Abbott continues pushing for school choice, despite claiming he has votes to pass

AUSTIN, Texas — Less than 24 hours after the November 2024 election, Governor Greg Abbott held a press conference to claim victory in the fight for a school vouchers-like plan. Despite that victory, Abbott is still whipping votes to support plans in the Texas legislature.

"There's more than enough co-authors in the Texas House who remain committed to ensure that legislation is going to pass," Governor Abbott said, in a press conference he called on Tuesday, asked about his making a "sales pitch." "I have every reason to think there will be even more than that in favor of it when school choice hits the House floor."

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House Speaker Dustin Burrows, sitting next to the Governor and the Lieutenant Governor for the first press conference of the so-called "Big Three" in years, reiterated the Governor's claims, telling reporters, "There will be more votes on the House floor when school choice passes than there are co-authors."

House Bill 3, the House package that would allocate taxpayer money toward private education, commonly referred to as "school choice" by supporters and "school vouchers" by critics, would calculate the average amount of money going toward a student in public schools and match 85% of that for private school students. Currently, it has 76 listed co-authors, all Republican; that, alone, is enough to pass the House.

Senate Bill 2, by contrast, would simply allocate $10,000 in taxpayer money toward every private school student who qualifies. That bill already passed out of the Senate, largely along party lines. Abbott and Burrows said the House Public Education Committee is expected to pass HB 3 out of committee early next week, followed by a vote on the House floor soon thereafter.

"The passage of that policy is by no means a sure thing," Joshua Blank, research director at the Texas Politics Project, said. "The House and the Senate have put forward very different proposals, and ultimately the Governor still has to weigh in and see if whatever they agree to is really enough."

Democrats have specifically called into question the level of support behind the legislation. Asked by a CBS Austin reporter earlier this month, Rep. James Talarico, D-Austin, criticized the Governor's previous vote counting, arguing that the push against such legislation will continue to the end.

"Even though there's a lot more support this time, nobody's fully certain that they're going to pass a bill," Blank said.