Raney editorial: Shame on Abbott for exacting revenge on voucher opponents
John Raney is the Republican State Representative for House District 14
In November, during the fourth called special session, I offered an amendment to strike education savings accounts, also known as vouchers, from House Bill 1, the education bill. My amendment passed on a vote of 84-63. I am proud of the voucher stance 20 of my Republican colleagues, and I took despite the intense pressure from our own political party. We stood strong and voted our districts.
I am by no means a public education expert, but I believe in my heart that using taxpayer dollars to fund an entitlement program is not conservative and is bad public policy.
Under the voucher provision of House Bill 1, the actual biennial cost to the state’s next biennium would have been as high as $7.3 billion just to provide $10,500 for each current private school student and $1,000 to each current homeschool student. Having served four terms on the House Committee on Appropriations, I can assure you, if ever vouchers pass, the Legislature will have no choice but to raise taxes. We can also kiss goodbye the notion of a reduction or elimination of school property taxes.
The Texas Education Code is an extensive, comprehensive framework of rules and laws governing tax-supported public schools. Spending taxpayer dollars to fund “choice” programs without the accountability of the code undermines our constitutional and moral duty to educate and protect the nearly 5.5 million students of Texas. A better alternative would be to reduce these rules and laws governing public schools and create more local control.
An assertion has been made that I once supported vouchers given my presence at Brazos Christian School last spring. Gov. Abbott’s staff asked me to introduce him at the event in my district. As a courtesy, I did so. I should note that I edited the lengthy introduction script presented to me by Gov. Abbott’s staff to reflect my long-time position of supporting education as a whole in addition to praising Gov. Abbott’s public education funding effort during last spring’s regular session.
House Bill 1 would have increased public school funding by over $7 billion. It would have also provided a onetime $4,000 teacher retention stipend for full-time teachers, librarians, counselors, and nurses ($2,000 for part-time), created a paid leave option to supplement FMLA benefits, increased basic allotment, increased special education funding and several grants related to it, created a teacher residency program, and offered a pathway to a six-figure salary with a focus on low-income and rural communities.
Gov. Abbott knew he did not have the votes to pass vouchers, so he tried to force the House’s hand by including it in House Bill 1 — a bill he described as an “extraordinarily effective bill.” Had House Bill 1 not been pulled by the author at the direction of leadership because vouchers were no longer included, it undoubtedly would have passed the House. Gov. Abbott took his ball and went home shifting his focus to retaliation at the polls.
President Ronald Reagan said, “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and an ally — not a 20 percent traitor.” Gov. Abbott should take a page out of President Reagan’s book. Instead, he is endorsing and reportedly helping to fund primary opponents running against the members of his own party who could not, in good conscience, vote for his voucher plan. Shame on you, Gov. Abbott.
(Representative John Raney was the author of the amendment to remove vouchers from HB 1 and one of the 21 rural Republicans representing rural communities who voted to kill vouchers. This article first appeared in the College Station Eagle newspaper. Here’s a Link to the published opinion piece.)