Vouchers reform measure won't quality for Arizona ballot

In a ruling Tuesday, the Arizona Supreme Court spelled out the method that must be used to determine if there are enough valid signatures on the petitions.

Strictly speaking, the order does not knock Proposition 212 off the ballot. Instead, the justices sent the case back to a trial judge with instructions to use the approved formula to determine if that will leave the necessary 255,949 valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot.

But attorneys for both sides of the initiative already agreed that using that method leaves the campaign about 12,000 signatures short.

In a written statement acknowledging the loss, the committee backing the initiative insisted that "this does not reflect what Arizona voters want,'' blaming the failure on "anti-public education lawmakers and pro-voucher activists, plus their wealthy allies.''

The fact remains, though, that for various legal reasons ranging from unqualified petition circulators to signers not registered to vote, not enough of the more than 421,000 signatures submitted were considered valid.

That means there will be no public vote on the far-reaching proposal that would have imposed new restrictions on ESAs, state tax dollars that families can use to send their children to private and parochial schools or for home schooling. Those restrictions would have ranged from denying ESAs to families making more than $150,000 a year, to a strict list of the kinds of things that could not be purchased with the tax dollars. 

Legislature's measure also can't go to ballot

But the Supreme Court's ruling on the fate of Prop. 212 is not a total loss for its supporters. 

In a separate ruling Tuesday, the justices said Proposition 145, crafted by legislative Republicans as a kind of poison pill should Prop. 212 pass, cannot be sent to voters.

Prop. 145, which the Republican-controlled Legislature voted to send to the ballot, was promoted as protecting the ability of children in military families who get Empowerment Scholarship Accounts to save up the money not spent each year for college.

Prop. 212 would have eliminated such "banking'' for all voucher recipients. And it was worded to take effect regardless of whether voters approved or rejected Prop. 212.

But the Arizona Supreme Court pointed out that Prop. 145 sought to put a provision in the Arizona Constitution that any law passed that would undermine the right of military families to keep their voucher dollars would be entirely void. They rejected arguments that the two provisions are close enough to allow lawmakers to put them into a single take-it-or-leave-it package.

That ruling is significant as the committee that was pushing Prop. 212 already is seeking volunteers for a potential future effort.