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The Arizona Supreme Court effectively killed a ballot measure that would have brought significant oversight and an income cap to the state鈥檚 school voucher-like program in a ruling Tuesday.

The battle over the measure brought high drama to the desert 鈥� and exposed cracks forming between conservatives over oversight of the state鈥檚 Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, which families can use like vouchers on homeschooling, private school, and other expenses.

Those divisions are still in play: In the state superintendent鈥檚 race, Arizona voters will choose between two candidates who disagree sharply about whether the ESAs need more regulations. Yet the ballot measure鈥檚 failure demonstrates that enacting new rules for longstanding universal school choice programs can be a difficult task in the current climate 鈥� even if some voucher supporters express qualified support for those limits.

Arizona has long been a proving ground for the school choice movement. ESAs became open to all families four years ago. Some say the program represents a huge victory for families and triggered a much-needed explosion in new education models. To others, the accounts have become a boondoggle ripe for abuse.

about misspending and ask voters directly whether to impose new regulations. Conservative school choice supporters treated the proposal like an existential threat to educational freedom, and used every tool from competing ballot measures to signature petition challenges to thwart the effort.

The signature challenge ultimately carried the day. The state Supreme Court invalidated enough signatures that it appears impossible for the measure, known as the Protect Education Act, to make the ballot. The state teachers union, one of the measure鈥檚 key supporters, .

While a large contingent of notable Republicans, including former Gov. Doug Ducey, , officials behind it wrote that the court鈥檚 ruling 鈥渄oes not reflect what Arizona voters want鈥� .

Polling from late last year had an appetite for better management of the ESA program. What to do with that public sentiment divided school choice supporters.

The American Federation for Children 鈥� a staunchly conservative organization once chaired by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos 鈥� backed a compromise measure intended to defang the Protect Education Act. It accused other pro-voucher groups of 鈥減laying Russian roulette鈥� with Arizona children鈥檚 futures. Critics of the federation shot back that the group through its efforts in Arizona.

Brian Jodice, a spokesperson for the organization, said in a statement after the state Supreme Court鈥檚 Tuesday ruling that the American Federation for Children would 鈥渃ontinue working for real solutions.鈥�

鈥淚t is wrong and reckless to risk 100,000 scholarships, every year, to keep this program unchanged and out of step with all other similar programs across the country,鈥� he wrote.

But with the Supreme Court ruling, that gamble appears to have paid off, at least for now.

Robert Enlow, the president and CEO of EdChoice, said Arizona has led the way in 鈥渢rue parental autonomy.鈥� Imposing any guardrails risks reversing that progress for the school choice movement, he said.

鈥淎rizona is way out in front of everyone else,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 where it has the real national impact.鈥�

The court鈥檚 ruling comes just weeks after the question of whether and how much to regulate ESAs emerged as a key issue in the election for the top education job in the state.

Arizona Superintendent Tom Horne, a strong school choice supporter, lost his reelection bid in the July Republican primary to state Treasurer Kimberly Yee.

Yee accused Horne of overstepping his authority because his office rejected some Empowerment Scholarship Account purchases by parents because it deemed them not educational expenses. Such decisions should be up to state lawmakers, she said. Horne shot back that Yee鈥檚 logic would allow people to use the accounts for suspect items, like Rolex watches.

Republican primary voters favored Yee in a race that became , according to The Beam, an investigative news outlet.

In an email to Chalkbeat, Yee wrote that she鈥檇 protect taxpayer dollars 鈥渨ith transparency and accountability.鈥� She did not answer questions about whether she feels the program needs more oversight or specific new guardrails.

Yee will now face Democrat Teresa Ruiz 鈥� a former community college president 鈥� in November.

Ruiz, who wants to build up oversight of the program if elected, told Chalkbeat that management of the ESA program is the 鈥渘umber one鈥� topic that鈥檚 come up when talking to prospective constituents.

鈥淲hile there are, I鈥檓 sure, some appropriate educational expenses, we also know that the un-educational things have gone through,鈥� she said.

With the ballot measure essentially dead, the superintendents鈥� race could become the next test for how voters feel about regulating school choice.

Passing such regulations through Republican-dominated legislatures has proved challenging. And at least one recent election suggests GOP politicians could pay a price for indicating interest in them.

In 2025, Florida Republicans considered legislation that would , after an audit flagged millions of dollars that weren鈥檛 accounted for. They ultimately abandoned the effort. This year, lawmakers in West Virginia considered but did not advance legislation to .

In this year鈥檚 Iowa GOP gubernatorial race, U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra using the state鈥檚 education savings accounts 鈥� only for . He lost his June primary election, despite getting .

Meanwhile, the Democratic nominee in that election, Rob Sand, believes that .

He has conceded, however, that there鈥檚 鈥渘o chance鈥� Iowa will repeal the program, since Republicans have firm control of the legislature.

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.聽Sign up for their newsletters at .

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