Justices Query Lawyers in Fla. Court Showdown Over Voucher Program

Florida’s Opportunity Scholarships faced their most crucial test last week, as the state supreme court heard arguments in a case about the constitutionality of the voucher program.

In more than an hour of oral arguments in Bush v. Holmes , held June 7 in Tallahassee and shown live on the Internet, lawyers sparred over the implications for school vouchers of language in the Florida Constitution that bars religious institutions from receiving state money.

Plaintiffs’ lawyer John M. West said that religious schools using the vouchers are involved in “the religious indoctrination of young children,” suggesting there is no way to square the program...