an administration ruling on the thorny issue.
“For a state to access its allocation of the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, the governor must submit an application to the secretary of education, and there currently is no provision in the Recovery Act for the state legislature to make such an application in lieu of the governor for a state’s allocation,” Orszag wrote to Graham.
Last month, the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of Congress, concluded that it likely would be unconstitutional for a legislature to supplant a governor in accepting and using economic stimulus money.
Republican South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, who directly challenged Obama over the stimulus plan before his presidential inauguration, last month became the first governor to say he’d reject $700 million from the fund intended for his state.
Republican Govs. Sarah Palin of Alaska, Rick Perry of Texas and Haley Barbour of Mississippi have said they’d reject some of the stimulus money. Sanford, though, is the only governor to date who’s said he’d turn aside the education funds to rebuild schools and hire or retain teachers.
The Republican-controlled South Carolina General Assembly has crafted legislation to request the money, but Orszag’s letter suggests the Obama administration wouldn’t recognize or act on such a law were the legislature to pass it.
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking Democrat in the House of Representatives, crafted a provision in the stimulus bill that authorizes state legislatures to seek stimulus money that governors reject.
