Attorney general says he no longer has a conflict of interest about using public funds to pay private school tutition

Attorney General Tregarrick Taylor reinserted himself into the debate over using public funds for private schools, almost two years after his wife announced plans for she and her husband to seek $8,000 in state funds to pay most of the cost of private school tuition for two of their children.

He says his conflict of interest no longer exists, hinting that it is because his family is no longer seeking public funds to pay for private school tuition in Anchorage.

Two years ago, his wife, Jodi Taylor, a right-wing activist and chair of the Alaska Policy Forum board, wrote: “My two youngest school-age children attend St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (SEAS) private school. They attend full time and are also enrolled in the Anchorage School District’s Family Partnership Charter School (FPCS).”

“Next year, I will request that FPCS use funds in our correspondence study program annual student allotment to reimburse our family up to $4,000 for each of our children,” she wrote.

It was Jodi Taylor’s public campaign to get Alaskans to seek public funds for private schools that elevated this issue and generated the attention that led to a 2023 lawsuit.

The Alaska Constitution says “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”

AG Taylor recused himself from the matter because of his family’s plan to use public money to attend private school, a practice declared unconstitutional last week by an Anchorage Superior Court judge.

“We made a decision within the Department of Law that I would not participate in a memorandum that was outlining, sort of the legal framework for correspondence schools at the time. In abundance of caution, decided to withhold my, my, my ability to work on that project. Since that time the situation with my kids schooling has changed significantly. And we actually went to the length of, of, of, of having outside counsel look at that conflict. And determining that I don’t have a conflict and can fully participate in this litigation,” he said Wednesday.

Reporter James Brooks asked him to explain how this was resolved. Taylor refused to do so, saying, “Only that there is no conflict.”

Reporter Sean Maguire asked for the legal opinion that said the conflict has vanished. Taylor said it is “attorney-client privilege” and therefore secret, but he would think about releasing it.

He should release this opinion and explain if he and his wife are no longer trying to collect state funds to pay for private school tuition for their kids. That is the only way in which he would no longer have a conflict.

Asked about the legality of private schools that are promoting the idea of using public funds for private school tuition, he advised reporters to read the documents the state filed in court. “I don’t want to lay out legal arguments here in front of the press today, given that we have a current litigation going on,” Taylor said.

The memo published by Taylor’s office two years ago, when Taylor was not involved, said that the actions similar to those proposed by the Taylor family were unconstitutional.

Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills wrote an opinion that said using the state allotment “to pay most or all of a private educational institution’s tuition is almost certainly unconstitutional.”

In a Wednesday press event, Taylor claimed, contrary to legislative recordings and to documents created by his department, that Gov. Mike Dunleavy did not claim a decade ago that a constitutional amendment was needed to legalize spending public funds at private and other religious schools.

“I think that’s a mischaracterization of the record. I think if you look at the full record in the Legislature when the governor was a senator you’ll find that is a misrepresentation of what occurred. And also a misrepresentation of what was presented at that time and what actually became law,” Taylor claimed, refusing to provide specifics.

Taylor is not a good student of the record.

In its court filings, the state admits that “a handful of statements by SB 100’s sponsor, then Senator Dunleavy, suggest he believed that public funding for even a single private school class would violate the Constitution . . .”

The “Alaska State Constitution prohibits public funds going to private or religious educational service providers,” Dunleavy said in 2014.

As I wrote here Tuesday, Dunleavy gave a hypothetical example in 2013 about the state paying for a private school student to take a Latin course at Monroe High School. He said that was the sort of spending that would be illegal without a constitutional amendment.

“Currently we cannot do that under the current constitutional language,” Dunleavy said at the time.

He is now giving his recycled hypothetical example a new twist, claiming that it is legal to use public funds for private schools, despite the language in the Alaska Constitution.

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