A Victory in Court for Protect Education, the Universal Private School Voucher Ballot Reform Initiative

By Linda Lyon

Yesterday, Judge Joseph Kreamer of the Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County ruled (ruling, PDF Link) that HCR 2048 is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, filed by the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest on behalf of plaintiffs AEA, SOSAZN, and Linda May Lyon, sought both declaratory and injunctive relief. The plaintiffs argued that HCR 2048 violated two constitutional requirements for proposed amendments: the Separate Amendment Rule and the Title Requirement.

The court agreed in part. Judge Kreamer found that HCR 2048 violated the Separate Amendment Rule and ordered that it not be placed on the November 2026 ballot. However, the court also ruled that the measure did not violate the Title Requirement.

HCR 2048 was referred to the November ballot by the Arizona Legislature. The measure would amend Article XI of the Arizona Constitution by adding a new Section 12 with three subsections. It would:

• Prohibit the state from confiscating money in scholarship accounts belonging to eligible children of military families.
• Provide that if any law or voter-approved measure enacted on or after November 1, 2026, violates that protection, the entire law or measure would be void. It would also prohibit courts from severing, or preserving, any valid portions of the law.
• Add definitions related to the amendment.

The court agreed with the intervenor-defendants (the President of the Arizona Senate and the Speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives) that Subsections A and B address the same general topic because both involve protecting scholarship accounts for military families. This part of the ruling was not unexpected, since the first part of the Separate Amendment Rule requires only that the provisions of a proposed amendment share the same general subject—a relatively easy standard to meet.

The dispute centered on the second part of the Separate Amendment Rule, which requires that the different provisions of an amendment be sufficiently interrelated. In other words, the provisions must work together as part of a single constitutional change.

Although HCR 2048 would formally amend only Article XI of the Arizona Constitution, the court found that its no-severance provision would have much broader constitutional effects. The court agreed with the plaintiffs that this provision was unlike any severability rule previously adopted in Arizona because it would not apply only to HCR 2048 itself. Instead, it would govern future legislation and voter-approved measures, potentially requiring courts to invalidate entire laws based on a single violation.

The court concluded that this provision reaches beyond education policy and affects fundamental constitutional principles, including judicial review, legislative authority, and the separation of powers. Unlike existing constitutional provisions that narrowly limit legislative authority in specific circumstances—such as protecting victims’ rights—the no-severance clause would apply to a much broader range of future laws.

Ultimately, the court found that Subsection B would require courts to invalidate entire laws based on a single unconstitutional application, even when other portions of those laws are otherwise valid and unrelated. Because these sweeping effects on judicial power and legislative authority are not sufficiently related to Subsection A’s protection of military family scholarship accounts, the court concluded that HCR 2048 violates the Separate Amendment Rule.

Judge Kreamer ordered granting Plaintiffs’ request for declaratory judgment in part, and injunctive relief in full, finding in favor of Plaintiffs. He also ordered enjoining the State of Arizona or any of its agents from placing HCR 2048 on the November 2026 general election ballot. Finally, he ordered Plaintiffs must submit any application for attorneys’ fees on or before August 25, 2026. 

The Legislative Intervenor-Defendants are expected to appeal the ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court. Because Arizona case law favors resolving pre-election challenges to ballot measures before ballot printing begins, the appeal is likely to be fast-tracked.

Ed. MDB: Thanks to Linda for this analysis! We aren’t out of the woods yet, but this is a major victory for Arizona’s citizens in defending the integrity of our reform Initiative against the AZ MAGA majority in the State Legislature, who are doing their level best to prevent AZ’s voters from having a say about reforming their Universal Voucher $1 Billion per year boondoggle that is defunding and undermining our public education system and giving a corrupt gift to the wealthiest Arizonans.