brief in opposition to motion to dismiss - Colorado Attorney General

“educational expenditures per pupil in every school district be identical.” Lujan, 649 P.2d at1024-25.The claims decided in Lujan were critically different from those brought in this action.Lujan was an equal protection claim keyed to the argument that education was a “fundamentalright;” 13 that the school finance system was therefore subject to “strict scrutiny” review; thatinequalities in expenditures per pupil existed between school districts due to variations in localproperty tax bases; and that since the finance system could not be shown to be “necessarilyrelated to a compelling governmental interest,” it was unconstitutional. Lujan, 649 P.2d at 1013-14. The strategic fulcrum of plaintiffs’ argument was that once spending inequalities wereproved, they were relieved of having to show that differences in spending levels actually causedinequalities in educational opportunity, and the burden shifted to the defense to disprove thatproposition.The Supreme Court majority recognized that they were being finessed into adopting as aconstitutional principle a hotly debated theory of educational policy:The method Colorado has chosen for funding public school education is the real focalpoint of the challenge here. We note that appellees did not allege or prove that they arebeing denied an educational opportunity. Appellees instead argue that we should accept,amidst a raging controversy, that there is a direct correlation between school financingand educational quality and opportunity. We refuse, however, to venture into the realmof social policy under the guise that there is a fundamental right to education which callsupon us to find that equal educational opportunity requires equal expenditures for eachschool child. Even if we were to accept appellees’ contention, we would, nonetheless,refuse to adopt their a priori argument whereby a lack of complete uniformity in schoolfunding between all of the school districts of Colorado necessarily leads to a violation ofthe equal protection laws in this state.Id., 649 P.2d at 1018 (emphasis added).13 This was the real focus of their Education Clause argument as well. The plaintiffs also arguedunsuccessfully that “wealth” was a suspect classification for equal protection analysis, but that is16