More than 1,100 students at St. Genevieve Parish Schools in Panorama City launched a Purple Postcard Campaign, distributing roughly 15,000 postcards urging Gov. Gavin Newsom to opt California into the federal Scholarship Tax Credit. The Democratic-aligned coalition behind it is unusual, and as of June 2026 California remains undecided.
A grassroots campaign out of a Los Angeles parish school is testing whether the federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC / ECCA / §25F) can find Democratic constituencies in a state whose leaders have not embraced it. On February 11, 2026, St. Genevieve Parish Schools in Panorama City announced a “Purple Postcard Campaign” in which more than 1,100 students are distributing roughly 15,000 postcards encouraging Californians to contact Governor Gavin Newsom and ask him to opt the state into the program. The campaign is set to culminate on March 31, 2026, the birthday of labor organizer Cesar Chavez, with a mass mailing of signed postcards that the organizers frame as honoring Chavez's legacy of peaceful advocacy. The purple of the postcards is a deliberate nod to the United Farm Workers' colors, signaling that the effort is pitched from the left rather than the school-choice right that usually carries this issue.
What makes the effort notable is the coalition behind it. The campaign cites Democrats for Education Reform, whose CEO is former Providence mayor Jorge Elorza, and the California Catholic Conference, represented by Samara Palko, as partners, and it is advised by Sister Erin Zubal, Chief of Staff at the Catholic social-justice lobby NETWORK. Seton Hill University is offering participating students three college credits for the civics work. That lineup, a Democratic-aligned reform group, the state's Catholic bishops, and a progressive religious lobby, is an unusual one to be pressing a Democratic governor to join a program that most Democratic governors have so far rejected or restricted. It reframes §25F not as a partisan voucher fight but as a funding question for low- and middle-income families who already attend faith-based and independent schools, the constituency St. Genevieve serves in the San Fernando Valley.
The stakes the students are invoking are real but prospective. The §25F credit, enacted in 2025, takes effect January 1, 2027 and lets individual donors claim a dollar-for-dollar federal credit of up to $1,700 for gifts to qualifying Scholarship Granting Organizations, but only in states that affirmatively opt in by filing IRS Form 15714 and submitting a list of approved SGOs. Because the scholarships are funded by donors rather than the state treasury, a state that stays out simply forecloses its own residents from the credit while donors elsewhere can claim it. That is the “billions hanging in the balance” argument the campaign leans on. We explain the opt-in mechanics and the donor credit in our learn library, and the running tally of which states are in, out, or undecided lives on the state participation map.
As of June 2026, California remains undecided. Governor Newsom has issued no public position on §25F, no bill to opt the state in or to authorize an SGO list has advanced in the 2025-2026 legislative session, and California has neither filed Form 15714 nor submitted a list of Scholarship Granting Organizations. (A separate January 28, 2026 letter from Republican Rep. Vince Fong urging Newsom to opt in has been reported but is not confirmed by the sources cited here, so we note it only as unverified.) The Purple Postcard Campaign is therefore a data point about advocacy pressure rather than a change in California's status, and it sits alongside the broader pattern we track in where Democratic governors have landed and the choices facing other still-pending states. For founders weighing whether to stand up a California SGO ahead of a possible opt-in, the California state page and our SGO directory are the places to watch. Whether the campaign moves Sacramento is unknowable today, but it does establish that the constituency for §25F in California is not confined to the usual school-choice advocates: a governor weighing the decision will hear from Catholic families, a reform-minded Democratic group, and a progressive religious lobby, not only from the program's conservative architects. If Newsom does eventually act, the March 31 mailing will have been an early marker of that pressure.
