Voucher oversight initiative turns in 420k signatures, more than enough to make the ballot

A ballot initiative that would increase oversight of Arizona’s school voucher program turned in over 420,000 signatures to the secretary of state Thursday morning. That’s well over the 256,000 signature threshold needed to qualify for the November ballot and to provide a cushion for the thousands of signatures that will likely be disqualified.

“These hundreds of thousands of signatures represent the clear will of Arizona voters to place significant reforms on the ESA voucher program that is siphoning $1 billion from Arizona’s underfunded public schools every year,” Save Our Schools Arizona, who has been working on the campaign to get the measure on the ballot said in a Thursday statement online Thursday. “Arizona voters are more than ready to add commonsense guardrails to provide far better transparency and accountability, to curtail waste, fraud and abuse, and to ensure safety and quality academics for all students.” 

The Arizona Secretary of State’s Office will now begin the process of validating the signatures to ensure the measure can be placed on the November ballot. Challenges from groups that support the universal K-12 voucher program, formally known as the Empowerment Scholarship Account program are likely to be forthcoming. 

The “Protect Education Act” would put a $150,000 household income cap on participation, would claw back unused funds to provide to public schools, prohibit the purchase of luxury items with ESA money and require fingerprint clearance for workers in ESA supported programs. 

If added to the ballot in November it will be competing with a referral from the Republican-controlled state legislature aimed at enshrining ESA protections into the state’s constitution. If passed, the legislature’s ballot referral would make the Protect Education Act moot. 

In the final hours of the annual legislative session, Republican lawmakers pushed through the ballot referral that came out of a failed deal with the Arizona Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. The deal would’ve kept the ESA ballot initiative from moving forward in exchange for GOP legislators abandoning another ballot referral asking voters to effectively kill the AEA in addition to modest ESA reforms. 

However, when that negotiated bill materialized on the Senate floor, it failed, with two Republicans, Sen. Jake Hoffman, of Queen Creek, and Senate President Warren Petersen, joining Democrats in killing it. 

Republicans then swiftly moved on to Plan B, House Concurrent Resolution 2048, dubbed the “Military Families College Savings and Scholarship Protection Act.” 

But the legislation does far more than Republicans advertised: Buried in the bill is a clause that says it is not just limited to “scholarship account programs that are established and maintained by this state for only children of military families.” Democrats said that means it would effectively bar any reforms to the ESA program and would supersede the Protect Education Act.

A plan to hold a special legislative session to once again try to broker the same deal fell through this week and both sides appear to instead be gearing up for a legal battle over the competing measures. A lawsuit has already been filed challenging the Republican measure and challenges to the Protect Education Act are expected. 

“We know we have the cushion to be successful despite the fact that we will probably have significant court challenges from special interests who have deep pockets,” Beth Lewis, executive director of SOSAz said in a post on social media. 

In a Thursday statement, Ryan Mills, spokesperson for the conservative Goldwater Institute bashed the Protect Education Act. 

Mills said that ESA funds are “threatened by an activist attack on the state’s landmark school choice program.”

The Goldwater Institute backs the legislature’s competing ballot referral, and is defending it in court. 

“This measure would invalidate a teachers’ union initiative aimed at dismantling the ESA program,” Mills wrote. 

The campaign for the Protect Education Act on Thursday emphasized the work of its volunteers who collected the signatures in 14 weeks. 

“They gathered hundreds of thousands of signatures so Arizona voters will have the opportunity to pass basic protections for Arizona children and rein in the out-of-control abuses of their tax dollars in the ESA voucher program,” Protect Education Act campaign spokesperson Olivia Fierro said in a statement. “Next up, winning in November.”