GOP Taliban wants voters to repeal separation of church and state in the Arizona Constitution

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Never say that I didn't warn you about the abuse of strike-everything amendments in the waning days of the legislative session. This undemocratic practice needs to be outlawed.

The GOP Taliban is conceding that its student tuition tax credits to private and parochial schools and its attempts to turn public education into for-profit taxpayer subsidized private education is unconstitutional in Arizona. So now the GOP Taliban wants voters to repeal separation of church and state in the Arizona Constitution to make it "legal." Strike everything amendment to H.C.R. 2057, relating to failing schools; vouchers (excerpt):

In 2006, the Legislature established two parental choice grant programs for specific types of students. The Disabled Pupil Scholarship program provided scholarships to students with disabilities to attend the school of their choice, either public or private (Laws 2006, Chapter 340). The Displaced Pupils Choice Grant program distributed grants to students in the foster care system to attend a public or private school of their choice (Laws 2006, Chapter 358).  Both programs received appropriations of $2.5 million from the state general fund.  In March, 2009, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled both programs as unconstitutional, stating they violated Article 9, Section 10 of the Arizona Constitution which prohibits appropriating public monies for private or religious schools.

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Provisions

1.   Establishes the Parental Education  Choice Grant Program (Program) allowing students attending a failing school to receive a grant to attend a private school in the Arizona Constitution, subject to voter approval.

2.   Requires the grant monies awarded to be used toward tuition and fees for the education and related services provided to the student at the private school.

3.   Limits the grant amount a student can receive to the amount of per pupil funding the public school would receive for the student, less funding exempt from the school’s budget limit, or the amount of the private school’s tuition and fees, whichever is less.

4.   Instructs the public school to continue including students awarded grants under the Program in their student counts.

5.   Designates grants awarded through the Program as a grant to the student through their parent or legal guardian and not to the private school.

6.   Stipulates grants are not taxable income.

7.   Directs the Legislature to enact legislation to implement and provide funding for the Program.

8.   Instructs the Secretary of State to submit this proposition to the voters at the next general election.

9.   Becomes effective upon voter approval.

You read that right. The shameless GOP Taliban intends to use disabled children as their poster child for making a frontal assault on the wall of separation between church and state in the Arizona Constitution:

Article 9, Section 10. Aid of church, private or sectarian school, or public service corporation

No tax shall be laid or appropriation of public money made in aid of any church, or private or sectarian school, or any public service corporation.

There is also Article 11, Section 7. Sectarian instruction; religious or political test or qualification

No sectarian instruction shall be imparted in any school or state educational institution that may be established under this Constitution, and no religious or political test or qualification shall ever be required as a condition of admission into any public educational institution of the state, as teacher, student, or pupil; but the liberty of conscience hereby secured shall not be so construed as to justify practices or conduct inconsistent with the good order, peace, morality, or safety of the state, or with the rights of others.

The GOP Taliban is not requiring religious education in public schools (yet). They want taxpayers to subsidize for-profit private and parochial schools as a first step down that slippery slope. Bill would allow state funds for private schools:

State lawmakers want voters to repeal a constitutional provision that now keeps public funds from going to aid private and parochial schools.

On a 3-2 vote Wednesday night, the Senate Committee on Education Accountability and Reform approved sending a measure to the ballot that would allow the state to give tax-funded vouchers to parents whose students are attending schools which the state Department of Education has labeled as "failing.'' The amount of that voucher would be whatever the state would have given to the public school or the amount of the private school's tuition and fees, whichever is less.

But the wording of the measure actually would open the door wider: It seeks to repeal an entire section of the Arizona Constitution which specifically bars the use of public dollars "in aid of any church, or private or sectarian school.''

That change would be significant: The Arizona Supreme Court cited that provision last year when it voided a program to give state funds to the parents of students with special needs to pay for their education at private schools.

Sen. Linda Gray, R-Glendale, who tacked the language onto the more narrow measure, admitted that repealing the constitutional language makes vouchers for all students "a possibility.'' But she said that's not the intent.

Yeah, right lady. Who do you think your bullshitting?

HCR 2057 now goes to the full Senate. If approved there it still needs to be considered by the full House, which has never seen this language.

The final word remains with voters who have to approve all constitutional changes.

The GOP Taliban have given us a corporatocracy, now they want to put us on the slippery slope to a theocracy. I have never seen a group of Americans so opposed to the fundamental principles of our republican form of democracy and who have so little respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. The authoritarianism of the GOP Taliban is out of control, they need to be tossed out by the voters.

In the meantime, call your state senators today to oppose this frontal assault on the wall of separation between church and state in the Arizona Constitution.