The U.S. Department of Justice has joined a lawsuit alleging race and sex discrimination against the Missouri State High School Activities Association (“MSHSAA”), and rightfully so, because if reports are correct, the MSHSAA’s rules are indeed discriminatory.

According to reporting from the Missouri Independent, MSHSAA’s rules require two of its 10 board members to be “candidates representing the underrepresented gender of the current board or an under-represented ethnicity.”

Supporters view the rule as a tool to promote fairness and inclusion.

It isn’t. The problem comes when a position becomes vacant. If eight of the remaining nine board members are all men or all white, for example, the rule would indicate that the candidate must be a woman or an underrepresented minority. This effectively bars candidates based on sex or ethnicity.

The Constitution protects individuals, not categories. However well intended, policies that distribute opportunity based on identity rather than merit raise immediate equal protection concerns. It demeans people to reduce them to nothing more than an identity marker, and it undermines government efficiency to exclude large numbers of candidates for a position because of their race or sex.

We’ve seen this dynamic play out in other contexts. In Arkansas, for example, a prospective member of a state licensing board was effectively barred from consideration because state law required the board to meet racial composition targets. He sued, and the Arkansas Legislature repealed the law. Lawmakers made clear what should have been obvious from the start: public appointments ought to be based on “experience and expertise, not the color of their skin.”

What remains to be determined is whether the MSHSAA is a public institution. It is organized as a private non-profit, but its employees are eligible for the Missouri state employees’ retirement system.

At its core, the matter can be reduced to whether institutions should discriminate based on sex or ethnicity. Given the MSHSAA’s broad mandate, it should not.

The post When Diversity Becomes Discrimination appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri taxpayers don’t have to look too far to find an example of the last time so-called budgetary savings were illusory—we can look at this year’s budget. When the FY 2025 budget was passed last May, our state’s elected officials celebrated their “conservative” budget. They said it was the first budget in a decade that was smaller than the previous year’s, which I noted at the time didn’t amount to much. It was true that the budget they initially passed did call for less spending than years prior, but in the months since, we’ve discovered that claims of budget cutting didn’t hold up.

When the budget passed last May, I explained that the totals were likely misleading, and the general assembly’s recent approval of a supplemental funding bill all but confirms it. To finish out the year, Missouri’s government needs nearly $2 billion extra dollars, with almost $400 million of that total coming from general revenue (state income and sales tax dollars).

As the above table shows, once you take into account all the funds that are truly needed for the year, this year’s budget exceeds last year’s by more than $700 million. What’s worse is that the general revenue portion is similarly higher than last year. This is problematic because not only is Missouri on track to spend more than the state projects to bring in (which was the case even before this extra spending was added), revenue collections are now behind where they were one year ago.

In other words, Missouri is in worse fiscal shape today than it was last year, and despite efforts to make it seem as though spending was being reined in, we’re once again on a path to spend more this year than ever before. As Missouri’s Senate begins its work on the state’s FY 2026 budget, it should be clear that taking real steps to rightsize state government is essential. Taxpayers should keep a close eye on the budget negotiations in the coming weeks. Legislators may try to sell Missourians on a bill of goods again.

The post Beware the Budget Mirage appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Missouri’s problem is that more than 40 years after Hancock Amendment adoption, the state’s limit has grown obsolete and ineffective. In fact, as this report explains in detail, without reform, many of the amendment’s provisions will never provide a binding constraint on government growth again. Fortunately, thanks to decades of experience with TELs across the country and economic research into their design, there are a plethora of reforms available that could restore the amendment’s past protections and offer even stronger ones if Missouri voters so desire. This report provides an overview of the research on TELs, an in-depth discussion of Missouri’s Hancock Amendment, and an examination of ways in which the amendment could be improved to better serve taxpayers.

Click here to read the full text.

The post The Hancock Amendment: A Primer appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

To be fair, if the House budget becomes law, it will be Missouri’s first budget in more than a decade that is smaller than the previous year’s budget. Not only is the House budget smaller than last year’s, it’s also approximately $2 billion smaller than what Governor Parson recommended for next year, which represents a small step in the right direction.

It should be noted that the budget process will now move to the Missouri Senate—the chamber more accepting of higher spending in recent years. It’s therefore still too early to tell if the state’s streak of record-breaking budgets is coming to an end.

The recent budget negotiations in Jefferson City also served as a reminder of how much things have changed for Missouri financially over the past several years.

• Missouri’s total budget has nearly doubled since Fiscal Year (FY) 2019, growing from a little more than $27 billion to $53 billion this year (FY 2024).
• General Revenues (mostly state income and sales tax collections) have increased by significantly less, going from approximately $10 billion to more than $13 billion over the same period.
• The biggest driver of budget growth has been the temporary influx of federal funds associated with the federal COVID-19 pandemic relief and infrastructure packages.
• The federal share of Missouri’s budget has grown from around 30% to closer to 50%.
• While Missouri (much like the rest of the country) has dealt with record-breaking inflation in recent years, state spending growth has outstripped the increase in prices, and has even grown faster than the state’s population and economy.
• Going into next year, the state will lose access to the billions of temporary federal dollars, all while state general revenues are expected to remain relatively flat or decline.

Keep in mind that the extraordinary state spending growth in recent years occurred even though Missouri’s constitution includes a balanced budget requirement—the requirement does not apply to federal funds.

There are myriad reasons to think the road ahead will be a tough one, and cutting spending will be a mandatory part of the equation. That’s why I’m happy lawmakers in the House took the measures they did to start turning the tide on state spending, even though I wish they’d gone further. I’m also looking forward to the Senate debating its spending plan in the coming weeks, with the hopes that members of the Senate also share the House’s view that spending should be reined in.

But with so many important spending decisions left to be made, and such dark clouds ahead in Missouri’s financial future, state taxpayers should join me in waiting until the budget makes it across the finish line before considering whether to celebrate any savings.

The post Harsh Budgeting Truths appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Well, buried at the end of an uneventful year for U.S. Supreme Court Rulings is a little case called West Virginia v. EPA. In 2015, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Obama administration wanted to comprehensively regulate “greenhouse gases” at American power plants under the Clean Air Act, so it adopted what it called the “Clean Power Plan rule.” The rule put pressure on dirtier coal power plants to shutter and promoted alternative energy plants. The problem with that is the Clean Air Act had only ever been used to enable the regulation and oversight of individual power-generating facilities; Congress had not authorized the EPA to unilaterally reorganize all power-generating capacity of the United States at the grid level.

After seven years of legislative wrangling, constant litigation, and a couple of presidential administrations, the Supreme Court affirmed that the EPA had indeed exceeded its mandate under the Clean Air Act. The court found that when a “major question” like nationwide energy generation is to be decided, Congress must render its decision directly or clearly authorize an agency to act on its behalf, consistent with the law. Here, Congress had not spoken directly or made such a clear delegation to the EPA to give it such expansive powers, and because it had not, the EPA’s dramatic rulemaking was invalid.

To be clear, the court’s ruling doesn’t suggest that the federal government can’t regulate “greenhouse gases,” but it does make clear that if the federal government is going to regulate them, Congress needs to clearly authorize it. That’s a win for small and accountable government; this ruling preserves the constitutional norms of our republican form of government. Each of the three branches is constrained by the Constitution; new laws must be passed through Congress, not by bureaucratic fiat.

How do you stop out-of-control regulations like this? Ideally, by requiring some form of legislative action for them to continue. Regulatory reform is a dense and oftentimes boring policy area, but if I were to suggest one change consistent with state and federal constitutional divisions of power, I think it’d be appropriate for every regulation enacted by an agency to come with a sunset date. The sunset provision would wipe the regulation clean if not adopted and passed into law by Congress or a legislature. That way, every regulation would eventually have to get an up or down vote by the people’s representatives, or else disappear.

Regardless, the Supreme Court’s finding in West Virginia is an important one that hopefully will remind lawmakers that they alone should be making “the law”—and that they can, and should, be held accountable for both the laws they pass directly and any regulations that descend from the statutes they enact.

The post Supreme Court Reins in Federal Bureaucracy in EPA Case appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

When Missourians voted on Medicaid expansion this past August, they were told the initiative would save the state billions of dollars. I wrote repeatedly at the time about how wrong those estimates would prove to be; expansion was then approved by a narrow margin.

With Medicaid expansion set to go into effect in a few months and Missouri’s Legislature now putting together next year’s budget, the true price tag for Medicaid expansion has finally come into focus. The state’s most recent estimates suggest that the first year will require more than $1.5 billion in new spending, which includes a significant portion of federal funding and a state share of approximately $100 million. Where will the legislature find these funds? Instead of searching for the money elsewhere in the budget, the House Budget Committee is questioning whether they need to fund expansion at all.

Of course, Missouri voters did approve the petition to expand Medicaid eligibility, but the issue is whether the constitutional amendment requires the legislature to come up with the funds. Our state’s constitution, like the U.S. Constitution, gives the legislature the “power of the purse”—the responsibility of authorizing all state spending. The constitution also provides that amendments cannot impose a new cost without outlining how that cost would be paid for. Unfortunately, the Medicaid expansion amendment, which will have an enormous cost, included no such funding mechanism.

The House Budget Committee’s stance is that without such a mechanism, the legislature is under no obligation to include funding for Medicaid expansion in next year’s budget. The committee’s move is just the first step of many if the legislature wants to avoid appropriating the funds necessary for expansion. But if the eventual budget does not include funding for expansion, the issue would probably be challenged in court.

While discussions on this topic are just beginning and will likely continue for the remainder of this legislative session, it’s important to recognize what’s happening here. There are legitimate constitutional questions being asked here, and despite what you may hear, this is about more than simply the politics of Medicaid expansion.

The post Medicaid Expansion Brings Missouri to a Constitutional Crossroads appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The PACER system has been on the Web since the late 1990s. To avoid using taxpayer funds to develop the system, Congress authorized the courts to charge users for it instead. Given the plunging cost of bandwidth and storage, you might have expected these fees to decline over time. Instead, the judiciary has actually raised fees—from 7 cents per page in 1998 to 10 cents per page today. Even search results incur fees. The result has been a massive windfall for the judiciary—$150 million in 2016 alone.

Critics like the legal scholar Stephen Schultze point out that this is not what Congress had in mind. In 2002, Congress required that the courts collect fees “only to the extent necessary” to fund the system. It obviously doesn’t cost $150 million per year to run a website with a bunch of PDFs on it. Despite that, federal courts have used PACER revenues as a slush fund to finance other court activities. For example, one judge bragged at a 2010 conference about using PACER funds to install flatscreen monitors and state-of-the-art sound systems in court rooms.

Legislation has now been introduced that would require courts to make PACER documents available for download free. And this is a good thing.

I am sympathetic to the concern that the public writ large should not be on the hook for every undertaking by government, which is why I often support user fees for a wide array of government services, including for roads. But when it comes to good governance, there is a shared interest in transparency that government should bake into its standard operating procedure.

In slight contrast to our Show-Me Checkbook Project, the interest in transparency in our courts isn’t necessarily about oversight; while cities themselves are often black boxes to the public in terms of their spending, most court records are easy to obtain. The question in both cases, however, is whether the public should essentially have to pay twice for these records: through our tax dollars first, and then again when we want to see what our tax dollars have paid for.

For purposes of good governance, I don’t think paying twice—for checkbook records, or for court records—is appropriate, and I hope PACER becomes an open resource for the public very soon.

The post Proposal to Make PACER Free to the Public Deserves Support appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That isn’t to say the issue doesn’t crop up from time to time. In 2013 non-union officers in Kansas City had their employment threatened by the union when they refused to cough up money for the union’s activities. And while that incident is an exception to the Missouri rule, it’s an episode that supporters of good government in Missouri have to keep in mind as they survey the policy landscape post-Janus. 

Indeed, Janus brings with it the opportunity to reassess public policies that generally provide considerable latitude to government unions. Most states have a laws on the subject that are literally to the left of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, since Roosevelt himself was highly skeptical of collective bargaining and traditional unionization among government workers. Not only does the risk persist that a union could elect members into government to negotiate them sweetheart contracts, but the prospect of a company’s failure that faces private labor negotiations hardly ever truly attaches to a government agency—if economic conditions go sideways, taxes can be raised, services can be reduced, or some combination of the two could take place to protect the government union’s interests.

Point being, government unions have been given a wide berth to operate over the last half-century, and it is overdue that the latitude they’ve been granted was reviewed—in light not only of the law and the Constitution, as will happen in Janus, but of good policy as well. Government union members, non-union government employees, and taxpayers certainly deserve better than the status quo.

The post In Janus, A National Reexamination of Government Unions appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

You may never have heard of James G. Blaine. He didn’t win. Yet, for more than a century we have been living with one of Blaine’s legacies—Blaine amendments. While he was a senator, Blaine offered an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would prevent the federal government from funding sectarian institutions. It was widely known that the amendment stemmed from anti-Catholic sentiment. In 2000, Justices Thomas, Rehnquist, Scalia, and Kennedy stated in Mitchell v. Helms that “it was an open secret that ‘sectarian was code for ‘Catholic.’” The federal amendment failed, but similar versions would be installed later in 37 state constitutions.

Many state officials have cited their Blaine amendments as a reason that private school choice programs would be unconstitutional. These amendments have also prevented religious institutions from receiving funds for non-religious activities. For instance, the amendment was used to bar Trinty Lutheran Church in Columbia, Missouri, from participating in the state’s scrap tire program, which helps nonprofits resurface playground surfaces. Trinity Lutheran appealed this decision all the way to the United States Supreme Court and won.

There is still some debate, as my colleague Mike McShane has noted, as to what impact the Trinity ruling will have on school choice legislation. Our first indication, however, is that the court’s repudiaiton of anti-religious sentiment may bode well for private school choice programs. On June 27, the day after the Trinity Lutheran ruling, the nation’s high court vacated the Supreme Court of Colorodo’s ruling in the Douglas County, Colorado, voucher program, which had been found unconstitutional. The case has been remanded to the state supreme court in light of the Trinity Lutheran ruling.

The Institute for Justice, a group that supports school choice, has long stated that Missouri’s Blaine Amendment was relatively strong and has suggested vouchers may not be feasible in the state. It will be interesting to see if the decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Trinity case will further impact Blaine amendments in Missouri and other states. We may never get rid of rancor in politics, but this may be the case that helps us say goodbye to Blaine, Blaine, Amendment Blaine, the school choice barrier from the state of Maine.

The post The School Choice Barrier from the State of Maine appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

How would legislators do it? As our readers may know, the most commonly attempted way to amend the Constitution has been via a two-thirds vote of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states. But perhaps less known is that two-thirds of the states themselves can call their own constitutional conventions for the purpose of independently proposing amendments to the Constitution. As the National Archives notes, “None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention.” That no amendments have been proposed in this way,  however, doesn’t mean amendments can’t or won’t be, and if supporters of a Missouri Senate resolution have their way, the 28th Amendment will be the first of its kind to have been initiated by the states themselves.

There’s a lot in the resolution itself about what it intends to do and how, but here’s the heart of the resolution:

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved by the members of the Missouri Senate, Ninety-ninth General Assembly, First Regular Session, the House of Representatives concurring therein, hereby apply to Congress, under the provisions of Article V of the United States Constitution, for the calling of a convention of the states limited to proposing amendments to the United States Constitution that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and members of Congress;

Later provisions lay out the precise nature of the convention and what it may consider—it’s worth your time to read—but the key reform elements of the bill are clear enough: federal fiscal limitations, federal power limitations, and federal term limitations. Beyond that, the exact reforms are open to debate, albeit circumscribed by the reform language of the bill itself to prevent a runaway convention. Resolutions like this one have passed in ten other states and may also pass later this year in North Carolina, as well, so it’s certainly an active idea nationally.

Twelve states aren’t enough to initiate a convention, of course; to initiate it, thirty-four states will have to pass similar resolutions. But the objectives of the resolution here are worthwhile enough, and its prospects plausible enough, to highlight here. If the bill passes the House, Missouri would become either the 11th or 12th state to sign on to this initiative. We’ll keep you posted if that happens.

The post Resolution for Article V Convention Deserves Serious Consideration appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

James G. Blaine was the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, a Senator from Maine, and the Republican party’s nominee for president in 1884. While historical accounts differ about his personal attitudes toward Catholics, there is no question that he tried to leverage anti-Catholic sentiment to make his way into the White House. He attempted to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar aid to the burgeoning Catholic school system that was cropping up around the country in response to the public schools’ emphasis on teaching Protestantism. (Many might be unaware that for a long time, students in public schools would read from the King James Bible and sing Christian hymns). 

While Blaine was unsuccessful in amending the U.S. Constitution, 38 states have so called “anti-aid” provisions in their Constitutions, including Missouri.

Lawyers for Trinity, and for numerous faith groups filing amicus briefs, argue that the application of such provisions violates the First and Fourteenth amendment rights of individuals and organizations. As lawyers for the Institute for Justice put it, “the Religion Clauses of the First Amendment, as well as the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, demand neutrality—not hostility—toward religion.” The State of Missouri singled out Trinity, whose application otherwise would have been approved, solely because it is a religious organization even though the “aid” does not advance its religion.

Understandably, many folks reading this might not care about a school resurfacing its playground. But it is important to note that religious organizations provide important social services to members of our community—and to poor and marginalized communities around the nation—with government support. Soldiers use the GI Bill to attend Saint Louis University, and low-income families use Medicaid dollars at Cardinal Glennon hospital. If providing used tires to Trinity Lutheran is unlawfully providing aid to a religion, wouldn’t these other examples of cooperation between government and religious organizations amount to the same thing? 

A decision in favor of Trinity would reinforce a commitment to treat religious organizations neutrally (neither privileging them nor discriminating against them) and would help close the door on a sad time in American history.

The post The Supreme Court Can Put a Nail in the Anti-Catholic Coffin appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Trump’s budget, which would go into effect in October if Congress approves it, would eliminate the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grant program, a nearly $500 million grant program run by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

The streetcar expansion plan is reliant on federal support. According to a 4-page document put out by the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, $100 million of the $227 million expansion cost to expand the downtown streetcar line would be provided by the federal government through the Small Starts program. But that program is also facing a funding freeze:

The New Starts program, which helps fund local transportation projects costing over $300 million (a sister program, Small Starts, assists with projects under that threshold), would be frozen. New applications to the program, which currently has $2.3 billion to spend annually through 2020, would be outright rejected, limiting any new grants and placing the onus on local and state government to fund additional projects. [Emphasis added.]

This means the Kansas City request for streetcar money could be rejected outright. And that money is required for the extension to take place. According to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance,

The project will require federal grant funding, and the applicant and recipient would be the City just like with the starter line. If federal funds are secured, public involvement in the engineering and design is required.

The language from the court ruling allowing the new transportation development district (TDD) throws another wrench in streetcar advocates’ plans: no taxes or assessments can be collected from within the district until enough external funding—in this case federal funds—are available. The Trump administration has made the availability of federal funds highly unlikely. Congress could seek to continue federal New Starts funding, according to Rich Sampson of the Community Transportation Association of America, but it will be an uphill climb. And even if streetcar funding is provided by Congress, the administration may choose not to spend it.

Voters are being asked to take the risk of expanding the TDD and levying on themselves a special property tax assessment and a sales tax contingent on the Trump administration coughing up 40% of the total streetcar expansion cost. Laying aside the merits of the policy at hand, voters should be wary of approving something that is dependent on a funding source that may be little more than wishful thinking.

The post Can the Kansas City Streetcar Expansion Be Built Even If It Wins? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

This case is part of a broader effort around the country to eliminate Blaine Amendments, provisions placed into state constitutions (including Missouri’s) barring public aid to religious schools. Blaine Amendments are named after James G. Blaine, a U.S. Senator from Maine who in 1875 tried to amend the U.S. Constitution to stamp out public dollars flowing to “sectarian” schools.  At the time, there was a virulent strain of anti-Catholicism in America, and because “public” schools were actually nominally Protestant (they required students to read the King James Bible and sing Christian hymns) “sectarian” meant Catholic, and many wanted them stamped out.

Efforts by Catholics to make public schools more inclusive were met with resistance, most notably in events like the Philadelphia Bible Riots, which were sparked over allegations that schools in the City of Brotherly Love would allow Catholics students to read their own version of the Bible. In response, Catholics began to create their own schools, where they could impart their values on their children.  This, not surprisingly, angered the anti-Catholic bigots who did everything they could to shut these schools down.

Blaine was unsuccessful in his attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution, but was successful in getting states all around the country to put language in theirs. We live with the legacy of this bigotry today, as students look to states for support to attend private schools, many of which are religious.

Interestingly, a case out of Missouri has wound its way to the Supreme Court challenging these provisions (I wrote about it here a couple of months ago), but it is not clear how broad or narrow a decision in that case might be. It could strike down (or uphold) Blaine Amendments in total, or it could rule simply on certain practical applications that might not apply to private schools. It is possible that this Douglas County case could similarly make its way to the Supreme Court, so school choice advocates may have more than one bite at the Blaine Amendment apple.

The post A Setback in the Fight against Blaine Amendments appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post 2016 . . . Time to Amend the Constitution? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the 1970s, St. Louis Public Schools and the State of Missouri were sued for maintaining a segregated education system in the city. The U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the ruling and school districts in the area began working on a plan to fix the problem of segregated schools. The solution, from a 1983 settlement agreement, was to allow black students in the city to attend predominantly white schools in the county and to allow white students in county schools to attend predominantly black city magnet schools. This “voluntary” program was to improve integration in the city and county.

Although well-intentioned, this policy has become a roadblock for black students wanting to attend a high-quality school in the city. Take Edmund Lee, for example. As Fox 2 reports, Edmund is a bright African-American 3rd-grader at Gateway Science Academy in St. Louis. Gateway is one of many high-quality charter schools in the city. Edmund’s family will be moving soon to the county, but would like to utilize the transfer program to allow him to continue at the school he loves. There is just one problem—he’s black. Black county students cannot transfer into the city, because that wouldn't help integration efforts.

Of course, this problem is not new, and it goes both ways. White students in the city cannot transfer to Clayton, Kirkwood, or any of the high-performing county schools because they are white.

The case of Edmund Lee may not just be sad; it may also be illegal. In 2012, the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas found a similar policy to be in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Arkansas allowed students to transfer to another public school, provided they improved the racial balance of the schools.  As in the transfer program in St. Louis, black students in predominantly black schools could transfer to predominantly white schools and white students in predominantly white schools could transfer to black schools.

The court wrote, “The legislation was no doubt properly motivated in its desire to end segregation, but the question that must be addressed is whether the legislation infringes on federally protected rights.” In the end, the court decided the law did violate the rights of individual under the 14th amendment.

A similar fate could be in store for the St. Louis transfer program. For those who believe that the goal of the program is a noble one, wouldn’t it make sense to expand the program so that all students, regardless of race, could choose to attend the schools that fit them best? Doing so would not only avert the danger of violating the 14th amendment, but it would also allow students like Edmund Lee to continue attending the schools they love.

The post Race-Based School Choice Policies May Be in Violation of the Equal Protection Clause appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

African-style hair braiding, or natural hair care, is a traditional hair care practice where hair is twisted, braided, and weaved without the use of chemicals or heating. It’s often practiced by Africans, African-Americans, and immigrants. In Missouri, anyone who handles hair is required to get a cosmetology license from the government. This license requires thousands of dollars and at least 1,500 hours of cosmetology training—and teaches you nothing about African hair braiding.  

The Institute for Justice has helped Joba and Tameka file a lawsuit to allow them to continue practicing their trade without government interference. “The U.S. Constitution protects every individual’s right to earn an honest living in their chosen occupation free from pointless government interference,” says Greg Reed, an Institute for Justice attorney.

African-style hair braiding is just one example of government overreach through occupational licensing and regulation. I’ve written before about the state’s interference with yoga teacher training. We’ve also commented on proposals to license street performers, landlords, and of course the regulation of taxicabs to keep competitors like Lyft and Uber out of the market.

For further information, the Institute for Justice’s video on the licensing of African hair braiders is available here.

The post Hair Braiders’ Hands Tied by Missouri’s Twisted Regulations appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Here are the details: Several years ago, Trinity Lutheran applied to the State of Missouri for a grant to resurface their playground. They were denied that grant because they were a church, and Missouri’s Constitution explicitly bans public support of religious educational institutions. The church is arguing that by discriminating against religious organizations in awarding grants, the state is violating those organizations’ right to free exercise of their religion.

Historically, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that states can give funds to religious educational organizations without violating the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution—supporting organizations that are doing something to help society isn’t establishing a state religion. In general, these programs were simply required to be neutral toward religion; that is, that any religious denomination or non-religious organizations would be just as likely to get support as any particular religious group would be.

Several state constitutions, Missouri’s included, went a step farther.  Missouri’s constitution includes the following language:

“Neither the general assembly, nor any county, city, town, township, school district or other municipal corporation shall ever make an appropriation or pay any public fund to help to support or sustain any private or public school, academy, seminary, college, university or other institution of learning controlled by any religious creed, church or sectarian denomination.”

This is called a “Blaine Amendment,” named after James G. Blaine, who in 1875, while he was in the US House of Representatives, proposed an amendment to the US Constitution that said: 

“That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion”

Blaine failed, but that language did end up in numerous state constitutions, like Missouri’s. The court now has to decide if it is constitutional. This particular case matters because Blaine Amendments have been a huge impediment to private school choice programs, and bringing down Blaines would be a huge win for children and families desperate for more schooling options.  

The post A Homegrown Challenge to Blaine Amendments appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I had always imagined that homeschoolers, as their name implies, stayed at home all day with little or no contact with the outside world. I thought that a homeschooler’s academic success depended solely on their mom's or dad’s ability to teach math, science, and reading at every grade level—a feat that few certified teachers could accomplish.

I was happy to learn that this couldn't be further from the truth.

I recently visited the Pillar Foundation, a private, charitable, educational foundation that functions as a resource center for homeschooling families. Some refer to the Pillar Foundation, which offers high school–level courses to homeschooling families at no cost, as a “co-op,”

What is a co-op? That’s the question I asked back in March when a parent started to explain her child’s schedule and slipped the word into our conversation.

According to one homeschooling mom, “co-ops are groups of homeschooling families who join together to enrich their homeschooling experience by learning from and with one another. Often these groups will participate in field trips, sports, classes, etc.” Parents involved in co-ops usually teach coursework they have a background in. So the mother with a biology degree teaches science, the history buff teaches history, and the artist teaches art. No one makes money, but every parent benefits from the academic expertise of another parent.

In short, co-ops are to education as Uber is to the taxi industry. It's education’s take on the sharing economy.

The Pillar Foundation is different from a traditional co-op in that volunteers, not parents, teach the courses. This semester, for example, state Representative Kurt Bahr is teaching a US Government & Constitution class. For day 1 of the 4-month course, Bahr provided about twenty 10th- to 12th-graders with a walk-through of the Declaration of Independence, using his personal experiences in the Missouri House to explain dense material.

To give students some context for the line in the Declaration of Independence that reads “He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant…” Bahr explained that sometimes, “politics simply is you get your way, because you are willing to outwork or outwait the other side.” What a great opportunity for kids to learn about a founding document from an elected official!

Co-ops and resource centers like the Pillar Foundation aren't well known outside of the homeschooling community, but if more people knew about the resources out there, they would see that homeschooling is a viable option for their children. I hope that more families with young kids who are thinking about how best to educate their children look into the exciting opportunities available to them in the homeschooling world. As a parent to a soon-to-be four-year-old, I know I will be. 

The post School Visit Series: The Homeschooling Choice appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Retirement packages like this are unheard of in the private sector. This is because the market usually will not allow for them. Looking at Grass’s windfall, it’s important to remember a few things:

1. Grass is cashing in on a system put in place by elected officials. We may feel that Grass is personally ripping us off, but the system was set up through the political process. Grass is simply one lucky beneficiary of a system put in place years ago.
2. Public pension obligations pose a serious threat to Missouri government finances. The Show-Me Institute’s study on Missouri’s pension systems shows that these systems are often seriously underfunded. Day-to-day government waste is a problem, but when you see municipal bankruptcies, like in Stockton and San Bernardino, the bloated pension systems are usually the key factor in the city’s insolvency.
3. As the Show-Me Institute’s recent study on the legal options for reforming Missouri pensions shows, once the public is on the hook for retirement obligations like this, it can be very difficult to fix things. Courts often treat pension obligations as contractual obligations protected by the U.S. Constitution. As a taxpayer, this means you can be stuck paying for a sweetheart deal agreed to years before you could even vote.

In order to avoid unfair and unsustainable public compensation schemes, we must vigilantly watch over the agreements entered into by public officials. We need to insist on transparency in public affairs and demand public retirement systems that do not unfairly burden the taxpayer.

The post Half-Million-Dollar Cash Payout Shows Why Public Pension Reforms Are Necessary appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The program was challenged in 2011, because, like Missouri, Colorado has a Blaine Amendment. “This stark constitutional provision makes one thing clear: A school district may not aid religious schools,” the ruling stated.

Blaine Amendments prevent states from directing public funds toward religious schools. Thirty-seven state constitutions have them.

Douglas County School District officials said they will likely ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case. In 2002, the Supreme Court found Ohio’s voucher program did not conflict with the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. The Court found the program was neutral toward religion as it was created to provide educational assistance to poor children, not to divert funds solely toward religious schools.  

In 2004, though, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a state’s Blaine Amendment. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of Washington’s scholarship program, which excluded theology majors from receiving public funds. Still, the majority of rulings concerning voucher programs and Blaine Amendments have favored school choice programs.

It is unclear how the school district will proceed, but it is clear by the 500 students who opted to participate in the program that parents want a choice in how their children are educated. I will be rooting for this innovative school district, and I hope that, ultimately, #choicewins. 

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