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Long-time state Rep. John Kuempel faces perhaps the toughest test of his political career when he faces former state lawmaker Alan Schoolcraft for the Republican nomination for Texas House District 44 in the Texas Primary runoff election on Tuesday.
Schoolcraft, who came out of retirement to run in this race, received 47% of the vote in the March Primary, edging the incumbent Kuempel, who received 46%.
Kuempel, a Seguin native, has been a reliable Republican vote in Austin for 13 years.
That was until last year when Gov. Greg Abbott asked lawmakers to tackle school vouchers for Texas parents to help them pay for private school. Kuempel joined Democrats, and two dozen other Republicans, to torpedo Abbott’s school voucher push in April 2023.
Four special sessions later, no school voucher legislation made it to Abbott’s desk for him to sign, infuriating the governor, who promised to go after the rebellious Republicans in the March Primary election by supporting the challenger(s) over the incumbents. That includes Kuempel.
“I think that’s the defining difference between the both of us. I’m supporting a system that, you know, we can see from other states, that just doesn’t work. Just from a basic economic standpoint, the cost of it would be debilitating for my communities, my schools (and) our local economies. And I’m just not going to stand for it and watch it go,” said Kuempel, who recently sat down for a Spriester Sessions interview.
Schoolcraft served as a state Representative for districts 57 and 121 in Bexar County from 1981 to 1993. He has also been a lawyer and businessman. He has not been in office since then but has come back for this race and has Abbott’s endorsement.
“There’s been folks trying to talk me into running for the last six or eight years, and I kept saying ‘no. Let someone else do it. I’ve done it before, I’ve served my time.’ And I just kept saying ‘no,’” said Schoolcraft in an interview on Spriester Sessions. “But this time around, there were just issues that I really cared about. And then I think the final one was the school choice vote when my opponent was one of the 21 Republicans that helped kill it. And that’s something that I’ve believed in for many, many years. And I just said, ‘OK, that’s it. You know, I’m going to try to do my part.’ That was the final straw.”
The winner will face Eric Norman, who ran unopposed in the Democrat primary.
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