House Could Derail Vouchers Crusade
Vouchers Crusade with Budget Test Vote
Capitol Inside
April 3, 2023
The Texas House could blow a hole in Governor Greg Abbott's centerpiece proposal in the debate on a new state budget this week with an amendment that would ban the use of state funding for private school vouchers in the first major test vote on the highly-volatile subject in the regular session in 2023.
Voucher foes could get their first shot at the apple with an amendment that Democratic State Rep. Abel Herrero of Corpus Christi has filed for House Bill 1 with two fellow Democrats and a lone Republican signed on as co-sponsors. The appropriations plan for the next biennium is set for debate on Thursday on the emergency calendar in the Legislature's lower chamber.
The House has a chance to set the stage and take the wheel on a myriad of issues with votes that it expects to take or could in the upcoming showdown on the two-year state spending bill and a supplemental appropriations measure for the remainder of the current fiscal year.
House members filed 388 amendments to HB 1 by a deadline that they voted to impose last week. State Rep. Ryan Guillen of Rio Grande City led the pack with 39 proposed changes to the House spending measure in his first session as a Republican after serving 20 years as a Democrat. Guillen chairs the Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee and is leading a Select Committee on Community Safety as well. GOP State Rep. Bryan Slaton of Royse City submitted 27 amendments for consideration in the budget debate - second only to Guillen.
The Herrero amendment that would defund school vouchers before they're ever approved. A pair of Houston Democrats - State Reps. Ana Hernandez and Armando Walle - have added their names to amendment as co-sponsors along with veteran Republican State Rep. Charlie Geren of Fort Worth. Geren's association with the proposal will give cover to Republicans from rural and other areas where the governor's push for school choice apparently has failed to resonate. The lawmakers are proposing the ban in the Texas Education Agency budget for the next two years.
Abbott has invested massive political capital in the school choice movement and has by far the most to lose if it fizzles. The governor has been touring the state in recent weeks to push for vouchers with appearances and photo ops at private religious schools. Abbott and other voucher advocates have reclassified the issue as school choice and thrown their support behind more innocuous-sounding educational savings accounts - or ESAs.
The Herrero amendment would bar school vouchers and similar programs alike. "Money appropriated by this Act may not be used to pay for or support a school voucher, including an education savings account, tax credit scholarship program, or a grant or other similar program through which a child may use state money for nonpublic primary or secondary education," the amendment reads.
Republicans and Democrats who support expanded gambling opportunities could use the House budget fight as a platform for a show of support for sports betting or casinos or both with an amendment that earmarked some sort of incentive funding or tax credits under the banner of economic development.
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick said in a radio appearance last week that neither gambling proposal had any support in the Senate. “Our members have been clear: they’re not in support today," Patrick told Dallas talk show host Mark Davis. "We don’t have any votes in the Senate. Couldn’t find one Senator who supported it.”
The rhetoric is a stretch in light of the fact that Patrick could pass gambling legislation with overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle if he chose to do. At least one Republican - State Senator Lois Kolkhorst of Brenham - is on the record as a sports betting advocate as the chief sponsor of a measure that would put it to a vote with a nod from the lieutenant governor.
Sports betting and the legalization of casinos would be strong favorites to clear the House if its supporters there thought it would have a fighting chance in the Senate. But Patrick has determined that he is more qualified to make the final call than the other elected Republican representatives in Austin if he kills both single handedly. The House could find a way in the budget alterations to try to force Patrick's hand on whether Texans should have the right to gamble more than they're already allowed.
The House could make a conciliatory gesture in advance with an amendment that boosts state outlays on incentives for the Texas film industry like Patrick appears to support now after leading moves in recent years to all but gut them.
Patrick has indicated that he's set in stone on school choice amid the threat of forcing a special session if a vouchers measure doesn't clear both chambers in regular session. The Senate Education Committee approved an ESA measure on a party line vote of 10-2 last week.
House Republicans could face a dilemma on whether to use the budget fight to strengthen credentials as anti-woke warriors with amendments that threaten to cut funding for public colleges and universities that promote diversity in defiance of an executive order that Abbott has in place. Some Republicans might target special event funding in a timely move in the wake of the CMT Awards that were moved from Nashville to Austin and held on Sunday night in the swank Moody Center at the University of Texas.
While Abbott fights DEI in higher education employment and other areas, the CMT Awards revolved a themes of diversity and inclusion and provided a showcase for it from the stars that performed live at the show to the award presenters to the hosts in Kelsea Ballerini and African-American singer and actor Kane Brown. The awards show had a key segment when Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion presented the CMT's Equal Play Award to Shania Twain in a tribute to growing diversity within the country music industry.
The CMT Awards on CBS featured live performances by Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban on a stage that had the state Capitol as a backdrop on Congress Avenue a half block from the Governor's Mansion where Abbott resides. If the loud music wasn't enough, Abbott may have been all the more annoyed as a Texas graduate and controls the board of regents that run UT System.
One of the budget amendments that Slaton has proposed could give Abbott an early victory with a prohibition on the expenditure of state funds on "unconstitutional" Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and practices in state agencies and institutions of higher learning. Slaton filed another amendment would prevent public universities from "hosting, supporting or advertising" satanic activities on campuses.
Guillen will be at the front mike repeatedly during the budget fight on Thursday after filing just one fewer amendments that he submitted in appropriation bill debate in the past four regular sessions combined as a Democrat. Guillen was a member of the Appropriations Committee in 2007 after an initial stint on the budget panel two years before.
more to come ...
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