Abbott encourages faith leaders to "go to the pulpit" on vouchers

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) took part in a telephone town hall Tuesday with faith leaders from across the state. The town hall, hosted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation, focused on the issue of private school choice, aka vouchers, and how faith leaders can assist the governor in his lobby effort to get the issue through a Legislature that has shown unwillingness—particularly in the House—to pass voucher legislation.  

Abbott issued a challenge to faith leaders to engage on the topic and “go to the pulpit” to encourage their congregations to support vouchers. His speech, which lasted for approximately 10 minutes, focused on a parent’s Biblical responsibilities, parents’ right to choose the best educational setting for their child, and his belief that public schools are undermining parental rights by “indoctrinating” students and teaching them a “woke agenda.” He stated he believed it was “immoral” to “force” parents to send their children to public schools that teach things the parents fundamentally disagreed with—political talking points that insert state government into the personal religious decisions of individual Texans, as well as ignore the many school choice options already available to parents, up to and including home school, as well as the broad parental rights outlined in the Texas Education Code to examine curriculum and opt out of specific content. ATPE Governmental Relations Director Monty Exter was interviewed by The Dallas Morning News following the town hall, telling the News’ Bob Garrett significant duplication already exists between traditional public schools and charter schools: “The last thing we need is to layer on a third taxpayer-funded system, especially one with little to no accountability back to the taxpayer.” 

At the end of his speech, Abbott outlined his expectations for school choice/voucher legislation moving forward. Abbott offered up an unsupported claim that the “votes seem to be lining up” in the Legislature on the issue and then immediately laid out a plan that seemingly belies his confidence in the statement. He reminded those on the call the governor can call a special session at any time and stated he intends to hold a third special session in October (the first two called earlier this summer on property taxes), and then—if the voucher legislation is unsuccessful—call another special session, likely in January. If that doesn’t work, Abbott declared his intention to target those who vote against vouchers during primary season, specifically citing the efforts of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who passed a voucher earlier this year after primarying several voucher opponents.   

The call ended with a call-to-action from fundamentalist religious activist Dave Welch, who encouraged those on the call to speak on the issue of parental empowerment and school choice from their pulpits Sunday, Oct. 15.   

This call marked a renewed interest in the voucher issue from the governor, who was quiet over the summer after spending most of the regular session campaigning for vouchers at private and parochial schools. The governor named school choice an emergency item for the 88th legislative session and threw great effort into getting the legislation over the finish line, including holding a sparsely attended school choice rally in March.