Bill asks voters to let state money go to religious agencies

A proposed constitutional amendment allowing state money to flow to religious organizations advanced in the House and Senate on Tuesday, an effort state teacher's union argues is a means to expanding private school vouchers.

Tuesday's committee votes also represented another victory in absentia for former Gov. Jeb Bush, a champion of school vouchers, faith-based programs and privatizing functions of state government.

Both bills now have only to be heard by House and Senate rules panels before consideration by the full chambers. The controversial measure would need a three-fifths' vote of the Legislature for final passage, and 60 percent approval voters needed to become law.

The proposal, titled the Religious Freedom Act, would repeal a section of the Florida Constitution prohibiting the state from spending money, directly or indirectly, on "any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."

It would also insert wording to ban the state from excluding groups or individuals based on their religion from contracting or otherwise participating in state programs.

"Many religious organizations can provide viable social services to help the people of Florida," said Senate sponsor Thad Altman, R-Altamonte Springs.

"The current constitutional language prohibits the state from tapping those potential resources ... Education choice, higher education scholarships, health care services, foster care, work release and homeless shelters are just a few of the examples of the services the religious organizations can provide which have a clearly strong secular benefit to our state."

The Constitution's existing no-aid provision, which dates back to 1885, is known as the Blaine amendment in reference to its original author, U.S. Rep. James G. Blaine, who tried in vain to add the language to the U.S. Constitution in 1875.

Florida was one of many states that added the language to its own constitution in years following, amid a surge in Catholic immigration and enrollment in private Catholic schools. Scholars say the Blaine amendment reflects religious tensions of the times, as Protestants began to fear the government would start paying for Catholic education.

More than a century later, the Blaine amendment figured into the landmark court case that struck down a state-funded voucher program called Opportunity Scholarships, approved by the legislature when Bush was governor. The program allowed students in failing public schools to transfer to private ones, including those with religious underpinnings, using taxpayer-funded vouchers.

Today, another no-aid case is pending in court -- this time, against the state Department of Corrections, for contracting with a religious ministry to provide a faith-based substance abuse program.

Those seeking to repeal the Blaine amendment have pointed to its origins in religious intolerance, arguing that it is inherently discriminatory. But others argue that in the modern context, it properly enshrines the separation of church and state.

Tuesday, the teachers union and state Parent Teacher Association argued that the most important context for the bill is education -- and in particular, state spending on vouchers, a preferred tool of education reform among conservative leaders. Advocates for public education argue that vouchers siphon away resources that should go to those schools instead.

"The language would eliminate a major legal hurdle to wide-open school vouchers to religious schools," said Kevin Watson, lobbyist for the teacher's union.

In 2008, former Bush staffer Patricia Levesque, who now heads Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future, convinced the state Taxation and Budget Reform Commission on which she sat to ask voters to remove the Blaine amendment.

The state Supreme Court ultimately threw out that ballot question, however, along with another vouchers-related amendment proposed by another Bush staffer on the commission, on grounds that they fell outside the commission's jurisdiction.

Had both proposals reached the ballot and met with voter approval, they could have been the means of resurrecting the Opportunity Scholarship program. Tuesday, Levesque testified in both House and Senate committees in support of removing the Blaine amendment. Both panels approved the measure on party-line votes.

Altman, a former social worker, said he proposed the measure primarily out of concern about faith-based social service organizations -- not school vouchers.

"I believe that if we can strike that from the constitution and put in the language we have, you'll see a renaissance of social agencies that are faith-based, that will improve the quality of life of Floridians," he said. "This is my no. 1 priority this session."