Blaze News investigates: 'The grassroots sent a clear message': Texas GOP primary contests may have paved the path for school choice

Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan barely survived his re-election bid in state House District 21, eking out a less than 400-vote victory in the Republican primary runoff where both candidates earned more than 12,000 votes. But other Texas state House incumbents didn't fare as well.

Between the Republican primaries in March and the primary runoffs in May, 15 incumbent Texas state House Republicans lost their re-election bids, including nine during the primaries and six in the runoffs.

"The Texas legislature now has enough votes to pass School Choice," Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, declared on the heels of the Republican primary runoff contests on Tuesday.

'School choice just happens to be the poster issue in a long list of unaccomplished promises.'

Blaze News asked BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales what she thinks the results of the Texas Republican primary and primary runoff elections say about school choice and the state of the Republican Party in Texas.

"The grassroots sent a clear message to the Texas Legislature that we want educational freedom in this state, and with the makeup of the incoming legislature, we will succeed in that endeavor. The grassroots also sent a clear message that the days of accepting wishy-washy, lukewarm Republican leadership are over. Fifteen incumbents whose voting records were weak and/or who participated in the sham impeachment of our Attorney General Ken Paxton paid the price at the ballot box. Texas primary voters were asleep – not any more. We're awake now. Every single member of that body has been put on notice that if you do not work for your constituents, we will come for you," Gonzales said.

Michael Quinn Sullivan, publisher of Texas Scorecard, responded to the same question from Blaze News by noting, "It is always hard, and wrong, to pin a single issue on the results in so many different races. The candidates had to sell themselves, personally. The issue of school choice played a role, but not so much as the issue itself but because it has become emblematic of incumbent lawmakers so willfully disregarding the long-established desires of their constituents. Republicans in the Texas House have been [more] eager to let their chamber leadership make deals with Democrats than achieve the victories their constituents have long demanded. School choice just happens to be the poster issue in a long list of unaccomplished promises."

Katrina Pierson — who served as national spokesperson for Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign — defeated incumbent GOP state Rep. Justin Holland in the Republican primary runoff for Texas state House District 33. Pierson's campaign site indicates that she "supports ESAs." The term refers to education savings accounts.

Holland was one of the state House Republicans who last year opposed a plan for education savings accounts.

"I've never seen an ESA plan that I liked or made good logistical sense," Holland told CBS News Texas during an interview ahead of the primary runoff.

Mandy Drogin, campaign director of Next Generation Texas at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, indicated to Blaze news that the aim of school choice is to give parents the opportunity to choose alternative educational options if they are not satisfied by the "school that they're zoned for." She also noted that introducing the opportunity to choose different options "incentivizes the public schools to get better."

'Texas WILL pass school choice next session.'

Gonzales is confident that the state will greenlight school choice.

"Texas WILL pass school choice next session. Our state is not immune to the rot within the education system, and similar to other states, COVID was a wake-up call to those who didn't understand that. With as much as we pay in taxes toward our community schools, it is only reasonable that the money should follow the student. Stop rewarding bad behavior in a corrupt system and let the free market decide. As conservatives, that shouldn't be difficult to understand," she noted.

"Gov. Abbott has said it is all but now guarenteed," Sullivan told Blaze News regarding the potential passage of school choice in the state. "I tend to take a less cheery view. Declaring victory is an easy way to encourage activists to check out and move in. The devil will be in the details. Not a single advocate for school choice wants strings, or the possibility of strings, included in the package. That will be a sticking point. There are also concerns about scale. There are roughly 5 million students in Texas public schools. I think voters are expecting a lot more than a pilot program aimed at a highly restricted population. The governor, the lieutenant governor, and the legislature have made big, bold promises. They are going to have to now deliver," he noted.

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