While most of the electoral attention yesterday was reserved for the top of the ticket, in Texas, down-ballot races were a bright spot for Republicans generally and the issue of school choice specifically.
Following the Republican primary, the general election was fashioned into a referendum on school choice.
Anti-school choice advocates insisted that after being obliterated in the primary, races won by conservative candidates would be undone by Democrats. Republican candidates would be defeated in November on the issue of school choice.
These victories did not materialize.
One of the oldest anti-school choice groups in the state, Texas Parent PAC, endorsed candidates in 13 open-seat and challenging races. They lost all but three of these elections. Two of the three wins were Democrats backfilling Democrat open seats.
Ahead of the election, Hugh Shine and Steve Allison, Republican House members who were defeated in their primary races, publicly backed Democrats to avenge their losses and protect the government’s monopoly on education. Both Democrats lost, dealing Shine and Allison fresh defeats.
These weren’t the only “Republicans” who supported Democrats this cycle based on the issue of school choice.
Former State Sen. Jeff Wentworth, whose district overlapped Allison’s back in the day, issued his first public endorsement of Democrats based on his disdain for school choice. Some claim he coached Republicans to cross over and vote for Democrats while he was in the Senate; now it’s more official.
With the results in, it was a clear rout.
Texas saw a massive swing back to the right, with a strong double-digit showing in the presidential election for the first time since 2012. Republicans also picked up an extra seat in the Senate after missing it two years ago and flipped two South Texas House seats.
The issue of school choice has provided Texas with a picture of the changing party and the liberation that comes from jettisoning dead-weight turncoats. They aren’t needed. They serve mainly as a conduit for bad ideas from the opposition.
Republicans in 2025 will be expected to govern with a strong mandate, not play games with crucial issues or elevate special interest causes.
So, while the night was good for school choice and Republicans, how the issue will work out during the upcoming legislative session largely hinges on House leadership and the dynamics between the big three.
Last night, Gov. Greg Abbott boasted that every candidate he backed in the Texas House won their general election and that the House has the votes to pass school choice. Based on the primary results, that should be the case, but he and Texans face an impediment: House Speaker Dade Phelan.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick appears to grasp that school choice is not a done deal. In July, Patrick put the state on notice that Phelan intends to kill school choice again.
Phelan has already taken the issue of school choice hostage and has a track record of sandbagging conservative issues, including election reform and protecting children from woke ideologues.
When school choice failed to pass the House in the fall of 2023, the House’s stalling gave the government education union leverage to get a sweetheart deal. Instead of taking that deal, which included a limited version of school choice and gobs of cash, they scuttled it.
Now, Phelan is setting up a similar play for 2025.
Since 2009, the Texas House has hindered the movement of conservative legislation despite the protests of members. These members have now created options to escape the status quo created and enforced by members subservient to House leadership and the lobby.
What remains to be seen is how serious the governor and the members of the Texas House who haven’t revolted against Democrat empowerment are about running a session in service of citizens rather than the lobby.
For his part, Abbott poured time and resources into races that have poised the House to pass school choice, but without a leadership swap, brokering a deal becomes more complicated and costly to Texans.
Perhaps Abbott was fine with the House stalling school choice last year to water the bill down and shovel billions into an education system that insists on continually growing its budgets without accountability or competition. It was a deal that should have been taken, and now it’s a deal that needn’t and shouldn’t be offered in 2025.
At this point, when it comes to the Speaker’s race, Abbott is the dog that isn’t barking, and Texans are listening.
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