Arizona school voucher reform campaign accuses rival effort of obstruction, misinformation

A campaign backing a ballot measure seeking to reform the state’s school voucher program is accusing a rival effort of using underhanded — and potentially illegal tactics — to sway Arizona voters.

Two separate groups are trying to put their school voucher reforms on the ballot in November.

Protect Education Now, which is backed by the Arizona Education Association and Save Our Schools Arizona, would make a number of changes to the voucher program, also called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts. That includes requiring private schools receiving voucher money to meet many of the same standards as public schools and putting a $150,000 income cap on families who use the program.

A second campaign, dubbed Fortify AZ, is bankrolled by the pro-voucher American Federation for Children.

Both measures would ask Arizona voters to create new guardrails for the voucher program to bar purchases unrelated to education after extensive reporting by 12News revealed existing voucher families have purchased jewelry, lingerie, appliances and other non-education items.

But the Fortify AZ measure excludes other reforms, such as the income cap adopted by Protect Education Now, which mirrors a failed proposal backed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.

The allegations

Both Protect Education Now and Fortify AZ are currently in the process of gathering the 256,000 voter signatures they need to qualify for the November ballot.

Protect Education Now recently announced it had gathered 150,000 of those signatures with about two months to go before the July 2 deadline.

But the group, which is backed by the state’s largest teachers union, is now accusing the other side of sabotaging that effort.

That includes claims that signature gatherers with Fortify AZ are “physically” obstructing people working for the competing campaign and spreading misinformation to confuse voters, according to a cease-and-desist letter obtained by KJZZ.

“We're seeing amped up, physically moving between the signer and the petition gatherer, you know, sort of very loudly, trying to interrupt the things that are going on,” said attorney Jim Barton, who represents Protect Action Now and sent the letter.

Barton alleged the behavior violates a state law banning the use of coercion or threats to stop people from signing a petition.

“We're getting reports that are sounding like people who are sort of really kind of pushing right up against the border there — I mean, assault is illegal,” he said.

The letter also documents an incident in which a signature gatherer with Fortify AZ allegedly told volunteers from the rival campaign that the two petitions “are the same.”

Barton also accused Fortify AZ of employing similar language in the 200-word description of its measure that is printed on signature petition, even though there are significant differences between the two measures, such as the income cap proposed by Protect Education Now.

“They have basically a parody of our 200-word description as their 200-word description, so it looks casually like they're similar, because its intention is to be a decoy measure,” Barton said.

The Fortify AZ campaign denied the allegations.

“This complaint is ridiculous and a bad look for a failing campaign,” Fortify AZ said in a statement provided by a campaign spokesperson. “Fortify AZ is committed to giving voters an opportunity to install guardrails on the ESA program to strengthen this very popular program for the families who depend on it every day.”

Signature poaching

Some of the allegations also center on the two signature gathering companies hired by the competing campaigns.

According to the letter, AZ Petition Partners, Fortify AZ’s contractor, is accused of poaching workers hired by Fieldworks, the company hired by Protect Education Now, by offering to pay them more money.

In one case, “Petition Partners’ representatives offered a Protect Ed circulator a job on the spot at $45 per hour,” which is well above the $22-$25 offered by Fieldworks.

“Most significantly, Petition Partners offered bonuses specifically calibrated to the recruitment of Fieldworks employees, that is, Petition Partners was paying a bounty for each circulator successfully poached from the Committee’s campaign,” according to the letter.

A spokesman for Petition Partners declined to comment, referring KJZZ to the statement from Fortify AZ.

“Jealousy is never a good look. Fortify AZ is offering competitive wages and a union should appreciate workers being paid a fair wage for hard work,” according to the campaign’s statement.

It is not unusual for signature gathering costs to skyrocket during election years as multiple campaigns fight over a limited work force in an attempt to gather the signatures needed to qualify for the ballot.

But Barton said Fieldworks had noncompete agreements with its circulators that prohibited them from working for a rival campaign until after the July 2 deadline.

He alleged Petition Partners was aware of those agreements and pursued its circulators anyway.

“When they're trying to lure someone away, they're trying to say to that person, ‘Hey, break your contract, violate your non-compete, and come work for us,’ and their intention is just to make it interfere with our contractors carrying out, one, his employment agreement with the individual being lured, and then two, the agreement with the campaign to gather the signatures,” Barton said.

Barton would not say whether the Protect Education Now plans to sue if Fortify AZ and Petition Partners do not back off the activities alleged in the letter.

“If there's no response and there's no change in the behavior, I suppose the campaign will have to make some decisions then,” he said.