I became interested in public school governance about ten years ago. I attended public schools and so did our four children so it may have been inevitable that I got involved. My husband, however, did not attend public schools. My husband attended the same boarding school that Justice Roberts attended - the school has a little shrine to Roberts in the library, like he’s a saint. I stood and stared at it the longest time - in horror really.
One time we were at an alumni event and Roberts was there and my husband sort of crashed into the group of fawning Roberts acolytes, like a too-friendly Golden Retriever and demanded a photo. So we have a really funny photo of a pained looking John Roberts, stiff and unsmiling, being held hostage by my (much bigger), grinning husband. Anyway, both of us supported public schools when our kids were coming up but I’m the girl so was naturally expected to do all the unpaid work, so I ended up on a school committee, which was … completely fascinating and one of the best things I’ve ever done.
During that period, I met Jennifer Berkshire briefly in Austin Texas. She was there for a convention of public school enthusiasts and I was there for the same thing, except I brought my daughter and we mostly went to see the Battle Oaks on the UT campus - gorgeous, btw. Jennifer is a Lefty (as differentiated from a liberal) and she does actual reporting on public schools for both her podcast and Substack- meaning she goes to places and looks at real things and talks to people.
I think her take on the Texas race and public schools is great, and a different take that doesn’t rely wholly on demographics or ethnicity, but instead on the common ground of people across groups who value and support public education.
While the Democrat’s flip of this seat was treated as a ‘Texas stunner’ by much of the media, yours truly wasn’t all that surprised. For one thing, as I wrote about last year, Rehmet nearly won the race outright back in November, despite spending just $68K vs millions shelled out by his GOP opponents and their deep-pocketed PACS. For another, Rehmet ran as an economic populist and an ardent defender of public education–in other words, exactly the sort of candidate that Democrats need if they are to succeed at, well, anything. And that support of public education was absolutely key here as the GOP’s education extremism alienates growing swathes of the electorate. Let’s break it down, shall we?
The name Leigh Wambsganss may be unfamiliar (and unpronounceable) to you, but I’m betting that you’re well acquainted with her employer: Patriot Mobile. That would be the right-wing Christian wireless provider that orchestrated takeovers of various Texas school boards, stacking them with Christian nationalists and MAGA faithful. (For more on this, check out Mike Hixenbaugh’s terrific book They Came for the Schools). Those efforts proved remarkably successful, that is until local parents got a close-up view of the activists’ book-banning, culture warring agenda. Then came the attempt last year to split the Keller district into two, cleaving the wealthier city of Keller from its larger, lower-class suburban bits. The backroom maneuver, which Wambsganss helped engineer, backfired spectacularly, alienating local parents, along with voters who typically ignore school board politics.
When voters gave the heave ho to culture warring school board candidates last year, they signalled their exhaustion with the politicization of public education. Rehmet tapped into that frustration to great effect. I’m going to quote again from his campaign website because the language is refreshingly clear: “Taylor will stand with teachers, parents, and students to invest in neighborhood schools, protect public education from privatization, and keep extremist politics and religious ideology out of the classroom.” And voters responded to this vision vs. the increasingly unhinged rhetoric of Steve Bannon, who set up a Texas wing of his War Room podcast in order to boost Wambsganss’ candidacy.
Bannon and Rufo engineered a far-Right takeover of local public schools, where they installed screeching lunatics ranting about Sharia law who despise public schools and hope to destroy them, and parents of public school children in both the higher and lower income schools rebelled and threw the bums out. Enter the Democratic machinist and labor candidate who promises to fund and protect public education.
We could run this campaign a lot of places. Not everywhere, but in a lot of very red midwestern and southern states.
