A good indicator of the kind of legislator a candidate for office will be is who donates to their campaign. That is even more true when it comes to teachers unions donating to Republicans.
For the past few years, states with Republican majorities in their legislatures have pushed hard to enact universal school choice bills. These new programs have allowed families to send their children to schools they otherwise would not be able to afford and have broken the public school monopoly on education.
But despite the victories in states such as Arizona, Iowa, Utah, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and elsewhere, a slew of Republican legislators have stifled efforts to enact universal school choice in several states, including Wyoming and Texas, in both of which the GOP holds comfortable majorities.
The reason these states have failed to enact school choice is simple: There is a sufficient portion of the Republican caucus in their legislatures that is supported by education unions. And there are no greater enemies to educational freedom than those unions.
Using data from Open Secrets and Follow the Money, a recent report from the Daily Signal’s Tony Kinnett detailed the extent to which teachers unions have waded into Republican Party primary races for state legislative seats in districts that are all but assured to vote Republican in general elections. The goal? Keeping those states from enacting school choice.
According to Kinnett’s report, teachers unions have spent more money in Republican primaries in Alabama than any other state in 2018. For context, Republicans currently enjoy a 27-8 majority in the state Senate and a 77-28 majority in the state House of Representatives.
Gov. Kay Ivey (R-AL) has made school choice a No. 1 priority for the 2024 legislative session, but given the influence of teachers unions in her own party’s political process, she might have some serious difficulty enacting it, as her Texas counterpart Greg Abbott (R-TX) has learned.
For more than a year, Abbott has repeatedly tried to enact school choice in the Lone Star State, only for union-backed Republicans to rebuff his attempts every time. According to Kinnett’s reporting, the Texas State Teachers Association and the Texas Federation of Teachers have spent more than $340,000 in Republican primaries since 2018.
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Abbott, to his credit, has not taken these defeats lying down and has taken the extraordinary step of endorsing primary challengers to sitting Republican legislators with the goal of returning a pro-school choice majority to Austin next year. It’s a tactic that worked well for Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA), who successfully ousted anti-school choice Republicans in 2022 after they foiled her efforts to enact universal school choice that year. In 2023, Reynolds triumphantly signed universal school choice for the Hawkeye State.
As voters head to the polls in Republican primaries all over the nation, they should keep one thing in mind: If a candidate has the support of teachers unions, that’s a pretty good reason not to vote for them.
