The 2025 School Choice Bill in Texas

I’ve been looking at SB 2, the school choice bill in the Texas Senate this session—and the arguments for and against it.

State Senator Brandon Creighton, author of SB 2, gives closing argument,
on the Senate floor, Wednesday, February 5, just before the bill passed in the Senate.
screenshot from here

I’ve been pretty clear that I am in favor of school choice. I claim the right of parents over the care and upbringing of children, which includes education.

Speaking ideologically (not practically), I also believe that education is not a proper role of government. And everything that government does beyond its proper role causes unintended consequences, usually the complete opposite of the stated purpose of the government action. So, if you want good education for all of our children, you need a non-governmental system.

For this reason, I am happy to see the federal government looking at abolishing the Department of Education—or, it may be moving out some non-educational purposes to other agencies and sending education money back to the states in block grants. (Why we need the federal government to take our money and then block grant it back to us is another question worth asking, but here we are.)

That said, I’m aware that states, for a century—and in some cases a century and a half—have taken on the task of education. And they’ve done it in the form of free public schools through 12^th grade. When many people say they “believe in public schools,” what they seem to mean is they believe that government institutions providing “free” education at taxpayer expense is the best form of education. I do not “believe in public schools” in that way. I believe there needs to be some sort of systemic change from the factory model we have now to something that works for each individual child—something under the control and guidance of the parents. And it does need to be provided to every child, regardless of family income—by some combination of philanthropy and community obligation, which could possibly include businesses being obligated to put money toward scholarships for each child.

Getting to there from where we are is a leap too huge for most to envision—even though it was the practice in our country up through most of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th. And note that regular people in a pub were educated enough to understand and discuss the Federalist Papers. I don’t foresee that we will recover true education—except family by family—anytime soon. We are stuck with the monopolistic government institution model. I am not fighting that. I am not trying to do away with public education. I am trying to make it better.

One thing that can make a monopoly better is options. The more the better.

Does the current bill, SB 2, which passed on the Senate floor this week, offer better options? Some. Not nearly enough to suit me. But I’ve long been willing to accept a little progress at a time, if that is what it takes. [In 2021 I supported a bill offering much less than this one—with a separate funding source, only for a very limited demographic of needy families; it was rejected.] This year’s SB 2 looks better than anything I’ve seen in past sessions. I’m willing to support it.

Let’s take a look at SB 2, and then talk about it.

About SB 2

The bill’s author, Sen. Brandon Creighton, offers this statement of intent: 

Texas voters have spoken loud and clear: they want meaningful school choice, and the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have made education freedom their first priority for the 89th Legislative Session. With their leadership and the strong mandate we have from parents across our state we must act decisively this session. Senate Bill 2 will serve more students with more funding than any proposal our body has considered yet.

In drafting this legislation, my office built upon the work accomplished during the special sessions with S.B. 1. As a result, the key provisions the Senate has worked together on, like anti-fraud safeguards, mandatory criminal history checks for vendors, rigorous reporting requirements, and robust data protections, are retained or expanded. Just as in prior iterations of the legislation, parents can direct their students' funds to preapproved vendors, but never have direct control of the dollars themselves, and no reimbursements are permitted.

Below are the key points:

Eligibility

Universal Access: Every student in Texas may apply and, if accepted, participate in the ESA program whether they are entering school for the first time, currently enrolled in public school, or currently enrolled in private school or homeschool.

Prioritization

If applications do not exceed the program's capacity, all eligible students are accepted.

If applications exceed capacity, 80 percent of available positions will be filled by lottery among students who previously attended public school and are either from low-income households or have a disability. The remaining slots will be filled by lottery among all other eligible applicants.

Allocation per Student

Base Funding: Each participating student will receive at least $2,000 per year in their ESA.

Private School Funding: If a family elects to enroll their child in an accredited private school, that student will receive $10,000 per year or $11,500 per year if the student has a disability.

As proposed, S.B. 2 amends current law relating to the establishment of an education savings account program.

So, to summarize, this is a bill to create an education savings account (ESA) program. Funding for this program is separate from and does not affect funding for public schooling, but it is based on per-child funding used for public schools. Each student gets $10,000 to use for private schooling (tuition and books), or $11,500 if the student has a disability. A homeschooled student would get $2,000 for use on curriculum and other designated expenses (paying the parent or a relative for tutoring or lessons would not be allowed); a homeschooled student with a disability would get $2,500.

By the way, when people refer to this as a voucher program, you can assume they are trying to stop it. A voucher would take public school funding and shift it to another recipient, such as a private or charter school. An ESA is more like a health savings account than a voucher; otherwise there could not be a homeschool use for it. And, again, the funding comes from a separate state grant, not in any way tied to public school funding. I’d like more choice—like being able to mix and match public school and private school classes or parts of a day, along with some tutoring or certification programs—any educational purpose. But this is a start.

The total $1 billion granted for the program in its first year (I think that would be 2026-2027) is enough to handle around 100,000 students out of the 5 million school-age children in the state, or 2% of students. Since all students can apply—not just those coming from public schools—this will not mean a 2% loss in students from public schools, but will be something less than that. As far as I can gather, the fear public schools have is the loss of students, since their allotment is based on a per pupil rate. But it’s also true that you don’t need as much money to educate fewer students—although, granted, the building still stands, and you pay a teacher the same for teaching 25 students in a class as you pay for 27 students. So there’s fear that they can’t manage. I sympathize. But we have a growing state, so that fear may only be valid in certain locations that do not see growth and have a relatively large number of students looking to escape.

At the close of the floor vote Wednesday night, Senator Creighton was able to give his closing argument. He pointed out that schools have never been properly funded, a battle he has been involved in since he was 19 years old. This has been a 40-year battle, including the drama of litigation. He said,

Public school stakeholders said for forty years, until that litigation is over, they would not support school choice opportunities. That litigation is over.

He reminded us that in the last session the Senate put forward historic money, a factor of 3X the normal. But teacher organizations came and spoke in their hearings, and told them, if it’s a choice of preventing (the then offer of) 40,000 ESAs for special needs and income vulnerable kids, or getting new money for teachers, they’d give up the teacher money to stop the choice opportunities for those who needed it.

That bipartisan bill they opposed last session included a pay raise of $10,000 for 83% of teachers; the only ones getting less were already near or at the top of the pay scale, so they’d have gotten whatever would bump them up to that limit. That’s what the teacher organizations opposed in order to prevent needy children from having a choice. Have we mentioned before that teacher unions are not about protecting teachers? And they’re certainly not about educating children.

Sen. Creighton gave this background to remind us who is really working to help public schools and all students, and who is standing in the way.

The Opposition

I have a number of teacher friends who are in a panic over this bill. Fact: If you’re being fed fear and panic, that ought to be a clue that you need to step back and gather more info from more sources.

There’s a statement going around about the differential in what Texas spends per student and what it’s offering for the taking of private schools in this ESA bill. (Here’s one example, passed on by a friend; I do not know this person, nor the one they’re crediting, but this person’s profile does show she celebrates pride month with her child, in case that tells you something about her core beliefs.) They say that public schools only get $6,500 per student, but the bill is giving $10,000 per pupil for use in a private school. I don’t know where they get the $6,500. I looked up the official numbers from TEA, and the state provides $9,956 per student; when you add in all funding sources, it’s $12,140 per student (after an adjustment down from $15,503 because of inflation). If they're trying to scream unfairness because of giving a larger amount to use at a private school than a public school, that's just wrong.

chart from Texas Education Agency transparency report May 2024

That same complainer also claimed Texas is in the bottom 10 states in student funding; but Texas is actually 33^rd, so there are 17 states with lower spending per student, rather than only 9. And it appears to me that states providing more per student tend to be states with higher cost of living, so teacher pay has to be higher, unrelated to education quality.

Another complaint is that schools are held accountable by standardized testing, and private schools are not. Senator Creighton believes they have addressed the accountability piece. But I’d be happy for public schools to have a better form of accountability. In the end, the parents decide whether the schools are meeting the needs of their children. The problem has been that, if the public schools failed, and the parents didn’t have resources, their kids were trapped in a failing school. This bill is aimed at helping those families in particular. If some already homeschooling or private schooling families are also helped out of the financial strains of providing what their taxpayer-funded public schools did not provide, so be it.

The bill requires that private schools accepting ESA money be accredited. There is no correlation between accreditation and quality of education. Most private schools are unaccredited, so this is, I believe unfortunately, a severely limiting factor in the bill. But it stops the panicking protectors of control from hyperventilating.

An additional argument against school choice (here’s an example) is that it’s a disguise for government control—as if a monopolistic taxpayer-funded government institutional public school system is not about government control.

I'm not sure what to make of this Churchill quote. Found the image here.

One of the arguments is that many states have the same language in their bills. Of course. Legislators do look to other states trying the same things, to look at language that has worked—and to look at the record in those states. As I’ve written, I became aware of ESAs in 2016. The presentation I first heard was from the Heritage Foundation, not some nefarious Soros-backed organization. They had already worked with Arizona on their fledgling program for special education ESAs, and a couple of other early adopters. This is now nine years later; of course other states are going to have similarly worded legislation. That doesn't make it a conspiracy.

Another organization this piece lists is Texas Public Policy Foundation. I looked up their statement online a month or so ago, because someone was claiming their goal was the destruction of public schools by taking money from them. Their statement is that school choice should come from a separate funding source, not touching public school funding. That is what SB 2 does—as you would expect, if you’ve been looking at past attempts at getting school choice. I don’t frequently research positions of TPPF, and I don't know how much, if any, input they had on this bill, but if their ideas are good, why rail against them?

I don’t see signs they’re associated with anything Soros-related. Soros is about putting in things like Common Core and other top-down “progressive” ideas that are pushed from the federal level on down. Fortunately, as I mentioned above, we have a president now who is about to quash federal control over state and local education and give us back our education freedom.

Another organization strongly behind school choice—and I believe helping to advise on the crafting of this bill—is Texas Home School Coalition. (President, Tim Lambert, shows steady support for it on X.) They, along with the vast majority of homeschoolers in the state support school choice, and are not fearful that this bill is a subterfuge for controlling their lives after they left public schools to DIY their kids’ educations. I assure you THSC is not Soros-backed either.

I’ve frequently seen anti-school-choice claims that other states with ESAs have not fared well; I have never seen research showing those bad outcomes. In fact, those states seem to like the outcomes they’re getting. Government infiltration into homeschools and private schools has not increased—one of the supposed fears. And in every case, their public school funding has increased, not decreased.

Outcome for This Bill

Some of the fearmongering made it seem this bill was about to be enacted. No. It made it through the Senate—as did four school choice bills two years ago (during the 2023 regular session and three special sessions). The Texas House is a roadblock. As of Friday, February 7, the 25^th day of the session, the House has not yet made committee assignments, let alone assigned bills to committees and held any public hearings on bills. It may be their strategy to yet again run out the clock and then tell constituents, “We did everything we could, but we just ran out of time.” They purposely ran out of time last session, or pretended some other excuse, for not giving any of those school choice bills a floor vote.

The new speaker, Dustin Burrows, chaired the Calendars Committee for that session. Among his ubiquitous campaign texts prior to his January 14, 2025, election, he says his opponent couldn’t be trusted on school choice. Hmm. Once he finally starts doing his job, we’ll see if he rushes to work on this Governor’s Emergency bill. He posted on X, following the Governor’s State of the State Address, February 2, that he was looking forward to getting to work on the Governor’s priorities.

Burrows post on X after Governor Abbott's State of the State

Anyway, those opponents still have House Committee hearings and floor votes in which to lobby and phone and email their representatives—because this week wasn’t actually time to panic yet; that’s just what they were told to do.

That also means there’s time to citizen lobby in favor of the bill, which I plan to do. My representative, who strongly supported Burrows, claims to be for school choice. I’d sure like her to prove it.

It comes down to this: do you believe that public schools or parents ought to have control over their child’s education? I believe it should totally be parents. A smidgeon of choice is at least a step in the right direction.

Resources

Here are some things I’ve written about ESAs (school choice and education in general would be a much longer list):

·        A Parent’s Job, May 2016 

·        The Separation of School from State, October 2016 

·        Disagreements Among Friends, February 2017 

·        The Family Educational Relief Program, March 2021 

·        Real Parental Choice in Education, March 2023 

·        Real Education Choice, August 2024 

Links to the bill online:

·        SB 2 Bill History: to know the bill's progress toward passing

·        SB 2 Text: the bill's original wording (which may be amended or replaced)

·        SB 2 Analysis: this includes the author's intent, plus several pages of pertinent information

Other resources:

·        Texas Scorecard’s Texas Minute, February 6, 2025, gives a couple of minutes to the issue: 

·        Governor Abbott’s full State of the State Address, February 2, 2025 

·        Governor Abbott’s promise to raise teacher salaries, on X, February 5, 2025

The Letter Read Round the World

You have probably heard about the friendly letter Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent to Biden earlier this week. It’s worth a read, so I include it here. 

Governor Greg Abbott's letter, found here

I’m in Texas, so I might be more aware of things going on in Texas than people elsewhere. But this one is important beyond our great state.

Texas has the longest boundary with a foreign nation, Mexico, which is generally on friendly terms with the US, since that separation by Texas in 1835—as a result of Mexico’s tyrannical leader who stomped on their guaranteed constitutional rights (yes, Mexico had a constitution, which their president ignored, a pattern we may see being repeated here). And then the US won the Mexican-American War 1846-1848. Since then the two nations have been at peace. Mexico has not been generally as prosperous as the US. As a result, their people have often come to the US to find work. Migrant farm workers are among these. They can be hardworking, honest people—when they come here legally. And there are plenty of legal immigrants with education and skills as well, whom we welcome.

The problem has been with people who come in illegally. There is a substantial difference between legal and illegal. Law-abiding Americans welcome a manageable number of legal immigrants and legal resident aliens. While we may agree that the process for legal immigrants could be improved and streamlined, the problem at our southern border is mostly unrelated to that process.

 

Just Dealing with the Invasion

What we have is an invasion. It includes enemies of the state from around the world. It includes drug traffickers—including the deadly fentanyl. It includes human traffickers—slave traders of enforced labor slavery and also child sex slavery. The Biden administration, nor the Obama administration of the past, will explain why they want to allow these enemies in.

Here in Texas, we have been calling this an invasion for a good long while. And we’ve been complaining about our governor taking so long to make that declaration. We’re glad he’s done it. And we add, “What took you so long?”

Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick speak with Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024
screenshot from here

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick talked with Glenn Beck in an interview Wednesday, and he backed up the governor. He said that a lot of things had been going on behind the scenes. The governor’s administration wasn’t inactive.

One of the things behind the scenes was legislation that became law in December, after the latest special legislative session (I think there were four special sessions after the regular biennial session that closed in May, but I lost count; Lt. Gov. Patrick just called it the umpteenth special session).

At our Cypress Texas Tea Party meeting on Wednesday, we heard from State Rep. Tom Oliverson, giving a report on legislation passed this year. He highlighted three bills, and shared interesting stories. Then, even after the Q&A, he added one more thing, which happens to be the bill Lt. Governor Patrick referred to. So this is Rep. Oliverson:

One more little factoid for you, because this was late breaking news. So, you know, the border bill that we just passed—I heard some of you talking about the border and all this kind of stuff. So, what the law says now, under state law, is that, if DPS catches you crossing you over the border not at a port of entry, you may be arrested on the spot, charged with a class B misdemeanor, which means you can and will go to jail.

However, the judge has the ability to basically waive those charges and essentially, I guess, whatever that process is… I don’t know. But you basically give them a pass and say, “We’re going to wipe these charges out, but only if you agree to go back to Mexico today.” So that’s how the law is now.

Now, obviously, the legal process is going to play out here. But, just so you know, if you hear on TV, well, DPS [Department of Public Safety] is arresting people, that’s because the law we just passed a couple of months ago says that they can be arrested. And the other thing is, if they do it more than once, they can be charged with a felony, and then they can spend a lot of years in jail….

So they would get arrested; they would be charged; they would have a court date, a trial; they would be held. And then they’ll serve their time in jail, and then we’ll turn them over to customs. So the disincentive for somebody who’s crossing into our state illegally is, “If I get caught by DPS, at a bare minimum, I’m going to spend six months in jail before I even see a customs and patrol agent. And if I’ve done it more than once, I may go away for years.” After which time we’ll turn them over to customs. So that’s how that works.

Texas has to act. We have millions of illegal aliens flowing into our state. Some of them get bussed or flown to elsewhere in the country—that’s done by the US government; Texas only did that with a few busloads to get media attention. The government is doing it quietly every day, and dumping them in troubled US cities, even up north, all those “sanctuary cities”—Chicago, New York, etc.—which are now complaining that they’re not equipped to handle all these people.

Still, the feds are leaving far more than can be handled in small border towns without resources to deal with such an influx. Meanwhile the US government is insisting they get free housing, free transportation, free healthcare, free public education—at taxpayer expense. (Meanwhile, legal immigrants go through years of red tape and paperwork and court costs; you’d think they were trying to discourage legal immigration and encourage illegal immigration.)

This is purposeful. I can’t say definitively what the purpose is, but it’s intentional.

 

Razor wire along the Texas/Mexico border,
screenshot from here

The Vacated Injunction

The lead-up to Governor Abbott’s letter was the Supreme Court 5-4 ruling that vacated (removed) the injunction against the federal government to keep them from interfering with Texas border patrol agents.

SCOTUS ruling that the injunction is vacated.

Let’s get a little clarity on that. The Texas national guard has been putting up razor wire, concertina wire, to prevent access on the US side of the Rio Grande. This will force invaders to go to ports of entry. At ports of entry, the US government is still just letting them in and sending them out into the country, but at least there’s a process happening there. At other places, there’s no tracking. And there’s also the risk of death for the invaders. A number of them have drowned in the river, which would have been totally avoided by going to a port of entry.

The Biden administration’s border agents had been going in and cutting the razor wire—to give access to invaders. Texas filed an injunction to stop them, which was granted by Justice Alito on December 19, 2023. The federal government appealed, asking that the injunction be removed.

It’s obvious that removing barriers to allow access is not securing the border, which the US government is required by law to do—one of the few enumerated powers granted to the federal government, and they go out of their way to not do it, and to thwart anyone who tries to do it on their own.

The SCOTUS ruling, which is pretty wrongheaded, only removed the injunction. In other words, it said the administration could carry out its policies at the border as it sees fit. Let me reword that: the federal government is allowed to determine its methods for securing the border and protecting American sovereignty. However, removing barriers and encouraging invasion cannot be construed as securing the border. Texas has a right to secure borders. So, in essence, the ruling allows the federal border agents to do their actual job; it does not stop Texas from doing that job when they fail to.

The SCOTUS ruling did not say that Texas had to allow the federal border agents to come in and remove borders that Texas had set up. There is not, to date, an injunction against any actions by Texas. There are complaints from the feds that Texas ought to let them go in and remove the barriers, without any hindrance.

But why should we?

When the states grant powers to the US government, they have to have those powers in order to grant them. They do not lose the right to self-protection by “hiring” the federal government to carry out that duty.

That is what Governor Abbott has spelled out so nicely in his letter.

25 states stand with Texas in its right to self-protection,
image found here

This is the kind of standoff that the brink of war might look like. I don’t want war to happen. I can’t even envision that happening. As of today we have a majority of states, 25, standing with Texas (all the states with Republican governors except Vermont). Really, how could a commander-in-chief rally troops to kill their fellow citizens—so that the federal government could tear down our borders and invite invaders in? How can they spin that? I’m sure they could find a mendacious way to spin it, but I don’t think it will fly—any more than using SWAT teams to arrest “dangerous domestic terrorists” who are actually peaceful, country-loving grandmas. Good people know that is just wrong.

President Trump suggested that the supporting governors should send some of their own state National Guard troops to Texas to add support. That’s probably a good idea. It has been done before, at times when there were particular crisis points; I think at least Oklahoma and Florida had done so.

President Trump suggests supporting states send guard troops to Texas,
screenshot from here

National Guard troops are under the command of their various state governors—unless and until the President calls them into action. Anti-American, anti-Texan, Democrat “heroes” Joaquin Castro and Beto O’Rourke are of course calling for the President to federalize the Texas National Guard. The claim is that Governor Abbott is using the Texas National Guard to defy a Supreme Court ruling. But, as we went through above, Texas has no requirement to defy. The ruling only said the feds could be allowed to do their job. Governor Abbott correctly identifies the feds as not doing their job, and so Texas will do it.

Until there is a Supreme Court ruling saying Texas cannot put up razor wire on its border or otherwise act to protect its border, Texas can and will continue its self-protection. No such ruling is imminent. And if it were to come, Texas—and those other supporting states—would be within their constitutional rights to defy that order and protect themselves anyway. I think Governor Abbott explained that pretty clearly, citing the portions of the US Constitution at issue.

Texas has the “Come and take it” flag, from the Battle of Gonzales, daring the enemy Santa Anna to retrieve a cannon they’d borrowed four years earlier. 

A replica of the infamous "Come and Take It" flag
from the Battle of Gonzales hangs in the state capitol in Austin, Texas,
image from the Houston Chronicle.

There is less conflict between federal border patrol and Texas DPS and National Guard than you might think. There is a particular park the feds are not being allowed into, near Eagle Pass, because they were doing harm to the border. But they can do their business everywhere else. They are not harmed or hindered. They’re stirring up conflict. It’s just that the administration doesn’t want Texas interfering with its plan to destroy America by erasing the southern border and letting our enemies pour in.

 

Additional Resources

·        “Republican governors DRAW THE LINE on Biden’s border invasion” Glenn Beck, January 25, 2024.       

·        “26 States REBEL Against Biden Administration,” Facts Matter with Roman Balmakov, January 26, 2024. 

·        “Civil War Echoes: Unpacking Governor Abbott's Defiance in the Texas Border Clash” The Patriot Nurse, January 25, 2024. 

·        “The Secret Network Helping Biden Fuel the Border Invasion | Ep 329” Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024.  (This video includes the interview with Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.)

·        “Texas Declares INVASION and REJECTS Federal Government's Border Authority” Robert Gouveia, January 25, 2024. 

·        “‘Installing MORE BARRIERS’: Texas SLAMS SCOTUS razor wire ruling” Glenn Beck, January 24, 2024. 

·        “Biden should know better than to start a fight with Texas” by Don Huffines, in The Telegraph, January 26, 2024.

·        “What Happens if Joe Biden Tries to Take OverTexas National Guard?” by Ewan Palmer, Newsweek, January 26, 2024. 

The Most Important Election of Our Lifetime

We tend to say every election is the most important of our lifetime. And truthfully it has probably felt that way every time. This time it is more true than ever—because our country is now a post-constitutional republic, and this may be our only opportunity to turn around on the path back toward our Constitution.

Decisions are state and local, since it’s not a presidential election year. And yet they may add up to a greater impact than anything we’ve seen before. That is, if—we vote for that return toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

image found here

I’ll be looking at Texas and local races today. Principles will apply elsewhere, but you’ll have to do your own research.

The short and simple answer this election is to vote Republican. And vote Republican all the way down the ballot. In Harris County, that’s a long ballot—possibly the longest in the nation. We vote on our judges, and it’s around a hundred races total. I’ll highlight just a few. There is no straight-ticket voting anymore, so it requires tedious individual voting. Note that the Republican candidate is listed first in every race.

 

Governor

The choices are Greg Abbott, our current governor, and Robert (Beto) O’Rourke. Beto had no redeeming qualities when he ran against Ted Cruz for Senate in 2018, but he pulled in a great deal of out-of-state anti-Cruz money, and was a media darling. He failed. He attempted a run for president, without the anti-Cruz enthusiasm and money, and showed himself to be at the bottom of the Democrat heap, only slightly above Kamala Harris. So again he failed. He’s attempting to pretend the multiple failures are a reason to vote for him. He changed from his previous, “Hell, yes, we’re going to take Americans’ guns” (an actual quote) to something more nuanced that he thinks might play better in Texas. He’s pro-abortion without restriction and thinks that’s a winning issue. It isn’t.

So he’s not much of a threat.

As for Governor Abbott, he disappointed many during the pandemic by allowing lockdowns. He lifted statewide mandates pretty quickly, but defending our freedoms against more local tyrants has been piecemeal. He just extended the declaration of emergency for the 31^st time (Houston Chronicle story here). Fact: the pandemic isn’t an emergency and hasn’t been for a very long time. Only 12 states still retain these emergency declarations. We’re hoping the legislature will address that this upcoming session; the people are calling for an automatic requirement for the Texas Legislature to approve emergency orders in order to extend them beyond 30 days.

That being said, he has been mostly conservative, and has been good at growing Texas and our economy here. While we would have preferred some DeSantis-style boldness, we’re better off than most. So, with less enthusiasm than before the pandemic, I am definitely voting for Governor Greg Abbott.

 

US Congress

I’ve been redistricted from CD 2, Dan Crenshaw’s district, to the new CD 38. Our candidate is Wesley Hunt. He’s ex-military and supported by Crenshaw. Those of you who followed this race in the primary know I did not support Hunt. I campaigned for a much better candidate. But Hunt got the big money and pulled off a win without a runoff—despite failing to show at every event I was made aware of. As a precinct chair I have since been invited to an event or two, but at times I was unable to attend. That means I still have not seen him in person since he began his campaign. That is completely opposite of how Dan Crenshaw ran.

Hunt says the right conservative things. My impression of him, in person, when he ran a previous campaign in 2018, was that he wasn’t as clear on the concepts, or as committed to conservative principles as his opponents. But he said the right things then too, and won the primary but not the general.

This time he’s in a district that is designed to trend Republican. As long as he doesn’t blow it, he’ll get elected. Unless I look up the name on the sample ballot, I can’t even remember his Democrat opponent’s name (it's Duncan F. Klussmann). I have seen no campaign signs for the opponent. There seems to be no enthusiasm for him. So Hunt is likely to sail through.

I’ll be voting for Hunt, in hopes that he will live true to the conservative things he says. He will be better to work with than someone who openly opposes conservatives.

 

Harris County Judge

This is possibly the most important race on the ballot for people in Harris County. Again, a brief explanation that HC Judge is an administrative position. It is, in fact, one of the largest administrative jurisdictions in the nation. I think Los Angeles and maybe one other are larger. In smaller, rural counties, some county judges still act as judges, but in the enormous Harris County, that has not been the case for many decades; just the name remains.

It’s a challenge to list the many reasons we need to get rid of our corrupt socialist incumbent. But here are a few:

·       Lina Hidalgo directed $11 million in COVID-19 relief money to a partisan crony. Three of her main staffers were indicted on fraud charges; charges against her may yet come, but not likely before the election.

o   Claims the funds have been returned are not accurate. Stories here and here.

·       Lina Hidalgo and cronies on Commissioners Court changed the structure for voting, after a corrupt Democrat County Clerk stepped down in May of 2020, and called for a new elections administrator to handle elections, rather than the County Clerk. She hired an incompetent crony as EA, who messed up the Primary so badly that even Hidalgo asked for her resignation—although they postponed her leaving until after the runoffs could be mishandled as well.

o   There are ongoing serious chain-of-custody issues related to elections. Story here. 

·       She decided the way to allocate Harvey relief and recovery funds was—not according to who suffered the most damaged, but which ethnicities she wanted to favor.

·       She pushes for higher taxes at every opportunity. The three countywide ballot propositions are an example: totaling $1.2 billion for projects that haven’t even been delineated yet. Just-in-case money, during a recession.

·       She has misallocated money intended for police on the street to social programs. The state has called her to get back in compliance with the law against defunding law enforcement.

·       Even the Democrat District Attorney is at odds with Hidalgo for failing to allow prosecution of violent felons; Hidalgo won’t fund additional prosecutors.

·       Hidalgo supports the practice of letting violent offenders out on personal recognizance bonds; i.e., no bail bonds. Since Hidalgo’s election in 2018, the increase of PR bonds to violent criminals rose from 12 to 1283, including 110 capital murder offenders. 181 have died at the hands of these criminals out on PR bonds. (I wrote about this here.) 

But what about all the things she’s done right? Hmm. I can’t seem to come up with anything to list.

Back in the Primary, the Republicans ran several capable people. But my choice then and now is Alexandra del Moral Mealer. She’s a serious woman. Unlike Hidalgo, who took on this job at age 2;7, as her first job out of graduate school, with no real world experience, Mealer has considerable leadership experience, both in the military (leading bomb squads), and in business. She’s smart, well prepared, and articulate. Doing political schmoozing isn’t really her thing; you can see it’s not natural for her. But she’s likable and real. A telling detail for me was last summer, on my way into the Republican Party of Texas convention, I ran into her in the crosswalk. She remembered my name, my association with the Cypress Texas Tea Party, where we had had her speak, and that I had supported her.

Me with Alexandra del Moral Mealer (right),
at Cypress Texas Tea Party in March 2022

She has garnered quite an army of willing block walkers. Her signs are everywhere around the county. I see almost none for Hidalgo.

Even the Houston Chronicle denied Hidalgo their endorsement and went with Mealer. The editorial board said, "Where it counts, particularly on the issue of crime, Mealer seems to be listening to many in our community who otherwise feel unheard: crime victims and their families." 

If you’re interested in seeing them side by side, there’s this video. 

 

County Commissioner

We’ve had just two of the five members of the Commissioners’ Court siding with the people, and against Hidalgo and those who control her agenda. Redistricting following the census has been used as an attempt to oust one or two of the remaining ones. My commissioner, “Cactus” Jack Cagle, is one of my favorite people in the political world. Cowboy, poet, philosopher—very fun to hear him speak on just about anything. I will definitely be voting for him. If you’re in Tom Ramsey’s district or one of the others, know that you’re doing the world a service by voting Republican in these races.

That's me with the tall guys, Cactus Jack Cagle and Mr. Spherical Model
at Cactus Jack's Campfire (picnic) in 2021

 

County Clerk

Stan Stanart was our County Clerk for eight years. Elections ran so much smoother then. All we had to worry about were the more traditional attempts at voter fraud—not systemic ones implemented by county officials. It would be such a pleasure to have him back. If we can get a Republican County Judge and keep our Republican County Commissioners, we could even do away with the failed attempt at using an Elections Administrator and return that duty to the County Clerk’s office.

We heard from Stan at last Saturday’s Tea Party meeting. Vide here.

 

County Treasurer

This race is even lower on the ballot than County Clerk. Kyle Scott would be such a joy in that position. He understands how the County Treasurer can keep spending under control—by not signing authorization to any spending outside the law. What a concept! He proved his contrarian abilities as a member of the Lone Star Community College board, some years ago (term-limited out). He cheers us up every time he speaks at our Tea Party. Here’s video of him from last Saturday as well.

 

Judges

As I mentioned, we have a l-l-o-o-n-n-g-g ballot, because of all the judges. This year, because of the ridiculous policy of letting violent felons out on personal recognizance bonds, it is especially important to safety in our community to oust those judges and put in judges who abide by the law. I signed on for nearly all of these judges; getting signatures saves them big bucks in filing fees. Many of them have served before but got ousted in the Beto wave or its 2020 echo. The Democrats are both inexperienced and ineffective. And in many cases they have proven dangerous to our communities. An excuse for the PR bonds is that it takes up to three years to bring a case to trial. Wouldn’t the better solution be to get through the docket faster? Managing caseload is something a good judge must do.

A favorite for me this year is Julian Ramirez, running for the 248^th Judicial District; it’s one of those criminal courts. Julian had been in the DA’s office for many years, but because of his support of the previous DA, he got ousted after Kim Ogg’s election. He has been my guy with inside info on judges for close to two decades. I believe I can trust him to do the job to make our streets safer.

 

Propositions

There are three bond propositions on the Harris County ballot. I’m voting against all three. It’s not noral to put forth bond proposals that are not even attached to planned projects, but that’s what our County Judge and her Commissioners Court are doing. During a recession. There’s no good reason.

If you’re in the City of Houston, there are another 7 or so bond proposals. I’d vote against those too. Taxing yourself at higher rates for no good reason just doesn’t make sense.

At the Harris County Republican Party Executive Committee (the precinct chairs) earlier this month, we vote to oppose all three Harris County propositions and all of the Houston propositions.

Vote All the Way Down the Ballot

Republicans tend to hesitate to vote down ballot where they don’t know all the candidates. This year especially, just trust that the Republican candidate will be better than the other guy. And vote every race all the way down the ballot. Plan on taking 20 minutes to vote—after you reach the machine. Good luck finding a place with a short line. The inexperienced Democrats running the election are particularly bad at allocating resources appropriately. In my polling location they have cut the number of machines in half from what we had in the Primary, and have cut our staff—as though we would have fewer voters in a general election than in a Primary. We’ll be adding to our staff with volunteers to make sure we can get the job done. But it appears from Early Voting, which started Monday, that we are having a high turnout. So plan your time accordingly. Paper jams took a lot of time in the Primary. The machines weren't expected to handle two-legal-size pager per voter. They now have installed a guide, which they said makes it almost impossible to jam. Nevertheless, in my training, we had a jam on our first try (not trying to jam, just trying to insert the paper). And then we had a second jam when they were demonstrating the curbside duo-go.

from page 153 of the official manual for this election

Voting in person on Election Day, preferably in your precinct polling location, is the gold standard. But if there’s any chance you can’t do it on Election Day, do Early Voting. (Locations for both here.) I didn't find a place to check for estimated wait times, but that would be handy info to have.

It took until just a couple of weeks ago, but the County’s website finally has its sample ballots up. They can’t seem to find me by name—in this place where I’ve been a registered voter for 24 years. So I use the VUID (voter unique ID) on my voter registration card, and then they recognize me.

Will your vote count? We watch for voter fraud here. There’s an army of people daily looking at the voter list of unqualified voters (dead people, people who have moved away) who have been identified but not removed from the voter rolls as they should have been. If any of those people vote, they’re immediately flagged. Also, there’s an army of trained poll watchers, in addition to the army of trained Presiding Judges, Alternate Judges, and Clerks. If you vote in person, you can believe it will be counted. And if we can get enough of us to vote to exceed their ability to cheat, that’s how we beat them.

So, vote! Vote Republican! Vote all the way down the ballot. This is indeed the most important election of our lifetime.

Primary Picks—Part I: Statewide Races

Today is already the first day of early voting in Texas. I’m sitting down today to go through the ballot and figure out—and share—who’s getting my vote in the various races.

I’ve been working hard on the Mark Ramsey for Congressional District 38 campaign. That has left me less time to go over all the others. So some I’m still fuzzy about. But at least today I can put together the info I have. Whatever happens in these races, I’m ready to support the Republican candidates in the general election, barring some catastrophic news I can’t foresee.

Today I’ll get through the statewide races. The local races and judicial races will take additional posts later this week.

Governor

Governor Greg Abbott has a number of challengers this year. People outside Texas might not be aware of reasons for displeasure. We have a conservative state. We’re not locked down. Business is growing. In fact, businesses—and people—from locked down states are moving here in droves.

Public Service Announcement: Y’all are welcome here, but leave your blue state politics behind.

Anyway, what has Texans riled can be summed up with pandemic response government overreach. Governor Abbott, in campaign materials, is claiming Texas is successful because we didn’t lock down. But we did. It was comparatively short, about four weeks, a week longer for “nonessential” businesses. Then it became a local prerogative. But we did shut down. Remember the Shelley Luther, Dallas salon owner, who was arrested for opening back up a few days early? She had people on her payroll who needed income for food and housing; after a month she had to open up. So, yes, we did shut down. And it took quite a long time before the state stopped local jurisdictions from forcing lockdowns and mandates.

And mandates—that’s another thing. We never actually had mask or vaccine mandates statewide. But we didn’t get the governor to step in against them until fall 2021. A year and a half of allowing local places to impose mask mandates—on school children, on workers, on private businesses, on churches. And vaccine mandates were allowed under certain circumstances—like for healthcare workers, regardless of whether they had natural immunity. Governor Abbott’s executive order to stop mandates came at the end of the third special legislative session. That means it was his fourth opportunity to put forth an executive order at a time that the legislature could then follow up to make it lawful. But he waited until it was too late for the legislature to act—until 2023.

Back a decade or more earlier, Governor Rick Perry got into trouble with Texans by calling for a vaccine mandate of Gardasil for young women. It’s intended to prevent the spread of some causes of HPV (human papilloma virus), an STD that can lead to cervical cancer. But it had been tested on women 16-26 old—so untested on those younger, and he was requiring it for 12 and up. There were risks, including a few deaths. And it is totally unnecessary for young women who are not sexually active. He seemed shocked when there was an uproar against his mandate.

What I don’t understand is any elected official who claims to believe in the Constitution—and I’ve been a big Abbott fan in the past for his ability to articulate constitutional principles—thinking they have authority under any circumstances to force people to put something into their bodies. Ever. Even if it’s a massive Ebola outbreak. Go ahead and make a recommendation. But do not suppose you control the sovereign bodies of individual citizens.

Add to this disappointment the lack of response to the conservative grassroots and their legislative priorities.

So, Governor Abbot has challengers. There are many, but foremost are Allen West, Don Huffines, and Chad Prather. I have good and bad to say about each. You can see candidate forums here and here. Governor Abbott did not participate. I also recommend checking out the Conservative Coalition of Harris County voter’s guide and questionnaires. If you go to their website, you can get their recommendations in a page or two; they only endorse when a candidate gets 70% of their board’s support. You can also click on the level of race—federal, state, county—and get the questionnaire answers that the candidate submitted, and links to other information that candidate provided. This is for Governor and the other state, congressional, and county races.

Allen West, former military, former representative in Florida, until he was redistricted out of his district and couldn’t retain the seat. He moved to Texas—his wife’s choice after lots of military-required moves in their life. Two years ago he ran for state GOP party chair. Name recognition paid off. We had a good administrator in that position. But the grassroots elected West—during that weird convention where we were forced at the last minute to do the largest political gathering in the country (world?) online, purportedly because of COVID-19. There were tremendous problems involved—including denial of service hacking. Eventually, then, West took over the remainder of the convention. And we never really finished. We didn’t get to discuss the platform. We put off handling remaining business. It was a mess. Not necessarily caused by him, but not relieved by him either.

Then he steps down less than a year before the next convention (to be held in person in Houston in June 16-18). I have friends who explain this. There was a rule that he couldn’t run for governor while holding that other elected office, and he felt the need to run for governor. There are those who thought he only ran for RPT chair as a step to something higher, and now it appears they were right.

West talks a good conservative message. I like that. And he’s charismatic enough to draw people in. But I have yet to see him actually succeed in administration.

Then there’s Don Huffines. He’s a former state senator from near Dallas, with a good conservative voting record. He has an unfortunate way of sounding like a used car salesman, but there are times I’ve been leaning toward him. However, in the forums there have been a couple of things that trigger a negative response. One is his push for replacing state property tax with some version of a consumption tax, not necessarily a bad thing. He explained that he’s run the numbers. We run a surplus in Texas, and that should be used to buy down property taxes, and over time we can convert to a consumption tax. But, he says this will only take 8 to 10 years. That may very well be true. But no one can go into office with a plan that they may not be there to complete and expect it to happen. What mess would we be in if we were halfway there—with consumption taxes increasing to take over for property taxes—and then some other leader comes in and keeps the property taxes too?

Then there’s Chad Prather. When he got in the race, people couldn’t tell if he was serious. He’s an entertainer, with a show on The Blaze, where he does political commentary. And he’s known for being provocative, in a Texas sort of way. He started out doing YouTube videos from his truck, wearing a cowboy hat. The things he said rang true and spread. Sometimes what he says, though, is too spicy for my taste. But in the forums, he actually comes off as the most conversant in the Constitution and how government should be run according to those principles. He’s intelligent, articulate, and convincing. What I don’t know is whether he could actually translate those principles into running a state that’s something like the 12^th largest economy in the world. The principles work—every time they’re tried. But would he have the influence to implement the correct principles?

Chad Prather, image from his campaign website

What I expect to happen is that Abbott will win the Primary, and he will handily be reelected against Democrat challenger Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke, who lost against Ted Cruz in a Senate race a few years ago. This is the Beto who said, “Heck, yeah, we’re taking their guns,” but has suddenly now modified to saying he’s a great fan of the 2^nd Amendment. That’s not going to convince anyone here in Texas.

Anyway, I plan to do something of a protest Primary vote, possibly for Chad Prather, maybe Huffines. This is to let Governor Abbott know that we expect better from him. Then I’ll support Abbott, who is light years far and away better than the likes of former Congressman Beto, who shouldn’t be elected to anything ever again.

I’m going to have to be briefer about the rest of these races.

 

Lieutenant Governor

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick is from our part of Texas. He was state senator for my district before this position. We want to like him here. But, as with Governor Abbott, we feel disappointed. When he put out his priorities at the beginning of last year’s legislative session, it did not fully encompass the grassroots legislative priorities—the things the state convention voted on that they wanted the legislature to accomplish. Of our 8 priorities, some version of 4 got passed, and that was better than any previous Republican-led legislature in the nearly two decades of GOP leadership. Still, what happened to the other things? Why, for instance, couldn’t we get a vote on the Senate floor once our school choice bill made it out of committee—with the support of even a Democrat committee member? The Lt. Governor is leader of the Senate. His priorities get done. But this priority did not.

So, again there are challengers: Daniel Miller (website here); Trayce Bradford (website here); Aaron Sorrells (website here); Zach Vance (website here); and Todd Bullis (website here). There was a candidate forum (Patrick did not attend) in Wise County; video here.

 

Daniel Miller is probably the most well-known. He heads the Texas Nationalist Movement (Texit—I wrote about it here), although he’s not talking about that much on the campaign. He would probably see to it that the question gets put before the people of Texas, which is all he’s been asking for—and that is in the party platform. It just never gets anywhere in the legislature, which it must go through first. His book on the subject is convincing, and I’ve leaned toward that. But in truth I want the United States to remain whole and return to the Constitution. So, until that becomes impossible, I think that’s where most Texans are. Nevertheless, Miller knows the law and the Constitution—and the state constitution—better than most. I also have liked some of what Aaron Sorrells said in the forum.

Daniel Miller, image from his campaign website

 

So, again, I may do another Primary protest vote here, probably for Daniel Miller, in the hopes that Lt. Governor Patrick will wake up to our displeasure that he hasn’t kept faith with us. I think he can do better.

 

Texas Attorney General

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (campaign info here) will have primary challengers in 2022. He has made national news, and again those outside Texas (and many inside) will wonder why the challengers. There is a corruption lawsuit always looming in the background; his defense seems to be saying that it is not criminal, not that it wasn’t done. I don’t know enough to say. But there have been a number of issues where my lawyer son Political Sphere has raised questions about his incompetence. My disappointment has been his slowness to prosecute election fraud—even when the evidence is laid out for him in detail from people I know who did the investigation here in Harris County.

 

The challengers include current Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush (campaign info here), former TX Supreme Court Justice Eva Guzman (campaign info here), and US Rep. Louie Gohmert (campaign info here).

 

Eva Guzman,
image from her campaign website

George P. Bush is a Bush, which is a drawback this decade. He was actually educationally qualified to be Land Commissioner. People were upset about his handling of the Alamo preservation approach. Mostly I was not. But he had some transparency issues, to which he eventually opened the books. That said, I don’t see evidence that he’s qualified to be Attorney General.

 

Louie Gohmert is a US representative, and has been pretty reliably conservative. He also ruffles feathers. That’s a good thing, if also effective in making good things happen. Son Political Sphere doesn’t trust that he can translate that into Attorney General skills.

 

Eva Guzman, on the other hand, is a former state Supreme Court justice, and definitely has the skills and demeanor. I doubt that she’ll have enough push to oust an incumbent, but I would be pleased to see her in that position. So I’ll give her my vote in the Primary.

Texas General Land Office Commissioner

Dr. Jon Spiers,
image from his campaign website

The Texas Land Commissioner position is open, as GLO Commissioner George P. Bush is running for a different office. The candidates are Dr. Jon Spiers (campaign info here), State Senator Dawn Buckingham (campaign info here), former Texas Real Estate Commissioner Weston Martinez (campaign info here), Ben Armenta (campaign info here), Victor Avila (campaign info here), Rufus Lopez, Don W. Minton (campaign info here), and Tim Westley (campaign info here). Texas Scorecard has video conversations with five of the Texas Land Commissioner candidates here.

I haven’t spent a lot of time on this race. My first impression is to support Jon Spiers. He’s from here locally, so I got somewhat acquainted with him several years ago. He was one of eight candidates in the Congressional District 2 race after the retirement of Rep. Ted Poe; Dan Crenshaw won that race, but several of the candidates were impressive. Spiers was quite good on the Obamacare issue, which was on all our minds at the time. And he was good on other issues as well. He’s a former heart surgeon turned medical attorney (an accident made it impossible for him to continue doing heart surgery, so he went to law school). He seems thoroughly conservative.

I suggest, again, looking at their videos. And also check the Conservative Coalition of Harris County voter’s guide and questionnaires. 

 

Texas Agriculture Commissioner

 

Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller (campaign info here) will be challenged by Rep. James White (campaign info here) and Carey Counsil (campaign info here). Texas Scorecard article here. Texas Scorecard has video conversations with the each of the three candidates here. Again, this is not a race I have spent a lot of time on. There are whispers of some corruption that I can’t seem to get clarity on. Maybe true, maybe spin, maybe just an attempt to discredit for political reasons. I don’t know. But my outside view is that Sid Miller has been a good Ag Commissioner, and I plan to vote for him.

Sid Miller, Texas Ag Commissioner
screenshot from this campaign video

 

 

Wayne Christian,
image from campaign website

Texas Railroad Commissioner

 

The Texas Railroad Commission is a three-person group who handle oil & gas/energy in the state. There are long historical reasons for the name, which seems confusing. But this is really about the energy industry in Texas. Only one of the three is up this election. Texas Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian has several challengers. All candidates include Wayne Christian, Tom Slocum Jr., Sarah Stogner, Marvin “Sarge” Summers, Dawayne Tipton. I suggest, again, the CCHC questionnaire, which also shows links to their websites and social media. But my impression is that Wayne Christian has done well enough and will get my vote.

 

 

Texas Comptroller

 

This is essentially an accounting, or treasurer position.  Mark Goloby is challenging Glenn Hegar for Texas Comptroller. Goloby campaign info here. Hegar campaign info here. Goloby is actually precinct chair of my next-door precinct. He spent several years accomplishing putting an end to the Chapter 313 problem. He spoke at our Tea Party on this. It wasn’t an easy issue to take on, because it takes some explanation (I never seem able to repeat the explanations afterward). I supported him in that effort and was glad the legislature finally did what was needed—which was actually to do nothing, to not renew. But Goloby is saying the Comptroller hasn’t yet updated practices. And there are some other issues.

 

Overall I think Glenn Hegar has been a good Comptroller. One story I read acknowledged this, but added that he ought to deal with the issues brought up by his challenger. If he does that, we can be satisfied. So Hegar will get my vote—and we’ll be watching.

Glenn Hegar, image from campaign website

 

Next up, in a post later this week, will be the US congressional races and other local and county races. There are a few statewide judicial races, but rather than include them today, I’ll handle them in a separate post that will include local judicial races as well.