As Republicans gather for their central committee meeting Saturday in Englewood, they should consider a looming threat to school choice.

Douglas County School board members had no idea they would ignite a First Amendment battle for the ages when they enacted a scholarship program to enhance school choice.

The knew the best schools in and near the district included those run by religious organizations, whether Christian, Jewish or other.

They wanted a program to expand school choice by allowing parents to use scholarship vouchers, funded by the district, to enroll kids in sectarian or secular private schools. The program would end discriminate on a basis of religion, which the First Amendment forbids.

The teachers union balked, and arranged a lawsuit intended to continue educational limitations for children whose parents lack the financial means to pay tuition. The lawsuit asked the court to uphold what is known as Colorado’s Blaine Amendment, an anti-immigrant law encouraged by the Ku Klux Klan to obstruct education for immigrant minorities when public schools excluded them in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Colorado Supreme Court upheld the Blaine Amendment’s prohibition of vouchers for sectarian tuition. The U.S. Supreme Court, after ruling against religious discrimination in Missouri, remanded the Douglas County case back to the state court with instructions to reconsider.

Defenders of the racist Blaine law hope to elect a new majority to the school board in November, to dismantle the scholarship program and stop it from becoming a national model for expanding educational options.

ElevateDouglasCounty.com advocates four candidates who will stand for school choice and the First Amendment’s ability to defend it. They are: Randy Mills; Ryan Abresch; Deb Scheffel; and Grant Nelson.

School board elections matter. This one has national implications for ending racist laws and expanding school choice.