Editor's note: This op-ed appeared in today's Tampa Bay Times.
Few public issues are as absorbing as the balance between religion and government, so a ballot initiative that aims to change the boundary is worthy of rigorous debate. Instead, Florida's Amendment 8 is being treated to a proxy campaign on school vouchers.
A new radio ad by the Florida Education Association: "Amendment 8 allows the government to give our tax dollars to any group claiming to be a religious organization, so any religious group or sect can use our money to fund their own religious schools."
FEA president Andy Ford: "This is designed to open the state treasury to voucher schools."
Alachua School Board member Eileen Roy: "It's the very death of public schools. That's not overstating it, in my opinion."
These are provocative arguments, to be sure, but they are basically irrelevant. The amendment was placed on the ballot by two legislators — Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, and Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood — who have said repeatedly they want to protect religiously based social services. Their interest was piqued by a lawsuit, Council for Secular Humanism vs. McNeil, that challenges a prison ministries program, and by the fact that the New York-based council has called it "a springboard to mounting other challenges."
In turn, the pro-Amendment 8 campaign is being led by a coalition of community-service providers and religious leaders who have raised less than $100,000 to date. They believe that if the secular humanists will sue over prison ministries, they might one day challenge the Catholic Charities or Catholic hospitals or the YMCA. After all, the current constitutional language is explicit: "No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution."
Now it is certainly true that voucher advocates have previously pushed to alter the no-aid clause. But it is just as clear that they played no role in getting this amendment on the ballot and, most telling, have raised not a penny for the campaign. Their reasons are pragmatic, not philosophical: Federal and state court decisions in recent years have rendered the no-aid clause all but moot as it relates to school choice. Read full editorial here.
Florida voters will be asked in November to remove the Blaine amendment from their state Constitution, but, despite some assertions to the contrary, this vote is not about private school vouchers.
The amendment was placed on the ballot by two legislators – Sen. Thad Altman, R-Viera, and Rep. Scott Plakon, R-Longwood – who have said repeatedly they want to protect religiously-based social services. Their interest was piqued by a lawsuit, Council for Secular Humanism v. McNeil, that challenges a prison ministries program, and by the fact that the director of this New York-based Council has called it “a springboard to mounting other challenges.”
In turn, the pro-Amendment 8 campaign is being led by a coalition of community-service providers and religious leaders who have raised less than $100,000 to date. They are honorable people who simply want to protect the broad assortment of services that is currently delivered without controversy by faith-based providers. Their position is understandable: If the secular humanists will sue over prison ministries, what’s to stop them from challenging government contracts with the Catholic Charities, Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Community Services or the YMCA? Are Catholic hospitals safe? After all, the constitutional language at issue is quite explicit: “No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
Though parental choice advocates have previously pushed for changes to the no-aid clause, they were not involved last year in the legislative effort to put this issue on the ballot and are not raising money for the campaign. This is not to suggest they oppose the amendment – most school choice advocates support the role of faith-based service providers – but it reflects the extent to which state and federal court decisions have minimized the relevance of this issue for school choice.
First, the no-aid clause is irrelevant to Florida’s current judicial precedent on school vouchers. The state Supreme Court, in its 2006 Bush v. Holmes ruling, found Opportunity Scholarships to be unconstitutional because they violated Article IX provisions requiring a “uniform” public school system. The court, in fact, steered clear of a lower court ruling that invalidated the scholarships based on the Blaine Amendment – a decision that may well have been influenced by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2002 Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decision. In Zelman, the U.S. Supreme Court found parents could use public funds to pay for religious schools provided the parents were making a genuine and independent choice. In all of Florida’s private school choice programs, parents control which school receives the public funds. There is no government coercion.
Second, the largest private learning option in the state, tax credit scholarships that served 40,249 low-income students this past year, is constitutionally distinct from vouchers. (more…)
