School voucher legislation gains momentum after decades of Christian conservative advocacy

Gov. Greg Abbott discusses parent empowerment at Annapolis Christian Academy in Corpus Christi on Jan. 31, 2023. bbornly outside their grasp — until now.

“Texas has been kind of an Alamo to the national voucher crowd in the sense that the biggest state down South still hasn’t done it,” said Joshua Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University who opposes vouchers.

“Vouchers have absolutely become one of the top issue areas of the litmus test for Republican Party power politics,” Cowen said. “If you want to be a player, you have to really push on the doctrine.” In targeting them, Abbott and his billionaire allies didn’t make vouchers the focus of campaign advertising but rather accused them of being soft on issues like border security.

The group has pushed for vouchers since its founding in 1989 by Republican Christian conservative donor James Leininger, who funded a pilot voucher program in his hometown of San Antonio for several years. In 1998, billionaire oilman Tim Dunn joined the board, serving as vice chair for more than a decade as he became one of the state’s most prolific campaign donors.

Despite Patrick’s influence in the Senate, which passed voucher legislation in 2015 and 2017, the Texas House rejected the plans those years, and the voucher push largely died out afterward. Brian Phillips, a spokesperson for TPPF, did not respond to specific questions about the group’s advocacy but issued a statement anticipating victory next year. “When school choice legislation passes next year, it will be due to the amazing vigilance of thousands of parents, students, educators, policymakers, activists, pastors, volunteers, and, yes, even a few think tanks,” he said in a statement.

Huffines wrote in a statement to ProPublica and the Tribune that while his goal was to win the election, he “knew that the campaign would force the Governor to adopt many of my policy positions, including school choice, which has been a priority of the National and State Republican Party for decades.”

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