Arizona homeschooling parents are accusing the state of imposing burdensome regulations on families after Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes cracked down on the state’s voucher program requirements this summer.

Homeschooling moms Velia Aguirre and Rosemary McAtee are plaintiffs in a new lawsuit, filed by The Goldwater Institute, against the state of Arizona, Arizona Department of Education and Superintendent Thomas Horne. Aguirre and McAtee participate in the school’s Empowerment Scholarship Account “ESA,” which gives homeschooling families 90% of state taxpayer dollars that would otherwise go to the public school district or charter schools to purchase educational materials, including books and supplemental materials, for their children’s schooling.

The suit alleges that in July, AG Mayes issued “legal threats” to the Department of Education to make sure every ESA purchase had a curriculum tied to it. Goldwater says that the education department is now rejecting reimbursement requests from ESA families for the purchase of “basic educational materials,” including things like pencils and erasers, “unless parents could provide an explicit ‘curricular’ document justifying the use of each specific book title or material for their child.” 

“It’s very hard. Because I’m spending several hours a week developing curriculum for things I’ve never had to develop curriculum for when I was a district employee or being in the program for four years,” Aguirre told Fox News Digital. 

“So it’s cumbersome. It’s really time-consuming. It’s burdensome,” she added. “It feels like I have to present this false narrative of developing a curriculum for erasers or pencils or colored markers.”

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“It’s just odd because the attorney general just seems to lack a lot of knowledge with the whole ESA program entirely. It’s really causing strain, and it feels deliberate, being imposed on families that already have it hard educating children with developmental delays,” Aguirre said.

Aguirre teaches her three boys with special needs at home and draws on her experience as a former public school Special Education teacher to develop lessons, activities and goals tailored to each of her children’s specific needs. But the lawsuit says when she submitted receipts for several educational materials, including the classic novel, “Where the Red Fern Grows;” a periodic table of elements; math and spelling activity books; and pencils and erasers to the department in August, her reimbursement request was denied.

Parents are already required to submit expense receipts for every item purchased with the scholarship funds, the suit says. It alleges the new requirement imposes a burden on parents that “violates state law and state regulations” while adding to the “backlog of tens of thousands of purchase orders awaiting review” and puts a “senseless burden” on parents.

The second plaintiff, Rosemary McAtee, has homeschooled seven of her nine children with funding from the ESA program since 2019. She also had her purchases denied by the state after she bought four books, including the children’s classic “Brown Bear, Brown, Bear What Do You See?,” and a Catholic Encyclopedia for Children. 

Both moms appealed these denials, the suit shows, but the Board of Education denied them, citing the need to provide a formal curriculum that includes these books.

Arizona homeschooling parents in the suit say the state has made their jobs much tougher with new regulations. (iStock)

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“I honestly am kind of afraid to buy anything now because if they can change the rules at the drop of a hat, and break the law, – it does break the law that the legislature put in 2020 — it just leaves me with a question mark of, ‘Am I going to be stuck carrying thousands of dollars that I’m waiting to be reimbursed on, and then they’re going to deny me, even if it meets my contract to my curriculum?’” McAtee told Fox News Digital.

According to Goldwater, Arizona lawmakers added clarifying language in 2020 to the law ensuring supplemental material that is not explicitly tied to a curriculum would not be denied to families in the ESA program. Additionally, they say the State Board of Education has also “approved rules for the program explicitly permitting the purchase of these materials without additional documentation.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office told Fox News Digital that they are simply enforcing the law and the requirement is meant to encourage transparency and accountability in how taxpayer dollars are spent.

“The Attorney General has simply stated what is required by law. The law doesn’t prevent parents from purchasing paper and pencils, but it does require that materials purchased with ESA funds be used for a child’s education. With instances of voucher dollars being spent on things like ski passes, luxury car driving lessons, and grand pianos, it’s clear that providing documentation on spending is essential to prevent the misuse of taxpayer funds. Attorney General Mayes believes Arizonans deserve full transparency and accountability in how their tax dollars are used and will continue to fight for accountability and oversight in the voucher program,” the spokesperson said.

Vice President Harris stops in battleground Arizona on Friday to hold a campaign event along the U.S. southern border with Mexico as the Democrat presidential nominee works to turn the issue of immigration and border security from a negative into a positive.

Harris has faced frequent attacks from her Republican opponent, former President Trump, and his allies who argue she’s weak on border security, an issue that many Republicans see as the vice president’s political Achilles’ heel. Harris has faced intense criticism over the surge of migrants across the nation’s southern border during the first three years of President Biden’s administration.

The Trump campaign, on the eve of Harris’ first border visit as a presidential nominee, called it a “political ploy.”

But Harris, with a stop in Douglas, Arizona, aims to show that she’s better prepared than Trump to tackle the combustible issue of immigration and what Republicans have spotlighted as the crisis at the southern border.

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The vice president is expected to speak about how she is pushing what she describes as the toughest bipartisan border security plan in a generation, a measure that includes new border agents and technologies to stop fentanyl trafficking.

And she’s expected to reiterate her argument that Trump “has been talking a big game about securing our border, but he does not walk the walk.”

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She has repeatedly pointed to a border security bill with some bipartisan support that had been making its way through Congress this year before Republicans turned against the measure after prompting from Trump.

Harris has said that the former president “tanked the bipartisan deal because he thought it would help him win an election” and has pledged that “as the president, I will bring back the border security bill that Donald Trump killed.”

Former President Trump speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border on Aug. 22, 2024, south of Sierra Vista, Ariz. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

Since replacing Biden atop the Democrats’ 2024 ticket more than two months ago, Harris has described herself as a former “border state prosecutor” who took on international gangs and criminal organizations behind illegal drug, gun and human trafficking across the border.

The description comes as Harris and her campaign have also spotlighted a tougher stance on border security while still pushing for a pathway to citizenship for some migrants.

“We need a comprehensive plan,” Harris said Wednesday in an interview with MSNBC. “That includes what we need to do to fortify not only our border but deal with the fact that we also need to create pathways for people to earn citizenship.”

Biden tasked Harris in 2021 with leading the diplomatic outreach to tackle the “root causes” of migration in Central American countries. It led to her being dubbed the “border czar” both by the media and some Republicans, although the White House has rejected that description. And the vice president has been pilloried over her role as “Biden’s border czar” by Trump and his allies.

Trump, as he runs to win back his old job in the White House, is calling for a major crackdown at the U.S.-Mexico border and has suggested using police and the military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

Speaking at a campaign event in North Carolina on Wednesday, Trump said Harris was traveling to the southern border for “political reasons.”

“When Kamala speaks about the border, her credibility is less than zero,” Trump said. “I hope you’re going to remember that on Friday. When she tells you about the border, ask her just one simple question: ‘Why didn’t you do it four years ago?’”

And Trump has said the policies of the Biden-Harris administration have allowed millions of people to enter the U.S. illegally.

In June, after the collapse of the bipartisan border security bill, Biden announced rules that bar migrants from being granted asylum when U.S. officials say the U.S.-Mexico border is overwhelmed. Following the implementation of the new rules through executive orders, arrests for illegal border crossings have plummeted.

Polls indicate that immigration and abortion are two of the top issues on the minds of American voters, following the economy and inflation.

And public opinion surveys, including those from Fox News, indicate that by double digits Americans believe Trump would do a better job than Harris handling the issue.

Trump last visited the border during a stop last month in Arizona, which is one of the seven crucial battleground states that will likely determine the winner of the presidential election.

Fox News’ Adam Shaw contributed to this report.

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