School Vouchers: Dodging Democracy In Nebraska
From Forbes.com
Supporters of school vouchers in Nebraska have passed a bill that may circumvent the drive to give the public a vote on a voucher program for the state.
A year ago, Nebraska’s Governor Jim Pillen signed into law LB 753, creating tax credit vouchers for subsidizing private schools.
The “Opportunity Scholarships” would have been vouchers good for any approved private or religious school. They would have been funded by private donors, who would get dollar-for-dollar tax credits for money they contributed. In other words, they could help fund a private school in place of paying taxes to the state.
Supporters argued that the voucher program would provide opportunity for poor students to have school choice, though it included several eligibility tiers, and students can become eligible for non-economic reasons, such as claims of being bullied.
The bill also included a standard “hands off clause,” indicating that even though the private school is accepting voucher money, the state may not exercise any authority over the school and how it operates (including which students it accepts or rejects).
But the program faced widespread opposition, and a petition drive, spearheaded by Support Our Schools Nebraska, set out to collect the signatures necessary to force the issue to go before voters.
At the end of August, they announced that they had 117,000 signatures—more than enough (roughly 10% of all Nebraska voters). The issue was headed for a November 2024 ballot.
This was bad news for voucher supporters; no voucher proposal has ever survived a direct vote by a state’s taxpayers.
So voucher supporters have tried another approach.
I'm so glad there are at least some highly democratic provisions in state constitutions. Pretty frustrating that democracy is so easily corrupted by its own tools though.