Nebraska voters will decide referendum on private education scholarship program bill in Nov.

Voters in Nebraska will decide on a veto referendum regarding a private education scholarship program on Nov. 5, 2024.

On Sept. 5, 2024, Secretary of State Bob Evnen (R) announced that the referendum had qualified for the ballot. The veto referendum campaign, Support Our Schools, submitted 86,603 signatures on July 17. At least 61,308 signatures needed to be found valid. The state verified 68,184 signatures and confirmed that the distribution requirement was met in 60 counties.

Voters will now decide whether to uphold or repeal provisions of Legislative Bill 1402 (LB 1402). LB 1402 would authorize the state treasurer to administer an education scholarship program with a $10 million budget beginning in fiscal year 2024-2025. The program would provide scholarships to eligible students, covering all or part of the cost of attending any accredited non-governmental private elementary or secondary school in the state. The law would prioritize students based on household income, with first priority given to those whose income is at or below 185% of the federal poverty level.

Support Our Schools is leading the campaign to repeal LB 1402, and is supporting a “No” vote. Jenni Benson, sponsor of Support Our Schools Nebraska and president of the Nebraska State Education Association, said, “Since last summer we’ve collected more than 200,000 signatures from Nebraskans who believe voters should decide whether public funds should be used to pay for private schools. The incredibly short timeline was a huge challenge, but Nebraskans wanted to sign this petition – many were appalled that LB1402 was passed to block citizens from voting on the issue and to impose a costly new voucher scheme on taxpayers.”

State Sen. Dave Murman (R), who supports upholding LB 1402, said, “Others have argued LB 1402 defunds public schools. Those who make this claim either haven’t done the math or simply know they are lying. In the 2022-2023 year, K-12 schools received about $4.7 billion in taxpayer funds. Since my time as chair of the Education Committee, we have additionally appropriated over $1.6 billion for our public schools. Compare this spending with the $10 million cost of LB 1402, and we see that it is only about 0.2 percent, or two one-thousandths, of our total education funding. Compared to most school choice programs across the country, LB 1402 is amongst the humblest and most meager in the nation.”

This is the second veto referendum that Support Our Schools submitted signatures for in this election cycle. In 2023, the campaign qualified a referendum for the 2024 ballot that would have repealed ​​Legislative Bill 753 (LB 753), which enacted a tax credit for qualifying taxpayers who contribute to scholarship-granting organizations for education scholarships for private schools. LB 1402 replaced LB 753, leaving the first veto referendum without legislation to repeal. On May 16, the secretary of state announced that the referendum targeting LB 753 would not be on the 2024 ballot.

On Nov. 5, 2024, voters in Colorado and Kentucky will also decide on school choice-related measures, defined as policies that provide families with taxpayer funding for private education or homeschooling. In Colorado, voters will be deciding on a constitutional amendment that would provide in the state constitution that “each K-12 child has the right to school choice,” defining school choice to include neighborhood schools, charter schools, private schools, homeschools, open enrollment options, and future innovations in education. In Kentucky, voters will be deciding on a constitutional amendment to enable the General Assembly to provide state funding to students outside of public schools.

Nebraska voters will decide on a total of four measures in November. The last time Nebraskans decided on a veto referendum was in 2016, when they voted to repeal a ban on the death penalty.