The Daily Agenda: Vouchers for all?

It's back to (private) school season ... Frank has a bone to pick ... And the Republic gets some yuan.

It’s officially back-to-school season in Arizona — the first since lawmakers implemented a universal “empowerment scholarship account” program allowing any student in the state to take advantage of taxpayer-funded vouchers to send their children to private and religious schools.¹

The state’s voucher program has predictably exploded since last year, with the latest figures showing 60,000 students taking advantage of the vouchers, compared to just about 12,000 around this time last year. Almost all of that growth is from the “universal” category, and most of those students were already attending private schools, meaning the cost to the state is far more than if they had transferred from a public school. 

The universal voucher law was Gov. Doug Ducey’s swan song. But it didn’t come together on the first attempt. In 2017, lawmakers passed a very similar law but were rebuffed by voters in a historic referendum effort, Prop 305. Voucher opponents couldn’t muster that same energy year after year, and when lawmakers passed Ducey’s signature universal voucher bill again last year, it finally stuck.

But then Democrats took control of the governor’s and attorney general’s office a few months later, and Gov. Katie Hobbs and AG Kris Mayes have made it their mission to contract the program. However, they’re finding that’s easier said than done. Hobbs promised to defund ESAs in her State of the State speech and proposed budget, but that idea went nowhere at the GOP-controlled Legislature. 

On Tuesday, Hobbs fired off a memo saying the program will balloon to nearly $1 billion and blow a hole in the budget she just signed, leaving the state with a potential $320 million shortfall. She complained that Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne won’t explain how he’s calculated his budget estimates. Horne said he did explain the numbers — and, anyway, his numbers are essentially the same as the governor’s: They both agree it’ll blow a hole in the budget.

“The projections we released are, ironically, almost exactly the same as those in the governor’s memo,” Horne wrote.

Mayes is also ramping up the pressure on ESAs this week. As schools across the state prepare to begin a new school year, she fired off a warning to parents that they give up a lot of rights when leaving a public school for a private one, including federal protections for children with disabilities, laws against discrimination related to a child’s religion, gender and sexual orientation and access to their children’s educational records. 

Horne shot back with his own statement, which didn’t actually dispute Mayes’ claims. He later acknowledged to Capitol Media Services’ Howie Fischer that Mayes is essentially correct that students and parents give up rights and protections under the law by moving to a private school.² But Horne argued that private schools’ rights to discriminate against children may not be infinite. 

 “I would think if they said, ‘No black students need apply’ we would find a way to say they are violating the civil rights law,” Horne told Fischer.

At the same time the war of words between Horne and Mayes started heating up, Horne lost his chief deputy in the fight for school choice. Christine Accurso, a longtime evangelist for the program, which is now larger than any of Arizona’s school districts, abruptly quit Monday, saying she had accomplished her goals and it was time to move on, after just seven months in the job. And she wasn’t the only ESA administrator to quit.

With all this action on the voucher front, the New York Times swooped in this week to examine the state’s experiment in school choice, which the Times declared a “choose your own education adventure” program with a ”wild, wild west, maverick-y vibe.” 

The Times found many flaws with the program, including that it’s still mostly the rich taking advantage of it and that disadvantaged people who universal vouchers were promoted as benefitting still can’t afford the kind of elite private education that might set their children on the path to a better life with a $7,200 voucher. 

And it’s not clear that they’re delivering better results. Much like with private prisons, lawmakers seem to have no qualms about letting private schools do pretty much whatever they want without reporting anything to the state. 

But what happens when vouchers start to go to schools that cater to gay and trans kids and teach LGBTQ+ history, rather than the religious schools that have historically benefitted? That’s exactly what one∙n∙ten, a nonprofit that serves LGBTQ+ youth is doing with its Queer Blended Learning Center, a new microschool for middle schoolers, as the Republic’s Helen Rummel and Madeleine Parrish report. 

So far, lawmakers have been happy to not regulate private schools that receive vouchers. But as vouchers grow and an ecosystem of schools pops up to take advantage of them, we have a feeling lawmakers may abandon the hands-off approach to private school vouchers. 

The freedom caucus ain’t what it used to be: In an open letter to ”fellow Republicans,” former lawmaker Frank Antenori stuck up for a Republican activist who questioned some of Republican Sen. Justine Wadsack’s votes, accusing the senator of getting her friends at the local GOP to launch a coordinated campaign of bullying that culminated in a resolution that Antenori said is clearly threatening to expel members for speaking against elected Republicans. Antenori called the resolution “un-American,” and the reliably bombastic former lawmaker had even harsher words for Wadsack. Meanwhile, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports on how Wadsack and her supporters are attempting to bully and intimidate backers of a recall campaign against her. 

“A fragile snowflake of a State Senator, who seems incapable of receiving any kind of criticism without throwing a tantrum, has now weaponized the Pima County GOP to exact revenge on her perceived enemies,” Antenori wrote. “Senator Wadsack, with her egomaniacal and tyrannical behavior, and lack of self-control, has brought this on herself, but the damage will not be limited to just her. We will all suffer immensely when Katie Hobbs gets a Democrat legislature because you let it go on unchecked.”

Make the Party Solvent Again: The Arizona Democratic Party is crushing AZGOP in fundraising, a major blow to new AZGOP Chair Jeff DeWit’s agenda to inspire confidence in the party again among the donor class. The Republican Party brought in just $132,000 so far this year, the Republic’s Ray Stern writes, to the Democratic Party’s $1.25 million. Those poor numbers landed the AZGOP on National Review’s list of four key states where the state Republican Party is in “quiet collapse.”

We have a legit shot at bringing in more money this year than the Arizona Republican Party. Help us meet our new goal — subscribe now!

Still time to back out: Former Phoenix City Councilman Danny Valenzuela, a Democrat, is running for Republican Bill Gates’ seat on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. The race to replace the retiring Gates in the competitive district will be hotly contested, Axios Phoenix’s Jeremy Duda reports. Declared contenders include former Republican lawmaker Kate Brophy McGee and attorney Tabatha LaVoie, while former Phoenix City Councilman Sal DiCiccio, one-time secretary of state Republican hopeful Beau Lane and John Garcia, a senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Education, are all considering.

No backing out now: Pima County supervisors appointed Arizona’s newest lawmaker yesterday. Betty Villegas briefly served on the Pima County Board of Supervisors via appointment in 2020 and ran for the state House against incumbent Sally Ann Gonzalez in 2018. She will replace Democratic Rep. Andres Cano in the Tucson-based LD20. Cano was the second Democratic leader to resign this year, behind former Sen. Raquel Teran, and the fifth lawmaker to need replacing, including Liz Harris, who was expelled. 

It could be worse: Gov. Katie Hobbs clocked in as the second-least-liked governor in the nation, per Morning Consult’s quarterly poll. Her approval ratings were still at 47%, compared to 40% who disapproved of her job performance. And Noble Predictive did a rundown of potential U.S. Senate candidates’ favorability numbers: Ruben Gallego is the most popular, Kyrsten Sinema is underwater (but not among independents) and Blake Masters is the least popular. 

Less accurate than polling: Votebeat’s Jessica Huseman explains, point-by-point, why hand counting ballots is “a really bad idea.” And for the audio-inclined, she also joined Mark Brodie on KJZZ’s “The Show” to discuss why the U.S. can’t practically do it, even if France can.

“Not only is it inefficient, costly, and time consuming, it ensures that the ballots that need the most attention are given short shrift: The more time it takes to count ballots, the less time you have to resolve smudged marks, difficult-to-read write-in candidates, process provisional ballots and so on,” Huseman writes.

Politicians will say anything for a job: Newly appointed returning lawmaker Shawnna Bolick told the Maricopa County Board of supervisors that she’s moved on from denying the legitimacy of the 2020 and 2022 elections, but her Twitter would suggest otherwise, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy writes. And Bolick’s comments to the board that the Freedom Caucus is going to cost Republicans the House and Senate didn’t sit well with Freedom Caucus leader Sen. Jake Hoffman, who suggested he’ll retaliate legislatively, the Capitol Times’ Camryn Sanchez reports.

Some good from tragedy: As temperatures and AC bills remain too high, the Associated Press’ Anita Snow looks back on the tragedy of Stephanie Pullman, who died from the heat amid triple-digit temperatures after APS cut off her power over a $51 debt, and how her story brought about new policies that protect people who can’t pay their summer electric bills. Her family cannot discuss the case under a private legal settlement with APS.

“Stephanie Pullman was the face of the fight that helped put the disconnect rules in place for the big, regulated utilities in Arizona,” Stacey Champion, an advocate who pushed for new regulations, told the AP. “But we need more.”

A Chinese marketing firm with state ties and government clients has been covertly placing pro-Beijing stories in American newspapers, according to the Washington Post. They laundered the articles though a “newswire” that offers up content to reporter-starved news outlets. 

Those that were duped into running the propaganda include in the largest newspaper chain in the country, Gannett, through its flagship local paper, our very own Arizona Republic. 

1. Lawmakers actually approved the universal voucher expansion bill in June 2022, but it didn’t take effect until after the 2022 school year began. 

2. You gotta read the whole story for the surprise appearance of failed AG candidate Abe Hamadeh, who got in on the action by firing off a statement accusing “the illegitimate Mayes,” of using propaganda to intimidate parents.