School-voucher scammers are terrified of you

Gov. Doug Ducey and his collection of voucher scammers at the Legislature are scared to death ... of you. And that is awesome. Ducey and the gang thought for sure they’d pulled one over on you, that they’d conned you into believing that the rich need your help (and your money) to send their kids to private school.

But you stopped them. You collected enough signatures to put the issue to a statewide vote.

And that scares the bejesus out of them.

Citizens getting together and acting like ... citizens!

It terrifies the Republicans who control the Legislature, and the bigwigs who control the Republicans.

They had decided that wealthy people — who can already afford to send their kids to private schools — should be able to siphon money from less wealthy parents to defray a cost that did not need to be defrayed.

They did this by expanding the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account program to include all families.

The program began as a way to help children with disabilities, foster kids and some others. That was a good thing.

But it didn’t help the rich, so Ducey and his scammers got to work.

The bill they passed and Ducey signed makes it sound as if anyone in Arizona would now be able to send their kid to private school. HA! Under the law, the state would give parents about $5,000 a year toward private-school tuition. However, since private schools, with their already high tuition and added fees, can cost well over three times that much, it wouldn’t do much good for an average family.

A wealthy family, however, could see the voucher they don’t need as getting a free $5,000 vacation to Hawaii each and every year.

So, a group called Save Our Schools fought back and successfully collected enough petition signatures to put the question of whether vouchers should be expanded on the 2018 ballot.

This has the voucher scammers quaking in the Gucci loafers.

Lawyers for the scammers — like the well-heeled folks in fancy suits at the Goldwater Institute — have filed suit to keep the question off the ballot.

The Republican speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, J.D. Mesnard, told The Arizona Republic’s Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Rob O’Dell that “all options are on the table.”

For example, repealing the law. Or repealing the law and writing a new one. Or relying on the lawsuit. They are so scared. They thought they’d hoodwinked you, duped you, taken you for a ride. They were wrong.

Speaker Mesnard, feigning bravado, said that if the issue went to a vote, he believes the scammer side would win. Nope. You would.