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Groups Sue To Remove Voucher Issues From November's Ballot

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 14, 2008

TALLAHASSEE - The battle in Florida over school vouchers returned to the courts on Friday when teacher, civil rights and other groups sued the state to keep two voucher-related proposals off November's ballot.

Two years after the state Supreme Court struck down the Opportunity Scholarship voucher program, the state Taxation and Budget Reform Commission voted this spring to place two proposals on the ballot that would overturn the court's ruling.

Now the Florida Education Association, Anti-Defamation League, American Civil Liberties Union and other groups are arguing that the commission had no right to do so. The groups filed their lawsuit in Leon County Circuit Court on Friday.

"The commission has run amuck," said Ron Meyer, attorney for the Florida Education Association. "It has simply gone outside the scope that the people of Florida have put in the Constitution ... to give it the power to deal with taxation and state budgetary processes."

Opportunity Scholarships, a hallmark of then-Gov. Jeb Bush's education agenda, spent state dollars to send students attending failing public schools to private ones - in practice, primarily religious ones. To date, it is the only school voucher program to have faced a court challenge in Florida, but voucher supporters think the decision places all of the state's school choice programs in jeopardy.

The first of the budget commission's voucher-related proposals would lift a prohibition on spending state dollars on religious organizations, responding to an appellate court's decision against Opportunity Scholarships.

The second ballot question would overturn the state court's decision that the Florida Constitution permits the state to fund a uniform system of public education only.

Commissioner Greg Turbeville, who sponsored the second of the two proposals, defended the right of the commission to look at the issue, citing the state Constitution's mandate that the commission "examine the state budgetary process, the revenue needs and expenditure processes of the state, the appropriateness of the tax structure of the state, and governmental productivity and efficiency."

That certainly covers funding for the state's education system, which claims roughly one-half of the state's general revenue budget, Turbeville said.

The plaintiffs in the case, however, point to another constitutional provision that restricts the ballot questions approved by the commission to "taxation and budgetary processes."

"Expenditure is not a budgetary process itself," Meyer said. "If you take the position that the commission can do anything that involves a state expenditure, then you have just given the commission authority to do anything at all."

Turbeville's ballot question also includes a provision ordering public schools to spend 65 percent of their funding on "classroom" expenses. In their lawsuit, the teachers union and other plaintiffs argue that the title of the ballot question - "Requiring 65 Percent Of School Funding for Classroom Instruction; State's Duty For Children's Education" - overemphasizes the popular 65 percent part in an attempt to confuse voters into approving the entire proposal, regardless of their feelings about vouchers.

Turbeville rejected the accusation, arguing that the wording is clear. "We should be having a debate over what will improve education, and give voters the opportunity to vote on it, rather than fighting over these political legal issues they're raising."

Both Turbeville and Commissioner Patricia Levesque, sponsor of the first voucher-related proposal, were in Gov. Bush's administration. Levesque now serves as executive director of the Foundation For Florida's Future headed by Bush to continue pressing his vision for public education, including school choice.

Bush deferred comment on the pending case to foundation spokeswoman Kristy Campbell.

"These amendments are not about Governor Bush; they are about improving the quality of education for all Florida students," she said in an e-mail. "A vote for Amendment 9 will put an estimated $1 billion more dollars into classrooms and provide the flexibility to create a world-class education for students."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382 or cdolinski@tampatrib.com.

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