A district judge in Utah issued a marvelous decision on April 18, finding Utah’s school voucher law to be unconstitutional. The 60-page decision was based on a variety of constitutional flaws that the Utah law shares with Idaho’s recently-enacted education tax credit law. The Utah law was enacted in 2023 with $42.5 million in state funds. State funding increased by $40 million in each of the next two years.
The Utah judge said the Utah Constitution gives “a direct command to the legislature to perform a single duty: establish and maintain the state’s education systems.’” The judge continued, “This clear expression of one duty–coupled with the absence of any general duty to provide for the education or intellectual improvement of Utahns — impliedly restricts the legislature from creating a publicly funded school or education program outside of the public school system.” In other words, Utah’s legislature is restricted from using public funds to support any form of private education.
Of interest is the fact that every member of the Idaho Legislature was sent a “Legislative Alert” on the first day of the 2025 legislative session, warning that any scheme to use taxpayer money for private education would be violative of the Idaho Constitution in a number of respects. The Alert was provided by The Committee to Protect and Preserve the Idaho Constitution, a group that participated in the successful lawsuit to overturn the restrictive initiative law enacted in 2021.
The Alert identified the same constitutional flaw focused upon by the Utah judge–that Idaho’s Constitution prohibits the funding of private and parochial education. That has been the law of Idaho ever since statehood in 1890.
The Alert spelled out several other constitutional infirmities that any voucher scheme would entail, including a deliberate transgression of Idaho’s strong prohibition against state support for religious education, discrimination against rural kids and Idaho religions that don’t operate parochial schools, lack of accountability for taxpayer money expended on private schooling, and diminution of state money necessary to support Idaho’s public school system, which has been chronically underfunded for decades.
The Utah judge’s decision mentioned a number of other infirmities in the Utah law–private schools often exclude students with special needs, or condition admission upon adherence to certain religious beliefs, or fail to provide “free” schooling as constitutionally required for taxpayer-supported education. These flaws are also inherent in House Bill 93, the subsidy bill approved by the Legislature this year.
The Idaho Legislature was clearly warned of the serious constitutional problems with HB 93, which will subsidize private and parochial education to the tune of $50 million in just the first year. Yet, because of massive funding from out-of-state groups that are seeking to weaken public schools across the nation, a majority of our legislators cast aside the Constitution and passed the subsidy bill. The Governor lacked the courage to veto the legislation, despite overwhelming public outcry against it. Now, as with the similar travesty in Utah, concerned Idahoans will have to resort to the courts in order to protect the wishes of Idaho’s constitutional drafters. Please stay tuned.
Our legislature is often warned about constitutional problems with some of their shenanigans. If they had to pay for legal fees out of their own pockets in cases they were cautioned against and lost, it might be a different story.
Good idea, Kenny. There is no personal penalty for writing unconstitutional legislation that gets struck down by the courts. The taxpayers usually end up paying for the attorneys on both sides of such cases.
Jim, Hopefully a judge in Idaho will have the wisdom to compel folks to consider better alternatives than defunding education even more in Idaho. One thing is for certain our children in private schools will eventually be forced to survive in the world of public educated Masses. Have a great day!
Thanks for your comment, Jeff. Idaho’s constitutional framers wanted to give every kid a basic education paid for by the state. They had no intention of funding private and parochial schools.
Mr. Jones, thank you for your service and willingness to address this issue from both a constitutional and taxpayer standpoint. I absolutely agree that public funds ought not to be used for private/parochial schools. I happily support adequate funding of public schools to give every Idahoan access to quality education, even though I myself do not have children. My hope is that Idaho sees the value of public education, from pre-school to post-graduate.
Thanks, Cassie: One of the main jobs of the Idaho Legislature is to adequately fund Idaho’s public schools. That is a Constitutional mandate. Legislators get a failing grade since they have failed to do so for decades. Siphoning off public funds to subsidize private and parochial schools will only heighten their failure to comply with the Constitution. Jim
Jim,
Fellow Idahoan here. Thank you for this update. What’s happening concerned me so much that I wrote a piece of future fiction about it. Would you be willing to read it? I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.
Sips of Hemlock—https://www.amazon.com/Sips-Hemlock-Gene-Bans/dp/B0F1JR67QN