Lawmakers with tough voucher vote against Governor pivot to immigration

Twenty-one Republican lawmakers prevented one of Governor Abbott's top issues from passing in the legislature. Sixteen of them are running for re-election. The Governor and his campaign team are spending time and energy trying to unseat nine of them.

Defending their vote against school choice vouchers, several are touting how they prevented "incentives" for people to cross over the border illegally into Texas. In an interview Tuesday, Governor Abbott called them "hypocrites" for using a "gimmick."

Year after year, immigration and border security are the top issues for Republican primary voters according to the UT-Austin's Texas Politics Project. The issue is again dominating the messaging ahead of the primary election in early March.

Rep. Gary VanDeaver, R - New Boston, cut a political ad saying "Last year, I stopped a bill that would have handed out school vouchers, your tax dollars, to illegal immigrants."

“Border security is about more than just walls. It’s also about the incentive which encourages illegal crossings in the first place," said Rep. VanDeaver.

Rep. Glenn Rogers, R-Graford, has produced and paid for a similar ad against his opponent Mike Olcott.

Rep. Drew Darby, R - San Angelo, called allowing families to use public school dollars for private and home schools "free handouts offered to illegal immigrants" in his ad.

"That’s why I stopped the recent school voucher scheme," said Rep. Darby.

Their ads are technically true but they leave out a key part of the story. Ever since a 1982 Supreme Court Decision, state and federal laws require Texas to fund public schools without regard to citizenship status. There are many undocumented students enrolled in schools. The Education Savings Accounts proposal last session didn't have a citizenship requirement and one would likely violate past court rulings.

Last year in a special session, many of the anti-voucher Republicans voted against them because they thought they were not a conservative use of state money and they worried about stemming the population of rural school districts.

Over the past few months, Gov. Abbott has traveled across the state to back. While he mentions his goal of getting Education Savings Accounts passed into law next year, he focuses on border security and his ongoing legal disputes with the Biden Administration. All House Republicans supported Abbott's call for new border security measures including billions in new funding and a new law allowing local and state police to arrest people crossing into the state illegally that's currently challenged by the Department of Justice.

Tuesday in Roanoke, Gov. Abbott endorsed Rep. Ben Bumgarner, who supported him on education reform and border security.

Abbott told a crowd of nearly five hundred at a local brewery he would still push for "empowering parents with a God-given right to choose the school that's best for their child."

In a brief interview after his speech, Gov. Abbott mentioned how the anti-voucher Republicans vote year after year on education bills that provide the same education for citizens and non-citizens alike.

"All of them have used state money to support public education for illegal immigrants. So, they’re just a bunch of hypocrites. They should be ashamed with some gimmick like that. And Texans are smarter than that," said Gov. Abbott.

As for how successful he'll be against the nine Republicans he's aiming to unseat from office, Abbott said it was too early to give a number.

"I will tell you this, we’re looking at the polls. They look great. Things are strongly in our favor and we’re just going to work hard all the way through election day," said Abbott.

Abbott has possibly the best-organized campaign operation in the state with the most campaign donations to spend. He recently received a six million dollar donation from a school choice voucher supporter, the largest in state history. On the other hand, House lawmakers have no term limits and relatively small districts, so rural lawmakers like Darby, VanDeaver, and Rogers, are often well-known in their community.

The primary election is on March 5.