AUSTIN, Texas — On the eve of the third special legislative session that will primarily focus on “school choice” and vouchers, the big question is whether the effort has any chance at passage.
Since the regular session, and in years past, Democrats and a group of rural Republicans have successfully blocked school vouchers, which would allow parents to use public tax dollars to send their children to private schools.
Critics say the effort would weaken public schools because it siphons money away from them. And in many rural districts, the local ISD is the largest employer.
In our latest episode of Y’all-itics, we turned to Brian Mays, a Republican political consultant.
“You know, if you had asked me in the legislative session, I would have said 50-50 and now I think it's 30% because what's happened is you've got parents and teachers now, he has woken up parents and teachers, especially moms,” Mays told us. “And, you know, if you upset females in Texas and you get them riled up, they're going to take control. And they're calling their state reps. They're calling their senators.”
Mays has only worked on Republican political campaigns for three decades.
He says if a rural Republican were to vote in favor of school vouchers, it would cost that person votes in a general election because their district stands to lose millions of dollars.
And Mays went so far as to question whether Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both champions of school vouchers, are truly conservatives because of that support.
“The reality is with a voucher, they’re asking voters, taxpayers, to give up their money without any oversight. There’s no elected board on a private school. There’s no oversight. You can’t do an open records request to find out what is your curriculum,” Mays said. “And you know the reality is this is an issue that when Republicans hear that, they’re kind of like, oh whoa, this is not as good as we thought.”
And because the amount of money parents would receive from a voucher would never cover the entire cost of the vast majority of private schools, Mays says vouchers will only subsidize very wealthy people who already send their kids to private schools.
During the regular session, the proposed amount was $8,000.
The Governor has threatened to support primary challenges against Republicans who don’t support vouchers.
But Mays says this could backfire, because rural Republicans, and Democrats for that matter, won’t back down because they have to represent their communities, while he says the Governor, for the most part, represents his contributors.
“And I’ll be as bold as to say on this issue, he’s nothing more than a boot licker for these wealthy donors that have told him we want vouchers,” said Mays. “And remember, his donors are people that run private schools, right?”
The third special session, which will also cover border security, public safety and ending COVID restrictions, is scheduled to begin Oct. 9 at 1 p.m. Be sure to listen to this entire episode of Y’all-itics to get ready for it. Cheers!
