Referendum 1 defeated in every county

Utah voters kill vouchers, UEA looks forward to ‘meaningful’ reform in 2008

On Election Day, UEA President Kim Campbell thanks supporters and the people of Utah who made it clear they want political leaders to invest in public schools, not vouchers.

On November 6, by a 62 to 38 percent margin, Utah voters said no to the implementation of what would have been the nation’s most comprehensive private school voucher program. In the end, a bill passed by one vote in the Utah House of Representatives was felled by 309,523 votes cast by Utahns who would rather see their tax dollars invested in public schools.

The decisive Election Day defeat came after more than eight months of tireless work by dedicated Utah Education Association members and public school advocates who secured petition signatures to get the measure on the ballot, staffed phone banks, and canvassed their neighborhoods with information about how House Bill 148 – the original voucher bill – would take money away from Utah public schools.

Had it passed, the bill would have provided a $500 to $3,000 taxpayer-funded voucher to parents wishing to enroll their children in a private school. The Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel estimated that, over a 13 year period, the bill would have cost taxpayers $429 million.

“With the eyes of the nation upon us, Utah voters today made history by rejecting the flawed voucher law,” UEA President Kim Campbell said during an Election Day victory party in Salt Lake City. “Utahns have sent a clear message: We believe in our public schools and want them supported. We want to ensure Utah’s future economic development with a highly-educated workforce,” Campbell said. “We want our state resources focused on our public schools in order to meet the needs of all children.”

Campbell said with Referendum 1 behind us, “we look forward to working with Governor Huntsman and the Legislature on an education agenda that will make a real difference in Utah schools, including investing in smaller class sizes to provide for individualized attention, up-to-date materials and technology, and a focus on attracting and retaining quality teachers.

“We owe a debt of gratitude to our tireless teachers, parents, and other volunteers who stood up for children and our public schools,” Campbell said. “We also owe our thanks to the courageous elected officials who spoke out against this flawed law.”

Voucher proponent Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com who poured millions of his personal fortune into the campaign, told a news reporter that he felt the referendum was a “statewide IQ test” and that Utah voters had failed. He also accused Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr., who signed the voucher legislation into law, of being “missing in action” after polls showed the referendum would likely be defeated.

A Myriad of Dirty Tricks

Pro-voucher supporters resorted to a myriad of dirty tricks during the campaign – everything from attacking teacher organizations like the National Education Association, to spamming e-mails which directed anti-voucher voters to pro-voucher websites, to a vote-buying scheme that caught the attention of more than one media outlet.

But in the end, the message the anti-voucher Utahns for Public Schools Coalition pushed in every community – that investing in public schools ought to be the state’s number one priority – resonated with voters throughout the state. On Election Day, the referendum failed in every single Utah county.

The Utah Legislature passed HB 148 by a one-vote majority last February. Recognizing some of the flaws in the voucher program, the Legislature attempted to fix the legislation with a second bill, HB 174. Pro-voucher supporters argued that HB 174 could stand on its own regardless of what happened with HB 148, but the Utah Supreme Court ruled that if Utahns were to defeat vouchers in November, HB 174 would be defeated as well.

“Our work does not end here,” Campbell said on Election Day. “We have much left to do to reduce overcrowding in Utah’s classrooms, to involve parents more as partners . . . and to make sure there is a well prepared, quality teacher in every Utah classroom.”

UEA leaders, staff, and members of the Council of Local Presidents pose for a post-election photograph to celebrate the defeat of Referendum 1.