The hottest debate going on across Nebraska right now is the debate around school choice. Earlier this year the State Legislature passed LB 753 otherwise known as the “Opportunities Scholarship Act.” The Act allows individual taxpayers and corporations to make contributions to scholarship granting organizations and receive an income tax credit up to 50 percent of their state income tax liability. The scholarship monies raised would then be used to send students to private schools with a cap set at $25 million for the program.

The opponents of school choice have launched a referendum petition drive to repeal the Opportunities Scholarship Act, and they have until August 31 of this year to collect 61,000 valid signatures. While leaders of the movement have claimed that the referendum movement has been entirely citizen-led, we now know that they have spent $300,000 to hire paid circulators to meet their goal of collecting 90,000 signatures before the August 31 deadline.

Most of the money being used to pay these petition circulators is money coming in from out-of-state. According to Accountability and Disclosure Commission reports, the organization called Support Our Schools has raised $1.26 million for the referendum campaign. Of that total, $800,000 came from the National Education Association while 262,000 came from the Nebraska State Education Association otherwise known as Nebraska’s teachers’ union.

By way of contrast, the organization that is opposing the referendum petition drive is called Keep Kids First and their campaign is known as the Decline to Sign campaign. Keep Kids First is asking citizens to sign an oath called the “Pledge for Education Freedom.” The oath has not been registered with the Secretary of State and would have no bearing on the referendum petition drive. Nevertheless, Keep Kids First has raised $504,810 of which $494,710 came from the American Federation for Children, which is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.

I share these things with you today in order to bring clarity to the debate that is going on across our state. Petition circulators employed by Support Our Schools have not been honest with the public about the nature of their referendum on school choice and the fact that they are using paid circulators. For example, when asked about these things at Firth Fun Days, the circulators there denied that Support Our Schools was using paid circulators and they denied that the petition was a referendum on school choice.

Sen. Lou Ann Linehan of Elkhorn was the sponsor of LB 753. Sen. Linehan told Paul Hammel of the Nebraska Examiner that the public school advocates of the referendum are “scam artists.” Because these circulators misinform the public about who is really getting paid to do the work and the true nature of their petition drive, I believe Sen. Linehan’s assessment of them is completely accurate.

Nebraskans need clarity about school choice. Nebraskans need to know what they are signing. Hiding the fact about who is doing the work is dishonest and skewing what the petition is really about is deceitful.