{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://walberg.house.gov/media/press-releases/walberg-colleagues-urge-governors-opt-federal-school-choice-initiative", "Walberg, Colleagues Urge Governors to Opt in to Federal School Choice Initiative", "2025-10-17", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "House", "MI", "Tim Walberg", "W000798", "walberg.house.gov", "walberg", "https://walberg.house.gov/media/press-releases", "scraper", "This week, Representatives Tim Walberg (R-MI), Adrian Smith (R-NE) and Burgess Owens (R-UT) and Senators Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Tim Scott (R-SC) sent letters to the governors of all 50 U.S. states and the mayor of the District of Columbia. In the letters, the members called upon the governors to opt in to a new federal scholarship tax credit initiative, allowing students, parents, and scholarship granting organizations (SGOs) in their state to participate.\n\n\"This innovative credit will unlock billions of private dollars to fund scholarships for K-12 students across the country, including in your state,\" the lawmakers write. \"By participating, you can give countless students the chance to pursue the education they deserve\u2014without any new state spending and without new mandates or added bureaucracy.\"\n\n\"Importantly, this tax credit complements existing state-level education programs,\" the lawmakers continue. \"It will not impact federal or state education funding or diminish public schools. Instead, it gives families more options\u2014whether in public or private, religious or non-religious settings\u2014and allows students to either pursue new opportunities or enrich their current education.\"\n\nRead the full letter here.\n\nBackground", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://walberg.house.gov/media/press-releases/walberg-colleagues-urge-governors-opt-federal-school-choice-initiative"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.8669130988419056, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}