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PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A Valley judge on Wednesday blocked a Republican measure that opponents argue prevents any reforms to the state’s school voucher program from being placed on the November ballot.
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The decision is a setback for Republicans who pushed for the ballot measure and support the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account, or ESA, voucher program.
This legislative session, GOP lawmakers passed , also known as Proposition 145 if listed on the ballot, which, if passed by voters, would ban the state from taking back ESA funds from military families.
The measure also included a provision that would block any future bill or ballot measure from changing those protections.
In his ruling, Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Kreamer wrote that the second provision is “unlike any that has ever been enacted in Arizona, because instead of applying only to the bill being proposed, it would apply to invalidate future legislation.”
Save Our Schools, a public schools advocacy group that sued to block Prop. 145, had argued that the second provision was a “poison pill” that would nullify its own ballot initiative meant to reform the ESA voucher program.
Kreamer also wrote that Prop. 145violates the state’s single-subject rule, which requires that measures only address one topic.
The ESA voucher program, which has about 100,000 students enrolled, allows families to use tax dollars to fund homeschooling and private schooling.
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Save Our Schools secured enough signatures earlier this month to get its competing measure related to the ESA voucher program onto the November ballot, the Protection Education Act or Proposition 212.
Under Prop. 212, any unused money in an ESA account would go back to the state and toward public schools, while also barring families making more than $150,000 a year from joining the program.
As of now, Prop. 212 is set to appear on the November ballot, though a lawsuit challenging the signatures gathered is pending.
Both legal disputes will need to be resolved before November ballots are finalized.
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