Amendments To State Constitutions
Supporters of the proposal then turned their attention to state legislatures, where their efforts were met with far greater success: Eventually, all but 11 states (Arkansas, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia) passed laws that meet the general criteria for designation as "Blaine Amendments," in that they ban the use of public funds to support sectarian private schools. In some states the laws were included in constitutions drafted by newly-formed states concomitant with their admission to the Union and are thus technically not "amendments".
The state Blaine amendments are still in effect in many states.
In 2002, the United States Supreme Court in the Zelman v. Simmons-Harris decision partially vitiated these amendments, in theory, when it ruled that vouchers were constitutional if state funds followed a child to a privately chosen school, even if it were religious.
In 2012, a measure repealing the Blaine Amendment failed to win a simple majority in Florida. 60% approval was required for adoption.
Read more about this topic: Blaine Amendment
Famous quotes containing the words amendments and/or state:
“Both of us felt more anxiety about the South—about the colored people especially—than about anything else sinister in the result. My hope of a sound currency will somehow be realized; civil service reform will be delayed; but the great injury is in the South. There the Amendments will be nullified, disorder will continue, prosperity to both whites and colored people will be pushed off for years.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The drama is complete poetry. The ode and the epic contain it only in germ; it contains both of them in a state of high development, and epitomizes both.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)