Here are your tax dollars at work against Ky School Choice Amendment 2 in Pulaski & Daviess Counties. Sammy should be happy. And why haven't these school boards removed these supers for their illegal expenditures?
"Kentucky law
broadly prohibits the use of tax dollars “to advocate, in partial terms, for or against any public question that appears on the ballot.” Officials critical of school choice are doing so anyway. In August, Pulaski County Schools urged voters to say no to Amendment 2 on its websites,
Facebook page, and
even a physical sign on school grounds.
Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, responded with
a formal advisory reminding school districts that “tax dollars appropriated for public education funds . . . must not be used to advocate for or against the Amendment.” The Liberty Justice Center, a libertarian public-interest litigation firm, also took action,
sending a demand letter on behalf of Pulaski County taxpayers to the school district seeking the removal of all illegal campaign messages and the cessation of any further violations of the law. Pulaski County Schools has since removed the graphics, but replaced them with a statement by its superintendent, Patrick Richardson, that itself seems to violate the law. Mr. Richardson wrote that although he would follow the advisory, he disagreed with it and complained that the attorney general hadn’t consulted with him before issuing statewide legal guidance, which he called “partisan politics at its worst.”
Mr. Richardson also reiterated his opposition to Amendment 2, and his message remains on the district’s official websites and Facebook page. This is, again, the use of public resources to oppose a ballot measure. The district also restricted comments on this Facebook post and blocked one of us (Mr. DeAngelis) after he commented. Though Mr. DeAngelis was eventually unblocked, the district’s actions potentially violated citizens’ First Amendment rights.
Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, initially
defended the district by asserting that government-run school districts “have First Amendment rights.” But at the Kentucky State Fair the next day, the governor tacitly acknowledged the illegality of the district’s lobbying. He first played down the scandal, saying, “This was a Facebook post. This wasn’t spending thousands of dollars on a mailer.” But he added, “The bottom line is the message that was put out, even if it might not have been put out in the right way, is correct.”
At a
press conference on Aug. 16, the attorney general said that Mr. Beshear “very artfully dodged whether that was unlawful conduct or not.” But the law is the law. Mr. Coleman went on, “My job as attorney general, and [Mr. Beshear] should remember this as a former attorney general, is to clearly spell out what the law is, and then if the law is violated, enforce the law.”
It doesn’t take the misuse of thousands of taxpayer dollars to violate Kentucky’s statute. In a meeting with lawmakers Thursday, Christopher Thacker, general counsel for the Office of the Attorney General, clarified that even if a school district’s advocacy against Amendment 2 doesn’t appear to cost money, it would still be illegal. “if it creates the appearance that . . . the school as an institution . . . is taking a position, that’s a nominal use of resources, and that’s not permitted.” Mr. Thacker also rebutted the argument that the law violates government employees’ First Amendment right: “When you’re not on the clock, when you’re not using school resources, when you’re not using an official forum that’s not open to the public, you’re free to say whatever you want.”
Three days after Mr. Coleman warned that electioneering with taxpayer-funded resources is illegal, Democratic Lt. Gov. Jacqueline Coleman’s official Twitter account
praised the Pulaski school district for “ringing the alarm about the school voucher amendment” and instructed Kentuckians: “Vote NO on Amendment 2.” If a district’s official Facebook page can’t be used to oppose a ballot measure, surely a lieutenant governor’s official Twitter can’t either.
The Daviess County Public Schools also appears culpable. According to a
whistleblower who spoke to us on condition of anonymity, the district held a mandatory staff rally where Superintendent Charles Broughton urged district employees to oppose Amendment 2. The whistleblower said that staff were explicitly told to vote no as part of a call-and-response chant, leading some who support Amendment 2 to walk out in protest. The school district didn’t respond to our request for comment."
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