Local elections are much more important for conservatives than the prominent races for the U.S. Senate and the White House. Not only can real change be brought about by winning state and local races, but local election results can also have an impact on Republicans in other states who watch election results and see how the wind is blowing.
Earlier this month, Texas voters flushed out a significant number of “moderate” Republicans who could always be counted on to align with Democrats on the biggest votes, most prominently school choice. Just a few days later, the Georgia legislature finally passed meaningful school choice legislation. There was correlation between these two events.
This Georgia victory didn’t even require incumbents to be ousted from office. Instead, a group of Georgia Republican House members flipped their position on school choice, and voted for the same legislation they had reliably voted against in the past. They saw what happened in Texas and decided it was better to betray the teachers’ lobby than to be voted out of office in the next Republican primary.
First, let’s take a look at Texas, where the Democrat-RINO alliance in the House not only defeated school choice, but had also aligned to impeach Attorney General Ken Paxton. The impeachment trial activated the conservative base, causing moderate and liberal Republican Senators to go into self-preservation mode and acquit Paxton.
But for the anti-school choice, anti-Paxton, anti-conservative Republicans in the House, they had already sealed their fates. They were wiped out in the Republican primary on March 5.
Voters were clear, one Republican strategist said: No more “betraying conservative principles or collaborating with Democrats.”
When Shelley Luther announced she was challenging state Rep. Reggie Smith in this year’s Republican primary, some party members dismissed it as a quixotic bid from the former Dallas salon owner, who rose to prominence in 2020 for defying a pandemic lockdown order.
But despite being outspent more than 2-to-1, Luther scored an upset win over Smith in Tuesday’s primary, virtually ensuring she will represent the bright red North Texas district when lawmakers reconvene in January. Luther is among a crop of firebrand Republican candidates likely headed to the Texas House next year to replace the record nine GOP incumbents ousted on Tuesday.
There are still a few more Democrat-aligned “Republicans” who did not win a majority of votes in their primaries, so they are headed to runoffs. These include House Speaker Dade Phelan, who has persistently worked to kill school choice legislation. The great flushing of faux-conservative Republicans in the Texas legislature is not yet over.
Republican voters in Texas didn’t just throw out anti-school choice legislators in the primary, they also defeated three “moderate” Republicans on the state’s highest court. These judges had sought to institutionalize election fraud in Texas’ blue cities by prohibiting Attorney General Paxton from prosecuting those who cast illegal ballots.
“Insurgent Republicans make major gains in Texas primaries” [Texas Tribune – 3/06/2024]
Six Texas House Republicans who fought Abbott’s attempt to create a school voucher program in Texas lost their primaries to pro-voucher candidates, while another four were forced into runoffs to defend their rural districts.
Voters also ejected three Republican judges from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, the state’s highest criminal court, including Presiding Judge Sharon Keller, who garnered less than 40% of the vote. Paxton sought to oust the three judges after they ruled in 2021 that his office didn’t have the power to unilaterally prosecute voter fraud.
It was only a few days after the Texas primaries that seven Republicans in the Georgia statehouse flipped from their previous opposition to school choice, this time voting for it.
“Georgia school voucher bill narrowly clears longtime obstacle with state House passage” [AP – 3/14/2024]
Georgia Republicans powered a voucher plan funding private school tuition and home schooling through the state House on Thursday, nearing a goal that has long eluded the state’s school choice advocates as GOP leaders overcame longstanding skepticism from some rural members of their party.
The House voted 91-82 for Senate Bill 233, passing it with one vote to spare. The same bill failed last year when 16 Republicans voted against it. Thursday, seven Republicans and one Democrat who opposed the measure last year flipped to support it.
Those seven Republicans whose votes flipped didn’t want to be on the receiving end of what they just saw happen at Texas ballot boxes.
With Senate passage now complete, school choice is about to become law in Georgia. I have been very tough on Governor Brian Kemp for his EV misadventures, but to his credit, he has promised to sign school choice into law in Georgia.
Georgia senators gave final approval Wednesday to a plan to create a $6,500 voucher funding for private school tuition and home schooling, sending the measure to Gov. Brian Kemp for his signature.
[buck.throckmorton at protonmail dot com]