Congratulations to Save Our Schools Arizona!
You did it!
Save Our Schools Arizona collected enough signatures across the state to block implementation of the legislature’s expansion of vouchers. SOS needed 75,000 signatures and gathered 100,000.
“A law expanding Arizona’s school-voucher program was put on hold Tuesday after foes delivered 111,540 signatures to the secretary of state in hopes of giving voters the final say on whether the controversial measure should stand.
“Save Our Schools Arizona, a volunteer group that formed in opposition to Republicans’ expansion of the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, said it gathered the signatures from public-education supporters across the state who oppose using tax dollars for private-school tuition and are critical of the program’s lack of transparency.
“Supporters transported the petitions to the Capitol in 76 bankers boxes using a yellow school bus and a red wagon.
“To refer Senate Bill 1431 to the November 2018 ballot requires 75,321 valid signatures.
“The law’s implementation was immediately put on hold while the secretary of state evaluates whether Save Our Schools has met that threshold, a process that could take until the beginning of October.
“The bill made all 1.1 million Arizona students eligible to apply for the program, which grants tax dollars to parents for private school tuition or other education expenses. While broadening eligibility, the bill capped the number of recipients at 30,000 by 2022.
“Prior to expansion — which Gov. Doug Ducey and GOP lawmakers narrowly muscled through the Legislature in April — the program had been limited to certain students, including those with special needs, in poor-performing schools, or from military families.
“For now, the law is stayed,” state Elections Director Eric Spencer told members of the group.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Other states need to follow with their own yellow buses and red wagons!!!
Yeah for Save Our Schools headed by Bess Altwerger.
We need a lot more citizens with their eyes wide open to come to the defense of public education. Wake up, Florida! You’re allowing the crooked legislature and sneaky governor to get away with bad policy time and time again.
Yay. I helped.
Most petitions were gathered by volunteers. Our legislature and governor are ALEC controlled. Our public schools have been underfunded since 2009, and Vouchers for All was the last straw. People Power, even in a trifecta red state!
The best tool with which to defeat plutocracy is democracy.
We are many, they are few.
They can buy advertising and propaganda, but they will always be a small minority.
VOTE!
If this goes to the public ballot box, we will see records broken again on how much out of state billionaires will spend to defeat it and support their draconian agenda of greed is good and crush the working class with hammers while turning children into obedient, abused drones or prison inmates.
Well done, Arizona! May your voucher scheme go into oblivion like Utah’s did in 2006.
Let’s just hope that your legislature doesn’t exact revenge on schools and teachers in the state, as it has in Utah.
see
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/charterschoice/2017/08/massive_expansion_of_arizona_school_choice_program_could_be_blocked.html
Many people believe (incorrectly) that referenda are democracy in action. This is not the case. The US Constitution is silent on referenda, there is no provision in the constitution for any form of referendum. This is exactly what the founders intended. see
https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-use-and-abuse-of-referendums/?format=pdf
The recent “Brexit” vote in the UK, garnered only about 37% of eligible voters in favor, yet it passed.
Some (not all) states have referendum mechanisms. When these proposals come up, the voters often (not always) have little or no idea, of what they are voting on.
The central idea of our constitutional republic, is that the government (elected by the people) is to put a “check” on the whims of the mob. Government is supposed to be a deliberative process, and our constitution deliberately sets up a diffusion of power, to stop mob rule.
Charles,
The Founders also expected the Electoral College to be a deliberative body that would prevent demagogues and charlatans from becoming president.
In 2016, it worked! Hillary Clinton is now a private citizen (THANK GOD AND THOMAS JEFFERSON).
What does the Constitution have to do with democracy? You right-wingers are always the first to point out that the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. Democracy is the voice of the people. That’s not what our founders intended. Fortunately, saner heads have (gradually) prevailed since then. So, your whole first statement is wrong. Referenda are one of the purest forms of democracy (second only to the unwieldy townhall meeting (the kind where actual decisions get made, not the kind where politicians show up to lecture the people)).
@Dienne: Your comments are more accurate than you realize. The founders of this nation/republic did not want you to vote. see
http://www.thepublicprofessor.com/the-founding-fathers-did-not-want-you-to-vote/
The federal government is deliberately set up, to “distance” the government from the mob. In the three branches of the (federal) government, only the House of Representatives is directly chosen by the voters. (I say “voters” as distinct from “citizens”). The senate is to be chosen by the state legislatures, the president by the electoral college, the supreme court by appointment. The federal government is by no means a democracy.
You can speculate all you want about the “founder’s intent”. There were 55 of them, and they wanted the voters to be white, male, property owners. It took a civil war to emancipate the slaves. It was well into the 20th century before women got the franchise. Notwithstanding the 13/14/15 amendments, it was not until 1965, that blacks in the south could vote.
Unquestionably, the founders deliberately left out any provisions for referenda in the federal constitution, in order to “isolate” the government from the whims of the mob.
Charles,
If you read Federalist Paper #68, likely written by Hamilton, you will learn that the Electoral College was designed to be a deliberative body that protected the new nation from a demagogue and from foreign intrigue. Hamilton, Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Madison, etc. must be rolling in their graves.
Here is an excerpt:
“It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of SEVERAL, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of ONE who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
“Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
“All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
“The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says: “For forms of government let fools contest That which is best administered is best,” yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.”
Referenda are becoming a “fourth branch” of government. I find it ironic, that in California, there were referenda on two topics in one election, back in 2008. One was for new regulations on the housing of chickens in chicken coops. One was for reversing the California supreme court decision on same-sex marriage. The chicken referendum passed, and the rights of same-sex persons to marry was cancelled. Chickens won, and LGBT people lost. see
http://www.economist.com/node/15127600
The good thing about referenda is that people get to vote. The bad thing is that billionaires like the Waltons and the DeVos family overwhelm referenda with propaganda. There should be strict campaign finance reform to prevent the richest from buying or stealing our democracy
Unhappily, you are right about the big money that follows some (not all) referenda. Prop. 8 (Same gender marriage) in California, brought in a huge amount of money, both pro and con, from out-of-state, and in-state.
Money is the “mother’s milk” of politics.
see
Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1975/75-436