GA Senator's lawsuit alleges fraud in charter school amendment ballot [View all]

[HiPointDem]

Opponents of Georgia’s just-passed charter school amendment who say it was deliberately worded to mislead voters now claim that a legislator’s email helps prove it.

“People high up are wanting this legislation,” Rep.Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, wrote to a constituent on Feb. 3. “The vagueness of the ballot wording is something they want to keep. They think if they keep it vague it will more easily pass.”

Charter school amendment opponents say that email is among documents they hope will help in a lawsuit, which was filed before Tuesday’s vote, over the ballot language — a type of lawsuit experts say is difficult to win.

Benton confirmed to the AJC that he wrote the email to Jeanette Knazek, an Alpharetta parent who had been following the charter issue and attended a public hearing at the Legislature...Sen. Emanuel Jones, D-Decatur, said he obtained the email on election day and sent letters this week asking Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate. Neither office has responded...

A lawsuit pending in Fulton Superior Court alleges that lawmakers wanted the amendment language to tout charter schools’ ability to improve student achievement. That language was stricken before final, narrow passage of the proposed amendment by legislators. But on Aug. 15 it was put into a preamble to the amendment language by a Constitutional Amendments Publication Board.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/local/legislator-charter-amendment-vagueness-was-wanted/nS3hF/


Local school systems already are the approval body for charter schools. So there was nothing new there.

What was in question was whether the then-defunct Georgia Charter Schools Commission should be revived as an “alternate authorizer” of charter schools, allowed to override local school boards’ denials of charter school petitions with charters of its own.

http://www.crossroadsnews.com/view/full_story/20860320/article-Black-Caucus-joining-charter-school-amendment-lawsuit?instance=secondary_stories_left_column


The amendment was worded so as to give the impression that a vote against it was a vote against charters, whereas the real aim of the admendment was to be able to overrule local districts' decisions about charters.