Texas

Texas Republicans deliver Trump, Abbott major win on education

Published

8 months ago

April 17, 2025

Texas Republicans deliver Trump, Abbott major win on education

The Texas House of Representatives voted to give initial approval to a $1 billion program that will see taxpayer money fund private school fees, a top priority of Gov. Greg Abbott and one he says will improve choice for parents and children.

Under the bill, if a family sends their child to an accredited private school, they will receive a voucher worth $10,000 per year, rising to $11,500 if the student has a disability.

The bill was approved by 86-63, with all present Democrats voting against, arguing that it will take vital money from public education. Just two Republicans joined them.

President Donald Trump had called Republican legislators in Texas before the vote, urging them to vote for the “forward-thinking” reform.

It comes as the Trump Administration moves to shutter the federal Department for Education in order to pass responsibility entirely back to the states.

The private school voucher program faces one final vote for approval in the state House before it moves back to the Senate, where it started. Both chambers will then reconcile certain differences before it goes to Abbott, the Texas Tribune reported.

“For the first time in Texas history, our state has passed a universal school choice bill out of both chambers in the Texas Legislature,” said Abbott, a Republican, in a statement.

“This is an extraordinary victory for the thousands of parents who have advocated for more choices when it comes to the education of their children.”

Abbott vowed to “swiftly sign this bill into law” when it hits his desk, “creating the largest day-one school choice program in the nation and putting Texas on a pathway to becoming the best state in America for educating our kids.”

Austin Democrat Rep. Gina Hinojosa said she felt “cursed by this bill,” which will be “the interest of big money prevailing over the interests of Texans,” the Austin American-Statesman reported.

After Trump called Republican legislators, Abbott shared a video of the moment on X.

“Texas, I love it, it’s a great state. It’s leading because of a lot of the things that we’ve done together. Leading in energy, leading in jobs, and now we’re going to be leading in education too,” Trump said on the call.

“I just think it’s a really forward-thinking vote…I just want to let you know that I appreciate it…This is a big vote today and I hope you’re able to vote in a positive manner.”

This is a developing story and more information will be added shortly.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott talks to reporters after U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the…

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Texas

‘Only scratching the surface:’ Texas just became the first state to purchase bitcoin

Published

1 hour ago

December 2, 2025

Press Room

‘Only scratching the surface:’ Texas just became the first state to purchase bitcoin

The state of Texas recently purchased about $5 million worth of bitcoin through a BlackRock-administered exchange-traded fund, a representative for the state comptroller’s office confirmed in an email to The Dallas Morning News on Monday.

The purchase came several months after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 21, a high-profile and controversial legislative effort that enabled the Texas comptroller’s office to establish a publicly funded strategic cryptocurrency reserve.

It also amounts to one of the first-ever cryptocurrency transactions by a state government amid a broader federal and state government embrace of the recently surging crypto industry. Other states, including New Hampshire and Arizona, have passed similar crypto reserve bills.

And last year, Wisconsin’s and Michigan’s pension funds also purchased crypto, although with the comptroller’s purchase Texas has now become the first state to actually fund such a reserve.

“The industry is maturing and growing — it’ll continue to become more mainstream, and I think Texas staking out a leadership position will be very beneficial to Texans over time, similar to what the oil and gas industry has done over the last century,” said Lee Bratcher, president of the Texas Blockchain Council, a crypto lobbying group that championed the state legislative effort.

“I think we’re only scratching the surface,” Bratcher said.

The state made the roughly $5 million purchase through BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF (IBIT), a fund managed by the major asset management firm that trades in U.S. dollars but generally reflects the price of bitcoin. As of early afternoon Monday, IBIT was trading around $48, reflecting a roughly 20% loss over the past month and a 13% decrease since the beginning of the year.

Those valuations broadly align with the recently highly volatile price of bitcoin: Early this year — amid a crypto frenzy inspired largely by the new, extremely crypto-friendly Trump administration — the world’s predominant cryptocurrency soared to above $100,000 for the first time in its history, and then in early October reached an all-time high above $126,000.

Since then, though, as fears have grown about a cooling economy and a potential AI bubble that could send the stock market plummeting, valuations of cryptocurrencies have also dipped. One bitcoin traded at around $85,000 on Monday, near the digital coin’s lowest price since April.

FILE - In this April 3, 2013 photo, a 25 Bitcoin token is displayed in Sandy, Utah. (AP... — FILE – In this April 3, 2013 photo, a 25 Bitcoin token is displayed in Sandy, Utah. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File)
Rick Bowmer / AP
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‘Placeholder investment’

The state of Texas made its purchase late last month at a price around $87,000, according to a social media post by Bratcher, who said he first learned of the state’s purchase through a recent Zoom call that included acting Texas Comptroller Kelly Hancock. The comptroller’s office did not respond to a question from The News asking about the specific price the state paid for its IBIT purchase.

The ETF purchase is “a placeholder investment,” said Kevin Lyons, a representative for the comptroller’s office, until the agency formally contracts with what it’s referring to as a cryptocurrency custodian. The agency is now reviewing responses from a request for information it issued and will later award an official contract, Lyons said.

While the new state law did not include a specific funding amount, Texas legislators have since allocated $10 million to the reserve. The amount represents a tiny fraction of the state’s $338 billion state budget, although the legislation’s supporters have argued it still amounts to an important measure of support for an emerging industry.

“I think with Texas leading in this way, it’s going to reap benefits for many decades to come across the state,” Bratcher said. “From a job creation perspective to a tax revenue perspective and everything in between.”

Earlier this year, addressing legislators ahead of a vote on SB 21, state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, R-Southlake — one of the driving forces behind the crypto push — struck a similar note, calling the reserve bill “a forward-thinking measure” that was about “recognizing digital assets not as a trend but as a strategic opportunity” and “strengthening the state’s fiscal resilience.”

Yet even if Texas’ public crypto investment remains minuscule, many economists and fiscal watchdogs have criticized SB 21 along with other recent pro-crypto legislation on multiple fronts, arguing it amounts to a lobbyist-driven effort that’s likely to benefit the crypto industry much more than the state’s residents.

And while Texas has recently embraced bitcoin mining and other facets of the industry, with even Abbott pushing to make the state a global “crypto leader,” critics have pointed out that cryptocurrency itself has long been plagued by concerns about scams, corruption and energy use.

“It’s also backwards to our values in Texas,” John Griffin, a finance professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said earlier this year.

“Basically you have a conservative legislature saying, ‘We want less government,’ and yet here’s a case where you are wanting or encouraging government to speculate and possibly prop up an asset class.”