Why did the Colorado legislature exclude pervasively sectarian schools from state aid programs?
The legislature excluded pervasively sectarian schools from state aid programs four separate times. In 1977, 1979, and 1986, the legislature apparently thought that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment required it to exclude such schools. By 2004, when the legislature excluded pervasively sectarian schools from the higher education voucher program, it was clear that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment did not require the exclusion. The legislatures conduct in 2004 is even harder to understand in light of its 2003 decision to allow pervasively sectarian schools to obtain tax-exempt bond financing, removing an exclusion of such schools that had been in place since 1981.
