How Greg Abbott took a flailing school voucher movement and turned it into a winning issue

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Four years ago, the push for private school vouchers in Texas was rudderless.

Session after session, Democrats and rural Republicans drove home the point by passing a budget amendment to bar state dollars from being used for private school tuition. The provision never made it into the final budget, but that was beside the point. The amendment from Democratic Rep. Abel Herrero served as the yardstick to measure the House’s voucher resistance, forcing members to take an up-or-down vote that always proved lopsided.

In 2021, only 29 members of the 150-seat chamber registered support for vouchers by voting against the measure.

On paper, those were the odds confronting Gov. Greg Abbott when he grabbed the reins of Texas’ voucher push in 2022. In short order, he flipped the math on its head, ushering a $1 billion package through the Legislature with overwhelming support from Republicans in both chambers. Abbott is poised to sign the measure into law Saturday.

In unraveling the House’s bipartisan voucher blockade, Abbott tapped into a powerful national conservative movement that, paired with his own campaign war chest, turned legislative races into multimillion-dollar affairs. His brutally effective method of engineering the voucher turnaround represents a watershed moment in Texas politics that stands as a blueprint for deep-pocketed donors and interest groups to emulate — and that Abbott and future governors could employ on other priority issues.

But even before it came to that, Abbott unlocked a number of votes simply by lending his name to the movement, according to those at the forefront. Once a supportive yet muted voice, Abbott’s sudden move to adopt vouchers as his signature issue helped galvanize latent support among a number of House Republicans who backed the concept of “school choice” but saw no upside in voting against the Herrero amendment without sufficient political capital invested in the fight.

“That was clearly the biggest part of it, because without that torch bearer, it wasn't worth — I believe, in their minds — the political energy that was necessary to lead the battle,” said John Colyandro, an Austin lobbyist who represents the voucher advocacy group American Federation for Children.

“The coalition against school choice, as evidenced by the Herrero amendment, was very strong,” added Colyandro, a former top Abbott aide. “So when the governor took up the cause the way he did, it was in some respects by necessity, because only through political action was the dynamic in the House going to turn.”

In the end, 86 of 88 House Republicans voted for the voucher bill now awaiting Abbott’s signature — an utter dismantling of the once steely coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans who had stood in the way of its passage for years in the lower chamber.

Rep. James Frank, a Wichita Falls Republican who has long supported the concept of education savings accounts, said it also made a huge difference getting an actual bill in front of members — something that could only happen once there was an organized push. The Herrero amendment “has always been kind of a ‘gotcha,’” Frank argued, “because there’s no policy tied to it.”

“The only thing you stood to do was make people mad over your vote,” said Frank, one of the 29 pro-voucher votes in 2021. “There were certainly more that liked the idea, but until there was policy, it wasn’t going to happen.”

A spokesperson for Abbott declined an interview request for this story.

After largely avoiding the “school choice” battlefield, Abbott threw his full-throated support behind vouchers during his 2022 reelection bid. By then, a growing number of states were offering vouchers in the form of state-funded education savings accounts, inspired by a nationwide wave of parental resentment over school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with the perception among conservatives that public schools were a hotbed of liberal indoctrination.

Abbott would make that a core part of his pitch for vouchers on the campaign trail. The following January, as the 2023 legislative session kicked off, the governor started traversing the state to hold “parent empowerment nights” where he would promote education savings accounts before sympathetic crowds at private schools — sometimes in the districts of lawmakers who were resistant or on the fence.

In April, when Herrero’s biennial test vote came, the measure passed 86-52. Just 24 Republicans joined Democrats in voting to ban vouchers, less than half the 49 GOP members who had voted for the Herrero amendment two years earlier. The converts included Rep. Brad Buckley, the Salado Republican and chair of the Public Education Committee who would be the House’s point person on vouchers for the next two years.

Abbott touted the vote as progress and said the fight was unfinished. But to Colyandro, it was already becoming clear that no amount of cajoling and arm-twisting could change things; the battle would need to be settled at the ballot box.

“I strongly believed in 2023, after the first three-ish, four months of the regular session, that no bill was going to pass until the makeup of the House of Representatives changed,” Colyandro said. “The lines were drawn.”

Voucher critics have argued that such programs would funnel money away from Texas public schools, further choking a system that in recent years has faced widespread budget shortfalls from inflation and five years without a boost in per-student state funding. That concern has been especially acute among Republicans representing sparsely populated districts, some of whom view vouchers as an existential threat to local school districts — which often double as the top employers in rural communities.

Critics have also raised concerns that Texas would follow the lead of other states where lawmakers promised to prioritize the neediest children, yet saw much of their voucher program dollars flow to wealthier families whose kids already attended private schools.

Josh Cowen, an education policy professor at Michigan State University and an outspoken critic of school voucher programs, said Texas’ proposals — including the bill on Abbott’s desk — have also failed to recognize the difference between eligibility and access by requiring or encouraging private schools to accept low-income applicants. Under Texas’ program, up to 20% of voucher recipients could be from wealthier families who earn 500% or more of the poverty rate — about $160,000 or more for a family of four.

“It pays a little bit of lip service to trying to spread out dollars more evenly,” Cowen said of Senate Bill 2. “But if you are not willing to go the distance and require the publicly subsidized private schools to at least take more children, or at least incentivize them to do it — there are ways you could try, and they're not even trying.”

Abbott and other voucher supporters say such concerns are overblown, arguing that Texas can simultaneously implement a voucher program and fund its public schools. They contend that “school choice” — the umbrella term supporters use to describe programs that operate outside the traditional public school system — is needed to provide alternatives for low-income families who are dissatisfied with their local schools yet cannot afford to send their kids elsewhere, and they insist Texas’ eligibility criteria has always focused on sending dollars to lower-income students and those with disabilities.

In 2023, toward the end of the spring regular session, Buckley tried to placate opponents with a pared-down bill that would have offered education savings accounts only to students with disabilities or who attended low-performing schools. But Abbott threatened to veto it, insisting on a program with “universal” eligibility open to every Texas student.

The battle ultimately came to a head during the fourth special session of the year in November. Buckley introduced an all-in-one education package that included vouchers and $7.6 billion in public school funding, the latter of which Abbott said he would only consider after lawmakers approved vouchers.

The House responded by voting 84-63 to strip vouchers from the bill, with 21 Republicans — mostly from rural districts — joining with Democrats to deal the fatal blow. The battle lines were set for the primaries, where Abbott promised to take aim at fellow Republicans who had defied him on vouchers — “the hard way,” as the governor framed it.

It was partly Abbott’s insistence on a universal voucher program that spelled the demise of his effort in 2023. But Colyandro said it made sense to go big because “the political lift was just as heavy for a modest bill as it was for a universal bill.”

“It sounds a bit counterintuitive, but being in the middle of it, that was absolutely true,” Colyandro said. “The more modest bill had as much resistance as the big bill.”

Abbott, the most prolific political fundraiser in Texas history, reported a formidable $38 million war chest heading into the primaries, bolstered by a single $6 million contribution from Jeff Yass, the Pennsylvania-based GOP megadonor and TikTok investor whose priority issues include school vouchers.

The governor had plenty of allies as he plunged into more than a dozen GOP primaries. Among them was the AFC Victory Fund, the super PAC political arm of the American Federation for Children, and the federal Club for Growth political action committee — both of whom were also recipients of Yass’ largesse and spent millions going after anti-voucher GOP incumbents. Some Texas-based groups also joined the fray, such as the Family Empowerment Coalition PAC, a group formed by GOP donors Doug Deason and Leo Linbeck III, and Eddie Lucio Jr., a retired conservative Democratic senator, to specifically promote pro-voucher candidates.

Though voucher advocacy groups have always had a presence in Texas — most notably the high-powered Texas Public Policy Foundation — Colyandro argued they were “never quite galvanized,” until now, to provide a formidable counter to the network of public education groups that worked to keep the House’s anti-voucher coalition in place.

“I think too many of the groups were relying on the merits of the policy and were missing the political component, which is what the governor's actions brought a sharp focus to,” Colyandro said.

Though Abbott and his allies made clear in the primaries they were targeting members based on their voucher opposition, some of the targets grumbled that the attacks against them focused more on border security and other issues unrelated to vouchers.

Cowen said that’s because vouchers typically do not fare well among voters. Last November, he noted, private school choice ballot initiatives were rejected in Colorado, Nebraska and Kentucky. Nearly two-thirds voted against the measure in Kentucky, about the same percentage captured by President Donald Trump in the state.

Many voters in those states, Cowen said, felt little connection to private schools or the voucher movement — and the same can be said for rural Texas, he argued.

“What has Milton Friedman ever done for kids in West Texas?” Cowen said, referring to the free-market economist who was one of the first to champion vouchers and school choice. “I think that's what a lot of this is really about. And it turns out that if you have enough dollars, you can spend your way out of that problem.”

Mandy Drogin, a voucher advocate with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, saw things differently as she traversed the state with Abbott on his “parent empowerment” tour. She said the power of the movement crystallized during her first stop with the governor at The King’s Academy, a private religious school in Dallas attended mostly by low-income families and that covers much of its costs through donations.

“I remember just getting teary eyed hearing the stories of mothers talking about what this school means to not only their child's future, but their entire family, to have a hope that they can reach their full potential,” said Drogin, the director of Next Generation Texas, TPPF’s education reform campaign.

In any case, the primary scoreboard showed a resounding win for Abbott. Between the March primaries and the May runoffs, nine GOP voucher holdouts were ousted — eight of them by primary challengers endorsed by the governor. Additionally, four retiring anti-voucher Republicans were succeeded by pro-voucher freshmen. And in November, two Abbott-backed GOP candidates were elected to replace retiring Democrats.

Suddenly, Abbott was touting 79 “hardcore school choice proponents” in the Texas House heading into this year’s session — three more than he needed to usher legislation through the chamber.

Abbott’s success in the primaries was a “seminal moment,” said Frank, a 12-year veteran of the Legislature who said he had “never seen the governor all in on a policy” quite like Abbott on vouchers. The resounding outcome changed the dynamic heading into session, he said.

“While people would say there were other issues, that issue [vouchers] was on the table in all of those races,” Frank said. “So to me, Republican primary voters spoke pretty loud.”

The start of session in January came with a clear shift in tone around vouchers: questions about whether supporters could muster enough votes became conversations about what would be in the bill. Even so, House Democratic leaders urged their members to stay defiant, arguing that “the devil is in the details” and Republicans would still need to craft a bill they could all agree on.

The Senate sprinted out of the gate, passing their voucher package in early February ahead of all other legislation. Prominent conservative voices soon after began heaping pressure on the House to follow suit, led by Trump, who warned the House he would “be watching them closely.” Trump’s billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, also publicly called on House Speaker Dustin Burrows to pass “school choice.”

Appearing with Abbott at a San Antonio rally, Burrows — who supported vouchers before he claimed the speaker’s gavel — assured the crowd that “the votes are there to do this in the Texas House.” Later the same week, in late February, Buckley filed the chamber’s voucher bill along with its education funding package, touted by Burrows as “the Texas two-step plan.”

“Families deserve options, schools deserve resources,” Burrows told reporters. “One without the other leaves Texas short.”

The House voucher bill got a warm reception from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a longtime school choice supporter who has frequently criticized the House for not following the Senate’s lead in passing voucher programs.

The two chambers diverged on how much money students would receive, which applicants would take priority and how the program would accommodate students with disabilities. But the differences were slim, especially compared to the gulf between the chambers in 2023.

Soon after the House’s voucher bill dropped, a narrow majority of the chamber signed on as coauthors. It was the clearest sign yet that Abbott’s top priority was on track to reach his desk. And when the House took up the state budget weeks later, Democrats, apparently reading the room, declined to file their usual litmus test amendment on vouchers.

Drogin said Burrows’ outspoken support for vouchers played a pivotal role in the smooth passage of SB 2. She contrasted the Lubbock Republican’s posture to that of his predecessor, Rep. Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, who stayed neutral on the issue as speaker in 2023, insisting he would leave it to the will of the House.

“He seized the moment,” Drogin said of Burrows. “He stood firm and he helped deliver this historic victory. It is absolutely a completely different story than what we have witnessed in the past.”

With the voucher vote nearing, Democrats made a Hail Mary play to derail the bill: they would try to amend the legislation so that it would only take effect if voters gave it majority support on the statewide November ballot. Democrats hoped to find a Republican member to champion the idea, but when SB 2 hit the floor, it was Rep. James Talarico, an Austin Democrat, who introduced the amendment.

Talarico claimed that there was “growing bipartisan support” for the referendum idea — until Abbott “started calling members into his office, one by one, and threatening to veto all the bills of” anyone who supported the amendment, he alleged. A spokesperson for Abbott denied the charge, but in any case, the proposal attracted just one Republican vote — Phelan, the former speaker.

On the bill itself, Phelan and Rep. Gary VanDeaver, of New Boston, were the only Republican holdouts. The near-party line split on the vote — less than two years after 21 Republicans tanked Abbott’s prior voucher bill — reflected the governor’s focus on making it as unpalatable as possible for any GOP member to consider opposing the bill.

Meeting with House Republicans before Wednesday’s floor fight, Abbott patched in Trump to rally support for SB 2 and remind members of what awaited them next primary season if they fell out of line.

In an interview this week with conservative radio host Chris Salcedo, Abbott drove the point home, arguing that school choice “kind of has been a partisan issue in the United States.”

“If you look at presidents, you have Reagan and Trump who support school choice,” Abbott said. “You have Obama and Biden and Harris who are against school choice. Which team do you want to line up on?”

Rather than settle the differences between the House and Senate bills in a closed-door conference committee, Patrick and the Senate’s lead voucher author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, agreed to accept the version that passed the House. In the final draft, Buckley agreed to several changes sought by anti-voucher Republicans, who agreed to support the bill in exchange.

Those tweaks included removing the expiration date on a provision that would cap how much of the voucher budget could be reserved for wealthy recipients and adding a requirement for private schools to have been accredited for at least two years before joining the program, aimed at deterring so-called pop-up private schools.

The final draft was drawn up with an eye toward getting the Senate to concur with the changes, said Frank, one of the House members who worked closely with Buckley on the bill. The idea was to limit opportunities for last-minute flare-ups or anything else that could derail the bill.

“The Senate sent over a good bill,” Frank said. “And I think the House truly did make it better.”

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