On Sept. 30, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) announced that a referendum on Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) expansion legislation will not make the ballot.
A week earlier, the campaign for the referendum, the Save Our Schools PAC, submitted signatures to place the measure on the ballot. The campaign said it submitted 141,714 signatures. Secretary Hobbs announced that a statutorily prescribed review of the petitions failed to meet the minimum signature requirement of 118,823 signatures. While the review of the petition sheets is still ongoing, Secretary Hobbs announced that the referendum will not make the 2024 ballot.
The Save Our Schools PAC put out a statement following the failure to make the ballot. “Today, Arizona’s public schools were dealt a devastating blow,” the campaign said, “The universal ESA voucher scheme passed by the Republican controlled legislature and signed by Governor Ducey has gone into effect despite our network’s herculean effort to stop it in its tracks.”
