30 local school superintendents from around Alabama have joined a lawsuit claiming the Alabama Accountability Act (AAA), a school choice bill passed by the Alabama Legislature in 2013, is unconstitutional, according to a report by al.com.

The group of superintendents, who represent about 22 percent of Alabama’s 136 school districts, filed a brief asking the Alabama Supreme Court to uphold a Montgomery Circuit Court ruling that the law violates Alabama’s constitution.

Judges on the Montgomery Circuit Court, which is typically friendly territory for the Alabama Education Association (AEA), previously sought to block the law in two separate cases arguing that the Legislature violated open meetings laws in the way the bill was passed. The Alabama Supreme Court dismissed both of those cases after the rulings were appealed.

The court’s third attempt to block the law, which the superintendents are asking the Supreme Court to uphold, took a different legal approach, arguing that the AAA violated Alabama’s Constitution by, among other things, including more than one subject in the bill. The original bill allowed local school districts to apply to receive flexibility from certain state regulations, but was ultimately expanded to include the school choice provisions as well. The suit was filed by the AEA, Democratic state senator Quinton Ross, and the Lowndes County School Superintendent.

RELATED: Liberal judge strikes down Alabama’s school choice law, ruling unlikely to withstand appeal

Here’s an excerpt from Yellowhammer’s analysis of the Montgomery Circuit Court’s ruling the day it was released:

Only in extremely rare occasions are laws struck down for violating the single-subject rule. Responsible courts show a great deal of deference to the Legislature as long as different parts of a bill are conceivably connected. Several legal experts Yellowhammer spoke with today said it is extremely unlikely that today’s ruling will withstand appeal.

In spite of that, the superintendents filed a 20-page brief on Aug. 20 urging the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court’s ruling this time.

“It is without dispute that the vast and overwhelming majority of students and parents in Alabama will suffer adverse consequences if this unconstitutional legislation is allowed to stand,” the superintendents wrote in their brief.

But Republican lawmakers who pushed the school choice bill through the Legislature do, indeed, dispute that claim.

“It’s unfortunate that these superintendents do not believe that parents who have children trapped in a failing school should have the choice to move them to a non-failing school,” Senate President Pro Tem Del Marsh said in a statement to Yellowhammer.

And Sen. Trip Pittman (R-Montrose), who chairs the Senate’s education budget committee, had an even stronger response.

“What they need to focus on is making their schools non-failing instead of filing lawsuits,” Pittman said of the school superintendents who filed the brief.

The Montgomery Circuit court’s ruling blocked implementation of the law prospectively, meaning it has had no impact on the school choice tax credits awarded to families during the 2013-2014 school year.

Almost 800 students took advantage of the Accountability Act in its first semester by transferring out of their chronically failing school and into a better situation. And in spite of the claims that it would decimate public education, only 52 students transferred to a private school.

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