Ending 30 Years of Resistance, Trump and Abbott Break the ‘People’s House’

The morning of the Texas House vote on school vouchers Wednesday included among other last-minute maneuvering a phone call from President Donald Trump It s one of the bulk crucial votes you ve ever taken Trump described the House GOP caucus in a meeting that Governor Greg Abbott had called Standing around Abbott House Republicans listened as Trump rambled on about Texans freedom families and how he would return development strategy back to the states He then promised to back them if they voted for school vouchers I ll be endorsing you Everybody that I endorsed every single person that I endorsed in the state won And with that Abbott assured passage of his pet project a universal school voucher campaign In an - vote with only two Republicans opposing Representative Dade Phelan and Representative Gary VanDeaver the House passed Senate Bill amid widespread opposition from Texans across the political spectrum From there the bill will go to the Senate which could quibble with certain changes but is all but certain to ultimately move the measure to Abbott s desk Since deciding to make school vouchers his top priority for the legislative session Abbott has pulled out all the stops to ram the proposal through the House where a bipartisan coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans has for years defeated such efforts During the last Legislature Abbott tied school vouchers to a billion school funding bill He dragged House members through an onslaught of special sessions but still he failed when Republicans joined Democrats to kill the bill Abbott then launched a targeted primary offensive in waged through deceptive ads on unrelated subjects that ultimately ousted Republican House incumbents who d held their ground replacing them with more hard-right candidates a revenge campaign partly bankrolled by million from billionaire Pennsylvania hedge-fund investor Jeff Yass Claiming a new pro-voucher majority in the Texas House Abbott has insisted for the past several months that his top political priority was as good as passed But earlier this week encouragement grew within his own party for a Hail Mary move to kick the issue onto a statewide ballot later this year Abbott called several House Republicans into his office Tuesday to threaten vetoes of their unrelated bills if any of them offer amendments or vote for changes to the bill on the floor Quorum Statement revealed Mary Lowe part of a conservative anti-voucher group called Families Engaged communicated the Texas Observer The governor displayed us that he will be punitive to anyone who doesn t fall in line with what he orders She commented she had voted for Trump but He does not understand or respect state sovereignty Charles Johnson a North Texas pastor and director of Pastors for Texas Children which has fought against school vouchers since stated Governor Abbott and President Donald Trump may have bullied lawmakers behind closed doors but they cannot silence the people They blocked a proposal to put vouchers on the ballot because they know it would fail Zeph Capo the president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers added in a declaration that Greg Abbott relied on a last ditch phone call from Donald Trump to bully Republican lawmakers to fall in line All day long Wednesday the Capitol building was swarmed with Texans like Lowe who drove across the state to urge lawmakers to let Texas voters decide the school vouchers issue in the fall They wore red and hoisted posters and banners that read Let the People Vote Students Over Billionaires and Don t mess with Texas Populace Schools Standing a meager feet outside the House gallery Angelica Rios held a sign that stated We the people say no to school vouchers Rios communicated the Observer she had taken time off of work because We have a voice too Jamie Lavarta who worked as a school paraprofessional drove from North Texas to tell legislators It should be a vote for the people Leading up to the decisive vote opposition had been growing Three weeks prior the House Residents Instruction Committee heard nearly hours of residents testimony on the voucher proposal from around people percent opposed to the bill In a March poll two-thirds of Texans surveyed declared they opposed A private school voucher plan that would take tax dollars away from residents schools to subsidize a novice s private school coaching Lowe declared members of her group had delivered to legislators water bottles wrapped in labels that read Liquid Courage to Vote for Amendment on SB to Bring it to the People But by the evening Lowe mentioned There is no courage The previous day there had been as several as House members who supported the ballot measure move Quorum Document wrote But by Wednesday evening it became clear the House would pass the school voucher bill when only one Republican former House Speaker Dade Phelan voted with the Democratic minority for Representative James Talarico s amendment to bring the issue to a statewide vote Talarico reported House members he had decided to carry the amendment because Abbott threatened to make their GOP members primaries a bloodbath Noting that there are multiple precedents for putting proposals that are not constitutional amendments which perpetually require voter approval to a popular referendum Talarico announced When an issue is going to have such an impact such a historic impact on such a critical amenity like general learning when an issue may raise and I think will raise people s property taxes across the state then that issue especially when there is bipartisan opposition especially when there is historical dispute about the issue this body is justified in sending this issue to the voters for their approval Talarico reminded members The last time I checked this was still the people s house not the governor s house All of that is at menace with this vote on this amendment Past midnight the voucher bill author Salado Republican Brad Buckley continued to kill off Democrats efforts to limit spending on the scheme and restrict eligibility to low- and middle-income students by successfully tabling their amendments to the bill The people of Texas working-class families deserve to see us fight and debate on the issues and unfortunately when we table these motions we re also silencing debate and really shutting down democracy announced Democratic Representative Ana-Mar a Rodr guez Ramos Democratic Representative Vikki Goodwin added It s almost as though selected members have been communicated how to vote and they aren t looking at the initiative They re just following directions The bill decisively passed with ease at a m The House has appropriated billion for the first biennium of the voucher undertaking but the bill s fiscal note estimates the net cost will grow past billion in the second biennium Three percent of funds would go to the Comptroller and five percent would go to private vendors who manage the venture While the state now has a budget surplus of billion Democrats warned that ballooning costs to the general revenue fund may affect citizens school funding if the economic activity faces a recession Impending changes for federal funding to school districts will also have an impact Democratic Representative Donna Howard s proposed amendment to make up future society school funding shortfalls with money appropriated for private school vouchers was rejected SIGN UP FOR TEXAS OBSERVER EMAILS Get our latest in-depth reporting straight to your inbox Sign Up Each child in the campaign would receive percent of the estimated statewide average of state and local funding for students per attendee in the campaign s first year growing to by per the fiscal note Homeschool students would receive and students with disabilities in private school would receive up to though private schools are not mandated to enroll or provide services for students with disabilities The bill caps the portion of campaign funds that can go to families at percent or more of the federal poverty level at percent and it deprioritizes those families compared to those with lower incomes or whose kids have disabilities Democratic Representative John Bucy s amendment to just exclude high-income families was dismissed According to Josh Cowen a Michigan State University professor content collected from states with a universal voucher scheme shows only a quarter of participants were previously in residents schools The rest had either never been in inhabitants school because they were kindergartners or more commonly were coming into the voucher system from a private school Cowen announced House Democratic Caucus leader Gene Wu denounced the bill saying When we say that this bill is about helping the needy helping the poor helping people who are living paycheck to paycheck this is not what this bill does This bill is a trough a feeding trough for the rich In a report Wu mentioned Currently Texas House Republicans chose to bow to a call from Donald Trump rather than the call of Texans for a population vote This is a disgraceful day for freedom and the voice of the people of Texas The post Ending Years of Resistance Trump and Abbott Break the People s House appeared first on The Texas Observer