OA41: Betsy DeVos and School Vouchers

Opening Arguments

In today's episode, we examine one of the favorite policy recommendations of President Trump's Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos: the school voucher. What is it? Is it constitutional? Listen and find out! We begin, however, with a Breakin' Down the Law segment where Andrew looks at a popular Twitter account's explanation of the odd fact that Donald Trump filed his re-election papers four years early. Is there some nefarious purpose to him having done so, or is this innocuous? We break down the law so you'll be armed with the information you need to navigate these kinds of claims. In the main segment, Andrew walks us through Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002), the most recent Supreme Court case to consider school vouchers, with a focus on whether providing federal tax dollars to private religious institutions violates the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. After our main segment, we turn to a question from ex-Mormon about the infamous "Mormon Extermination Order," an executive order (No. 44) signed by Missouri Gov. Lilburn Boggs in 1838. This dovetails with a two-hour discussion of the Order between Andrew and host Bryce Blankenagel during episode 47 of the "Naked Mormonism" podcast, which you should definitely check out by clicking here. Finally, we end with the answer to Thomas Takes the Bar Exam question #9 about joint tenancy. Remember that TTTBE issues a new question every Friday, followed by the answer on next Tuesday's show. Don't forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s)! Show Notes & Links

1. The "Resisterhood" tweets are here.
2. Zelman v. Simmons-Harris, 536 U.S. 639 (2002).
3. This is the original, hand-written text of Missouri Executive Order 44 (the "Mormon Extermination Order").
4. The main page for the "Naked Mormonism" podcast is here; and Andrew was on Epsiode 47, which you can download here.

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