Arizona Anti-ESA Initiative Fails to Gather Enough Verified Signatures to Make November Ballot

Supporters of education freedom are celebrating after the so-called “Protect Education Act,” a union-backed initiative designed to strangle Arizona’s Empowerment Scholarship Program, appears to have fallen short of the 255,949 signatures required to appear on the Grand Canyon State’s November ballot.

Had it reached the ballot and become law, the initiative would have imposed dramatic new changes to the Empowerment Scholarship Program, including an income cap, required assessments, and a host of new regulations that would make it harder for families and schools to participate.

Supporters of the initiative submitted 421,451 signatures, well above the statutory requirement of 255,949 signatures to qualify for the ballot. However, litigation uncovered tens of thousands of invalid signatures that were duplicates or, in some cases, collected by individuals who were legally ineligible to gather signatures in the first place. Because of this, the initiative is at least 10,000 signatures short of the requirement, according to the Arizona Free Enterprise Club.

Arizona’s ESA Program is one of the nation’s leading education-freedom programs and currently serves more than 100,000 students. Families use ESA funds for private school tuition, homeschool curricula, tutoring, therapies, educational supplies, and other approved expenses. The program gives parents the flexibility to design an education around their child’s individual needs.

ALEC has long been a supporter of education freedom in Arizona and across the country through our Education & Workforce Development Task Force. We also launched and lead the Education Freedom Alliance (EFA), a network of legislators, state groups, and national groups dedicated to empowering parents and maximizing education freedom. In addition to using the EFA as a platform for Arizona’s ESA supporters to communicate and coordinate with like-minded groups, we also worked with partners to run television ads in support of education freedom in Arizona.

The Arizona Supreme Court still needs to rule on the final appeal from the anti-ESA initiative supporters, but this initial decision represents an important victory for Arizona students and parents. ALEC looks forward to continuing to work alongside families and state lawmakers in Arizona to protect and strengthen the Empowerment Scholarship Account Program in the future.