Text Books for Religious Schools

An interesting constitutional question is being raised by a petition to the state Supreme Court. A Santa Fe woman and a Las Cruces man are challenging the constitutionality of a 40-year-old state law that permits the state to distribute free text books to private schools, including church-run schools.

The state Public Education Department says, correctly, that they're just following the law. But does the law itself pass constitutional muster?

Attorney Gary King, who along with Gov. Susana Martinez, is a defendant in the case, gave some powerful suggestions that the law indeed may be unconstitutional.

My story about this is HERE. The AG's opinion, written last December, is HERE.