By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.
Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboration

The American Federation for Children, a leading school choice advocacy group, intends to spend $10 million on state elections in 2024. Its first targets: 15 Texas Republicans who opposed a school voucher program championed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

AFC Victory Fund, the group’s main super PAC, has spent nearly $461,000 on mailers and digital ads ahead of Texas’ March 5 primary elections, attacking GOP state legislators who last year blocked the Republican governor’s plan to allow families to spend taxpayer dollars on their children’s private schooling. 

Thus far, AFC Victory Fund appears to be focused entirely on Texas. But the American Federation for Children plans to spend millions on legislative races nationwide in 2024 to support state candidates who prioritize school choice — education policies that give parents the option of enrolling their children in private, religious and other alternatives to public school using state funds. 

Texas’ primary elections next week will test the organization’s political clout and messaging. The American Federation for Children said its affiliates and allies spent $9 million on state elections in 2022, winning 277 out of 368 races and defeating 40 incumbents. Forty-four states hold legislative races this year. 

According to campaign finance reports covering election spending through Jan. 25, most of the super PAC’s money — about $64,000 — has been levied at Rep. Glenn Rogers (R-Graford), a three-term House Republican representing a district west of Fort Worth, Texas. AFC Victory Fund also spent roughly $42,000 each against Reps. Travis Clardy (R-Nacogdoches) and DeWayne Burns (R-Cleburne). 

The super PAC attacked lawmakers over their stance on school vouchers, but also sought to tie them to the crisis at the southern border and paint them as “too liberal for Texas.”

AFC Victory Fund, which officially launched in September, entered 2024 with $4.3 million in cash and reported raising about $4.6 million from half a dozen donors last year, including $3.5 million from billionaire investor Jeff Yass and $1 million from former U.S. Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos. Betsy DeVos, who chaired the American Federation for Children before joining former President Donald Trump's administration in 2017, has been a longtime crusader in the school choice movement.

According to campaign finance reports filed with the Texas Ethics Commission on Feb. 5, AFC Victory Fund received an additional $1.5 million in January, including $1 million from Dick Uihlein, the billionaire founder of Uline. Another $250,000 came from Future of Education LLC, a limited-liability company incorporated in 2023, one day before it donated $1 million to Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin's gubernatorial PAC. The LLC has no website or online presence, but the Texas Observer traced it to Mackenzie Price, an education reformer and the founder of a private school.

Texas would have become the latest — and largest — state to embrace universal school vouchers, but Abbott wasn’t able to win over holdouts in his party who preferred a scaled-back program limited to disadvantaged students. According to The Texas Tribune, the governor refused to compromise on a program open to all students. Twenty-one lawmakers eventually voted against the plan. 

Notwithstanding the setback in Texas, the movement to unlock public funding for private and religious schools has gained momentum in recent years. 

School choice programs come in different forms but typically involve tax credits or taxpayer-subsidized education savings accounts, also known as ESAs, that are available to parents who withdraw their children from public schools.

Similar programs have existed in some states since the 1990s, but were mostly available to certain students, such as those with disabilities or from poor families. Groups like American Federation for Children have been pushing states to embrace so-called "universal school choice" legislation open to all students. 

West Virginia became the first state to do so in 2021, when the GOP-led state legislature approved an ESA program eligible to nearly every student, regardless of household income. Arizona followed suit in 2022, eliminating restrictions to its voucher program that limited eligibility to students with disabilities and those in the foster care system, attending low-performing public schools or living on Native American reservations. Five other states approved similarly expansive programs in 2023: North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas, Iowa and Utah.

Many more states are poised to create their own voucher programs or expand existing schemes.

Last week, the Alabama state House advanced a school voucher program that would be limited to students with disabilities and low-income households until 2027, at which time it would be open to all students. Idaho lawmakers have introduced a "parental choice tax credit" program that would unlock $50 million in state funding for private education. And in Kentucky, there is an effort underway to put a constitutional amendment on the November ballot to remove barriers blocking the state from enacting school voucher programs. The Kentucky Supreme Court has ruled that taxpayer dollars must be spent on "common schools" and cannot be diverted to private education.

Critics argue that these programs largely subsidize affluent families who already send their children to private school, while siphoning money from public education. Research from around the country also shows that voucher programs have delivered mixed academic results, and recent reports raise concerns about their costs to taxpayers.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has called the state's new voucher program, which was expanded under her Republican predecessor, "unsustainable." Last year, her office estimated that the program, initially expected to cost $65 million, could cost the state $943 million in 2024, with over 53% of all new K-12 education spending going towards only 8% of Arizona students. The state could face a $320 million shortfall over the next year. 

The Texas Legislative Budget Board projected that the cost of Abbott’s voucher program would have ballooned to more than $2 billion annually by 2028. 


Jimmy Cloutier wrote this story for OpenSecrets.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Carnegie Corporation of New York.


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More than 2,400 delegates gathered in Milwaukee this week for the Republican National Convention and delegates from around the country, including Arizona, showed support for former President Donald Trump and his selection of Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, for vice president.

While other key swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were seemingly given preferential seating close to the main stage, Arizona was not so lucky as earlier this summer it was discovered some Arizona delegates were planning to challenge a Trump nomination.

Rep. Alexander Kolodin, R-Ariz., was there and said it is not what happened.

"Arizona Republicans are 100% unified behind Donald J. Trump and JD Vance and we are going to take them home to victory in November," Kolodin stated.

A new YouGov poll showed in seven battleground states, one of which is Arizona, Trump is leading over President Joe Biden with fewer than four months until Election Day. And while the poll might be welcome news for Trump and his supporters, it also showed Democratic Senate candidates are leading in every swing-state race, posing a potential challenge to another Trump administration.

Like many other conservatives around the country, Kolodin does not support further U.S. involvement in Ukraine and contends it does not benefit the national interests of the United States. Democrats see it differently and argued the U.S. must assist Ukraine in its war with Russia to maintain international order. Kolodin countered it is costing American taxpayers too much.

"The money we are spending is driving inflation, it is empowering our military industrial complex and giving the Biden administration every excuse to strip us of our civil liberties," Kolodin contended. "Because war is the best excuse that was ever invented for that."

Kolodin suggested instead of the U.S. helping foreign countries and funding wars abroad, it needs to get a handle on the issues at home, affecting the country and Arizona, such as the economy and border security.


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The ACLU of Alabama launches a campaign to boost voter engagement. Alabama is grappling with one of the lowest voter turnouts in the country. In the 2024 presidential primary election in March, only about 25% of registered voters went to the polls.

The ACLU of Alabama aims to change this through a multiyear strategy called "Project MOVE," which stands for "Making Our Voices Echo."

JaTaune Bosby Gilchrist, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, said they want to address barriers to voting, educate potential voters and provide essential community resources.

"We really are focusing on ensuring that we're not just protecting the right to vote, but ensuring that people have the tools that they need to know that, hey, my vote counts, and making it to the ballot box is going to impact my day-to-day. We're talking about clean water and your power bill," Bosby Gilchrist said.

She emphasized that Alabama is one of the few states without early voting, highlighting the need for a community-based approach to reach people at a local level, and added that their goal is to increase voter turnout by 5% by 2026.

Bosby Gilchrist said Project MOVE will include a three-pronged approach of surveying communities to understand their needs, actively reaching out to voters through events and canvassing, and providing critical voting information. She said by partnering with grassroots organizations, the ACLU of Alabama plans to sustain these efforts beyond the 2024 elections.

"We've got to look at those issues," she continued. "We've got to understand that what's at stake is quite honestly our ability to make sure that our voices are heard because the decisions that are made impact us."

She added that many of their efforts will be focused in Districts Two, Five and Seven, and the ACLU of Alabama has posted more information about Project MOVE and events on its website.


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The nonprofit Este Poder has a goal of helping more young people of color in rural east Texas exercise their right to vote.

The organization holds voter registration drives in Cherokee, Gregg, Nacogdoches, Smith and Wood Counties and partners with other organizations to inform people about ballot issues locally and nationally.

Arely Cruz, communications associate for the group, said they recently created student chapters at Stephen F. Austin State University and the University of Texas in Tyler.

"They promote civic engagement and do outreach into the community," Cruz explained. "We do conduct workshops in the classroom, attend community events and we are often on social media explaining the importance of voting, how to register and the steps involved in casting a ballot."

According to the Rural Democracy Initiative, people under the age of 35 are the most undecided voters and are among the least contacted by both nonpartisan and political efforts. Cruz noted while at events, volunteers also discuss issues important to students. Most said they are concerned about the environment, access to higher education and safety at schools.

In addition to in-person events, Este Poder uses social media to distribute digital campaigns, interviews with students and skits about the voting process to first time voters. Cruz added once young people are registered to vote they still need some guidance.

"They need that reminder, that there are other elections, not just the general presidential election in November, but there's also elections happening around them," Cruz emphasized. "That's where we get a lot of the questions like, why is it important for me to vote? And you get to talk about like, what precinct they live in, or the district that they live in and like who represents them."

Este Poder translates into "this power" or "east power." Cruz stressed they want to give people of color in rural east Texas the power they need to enhance their quality of life.


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