In Michigan, conservative groups tried to get two initiatives on the ballot in 2022, but did not file enough valid signatures in time. The same consultants promoted both propositions.
Betsy DeVos poured millions into the voucher campaign, in hopes of getting it passed by a Republican legislature and avoiding a referendum. In a previous referendum, Michigan voters overwhelmingly rejected vouchers for private and religious schools.
Democrats won control of both houses of the legislature in 2022, so that idea is dead, for now.
Beth LeBlanc of The Detroit News reported:
Conservative groups last month abandoned their efforts to pass voter-initiated laws seeking to create stricter voter identification rules and a tax-incentivized scholarship fund in Michigan that could be used for private school education.
The demise of the Let MI Kids Learn ballot initiative serves as a blow to the West Michigan family of former U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Republican mega-donor who helped to launch the effort to create a tax incentive that would finance private school scholarships for students whose parents could not afford the tuition.
Members of the DeVos family contributed roughly $7.9 million toward the Let MI Kids Learn ballot initiative in 2021 and 2022, making up the lion’s share of the financing for the effort, according to state campaign finance records….
The end of the Let MI Kids Learn ballot initiative marks a “major victory for public school students, parents and educators,” said Casandra Ulbrich, a spokesperson for an opposition group called For MI Kids, for MI Schools.
The Secure MI Vote initiative, which also was pulled on Dec. 28, had largely been rendered irrelevant by the November passage of Proposal 2, which cemented in the Michigan Constitution voting rules that Secure MI Vote sought to change in statute, said Jamie Roe, spokesman for the Secure MI Vote effort and a Republican political consultant.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The fact that Gretchen Whitmer won reelection must be driving the devilish DeVos to tears while she sits on one of her yachts in Florida. Maybe exposed the plot to try to kidnap the governor woke up voters in Michigan so they are less likely to support extremism and anarchy. Perhaps more voters are seeing through the MAGA fog, and the Proud Boys are retreating to their caves in Michigan. Whatever the reason, let’s hope this is a recurring trend elsewhere.
cx: Maybe the exposed plot to try to kidnap…
As long as there are conservative, extreme-right billionaires like Beastly Betsy DeVos and ALEC (I think she is a dues paying member of this seditious enemy of freedom and democracy), vouchers, charter schools, and voter restriction legislation will not go away.
Billionaires are similar to countries. They have the money to launch organizations and hire a staff to handle that dark money. Those employees want to keep their jobs. and extremist billionaires like Beastly Betsy doesn’t have to do the work. All she has to do is pay her minions to do it for her, sort of like funding a luxurious toxic hobby that hurts others but doesn’t touch them.
Cleverly done
Indeed!
Nearly $8 million in donations from the DeVos family for this initiative…
Here’s a thought:
If these billionaires truly believe that private education is better, why don’t they take these political donations and create their own scholarship programs, similar to what plenty of organizations and corporations do for college scholarships?
That’s about 500 scholarships for one year’s attendance at a $15,000 per year school.
Oh. We know why…
Well, E, they have two goals that don’t allow them to make private donations to send kids to private and religious schools.
They want the public to pay.
They want to defund public schools so more and more families leave them. They don’t believe in public stuff. That raises their taxes.