SC Supreme Court Finds Parts of Voucher Law Violate the State Constitution

For many good reasons, our Constitution was not framed with the idea that public institutions should operate like private businesses.

-South Carolina Supreme Court majority opinion, Eidson v South Carolina Department of Education

No money shall be paid from public funds nor shall the credit of the State or any of its political subdivisions be used for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.

-South Carolina State Constitution

Last year, South Carolina passed S. 39 (Act 8), a statewide school voucher bill (entitled the Education Scholarship Trust Fund— a title that, as well see, telegraphs an attempt to get around the state constitution on a technicality).

Today, the Act largely failed to get away with that technicality, as the South Carolina Supreme Court’s majority struck down language which would create and administer the private school vouchers (presented in the Act as “trust funds,” even if the Court’s majority explicitly didn’t accept this prese…