Key Points:

• Fortify AZ drops its own voucher plan from the November ballot

• Arizona Education Association’s stricter limits plan remains on the ballot

• Arizona lawmakers approved a “poison pill” ballot measure to counter the initiative late Friday night

The number of measures on the November ballot to curb school vouchers is now down to one.

On Tuesday, Fortify AZ said it was dropping its alternative proposal to the much stricter limits being pushed by the Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools Arizona.

“Fortify is focused on ensuring that the teachers’ union initiative does not become law,” said spokesman Barrett Marson.

He also pointed out that Fortify AZ was willing to drop its own plan last week when rumors of a deal between House Speaker Steve Montenegro and the education groups went public last Friday. That deal, if made, would have resulted in the AEA dropping its own more far-reaching plan — including a $150,000 limit on parental income to get a $7,500 voucher of state tax dollars to go to private or parochial schools, as well as for home schooling — in exchange for lawmakers approving portions of the initiative on their own.

“Unfortunately, the deal collapsed,” Marson said.

But he said that doesn’t mean Fortify AZ — and the pro-voucher Stand For Children that has been funding its own less comprehensive initiative — is going to sit on the sidelines in the upcoming election. Marson said it will now attempt to convince voters to kill the remaining plan advanced by educators and their allies.

There was no immediate response from the AEA.

Arizona lawmakers first approved what are formally known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts in 2012 to provide vouchers to parents to send their children with special needs to private or parochial schools. Since then, lawmakers have expanded eligibility universally, with a 2022 law now making vouchers available to all students, not just for private schools but also for home schooling.

Enrollment in the program has ballooned from 12,000 students to more than 100,000 now, with a price tag exceeding $1 billion. 

That universalization was what led the Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools to start a petition drive for a ballot measure that could place new limits on who would qualify for the program and how the dollars could be used. 

One provision would deny vouchers to families with incomes exceeding $150,000.

Another would require a list of items that parents cannot purchase with their voucher funds. That second point follows media reports of fraud from parents who swindled reimbursements for everything from out-of-state trips to amusement parks, expensive pianos, jewelry and even lingerie.

The proposal would also require private schools receiving voucher funds to meet some of the same standards that apply to traditional public schools, like background checks for educators.

Backers have until July 2 to gather 255,949 valid signatures to put the issue on the general election ballot.

Fortify AZ came back with its own plans for an alternative school voucher proposal featuring less stringent testing and fewer regulations on schools accepting vouchers.

Now, with that alternative gone, voters will see a straight up-or-down vote on the education initiative — sort of.

In the waning hours of the session, Republican lawmakers approved what some have called a “poison pill” ballot measure of their own designed to kill the initiative — even if voters approve it.

That GOP-crafted measure focuses on the provision in existing law allowing parents to “bank” funds they do not use in any given school year for future expenses. And that even includes saving the money for college.

The AEA/SOS initiative would curb that ability.

What Republicans voted to send to the ballot is a measure to say that if voters approve any plan that takes away that banking ability from children of military families — one of the groups automatically entitled to vouchers — it directs a court to void the entire initiative. It even has language telling judges they cannot simply excise the provisions dealing with military children and banking and leave the rest of the AEA/SOS initiative alone.

Whether such a preemption is legal is unclear. But lawmakers crafted their preemption as an actual amendment to the Arizona Constitution, something they could argue takes precedence from any changes in state laws like those in the education initiative.