Above: Speaker of the House Dade Phelan oversees debate in the House Chamber at the Texas Capitol.
For all the clamor over what was being called a potentially “historic vote” for vouchers by the Texas House of Representatives, the bipartisan coalition of Democrats and rural Republicans maintained their long-standing opposition against school vouchers on the House floor today.
The writing was already on the wall for Governor Greg Abbott’s pet project when, early in the morning, Representative John Raney filed an amendment—signed by more than a dozen other rural Republicans—to strip school vouchers from the $7 billion omnibus school funding House Bill 1. The amendment was adopted by a vote of 84-63.
