Americans United for Separation of Church and State has won a victory for the separation of religion and government in a lawsuit they filed in Florida along with a coalition of civil liberties and education groups and which was heard yesterday by the Florida Supreme Court.

At issue yesterday were three ballot amendments, two that directly involved church and state (subject to the AU lawsuit) and another addressing property taxes and public education. As the Miami Herald reports:

Amendment 5 — known as the tax-swap amendment — would have eliminated property taxes that pay for schools, lowering average tax bills by 25 percent and forcing legislators to replace the money with sales and other taxes.

Amendment 7 would have repealed the 100-year-old ban on direct state funding of religious institutions, including religious schools.

And Amendment 9 would have overturned the state Supreme Court decision that invalidated state-paid vouchers for students in failing public schools to attend private schools.

All three amendments were placed on the ballot by the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission, a panel of citizens that only meets once every twenty years. The court ruled that the commission had exceeded its authority on the voucher-related amendments and that Amendment 5 was worded in a misleading manner and struck all three amendments from the November ballot.

What is really striking about the juxtaposition of the three amendments is that Amendment 5 would have denied the state a primary funding source for public education by cutting property taxes but made no provision for a new revenue stream for public schools (beyond protecting funding for one year after passage), while Amendments 7 and 9 would have stepped up state support for private, religious education, thus delivering a one-two punch to both the public education system and the separation of religion and government. Voucher supporters often point to failings within the public school system as a reason to support paying for students to go to private schools, but they ignore another answer: giving public education the support it needs. In this case, passage of all three amendments would have denied public schools funding while channeling state money to private, religious schools, giving students in Florida more incentive to leave failing public schools and attend private religious ones at taxpayer expense.

Fortunately, these rulings will not allow this scenario to unfold. Congratulations to Americans United and its partners in the lawsuit for this victory in defense of secular public education and the separation of church and state!