In the late 19th century, a Republican congressman from Maine, James G. Blaine, thought his ticket to the White House lay in exploiting the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic sentiment of many in the predominantly Protestant population at the time. Blaine sought to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar the expenditure of public funds for religious schools. While his effort never succeeded nationally, many states, including New York, adopted mini-Blaine provisions in their state constitutions.

That provision in New York’s Constitution remains to this day. Only now, the state’s Blaine Amendment is used not by religious intolerants to incite xenophobia but by teachers unions and other defenders of the educational status quo to stop innovation in education, specifically efforts to help poor and middle-income parents pay for tutoring and other educational costs for their children, including tuition at non-public schools.

Innovation is a threatening word to entrenched education interests. To them it spells competition and school choice, and that they cannot tolerate. So when Governor Pataki proposed in his state budget last week a $500 refundable education tax credit for poor and middle-income parents in underperforming school districts, it was only a matter of time before the fireworks began.

But to the surprise of some, the earliest objection was registered not by teachers unions but by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who presumably is courting their support in his campaign for governor. Education tax credits, Mr. Spitzer pronounced on cue, are “unconstitutional” in New York under the Blaine Amendment.

It was an ironic position for the attorney general to take; liberals like him are supposed to support efforts to break the poverty cycle. But there he was, the product of the most elite private schooling available, suggesting that, when all is said and done, children in lousy public school districts irrevocably are stuck where they are. We’d like to help your parents give you a better education, he offered, but this Blaine Amendment ties our hands. Case closed.

The union leaders must have been pleased. The problem with the attorney general’s position, though, is that it was nonsense. Tax credits for parents who want to enhance their children’s education are perfectly permissible under the law because no public money is given to private or parochial schools. Mr. Spitzer should have known that. In fact, most of the benefit of such an education tax credit would flow to children attending public schools in the form of tutoring or other independent academic assistance. The tax credit simply would help parents afford that extra help for their children.

When I pointed that out in the news media last week, Mr. Spitzer quickly altered his position. (He now supports “the idea” of education tax credits, but other priorities come first – like “resolving” the multi-billion dollar Campaign for Fiscal Equity ruling, which the teachers unions adore, but which very well could bankrupt the state.)

Regardless of Mr. Spitzer’s protean position on tax credits, though, it was good to see the issue get some attention. When I first sponsored an education tax credit bill as minority leader of the State Assembly several years ago, it was considered something of a revolutionary concept, even quixotic. But today, as more and more states successfully employ a tax credit, interest in the idea is growing here, so much so in fact that legislation to create one in New York might actually pass the State Assembly – its traditional blocking point – if the teachers unions ever let Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver put it onto the floor for a vote.

Mr. Pataki was right to put an education tax credit front and center in his budget. It is the right thing to do. Parents in underperforming school districts need a helping hand in preparing their children for the future, especially in an increasingly competitive global economy. A $500 tax credit might not sound like a lot, but for parents on the cusp it might mean the difference between sending a child to a quality parochial or private school or keeping that child in a chronically dysfunctional public school. For other parents it might mean providing an SAT review class that puts their public school educated child over the top into college.

The education tax credit bill I introduced is now being championed by State Senator Marty Golden, a Republican of Brooklyn, and Assemblyman Vito Lopez, a Democrat of Brooklyn. I am hopeful that it will see some movement this year. With powerful entrenched interests lined up against it, though, it will be facing another uphill session in Albany. But if it doesn’t pass this year, know from where the opposition springs. And don’t blame Blaine.

Mr. Faso, the former minority leader of the New York State Assembly, is a Republican candidate for governor.