Abbott is poised to sign legislation that creates a voucher-style program for families to use public money to attend private schools. Conservatives have pushed for such a plan for more than a quarter century, and last year Abbott went to war with members of his own party to make it happen.
O’Rourke, who lost to Abbott in the 2022 governor’s race, said he was repulsed by Abbott taking $12 million in campaign donations from Pennsylvania billionaire Jeff Yass to help push his voucher agenda. Still, though O’Rourke is “adamantly opposed to this voucher scam that’s going to hurt kids and public schools,” he acknowledged Abbott’s persistence in making one of his top priorities a reality.
“That guy was focused,” O’Rourke said. “He used literally every lever at his disposal. He busted the members of his own party who didn’t agree with him and replaced them with lackeys. That worked, and at the end of the day, he realized his goal.”
Abbott’s push to establish a Texas private school voucher program is a master class on how to wield political power and outlast opponents who don’t realize the fight is never over.
For years voucher-like plans have been blocked by a coalition of rural Republicans and urban Democrats, who feared the effect of such policy on public schools.
Abbott used his resources, including campaign cash from Yass, to oust at least nine House Republicans in the 2024 GOP primaries who a year earlier had helped block a bill to create a voucher program. That action broke up the legislative coalition against private school vouchers and gave Abbott one of the biggest victories of his long political career.
Opponents of private school vouchers underestimated how perilous the Trump-era political climate was even for previously successful coalitions. Their past success might have caused some of the Democrats and rural Republicans to lose their intensity.
Abbott and “school choice” opponents were more persistent in taking the issue to Texas voters, particularly in the GOP primary.
Although polls show vouchers weren’t the top issue for voters — the economy, crime and immigration were — Abbott and his backers were able to frame it as vital to the conservative cause. Opponents had trouble countering phrases like “school choice” or “parental empowerment.”
Dave Carney, Abbott’s chief political strategist, said the tide started to turn after parents became frustrated with COVID-19-era policies that kept children isolated and out of classrooms. That jump-started a “parental rights” movement, Carney said.
“It’s not the political side, it’s the policy side,” Carney said. “If you put good policies in place, all the other things will fall together.”
Winning elections ultimately is paramount to getting Texas Democrats out of the political wilderness.
To that end, O’Rourke has stressed engaging voters year-round, instead of showing up only during election season. That view is shared by former U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, who earlier this month hosted a town hall meeting with Dallas County Judge Clay Lewis Jenkins.
“In democracy your responsibilities don’t end just when you vote,” Allred said in an effort to “buck up” Democratic activists. “It’s also important to be involved in giving feedback to elected officials and your local organizations, your food banks and your public schools, to do what you can to help make things a little better.”
It would help if Democrats had issues they could connect with voters over. Some of them have campaigned on the need for affordable health care, improved education funding and affordable housing. Sometimes those issues are obscured by culture war topics, including transgender sports, that toss messages off track.
In contrast, conservatives rarely give up on an issue, even when they lose. And they have been successful at building grassroots movements.
For more than 50 years Republicans were undaunted in their efforts to reshape the American experience. Their fights included their decades-long effort to end abortion rights, which became a reality in 2022 when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade, after Donald Trump’s appointment of three justices during his first term as president.
Conservatives have chipped away at the Voting Rights Act, including the 2013 removal by the Supreme Court of provisions that required states with a history of voter discrimination to have any changes in election law approved by the Justice Department.
Now Trump is testing the limits of presidential power like few leaders before him. He’s dramatically cutting the federal workforce, reshaping trade policy, embarking on deportations without due process and planning to phase out the Department of Education.
Next year voters will determine whether Trump and Republicans pay a political price for his approach. If they reject his policies, Democrats could win more power. If that happens, they’ll have to be bolder and more aggressive in implementing their agenda.
Past Democratic presidents have used power to fundamentally change government and politics.
Franklin D. Roosevelt used his clout to usher in New Deal policies that endure today, including Social Security. Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act, Medicaid and Medicare.
Bill Clinton reduced the size of government and presided over a long stretch of economic prosperity.
Barack Obama’s signature accomplishment was the Affordable Care Act, and Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and CHIPS and Science Act will likely be two of his more enduring contributions.
But Democrats left a lot on the table. They could have passed laws to protect abortion rights long before the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe. Obama didn’t make immigration reform a priority during the part of his first term when Democrats had control of the House and Senate.
Politics is about maximizing legislative and political output when you have the advantage. It’s like playing poker. You win the most money when you’re holding the right cards.
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