If you were wondering if the left-leaning cabal behind Dade Phelan would ever let any form of school choice pass the Texas house, now you know.
Following a year of anticipation and four special sessions, the hopes of school choice being passed on the floor of the Texas House have been dashed after an amendment stripped education savings accounts (ESAs) from this special session’s education omnibus bill.
The amendment offered by Rep. John Raney (R-College Station) was initially signed by 16 other members before being passed by a vote of 84 to 63.
Members then voted to lock that change in and prevent the removal from being reconsidered at a later time, a motion which passed by the same margin as Raney’s amendment.
Of the 85 Republicans in the House, those voting in favor of the ESA removal amendment included:
Rep. Steve Allison (R-San Antonio) Rep. Ernest Bailes (R-Shepherd) Rep. Keith Bell (R-Forney) Rep. DeWayne Burns (R-Cleburne) Rep. Travis Clardy (R-Nacogdoches) Rep. Drew Darby (R-San Angelo) Rep. Jay Dean (R-Longview) Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth) Rep. Justin Holland (R-Rockwall) Rep. Kyle Kacal (R-College Station) Rep. Ken King (R-Canadian) Rep. John Kuempel (R-Seguin) Rep. Stan Lambert (R-Abilene) Rep. Andrew Murr (R-Junction) Rep. Four Price (R-Amarillo) Rep. John Raney (R-College Station) Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford) Rep. Hugh Shine (R-Temple) Rep. Reggie Smith (R-Sherman) Rep. Ed Thompson (R-Pearland) Rep. Gary VanDeaver (R-New Boston) The ESA removal amendment was supported by all 64 House Democrats.
The names of some of those Republicans voting against school choice should be familiar, as they’ve thwarted Republican priorities in the past:
Primarying everyone on that list (and, of course, Phelan) would be a good start.
Following the vote, Governor Greg Abbot declared that “the small minority of pro-union Republicans in the Texas House who voted with the Democrats will not derail the outcome that their voters demand,” but it remains unclear how he can move his school choice agenda after this gutting.
Abbott has said he’ll veto and education bills without ESAs. He’s also threatened to keep holding special sessions until school choice passes. We’ll see if he follows through.
Tags: 2024 Election, Andrew Murr, Charlie Geren, Dade Phelan, DeWayne Burns, Drew Darby, Ed Thompson, education, Ernest Bailes, Four Price, Gary VanDeaver, Glenn Rogers, Greg Abbott, Hugh Shine, Jay Dean, John Kuempel, John Raney, Justin Holland, Keith Bell, Ken King, Ken Paxton, Kyle Kacal, Reggie Smith, Republicans, school choice, Stan Lambert, Steve Allison, Texas, Travis Clardy
Belton Mom Hillary Hickland Challenging Anti-School Choice State Rep. Hugh Shine
Hickland and Shine will compete in the March Republican primary to represent Texas House District 55.
https://texasscorecard.com/state/belton-mom-hillary-hickland-challenging-anti-school-choice-state-rep-hugh-shine/
To be fair to Gov. Abbott; the outcome of this 4th Special Session goes along way in uncovering the rot in the State GOP that needs to be cleared out. Whether or not more Special Sessions will do anything but spend money and create a precedent is something to carefully consider. Perhaps another, just to see if he can shake some things loose, but it seems clear Phelan will fight to a stalemate every session while wasting time and resources.
D’ya really believe these “Republicans” are actually… Republican?
Democrats have been running false-flag candidates for decades, people who profess to be Republican, but who rarely vote for actual policies desired by Republican voters. It’s a scam. Wake the f*ck up… This has been the problem here in the Washington State Republican party since forever… They suck up money from the voter base, but then they do things that are impossible to differentiate from the Democrat majority. I don’t think I’ve met an actual ideological Republican politician from this state since the 1980s; the local crooks are impossible to distinguish from their Democrat peers, except by that (R) behind their names. They vote with them, get a cut of the tax money, and then do nothing that the actual Republican voter base wants.
I think the party has been infiltrated and corrupted by outsiders that claim to be “Republican”, but who actually aren’t. I heard words about this from a Democrat “activist” years ago, but I discounted them as being impossible and unlikely… How would you manage to maintain a Manchurian Candidate identity for the decades necessary to make this work…?
But, it sure as hell looks like they did.
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See, I read an article recently that claimed that that this was a rural vs. urban issue, that rural Republicans didn’t like school choice because their areas realistically didn’t have enough population to support private schools, and in some counties, the public school district may literally be the only major employer, and certainly the only reliable one. However, looking at the list, the only people who fall into that category are the ones from Canadian, Junction, Graford, and New Boston; I’ll be generous and throw Shepherd and Sherman in there as well, though both places are close enough to big cities that in 10 years they probably won’t count either. The rest are either suburbs or small cities that are easily big enough to support private schools. I think that article was just cover for RINO’s.
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