There are many ways by which the government wastes money. One rarely talked about is when those in public office pursue legal appeals for political reasons that have little chance of being successful.
Such waste is occurring with Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s appeal of a lower court decision that blocked the effort of the Mississippi Legislature in 2022 to give $10 million to private schools.
There is no gray area here.
The state constitution specifically bars using public money for non-public schools. Section 208 of the constitution reads in part, “nor shall any funds be appropriated toward the support of any sectarian school, or to any school that at the time of receiving such appropriation is not conducted as a free school.”
If the Mississippi Supreme Court interprets this unambiguous language any differently than did the Hinds County judge who blocked the expenditure, it will undermine the integrity of the state’s highest court.
In its appeal, the Attorney General’s Office offered several legal arguments, none of which hold water. It said:
- That the money was not really state money, since it started off as a federal allocation to Mississippi. That’s like saying the taxes individuals and businesses pay to operate state government are not really state money.
- That the plaintiff, an organization of public school parents and teachers, didn’t have legal standing to sue. That’s a strange argument for a conservative attorney general to make, given that conservatives champion the rights of parents to challenge what their children are taught in school and check out of the school library.
- That by passing the grant money through the Department of Finance en route to private schools, the Legislature avoided the constitutional ban. Will Bardwell, an attorney for the plaintiffs, properly described that legislative maneuver as “money-laundering.”
Some might ask, what’s the difference between this grant program and the private-school tuition vouchers that the state provides to students with special needs? How are those constitutional?
The difference is that tuition vouchers go to the parents, not the schools themselves. The parents decide what private school can best meet their children’s needs, assuming they can find one willing to take the child. It’s not the Legislature or another entity of state government deciding which private school gets the money.
When the Legislature wrote the private school grant bill, it was told it wouldn’t fly. It is a waste of time and money to refuse to accept the obvious.
