As the Senate closed out its marathon session of amendment votes on Republicans’ budget bill, the so-called Big Beautiful Bill, it added back a provision fought for by Orthodox Jewish groups, creating a major new national school-choice program, which had been stripped from the bill days earlier. 

The program, known as the Educational Choice for Children Act, passed through the House but was ultimately struck from the bill by a ruling of the Senate parliamentarian, a nonpartisan official responsible for ruling on whether provisions meet the standards for a reconciliation bill, which is limited to certain budgetary and tax matters.

The ECCA would create a tax credit for individuals who donate to scholarship programs for children that can be used for a variety of different purposes, including religious schooling. The latest version of the program included in the Senate bill allows individual states to opt into the program and approve the specific scholarship programs eligible to receive the money in that state, rather than automatically instituting the program nationwide.

It also removes the total nationwide cap on the program, but lowers the individual contribution cap to $1,700 per taxpayer.

Nathan Diament, the executive director of public policy for the Orthodox Union, said that Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tim Scott (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) had been negotiating with the parliamentarian since her initial ruling late last week to revise the legislation to address her objections.

“This really is historic,” Diament told Jewish Insider. “This is unquestionably the single largest federal school choice program ever passed. It’s been a long time coming. … It’s going to be helpful to countless numbers of families.”

“We thank Senator Cruz for his relentless efforts the last few days, but it really is a larger effort, whether it’s the House speaker or other Senate leaders … it was one of President Trump’s priorities, school choice, 50 states, and there are many House and Senate leaders and sponsors who made that a reality over the last few months,” Rabbi A.D. Motzen, national director of government affairs for Agudath Israel of America, said.

Though some state governments generally oppose school choice policies and have sought in the past to limit taxpayer funding to religious schools, citing First Amendment concerns, both Diament and Motzen argued that state opposition is less likely to happen in this case.

Diament said that the OU will be working with the Trump administration to ensure that the regulations implemented to govern the program will “lean into encouraging states to do this as broadly as possible.” He noted that recent Supreme Court rulings suggest that any state that tries to exclude religious school scholarships from the program would lose in court.

“Any governor who would choose not to opt in would seem foolish,” Motzen said. “This is all federal funds, it’s not taking away any money from the state. The money could be used by eligible families in public or private school, for a wide range of uses. Preventing a donor from contributing and a scholarship organization to operate in the state would be preventing families from using the money for tutoring or books or other approved expenses.”

He added, “If a state decides not to submit a list of [approved] scholarship organizations, the donors of that state will make a donation to scholarship organizations in other states. So not only are you leaving money on the table, and you’re not allowing your families, all families across the state — every type, public, private, religious school — but you’re actually leading to money leaving the state. What governor would want to do that?”

Motzen noted that the changes in the contribution limits mean that “the strategy of raising funds went from Wall Street to Main Street. It’s going to require a retail fundraising effort across the country, so that taxpayers who want to support scholarships, every one of them gives $1,700.”