Voters passed a constitutional amendment creating a new state body with the power to approve charter schools. The amendment sparked bitter debate and that continues. At issue is whether the ballot language misled voters and whether that was the objective.
The preamble read:
“Provides for improving student achievement and parental involvement through more public school options.”
Ballot question:
“Shall the Constitution of Georgia be amended to allow state or local approval of public charter schools upon the request of local communities?”
Opponents of Georgia’s just-passed charter school amendment who say it was deliberately worded to mislead voters now claim that a legislator’s email helps prove it.
"People high up are wanting this legislation," Rep.Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, wrote to a constituent on Feb. 3. "The vagueness of the ballot wording is something they want to keep. They think if they keep it vague it will more easily pass."
Charter school amendment opponents say that email is among documents they hope will help in a lawsuit, which was filed before Tuesday’s vote, over the ballot language — a type of lawsuit experts say is difficult to win.
Benton confirmed to the AJC that he wrote the email to Jeanette Knazek, an Alpharetta parent who had been following the charter issue and attended a public hearing at the Legislature. Knazek said she felt the ballot wording didn’t give voters accurate information. Benton was responding to her concern about what was perceived as House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones’ refusal to clarify the language.
Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, said he obtained the email on election day and sent letters this week asking Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate. Neither office has responded.
“The public ought to be told the truth and then be able to decide,” Sen. Jones said. “That’s not what happened.”
Sen. Jones said he was stunned when, in August, “the exact language we had rejected” was inserted in the ballot’s preamble. “This is about voter fraud, the way this ballot was written is against the due process clause of the Georgia Constitution,” he said.
House Speaker David Ralston dismissed the claims.
“I believe the process the amendment went through was a full, fair and complete vetting of the bill,” Ralston said. “This language was approved months ago and the voters have now spoken in a resounding way. To use the old adage, this is truly like beating a dead horse.”
A lawsuit pending in Fulton Superior Court alleges that lawmakers wanted the amendment language to tout charter schools’ ability to improve student achievement. That language was stricken before final, narrow passage of the proposed amendment by legislators. But on Aug. 15 it was put into a preamble to the amendment language by a Constitutional Amendments Publication Board.
Gov. Nathan Deal, a staunch supporter of the amendment, has one of three votes on the publication board. His spokesman, Brian Robinson, said there was no misleading language on the ballot measure.
The words chosen “accurately describe what the charter commission is intended to do,” Robinson said.
“Senator [Jones] should [instead] spend more time explaining to his voters why he thinks their children should be trapped in under-performing schools,” said Robinson.
Speaker Pro Tem Jones said, “Voters were more informed on the charter amendment than is customary for constitutional amendments. I cannot think of an issue more thoroughly discussed in the public forum in the last 10 years in Georgia.”
Benton said he did not support the amendment but thought the question should be up to voters to decide.
“I don’t know that the final wording on the question was intentionally misleading,” he said. Several high-ranking educators declare that it was.
“The ballot language was clearly what misled the voters and that’s how or why it turned out the way it did,” said J.Alvin Wilbanks, superintendent of Gwinnett County’s school system, the state’s largest.
Wilbanks is not a party to the lawsuit over the ballot language, but said he could be “if they need me.”
DeKalb County school board chairman Eugene Walker said he believes the largely black part of South DeKalb voted for the measure due to the “deception.”
The amendment “gave people the impression that anybody who voted against this would be voting against charter schools, and that’s a lie,” Walker said. “The deception worked.”
The lawsuit, filed last month by an Atlanta pastor and Dalton teacher, alleges that pollsters for the supporters said the preamble language could give their side a 10-percent boost on election day. The amendment passed 58.5 percent to 41.5 percent after bitter campaigning that pitted public school educators against Deal and many of the Legislature’s leaders.
The pro-amendment campaign far outspent the opposition, having drawn contributions from across the country, including from for-profit charter school management companies.
Experts said prevailing in a lawsuit, and essentially getting a judge to rule that the vote should be overthrown, is a long shot.
“What you would have to prove clearly and convincingly is that the language prevented people from understanding what they are voting on. That’s been done before, but it’s difficult,” said Steve Anthony, a political lecturer at Georgia State University and longtime Democratic operative.
He said the e-mail from Benton could be “the smoking gun that could give a judge a reason to say ‘ahah, there might be something here’ ” and at least temporarily delay implementation of the new amendment.
Gerald Weber, the attorney representing the teacher and preacher who sued, said Thursday he has seen the e-mail and it is “evidence that the misleading language was purposeful.”
But he is not certain he will amend his complaint to include it. A hearing is not yet scheduled.
Vladimir Hogan, an assistant professor of political science at Ohio State University who has studied ballot language, said there’s no clear legal precedent. “Unfortunately, there is no single standard for judging the language,” he said. “It varies state by state, depending on what the state law or court decisions say.”
He said judges have generally ruled in favor of the writers of the ballots “unless the evidence of a problem is overwhelming.”
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