Christie faces potential legal fight over school vouchers

By Jarrett Renshaw/The Star-Ledger

TRENTON —If Gov. Chris Christie gets his coveted pilot school-voucher program through a stubborn Legislature next month, he may quickly find himself battling in another arena: the courtroom.

The Republican governor’s proposal to allow public school students to get vouchers to attend private or parochial school has hit a legislative roadblock, so he’s put a $2 million pilot program in his proposed state budget and hopes to use it as a bargaining chip during talks with Democrats.

But the Education Law Center, which represents poor school kids, has warned leading lawmakers that creating vouchers through the budget would usurp their role as policymakers — and violate the state constitution.

Leaders of the group say that unlike Congress, which can attach all kinds of unrelated items to a bill, New Jersey’s constitution requires each piece of legislation to be limited to a “single object.”

“The governor is using the budget bill to create a program that he can’t get through the Legislature,” said David Sciarra, executive director of the Education Law Center. “The budget is used to fund existing programs, not create them.”

Sciarra said his Newark-based group “would strongly consider bringing a challenge, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey also said the voucher program violates the state’s strict safeguards against funneling public dollars to religious institutions.

While the U.S. Supreme Court has said voucher programs that are properly designed are constitutional, Ed Barocas, the legal director for the New Jersey ACLU, said the state constitution is much stronger on the issue.

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