Overview
- The Protect Education Campaign submitted 421,451 signatures Thursday to the Arizona Secretary of State, a total well above the roughly 256,000 needed to qualify a measure for the November ballot.
- The ballot measure would cap ESA eligibility for universal families at $150,000 household income, ban luxury and noneducational purchases from accounts, require school- and program-level reporting, and direct unused ESA money back to public schools.
- Republican lawmakers already placed House Concurrent Resolution 2048 on the ballot as a competing referral framed to protect military-family accounts but written in language critics say could legally block broader ESA reforms if it passes.
- The Secretary of State’s Office will now begin signature validation and multiple lawsuits are already filed or expected, with the Goldwater Institute defending the legislature’s referral and reform backers preparing court challenges to protect the initiative.
- The outcome could reshape roughly $1 billion a year in state money that flows from public schools into ESA accounts and will affect families who use vouchers, public-school budgets, and how easily future changes to the program can be made.