‘It’s about follow the dollars’: Drew Darby breaks down future of school vouchers & rural Texas
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BIG COUNTRY, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) — In this week’s Big Country Politics Sunday conversation, House District 72 State Representative Drew Darby discussed what the future of school vouchers and rural Texas could look like.
Darby represents the Concho Valley area as well as Runnels and Coleman counties in the Big Country region. He won against Stormy Bradley in the recent election but questions the true meaning of victory.
“My wife and I commented after the results came in that we may have won the most votes. But did we really win? Did we really win when a lot of our friends, a lot of rural Republicans who support public education, they lost. We have four fellow rural members who are facing runoff because of that. So the question becomes, did we win the most votes but come into a session in which we lose on policy? When I say policy, we lose on the opposition to vouchers in our public schools. We lost our state. We saw billionaires located outside the state of Texas throw their money at the election, and it had a dramatic impact on that,” Darby said.
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In the Big Country, we saw a heated battle between Stan Lambert and Liz Case, something similar to what the Concho Valley saw.
“We’ve never seen anything like it, to think that over $2 million was spent against me. In my campaign, I spent well over a million dollars trying to defend my seat. So it’s unprecedented that we have statewide leaders that would not only endorse against a sitting member of the House, but they would actively campaign against them. I certainly think we’ve faced a Rubicon, a crossing of the river, if you will, in this state, when statewide elected officials can be involved in local house races and use out-of-state dollars to affect the outcome of the race. I’m fearful of the independence of the Texas House. Have we gone too far? Have people simply placed their trust in the money that’s spent on advertising and not the relationships that they’ve built with their elected representatives? That’s what’s bothering me,” Darby said.
Despite being the incumbent, Darby and others who oppose school vouchers faced significant opposition.
“We did not bend our knees. We did not bow our heads; we did not kiss the ring. We simply stood up for our districts. That is what’s so troublesome about this whole election cycle that people here in West Texas can no longer vote on who they think should represent them, who represents your values, and who represents folks who live and work. I’m hoping that these runoffs, we work hard and bring those members back. Regardless, we’re going to work with the statewide leadership in order to move the state board and address some of the real policy concerns that are facing our state in the next legislative session,” Darby said.
Darby shared that he has known Governor Abbott for a long time, and Abbott approached him with a question before the elections.
“I’ve known Governor Abbott long before he was governor of the state of Texas. When he decided to run for election the first time, I was one of the first elected officials in the state to endorse his candidacy. So, I’ve been a longtime supporter of Governor Abbott… We simply disagreed on this one policy. He told me before the vote, he said Drew, can you vote with me for vouchers? And I said, Governor, with all due respect, I cannot. That is a bad policy for my rural districts here in West Texas. And quite frankly, Governor, with all due respect, I don’t represent you, I represent the folks back home,” Darby shared. “Can we smoke the peace pipe, so to speak, and come together and talk about the priorities of the state? Yes, I certainly hope so. I represent 200,000 folks in the Concho Valley, and they need representation. They don’t need somebody who simply ignores the political realities of where we are. I’m hopeful that we can work together to find good policy. I think the people who are listening to this broadcast today and live and work in either the Big Country or the Concho Valley deserve the truth. They deserve representation that reflects their values and not an untruth spoon-fed to them by out-of-state billionaires.”
Some have called the recent election an “assault on rural Texans.” Darby said it’s not about Republicans and Democrats; it’s about rural versus urban.
“It is a struggle that exists today and has existed for a number of years. The struggle is not between Republicans and Democrats; It’s between rural and urban. That reality is that people who live in cities want our resources, they want our oil and gas revenue, they want electricity generated, they want our hide, hair, food, fiber, and everything that allows them to live in a city exists here in rural Texas,” Darby said. “This is about vouchers. This is about public dollars going into private and parochial hands without any accountability, transparency, or open enrollment policy. This is what this is about. It’s about follow the dollars. That’s why I cannot understand or contemplate why our statewide elected officials would seek to impose their philosophy and representation in this area over one issue. The question becomes, and we saw it in Representative Lambert’s case and in my case, the people that live and work here in the district push back. They said no, we don’t want you to decide who represents us; we’re going to decide that on the basis of qualification.”
Darby said Abbott will continue to push vouchers onto the table but believes there is enough opposition to help rural Texans.
“Clearly, Governor Abbott is going to maintain his insistence on this policy. I happen to believe that there’s still enough opposition in the house to push back against that, or at least create an atmosphere that you have to negotiate in order to get a good policy point that you can negotiate on. So I’m hopeful, and I’m praying like-minded folks across the state will come out and support public education candidates who stood for a cause that stood tall at a time when they could have shrunk into the darkness. There were folks who voted against vouchers, but they said I didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to mess with it anymore. I’m not gonna choose; I’m gonna choose not to return. Five of those of the 21 did just that. But I do think that with the current composition of the house and what we can hope to achieve in these runoffs, there will still be significant opposition to the implementation of a voucher program in Texas,” Darby shared.
Law enforcement officials in Texas wonder how they will enforce migrant arrest law
The Supreme Court passed SB4, which would allow Texas police to arrest people suspected of illegally crossing the Texas-Mexico border. However, the Appellate Court blocked it just hours later.
“It was designed to recognize that they were frustrated as a state; We’re frustrated about the illegal immigration that is coming across our borders. The legislature recognizes that this is normally a federal policy, a federal immigration policy, but the feds have chosen not to enforce our own immigration laws. So, out of desperation, the state says what can we do? Well, let’s empower police officers to where there is a citizen that they have determined is here illegally, that with due process that says and could be returned to the country of their origin. So, watching that piece of legislation after it left, the legislature was signed by the governor. It’s like a ping-pong match. There are multiple lawsuits and other various steps in the litigation process. The latest iteration that you mentioned was that the case was in the Fifth Court of Appeals. It appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court dissolved the stay and then went back to the Fifth Quarter of Appeals. Now there’s a current stay in process,” Darby said.
Although Texas Senate Bill 4 was blocked, Darby hopes to move forward with discussion in the House to change the current situation.
“Hopefully, there’ll be a change in federal policy if we have a change in the White House. Hopefully, we’ll have a change in looking at the immigration policy of this country. And we’ll come to a point where we can have sensible, restrained immigration, where people follow the law, enter this country legally, and apply for those immigration slots. SB4 is simply an attempt to do something,” Darby shared. “We’re all frustrated. What did we do? Did it go too far? I’m sure the Supreme Court will tell us if we went too far. If we went just far enough, then hopefully, the Supreme Court will tell us that also. But this legislation was born out of the frustration of the legislature, not only our governor, but the house in the Senate, that the current status is unsatisfactory.”
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