Florida Seeks Alternative Route To Get Voucher Amendments [Corrected]

After Florida's Supreme Court struck down the state's school voucher program in 2006, then-Governor Jeb Bush pressed to get a state constitutional amendment that would clearly allow vouchers that could be used by parents who send their children to religious schools. However the state Senate rejected Bush's proposal. (NSBA release, May 2006). Today's Palm Beach Post reports that now supporters are trying another route. The state's Tax and Budget Reform Commission, a body empaneled every 20 years, can propose state constitutional amendments to the voters. Commission member Patricia Levesque (executive director of Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future) is urging the Commission to propose two constitutional amendments-- one that would allow state funds to go to religious institutions and a second that would provide a parallel system of aid for private schools outside the public school system. (See prior related posting.)