As Anthony Cody explains, the Georgia state constitution is clear:
“No money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly, or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, cult, or religious denomination or of any sectarian institution.”
What part of that is ambiguous. Even the phase “directly or indirectly” says NO.
Yet Georgia has enacted a tax credit plan to divert money from the public treasury to send children to sectarian, religious schools.
It is a back-door voucher.
Where are the lawyers?
Does the state constitution mean nothing?
When did a Georgia conservatives adopt the idea that the constitution means whatever you want it to mean?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
“What part of that is ambiguous.”
To play devil’s advocate (he can afford the rates), I would say possibly the term “public treasury.”
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I would agree if it only stated from the “public treasury”, but the “indirectly” is the key. I believe that it could be successfully shown that “tax credits” take “indirectly” from the “public treasury” and therefore cannot be used to support “religious” schools.
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Yes, I can see a strong argument that tax credits take money “indirectly” from the treasury. But that doesn’t mean the language isn’t ambiguous.
This has been an issue in other states. E.g.:
http://www.oregonlive.com/education/index.ssf/2013/02/tax_credits_for_private_religi.html
Arizona has a tuition tax credit law that was challenged in federal court. I don’t know whether the challenge was based on a statute or constitutional provision with language like the Georgia provision above, but SCOTUS ultimately dismissed the case for lack of taxpayer standing. Plaintiffs generally don’t have standing to sue in federal court based solely on their status as taxpayers, but there’s an exception for suits alleging use of public funds for religious purposes. SCOTUS’s reasoning in dismissing the case was similar to the reasoning I would expect defenders of Georgia’s tax credit program to use–namely, that for money to be taken (whether directly or indirectly) from the “treasury,” it must first be “in” the treasury, and a tax credit leaves money in taxpayers’ hands, rather than putting it in the treasury.
Here’s the key passage from the majority opinion in the SCOTUS case:
Lot of variables here, and an Article III standing analysis (which is federal and constitutional) isn’t the same as a state standing analysis or an analysis on the merits by a state court. But I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the Georgia provision is not ambiguous. (Unfortunately, I haven’t seen many constitutional provisions that lack ambiguity.)
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Sue the state for its “back-door” voucher plan. It has worked in Louisiana. Sure, there will be appeals, but Louisiana’s Joh White is so afraid that the appeal will not go in his favor that he has publicly proposed what amounts to a money laundering scheme for vouchers: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/03/01/john-whites-voucher-laundering-scheme/
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Or maybe what we need to do down here is start up the “Wiccan Academy for GLGBT youth” or the “Mao’s Little School of Communism” or some other such thing, advertise that we are basically getting vouchers (tax money diverted from the treasury!) to operate these schools and watch how fast the laws change.
😉
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I think you’re on to something there!
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make that LGBT youth.
And add “Ang’s School for Dyslexic Liberals” to the list of GA startups!
There, that should really up set the apple cart.
😉
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The ambiguity is “in aid of.” Like in the federal court voucher cases, the fact is that money is going “in aid of” the parents, not to the “aid of” the religious schools. Otherwise, you’d have to say that it is illegal for the government to build roads that lead to religious schools, illegal for the fire department to show up at a religious school, etc.
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