EXCLUSIVE — A prominent school choice advocacy group launched a new super PAC Monday with the expressed goal of targeting state lawmakers who oppose expanding school choice, including in primary races.
The American Federation for Children, a nonprofit organization that lobbies for school choice, launched its new AFC Victory Fund PAC Monday and said it will spend at least $10 million during the 2024 election cycle to back candidates supportive of school choice. The PAC already has $6 million in commitments.
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"With AFC Victory Fund, we are taking our work to the next level, intending to invest at least $10 million in state-level races to ensure the interests of parents are represented at ballot boxes in key districts from coast to coast," American Federation for Children CEO Tommy Schultz said in a statement. "With $6 million already committed, we are shaping up to have our best cash position ever ahead of the primary season."
The new PAC builds on recent efforts by the American Federation for Children to back pro-school choice candidates at the state level. In an interview with the Washington Examiner, Ryan Cantrell, the organization's director of government affairs, said the new PAC will allow the organization to combat campaign spending by teachers unions.
"There is endless amounts of money that the unions have to fight to keep school choice from expanding even further, but that's why AFC is excited about this [PAC] because it gives us more flexibility, it gives us more ability to have an impact on some of those places where the union grip is still too strong," Cantrell said. "This structure is going to allow us to scale up and be even more nimble, be more effective, than we have been previously."
The PAC's launch comes as a number of Republican-controlled states have enacted sweeping school choice legislation. In 2023, Florida, Utah, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, and North Carolina were among the states that enacted universal school choice programs. The political momentum for school choice, Cantrell said, has never been stronger.
"Republicans, Democrats, independents, all agree that parents should have more options for their kids," he said. "And so that's what we're really trying to seize on right now — the majority of parents really want to see this happen."
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The PAC will be involved in a number of state legislator races in 2024 and will likely target incumbent Republicans who oppose school choice during primary elections. The committee also plans to weigh in on a November special election for a seat in the Texas House of Representatives, where Republican lawmakers have been at odds for months over enacting school choice, despite strong support for the policy from Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX).
"I think [the special election] is going to be a litmus test for what school choice ends up looking like in Texas over the next year," Cantrell told the Washington Examiner. "We've seen the House in Texas refuse to get school choice across the finish line, and so I think the special election is going to require every single candidate in that race to be very clear about what school choice means to them."