As Andrew and Adam have already explained, today’s decision in ACSTO v. Winn, though grounded in the technical legal doctrine of “standing,” is a big win for school choice and state flexibility in education reform. Even more importantly, it makes clear that there is a difference between tax credits and government spending; to find that tax money was used for unconstitutional ends here would have assumed that all income is government property until the state allows taxpayers to keep a portion of it. That is not, to put it mildly, how we think of private property.
Of course, even had the Court found that Arizona’s scholarship scheme involved the use of state funds, the program would have been insulated from Establishment Clause challenge because it offered the “genuine and independent choice” that the Court has long required in such cases (most notably the 2002 school voucher case of Zelman v. Simmons-Harris). Many layers of private, individual decisionmaking separate the alleged entanglement of taxpayer funds with religious activities: the choice to set up a scholarship tuition organization (STO), the choice by an STO to provide scholarships for use at religious schools, the choice to donate to such an STO, the choice to apply for a scholarship, and the choice to award a scholarship to a particular student.
Far from being an impediment to parental control over their children’s education or an endorsement of religious schooling, the autonomy Arizona grants taxpayers and STOs ultimately expands freedom for all concerned. For more on that, see Cato’s amicus brief.
Also interesting about the case is that it offers us Justice Elena Kagan’s first significant opinion, for the dissenting four justices. While not surprising that she would be in dissent here, in a “conventional” 5–4 split — although the “conservatives” adopted the position advocated by the Obama administration — there do appear to be some eyebrow-raising turns of phrase. I won’t comment until I finish reading the opinion, but Ed Whelan offers an initial reaction at NRO’s Bench Memos blog.
