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Kansas City Star
Posted on Wed, Jul. 03, 2002
Kansas Constitution presents hurdle for voucher supporters
By JIM SULLINGER
Columnist
Like Missouri, Kansas has a strict prohibition in its state constitution
against sending public money to religious schools.
Before Kansas could adopt a private school voucher program like one approved
last week by the U.S. Supreme Court, the state constitution would have to be
changed, according to an official in the Kansas attorney general's office.
Two years ago, Reps. Kent Glasscock of Manhattan and Ralph Tanner of Baldwin
City, both Republicans, proposed a pilot voucher program to see if vouchers
improved the performance of low-income children.
That effort prompted an attorney general's opinion saying the idea was
unconstitutional.
Changing the Kansas Constitution would take a two-thirds vote of the House
and Senate and passage by voters at a statewide election, a difficult task
for an issue that is strongly opposed by the state's powerful public school
lobby.
That's not stopping lawmakers such as Sen. Kay O'Connor, an Olathe
Republican, and Rep. Brenda Landwehr, a Wichita Republican, from introducing
voucher bills in the next session of the Legislature. Pro-voucher activists,
however, are looking for ways around the Stovall opinion.
"Dealing with that state constitutional problem is going to be absolutely
key to how successful (these) efforts might be," said Cindy Duckett, a
Wichita education activist and voucher supporter.
Duckett doesn't agree with Stovall.
In last week's Supreme Court case, the tax-supported vouchers were given to
parents and didn't go directly to religious schools. Duckett said the
parents in Cleveland could use the money to send their children to any
private school, including those with no religious ties.
"The control is in the hands of the direct recipients, and therein lies my
disagreement with the attorney general's opinion about what our state
constitution declares," Duckett said.
Duckett is not a Johnny-come-lately to this issue. She is director of
Children First: CEO Kansas, which provides privately funded scholarships for
low-income students in Sedgwick County to attend private schools.
That organization signed on to two of the amicus briefs that the U.S.
Supreme Court considered in making last week's ruling.
If Duckett and others can get a bill through the Legislature, which she
estimated could take three to five years, it will face a stiff test in the
Kansas courts.
"I do see an eventual court challenge as being inevitable, but that is much
more easily pursued than trying to amend the state constitution, and the
results should also come in much more quickly," Duckett said.
She estimated that it might take 10 to 20 years for a constitutional
amendment to pass.
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To reach Jim Sullinger, Kansas government and Johnson County political
reporter, call (816) 234-7701 or send e-mail to jsullinger@kcstar.com.
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