School District Spent $100G on Santorum's Kids
Saturday, November 13, 2004

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The Penn Hills district has spent $100,000 educating the Republican's children since 2001-02, said Erin Vecchio, a school board member who requested the review. She also is head of the local Democratic committee.

"I'm concerned because [he is] taking away from my kid. That $100,000 ... could be going to my kids, a computer or something," said Vecchio, who has three children enrolled in Penn Hills schools.

Santorum's spokeswoman, Christine Shott (search), said the senator and his wife, who have six children, have divided their time between their Virginia home and the one in Penn Hills since they bought the Pennsylvania home in 1997. Shott wouldn't specify how much time the Santorums have spent in the Penn Hills residence, but said Santorum pays taxes, including school taxes, on the property.

Under Pennsylvania's 2002 cyberschool law, the district in which a student lives must pay the cost of tuition for students enrolled in online schools. Virginia has no such provision.
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Santorum bills for children's school $100K
District pays, though family lives in VirginiaBy Vera Miller, Staff Writer, Penn Hills Progress, October 20, 2004

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Penn Hills School District records show bills paid with local taxpayers' money for U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum's children to attend a cyber charter school total more than $100,000.

Since the 2001-2002 school year, at least three Santorum children have been attending a cyber charter school.

This year, the school district has to pay $38,000 for Elizabeth, 13, Richard, 11, Daniel, 9, Sarah, 6, and Peter Santorum, 5, to attend Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, which is based in Beaver County.

State law requires local school districts to pay the tuition of charter school students who live in the school district.

Santorum owns a home on Stephens Lane in Penn Hills, but he, his wife and six children live in the Washington, D.C., suburb of Herndon, Va.

Santorum's office sent the following statement to the Progress in response to questions about whether the senator lives in Penn Hills and why his children are registered with Penn Hills School District:

"Sen. Santorum is in fact a resident of the Penn Hills School District. He pays state, local and real estate taxes in Pennsylvania. He spends most of his time in Washington, D.C., serving the people of Penn Hills and the commonwealth, as a United States senator.

"When the Senate is in session, the senator must be available to vote as needed on the floor of the United States Senate. Therefore, he maintains a residence in the Washington, D.C., area.

"In addition, the senator travels to each of Pennsylvania's 67 counties every year, and has done so every year since his election to the Senate in 1994. In his capacity as the chairman of the Senate Republican conference, Sen. Santorum also has an obligation to travel across the country, delivering the message of Senate Republicans to all Americans."

The only way for Santorum to not pay for his children's private education is enrolling them in Penn Hills.

Virginia state law only requires local school districts to pay for private school tuition when a student has disabilities and enrolls in a school that can satisfy his or her needs, according to Charles Pyle, Virginia Department of Education spokesman.

Otherwise, children in Virginia must attend their local public schools.

The senator pays about $2,000 in property taxes each year to the local school district on the Penn Hills home, which he bought in 1997. The $106,000 home has two bedrooms and two full bathrooms for his family of his wife, Karen, and six children.

Records at the Allegheny County Election Office show Santorum has been voting by absentee ballot since 1995. He has been registered to vote in Penn Hills since April 1998, five months after purchasing the Stephens Lane home.

Santorum, whose term expires in 2006, is a proponent of giving parents more options in educating their children through private schools and voucher programs.

He states his concern about public education on his Web site as follows: "Despite increased federal funding, many public schools are failing to provide students with the basic skills they need to succeed in life, let alone prepare them for the challenges of college or a career. Furthermore, some of our nation's public schools are finding it difficult to ensure the safety of our children in the face of escalating criminal activity."

Santorum, the third-ranked Republican in the U.S. Senate, earns an annual salary of $157,000 for serving as senator.
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More information on Senator Santorum, and the Republican support for him:

Frist: Santorum Leadership Post is Secure
FOX News, Tuesday, April 29, 2003

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WASHINGTON - Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said Tuesday that Sen. Rick Santorum's leadership post is not in jeopardy, providing the Pennsylvania Republican with an important vote of confidence three weeks after his remarks about homosexuals.

"It's solid, it's absolutely solid," said Frist, R-Tenn., responding to a reporter's question about Santorum's hold on his job as the No. 3 Senate GOP leader.

"People who work with Rick day in, day out understand he's a man of caring, compassion and tolerance," Frist said. "Strongly religious, a man of great faith, an effective and strong leader. In terms of questioning his leadership ability or position, it's a non-issue."

Frist spoke as lawmakers returned to town in force following Congress' two-week spring break. Santorum's comments were made in an April 7 interview with The Associated Press that was published during the recess.

During the interview, Santorum brought up a pending Supreme Court case over a Texas sodomy law and said, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything."

Democrats and gay-rights groups have called for Santorum to quit his leadership job. Some moderate Republican senators have criticized the remarks, but the White House and other Republicans have stood behind him. Frist had previously called Santorum "a consistent voice for inclusion and compassion."

Santorum, a conservative, has said his remarks were in the context of a past Supreme Court ruling on privacy and were not meant as "a statement on individual lifestyles."

White House: Santorum is Inclusive
FOX News, Friday, April 25, 2003

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"The president has confidence in the senator and believes he's doing a good job as senator" and in his No. 3 Senate GOP leadership post, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (search) said Friday.

In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Santorum compared homosexuality to bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery. He also said the right to privacy does not exist in the Constitution.

"The president believes the senator is an inclusive man. And that's what he believes," Fleischer said.

His statement brought criticism from the Human Rights Campaign (search), a lesbian and gay advocacy organization.

"If this is how the president defines inclusion, then it clearly calls into question the depth of compassion in his conservatism," said executive director Elizabeth Birch.

The White House also expressed confidence last winter in the leadership of Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., in the immediate aftermath of his defense of a 1948 pro-segregation presidential ticket. President Bush later admonished Lott for his remarks and said it was up to the Senate to decide whether he should remain as majority leader.

Raw Data: Excerpts of Santorum's AP Interview
Tuesday, April 22, 2003

WASHINGTON - An unedited section of the Associated Press interview, taped April 7, with Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa. Words that couldn't be heard clearly on the tape are marked (unintelligible).

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AP: If you're saying that liberalism is taking power away from the families, how is conservatism giving more power to the families?

SANTORUM: Putting more money in their pocketbook is one. The more money you take away from families is the less power that family has. And that's a basic power. The average American family in the 1950s paid (unintelligible) percent in federal taxes. An average American family now pays about 25 percent.

The argument is, yes, we need to help other people. But one of the things we tried to do with welfare, and we're trying to do with other programs is, we're setting levels of expectation and responsibility, which the left never wanted to do. They don't want to judge. They say, Oh, you can't judge people. They should be able to do what they want to do. Well, not if you're taking my money and giving it to them. But it's this while idea of moral equivalency. (unintelligible) My feeling is, well, if it's my money, I have a right to judge.

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