In a weekend of early voting action, Texas AFT members March to the Polls

Clockwise from top:Members of Socorro AFT, representing educators in Socorro ISD in El Paso, at a Saturday early voting event. AFT-Lone Star College supported an early voting event at the Lone Star College - Houston North Fallbrook campus, delivering nonpartisan voting information. McAllen AFT members joined Mi Familia Vota Texas, the Texas AFL-CIO, and Texas 4 All to mobilize Latino voters Monday in support of Michelle Vallejo's bid to represent Congressional District 15.

In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of state lawmakers rejected private school voucher scams that threatened to divert millions of taxpayer dollars from public schools to fund unaccountable private education. In the months since, out-of-state mega-donors and education privatizers have invested heavily in Texas elections in a painfully transparent attempt to buy a voucher program when the Legislature reconvenes in 2025.

Educators fought hard to defeat vouchers, and we aren't letting up now. After months of talking to neighbors and mobilizing folks for our democracy, educators are coming out in full force to elect pro-public education candidates who will fight for our students, our teachers, and our neighborhood schools. Since the start of early voting through Thursday, Oct. 31, over 48,000 active and retired Texas AFT members had cast their ballot for the November general election.

Many of those votes came last Friday and Saturday, when hundreds of educators in Austin, El Paso, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley went to the polls together at a series of events coordinated by Texas AFT local unions and members. Their goal was to show the enthusiasm and energy among Texas public school employees for this momentous general election and underscore the stakes for Texas public education, particularly with important state races in the Texas Legislature and on the State Board of Education.

Members of Education Austin, the union representing teachers and staff in Austin ISD, marched to the polls after a budget town hall on Proposition A, the district's ballot measure asking voters to approve a tax rate increase to make up for a $119 budget shortfall after the state Legislature refused to increase funding for public schools last year.

Just down Interstate 35, members of the San Antonio Alliance, representing employees in San Antonio ISD, were joined by their endorsed candidate for House District 118, Kristian Carranza. Carranza is running to unseat voucher-proponent Rep. John Lujan, who first won his office in a 2021 election by fewer than 300 votes.

Texas AFT United (representing educators in Plano, Frisco, Garland, Richardson, and Allen ISDs) and Alliance/AFT (representing Dallas ISD) members gathered over the weekend for early voting events that emphasized electing candidates who support a Texas Educator's Bill of Rights.

Every event underscored just how pivotal Texas educator votes can be. In the Rio Grande Valley, members of Brownsville Educators Stand Together voiced their displeasure with incumbent Rep. Janie Lopez, who stood with Gov. Greg Abbott on his private school voucher push in 2023 and won election in 2022 with a margin of fewer than 2,000 votes.

And in Harris County, where 2.68 million Texans are registered to vote, members of Cy-Fair AFT (Cypress-Fairbanks ISD), Spring AFT (Spring ISD), and the Houston Federation of Teachers (Houston ISD) joined state Rep. Jon Rosenthal and county officials to host a pizza party for public education on the only weekend of early voting in this general election.

"Educators are a cornerstone of our democracy and our middle class. We know the stakes of this election, and we won't sit on the sidelines," said Zeph Capo, president of Texas AFT. "Our governor and his billionaire buddies think they can flood our elections with out-of-state money and meddle in education issues. No more. Educators are voting early to invest in our students, defend our rights and our jobs, and protect our neighborhood schools."