The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of an Arizona school voucher program that critics say improperly directs taxpayer funds to religious schools.
Monday's 5-4 ruling expands long-standing court precedents that citizens don't have standing to legally challenge taxes they don't like simply because they're taxpayers.
The minority on the court maintained that since the case involved claims of a violation of religious freedoms, that the Arizona plaintiffs didn't need to demonstrate a specific personal injury.
The decision, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy and joined by the court's more conservative members, preserves Arizona's school voucher program that is funded by tax credits offered to state taxpayers. Most of the students who use the voucher money attend religious schools.
Opponents of the Arizona system filed a lawsuit claiming the $500 tax credit, available to all individual taxpayers, designed to help pay for private education violates the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from establishing any religion in the United States. The high court in 1968 said taxpayers didn't need to show that they had been personally harmed when lodging an Establishment Clause claim.
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