Mapping the Texas "Choice" Money
I continue to look at ways to understand and visualize how the money flows in Texas Politics. I still love my pie charts and relationship circles, but a good Sankey chart also hits home.
To see how billionaires can impact races in Texas, the voucher push is a perfect example. Let me walk you through it.
Mapping the 💰 flowing from billionaires & millionaires into PAC and to candidates, all in the name of kneecapping Texas public education (and getting those public tax dollars, allowing them to segregate, indoctrinate, and line pockets) is illuminating.
This is the big view, with all of the various elements captured. It is a web. Let’s talk about a few specifics.
Billionaire Jeff Yass dropped $16,700,000, with $10.25 million going to Gov Greg Abbott, $5.7 mil to AFC Victory Fund, and $750k to Lt Gov Dan Patrick. All to drive vouchers.
Gov Greg Abbott took the money from Yass and other "we want vouchers" donor money and dropped a ton of it into a whole series of pro-voucher candidates in the Republican Primaries.
The same time Abbott took the Yass money to go support pro-voucher candidates, AFC Victory Fund took its Yass money (supplemented by other pro-voucher big money donors) and attacked anti-voucher candidates.
Abbott was For. AFC was Against. But it benefited the same people.
Playing alongside AFC Victory (and receiving contributions from AFC) adding to the vouchers propaganda was Family Empowerment Coalition, funded by more Texas billionaires / millionaires.
Overlaps with people who play in Dunn / Wilks world show up here.
I've gone and done it. I invoked Dunn and Wilks. For simplicity, I did an isolation on their money and those who tend to roll right with them. I think it gives a little clearer picture on their push for vouchers (and other Christian nationalist legislation).
This is the Dunn / Wilks section on the big overall map
And this is about more than just “vouchers”. Because the people behind the scenes don’t really see vouchers and charters as totally separate things. They function together as part of “school choice”, and you see the organizations and some of the people who fund vouchers also funding the push for charters.
Perfect example of the Charter money pushing for Vouchers is seen in Texans for Educational Freedom. I mean, Charter Schools Now directly funded them.
If you believe in public education as foundational in our democracy, you need to understand that those pushing the voucher propaganda have an agenda. It isn’t about kids. It’s the same thing since 1954: money, religion, and racism.
We've got choices at the ballot box in November. I hope you show up and vote for our kids, communities, state, and country. We only build up this country by shoring up the foundations, not by tearing them down brick by brick. The public school is that foundation.
See it. Name it. Fight it.
Thank you🙏🏼