Ariz. school voucher foes try to block expansion

Law put on hold as signatures verified

PHOENIX — Public school advocates who oppose a massive expansion of Arizona’s private school voucher system enacted by the Republican-controlled Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey in July filed enough signatures Friday to block it from taking effect.

The law, which extends the program to every child in the state, will be on hold instead of taking effect Saturday. If a review finds that Save Our Schools Arizona has met the requirement for nearly 119,000 valid signatures — and if those signatures survive any court challenges filed by voucher backers — it will remain blocked until the November 2024 election.

Beth Lewis, executive director of the grassroots group formed when a similar expansion passed in 2017 and was successfully challenged at the polls, said Friday that the group turned in 141,714 signatures. That’s fewer than they hoped, since groups trying to refer laws to the voters or get initiatives on the ballot usually aim for at least a 25% cushion.

Voters rejected the earlier expansion by a 2/3 majority in the 2018 election.

Lewis put part of the blame on Ducey, who held onto the bill for 10 days after the Legislature adjourned, a move that cut the amount of time opponents had to collect signatures from 90 to 80 days.

“We definitely wish we would have had those 10 days that Ducey stole from the voters to build our cushion,” Lewis said. “But we have enough that we feel confident that with the validity of our signatures we can turn in and get through the processing and get it on the ballot.”

Voucher opponents say the program siphons money away from the state’s public schools, which have been underfunded for decades and educate the vast majority of the state’s students, although Ducey and the Legislature have pumped cash into the system over the past several years. Backers of the voucher program say it allows parents to choose the best school for their children. Ducey is a major “school choice” backer and touted the expansion at a ceremonial bill signing in August.

Supporters of the expansion of the state’s voucher program, technically called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, organized to try to persuade voters not to sign the petitions. They showed up at signing events with “Decline to Sign” signs and called businesses to tell them petition circulators were in their parking lots.

Although about a third of Arizona students qualify for the existing voucher program — mainly those living in low-income areas — only about 12,000 students statewide currently use the system.

The expansion Ducey signed will let every parent in Arizona take public money now sent to the K-12 public school system and use it to pay for their children’s private school tuition, homeschool materials or other education costs.

Ross D. Franklin The Associated Press file Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, shown giving his state of the state address in January, signed a large expansion of the controversial school voucher system into law in July.