Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Welcome to the Luke Macias. For any of you who are watching and not listening to this, you’ll see that my outfit resembles that of Jim Jordan, who I hope is the Speaker of the House. By the time you’re listening to this, we’re recording this a couple days before. So I’m gonna talk to you about the three Republicans that are holding out on him and held out on him the first couple of rounds, which are Jake Lz, Tony Gonzalez, and Kay Granger. We’re going to give you an update on the COVID 19 vaccine mandate ban that has passed the Senate and is still just kind of sitting in the house, it is starting to move a little bit.
But we’re going to talk a little bit about the show horse activity by Representative Jeff Leach in introducing this bill. And we’ll also talk about recent video that came out where teachers and administrators are being given tactics to specifically be able to teach critical race theory in our classrooms to our students, even though there is a ban on them doing so. And video was recently released of a law firm that is literally giving them tactics to overcome that ban. And this reminds us why the school choice debate going on right now is actually about empowering parents to choose education not helping a select group of people and buying off a bunch of teacher unions, which it looks like the House bill is set to do. So let’s get to the show.
As I record this, it’s Friday, and we still do not have a speaker of the United States House of Representatives. And if you see me in or watching the show, you’ll know I’m looking like Jim Jordan, one of the things I like about Jim Jordan is he realized that you don’t actually need to wear a sport coat in committee hearings. And there are some people that don’t like this. But Jim in general, basically just said, Well, I’m just gonna stop wearing a coat unless I’m on the floor of the US House of Representatives. And so if you see any video clips or pictures or anything, you’ll see he doesn’t actually have a coat on and he has remained like that through this race for speaker.
However, there are 20 very liberal Republicans who, as I’m recording this are holding out on supporting his speakership. And Jim Jordan would be the most conservative speaker that the Republican majority has had in a generation. Beyond my lifetime, in a generation, there would be nothing like it. And at this point, even people like Steve Scalise and Kevin McCarthy are on board, they’re willing to jump on board and bring a coalition government together to make sure that the majority can continue to govern. And conservatives should be excited because Jim Jordan, I believe, would hold Biden and Schumer far more accountable than any of these more moderate speakers ever have.
But there are 20 moderates that are holding out. As I’m recording this, we will see where we’re at by the time you’re listening to this. But what you need to know as a listener of volute Misia show is that there are three of those 20 who are from Texas, and I want to break them down real quick. One is Jake Lz, who actually represents Waxahachie, Tarrant County in some of the areas south of DFW. He was elected in the special election to replace then-Congressman Ron Wright, who passed away following a battle with cancer.
And in that special election, the Republican Party of Texas and President Donald Trump supported Susan Wright, who was running for Congress at the time. Okay, Kelsey was a sitting state representative. He was a lieutenant of then-Speaker Bonnen, and he would have been a lieutenant of Speaker Phelan. But Jake LZ ran. And in this special election, there was a runoff between him and Susan Wright, the Democrat, and then-candidate for Congress, Brian Harrison came in third and fourth.
And so in the runoff between Susan Wright and Jake Halsey, there became a problem. And the problem was that because Donald Trump of the Republican Party of Texas supported Susan Wright and Jake LZ had a more liberal record, he could go and court Democrats to come and turn out to vote, kinda like what I’m talking about Jill Dutton doing last week, Texans for lawsuit reform, Jill Dutton, Dade Phelan, and are all going to court Democrats to try to get them to come out and vote for Jill, in this special election.
And the same happened. So when I give you these ideas and tell you hey, I think this is what’s happening. It’s not based on the fact that it is just some idea I have. It’s based on historical understandings of what the rhino establishment has done to try to advance their political careers. And that’s exactly what Jake Kelsey did. He and his campaign run by Murphy Nazca ran a very concerted effort to Democrat voters who then came out and voted against Donald Trump, right?
Basically, tell these people to vote against Donald Trump’s candidate, vote for Jake LLC, and these Democrats came out and so you Even though Susan Wright, one Republican in the district, she didn’t win any of the Democratic votes, and the Democrats that did come out and vote in that special election, all pulled the lever for Jake Lz, and now he’s one of the three Republicans who is basically holding back the entire majority from being able to govern with the most conservative leader they’ve ever had. Which makes sense right now that you understand that context and historical understanding of how he even got to Congress. It shouldn’t surprise anybody that he’s holding out to try to get a more moderate or liberal speaker.
Then you have Tony Gonzalez, who’s literally been the most liberal Republican in Congress from Texas by far. He supports gun control. He continues, he is the first to cave on any and all issues. And the interesting thing is that when we actually redistributed in 2020, Republicans fought to make his district more conservative. That district for a long time was a swing district, CD 23. One of the first campaigns I volunteered on was CD 23 in 2008 for Kiko Conseco who ran for Congress at the time.
And I block walked and I went in and I made a bunch of phone banking calls. A good friend of mine still to this day. She was a Patrick Henry college graduate, I think, and she had just come back to San Antonio and she started there. She was homeschooled growing up, and we had a lot of similar friends. And all of a sudden we were there phone-making every single day for Kiko Canseco. He lost that seat. And the reason he lost in 2008 is because CD 23 was historically a swing district, it would be Republican.
Then Henry Bonilla was the Republican Congressman that held that for a little while. And then C row Rodriguez beat Kiko Canseco and then we’ll heard beat zero Rodriguez. And so this district was constantly going from red to blue, to red to blue, to red. So when Tony Gonzalez got elected, a lot of people excused his voting record. They said, well see the thing is, Tony is actually far more conservative than this. But he represents this really swing district, so he can’t vote that conservative.
Then in 2020, Republicans redistricted that district, and they gave Tony, a red district, that district is now a solid red district. So did his votes change? Did he say, Hey, I’m so grateful that the Republicans in the legislature fought to make sure that my district is more Republican. So I don’t have to cater the to the Democrats so much.
No, he immediately came out and said, I want to work with Democrats to pass gun control in the US House of Representatives. And that’s the problem with Tony Gonzalez. That is heart, no matter how read the district becomes, he is still seemingly committed to working with Democrats to pass sell-out legislation in the halls of the US Congress. So I can understand why he’s holding out right now on Jim Jordan because Jim’s probably not going to play as many games as Tony Gonzalez wants to play.
And last but not least, we have Kay Granger. There’s a lot of rumors that Kay Granger is probably not running for reelection. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the next couple weeks, she actually announces that she’s not running. And this is when we’re reminded that the lack of accountability. When Congressmen have no future, then they can kind of stop playing the part. I was involved in a campaign against Kay Granger, Chris Putnam, this is back when I ran races and I was working with Chris Putnam, who was running against Kay Granger at the time, and a lot of conservatives were coming together and building a coalition to take out Kay Granger, and Kay Granger had been a lifelong liberal Republican.
Okay, she’s kind of one of the vestiges of this old guard, liberal Republican, out of the Fort Worth area. And she’s literally gone on on MSNBC and said, I am a pro-choice Republican, let me be clear, I am a pro-choice Republican, I believe that children should be able to be killed inside the womb of their mother. But all of a sudden, she had a primary opponent. And she came out and said, Actually, I’m always been pro-life.
This is the interesting thing when people have these conversions that aren’t really conversions, right? They say, Well, I’m pro-life. Now. Really? Well, were you pro-life four years ago, six years ago? And what they said was actually I’ve been pro-life. I voted for all of these budgets. That said that taxpayer money couldn’t go to abortions. And then the Susan B Anthony list came in and said, Yeah, Kay Granger is like really pro-life even though she has said for a long time that you can end the lives of children.
And then Donald Trump came in at the end, Kevin McCarthy actually helped cut it probably the word is the Kevin McCarthy cuts some kind of deal with Donald Trump that got Trump to come in for a lot of these congressmen who were very vulnerable and Trump came in aggressively and campaigned for her. But at the time, she was basically conforming herself to be whatever she needed to be to try to hold on to that seat. And she did barely hold on to that seat. They spent a ton of money, were able to widen the margin a little bit at the end. But it was a close race. And again, Kay Granger was basically saying, What do I need to be to make sure that these people will still support me?
Well, here’s what I believe I believe Kay Granger is not running for re-election. So that same Republican congressman who stood up on MSNBC and said, I am a pro-choice, Republican, still is a pro-choice Republican. But she’s not having to play the game anymore, because she’s not planning on running for reelection. And if that’s the case, then there is no accountability than the people who are calling her office and saying this is so disappointing. This is absolutely ridiculous. They’re falling on deaf ears, because they’re falling on the ears of a congressman, who knows she’s not coming back, knows that she’s no longer has to worry about actually representing the values of the voters that sent her there and can do whatever she wants.
The truth is we have a lot of elected congressmen, who in their heart of hearts don’t like the voters that send them there. And Kay Granger seems to be one of those people. Those are the three Texas congressmen, at the time of this recording are holding out on Jim Jordan. And I think that that kind of explains why those are the three congressmen in Texas that we would expect. Those are the three Republican congressmen in Texas that we would expect to be holding out on Jim Jordan.
Now we’re going to talk about the COVID 19 vaccine mandate ban. I know that’s a whole lot of words. But essentially we are saying that Texans should not be able to get fired for not getting that foul cheese COVID-19 vaccine. And it’s not even really a vaccine, which I think we all know at this point. Because this thing doesn’t even stop you from getting the disease. But ultimately, there are a lot of Texans that lost their jobs were fired by their employer. And the federal government basically said, You know what, we have figured out a way to convince Republicans that they should be on board with us forcing our views on people.
Remember that the left first wants everything to be government mandates, okay. And then they’ve realized well, to convince some on the right, that all these mandates are good, we need to find a way to co opt corporate America and have them also be these kind of fascist enforcers of our ideas. And they do it through ESG policies in the court on the corporate level, they do it through these private employer vaccine mandates, and other things that basically tell somebody, if you want to feed your family. If you want to feed your family, you have to get this shot. Right.
And this is the same government that also said, if you want to feed your family this week, you can’t because you’re not an essential business, right. So you do it publicly. And then you also come in privately and do everything you can to conform the population in Texas, to your ideas of how they are to live. That’s what we’re up against. And so last session, the Texas Senate passed a ban on these mandates. And it sat in the Texas House and the House bill sat in the Texas House and the Senate Bill sat in the Texas House. And ultimately Dustin burrows and Stephanie click and Dade Phelan work together to kill this policy. And Cole Heppner, Jared Patterson and all the other Republicans on the calendars committee, killed the bill utterly killed. It sat there for like a month in the calendars committee.
So Greg Abbott says, That’s not okay. You’re going to come back and you’re going to pass this bam. Interestingly enough, Monday, October 9, the Senate files a vaccine Bill, a bill that conforms to the governor’s call. That is a strong bill. It’s not perfect. Actually, if we wanted to dig into all the little weeds, there are still some people who a mandate can go on one of the ones that have been talked about is medical students can still get a vaccine mandate. So if you’re a medical student, I mean, literally, you’ll have people that are told you cannot become a doctor if you don’t get the COVID-19 shot. And that to me is crazy.
So this bill could be better But because Middleton files the bill and is working it through the Senate and trying to get this thing through, that does protect a ton of Texans. And Brian Harrison, who authored the bill in the regular session has also been critical of House leadership for all the conservative policies they killed. So Dade Phelan, of course, is not going to let him carry this bill. This bill that was kind of his idea from the beginning, a bill that he has been the largest and loudest champion of in fact, House leadership needs to provide some political cover to people who just finished attempting to conduct a sham impeachment on Ken Paxton. So they tapped Jeff Leach, who was one of the house managers who already has a Republican primary opponent, and they say, Hey, you carry the vaccine bill. Right.
So October 9, a Texas Senate passes, they get a bill, they file a bill. They’re moving the bill. They have the hearing on the bill, they voted out of committee. The Senate is debating it, and there’s no House Bill, no house bill filed. So Brian Harrison goes to the Dallas Express. And I’m gonna read what he says says representative Brian Harrison explained to the Dallas Express. Governor Abbott was exactly right to call the legislature back to deliver strong border security legislation, a comprehensive ban on COVID vaccine mandates and universal school choice after all three were killed by the leadership of the Texas House in the regular session. Texans deserve immediate action. Yet, while the Senate has been hard at work passing strong legislation that Texas House adjourned. And despite bold bills already written and filed has not even referred a single one to committee.
You see, they’re not even going to send those bills to the committee. Because they already know we’re going to tap Jeff Leach. He’s going to file the bill. We’re going to try to give him some more credit and build them up a little bit, because he just tried to conduct a sham impeachment of the attorney general. And so we need his face to be on the headlines and everybody to say he’s the hero. Here’s the interesting thing. Harrison is correct. The Senate is moving much faster. The house, of course, typically, is dragging its feet. I think we’re going to pass some bill because the house knows that they can’t actually not pass this legislation.
Jeff Leach challenges Brian Harrison on Twitter, he gets very upset. So here’s what he sends to Brian. He messages, not messages, but he posts on Twitter against Brian Harrison. He says Brian, I was in meetings all day yesterday, working with senators, House members and the governor’s office on our bill banning COVID vaccine mandates. You weren’t in a single one of those meetings, totally and completely absent. A stark reminder that show horses show and work horses work. Powerful shallow words from Jeff Leach.
Show horses show workhorses work. Here’s the ironic thing. That was done on October 12. And then, on October so October 9, the Senate files the bill. And everybody’s saying Jeff Leach is carrying this bill. We don’t know what Bill is carrying. We just need to move. We need to move. We need to move we need to move. The Senate passes his bill. Now, on Thursday, directly just really matter. Brian Harrison. He’s saying you’re telling us we’re just dragging our feet for dragging our feet sake. I’m telling you, let’s read what he said. I was in meetings all day working with Senators and House members in the governor’s office on our bill banning COVID-19 Vax vaccine mandates, okay.
So Jeff Leach, his implication is, I mean, there were literally all-day meetings hammering out his bill. His bill, he had to work on it with Senators and House members and the governor’s office. A lot of meetings guys, not a show horse Jeff Leach, remember, he’s a workhorse. That’s why he was in all-day meetings, right? You wouldn’t be in all-day meetings. If you’re a show horse, you’d be a workhorse. So the next day he files a bill HB seven, same number as SB seven, just a house bill. And so when he files this bill, my assumption is oh, let’s see what different Bill Jeff Leach is filed. Then the Senate bill because Mays Middleton filed his bill on Monday. And Jeff Leach on Thursday said hey, on Wednesday, I had an all-day meetings with so many people to try to work on my bill, the governor’s office and the senators in the house. We all got together.
So what did he file? what Bill did he magically come up with with all this work? Remember workhorses work? So he worked. What did he come up with? Well, what he did was he took Senate Bill seven, which was filed on Monday, and he copied it, and he pasted it and he filed it in the house. That’s what he did. That’s all he did. So all of these meetings that he had, the workhorse was to take the bill that had already been filed on Monday by the Senate and pass in the Senate. on it, and he just took it. And he said, I liked that bill, and then he filed it. Okay. And the committee made some little tweaks and changes, we can get into all the details.
And if you’re not following Texans for vaccine choice, they are the group that you should follow to know what is going on with this policy and with this legislation, they will give you the best updates and action items to take to make sure that the House does as much as it possibly can do to protect Texans medical liberty. But here’s I think the ironic thing and I do like to bring y’all some of these kind of behind-the-scenes perspectives at times is that Jeff Leach is sitting here literally saying Brian Harrison is a show horse because I had all these meetings when in all reality I mean, let me tell you the substance of these meetings Jeff Leach is sitting and somebody says uh, you should file mais Middleton’s bill.
Okay. Any changes are ultimately what they decided was No. It was like, Okay, what number SB seven HB seven. You want to do the same number that I mean? There’s it’s silly. It’s silly to act like it took all this work to work on his bill. And then all he did was copy and paste the Senate bill. But this is what House leadership is. They’re all show horses. The whole thing’s a show. Why would you just file maze Middleton why wouldn’t you just file maze Middleton’s bill on Monday maze. Milton files his bill on Monday. Take a look at the bill say that does it. That means the governor’s call. We’ll just file that bill.
Why? Because it doesn’t look good guys. You actually want to be able to tell people I Jeff Leach sat down in for days met with all these people. And Brian Harrison did because he doesn’t work. I work. I’m the one who works hard. And then all you did was copy and paste. It’s pretty hilarious to watch. The good news is this bill is moving a bill that Dustin Burrows and Stephanie click and Dade Phelan fought to kill Tony Tinderholt as, as a member of public health called Stephanie click out for delaying this bill multiple times last session, applied pressure on her which she eventually moved.
But again, remember how I kind of explained that process of bills like a hot potato. So she just needs to hold on to it long enough so that when she passes it on to Dustin Burrows, it’s late enough in the cycle where he can sit on it to kill it, because they can only sit on it for like 30 days. And so they have to pass it after that deadline so that they aren’t forced to take action on the bill. Because the votes are ultimately there. Right? If calendars is forced to vote on something, the votes are there, they just have to not vote on it. And whether or not a bill gets voted on in calendars is solely the discretion of the Chair of calendars Dustin Burrows.
By the way, Dustin burrows also got a challenger this week, Wade Cowen, and Wade is a farmer in the Lubbock area. So that is definitely something that y’all should look up. It’s very exciting to see him actually be held accountable, to some extent, believe the guy’s website is callin for texas.com. And that spelled out COWANFORTX, a s.com. Cowan for Texas. I haven’t met this guy. I don’t know this guy. But the fact that he’s running against Dustin burrows probably tells you that he’s somebody who’s a more conservative Republican who believes that Republican incumbents who are killing a bunch of conservative policies should be held accountable, it’s probably something you can assume.
So look him up, follow along with his campaign, that would be my recommendation I am following along and excited that he actually decided to announce and launch his campaign. And now let’s go to a clip. And this clip is a presentation that some lawyers gave to TASSA, the Texas Association of School Administrators, okay, these are the superintendents and the principals and the vice principals and all the school administrators, Texas Association of School Administrators. And this is a law firm that is paid for by taxpayer money, by the way to tell these people how to get around a ban on critical race theory.
This is going to be a little hard to hear the clip that was released was released by basically an undercover journalist. And so let’s go to the clip. And I’ll overview it if if you have a hard time hearing it.
“So we’re both attorneys with Thomson, Thompson board and if you all don’t know is a law firm, with offices in Dallas, Houston and Austin. All we do is school law. We represent school districts and colleges and universities throughout the state. We’re really proud to do this work. And we’re proud to be invited to speak here this year. So Senate Bill three does prohibit a teacher or school district from requiring an understanding of 1619 Private. However, it doesn’t prohibit a student from choosing In to do an assignment on the 1619 project, it doesn’t prohibit a teacher from having the 1619 project among a number of other books that a student could select from late into a project. It also doesn’t prohibit a teacher from assigning an article that might have this concept from the 1619 project. So for example, if they have an article that’s about, you know, the fact that every musical genre in America was kind of born from black roots, that is a concept that comes with the 1619 project. But and that’s what that was gonna be allowed. Only teachers are given a safe harbor from disciplining for inappropriate content concerns, if they are teaching from state board of education materials. So what that means is that teachers who use only materials from those state board approved materials, they are going to be immune from any sort of disciplinary proceedings. That may allege a teacher violated any portion of the law. Oh, we have a question. I think in the back, sir. Radically, you could have copies of the 1619 project. You start here exactly right. What you cannot do with a 1690 project is assign it as required reading, because that would be arguably requiring an understanding of it, right? What if somebody wants to stop the 60, if a school district wants to have the 1619 project in their library and let kids check out and read it, that is not against state law, no matter what we still have to keep in mind, Senate Bill Green. But like we said, it was very easy ways to take in to consideration and still continue to have those vi efforts.”
So I just want to remind everyone, of how sinister so many people are, that are in the public education system, who have decided to co opt it as a monopolistic requirement for many families who don’t have another option, and use it as a tool to indoctrinate our young people. To move Texas to the left, I’ve said this for a long time, one of the blessings we have is that patriots from California and New York are moving to Texas. And they’re kind of offsetting the little Marxists that are getting created in our own government run institutions.
Ultimately, we’re the ones who are over these government institutions. We are a red state, Red State House, or Red State Senate or red governor, or Red State Board of Education, a red T, EA, Commissioner, are all of these things. So what do we learn from this clip? You have these lawyers telling people, Hey, so you can’t teach critical race theory. And what that means is you can’t have something like the 1619 project and tell your students, you need to read this. And then you need to tell me if you understand it, you need to read these Marxist ideas. And they need to tell me if you understand them correctly, which by the way means Do you agree?
You’re basically trying to teach these young students to say, Oh, this is the right answer for the quiz. And the right answer is Marxism. That’s the idea of the 1619. Project and teachers using it. So what these TASSA hired taxpayer funded lawyers are telling the school administrators is don’t worry, don’t worry, here’s the thing, you could have a list of things that they can pull from, and one of them is the 1619 project to understand a certain assignment. You could even assign an article that has within the article ideas that are expressed in the 1619 project without assigning the 1619 project specifically, you could have all of these materials in the library for students to pool and then tell them these are the type of things that you could pull from to understand these things.
You can do all of this. And oh, by the way, if there’s any outs of any of this in the state board of education materials, then you’re you’re totally covered. You’re completely covered. You can do whatever you want to do. They’re giving them all the different roadmaps and loopholes. How do I still indoctrinate children? Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan for you. Here’s the plan.
This gets us into school choice. Because yes, we need to pass legislation that says no DEI and we need to close the loopholes on the CRT ban in public school. But ultimately, we have to empower parents. And when Representative Matt Shaheen says, Well, here’s the thing the only parents that really need empowerment are Some poor people in the inner cities and some special needs kids. That’s not true. Because this tacit presentation wasn’t given to school administrators in only really poor school districts and only schools that only educate special needs kids. That’s not what it is.
This is being instructed to teachers and school administrators across the state. Does that mean every school administrator and every teacher is bad? No. But does it mean that there are teachers and school administrators throughout all of Texas who want to convert children to being leftist? Yes. So the Texas House has failed HB one. And what the Senate basically did was the Senate passed a universal school choice bill that said, hey, school choice is available for all Texans. Ultimately, there’s only enough funding for about 70,000 students to get it. So once this program hits 70,000 students, it’s going to run out of money.
But we want to empower every single parent we can. And then in future legislative sessions, we will argue and debate how much money can go in based on the waiting list how many people are applying for it, and that will give the legislature a lot of direction? How much is this needed? The House bill is very different. The House Bill is capped at 25,000 students why the there’s more than enough money to cover more than 25,000 students in the budget that the House passed, by the way, the House passed a bill that said we have more than enough money for more than 25,000 students.
But the house’s saying we want to literally sit on some of that money that’s been appropriated, and cap this at 25,000. Students, they then say, they’re going to give public schools more money, they’re going to give them an increase in the basic allotment, the first year of $30. The basic allotment is just thinking of it as the basic allotment towards a student, there’s their school finances, very complex formula. And I don’t want to get into all the complications of that today. But they’re going to increase the basic allotment from $6,160 up to $6,190 per student, and then that is going to go up another $310 The following year, okay?
Then, if you do need help, if you decide, you know, I want to go and take my kid, somewhere else, it is going to give you $8,000 to use for private education, to only 25,000 families, okay. And this is basically their idea, we’re going to give 25,000 families $8,000 to go towards a school that the parent chooses. So they’re not trapped in whatever school district they’re in, they can go choose that, but only 25,000 Even though there’s 5 million kids, with millions of parents that want to be empowered, so that the Money Follows the child at the parents discernment and discretion.
So what are they doing in this bill to try to get the votes, they’ve decided they can only give this $8,000 to 25,000 students, if we give teachers a $4,000 bonus, every single one of them. This is the houses idea. So here’s what’s interesting, you know what I find fascinating. They’re not capping the teacher pay raises to only 25,000 teachers, right? They didn’t say, hey, the 25,000 best-performing teachers in the state will get $4,000 bonuses, they said, Nope, every single teacher gets bonuses. And only 25,000 students get a little bit of school choice. I think that’s a problem.
I think that shows that the Texas House still at this moment in time, doesn’t understand who they are responsible to serve. My dad served in the legislature in 2007. And in his in his session, he was serving on the public education committee. And I was 17 years old at the time. And I remember distinctly a meeting, because I would I had this little desk and I want to tell you a little desk. I mean, it was literally I don’t know, a two-foot wide, one and a half feet deep desk with one little computer on it. And I would work and I would work in the same office that my dad was in the main if you’ve ever been in a state rep office, you walk in, there’s like, you know, some entry areas, maybe one little chief of staff office and the main office, I was in that office with my dad. And so he would have these meetings and people would come in and I’d be sitting there and he’d be like, That’s my son, Luke. He’s 17 he’s working here. He’s just replying to emails. But you know, he’s welcome to stay. Let’s talk.
So I was In all these meetings that he had, and one of the meetings I remember distinctly was when he sat down and they said, Hey, what do you think about the public education committee? And he said, You know what, I think that, unfortunately, far too often, many of the discussions we’re having is about keeping all the adults in the room happy. And it’s not actually focused on providing students and families what they need for having quality education. And that’s just was his observation at the time he was on the committee, he’s seeing all these people coming in massive amounts of lobbyists, some money. And as the tasks of that same association, the Texas Association of School Administrators, they come and they say, this is what we want, this is what we need. And the teachers say, this is what we want, this is what we need.
And so parents and students, and primarily parents, because if you’re a student, in third grade, you don’t know what you need. And you know who else knows what you need. Some school administrator, who don’t even know your name, if you walk through the hallway, your mom and your dad care more about you and your future than anybody else. There’s a famous interaction with Phil Gramm, when he’s pushing against Hillary Claire, Bill Clinton was the president they had this kind of healthcare idea was Obamacare before Obamacare. And so Phil Gramm was sitting there in the US Senate. And he’s asking this person about this health care plan. And he said, here’s the thing, you want to push these all these health care expansion plans, and this is going to take my child and make them more dependent on the government.
And this lady said something to the effect of oh, well, Mr. Graham, I want to let you know, we care about your child’s health. And he said, really, well, what is her name? And they just sat there. What is her name? And they didn’t know. You want to know why? Because they don’t care about this person self care, because they don’t know them. And that’s the same thing for most of the school administrators. You think some vice superintendent cares more about your child’s future and education than you do? No, you as the parent.
But here’s the thing, the Texas House didn’t say, hey, the best and brightest teachers in the state, we’re gonna give you a raise. They said everybody gets a raise, because that’s how unions work. Right? But they’re not treating parents equally here. They’re not treating students equally here. They’re not trying to pass. They’re saying, This is not good for most families, or most students, we just want a handful of little group of people to get school choice. That’s what HB one is. The Senate took a very different approach. It’s going to be interesting to see the house has also added school funding to their bill.
What they basically said is that unless the governor is willing to tie all this together, unless he’s willing to put teacher pay raises. So just to take a step back real quick, Governor Abbott said pass a school choice plan. And then I will put a teacher pay raise and more funding for public education on the call, but you have to pass the school choice plan. That’s what the governor said. The Senate said that sounds great to us, we’ll pass a school choice plan. And then after this thing gets across the finish line will pass an increase in funding for public education and will pass additional teacher pay raises. The House has said we will not touch school choice unless the governor allows us to pass it with teacher pay raises and with more funding for public schools.
So they put the pressure on the governor and said we’re not even moving until the governor acquiescence to our demands. We will see what the governor does. And the question ultimately is whether the house even has the votes to pass this bill. But it is important to understand the perspective and really what the policy is saying about the house is priorities. I’ve said this for a long time, but the teacher unions have almost stood still this very, I think it’s a weak operational control. But they have barely enough votes, it seems like to have operational control of the Education Policy in the Texas House enough so that they basically can say, to trade only 25,000 students in Texas having school choice, every single one of us needs to get a $4,000 pay raise.
And I just don’t think that that deal is good for Texans. I don’t think it’s good for parents. I don’t think the policy says the parents and students are the primary individuals that the legislature serves. I think the Senate made it clear when it said we’re just passing the Clean School Choice bill, this is what we want. We want as many people as possible to get it. We’re capped with the amount of money we have. So in the future sessions will try to fight to get that program more and more money as that list of people who want to take their child somewhere else grows.
And ultimately here’s the other thing to remember. These school choice plans have been in existence in some states now for decades. And the public schools are still there. So all these you know sky is falling your public schools will all crumble. Iowa has rural public school. So does Florida. And Texas is still going to have them forever, regardless of what happens. So don’t believe the lies that are told, are all the doom and gloom predictions that are made. It will be interesting to see where we move forward on this school choice issue in the House. The Senate has already done its job with that there’s many other things going on, but I’m glad to come to you with those updates. May God bless you, and may God bless the great state of Texas. Thank you for listening to the Luke Macias show. To find out more information about what’s going on here in Texas, visit Texas scorecard.com
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
