Former Gov. Paul LePage (R) lauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday that Maine’s tuition assistance program cannot exclude religious schools.
LePage, who is running for governor again, viewed the decision on Carson v. Makin as a win for parents and school choice over “educational bureaucrats.”
“I applaud the Supreme Court’s decision today striking down Maine’s rules excluding religious schools from school choice voucher programs,” LePage said in a statement. “It is time to let the parents decide their child’s future, not educational bureaucrats.”
The decision came after two sets of parents in Maine sued to be able to access the state-funded tuition assistance program to send their children to Christian schools. The program has been in place for decades for children who live in towns with no public secondary school to be able to pay for schooling outside of their town.
The state program provides funding to attend both public and private schools but has, since 1981, prohibited funding of any school that is “sectarian.” The state defines a sectarian school as “one that is associated with a particular faith or belief system and which … promotes the faith or belief system with which it is associated and/or presents the material taught through the lens of this faith.”
“Maine’s ‘nonsectarian’ requirement for its otherwise generally available tuition assistance payments violates the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts, who issued the majority opinion on the case.
Roberts added, “Regardless of how the benefit and restriction are described, the program operates to identify and exclude otherwise eligible schools on the basis of their religious exercise.”
Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey (D) condemned the decision as “disturbing” in a lengthy statement, saying his state’s program would now “force the public” to fund schooling that is “fundamentally at odds with values we hold dear.”
Frey said he planned to “explore” legislative options to counter the decision with Gov. Janet Mills (D), whom LePage is hoping to unseat in November.
LePage said, “Money should follow the student and we need to let parents decide. We must have the best opportunities for learning for all Maine children, whether they be public schools, charter schools, magnet schools, parochial schools, virtual schools, or home schooling.”
LePage’s comments on the decision evoked the national hot-button issue of parental choice in education, a topic that took off during the Virginia governor’s race in 2021 and supercharged now-Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s (R) successful campaign against a longtime Democrat politician in the lean-blue state.
The case is Carson v. Makin, No. 20-1088 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Write to Ashley Oliver at aoliver@breitbart.com. Follow her on Twitter at @asholiver.
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