Cornyn says he wants no part of bid to defeat Texas lawmakers who killed voucherlike plan

By Robert T. Garrett

AUSTIN — U.S. Sen. John Cornyn on Tuesday bucked the trend of top Texas Republicans who are condemning 21 GOP state representatives who joined Democrats in killing a school funding bill’s voucherlike proposal late last week.

Cornyn said he supports “school choice” personally. But the state’s senior U.S. senator lamented intraparty bickering he said might erode the Texas GOP’s majority in the Legislature.

“I’m part of the politics of addition, not subtraction,” Cornyn told reporters after helping distribute turkeys and other staples at an Austin food bank’s monthly distribution.

“I think internal fights among Republicans [are] not particularly helpful to our party maintaining its majority status.”

Late Monday, Gov. Greg Abbott pointedly excluded the 21 from a list of GOP state representatives he endorsed for reelection.

On Friday, the Texas House stripped education savings accounts, which would use public funds to help families pay for private school, from an extensive school funding bill that also provided teacher pay raises and financial boosts to public campuses.

After the 84-63 vote, the House sent the bill back to committee, a seeming death knell for the voucherlike plan in the year’s fourth special session.

Within hours of the chamber’s action, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took to social media to blast the 21 GOP state representatives who voted for College Station Republican Rep. John Raney’s amendment rejecting ESAs.

Cruz said the dissident Republicans who “voted today with radical unions over parents and kids” behaved in a “completely shameful” manner.

“Parents in these districts will work vigorously in the primaries to defeat them,” Cruz wrote on X. “School choice advocates are coming for these State Reps.’s seats, and they’re coming HARD.”

Patrick, the Senate’s presiding officer and a longtime school choice advocate, said on X he was “stunned” that the 21 House Republicans stripped out the ESAs.

“These members apparently think their own view is more important than the views of their voters, of which over 80% of Republicans support school choice,” he wrote.

On Tuesday, Patrick criticized House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, for abstaining from the vote on Raney’s amendment. Although Texas House speakers rarely cast votes, Patrick said in a written statement it was “cowardly” for Phelan to abstain.

“Talk about a lack of leadership,” Patrick said. “It’s hard to pass school choice when the Speaker is too cowardly to vote for it himself.”

Phelan spokespersons did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Choice is a positive thing’

Cornyn defended using taxpayer money for private school tuition, saying federal Pell grants allow recipients choice of where to use the money.

“School choice is a positive thing,” Cornyn said. “I’m glad we have the largest charter school movement in the country right here in Texas.”

Cornyn said he sympathizes with Texans who “can’t afford to buy a home” in the best school districts.

However, Cornyn said he also can comprehend conflicting pressures on the 21 Texas House Republicans who defied Abbott on Friday.

The three-term GOP governor has vowed to take the ESA issue to Republican voters, a commitment he seemed to renew in a written statement late Friday.

“I am in it to win it,” Abbott said of “the fight for parent empowerment.”

Cornyn said he’ll remain a spectator.

“I understand some of the rural legislators who felt like that was not the right vote for them in their district because of the impact of school districts on the economy and jobs and the like,” he said.

“So I will let that play out as it may,” Cornyn said. “I think Gov. Abbott’s going to continue to pursue the savings account route and I’m watching very closely but I’m not going to get in the middle of that.”

This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.