Senate Sends School Choice to West Wing
after GOP Sponsor Slams Dems Rhetoric
Capitol Inside
February 5, 2025
Texas Senate Republicans endorsed a sweeping school choice plan on Wednesday night without a single vote from Democrats after hours of sparring in a move that set the stage for a showdown with the House that's been a burial ground for private education subsidies under GOP rule.
Senate Bill 2 won preliminary approval shortly before 7 p.m. on a vote of 19-12 with only one Republican on the losing side with 11 Democratic colleagues. The Democrats would have been able to kill the measure if Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick hadn't had the Republicans dismantle the two-thirds rule that had been a longstanding tradition in the east wing in Austin.
With GOP State Senator Brandon Creighton leading the debate as the voucher bill's chief author, the Republicans shot down a flurry of Democratic amendments on 20-11 votes that unfolded exclusively along party lines. Creighton won final passage right before 8 p.m. with a replay of the initial vote at 19-12.
State Senator Robert Nichols of Jacksonville cast the only opposing vote for a Republican on the measure that Creighton guided through the chamber with the ending as a foregone conclusion after eight hours of discussion that grew increasingly tense and heated as it neared the end.
Creighton chastised the Democrats in a long and emotional closing argument - branding their rhetoric on SB 2 as "incredible" and unsubstantiated in a "fake narrative" that he accused Democratic colleagues of perpetuating at the direction of the American Federation of Teachers. Creighton, the Senate Education Committee chairman, disputed Democratic claims that the school choice plan was robbing public education.
Democratic State Senator Sarah Eckhardt of Austin clearly hit a nerve when she lamented that the Senate had become so "thoroughly self-segregated" that Creighton couldn't accept a single amendment from the Democrats. Eckhardt said that the Legislature had a constitutional obligation to fund the public school system but no such responsibility when it comes to private education.
Democratic State Senator Jose Menendez of San Antonio served up several of 17 amendments that the minority party's members tried and failed to tack to SB 2. Menedez said during the final arguments on SB 2 that the measure "opens the door" to discrimination.
The Senate Republicans rejected an amendment that Democratic State Senator Carol Alvarado proposed as a way to reserve the funding of the school choice program for the Legislature without delegating the authority to state leaders on the Legislative Budget Board. Alvarado pointed to a $3 billion infusion for border security that Governor Greg Abbott wanted when lawmakers weren't in session. The vote against the Alvarado amendment proved to be one of the few times that Texas lawmakers have voted to effectively strip powers from themselves by deferring to higher leaders when they're not around.
Democrats argued that the education savings accounts at the heart of the vouchers plan would be available to a large number of students who are already enrolled in expensive private schools and come from wealthy families while substantial numbers of low-income children and kids with special needs would fail to qualify.
Creighton countered that 80 percent of the initial school choice funds would be limited to students with special needs and others in the public school system now.
more to come ...
| 
