Texas GOP leaders begin purge of Republicans who defied them

An attempt by Texas’s top Republican officials to purge the party of the incumbents who defied them made significant ground in Tuesday’s primary.

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton had all targeted a slate of 16 Republican lawmakers who had defied them — endorsing opponents and pouring money into the races to unseat them.

The party leaders sought to punish members who blocked their push for school vouchers and backed an effort to impeach Paxton last year. They needed to unseat six of the 16 to turn the state House numbers in their favor on the school voucher vote — which they nearly succeeded in doing.

The coalition unseated 5 of the 16 — with four more going to runoffs.

“Republican primary voters have once again sent an unmistakable message that parents deserve the freedom to choose the best education pathway for their child,” Abbott said Tuesday evening.

“We will continue to help true conservative candidates on the ballot who stand with the majority of their constituents in supporting education freedom for every Texas family.”

The three also wanted to unseat House Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) — a staunch opponent of both Paxton and Patrick.

Phelan led the impeachment effort against Paxton and has sought to keep Patrick’s allies from dominating the House as he has the Senate.

The House speaker drew three primary challengers, and squeaked into a May 28 runoff against challenger David Covey, who secured endorsements from former President Trump, as well as Paxton and Patrick. 

“This runoff is not just another race, it’s the frontline of the battle for the soul of our district,” Phelan said in a statement Tuesday evening. 

“While my opponent hides behind empty rhetoric, dishonest advertising and surrogate voices, I stand before voters with a clear record of service and conservative success.”

The effort to bump off GOP dissenters unseated Texas House members Ernest Bailes, Hugh Shine, Reggie Smith, Glenn Rogers and Steve Allison. Four other Republican incumbents who had not directly opposed Abbott also fell to challengers, and three more — Gary VanDeaver, Dewayne Burns and John Kuempel — will be forced into runoffs.

While incumbents would usually have a commanding advantage in primary races, two factors helped make the difference here.

One is the rapid growth of many Texas exurbs and once-rural communities as close to 400,000 people move to the state each year.

Second, in their effort to purge the House, the state executives were bolstered by millions in contributions from PACs — some of which had received millions in out-of-state money, much of it from wealthy donors supportive of the broader school voucher movement, which is popular among Christian conservatives.

Many of these representatives had been former allies — even staunch ones — of Abbott’s, and there is little daylight between these “moderates” and the far-right wing of the party in terms of policy.

But there is a difference in terms of emphasis — with the embattled representatives somewhat less likely to prioritize culture war issues over basic governance, experts told The Hill.

One key fault line: Many of the members voted to impeach Paxton, a Trump ally, on charges that he had abused the office of attorney general to benefit political donors — something that drew Paxton’s Christian nationalist supporters such as Tim Dunn to pour millions into the race.

Two impeachment leaders won by wide margins, but a Paxton defense attorney successfully unseated another by 300 votes, potentially putting them within the margin of a recount, according to The Texas Tribune.

In all, seven of the 37 Paxton-backed challengers won outright, and another seven will go to recount.

Abbott’s voucher program push, which failed during last year’s 88th legislative session, would pull money from public schools and let parents use it for private ones.

Critics see vouchers as a giveaway to parents who already had their kids in private school and predicted it would mean further budget cuts to Texas’ already underfunded public school system, which ranks 42nd in the nation on school spending. 

In the viciously contentious primary race, these members faced deceptive attacks from Abbott, said Harvey Kronberg, who runs the Quorum Report, a nonpartisan tipsheet.

“Truth is always the first casualty of political campaigns — but in this case, the governor was lying directly to their constituents, acting in all kinds of bad faith,” Kronberg said.

For example, Abbott said the members had voted for educating undocumented children — which has been required by the Supreme Court since the 1980s. Abbott also claimed the members had voted against teacher pay raises, which the governor himself had pushed allies to bundle into a school voucher program — attempting to create a package they could not refuse.

Voucher supporters, by contrast, argued that these members had stymied Abbott in his attempt to carry forth a popular program. 

“Abbott is fighting for school choice, is fighting for an issue that the people of Texas want,” said Sherry Sylvester of the right-wing Texas Public Policy Foundation.

In this, she said he was blocked by the 16 representatives, “a small minority of people directly connected to the education establishment.”

In the week before the primary, the battle lines widened as Paxton repeatedly sued school districts for “illegal electioneering” after district members circulated lists of pro- and anti-voucher candidates.

On Monday,Paxton sued Hutto ISD northeast of Austin over a social media post that said “Vouchers hurt our public schools.”

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Abbott’s victory in the proxy battle of these elections may ultimately hurt the Republican Party, said voucher opponent Charles Foster Johnson of Pastors for Children.

“He’s helping the Democratic Party, what he’s doing. And they’re going to be some swing [districts] that are going to flip to the Democrats.”

Johnson said that he predicts that “when all the dust settles after the November election, there will be less support for vouchers than during the 88th session.”