Opinion
Education Letter to the Editor

Voters Would Derail States’ Voucher Plans

May 10, 2011 1 min read
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To the Editor:

The four states discussed in the article “GOP Lawmakers Press Voucher Expansion in States” (April 27, 2011) are among the 39 states whose constitutions prohibit tax aid to religious institutions, but, tellingly, are not among the 14 states (including the District of Columbia) where voters decisively rejected vouchers or their variants by landslide margins in over two dozen statewide referendums.

If voters in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and Pennsylvania were allowed to vote on these voucher plans, they would surely knock them down. We can assume that GOP legislators and governors understand this and are reluctant to follow the honorable course and propose state constitutional amendments that would allow voters a voice on these radical attacks on their public schools and their fundamental rights.

Edd Doerr

President

Americans for Religious Liberty

Silver Spring, Md.

A version of this article appeared in the May 11, 2011 edition of Education Week as Voters Would Derail States’ Voucher Plans

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