TOM HORNE TERRY GODDARD
A letter to the editor in today’s Tribune from the Goldwater Institute probably serves as the denouement for an odd public fight between state schools superintendent Tom Horne and folks who should be his natural allies – champions of the school voucher movement.
The feud was rooted in an early June decision by Horne to suspend funding for two year-old voucher programs for disabled students and children in state foster care. That action came after the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled the two programs violate the state constitution by benefiting private schools.
Goldwater released a statement saying Horne was wrong to suspend the two programs because the case already had been appealed to the state Supreme Court. Horne responded rather harshly, calling the people at Goldwater “liars” and urging the public to ignore anything they say.
Goldwater and the Institute for Justice, the public-interest law firm defending the voucher program, countered by saying Horne misread the appellate court decision and he took a needless step that threatened to disrupt the education of hundreds of kids.
In reality, Horne received bad legal advice from state Attorney General Terry Goddard. First, please note what the Court of Appeals actually said:
“For the foregoing reasons, we vacate the trial court’s judgment and remand with direction to enter judgment for (the plaintiffs), enjoining Horne from expending public funds pursuant to the school voucher statutes.”
That seems pretty straightforward; the voucher programs had to come an sudden stop.
But under Arizona appellate rules, the Institute for Justice said, that order was immediately suspended when the case was taken to the Supreme Court. The higher court confirmed the suspension in a special ruling earlier this month. So, in theory, there was no need to halt the voucher programs before the Supreme Court reaches an opinion on the underlying lawsuit.
Some have suggested that Horne should know that, since he’s a Harvard-educated lawyer. But if Horne had ignored the legal advice of Goddard’s office, Horne could have been personally liable for any money that was spent illegally. Extremely few elected officials are wealthy enough to take that gamble.
Besides, the attorney general really should be the expert on how appellate rules work, since he has an entire office devoted to handling such cases.
Unfortunately, Goddard’s bad advice had serious consequences. With the voucher funding already suspended, Gov. Janet Napolitano was able to justify stripping the $5 million from the new state budget.
So the Supreme Court said the vouchers could continue for now, but there’s no money to do it.
House Speaker Jim Weiers offered to replace that lost funding from $9 million in cash in his budget. But Goddard ruled just Wednesday that move would be illegal without a regular appropriation from the Legislature.
Goddard had better be right about that, or he’s going to start developing a reputation of incompetence in a fundamental aspect of his job.
Twitter
eh? Its calling being a state officer. Even if you know that eventually you’ll be appealing a decision- you still don’t willfully disobey the court of appeals. Its kind of part of being a lawyer.
If this voucher program was so important to Mr. Weiers, maybe he should have been worrying about it at the eleventh hour of the legislative session rather than the one man-one woman marriage referendum.