A measure to repeal a private school tuition funding law in Nebraska will make the November ballot
Nebraska's top election official says organizers have collected enough signatures to ask voters to repeal a new law that uses taxpayer money to fund private school tuition
Public school advocates have collected enough signatures to ask voters to repeal a new law that uses taxpayer money to fund private school tuition., according to Nebraska’s top election official.
Organizers of Support Our Schools announced in July that they had gathered more than 86,000 signatures of registered voters — well over the nearly 62,000 needed to get the repeal on the ballot. Signatures also had to be collected from 5% of the registered voters in at least 38 of Nebraska’s 93 counties to qualify for the ballot.
Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen confirmed Friday that just more than 62,000 signatures had been verified and that the 5% threshold had been met in 57 counties.
It is the second time ahead of the November election that public school advocates have had to carry out a signature-gathering effort to try to reverse the use of public money for private school tuition. The first came last year, when Republicans who dominate the officially nonpartisan Nebraska Legislature passed a bill to allow corporations and individuals to divert millions of dollars they owe in state income taxes to nonprofit organizations. Those organizations would, in turn, award that money as private school tuition scholarships.
