Supreme Court to release full Invest in Ed opinion Friday

The Arizona Supreme Court from left are Robert Brutinel, John Lopez, John Pelander, Scott Bales, Andrew Gould, Clint Bolick, Ann Scott Timmer.

The Arizona Supreme Court is poised to release its full opinion on striking the Invest in Education Act from the ballot on Friday.

The full decision, which will lay out how each justice voted and detail arguments they made for and against allowing the initiative to go on the ballot, comes out nearly two months after the court booted Invest in Education from the ballot.

Justices were split on the decision, but the full opinion will make clear which justices sided which way.

A brief order put out by the court on Aug. 29 indicated a majority of the justices ruled Invest in Education’s description of its proposed tax hike was inadequate and could create “a significant danger of confusion or unfairness.”

The citizens initiative would have boosted taxes on Arizona’s top earners in order to better fund K-12 education.

Release of the full opinion will also shed light on whether Gov. Doug Ducey’s campaign may have had any inside information on the decision before the general public.

Ducey’s campaign purported to know the vote split shortly after the court released its decision on Aug. 29, causing the governor’s opponents to allege collusion and corruption between the Supreme Court and the executive branch.

Invest in Education supporters also blamed Ducey’s 2016 expansion of the Supreme Court from five to seven judges for keeping the citizens initiative off the ballot. But without knowing how the justices sided on the ruling, it was impossible to know what role, if any, the expanded court played in the downfall of the Invest in Education initiative.