All it would take is the right lawsuit and the right court and the state could be in crisis, says former Bush aide and voucher backer Patricia Levesque, who sits on the Taxation and Budget Reform Commission and has proposed eliminating the strict and far-reaching no-aid language.

But opponents, such as the state teachers union and church-state separatists, say Levesque and religious supporters such as the Florida Catholic Conference are misreading the law, exaggerating the threats to secular programs run by nominally religious groups, and trying to prop up a newer type of voucher program that hasn't been challenged in court and that the Legislature wants to double in size.

POINT OF AGREEMENT

Still, both sides agree that Florida's no-aid language is stricter than federal principles of separation of church and state as well as similar prohibitions in other state constitutions. The Florida no-aid clause says that no government ``revenue . . . shall ever be taken from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.''

Levesque says that language is clear -- and dangerous to the state's budget if faith-based providers are booted off the job.

''We're not trying to stir up people,'' said Levesque, who now works for Jeb Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future. ``If these things start getting challenged, what are we going to do about it? The state has faith-based providers filling the gap everywhere.''

Ron Meyer, the Florida Education Association union lawyer who successfully fought Bush's first voucher plan, said removing the no-aid provision or weakening it comes at the worst of times: A budget crisis when the state has too many needs and too little money.

`PAY FOR RELIGION?'

''We can't pay for state government, but now we're going to pay for religion?'' Meyer said. ``That's quite an irony.''

Meyer said the no-aid opponents have predicted doom-and-gloom with hospitals and social-service providers for years. Yet the money -- about $250 million a year to the hospitals -- has flowed in to nominally religious groups. Not only does no one have a real reason to sue over the no-aid issue, he said, they don't have the grounds.

''There's a difference between helping someone in an emergency room with medical care at a Baptist or Catholic hospital and taking public money to preach your version of religion in the classroom,'' he said. He said a similar proposal to allow and encourage faith-based providers despite the no-aid provision is just as bad.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already weighed in on vouchers, ruling that an Ohio voucher system that sent money to some religious schools didn't violate the First Amendment. But it also determined in a Washington case that no-aid provisions don't violate it, either.

The ''no-aid'' provision first appeared in Florida's Constitution in 1868, before Maine Sen. James G. Blaine exploited anti-Catholic sentiment when he proposed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1875 to ban public financing of religious groups. At the time, many schools were run by Protestants who wanted to slow the spread of Catholicism from Ireland and Italy. The amendment failed, but so-called ''Blaine Amendments'' made it into 37 state constitutions. While scholars disagree about the extent to which anti-Catholic bias played into the passage of the amendments, most think it played some role.

Florida's amendment survived a rewrite of the state Constitution in 1868 and 1968 as well as a Constitutional Revision Commission in 1998, and no one mentioned Catholics or any other religion pejoratively at the time.

NO-AID RULING

The state Supreme Court ducked the no-aid issue entirely when it ruled on vouchers -- even though the lower appeals court struck the program down on no-aid grounds and specifically asked the justices to examine the issue by noting that other instances of public money going to religious institutions could be affected in ``another time and another case involving its own unique facts.''

But the state Supreme Court ruled that the Opportunity Scholarship Program, which gave vouchers to kids at poorly rated schools, ran afoul of a state constitutional provision calling for uniform, free public schools. That ruling will stand, whether or not the no-aid provision is struck.

YEARS OF LITIGATION

During the years of litigation over the vouchers, the Legislature approved two other types of scholarships that weren't included in the court case. One was for disabled kids and the other for poor children. In the latter program, the children use corporate-tax money that's diverted to the school before it reaches the state treasury.

That way, the corporate program might not violate the no-aid provision. But the courts would have to decide if the corporate-tax diversion constitutes ''indirect'' aid.

Meantime, the Legislature is deciding whether to double the program to serve nearly 45,000 kids.

The teachers' union might sue in that case, said FEA attorney Meyer, who added that the proponents of Levesque's plans are like the ''ghosts of Bush'' trying to resurrect his voucher plans.

The issue also carries political payout. If the no-aid measure were to appear on this year's ballot, it could energize turnout by so-called ''values voters,'' whose influence at the polls has waned since its height in 2004.

`IDEOLOGICAL PORK'

One of the nonvoting members of the tax commission, state House Democratic leader Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, said an amendment to kill the no-aid clause is simply ''ideological pork'' to help draw out conservative voters.

But Mike McCarron, the chief lobbyist for the Florida Catholic Conference, whose bishops oversee numerous private schools, said this isn't about sneaking things past anyone or about fighting old historical battles.

''Regardless of the intent of no-aid or the Blaine Amendment or whatever people call it,'' he said, ``it's discriminatory and it's unfair.''