Wednesday, February 4, 2009
News QBE lawsuit in limbo
Posted by Scott Henry @ScottTheHenry on Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 8:12 PM
For the past several years, a lawsuit by an education watchdog group has hung like a sword of Damocles over Sonny Perdue's head. Basically, the suit by the Consortium for Adequate School Funding in Georgia maintains that the state has shortchanged its schools to the tune of about $1 billion a year by willfully under-finding the Quality Basic Education program created Perdue's predecessor, Gov. Roy Barnes.
The Consortium, which is made up of more than 50 small and rural school systems, want the state to make up the difference – a proposition that could take quite a bite out of the state budget. Last year, the group – whose executive director is former Atlanta school board president Joe Martin (brother of failed Senate candidate Jim Martin) – withdrew the suit from federal court after the case was transferred to a judge it deemed unfriendly to its cause.
That's a very controversial move by any plaintiff because it invites the accusation of "venue-shopping" which is frowned upon in legal circles – when it's undertaken in such obvious fashion.
Now the group has bigger problems. On Tuesday, the AJC reports, Georgia's not-so-esteemed Attorney General Thurbert Baker issued the opinion that it's illegal for school systems to use taxpayer funds to sue the state. In other words, the Consortium itself isn't supposed to exist, according to Baker.
What does this mean? Baker's opinion doesn't kill the lawsuit outright, but it will certainly make a court think twice about taking up a re-filed case without first reviewing the group's legal standing.
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