When we let vouchers drain our schools, it hurts us all.
June 9, 2026
Good Tuesday morning,
In May, attorneys for the state, and the Institute for Justice, an out-of-state intervenor in our EdChoice private school voucher lawsuit, bombed big time before the 10th District Court of Appeals.
Keith Neely, with the Institute, had a lump-in-the-throat exchange with Morgan Trau, a reporter for WEWS TV in Cleveland.
“The argument this morning, I think, went well for us,” Neely said after the hearing.
“You genuinely thought it went well?” I asked him, Trau reported.
“I do think that the argument went well on some of our claims…” Neely said. “Ultimately, I think we all recognize that this case is going to go to the Ohio Supreme Court one way or another.”
The appellate court judges will eventually rule on the case, but Neely expects the panel, all of them Democrats, to side with the schools.
He believes, eventually, the Republican-dominated Ohio Supreme Court will rule in his favor, Trau reported.
Unable to make a constitutional case for vouchers, attorneys defending the problematic program are resorting to writing everything off as political.
Don’t believe it.
We have faith in the judicial system.
We won at the Common Pleas court level on the merits of our case. Judge Jaiza Page ruled that three of the counts we raised against EdChoice were correct and the program was unconstitutional.
We witnessed our attorneys argue, we believe, successfully before the 10th District Court of Appeals and we watched as the pro-voucher attorneys stumbled so badly that a Cleveland Plain Dealer headline stated: “Ohio’s school voucher house of cards is collapsing in court. The state’s defense is embarrassing.”
We believe we will be successful before the Ohio Supreme Court as well.
Our counts are all based on a strict, originalist reading of the Ohio Constitution, and the Ohio Supreme Court is composed of a majority of originalist justices. The language is so clear, plain, and in black and white that we believe Antonin Scalia would have agreed with us.
Our Ohio Supreme Court is not issuing rulings in a judicial vacuum. There is precedent in the Ohio Supreme Court on this issue already. The justices will have to take into consideration rulings by Judge Page and the 10th District Court of Appeals.
In addition, courts in state after state are ruling against vouchers. Interestingly, the constitutions in many of those states, often written around the same time as Ohio, are strikingly similar in their language protecting religious freedom and emphasizing the critical importance of the separation of church and state.
EdChoice vouchers are unpopular and growing in unpopularity. In 2024, pro-voucher groups asked voters in three states to approve voucher programs at the ballot box, including Kentucky where Donald Trump won overwhelmingly.
In all three states, voters said NO.
Voters have never passed a ballot initiative in any state to support vouchers.
Ohio State Supreme Court justices are elected, responsible to the people and to their oath of office to the Ohio Constitution.
They are not immune to the consensus of the people of our state. Our Steering Committee Chair, former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Brown, who has sat on the court, believes the justices will take very seriously their duty to abide by and follow the Ohio Constitution.
Mike Curtin, a former editor and associate publisher of the Columbus Dispatch, a former two-term Ohio House member who served on the Ohio Constitutional Modernization Commission, researched and reported a great piece on the language barring the use of public tax dollars to pay for private, mostly religious schools.
Curtin makes a compelling case for why the Ohio Supreme Court will find vouchers unconstitutional based on their originalist beliefs.
It is well worth your time to read here.
Anyone who tells you the Ohio Supreme Court will rule against us because of party affiliation hasn’t done their homework.
Is your district part of our historic lawsuit? Check here.
If not, why not? Join here.
Sincerely,
Vouchers Hurt Ohio