A teachers union in Texas seemed to see one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse trotting up to their state’s Capitol when former Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey paid Texas Gov. Greg Abbott a visit in March 2025.
“In his relentless quest to pass a private school voucher scheme in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is calling in reinforcements,” the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers said in a press release, claiming Abbott invited Ducey “to help him sell this deeply unpopular policy proposal.”
Back then, Texas lawmakers were still simmering a plan to implement vouchers in their own state. After years of intense debate at the Texas Legislature, school voucher supporters eventually got their way. Abbott signed a universal voucher bill into law last May.
With a stroke of a pen, one of the country’s biggest school systems joined an experiment Arizona launched in 2022: What happens if we open the floodgates and spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on school vouchers?
That question could loom large for Arizona voters this November, assuming the Protect Education Act qualifies for the ballot. It would put some income cap restrictions on families that use vouchers and put stricter stricter academic tracking and safety standards in place for private schools that accept state vouchers.
A fifth-grade math teacher in Texas poked holes in Arizona’s “voucher math” while Gov. Greg Abbott hosted former Gov. Doug Ducey in Austin.
So far, the story in Arizona has been a cautionary tale of skyrocketing costs, private school families getting $7,000 checks from the state and scandals about parents spending voucher money on diamond rings.
It’s also been a beacon for school choice advocates. Every Republican-led state in the country — including Texas — watched as 100,000 students enrolled in Arizona’s voucher program. They’ve also seen that Democratic lawmakers and Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs haven’t really been able to do anything about it.
Texas has quite a different story to tell. And it’s a story that could be useful for Arizonans as they fill out their ballots in November.
A tale of two states
Texas is having one of the biggest weeks of its voucher adventure.
The Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts just announced that 96,000 students will be in the inaugural class of Texas Education Freedom Accounts. (Keep in mind, Texas has about five times as many students as Arizona.)
Right away, you might’ve picked up on a key difference between the Texas and Arizona voucher programs: The Texas program isn’t run by the department of education, like it is in Arizona.
The Texas law that created the voucher program requires the comptroller — an office that’s akin to the Arizona State Treasurer, but with a little more teeth — to hold the program accountable with regard to how much money goes into the program, how that money is spent and which students are eligible.
Texas got so many applications for vouchers, they had to turn away thousands of students.
But Texas lawmakers didn’t fully trust the comptroller to spot every scandal. That’s why the law requires an independent audit of the voucher program by a private firm every year.
Can you imagine that in Arizona? Democratic lawmakers sure can, but none of the bills they run ever get a hearing.
As for the money that’s pumped into the program, Texas lawmakers saw costs blow up in Arizona, from an estimated $65 million per year when Arizona legislators were writing the law to roughly $1 billion today.
“Arizona’s voucher scam has pushed their state towards a massive budget deficit, and now, Greg Abbott wants to bring that same failed blueprint to Texas,” Democratic lawmaker and rising national star James Talarico said when Ducey visited Texas in March 2025. "Our message to Governor Abbott is clear: don't Arizona our Texas.”
So what did Texas lawmakers do to avoid that trap? They put a cap on how much money could go to vouchers. The state can’t spend more than $1 billion on vouchers during the current two-year budget cycle. (But experts say the cost will reach $5 billion annually in the following years.)
For now, the school choice crowd is thrilled that so many students enrolled in the Texas program.
The Texas law also addresses transparency problems that are rampant in Arizona’s program.
In fact, our jaws dropped when we saw the detailed demographic information provided under the Texas law.
Instead of reporters filing public records requests and connecting the dots the best they can, like they have to do in Arizona, the Texas comptroller routinely releases information that answers voucher critics’ most pressing questions.
For example, the Texas comptroller reported that 75% of voucher applicants attended private school or home-school in the 2024-25 school year. The data also showed 37% of applicants were low-income families.
We could point out plenty more differences between the voucher programs in Arizona and Texas — like making sure every student completes standardized testing — but you get the picture.
And, as voters consider whether to sign off on the Protect Education Act backed by public school boosters, it’s worth keeping in mind that the measure would make Arizona’s voucher rules look a lot more like the ones in Texas.
If you’re curious about the Texas voucher program, check out the comptroller’s office. For the libertarian crowd, Texas Policy Research has a good rundown. And the Texas Tribune’s education coverage is top-notch.
Spring break: After sending Gov. Katie Hobbs a budget that she’s already committed to veto, House Republicans voted yesterday to take a vacation until June 1, or until legislative leadership summons them back. The Senate briefly met to approve the House’s break — since one chamber can’t adjourn for more than three days without the other’s permission — and is scheduled to return Monday before taking the same month-long break. Without a spending plan that Hobbs is willing to sign, the state government shuts down June 30.
Interstate homewrecking: A federal judge is considering Kyrsten Sinema’s bid to toss a “homewrecker” lawsuit filed by the ex-wife of her former security guard, the Republic’s Ronald J. Hansen reports. The former U.S. Senator acknowledges six sexual encounters with her former employee in 2024, but says none happened in North Carolina, so the state’s homewrecking law shouldn’t apply. The case was assigned to U.S. District Judge David Bragdon, whose old website suggests he may have some thoughts on consequences.
“The website, titled ‘David Bragdon’s Radical Conservative, Republican, Libertarian Home Page,’ outlined his views at the time, including his opposition to abortion rights. He said then that a ‘woman knows the risk when she chooses not to use birth control and thus must face the consequences,’” Hansen writes.
Not In My Precinct: A Maricopa County judge ruled that Secretary of State Adrian Fontes can’t force counties to adopt vote center systems where voters can cast ballots anywhere instead of only in assigned precincts, KJZZ’s Wayne Schutsky reports. Pinal County, one of the few Arizona counties that still uses a precinct model, sued over an Elections Procedures Manual rule requiring counties to let voters use voting machines even if they show up at the wrong polling place.
The Gay Panic Merit Badge: An Arizona-based travel agency is fighting a costly trademark lawsuit from Scouting America, AKA the Boy Scouts, LOOKOUT’s Joseph Darius Jaafari reports. Scouting America says the name “Queer Scout” is too close to its own, despite previously settling a similar fight with the Girl Scouts. The youth program authorized the lawsuit the day after the Pentagon said it would keep working with the group because of its pledge to remove “gender-fluid ideological stances” from its policies.
Straight Outta Scottsdale: Scottsdale Vice Mayor Adam Kwasman says he was targeted by an antisemitic deepfake video over his support for half a million in city funds for a crosswalk to his synagogue, 12News’ Brahm Resnik reports. The anti-development group Protect Scottsdale posted an AI-generated council meeting clip showing a fake audience standing in response to Kwasman’s crosswalk request, but the intended takeaway is unclear. The group has since posted a follow-up deepfake rap diss track against the councilman, which, unfortunately, is pretty catchy.
UPS for governor: The Arizona Supreme Court said Hugh Lytle, the No Labels Party candidate for governor, can stay on the ballot even though he listed a P.O. box instead of his home address on nomination paperwork, the Mirror’s Jim Small reports. A Democratic activist argued that omission violated state law, but the justices said Lytle wasn’t intentionally misleading voters.
Conservation cash: The federal government is offering $450 million to help Arizona, California and Nevada conserve Colorado River water as part of the Lower Basin states’ new water-saving plan, the Star’s Tony Davis reports. The money will help buy senior water rights from major users, including Yuma-area farmers.
In other absurdist late-stage capitalism news, the stakes are climbing high for one man who just so happened to be in the right place in the universe — a Scottsdale Circle K at Bell Road and 56th Street he manages — at the right time.
Here’s Kyle Simchuk with 12News.
According to court documents, a customer asked a clerk to print $85 worth of lottery tickets but only had $60 to pay for them, leaving several tickets behind at the store. One of those tickets later matched all six winning numbers, making it worth $12.8 million.
The next morning, store manager Robert Gawlitza allegedly found the winning ticket, clocked out of work, changed out of his Circle K uniform and then purchased the leftover tickets for $10, according to the lawsuit.
Pretty damn convenient, no?
Circle K filed a lawsuit to dispute Gawlitza’s ownership of the ticket. But as the case floats in the courts, the lottery ticket is set to expire on May 23 — which led the corporation to ask the judge to block the Arizona Lottery from enforcing the 180-day deadline for claiming it.
As a lawyer noted, this case is a singular conundrum that’s bound to become legend among Arizona lawyers when it’s settled.
It’s quite the drama: absurdly large payouts, luck, cunning and opportunism — all at a Circle K. What could be more deeply American?
Depending on who you are, watching this one play out might make you laugh, cry, hurl or piss yourself.
But regardless of what happens, Gawlitza is about to become a name in the halls of niche local lore.