“There’s an easy way to get it done and a hard way to get it done,” Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) said at an event last year, referring to his directive that the legislature pass an education savings program, or vouchers, for all Texans in the special session. Since the legislature did not pass vouchers in a third or fourth, or any special session, you might be able to guess which way lawmakers chose.
For Abbott, the “hard way” has now befallen legislators, and they’re facing his wrath. As the Texas primary looms on Tuesday, Abbott is on the warpath to unseat House Republicans who opposed his plan to give Texans education freedom with their tax dollars. The move seems personal for the attorney general-turned-governor, typically known as an analytical, measured leader.
The lame-duck governor is so determined to pass a vouchers plan that he’s traversing the state, supporting Republican opponents of representatives he’d previously backed because they didn’t support vouchers, even if they often cited the fact that they were reflecting the views and needs of their constituents living on ranches and farms in rural Texas. Twenty-one House Republicans refused to cave on vouchers last year, and 16 of them are running for reelection. So far, Abbott’s supporting at least a dozen of their opponents.
Abbott has endorsed several primary challengers to Texas House Republicans who didn’t support vouchers, even lending his support to challengers who, in the past, haven’t supported him. Right now, incumbent Rep. Glenn Rogers, who represents House District 60, just west of Fort Worth, and is a staunch, vocal opponent of vouchers, faces Republican challenger Mike Olcott.
At a campaign event on Feb. 23, Abbott explained why voters should support Olcott and vouchers after citing a case in Lewisville Independent School District, northwest of Dallas, where a teacher dressed in drag at school. “But more fundamentally, imagine if you were one of the parents of children who were in that school knowing this: The state of Texas, as a government, compels you, if you live in Lewisville, to send your child to that school,” Abbott said. “You have the right, that God-given right, to take your child out of that school.”
Abbott’s quest is obvious, and so far, it’s been effective. “We’re seeing more competitive Republican Texas House primers than we’ve ever seen,” Rice University political science professor Mark Jones told CBS Austin. “School choice is very popular among Republican primary voters. And even Republican primary voters in rural areas and semirural areas are supportive of school choice.”
“What he’s doing here is attempting to recover some of that credibility by signaling to Texas legislators and people throughout the state of Texas that if you oppose one of the governor’s top initiatives, you run the risk of being primaried and losing your seat in the Texas legislature,” Jones said.
On Fox News in October, Corey DeAngelis, the school choice evangelist who’s been pushing for it in Texas, has started picking apart lawmakers who opposed vouchers, too, including state Rep. Travis Clardy, a Republican. “[Clardy] voted against school choice during the regular session and has taken teachers union money from at least three groups backed by the teachers unions in Texas,” DeAngelis said.
According to DeAngelis, Abbott’s consequence-based strategy for passing valuable legislation isn’t entirely new. He’s compared Abbott’s predicament to Gov. Kim Reynolds (R-IA), who tried to push universal vouchers but failed, too, even with a Republican-controlled legislature. Reynolds then supported pro-voucher Republican candidates and a version of vouchers passed in Iowa in 2023. In January 2024, the state reported that 17,000 students utilized vouchers to pay for private school education.
Why Texas, of all places, doesn’t have vouchers yet
Of all the red states, Texas is often seen as a beacon of liberty, what with its embrace of freedom, firearms, and mottos that scream, “Come and take it.” Except when it comes to one thing: expanded school choice or vouchers. While at least 34 states enjoy some kind of school choice, including vouchers or universal education savings accounts, Texans only have limited education freedom with their tax dollars in the form of charter schools, in addition to public schools.
The school choice movement has been growing slowly since 2000, but it exploded during and after COVID-19 as the pandemic caused the veil of public education to be lifted, exposing indoctrination or lack of academic rigor in schools. States such as Arizona and Florida recently enacted education savings accounts, and parents started homeschooling or sending their children to charter or private schools with taxpayer funds, with some success.
So why hasn’t Texas, one of the most conservative states, been able to adopt a full-fledged voucher program, something that has become the cause du jour for Republicans elsewhere? It’s not because of Democratic lawmakers. Republicans are in firm control of the state.
Reducing property taxes and enacting a universal education savings program were two of Abbott’s biggest priorities in the 2023 legislative session, which was augmented by additional special sessions. He accomplished the former but not the latter. Others criticize the 25 rural Republicans who initially balked at Abbott’s voucher plan despite being conservatives, even when he tried to entice said holdouts with teacher raises.
“It’s just not a good look to keep losing — and particularly to lose at the hands of your own … partisan colleagues with whom you have joined forces many times,” Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, told the Texas Observer in November. “We’ve been dealing with the voucher issue for years now. And it’s roughly the same fight every time, and the same blocking coalition prevails.”
Unfortunately for parents and students who would benefit from vouchers, the end result of multiple special sessions exposed all three parties, House Republicans, Democrats, and Abbott, as likely collectively responsible for the inability to compromise or cede any ground to get what parents deserve.
Where do Texans stand on vouchers?
A vital sect of House Republicans aren’t the only ones against vouchers. Most, if not all, of the major newspapers in Texas are, too. The Houston Chronicle ran a November 2023 editorial that stung. “The only good voucher bill is a dead one,” the headline said. The next month, it ran an editorial debunking the best arguments for school vouchers. In December, the Dallas Morning News editorial board took note of Abbott’s many special sessions to pass vouchers and wrote, “Gov. Abbott, on vouchers it’s time to take no for an answer.”
But the media don’t speak for all Texans. Abbott regularly mentions the fact that according to data, most primary voters approved a pro-voucher ballot proposition in 2022.
A poll from the University of Texas and the Texas Politics Project published in October 2023 showed that 51% of Texans support “establishing a voucher, educational savings account (ESA), or other ‘school choice’ program in Texas,” while just 30% were opposed (the rest had no opinion). Almost half of rural Texans supported school choice, and over a third of Democrats supported school choice.
When asked about these polls, rural Republican lawmakers often balk at the wording of the questions.
What happened in 2023
Despite Abbott’s wishes and hope that lawmakers were close to closing a deal on vouchers, a look back shows he never had the votes.
Abbott wanted a universal voucher program where all Texas students would be eligible to receive about $10,400 a year for private school tuition, homeschool supplies, online tutoring, or whatever else parents deemed necessary for education. Of course, the student could also remain at the public school for which he or she was zoned or attend another public school if the parent was willing to drive. Abbott was not interested in backing a limited program, a pilot program of sorts, affecting only qualifying (disadvantaged) students.
Abbott homed in on vouchers after the regular session ended, and he finally passed property tax relief after the first two special sessions. During the third special session, lawmakers worked on a vouchers provision and Abbott said it was close to passing, but the session ended with no real results.
In the fourth and final special session, lawmakers proffered House Bill 1, a new voucher provision that included much-needed teacher raises — but only together. It passed in committee and headed to the House floor, but anti-voucher Republicans, now 21 holdouts, passed an amendment that stripped vouchers from the education funding bill. The House declined to take up a vote on the rest of the bill knowing Abbott would veto it.
Now in 2024, several school districts in Texas have announced they’re making cuts and struggling financially due to the lack of a funding bill.
In the end, only four Republicans who originally opposed vouchers flipped.
Conservatives think lawmakers and other anti-voucher proponents aren’t looking at the bigger picture enough. “Anti-parent unions, stakeholders, and leaders turned down $5.5 billion for our public schools because it contained just $0.5 billion for ESAs. Why? They are so concerned about the control of our children’s education that they’re willing to hurt themselves financially in order to maintain it,” the Texas Public Policy Foundation said on its website.
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The future of vouchers for Texans
Abbott and pro-voucher Republican lawmakers maintain that vouchers are simply what the people really want and that true education freedom is what parents and students deserve. The way the Republican primary turns out might yet have an impact on this in the next legislative session, which won’t begin until January 2025.
As a 501(c)(3), the Texas Public Policy Foundation can’t comment on the election, but it’s supported Abbott’s voucher push for years — and it still thinks there’s hope, even if it’s also tied up in consequences. In an email, Brian Phillips, chief communications officer, told the Washington Examiner, “The opposition to school choice comes from a fact both sides agree on: if given the opportunity, millions of parents would choose something other than what their child’s assigned school is offering. But the parent empowerment movement is just getting started and it’s simply not a long-term tenable position for them to oppose parents. One way or another, a day of reckoning is coming.”
Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a mother of four and an opinion columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas.
