From: fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary)
Subject: Re: =>School Vouchers (Amendment 7)<=
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: co
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 15:38:37 GMT

In article <Bw0EvA.B0G@csn.org> bwg@teal.csn.org (Bryan Griffin) writes:
>   Actually, this isn't entirely clear. The Legislative Council of the Colorado
>General Assembly puts out a booklet, "An Analysis of 1992 Ballot Proposals",
>which describes the amendments, effects, and arguments pro and con. When
>describing the provisions of the amendmant, it states that it will 
>"supersede the provisions of the state constitution prohibiting state money
>from being used for private, religious, and sectarian schools". Also, I 
>attended a meeting sunday where the head of the local League of Women
>Voters was describing all the ballot initiatives, and arguments pro and con,
>and she stated that any amendmants passed supersede existing parts of the
>constitution, and although I'm not positive, I think she explicitly mentioned 
>that the voucher proposal would provide money for parochial schools.

The Amendment would supercede existing parts of the Constitution, but
only if there was a conflict between it and them. The Amendment makes
no specific reference to religions or parochial schools. It isn't
clear to me that the ban on religious school funding can be repealed
by a unclear, possible implication: The Amendment can also be read
as giving the vouchers to non-religious schools only, and therefore
neither in conflict with nor repealing the ban on religious school
funding. Ultimately, the issue would have to be settled by the State
Supreme Court, and the usual rule of thumb is for courts to find
and adopt an interpertation that avoids such conflicts. Of course, anyone
interested in killing the Amendment would probably do thier best to 
publisize the most objectionable interpertation possible (witness the
publicity calling Amendment 1 a ban on all future government spending
increases, when actually the ban is on increases greater that needed
to keep up with inflation and rising population...)

> Someone raised the point here that passage of the voucher system may result
>in heavier government regulation of private schools. This may still be 
>possible, I need to find out more details, however the booklet does mention
>that the amendmant will
>"Prevent the General Assembly, or any state agency from creating any authority
>over non-public schools, not existing prior to January 1,1991, except for
>provisions in law which set minimum student achievement or proficiency
>standards which may be no more stringent than for public schools"

This is in conflict with the text of the Amendment (I'm starting to 
wonder how political and biased the Legislative Council is.) The
Amendment specifically says it does not create, or authorize the creation,
of such agencies. This seems quite different from banning the creation
of any such agency (unless the State of Colorado is strictly limited to
those agencies specifically authorized by the Constitution. I don't
recall seeing any such requirement in the there...)

                                                        Frank Crary
                                                        CU Boulder

Newsgroups: co.politics