FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 16, 2025
CONTACT: Nicole Hill, press@texasaft.org
Governor Abbott calls in President Trump to bail him out with his own caucus.
AUSTIN, Texas – Today, the Texas House gave initial approval to Senate Bill 2, the private school voucher scam legislation. Never one to fight his own battles, Governor Greg Abbott relied on a last ditch phone call from Donald Trump to bully Republican lawmakers to fall in line. Over hours of debate, lawmakers tabled amendment after amendment aimed at making this dangerous proposal a little less toxic. Most of the votes fell on party lines.
Lawmakers voted down an amendment ordering a statewide referendum by a 86-62 vote. All Democrats and only one Republican supported the measure. Governor Abbott doesn’t want to put it to a vote because he knows that when vouchers are on the ballot, they’re uniformly rejected (see: 2024 referendums in Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska). Another tabled amendment from Collin County Rep. Mihaela Plesa would have capped program expenditures at $1 billion instead of letting it balloon to the projected $7 billion in fiscal years 2028-29.
“The fight isn’t over yet, but it’s a damn sad day for educators, their students, and the millions across our state who love our public schools. For years and years, the Legislature has said no to craven attempts to sell off our schools to the highest bidder because lawmakers on both sides of the aisle historically understood the importance of free, high-quality public education for every Texas student. It’s hard to stomach that one phone call from Donald Trump is enough to change that,” said Zeph Capo, president of Texas AFT. “Republican leaders are poised to put the nail in the coffin of our public schools, and you’ve never seen such gleeful pallbearers. To deny the voters–their own constituents–a say in what happens in their communities and to their schools is unconscionable.”
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Texas AFT represents 66,000 teachers, paraprofessionals, support personnel, and higher-education employees across the state. Texas AFT is affiliated with the 1.8-million-member American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO.