Putting the voucher discussion to bed

by David Safier
The State Supreme Court has spoken: vouchers are unconstitutional in Arizona. Yet we continue to argue about them here at BfA. Well, no more. Or not for awhile anyway.

My sense is that vouchers will sit on a back bench in Arizona for awhile. Though voucher advocates have two basic avenues they can pursue, neither of them sound very practical politically at this moment.

They can try to amend the constitution in a way that would allow vouchers. Somehow, I don't see a ballot measure like that going very far. Even in conservative Utah, a whopping 62% of the voters turned against vouchers in 2006. Democrats would probably like nothing more than to be able to say, "Be sure to go to the polls and vote against the Republican's attempts to take taxpayer dollars away from public schools so they can fund religious schools."

The other avenue is to increase the tax credits for private education. Again, at a time when everyone sees the state is in the red, it's a hard sell to push for diverting more money from state revenues.

Both ideas sound like bad moves politically. If I'm right, this issue will sit on the back burner for awhile — years, probably.

And that's where it will sit on this blog.