By admin 
A group called Fortify Arizona is dropping its Empowerment Scholarship Accounts reform voter petition, according to a spokesperson.
Political action committee Fortify AZ filed a petition in March trying to rival an existing petition put out by the Arizona Education Association (AEA) and Save Our Schools’ (SOS) over ESA reform. However, Fortify AZ spokesperson Barrett Marson confirmed with ABC15 on Tuesday that they are no longer pursing the voter initiative.
Fortify’s proposed initiative included ESA reforms, though, less than what the other petition asked for. AEA and SOS’ petition, called the Protect Education Act, called for an income cap, whereas Fortify AZ’s did not. Fortify’s petition was also backed by national pro-school choice advocacy organization American Federation for Children.
“Fortify will work to ensure the teachers’ union initiative does not become law,” Marson said in a statement.
He added that they decided to drop the petition after a deal with the union fell apart over the weekend, and that they do support the Republican lawmakers’ new proposed ballot measure. That ballot measure, if passed by voters in November, would amend the state constitution to prohibit the state from taking scholarship money back from children of military families.
“The reality is that there’s absolutely no justification for confiscating the scholarship funds from children of military service members who have faithfully served this nation,” said state Sen. Jake Hoffman, one of the two Republicans who voted against the ESA reform deal on Saturday.
The measure also includes a provision that would block any passed voter initiatives to reform the ESA program.
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On Saturday, Democrat lawmakers said the proposed constitutional amendment is not about military families.
“I believe it’s a political ploy to stop the Protect Education Act,” state Rep. Aaron Márquez, an Army Reserve veteran, said on Saturday.
The Protect Education initiative needs nearly 256,000 certified signatures to qualify for the ballot. The deadline for filing those signatures is in early July.
“When we launched the Protect Education Campaign in March, our goal was to implement the common-sense reforms voters demand and students deserve. We have invested millions of dollars toward that goal because it is a fight for the future of our students.That fight continues, and we will win it,” AEA said in statement, in part, on Saturday.
Tommy Schultz, the CEO of the American Federation for Children, released the statement below.
“We supported Fortify Arizona’s efforts as they were the best opportunity to save school choice in Arizona by offering real reforms to voters and protecting the program for its 100,000-plus students; as House Republican leadership staff noted in press Monday, absent our support making it possible for Fortify to gather 250,000 signatures, a deal to save school choice would have never been possible. After a small number of individuals acted to sabotage this chance for the school choice-gutting petition to be pulled and commonsense reforms enacted, we are evaluating our best next steps to ensure the union-backed petition does not rip school choice away from thousands of Arizona students overnight and fundamentally break the program for the rest.”
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