As States Reject Unpopular Voucher Schemes, Billionaires Try to Buy Off Lawmakers
Across the nation, state policymakers are watching Arizona’s costly, out-of-control voucher fiasco balloon and, in turn, rejecting similar schemes in their states. Despite a flood of millions in spending from pro-voucher lobbyists and billionaire donors, lawmakers — and the public — continue to say no.
Arizona’s lobbyist-backed private school voucher program is a cautionary tale for the rest of the nation. Here, we’re reeling from the impacts of an ill-considered universal voucher program which blew a massive hole in our state budget. As the costs skyrocket to nearly $1 billion this school year, voucher costs have forced our state to cut hundreds of millions from critical programs and projects, including public schools, universities and community colleges, road and water projects, and more.
Unsurprisingly, lawmakers in other states are taking one look at this costly, out-of-control fiasco and rejecting vouchers across party lines. It’s not just the price tag; as a recent poll shows, vouchers take huge hits on public support when voters see the poor academic results. Pro-voucher lobbyists have discovered that the only way to force vouchers into communities that do not want them is to buy off lawmakers. After all, this is exactly how Arizona (and other states) ended up with their voucher programs. So that’s just what they’re doing.
Spending Big to Twist the Truth
The Betsy DeVos-founded (and funded) American Federation for Children (AFC) has launched a Super PAC for the 2024 elections cycle, funded with at least $10 million to prop up pro-voucher candidates in state legislative races nationwide. Billionaire Jeff Yass, a pro-voucher East Coast megadonor, is exerting his personal influence by injecting tens of millions of dollars for pro-voucher candidates. West Texas billionaires Tim Dunn and brothers Farris and Dan Wilks have poured millions into legislative races. Their negative advertising is heavily ideologically biased, with little context, and is designed to mislead newer or low-information voters: case in point, mailers saying a lawmaker who supports public schools “doesn’t care about students or families” or “voted to leave students trapped in the wrong schools.”
Is this well-funded ruse by the privatizers working? Let’s take a closer look.
Vouchers Lose (Again) in Texas
In 2023, the Republican-controlled Texas legislature, led by rural conservatives who value the public schools that serve their communities, dug in its heels and refused to pass Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s policy centerpiece: a universal school voucher program. Despite a year of negotiations, threats, and politicking on Abbott’s part — including four special sessions — a group of 21 mostly rural Republican holdouts held firm with Democrats to prevent school vouchers from reaching Abbott’s desk. Though Abbott spent most of the year projecting false optimism in the form of “bound to pass” bluster, the loss wasn’t even particularly close.
Stung, Abbott started what amounted to a Republican civil war. He targeted former allies and began a crusade against members of his own party who had refused to support vouchers. The pro-voucher camp quickly jumped to his aid, funneling millions of dollars into the 2024 Texas Republican primary to defeat pro-public education lawmakers. This tactic mirrors the playbook AFC and other pro-voucher groups used in Iowa, spending big in primaries to boot pro-public education Republican candidates from office, thus enabling the passage of a costly universal voucher boondoggle in 2023.
The enormous amount of money pouring into the state set a new precedent for national interest spending in state legislatures. Yass, the pro-voucher East Coast megadonor, gave the governor’s campaign more than $10 million, which Abbott then used to oppose incumbents on his hit list. The Wilks brothers (Texas’ version of the Koch brothers) used their deep pockets to bankroll hardline causes like climate denial and school vouchers. West Texas billionaire Tim Dunn contributed to various PACs that poured millions into pro-voucher legislative candidates. These billionaires, and their front organizations like the AFC Victory Fund, ultimately ousted nine pro-public education legislators who had stood in their way for years.
The pro-voucher camp is declaring victory, yet it seems Texas’ newly redesigned legislative branch still has no intention of swallowing the voucher poison pill. As budget letters and public comments reveal, lawmakers’ 2025 legislative priorities make no mention of school vouchers whatsoever, signaling Republican legislative leadership doesn’t consider it a fight worth waging. The governor and his lieutenant governor are lashing out, but vouchers are by no means a done deal in Texas despite the outsized spending in this David vs. Goliath fight.
Idaho Stands Strong Against Vouchers
In March, despite intense lobbying from AFC, Idaho lawmakers rejected a bill creating tax credit vouchers. One Republican lawmaker who opposed the bill said, “It’s a very real possibility that public education will suffer, but the tax credit will go on without adjustment.” Another said the massive investment “is not being fiscally responsible.” Seven Republicans broke ranks with House majority leadership to oppose — and ultimately kill — the bill.
AFC and other pro-voucher groups responded by flooding Idaho’s May 21 primary election with hundreds of thousands of dollars — mostly on negative “attack propaganda” like TV ads and mailers. In fact, AFC holds the dubious honor of being Idaho’s top-spending lobbying group in recent years. Leading up to Idaho’s primary this year, AFC’s PAC poured more than $300,000 into advertising for pro-voucher candidates and against pro-public education incumbents. AFC itself also spent more than $81,000 in Idaho on (pro-voucher) “education issues” in the first three quarters of 2023 alone.
A spokesman for AFC’s Idaho arm defended the massive spending, saying that in order to subsidize private schools, “it’s obvious that we need a broader coalition.” But Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle says, “The fact that they think they can come into Idaho and buy these races is concerning.” And Idaho Business for Education Director Rod Gramer says, “Sadly, their targets are the very legislators who consistently vote to support the more than 300,000 students who attend our public schools. If Schultz [AFC’s CEO] and his allies win, Idaho’s public-school students lose.”
Despite the massive spending from voucher lobbying groups, Idaho’s May primary election netted mixed results. A Boise-area Republican who opposed vouchers and led the House Education Committee lost her race to a far-right voucher supporter; a Virginia-based PAC called Make Liberty Win sent out mailers accusing her of supporting “porn in school libraries.” However, the Senate’s education chair, who has questioned the benefits of vouchers, retained his seat — and the Senate lost another key voucher supporter.
With the November elections approaching, the tea leaves remain unclear heading into the next legislative session. The voucher lobby, however, continues to spend heavily, and another voucher bill is sure to resurface in January.
Pennsylvania Fights Back Against Privatization
Last year, Pennsylvania Republicans and Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro teamed up to try to advance a state-funded voucher program. Shapiro is a rare exception among Democrats, who generally support funding public schools rather than subsidizing private school vouchers. During his 2022 race for governor, Shapiro benefited from multi-million-dollar contributions from PACs with ties to some of the same billionaires who fund AFC and other pro-voucher organizations. Once in office, Shapiro sought to create a voucher program as part of Pennsylvania’s 2023-24 state budget but ultimately backed down in the face of opposition from his Democratic legislative colleagues.
Shapiro continues to receive heavy pressure from pro-voucher lobbyists, who feel stung by their loss. One such lobbying PAC, Commonwealth Action, is connected to billionaire Wall Street trader Yass, who has bankrolled pro-voucher causes in Pennsylvania for over a decade. Between April 2023 and March 2024, Commonwealth Action spent more than $973,000 in an attempt to shift public opinion of vouchers. A video from last summer funded by Commonwealth Action accused Shapiro of “choosing special interests over kids.”
Public education advocates raised the alarm on Shapiro, with over 20 groups releasing a coalition letter that urged Kamala Harris not to select him as vice president. Harris ultimately chose Governor Tim Walz, a champion of public education.
Shapiro appears resolute in his continued support of vouchers, giving the pro-voucher camp hope that their scheme will eventually become law. Indeed, Pennsylvania lawmakers recently passed through committee a voucher bill similar to last year’s failed effort, reviving what now appears to be a yearly state budget fight. In shades of Arizona’s 2022 so-called “bipartisan compromise“ that invested $1 billion into public education while also creating a runaway $1 billion per year universal voucher boondoggle, Pennsylvania lawmakers are considering investing in public schools to resolve a state court case while also creating a taxpayer-funded school voucher program.
Tennessee Thwarts Vouchers
This year, a bipartisan coalition of Tennessee lawmakers refused to pass Republican governor Bill Lee’s school voucher bill. Media reports followed that the AFC Victory Fund — the same group that spent big in Idaho — bragged about ousting anti-voucher lawmakers in Texas and planned the same strategy for Tennessee. True to form, pro-voucher PACs flooded the state’s Republican primaries with an unbelievable deluge of over $4 million, including one group tied to Yass that bought $1 million worth of TV ads.
But in Tennessee — perhaps because these groups know how deeply unpopular their cause is — voucher pushers focused their ads on other hot-button issues rather than vouchers themselves. As one veteran anti-voucher Republican pointed out, “None of the messaging talks about (vouchers)… I don’t think a pro-voucher message necessarily is yielding the results that they want to see.”
Despite massive spending, the August 1 primary didn’t turn out the way AFC hoped. Two pro-public education state lawmakers lost their races, but so did Republican pro-voucher incumbent Senate Education chair Jon Lundberg, a vocal voucher advocate who sponsored this year’s universal school voucher bill. Despite nearly $200,000 in outside spending to support Lundberg, voters chose to oust him for an anti-voucher replacement.
Pushing Vouchers is Bad Politics
The evidence overwhelmingly shows that voucher schemes are costly, ineffective and mainly serve wealthy parents. But it’s not just bad policy to support vouchers: it’s also bad politics. Pro-voucher lobbyists know these states don’t want vouchers, that voters have rejected vouchers every time they’ve been on the ballot, and that people support them even less once they see how poorly the schemes perform. Wise policymakers should learn from Arizona’s cautionary tale and listen to their constituents who overwhelmingly want investments in their local public schools and pay raises for their teachers — not the voucher lobbyists who work to defund our public schools and carpetbagger billionaires who see our children only as backpacks full of cash.