The Texas House is expected to vote on education savings accounts — what critics often call school vouchers — this week.
The Senate passed their version of the bill early in the session, and have been waiting on the full House to take up the issue.
Blaise Gainey, who covers politics for The Texas Newsroom, said he’s expecting a long floor debate.
“There are 150 members in the House chamber, if they’re all there that day,” he said.
“This has been an issue that’s been talked about for years and Democrats have been against it from the time the bill was thought about, before anything was written on paper. And so I would expect them to try and amend the bill in a way to limit the exposure of any voucher-like program that comes out, or maybe amend the bill to try and just make it so bad that it’s not actually useful. Obviously, they’ll vote against the bill and try to stop it that way.”
The real test, however, will be if rural Republicans support the bill.
“If you remember, Gov. Greg Abbott basically got a bunch of incumbents kicked out for being against the bill during special sessions and the last regular session in 2023,” Gainey said. “And so if those rural Republicans he got in… He believes that they will vote for the bill, but you never know.”
The House is not debating their own version of the bill, Gainey said.
“What’s happening is the House actually just basically put their bill language onto Senate Bill 2 and now they’re going to debate passing that,” he said. “So they basically just went a step ahead. Usually this happens on the House floor, but they did it in committee this time. It’s just is a little less work for them when they bring it up.”
However, even if the bill is passed by the House, Gainey said there are still differences to work out with the Senate.
“There are still differences between what the chambers want when it comes to exactly how much each education savings account will be, and also who can get them and sort of who has first dibs on them,” he said. “The House’s version prioritizes (low income families) a little bit more and sort limits how many high-income or high-earning families can take advantage of these.”
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The Senate is also taking up a House education bill this week — one that would regulate the purchase, adoption and use of instructional materials by public schools.
“It’s about books,” Gainey said. “For a while now, people have been trying to get certain books out of classrooms or out of libraries in schools. This essentially gives the State Board of Education the right to have a statewide ban on specific books…
Right now it’s a district by district basis. Some districts have more than a hundred books banned, the others have 10 and maybe some have none. But basically they want it to be a statewide thing, where it’s not a piecemeal approach by each district.”
Gainey said he is also watching a bill this week that would enforce collaborations between local sheriff’s offices and immigration enforcement.
“It makes sure that sheriffs departments and local law enforcement are working with ICE to detain and eventually try to get people deported if they don’t have the correct credentials to be in Texas,” he said.
