Last week, after three years of monomaniacal focus, Gov. Greg Abbott got his coveted school voucher bill approved by the Texas House. But he had to resort to what Texas political reporter Scott Braddock called “a pressure campaign like we’ve never seen from any Texas governor,” a campaign in which Abbott threatened fellow Republicans and called in help from the most intimidating figure in his party – Donald Trump.
Senate Bill 2’s approval came on an 86-61 vote in the wee hours of April 17. All Democrats in attendance voted no. All but two Republicans voted yes. The Texas Senate has already approved SB 2, so it is now certain to become law. It will allow families to use public taxpayer dollars, contributed by all of us, to pay for their kids to attend private school. The proposal is expected to cost about $5 billion per year by 2030. Voucher opponents believe it will slowly bleed funding from public education. Many expect it to lead to higher taxes.
The bill’s fate was uncertain as the day of the House vote dawned. The previous day, Braddock had written on social media that Democratic and Republican voucher opponents had a plan to attach an amendment to SB 2, tying approval of it to a statewide vote to be held in November. According to the Quorum Report, the plan had the support of all 62 Democrats and as many as 23 Republicans, enough for it to easily pass. The report said that after learning of the plan, Abbott called Republican representatives into his office “to threaten vetoes of their unrelated bills if any of them offer amendments or vote for changes to the bill.”
The next morning, Abbott met with the House Republican caucus and put Trump on speakerphone. Video later posted to X shows the representatives clustered around the phone as Trump rambles, telling them the vote on SB 2 will be “one of the most important votes you’ve ever taken” and promising “you’re not going to get hurt by it.” The call seemed to have the intended effect. As Braddock later put it, after Trump’s remarks, “all the starch came out of any remaining GOP dissent.”
That became obvious hours later when debate over the bill began. Voucher opponents had expected a Republican to offer the amendment tying SB 2 to a statewide vote. After Trump’s call, the task fell to Democratic Rep. James Talarico.
“You’re not going to get hurt by it.” – Donald Trump on speakerphone encouraging Texas Republicans to pass vouchers
Talarico described the amendment as the brainchild of a group of “MAGA moms” – grassroots Republicans who he did not typically work with. Then he described Abbott’s pressure campaign. “A few days ago, there was growing bipartisan support in this chamber for this commonsense idea,” Talarico said. “But then the governor of our state started calling members into his office one by one, and threatening to veto all the bills of any member who votes for this amendment. He threatened to make their primary elections, quote, ‘a bloodbath.’”
Republicans voted to table Talarico’s amendment, 86-62. The final vote on SB 2 came five hours later, after Republicans tabled dozens more amendments. The only Republican votes against it came from the former speaker of the House, Dade Phelan, and longtime voucher opponent Gary VanDeaver. Republicans like Drew Darby, Stan Lambert, and Charlie Geren, who led the fight against vouchers in the 2023 legislative session and were expected to support the amendment tying SB 2 to a statewide vote, made calculated decisions to support the measure.
Abbott attacked Talarico as “two-faced” after the vote, telling The Texas Tribune that the claims that he had threatened House Republicans were “absolutely not true.” But evidence immediately surfaced that suggested Abbott was lying. Rep. Jeff Barry, a Republican who campaigned against vouchers in his 2024 primary campaign, explained his vote to a disappointed constituent on a Facebook post that was shared widely. “If I voted against it I would have had every statewide and national political figure against me. Not to mention all of my bills vetoed,” Barry wrote. “If I would have voted against this, all of my bills and appropriations were at risk.”
Other anti-voucher Republicans explained that SB 2 was going to pass no matter how they voted, so they supported it in exchange for small improvements to the bill. Darby released a statement on X, saying he remains deeply skeptical of vouchers but decided to support SB 2 in an effort to “reduce the impact on our communities.” He said anti-voucher Republicans got a permanent cap on how many wealthy families can be approved for vouchers and were able to restrict so-called pop-up schools from getting voucher money immediately after opening, among other changes.
After the vote, anti-voucher Texans on both sides of the political spectrum flooded social media with statements denouncing Republicans who they described as bought off by billionaires. They also promised that the fight against the rightmost wing of the party is not over. Some, like Rep. Gina Hinojosa – the first to ally with the MAGA moms – envisioned a new political coalition arising from the defeat.
“I am done with politics as usual, and so is every Texan I know,” Hinojosa said. “It is broken. And so while this may be the end of this voucher fight, I think it is the birth of something new. I’m not sure exactly what, but I will tell you: All the prayers, all the messages, all the people tell me that this is not over.”
This article appears in April 25 • 2025.
