School-choice opponents in Utah tried a new trick, and it's coming back to bite them.

Last month, Utah passed the country's most sweeping school voucher legislation. The Parents for Choice in Education Act (HB148) makes nearly every student eligible for private-school tuition vouchers worth $300 to $5,000, depending on family income. Under the program, school districts continue for five years to receive funding for every voucher student who leaves. So this voucher system, as foes are fond of claiming, doesn't "drain" money from public schools.

Despite receiving this pricey concession, opponents, mostly teachers unions, were up to their old trick of amending school-choice legislation to make it unworkable. They pushed for regulations designed to dampen private school participation, and insisted the law come up for review two years earlier than originally scheduled.

Opponents prevailed. But now their gambit has reversed their fortunes as they attempted a new trick to stop the program before its scheduled April 30 kickoff.

Utah is one of 24 states where the public can overturn recently enacted legislation through referendum. Opponents have until April 9 to gather 92,000 valid signatures to qualify their school-choice recall for the 2008 ballot. With those signatures, opponents would delay implementation until as late as 2009.

But here's the twist. School-choice opponents filed their referendum petition against the original school choice legislation (HB 148) before superseding legislation (HB174), enacted largely at their insistence, was signed into law. Simply put, they're going after the wrong legislation.

Opponents can't target the revised school-choice program because any referendum must be filed within five days after the legislative session ends, which didn't happen. The amended school choice legislation also passed with at least two-thirds majorities in both the state House and the Senate. Under Utah law, such bills are immune from referendum.

"This is going to be a true battleground between parental choice and the union mentality," according to Sen. Curt Bramble, R-Provo, Senate sponsor of HB148.

The state's largest teachers union, the Utah Education Association, and the Utah PTA are operating under the guise of "Utahns for Public Schools" to convince the public that parents, not entrenched special interests, oppose school choice. Last week, the Education Intelligence Agency, a private investigative journalism center, reported that nearly 80 percent of the individuals listed as county contacts for the referendum sign-up process are easily identified as paid union operatives, elected union representatives or regional directors for the PTA.

Even if school-choice opponents in Utah get their way, and voters reject the original voucher program, the amended program remains intact, with one big difference: There is no statutory requirement to spend the $9.2 million appropriation needed to keep funding public schools that lose students under the voucher program.

So, Utah parents get school choice, students get vouchers, and public schools get no additional funding – all no thanks to special-interest shenanigans.