Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced on a weekend TV show that her office will investigate the use by Arizona families of Arizona’s school choice program, also known as Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), leaving attorneys stunned and parents questioning her motives.
The program, which was expanded to all K-12 students through a bill sponsored by Speaker of the House Ben Toma last year, has been under attack by the teachers’ union and assorted left-wing groups. Since its inception, up to and including this Legislative Session, Democrats have unsuccessfully tried a variety of legal and political tactics to kill the program.
While killing school choice was a top priority for both the Democratic Caucus in the Legislature and Governor Katie Hobbs, the recently completed state budget protects the program, which has infuriated liberal activists. According to one Capitol insider, it’s now “Mayes’ turn to take a shot.”
“There are no controls on this program. There’s no accountability, and they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money,” Mayes claimed the host of the weekend show, according to 12 News. “That needs to be looked at. I’m the state’s top law enforcement officer, and I think it’s my responsibility to do that.”
However, Jen Wright, an attorney who left the Attorney General’s Office shortly before Mayes took office tweeted:
Once again, @krismayes shows a complete inability to comprehend the law & her authority.
AZ laws provide significant ESA safeguards yet she seems to suggest she’s turning AGO into the homeschool gestapo. 🤦🏻♀️
ADE has a referral process for abuse – she should ask AGO SGD about it.
Once again, @krismayes shows a complete inability to comprehend the law & her authority.
AZ laws provide significant ESA safeguards yet she seems to suggest she’s turning AGO into the homeschool gestapo. 🤦🏻♀️
ADE has a referral process for abuse – she should ask AGO SGD about it. https://t.co/VSb5XgdPYt pic.twitter.com/gfM0zFb5rC
— Jen Wright (@JenWEsq) May 20, 2023
Wright also shared a state statute that hands the responsibility to initiate an investigate abuse of Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) monies to the State Board of Education. Wright suggested Mayes consult her SGD (State Government Division) head to explain the process to her.
Superintendent Tom Horne issued a statement in response to Mayes’ threat:
Under my predecessor, who was unfriendly to universal Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESAs), the laws were not strictly enforced, and therefore funds were used for non-educational purposes, including restaurants and clothing stores. Because I am the defender of the ESA program, I want the laws to be strictly adhered to. I want to ensure that not one penny is used for a non-educational expense. Arizona is the first in the nation, and a model for the rest of the country. I am determined that all laws be strictly enforced, and all funds be used only for valid educational purposes. I’m disappointed that Attorney General Mayes has chosen, at every single opportunity, politics over the law.
Horne brought in Christine Accurso to lead a full staff to manage the growing program. Accurso, a staunch advocate for the program, has turned things around and the program now serves more than 48,500 Arizona children.
Despite claims by the Arizona Education Association and “Save Our Schools”, an anti-school choice group, that the ESA program will bankrupt the state, a study by the Common Sense Institute done after the expansion found that funding issues are not a threat to either the ESA programs or to district school funding. The study documented how “public school enrollment experienced significant declines during the pandemic period and is now more than 70,000 students below FY2019 budget projections. This enrollment decline generates over $500 million in annual statewide savings.” The study goes on to calculate the increase in annual ESA program costs attributable to universal eligibility at under $200 million, suggesting the state was hundreds of millions of dollars under projected spending even with the growth in the program.
This isn’t the first time since being elected only months ago that Mayes has been called out for overstepping her authority. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Livingston set the record straight in a letter to Mayes regarding misleading comments made by her staff in the Senate Appropriations meeting.
“Attorney General Mayes should learn the facts first, and accurately convey those facts in committee hearings, before making demands and threats to sue the Legislature and the Governor over the budget,” tweeted Livingston with a copy of his letter.
Mayes had threatened to sue Governor Katie Hobbs and the Legislature in a letter, claiming that they had no say in the disposition of funds the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) secured from opioid makers during Mark Brnovich’s tenure as AG. The funds are as result of a settlement with opioid manufacturers and are to prevent and treat opioid abuse. Livingston pointed out to Mayes in his letter that the Legislature does in fact have a say in how the funds are used.
One parent of a child in the ESA program, who feared retribution by Mayes, told the Arizona Daily Independent, “The teachers’ union ripped our kids out of their classrooms for over a year, and now their go-to-goon Kris Mayes is cooking up a way to rob them again? When is enough, enough? Leave our kids alone. Doesn’t she have enough drug dealers who are trying to kill our kids to go after?”
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