Welcome to Texas Talk.

I'm Gilbert Garcia, opinion writer and columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.

On this show, we bring you one on one conversations with some of the most fascinating figures in Texas politics, culture, sports and business.

If you want to do a case study on the internal divisions plaguing the Texas Republican Party, the example of Steve Allison would be as good a place as any to start.

Allison is a San Antonio area state representative and self-described conservative Republican who nonetheless found himself targeted for ouster this year by state GOP leaders, including Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Allison talks on this episode about his years of public service and his willingness to cross Abbott on school vouchers and vote for Paxton's impeachment.

Let's get started.

Representative Allison, thank you so much for being on the show.

Oh, thank you for having me.

Glad we're trying to do this.

Well, in in the weeks leading up to the March primary this year, Governor Greg Abbott spent more than $6 million, primarily, to defeat Republican House incumbents, members of his own party who had voted against, his school voucher plan last year.

You were one of them.

Now, looking back on it, do you see the governor's involvement in the primary race as the main reason why, your challenger, Mark LaHood, defeated you in the primary?

Oh, absolutely.

You know, combination of the governor's, engagement, and and the size of it, and the aggressiveness, he spent quite a bit of money, I think over $1 million when it's all told, I just against me, combined with the out of state, acts that were also, attacking me.

they had this school choice, voucher issue a little bit.

but it was clear that's where they were coming from.

But that the governor was the killer.

Yeah.

You have a deep background in, public education.

you had 12 years, the Alamo Heights school board.

when you look at the issue of school vouchers, I mean, what is it that concerns you most about the potential damaging effects that it could have?

on education?

Well, you know, what is so misleading, I believe, is when I try to characterize it as school choice.

I think that's very misleading.

We have a tremendous amount of choice opportunities, and I've.

I'm very proud of the work we've done in San Antonio in particular, but I think in the major metropolitan areas and elsewhere, you know, here we have a very robust charter system.

we have very active, very still expanding magnet programs.

Stem has become very, very important.

CTE programs, particularly moving into workforce development, military readiness, within, the major districts in San Antonio, for example, they have open transfer policy so that, if you have a child in second grade and you want him or her closer to where you work, and they're not getting along with other kids.

You're not crazy about the teacher.

You're not curious about their whole environment.

You can transfer freely to another second grade campus, space available.

But that's not a problem right now.

And that's utilized.

And that's just pure choice.

but then when when you move it to a private school voucher situation, that's a totally different animal.

and I think we run into constitutional restrictions in Texas.

We actually have a couple of provisions in the Texas Constitution that would suggest, I mean, at least one that I know of that that talks about the use of of the permanent school funds.

Yes.

Not that that money cannot be used for sectarian schools.

And yeah, I think there's three major one there are four really, the one that the legislature is charged with.

required to provide and maintain, a free public school system.

Right.

And I think that shows the interest and the emphasis that our forefathers put on public education.

And then it goes further and like you pointed out, the permanent school fund and the available school fund can only be used for the free public schools.

And then it goes further.

another section, provides that, you can't use any of the public funds for sectarian purposes.

and that that kicks in here because I think the governor really has in mind and in, resurrecting the parish, Catholic parish schools and private parochial schools, that would be in direct conflict with that.

then the cost involved, you know, it's just phenomenal.

the, initially what was appropriate was 500 million for per year.

I think that's short.

And it's going to be far increasing, as we're seen in other states that have encountered this Arizona in particular, and the Texas approach was patterned pretty much after Arizona had it's been a nightmare in Arizona is now impacting their entire state budget.

and it grows even in the Texas player is going to grow to 2 billion to 2.5 billion and on up very, very quickly.

And when you look around the other states and I think that's incumbent upon us to do to see what's been experienced in other states, we have much larger situation.

You know, we're not and I don't mean there's any knock on Indiana or Iowa or some smaller state, but we have 5.5 million school age children, and it's growing with the immigrants coming in, that we've got to address.

and if we take money away from public education, which is severely underfunded right now, in my opinion, it's been my opinion for a long while to move it to this private, situation is just wrong.

And I think that's an inappropriate use of public funds.

and then when you look at, the experience again, in other states, it ends up a very high percentage to, from 60%.

In some states, 98% are kids that have already been in private school from day one.

So what are you, a composite?

You're just you're putting taxpayer funds, into into the are you implementing subsidizing this?

Exactly.

You're subsidizing parents who made that choice.

Yep.

Yes.

last month, I had, Scott Braddock in the Upper Horn report on the show, and I asked Jim.

And I'm curious you about your take on this.

Why, Governor Abbott took it through for legislative session.

Was legislative sessions in office?

He really did not show a lot of interest, from what I could tell, in the interest in the in the issue of school vouchers.

And then in the time leading up to the 2023 session, this suddenly became, you know, an urgent matter.

And he was willing to go all out for that.

And, and as we've seen this year, to even defeat, incumbents who opposed it.

why do you think this suddenly became such a pressing issue for.

You know, that's that's a that million dollar question.

two things came to mind.

And I've stated this before, that I'm sure he didn't appreciate the one I think he had designed.

So on Washington, and he saw that he needed something like this, whether to keep up with Florida.

so to appease, President Trump or whatever, I think that was one factor.

And I think that's been showing more and more, not just from me.

And two, I think money, he started receiving a lot of money as we've seen.

I understand the the gentleman from, I forget where it's from.

that gave him $6 million, and now we're giving him an additional $4 million, or he's giving him $10 million devoted to school choice or school voucher programs.

I think that tremendous amount of money coming in and support from the far right, extreme, has factored into it as well.

What's upsetting is, like you said, he's never shown an interest in vouchers or choice in previous session, so I've been there, three sessions previously.

you know, I was on the school board.

I was opposed to school labor, school vouchers.

he's never shown an interest.

How this session.

So that makes it very suspicious he has, in my district, and I've been I, I knew how I felt about it, and I think with good reason, but I wanted to make sure what had the district failed because I think an obligation of representative is to represent the district, their constituents, not just, Republican primary voters from two years ago, but the entire district.

What you're electing me.

And I was very careful with that and had my staff run, keeping track of calls that came in.

I was inundated with emails and texts.

And I get it that some of these are very organized, but they're organized in both directions.

and the overwhelming input from the district was anti voucher.

and I need to vote that way.

And, and I am really offended by the governor saying no, don't vote your district.

Don't vote what your constituents won't vote what I want to and that's wrong.

Now, one of the byproducts of the the whole, controversy over school vouchers last session was that it affected public school funding in the state because the governor and his allies basically tied any increases in public school funding to this voucher plan.

So neither, ended up happening.

and you had an op ed in Central Express News in June, calling for the governor to, call a special session to deal with public school funding.

I mean, how, how urgent do you see the situation?

I see it is very urgent.

I followed up shortly after the op ed with a formal request.

Letter?

Request to the governor, to call for a special session, pointing out that, even if, he thinks he has the votes, next session to pass a private school voucher bill, so be it, that that can be taken care of next session.

And the issues are separate.

the private school voucher issue has nothing to do with public school funding, and they need to be kept separate.

But he combined it and he held our teachers and our school children and our districts hostage.

And once he got his voucher bill passed that and that just wrong.

And I pointed out that, you know, we're looking around the state, we're all suffering through, inflation, increased costs on everything.

The schools are no different.

they're they're encountering the same thing.

the the number of districts around the state that have had to go into deficit spending because of our failure to provide funding, teachers leaving the profession right and left, because of, lack of compensation, certainly, but also lack of support.

and, I extend a remark that matters that are important in the education setting.

And that's what we had in some of these bills I needed to address.

You know, I felt so confident going in this last session that we had a consensus we needed to do something for public education.

So many people need to do something for our teachers.

We need to do more for school safety.

And that's what the rest of these bills were about.

and for him to hold it hostage, like I said, I just it's just, again, just wrong.

Now, you were not only targeted, by the governor, but also by Attorney General Ken Paxton, because you were one of the, many members of the Texas House who voted for his impeachment, last year.

and, your, primary challenger, Mark LaHood, argued that the impeachment process was rushed and then there was a lack of transparency there, which is something that you pushed back against.

when when you look back at that, at the impeachment vote to begin that.

Can you talk a little bit about why you felt this was the right step?

Sure.

You know, I think what's missing is, the house well, the process under our Constitution is really a two step process.

And we were charged with, acting as a grand jury, similar to a grand jury.

the, reviews that I made, I reviewed the, hearing before the final hearing before they investigated committee.

the transcript of that, paid very close attention to what was presented that paid very close attention, what they presented to the full.

House.

And with our charges to see what is there sufficient showing to refer it to the Senate for, for a full trial similar to it to a grand jury, you know, in a grand jury proceeding, hearsay admissible?

certainly proper.

that's one of the complaints.

Well, they don't understand the function and the process, and I think we're obligated to follow our process.

there's I think there's some shortcomings, in the process, but we can fix that if we need to.

But, you know, this has been the first impeachment for over 100 years, so it's not an everyday occurrence.

But I believed and felt just like so many of my colleagues did, that the showing to the house, was just overwhelming.

There was an abundance of showing, to justify the referral.

and then, I know when I got to the Senate, a number of things that we saw and were considered that were not considered by the Senate, I'm not critical of that, that if they fulfilled their role, but I have no regrets about my vote.

I think there was a proper vote.

I would have been remiss, to myself, spent my constituents in promoting any other way.

And it was, you know, the 121 to 24, 124 to 20.

Well, me.

Overwhelming.

Yeah.

Another, person in Texas has another Republican faced, intraparty, challenges or, opposition, from the state leadership was, did the speaker of the House who was, you know, was targeted by, by Paxton and also by, Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick?

what what does he mean?

Been your experience working with that feeling?

How would you describe his his leadership style in the Texas house?

It's it's been good.

I think he's, I've heard him described that I'd agree with this.

He's a member.

Member?

I think he recognizes and respects, the obligations and duties of the members to represent their districts.

you know what?

What I believe is unfair.

is he.

It's good to criticism receiving for not being conservative enough or not allowing a conservative agenda.

My gosh.

I don't know that our agenda and things should pass.

This last session could have been much more conservative.

you know, what's what's troubling, some of the attacks he's received from inside the Republican Party with inside the Republican caucus that, is so destructive and so wrong, about bills that they thought should have come forward and didn't, and putting the blame on him, you know, a number of times, there were points of order raised.

that's part of the house process.

Part of the House rules.

and, the parliamentarian would recommend that they be granted, and the bill sent back to the committee or other action.

he went along with that, that which I think is his, duty to consider that.

Yeah.

We have another procedure under the rules that, ten members can sign an objection to the action on a point of order.

Not once, not once did they raise any of that.

And they certainly could have if they were so, so important.

so I thank you.

I think you did a great job.

And he was a good speaker.

and I think he's you're going to be returned to speaker.

That's what I was gonna ask you.

He survived his his his run off, challenge.

But you think that he's going to be able to get.

I mean, there's been so much talk about, Tim facing opposition, I do.

I think he if he maintains his, ongoing posture and his prior positions on, on matters, I think he's going to be retiring and, I think that, if he just do the math, even, regardless of how the November elections may turn out, I just don't see the numbers being there that can remove him as speaker particularly, like I said, if he sticks with his positions, I think, all of the Democrats will support him.

and I think it'll take very few remaining Republicans.

I have more than that, and I think that'd be important.

I think for continuity, I think it'd be very devastating to have to go through a new speaker.

In 2021.

You voted for Senate Bill eight, which was his Texas, stringent abortion ban.

last year we had the story, Kate Cox, of a pregnant woman in Texas who got, a fetal fetal diagnose DCIs, and, she was told that not only her future fertility, but also her her, life could be at risk if the pregnancy continued.

she was ultimately forced to leave the state, to terminate the pregnancy.

And during the primary campaign, you said that in light of that story, you were you thought that the state should, kind of under coercion, have either, tweak or maybe clarify the language of, in the state abortion law, out of concern for the possibility of cases like that.

What are your thoughts on it?

I agree, you know, I did say that, and I and I firmly believe that, you know, being I consider myself very pro-life.

I believe in the sanctity of life.

but that's just not the unborn.

or infants.

No, no, it's it's all of it, and particularly the mother.

and when we have a situation where the life of the mother is impacted, I think we need to recognize that and make amends to that.

and I think we've had that case to consider.

We've had another one since then.

I was encouraged, if I read it correctly, that, Senator Brian Hughes is open to that.

And he was a sponsor of the Senate bill and is open to, protecting, all life, protecting the life of the mother in situations like this.

I was I was disappointed at that.

The state, medical board would, do more to clarify it.

and I don't think they have, sufficiently.

I thank the Supreme Court.

I feel like the Supreme Court maybe got some undue, criticism.

I think they gave a clear guideline.

that, this should be left up to the state board, and state board has an obligation to to clarify it and didn't into that.

I think that's where it should be.

You know, I think when you let doctors be doctors and, rely on that judgment, and I think we can get there and hopefully we do.

A few days ago, former president and, current presidential candidate Donald Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt.

last year, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Austin Miller, ran an ad, which he posed to the rifle, referred to as a rhino Republican name only, and said he was on a rhino hunt.

you also, a few months ago had a pro about your group, show up at your home, parked their truck in front of your home.

They were ringing the doorbell, shooting video on your property, being disruptive, I think, to the to the neighbors.

have you, and you ever felt, concerned about your own safety and the safety of your family as an elected official?

that, occasion I did, I was in Austin, and we were still in session.

and my wife was at home.

She was scared, and, being sympathetic to that, it was it was, aggravated by the description I received the second day.

They had two trucks out in front.

but what really concerned me, in our neighborhood, we have a number of young families with young children, and, and the school bus stops right in front of our house or on a corner.

and those kids were scared, and they'd see signs, you know, on the message board, it's.

They would pop up that Steve Allison, children, Steve Allison, along with their parents, all day, two days, all day, and came back for a third day, but only for about an hour.

So, so that's concerning.

I think that's totally unnecessary.

And yeah I know I've been called a rhino.

you know, I, I'm, I'm just me.

yeah.

Gives us your report.

Pretty conservative rhetoric with some exceptions.

So I couldn't go with them on the school choice situation.

the departed on some other issues, but, I didn't call it a rhino.

I'd been a Republican, sir.

Conservative.

I, Ronald Reagan was my hero.

Still is.

sir, with the name calling, I think it's gotten out of hand, as we saw with the with the assassination attempt, Saturday.

I think the the, anger and the hatred and the betrayal is it's just gone way beyond anything.

You know, it used to be, I saw a clip, just last week, Ronald Reagan and, Walter Mondale, you know, to me.

And they were joking with each other.

Sure.

he went on, Reagan went on and won.

There wasn't all this prevailing anger and hatred.

it used to be I.

Went back to watch that, too, and I was amazed, like I was still at work.

Yeah, I'm.

I'm just concerned going forward.

Used to be.

I remember growing up, you didn't talk about religion or politics and polite company or society.

And maybe we need to go back to those days.

In your district.

District 121, when Mark Lloyd would be the Republican candidate in November.

And his Democratic opponent is Earl Jordan Swift, a first time candidate.

And this has been a solid Republican district.

But, I mean, I guess people might wonder, because you had any bipartisan appeal.

your your predecessor, Jim Strauss, had it's certainly had bipartisan appeal.

and, I think there's there are questions, maybe whether Mark Littlewood might be someone who might be somewhat more divisive figure or might be seen as further to the right.

do you think there's any opening at all for the Democratic candidate, November, or do you think, do you expect this to remain in Republican hands?

No, I do, I think there there's a definite open it.

just the calls and comments that I've received, I think it's a legitimate concern that and I've seen some of the, polling and, media reports that it's, a toss up going forward and that there is a good chance that that Democrat I, you know what I do, I've always liked the text.

What I've liked about the Texas Legislature, maybe until recently, is, that bipartisan approach to things and and the approach to get things accomplished.

that's still here.

I've always considered myself more pragmatic, like Joe Strauss.

and I think that's important.

I think we need to accomplish things, not just fight and be divisive.

And I see us moving in that direction.

I think, and I said during the campaign that what I saw important was honesty and integrity, reputation, background, qualifications and experience.

and then certain issues that I think are so important to our district education, health care, infrastructure.

and I think those are important.

And I think I'm hearing more and more from people, but I think, the well, Swift may be the better candidate.

I had to ask you about, public transportation because you were, before you were in the legislature.

You were on the Metropolitan Transit Board and this was as like a decade ago when there was, a lot of talk about the streetcar plan in San Antonio, which a lot of work was put into it.

Ultimately, it didn't come to fruition, but, now I think the focus is really on, and that's rapid transit busses.

how how optimistic are you that that will, will, will, fill the need that we clearly have to be able to move more people as a city grows.

You know, that's that's the frustration.

I think that's an obvious need.

We have to have a, availability to move people, and connect people.

mobility obviously is increasingly important.

And that is we have an influx of more people moving into, San Antonio area becomes more importance.

I'm unconcerned, whether people are going to accept it.

it's hard to get people out of their cars and the trucks.

I think we experienced that with the streetcar.

no movement.

thank God we're finally got the public to vote on that, so to speak.

it was important to city that it wasn't acceptable.

And now that, the V board has backed off and gone more of a.

Rather than a rail, approach, a rubber tire approach.

I've been accomplishing the same thing, and I hope, hopefully, that, can prevail.

we just have that increasing need, particular way that that the housing shortage, the way people are so dependent on, mobility and, and, economy, everything I think just dictates that we have to have that.

We need something between here in Austin.

that's a big.

35 is a nightmare.

one thing that.

Many of us recently, because I, I, I, we took our daughter up to Austin to to our school and, and, and my wife has taken Megabus back and, and, you know, it was pretty quick and it works well, but I think that's.

Yeah, that there are there are so many things that could be done as far as getting people back and forth between us.

You know, that grab that increasing need.

you know, again, the just overall infrastructure, I think we need to put more emphasis on that.

We just have a minute left.

But I want to quickly ask you, when you look back on your time in the legislature, what are your proudest achievements?

education, I think, House Bill three, my first session, we did some long overdue education reform, so I'm proud of that.

Was intimately involved in that.

I was an author of a character education bill, that mandates character education in the public schools and the charter schools.

K through 12.

I saw that as a long term, impact.

but I think we're seeing it working.

I'm very proud of that.

I'm proud all we do with property tax credit.

fine.

That we're about to do a lot more.

I don't want people to arrest back that.

We've fixed it.

We have it.

It's really been a kind of a one time relief that needs more attention.

That also, rolls into education reform, and helping there, because the more we can put and education, the better, but also really property tax burden.

Representative Allison, thanks so much.

Thank you, governor.

She made it.

That's all for this episode of Texas Talk.

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