When Sen. Ted Cruz pitched the president on the most far-reaching federal school choice measure on the books, he encouraged Donald Trump to consider his legacy.
“I made the argument to him that there was no provision in this bill that would have a greater legacy than the school choice provision,” Cruz told The Daily Signal in an exclusive interview.
The Texas Republican authored an amendment in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act expanding Section 529 college-savings plans to allow parents to pay for K-12 education expenses up to $20,000 per year. Previously, the distribution cap for the tax-neutral savings accounts was $10,000.
The amendment also expanded eligible expenses to include secondary expenses for students enrolled at public, private, or sectarian K-12 schools.
In June, the Texas lawmaker went to the White House with Republican colleagues Reps. Burgess Owens, R-Utah, and Byron Donalds, R-Fla., to sell the president on the school choice provision.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, there are lots of elements of this bill that are really important that we’re fighting hard to get accomplished. We’re going to get them done, but at the same time, we should think about ‘legacy,’” Cruz said. “What will make a real and meaningful difference 10 years, 20 years, 30 years down the road?”
The president, who had already signed an executive order promoting school choice, received the amendment “very well,” according to Cruz, but the senator’s biggest battle would come weeks later.
Three times, the Senate parliamentarian was on the verge of stripping Cruz’s amendment due to the Senate’s so-called Byrd Rule, which is meant to restrict the process to budgetary policy only, and three times, he fought back.
“I went and personally litigated the case to the parliamentarian, which is unusual,” he said. “Typically, staff make those arguments. I care passionately about [school] choice, so I went in directly to make the arguments, and we had to be nimble to respond to the concerns raised by the parliamentarian and to alter the bill accordingly.”
While an earlier version of the bill applied to all 50 states, Cruz agreed to change the bill so states have to opt-in to participate in scholarships. Cruz expects red states, such as Texas and Florida, to opt in and blue states, such as New York and California, not to do so, due to pressure from teachers unions.
But Cruz predicts that in 10 years, all 50 states will have opted in.
“As a few years go on, parents in New York, parents in California are going to see kids in red states getting billions of dollars of scholarships to go to the schools of their choice,” the senator said. “Parents in blue states love their kids just as much as parents in red states, and I think it will create a serious and growing political pressure in those blue states to opt in so that their kids can be eligible for scholarships as well.”
Cruz also had to fight a “poison pill” in the House version of the bill that would have prevented Christian schools from participating in the scholarships. In the House bill, the tax credits expired after four years, but Cruz worked to make the program permanent.
When he initially passed an amendment expanding 529 saving plans to cover K-12 education in 2017, it was the most far-reaching school choice legislation that had been passed. The provision in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act goes “dramatically beyond that.”
“I believe this is the civil rights issue of the 21st century, and millions of kids are going to have a dramatically enhanced ability to get an excellent education because of this landmark school choice legislation,” Cruz said.