Much will be dissected by pundits, pollsters, and politicians as we take in the new reality of a blue Texas. With their ascendancy in every statewide office and takeover of the State House, Texas Democrats are chomping at the bit to enact their vision of a blue Texas.
That vision begins with stripping parents of their ability to choose what’s best for their children.
In Governor-elect Gina Hinojosa’s victory speech, she promised that on day one she would fire Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and do everything in her power to dismantle “vouchers.”
Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFAs) are not just “vouchers.”
They represent the more than 274,000 applications from families who said they wanted another choice for their students rather than failing schools. They also represent over 116,000 Texas students who, because of TEFAs, could get the education that let them thrive.
Crucially, they represent thousands upon thousands of moms and dads who felt their children were not being served by their zoned school district and could now pursue different learning environments to better suit their child’s needs.
TEFAs are the result of the state legislature recognizing the primacy of parents in their child’s quality education and giving them means and access to get it.
This is true freedom of choice for parents and students. And Governor-elect Hinojosa ignores all of that and proudly proclaims she’s going to end it.
As governor-elect, Hinojosa can indeed fire Mike Morath and appoint a new commissioner who will push her agenda, one that likely matches the priorities of Randi Weingarten and the teachers’ union. Which is to say pro-union, anti-parent.
Does Texas not recall how Weingarten and the unions actively kept schools closed across the country for years and today assign blame anywhere else but them for the low performance of students? Such catastrophic consequences will return if TEFAs are defunded.
Alongside the Randi Weingarten-adjacent governor’s office will be a new comptroller, Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, who opposed the TEFA bill in 2025 and has promised to audit TEFA.
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who opposes transparency or audits, but it is evident that the comptroller-elect is not going into this audit or office impartially, but with a biased, anti-school choice agenda.
Thankfully, there is a slight glimmer of hope. The Texas Senate is securely in Republican hands, meaning Texas Democrats will be unable to repeal the TEFA program from statute.
But that doesn’t mean they don’t have other ways to destroy it.
With the new state house majority, Texas Democrat representatives can use the power of the purse to strangle the program so parents have no choice but to go back to a failed system. And perhaps most frightening of all, as governor, Hinojosa can line-item veto any funding for the TEFA program.
Texas Democrats will defund TEFA, claiming school choice “takes money away from public schools.”
This is a pernicious, bald-faced lie.
School choice does not take a single dollar from public school funding in Texas, as TEFA was a separate $1 billion legislative appropriation, while Texas public school funding receives more than $100 billion a year. In 2025, Governor Abbott even signed an additional $8.5 billion in public education funding.
In the end, Texas Democrats choose to ignore students and families in their rhetoric against school choice and the TEFA program. Parents utilizing the program are often low-income and zoned for failing school districts who desperately want new choices for their children. They know their child might need something different than traditional public school to succeed.
According to the October snapshot from the Comptroller’s office, 62% of students with funded accounts came from households at or below 200% of the federal poverty level and that the first-year priority order ranked lower-income applicants ahead of higher-income applicants, ensuring that funds went to those who needed it most as families pursued a better choice for their child.
But when the teachers’ union opposes children leaving failing schools for better educational opportunities, they get their Democrat allies to keep children trapped in a vicious system their parents want them to escape.
Over 116,000 Texas students are going to have their education ripped away and Texas Democrats will declare it a victory.
Instead of supporting these families and hearing how TEFAs have benefited these students, the newly elected Democrats gleefully await taking their oath of office, salivating at their plans to take away parents’ choices and forcing them to bend the knee.
As both chambers develop their respective budget proposals, Republicans must be firm and push to fully fund TEFA. In the House, conservative lawmakers in the minority should fight for school choice using every tool available while in the Senate where they hold the majority, TEFA should be fully funded to cover all current students and the over 95,000 waitlist applicants. This will force a debate in budget negotiations.
Republicans can and should make their Democratic colleagues own defunding the education of those 116,000 Texas students. Republicans should find any and every way to fund TEFA and force Hinojosa to veto.
But the fight doesn’t just exist in the legislature. Texas citizens must speak up and show up at the State Capitol and phone lines in every legislator’s office should ring nonstop. The voices of Texans who’ve benefited from TEFA are needed now more than ever. Democrats have openly declared war on school choice. Republicans must be resolved to fight back.
