The teachers union tried to put a referendum on the ballot to block Arizona’s historic expansion of Education Scholarship Accounts (up to $7,000 per child) to all of the state’s students.
Organizers claimed to have submitted 141,714 signatures. They needed 118,823 to qualify for the ballot.
There isn’t an official signature count yet, but our friends at the Goldwater Institute did their own count and found a total of 88,866.
Whoops!
Which raises an obvious question: Why did they submit the petitions at all if they were 30,000 signatures short? Are teacher’s unions that bad at math? The lead organizer is claiming plain incompetence:
Now there is a worry that Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a shill for the unions and a staunch opponent of school choice – hasn’t officially declared that there are insufficient signatures gathered. She may try to use some legal jujitsu to put the issue of the ballot anyway.
Oh. And did we tell you that Katie just happens to be the Democratic nominee for governor? It seems obvious to us – and hopefully to the voters of Arizona – that Hobbs has a legal and moral obligation to recuse herself from this whole issue.
What’s really outrageous is that on the basis of a facially insufficient petition, Hobbs is presently subjecting 11,000 Arizona families to having their scholarships frozen while Hobbs waits to admit the petitions failed.
