Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan narrowly survived re-election in the 21st Congressional District. somehow In the Republican primary runoff, both candidates received more than 12,000 votes, winning by just 400 votes. However, other incumbents in the Texas House of Representatives did not fare much better.
Between the March Republican primary and the May primary runoff election, 15 incumbent Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives lost Their reelection challenges include nine in the primary and six in the runoff.
“The Texas Legislature has enough votes to pass school choice legislation,” said Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. Declared The vote came just after Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff election.
“School choice just happens to be a prominent issue in a long list of unfulfilled promises.”
BlazeNews asked. Blaze TV host Sara Gonzalez What do you think the results of the Texas Republican primary and primary runoff elections say about school choice and the state of the Texas Republican Party?
“The grassroots movement sent a clear message to the Texas Legislature that we want educational freedom in our state, and with the makeup of the new Legislature, we will succeed in that endeavor. The grassroots movement also sent a clear message that the days of accepting vague and lukewarm Republican leadership are over. Fifteen incumbents with weak voting records or who participated in the sham impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton paid the price at the ballot box. Texas primary voters were asleep, but they are not asleep anymore. We are now awake. We have put every member of the Legislature on notice that if you don’t work for your constituents, we will attack you,” said Gonzalez.
Texas Scorecard publisher Michael Quinn Sullivan responded to the same question from The Blaze-News by saying, “It’s always difficult, and wrong, to pin the outcome of so many different elections on a single issue. Candidates have had to sell themselves personally. The issue of school choice played a role, but not because of the issue itself, but because it became a symbol of incumbents’ willful disregard for the long-held wishes of their voters. Republicans in the Texas House of Representatives [more] “Congressional leaders would rather make deals with Democrats than achieve the wins voters have long sought. School choice is just one issue that happens to be the centerpiece of a long list of unfulfilled promises.”
Katrina Pierson, who served as national spokesperson for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, defeated incumbent Republican state representative Justin Holland in the runoff election for the 33rd Texas House of Representatives Republican primary. Pierson’s campaign website show She said she is “pro-ESA,” which stands for Education Savings Account.
Holland was one of several Republicans in the state legislature last year. Opposed Education Savings Account Plans.
“I haven’t seen anything from the ESA that I like or that makes logical sense,” Holland said. Said CBS News Texas during an interview ahead of the primary runoff election.
Mandy Drogin, campaign director for Next Generation Texas at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, told The Blaze-News that the purpose of school choice is to give parents the opportunity to choose another educational option if they’re not satisfied with “the schools in their district,” and that introducing different options “helps public schools improve.”
“Texas will pass a school choice bill next session.”
Gonzalez is confident the state will approve school choice.
“Texas will pass a school choice bill in the next session. Our state is not immune to corruption in our education system and, like other states, COVID-19 has been a wake-up call for those who don’t understand that. Given the taxes we pay for community schools, it makes sense that money should get to the students. Let’s stop incentivizing bad behavior with a corrupt system and let the free market decide. As a conservative, that shouldn’t be hard to understand,” she noted.
“Governor Abbott has said he’s all but certain that school choice will be passed in the state,” Sullivan told The Blaze News. “I’m not very optimistic. Declaring victory is an easy way to get activists to go home and get moving. The devil is in the details. No school choice advocate wants to put conditionality or even the possibility of conditionality into the bill. That’s where it will be a sticking point. There are concerns about scale. There are about 5 million students in Texas public schools. I think voters expect more than a pilot program for a very small population. The governor, lieutenant governor and legislature have made big, bold promises. Now they must deliver.”
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