The Douglas County School Board might be unhappy with the state Supreme Court ruling knocking down its dodgy voucher plan.

Religious schools throughout Douglas County might be unhappy, too.

But the national voucher-movement people who are pushing the lawsuit must be thrilled with the ruling against them. The way for them to win is by losing, at least in this round. Winning in Colorado is small stakes. Winning at the U.S. Supreme Court could be transformational.

Yes, the state constitution seems to plainly say that this voucher plan would be, well, un-state-constitutional. But the language plainly cited — prohibiting public funding for “any church or sectarian society, or for any sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school … controlled by any church or sectarian denomination” — derives from the Blaine Amendment, a piece of 19th-century bigotry by which states barred funds for Catholic schools.

And yet the court decided that the origin of the amendment meant little, and that the separation of church and state was what mattered. And so the court found: “A school district may not aid religious schools. Yet aiding religious schools is exactly what the (Choice Scholarship Program) does.”

The 19th-century bigotry is both despicable and disturbing, but, in a 21st-century reading, the language in the amendment seems entirely neutral. What to do? Should one base an important ruling on a poisoned amendment? Or is it fair to say that if the amendment were being read today as anti-Catholic, it would have been easily, and long ago, overturned?

We know how the state Supreme Court read it. But that doesn’t mean the U.S. Supreme Court would see it that way, if, in fact, the school board appeals and the Court agrees to hear the case. The Supreme Court has already ruled that some vouchers that are neutral on religion and not paid directly to religious schools can be used. The question, then, would be whether the dodgy Douglas County-style vouchers qualify?

Let’s be honest. Does anyone really think that this voucher plan is meant to improve public schools? Does anyone really think that, as public policy, this plan is meant to provide “choice” so children can attend “better” schools?

Or is it all just a dodge?

In DougCo, the choice for students seems to be basically a choice among religious schools. When the vouchers were put in place in 2011, 93 percent of eligible students chose religious schools. According to the numbers from the trial, 119 of 120 high school students chose a religious school.

The voucher program plainly states that it permits eligible schools to make their admissions based on … religious beliefs.

Can we get any clearer?

Well, yes. Here’s how the system was to have worked. To be eligible to receive the voucher, the student must enroll in the Choice Scholarship Charter School, which, it turns out, is not a school at all. It has no teachers. It has no building. It has no books. It has no readin’ or writin’ or ‘rithmetic. It has no students.

It has nothing but a name and a claim that the student is enrolled so that the state will have to fork over money for the student. The state’s money goes to the parents, who get to choose which school to send their kids to attend. If the student were to enroll directly in a religious school, Douglas County couldn’t pay for it. But because the student enrolls in a phony-baloney charter school, the plan would mean for your tax dollars to be used to pay for someone to go to a religious school that wouldn’t have to admit your children if they were of a different religion.

In its editorial lamenting the state Supreme Court decision, the Denver Post wrote that the DougCo vouchers were “a modest, limited effort that expanded choice without undermining public schools.”

But Chief Justice Nancy Rice, in her opinion, didn’t agree. She said the Choice Scholarship Program was basically a “recruitment program” in which DougCo teamed with mostly religious partner schools to offer students and their parents “inducements” in the form of scholarships – which, it seems, are not necessarily limited to scholarly endeavors.

If the Colorado Supreme Court is right, the program doesn’t seem modest or limited. But the question now isn’t only whether the state court is right — it seems to me it must be — but whether it will get the last word.

Mike Littwin writes for the Colorado Independent (www.coloradindependent.com).