Jeff & Konnor's Blog

Whether you are for or against school vouchers, the debate over them in Utah has become nonsensical. Utah voters are being asked to vote on Referendum 1, which begins, "In February 2007, the Utah Legislature passed H.B. 148, Education Vouchers. This bill will take effect only if approved by voters."

Quite true, but beside the point. In a move worthy only of a governmental body, the Utah Legislature passed a second version of the bill establishing school vouchers, H.B. 174, without rescinding the original bill. And, H.B. 174 cannot be put up for referendum because it passed with more than a two-thirds vote in the Legislature. In fact, Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has ordered the Utah School Board to implement the voucher program before the referendum on H.B. 148 even takes place.

To top things off, there is now a fight about the language of the ballot for the moot referendum. Read the language yourself:

"The bill establishes a scholarship program for Qualifying school-age children who newly enroll in eligible private schools, and lower income school-age children who continue their enrollment in eligible private schools; provides for scholarships within that program of $500 to $3,000, depending on family size and income, increasing those scholarship amounts in future years; and allows school districts to retain some per-student funding for scholarship students who transfer to private schools. Are you for or against H.B. 148 taking effect?"

Seems straightforward enough to us. Representative Ralph Becker, however, says the ballot has "a lot of detailed language that I think people are going to be confused about. This is about whether or not people want vouchers in the state of Utah, which would effectively take money that would otherwise go to public schools to subsidize private schools."

Yes, Mr. Becker, wouldn’t it indeed be horrible if we had to vote based on the facts, rather than on the emotional soundbites put out by you and the teachers' unions?

UPDATE: Attorney General orders School Board to implement vouchers, School Board votes not to (upon the advice of the Attorney General's own Deputy Attorney Generals). Governor refuses to call a special session to work out the fact that there are two bills that do the same thing. Everyone sues Everyone. Utah Supreme Court rules that the second bill is not in fact its own bill but rather an amendment to the first, so if the people vote down the first, the second will still be on the books but have no legal effect, therefore no vouchers. Public opinion is against vouchers, which is too bad, since this is a relatively moderate proposal (especially considering the state's huge budget surplus) that is at least worth a shot to see if we could do something to improve our horrible school system in this state. On a positive note, the Court did rule that the ballot language was not too confusing with all those dang factual details, so hopefully people will actually know what they are voting on.