Arkansas traveler hired as state employee gets it all wrong about Vic Fischer and the Constitution
So here we have Arkansas lawyer and Christian nationalist Bob Ballinger claiming he knows that the late Vic Fischer would support a constitutional amendment to allow state funds for private and religious schools.
I can guarantee you that Ballinger, who never met Vic Fischer, doesn’t know what he is talking about.
A visitor to Juneau this spring who still lives in Arkansas and has his law practice there, Ballinger is on the state payroll right now courtesy of Homer Rep. Sarah Vance, who hired him for guidance. Plus, he lost a bid to stay in the Arkansas Legislature and he needed a job.
He is “proud to be a resident of Arkansas” and he and his wife are raising eight children. “Living on a small farm, Bob and his family embrace the valuable life lessons that come with country living,” his website says.
To help make ends meet, Ballinger landed a contract last fall, just about the time that Vance hired him, as attorney for the Crawford County Library in Arkansas, where he gets $275 an hour.
Ballinger and Vance share a connection as charter members of the four-year-old National Association of Christian Lawmakers, a group that wants to enact laws based upon how its members interpret the Bible.
Ballinger, a former Arkansas senator, is director of law and policy for the Christian nationalist group, while Vance is the Alaska state chair and the “third vice chair” of its legislative council leadership.
Those who are not Christians or do not share the right approach to interpreting the Bible are not “godly leaders,” according to the NACL.
The NACL claims to be the “only faith based para-legislative organization operating in the country today.”
Vance, as an elected official, was required to sign a pledge that says she will pay dues, unite with “like-minded Christian leaders” across the country to “oppose evil and uphold righteous governance.”
It says something about Vance’s judgment that she hired this guy and allows him to spout his ignorance about Vic Fischer.
Fischer, who died last October at 99, would be among those fighting an attempt by Vance, Rep. Jamie Allard and other far-right Republicans to amend the Alaska Constitution to allow the state to give public funds to religious and other private schools.
House Joint Resolution 28, the proposed constitutional amendment, has a hearing Friday at 1 p.m. before the House Judiciary Committee.
They will never admit this, but the resolution is tantamount to a confession by Vance, Allard, etc. that they believe it is unconstitutional to spend public money on private schools and that the Anchorage Superior Court ruling striking down the correspondence allotment law was correct.
The Republicans introduced the resolution April 18, just after the landmark court ruling. This proposed amendment deserves to be defeated.
Ballinger’s claim on social media that Vic Fischer would have supported an amendment to spend public funds on private schools is a lie. A competent state employee with a background in Alaska history he is not.
Here are the facts:
Ballinger is taking a statement by Fischer quoted in the minutes of the constitutional convention out of context. This is not the first time this has happened.
During the convention, Fischer and another delegate, Barrie White, proposed eliminating this sentence from the Constitution: “No money shall be paid from public funds for the direct benefit of any religious or other private educational institution.”
Fischer wrote about this matter in 2013 when a similar propaganda campaign to misrepresent his views was created by those who wanted to spend public funds on private schools.
“Delegate Barrie White and I proposed that the whole third sentence dealing with funding be stricken. White stated its purpose was adequately covered by the bill of rights provision that ‘No law shall be made respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof’ and of the finance article requiring that public funds be appropriated only for a public purpose,” Fischer wrote in the Anchorage Daily News on February 20, 2013.
”I agreed with Barrie that the finance article's public purpose clause was sufficient to cover the intent of the public education section. Not for a moment did I disagree with the principle of prohibiting public funding of private education. Nor did my friend Barrie White, a rock-ribbed Republican,” said Fischer.
“To reiterate, in 1956 I opposed use of public funds for the direct benefit of religious and other educational institutions, and I oppose that today. The constitutional amendment should be rejected,” Fischer said 11 years ago.
Two days later, Fischer testified against an amendment that contained the same text as the one Vance, Allard, etc. are pushing in Juneau today.
“The burden of proof is very heavily upon those who would change the Constitution,” Fischer said.
He said the Alaska Constitutional Convention delegates were clear in saying that public funds would not go to private schools.
“The reason that I oppose the proposed amendment is that we have a public education system that is publicly funded, with public money. If a program results from approval of this constitutional amendment, it opens the door not just to choice for parents for individuals in education, it opens the door to direct benefits to religious institutions. It would benefit religious institutions because it would provide public funds to educate children in religious institutions and for-profit institutions,” Fischer said.
“And this would open the door to complete change in education in Alaska. I am not for public funds going into religious and for-profit schools,” he said.
When Rep. Lynn Gattis said that public funds were going to private schools already in the form of scholarships, Fischer said he believed that those programs could survive.
“To me the basic question is, ‘Are we solving a non-existing problem at this point?’ The burden is on those who say we should amend the Constitution. To me it seems that there is no fundamental problem with the existing language,” Fischer said in 2013.
Were he alive today, Fischer would be testifying against the latest attempt to amend the Constitution and calling for a legislative solution that requires a simple change to state law.
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