Opponents of Arizona school choice voucher expansion fail to gather enough signatures - Arizona's Family

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PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) -- An attempt by public school advocates and the nonprofit Save Our Schools Arizona to block an expansion of the private school voucher system has failed, according to the Arizona Secretary of State’s office.

The law, passed by the Republican-led legislature and signed into law by Gov. Doug Ducey in July, allows every parent in Arizona to use public funds from the K-12 public school system to pay for private school tuition or other education. It was scheduled to go into effect last Saturday but was placed on hold after opposers attempted to block it by trying to gather referendum signatures to get it on the 2024 ballot.

Early Friday morning, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced that the group failed to gather 118,823 legal and completed signatures as required by the state.

“...the Secretary of State’s office has completed the statutorily prescribed review on enough sheets and signatures to determine that the number of petition signatures eligible for verification will fail to meet the constitutional minimum,” the letter said.

We have informed the SOS committee that the referendum will not qualify for the 2024 General Election Ballot. While the statutorily required review continues, our office has inspected enough petitions & signatures to confirm that the 118,823 signature minimum will not be met. pic.twitter.com/UVydtBH5oi

— Secretary Katie Hobbs (@SecretaryHobbs) September 30, 2022

Save Our Schools called the news “a devastating blow.”

“We are confident we would have succeeded had Governor Ducey not waited 10 days to sign the bill, robbing Arizona voters of crucial time to sign the petition. Arizona’s forefathers wisely included the fundamental right to referendum in our state constitution, yet Ducey played cynical games with that right in service of his donors and greedy special interests.”.

After the legislature adjourned, Ducey held on to the bill for ten days, which limited the time opponents had to collect signatures from 90 to 80 days.

Earlier this week, Pro-ESA organizer Christine Accurso questioned Hobbs and her team’s process of counting the signatures collected, saying it was taking too long. Hobb’s office soon released a thread of tweets saying her team was on track to complete the statutorily required review of the citizen referendum within the 20-day window allowed.

Voucher opponents say the program siphons money away from the state’s public schools, which have been underfunded for decades and educate the vast majority of the state’s students. However, Ducey and the Legislature have continued to pump cash into the system over the past several years.

Backers of the voucher program say it allows parents to choose the best school for their children. Ducey is a major “school choice” backer and touted the expansion at a ceremonial bill signing in August.

Ducey and ESA supporters had wanted Hobbs to finish counting the signatures by Friday because they needed the vouchers sent in time for schools’ budgets.

Today, Arizona’s public schools were dealt a devastating blow. The universal ESA voucher scheme passed by the R-controlled #AZLeg & Gov.Ducey has gone into effect despite our network’s herculean effort to stop it in its tracks. We will never stop fighting for AZ's students. pic.twitter.com/VMbw3mLYgD

— Save Our Schools AZ (@arizona_sos) September 30, 2022

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright 2022 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.

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