Edd Doerr has been CEO of Americans for Religious Liberty for many years. He keeps tabs on voucher referenda. He compiled the list that follows. One thing seems clear: on state ballots, Americans have consistently opposed public funding of religious schools, with only one minor exception, when voters in South Dakota agreed to subsidize textbooks for religious schools, a position consonant with Supreme Court decisions to date. Many state legislatures have endorsed vouchers, even in states where voters rejected them (like Florida). The voucher expansion strategy relies on legislative capture, not popular support. The record below explains why voucher proponents try their o avoid referenda.
Last Tuesday, vouchers were again on the ballot, this time in Arizona. They were soundly defeated, by a margin of 2-1.
Ed Doerr’s list:
AGAINST FOR %
Nebraska 1966
Bus transportation
57-43
New York 1967
Constitution change to allow tax aid
72-28
Nebraska 1970
Tax code vouchers
57-43
Michigan 1970
Constitutional change to allow tax aid
57-43
Oregon 1970
Constitutional change to allow tax aid
61-39
Idaho 1972
Bus transportation
57-43
Maryland 1972
Vouchers
55-45
Maryland 1974
Auxiliary services
56-43
Wash. State 1975
Constitutional change to allow tax aid
60-39
Alaska 1976
Constitutional change to allow tax aid
54-46
Missouri 1976
Auxiliary services
60-40
Michigan 1978
Vouchers
74-46
Wash. DC 1981
Tax code vouchers
89-11
California 1982
Textbook aid
61-39
Massachusetts 1982
Auxiliary services
62-38
Massachusetts 1986
Constitutional change to allow aid
70-30
South Dakota 1986
Textbooks
46-54 (our only loss)
Utah 1988
Tax code vouchers
79-30
Oregon 1990
Tax code vouchers
67-33
Colorado 1992
Vouchers
67-33
California 1993
Vouchers
70-30
Wash. State 1996
Vouchers
64-36
Colorado 1998
Tax code vouchers
60-40
Michigan 2000
Vouchers
69-31
California 2000
Vouchers
71-29
South Dakota 2004
Auxiliary services
53-47
Utah 2007
Vouchers
62-38
Florida 2012
Vouchers
55.5-44.5
Hawaii 2014
Vouchers
55-45
Arizona 2018
Vouchers
65-35
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Oh, all you silly idealists! Since when did voters matter to corporate deformers and their legislator toadies?
And if you lived in Ohio, you might rewrite your sentence as, “Since when did voters care about corporate influence on their children’s education and the legislators and other state elected and appointed officials who enable them?” Based on how not a single politician who supported these policies has ever been held accountable—they were promoted!—the answer to both of our questions is: Never.
Greg and others who live in Ohio,
Why did Sen. Sherrod Brown outperform every other Democrat in Ohio?
Given the ineptitude of the national Democratic
Party and the criminal negligence of the state’s, Sherrod’s “brand,” for lack of a better term, lives apart from both. He has been consistent in his support of members of unions that have been hardest hit in this state. He has long championed steel tariffs, for example, an issue about which I disagree with him, but one that makes many of the steel workers in Cleveland and Youngstown who switched from Obama to our Dear Leader, to stick with him. He genuinely cares, with an almost childlike intensity, about people and treats everyone he meets with respect and looks them in the eye when speaking to them.
Most importantly, the one thing that sets him apart from every statewide Democratic politician who has run in the state since I moved here in 2002 is that he doesn’t need a poll to both determine and express his positions on issues.
Three examples: When I asked former candidate for governor Ed FitzGerald at a fundraiser about why Democrats ignored the legacy of FDR’s Four Freedoms—which I consider to be the foundational ideas of what it means to be a modern Democrat—he dismissed my views because “most people don’t know who FDR was (I was talking about principles, he was talking about the answer to a Jeopardy question) and the polls were telling him something different. In this cycle, the Democrat running for the state Assembly told me that his “strategy” was to bypass reaching out “to the voters who were going to vote Democratic anyway.” He never asked me for my vote or tried to explain why I should vote for him (which I did, but many like me left their vote blank). He ran an issueless campaign as he lost. And finally, I exploded on Twitter when I read Richard Cordray’s post campaign tweet when it “occurred to” him that he was “now freed from the constraints of running for or holding public office. So now I can speak more naturally now about thing that matter to Ohio and our nation…” I responded with a “Good riddance!” Sherrod would never think like this.
And most importantly, Sherrod has that rare gift great politicians have, Bill Clinton being the best in my experience. If Sherrod meets you once, the odds are he will remember you and what you talked about years later. He has weekly constituent coffees in DC and never leaves without listening (he really listens) and speaking to everyone in the room, even if it impacts the rest of his daily schedule. Whether you like is politics or not, there’s no doubt that Brown, as his core, is a real mensch and there’s nothing phony about him. We are lucky to have him, whether we agree or not. We just need to work on him on education issues, he’s close to us, but not quite perfect. I know, however, that he will listen when we make our cases. The state Democratic Party and the bland clones they recruit likes lowest common denominator strategies that allow their candidates to fade into oblivion. To them Sherrod is an outlier who wins despite his record, not because of it. He gets it, they likely never will.
And furthermore!:
https://crooksandliars.com/2018/11/sen-sherrod-brown-takes-shot-big-pharmas
I’ve come to the conclusion that indifferent, deluded parents and citizens are a much bigger problem than those you cite.
It was really inevitable that ed reform would embrace vouchers.
If “public” just means “publicly funded” then excluding private schools never made any sense.
They embraced vouchers the moment they redefined “public” to mean “publicly funded private contractors” – once they did that all bets were off. Now they have “debates” that are limited to how to regulate the contractors. Some of them want no regulation and some of them want some regulation, but they all bought the initial premise which lead them inexorably to full privatization.
It does harm public schools, though. The truth is private schools can and do exclude students they don’t want and then public schools pick them up. Ed reformers don’t value public schools so no one in the echo chamber discusses it. One of the big draws of private schools is the exclusive nature. The key to the thing is the ability to EXCLUDE.
DeVos knows this. Her speeches promoting private schools are full of terrifying tales of bullying thugs and low performers in the public schools which voucher students “escape”- that’s the appeal to exclusivity.
Vouchers = JIM CROW
The Voucher Vultures refuse to give up no matter how many times they are defeated, and when they can’t win, they attempt to go around the voters repeatedly by buying elections like what they did in California this year with Tuck and Thurmond.
Four days ago: “Tuck narrowly led Thurmond in voting updates throughout the evening. The close vote came at the end of a campaign spending spree that could double the previous combined spending record of $30 million set in Tuck’s unsuccessful run for the job four years ago, when he lost to Torlakson.” …
“Marcus Glover, a 25-year-old law school student, said his vote for Thurmond was a vote against DeVos. “Anyone trying to defund education is not right for America,” said Glover outside a polling station in downtown San Diego.
https://edsource.org/2018/with-two-thirds-of-votes-in-tuck-leads-thurmond-in-race-for-california-schools-chief/604532
The Voucher/Choice Vultures will spend anything in their attempt to buy elected positions and then have their politically paid-for slaves bypass the will of the voters.
Saturday: “Tuck’s lead over Thurmond narrows dramatically in race for California’s school chief”
“As California counties continue to count mail-in and provisional ballots, Marshall Tuck’s lead over Assemblyman Tony Thurmond, D-Richmond, has narrowed dramatically in the race for California’s state superintendent of public instruction.
“As of Saturday Nov. 10 at 6 p.m, Tuck had 50.3 percent of the vote, compared to Thurmond’s 49.7 percent, according to the California Secretary of State.
“Tuck is now 38,251 votes ahead of Thurmond, out of 6,934,519 million ballots reported by the Secretary of State. But after Tuesday’s vote he led Thurmond by about 85,916 votes, indicating that the millions of uncounted ballots at that time appear to be tilting strongly in Thurmond’s favor. Out of 134,000 additional votes reported over a 24 hour period between Friday and Saturday, Thurmond was able to reduce Tuck’s lead by another 12,000 votes.” …
“As of Friday morning, the Secretary of State announced that there were 4.8 million uncounted ballots, although it is not clear whether that figure includes or excludes the ballots which have been counted since Election Day.” …
“Three quarters of the uncounted ballots are mail-in ballots which arrived after Tuesday’s election date. About one in five are those cast by people who showed up at the polls to vote, but for a variety of reasons were issued provisional ballots. A much smaller number are same-day registration ballots.”
https://edsource.org/2018/tucks-lead-over-thurmond-narrows-in-race-for-californias-school-chief/604782
I think that most teachers will mail in their ballots because they don’t have the free time to go stand in line and vote because they are too busy correcting student work and planning lessons. Teachers work never ends as long as the school year is in session and even during vacations and summers many teachers work second jobs so they can survive financially.
Whoop!
Ooooops! I made two typos in my list. Michigan 1978 was actually 74-26, and Utah 1988 was actually 70-30. Sorry.
Also, Diane reported that shortly after our great win in Arizona on November 6 the Goldwater Institute and the American Federation for Children (AFC) announced that they would again push the AZ legislature for vouchers. Well, who do you think headed the AFC until a few days after Trump was “elected” in 2016? None other than the despicable Betsy DeVos!
Thanks for this report. I wonder if you can amplify on this: …with only one minor exception, when voters in South Dakota agreed to subsidize textbooks for religious schools, a position consonant with Supreme Court decisions to date.
Is this the South Dakota Supreme Court or US Supreme Court? If from the Supremes in DC, do you have a citation?
Billionaire funded astroturf organizations will find a way to wear down the opposition of volunteer parents and teachers who have work to do and limited time to keep track of all of the legislation that is introduced or all of the riders added to budget bills at the 11th hour.
Voucher legislation must always be forced into a referendum. It will lose.
The lone 1986 vote was a referendum, not a curt ruling. All of the 30 referenda above were just that, popular votes by the people of the states.
Thanks for the follow-up.
All aspects of corporate “reform” are opposed to democracy. The reason is simple. Most people don’t want austerity for themselves and neighbors, and welfare for the wealthy. Sure, the propaganda fools many, but in the end it doesn’t work. As Abraham Lincoln said, “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”