Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III joined 17 other states on a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the justices to overturn Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, a Montana Supreme Court decision that required the state to exclude religious school options for parents participating in a state tax credit scholarship program.
Montana’s program, enacted by its legislature in 2015, gave a tax credit to taxpayers who donated to a private scholarship organization. The organization then awarded scholarships to eligible children attending private schools.
Many of the participating states have enacted similar programs that provide financial assistance for parents to choose diverse educational opportunities for their children. Students in these programs are permitted to attend private schools of sufficient caliber, religious or not, as a matter of good policy and as required by the First Amendment.
“If the decision by the Montana Supreme Court is not overturned, it could jeopardize school choice programs across the country,” said General Slatery.
Read the brief here: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/pr/2019/pr19-amicus.pdf
Tennessee joins the attorneys general of Oklahoma, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia, as well as the governors of Kentucky and Mississippi.