Massachusetts Petition Drive Puts School Choice Before LegislatureNov 30, 1999
The drive to amend the Massachusetts state constitution to permit passage of school choice legislation crossed a major threshold today, as the Secretary of the Commonwealth certified 78,342 of 80,555 petition signatures submitted last week. Under state law, a minimum of 57,100 signatures were required in order to move the initiative forward. The proposed constitutional amendment must now be taken up by the next two sessions of the Massachusetts legislature. If it receives the support of at least one-fourth of the legislators in each session, it will then go on the ballot for approval by all of the voters of the state, which could be as early as the general elections of 2002.
A lawsuit filed in federal court by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in March of 1998 challenged provisions in the state constitution that explicitly barred petition drives of the sort that succeeded today. One of those provisions, the “Anti-Aid Amendment” passed in 1854 at the height of the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic “Know-Nothing” movement, bars any public funds from going to religious schools. The other provision, Article 48, was enacted in 1917 during another period of anti-immigrant sentiment in Massachusetts, and barred citizens from trying to change the Anti-Aid Amendment through the citizen’s initiative process. In August, 1998, Massachusetts officials agreed to an injunction that allowed the petition process to move forward while the court challenge proceeds.
A petition drive last year gathered 58,932 signatures, but failed when the Secretary of the Commonwealth disallowed 3,507 of the signatures. The Secretary disallowed 2,213 signatures this year, but the number of valid signatures collected this time exceeded the minimum required by more than 20,000.
In its lawsuit, the Becket Fund represents three mothers who were among those who initiated the petition drive. The suit challenges both the Anti-Aid Amendment and Article 48 on grounds that they violate both the first and fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Becket Fund President and General Counsel Kevin J. Hasson noted that “parental choice in education has very strong support in Massachusetts, and it is sad indeed that constitutional provisions enacted during a dark period in the state’s history have silenced the voices of parents fighting to change the law for so long. But today’s success in the petition drive has set the stage for reversing official state hostility to broad-ranging educational choice. The importance of today’s milestone can hardly be understated.”
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a bipartisan and interfaith public interest law firm that protects the free expression of all religious traditions.
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