Tallahassee, USA - Wading into a church-state fight, a powerful Florida tax commission decided Wednesday to ask voters if the state should become the first in the nation to remove constitutional language that clearly prohibits spending public money directly or indirectly on religious institutions.
On a 17-7 vote, the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission placed on the November ballot an amendment to replace the state Constitution's wide-ranging ''no-aid'' to religion provision with the following:
``Individuals or entities may not be barred from participating in public programs because of religion.''
Opponents warned that the language is unclear, that it provides state sanction for religion to be taught at taxpayer expense and that the measure could go too far by requiring public money to be spent on religious vendors.
But supporters say the measure is necessary in light of a 2004 state appeal court ruling that struck down a school voucher case. Supporters of the proposal say the court decision -- based on the Constitution's no-aid clause -- endangered numerous other programs that receive state money, from Baptist hospitals that help Medicaid patients to students attending religious universities to Florida's massive universal Pre-K program subsidizing programs for all four-year-olds.
''Because millions of dollars of public programs are at risk, we have to take action,'' said Commissioner Patricia Levesque, the sponsor of the amendment. Her proposal, she said, ``strikes the discriminatory language in the Constitution and replaces it with one sentence.''
But Commissioner Les Miller, a Baptist deacon and former state senator, described the parade of horribles ticked off by Levesque as an exaggeration. He noted that none of the programs she listed has been challenged in court.
''That scare tactic should not carry weight,'' he said.
The only program that was endangered was the first voucher measure pushed by then-Gov. Jeb Bush, for whom Levesque worked as education policy advisor. Though the appeals court ruled against the program due to the no-aid provision -- 80 percent of the schools getting voucher money were religious -- the state Supreme Court canceled the program based on another section of the state Constitution calling for ''uniform'' and ''free public schools'' -- ducking the no-aid issue entirely.
The no-aid language was added to the state Constitution in 1868 as anti-Catholic bias swept the nation, and other states followed.
Florida's no-aid provision survived multiple rewrites and reviews of the Constitution, though anti-Catholic bigotry or any other religious discrimination was absent from the legislative records.
The no-aid provision, among the strictest in the nation, says: ''No revenue of the state or any political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.'' If removed, Florida would be the first to do so, said Joseph P. Viteritti, a Hunter College professor and expert in the voucher movement.
''This is a first,'' Viteritti said, noting that no state has explicitly put its no-aid provision before voters. He said anti-Catholic bias played into the passage of the no-aid provision, but it wasn't the only determining factor.
Commission member Carlos Lacasa of Miami said he supports removing the no-aid provision but objects to adding the new protections that could open the door to unintended consequences.
''It inserts 10 or 15 extra words that to me are unclear,'' he said. ``I fear this goes way, way beyond the intent of this legislation and is too risky for me to support.''
His arguments were echoed by commission members Martha Barnett, Sandy D'Alemberte and Dan Gelber. Among the concerns opponents voiced: that the proposal will create an entitlement and open the door to religious institutions to demand taxpayer money, and give them the right to discriminate in employment.
Gelber, the House Democratic Leader, urged the panel to consider the nature of the Constitution and its crucial protections of the freedom of religion.
''We're going to put something in the Constitution that I don't think anyone here has an earthly idea of what it will do,'' he said.
Commission member Jacinta Mathis of Orlando countered by saying that voters should decide: ``Do we believe this is the right thing to do? I believe it is the right thing to do.''
Commission member Roberto Martinez, a Miami lawyer and former U.S. attorney, gave the most detailed defense of replacing the no-aid clause. He noted the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment acts as a ''backstop'' to any state sponsor of religion. He said he doesn't agree that the proposed amendment will allow discrimination on the basis of religion and that it doesn't set up any entitlements.
Instead, he said, it will benefit students who get state money in several programs now. Among them he listed the 4,090 students on Bright Futures scholarships at faith-based colleges, 16,592 students using state college assistance grants at private schools, 8,699 disabled students enrolled in private schools under the state's McKay scholarship programs, and 16,743 minorities using corporate tax credit vouchers at faith-based schools.
During the current session, the Legislature plans to double the size of that corporate-tax voucher system, which was never part of the original voucher lawsuit. Because the corporate money never makes it to the state treasury, a court would have to decide if it ran afoul of the ''indirect'' aid section of the no-aid provision.
But with the whole provision removed, the issue would be moot.
Martinez said the voucher court case ``does have the real-life impact of putting all of those programs in jeopardy.''
Commissioner John McKay, a Sarasota businessman and namesake of the voucher program for disabled students, said he should be voting for it but believes it will cause more problems.
As author of the proposal the tax panel put on the ballot last week, to swap about $9.6 billion in property tax cuts with sales tax increases and other revenue, he said he fears the amendment will stir up challenges to the program and jeopardize everything else the commission puts on the ballot.
''Nobody came to us and said I want to mess with the Constitution because of religious groups,'' he said. ``What I'm afraid we're doing here is we're going to see skeletons in closets that may come out of the closet.''
He warned: ``If we put this on the ballot, everything else we put on the ballot is going to go down in flames.''