Rocky Mountain High.

Colorado Voters Trounce Tax Credits For Religious Schools

Steve Sand had seen months of polls, ads and editorials and agreed with the consensus that the final vote on Colorado's referendum on tax credits for religious school tuition would be close.

Sand, president of the Denver chapter of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, had also heard statements from both sides of the Amendment 17 debate and knew that the conventional wisdom was that if the measure failed Nov. 3 it would be by a few percentage points.

No one in Colorado expected a landslide, but that's exactly what they got.

A mere two hours after the polls closed at 7 p.m., Sand was already getting congratulated on a hard-fought victory. Exit polls from throughout the state were clear: Voters had soundly rejected the tax credit plan. With all the precincts reporting, Amendment 17 was defeated easily, 39.7 percent in favor and 60.3 percent against. Of Colorado's 63 counties, 62 voted against the tax credit amendment.

"Our side fought hard against a well-organized and better-financed opponent," Sand said. "But I think everyone was surprised by how soundly Amendment 17 was rejected."

The referendum on the harmless sounding "Educational Opportunity Tax Credits" was the only voucher-style initiative in the United States this year, and it received national attention as a result. Though not literally a voucher plan, it raised many of the same policy and constitutional concerns because it would have cleared the way for a tax credit for tuition at private schools, including religious schools.

If passed, Amendment 17 would have provided a sizable tax break for qualifying parents of students in private kindergarten through 12th grade. Parents who took their children out of the public school system would have been given priority, and while the initiative did not specifically detail the amount of the credit, it was estimated to be about $2,500 (see "Educational Opportunity or Educational Scam?" October Church & State).

Americans United Executive Director Barry W. Lynn, who visited Colorado in October to talk about the dangers of the initiative, referred to the tax credit scheme as a "useless, unconstitutional and an unconscionable diversion of revenues away from real school reform." Lynn also noted that Colorado already ranks near the bottom in national comparisons of public school K-12 funding and the tax credit proposal was likely to make the funding discrepancy worse.

In recent years, voucher supporters and their Religious Right allies have made a concerted effort to try to convince minority voters to support vouchers, and the same was true during the campaign on Amendment 17. Former Democratic congressman Floyd Flake of New York, an aggressive voucher supporter, was brought to Colorado to persuade African-Americans that the tax credit plan would be helpful to minorities.

To counter, the NAACP spoke out against the effort as a smokescreen that would do little for minority families and would actually hurt those with children in public schools, which educate 93 percent of Colorado's children. Denver Mayor Wellington Webb, an African-American, also appealed to black voters to oppose the plan.

Ultimately, minority voters saw through the pro-voucher rhetoric. In Denver County, which has the largest African-American population of any county in the state, Amendment 17 garnered just over a third of the votes (36.3 percent). In Adams and Pueblo counties, each with high Hispanic representation, the attempt didn't fare much better, earning just under 39 percent of the vote.

Defeat of Amendment 17 was very much in doubt going into election day. With just two weeks to go, an independent poll of 600 Colorado voters showed 52 percent supported the tax credit plan, 41 percent were opposed and 7 percent were undecided.

Many political observers felt that a wave of radio and television advertising, financed by the sizable war chest put together by supporters of the plan, temporarily swayed some voters.

While money helped push the drive for the tax credits, the source of those funds was a point of some controversy. Backers raised $1.3 million to finance the initiative, but most of the money came in large chunks from millionaire business executives, not grassroots donors. The funds included a $250,000 contribution from voucher supporter John Walton, an heir to the Wal-Mart fortune, in mid October. Bill Daniels, a well-known Republican Party contributor and member of Forbes magazine's recent list of the 400 richest Americans, also gave $250,000.

"The fact that there were a few millionaires trying to convince people to pass a plan that would undermine our schools had an effect on some voters," Sand said. "The fat cat contributors kind of turned some people off."

In addition, some religious groups weighed in with support of their own. Religious Right organizations campaigned for the measure and Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Denver sent a letter to Catholic school parents in September, telling them that Amendment 17 is "a vital first step toward education reform in our state."

The Colorado Education Association, representing teachers statewide, led a group opposed to the initiative called Coloradans for Public Schools. Coalition members included Americans United, the Colorado Association of School Executives, the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Denver branch of the NAACP. Opponents of the effort were able to raise about $1.1 million, a considerable amount of it coming from the National Education Association.

Going into the election, opponents of the tax credit plan saw this as an opportunity to end the voucher debate in Colorado for years to come.

"As exciting as it was to defeat Amendment 17, perhaps the best news is that we're not likely to hear from the voucher supporters in this state for a quite a while," Sand observed. "We easily defeated their voucher amendment in 1992, and then we did it again with their tax credit amendment this year. I think they should now understand pretty clearly how we feel."

Sand was particularly encouraged by comments from Bill Owens, Colorado's Republican governor-elect, a voucher supporter.

"When voters have spoken this decisively, it means that for the short and medium term, we shouldn't reintroduce the concept," Owens told the Denver Post. "I wouldn't rule out the possibility of pilot programs, but this does mean that for the short term, voters are not ready to accept tuition tax credits or school vouchers."

The vote on Amendment 17 in Colorado was the 21st statewide referendum on vouchers or other forms of tax aid to religious schools since 1967. In each instance voters rejected the ballot initiatives, in most cases by lopsided margins.

Despite this string of defeats, voucher advocates remain undeterred by their failure at the ballot box. As Colorado was rejecting one tax credit scheme, a pro-voucher group in Michigan is pressing forward with plans to put a similar measure on the ballot in that state in 2000.

In addition to Colorado's tax credit vote, other referenda of interest around the country Nov. 3 included:

* Colorado and Washington each held statewide elections on banning so-called "partial birth" abortion procedures and both were defeated. The outcome was a setback for the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Religious Right, which have tried to use the issue as a wedge to begin cutting back on abortion rights.

Colorado's Amendment 11 failed by a margin of 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent. Focus on the Family's James Dobson, referring to the vote in his own home state, expressed his disappointment on CNN's "Larry King Live" on Nov. 6.

"I have said before that we're in a moral free fall and I really do believe that," Dobson said. "We had a classic example of that here in Colorado just three days ago when the election occurred where the people of this state walked into the polling places and voted to eliminate a ban on partial-birth abortion.... There's something wrong with that."

* Hawaii and Alaska voters endured expensive and divisive referenda battles over a ban on same-sex marriages, and both passed easily. As expected, Religious Right groups were active in support of these initiatives. The Mormon Church was particularly helpful, reportedly spending over $1 million to assist the measures.

* Georgia passed Referendum C, a measure extending tax exemption to all church-related properties used for non-profit purposes. While churches have been tax-exempt, some state tax collectors were considering religious institutions' parking lots, administrative and educational buildings as taxable property.