The South Carolina Supreme Court ruled in September that the state cannot spend public taxpayer dollars on private school tuition.
The decision cited a state constitutional prohibition on spending public money for the direct benefit of any religious or other private institution.
But in a new year with new court membership, the Republican-controlled Legislature is trying again.
And one chamber, the S.C. House, has decided it is going back its original plan — with tweaks, like adding a trustee to oversee the so-called scholarship trust fund — instead of the Senate-approved plan to pay for K-12 school vouchers with state Education Lottery dollars.
"We believe that it is essential that we not bring into the equation a novel issue," House Education and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Shannon Erickson, R-Beaufort, said Wednesday before her committee amended S. 62 and sent it to the House floor.
That same day, the House Ways and Means budget-writing committee approved its version of the roughly $14 billion state spending plan. It includes $45 million in general funds to pay for the bill.
Maayan Schechter recently sat down with the Senate bill's lead sponsor, Senate Education Committee Chairman Greg Hembree, R-Horry, and Patrick Kelly, an AP U.S. government teacher and director of governmental affairs for the Palmetto State Teachers Association, to talk about the efforts to expand school choice and whether the Legislature should let voters decide.
You can find that interview at the top of the story.
The S.C. House is expected to debate its amended version of the bill Wednesday.
