Queen Creek, Arizona — A superior court judge in Maricopa County has ruled that state lawmakers acted illegally when they wrote a "poison pill" into a November ballot measure meant to shield school vouchers, barring the measure from going to voters.
Judge Joseph Kreamer found that Proposition 145, a constitutional amendment crafted by the Republican-controlled Legislature, violated Arizona's Separate Amendment Rule, which says voters must weigh each distinct constitutional change on its own. The ruling was reported July 29.
Prop. 145 would have written into the Arizona Constitution a guarantee that students whose parents serve or died in the military could save unused Empowerment Scholarship Account voucher money across school years. The judge said lawmakers were entitled to ask voters for that protection on its own, but could not pair it with language requiring courts to void any other measure touching the same subject, a design that would have killed all of a rival citizen initiative, Proposition 212, even if voters approved it.
Prop. 212, championed by the Arizona Education Association and the group Save Our Schools Arizona, whose supporters collected upwards of 420,000 petition signatures, would cap voucher eligibility for families earning above $150,000 and bar reimbursement of certain expenses. Arizona's voucher program, opened to all students in 2022 after starting with children with special needs, now serves about 100,000 recipients, up from roughly 12,000, with annual awards beginning around $7,500 each.
