OPINION: The referendum is the ultimate answer to Idaho’s school voucher fight

Voucher vultures are circling Idaho’s treasury, expecting to soon receive government approval to gobble up the money deposited into the treasury by hard-working Idahoans. They want the money to be used to subsidize private/religious education for about 36,000 Idaho children who don’t attend public schools. If the state were to subsidize the education of all of these children with $5,000 each, that would be a $180,000,000 burden on the state treasury. The money would come directly from public school funds. Rural areas where there are no private/church schools would be particularly affected.

The voucher vultures are a collection of non-governmental dark money groups that want to weaken the country’s public schools in favor of private/religious schools. The dark money donors include two Christian nationalist billionaire preachers from Texas, Farris Wilks and Tim Dunn, who this year managed to defeat conservative Republicans in rural Texas who have staunchly opposed school voucher programs. Wilks and his brother are well known in Idaho for purchasing and sealing off large tracts of land in our Valley County.

This year, in the closed GOP primary, dark money groups defeated a number of Idaho legislators who opposed subsidizing private/religious schools. This shocked Gov. Brad Little and Superintendent Debbie Critchfield so much that they started talking about “school choice,” meaning using large amounts of public money to subsidize private/religious education.

It should be noted that this would be a direct violation of the Idaho Constitution. And by the way, it’s also a violation of the Idaho Republican Party Platform, which states on page 2: “Taxpayers may grant the government only such money as is necessary to provide constitutionally established functions.” Nothing in the Idaho Constitution says that Taxpayers have to pay for private/religious education.

Whatever the case, there is a strong chance that our extremist legislature will pass some sort of subsidy bill in the 2025 session. There’s a chance the governor will deplore this travesty but allow it to become Idaho law, even though Idaho public school trustees overwhelmingly reject the idea.

So what can Idahoans do to stop private/religious schools’ raid on Idaho’s state treasury? There are actually two viable alternatives that can stop the crackdown – litigation and the rarely held voter referendum in Idaho. I will publicly outline the litigation strategy at a later date. This column is about the referendum strategy.

Those who have lived in Idaho for over a decade may remember that in 2012, Idaho voters used their constitutional referendum power to defeat three despicable education bills. The so-called “Luna Laws” were rejected by a clear majority of voters in a referendum this year. I believe the people would also reject a bill that would require all taxpayers to pay the educational costs of a small minority of Idahoans who do not currently send their children to public schools.

The Baptist News reports that voters in Colorado, Kentucky and Nebraska rejected private/religious school raids on their respective state coffers this year. An expert quoted in the news report said, “Vouchers have never survived a direct vote by voters.”

65 percent of voters in deep red Kentucky voted against school vouchers. The measure was defeated “in every single one of Kentucky’s 120 counties.”

Those who recognize that subsidizing private/religious schools will fatally hurt Idaho’s public school system must prepare for a referendum on any bill that would blow up Idaho’s education budget. It’s time to confront the voucher vultures from other states who are pushing for control of the nation’s education system.

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Jim Jones is a Vietnam War veteran who served as Idaho Attorney General for eight years (1983-1991) and as an Idaho Supreme Court Justice for twelve years (2005-2017). His columns are collected at JJCommonTater.com.