State Rep. Pat Curry said “critics are wrong” about Texas schools being underfunded. His opponent, Ashley Bean Thornton, remains one of those critics.
Thornton is challenging the freshman Republican incumbent in House District 56 with an eye to become McLennan County’s first Democrat representing McLennan County since 2010. It’s an uphill climb: Curry won nearly 69% of the vote in 2024 against Democrat Erin Shank.
Thornton, a former teacher and Baylor administrator, is campaigning to win over voters with her support of public education. She opposes school vouchers, which Curry has supported.
Early voting begins Monday for the Nov. 3 midterms. The Waco Bridge’s voter guide provides information on candidates, customized to any McLennan County address.
Thornton is a local civic leader known for hosting public education events on legislation such as McLennan County Talks. She said she decided to run for office after attending the LBJ Women’s Campaign School through the University of Texas.
Curry, a Waco businessman, points to his support of raises for educators in the 2025 legislative session along with state-funded cuts to school property taxes.
He said his proudest achievements in 2025 were securing more mental health funding for the Waco area and laying the groundwork for regional water supply in Central Texas.
Curry said his priorities for the next legislative session starting in January include more property tax relief.
He and Thornton agree on several legislative priorities, such as more guardrails on data centers and more funding for community colleges.
Property tax struggle
Republicans have targeted property taxes as a top priority in the next legislative session, and Gov. Greg Abbott has proposed eliminating school property taxes entirely. Unless offset by state funding, that would strain local districts already struggling with budget deficits.
Curry said he would support phasing out property taxes for school districts’ operations and maintenance budgets.
Legislators in 2025 allocated $51 billion to reduce school property taxes through tax compression and homestead exemptions. Curry said in making decisions about property tax relief, the state needs to think of its future economy.
“We’ve been very blessed in Texas, being the seventh or eighth largest economy in the world,” Curry said. “We’ve had excess money to spend. … Our business growth and state’s growth has allowed us to have excess money. How long will we have that?”
Curry supported the Legislature’s decision to add $8.5 billion for public schools, most of it going to teacher and staff salaries.
The funding did not cover raises for beginning teachers or for non-teaching employees, such as transportation workers.
Curry said he and other legislators wanted to invest in the best teachers in the country.
“We’re putting as much money directly to the teachers and the students as we possibly can, but as far as the funding was concerned, the funding was increased greatly,” Curry said. “Now, was it enough? I don’t know.”
Thornton said she decided to run to fight for more investment in public education. She said that won’t be easy, but property taxes shouldn’t be any higher. Other funding sources could be redirected funding from school vouchers and certain tax abatements, and possibly a sales tax increase.
She believes the state can still offer property tax relief but in a different way than Republicans are proposing.
Thornton proposes a “circuit breaker” mechanism that takes income into account when assessing property taxes, offering lower-income homeowners tax credits and caps to protect against extreme increases.
“So what that would do is take the pressure off people who have gotten caught in that squeeze between appraisals going up and their pay not going up,” Thornton said. “But (it would) also allow us to keep getting the income from property taxes that we need to pay for schools.”
Thornton also opposes House Republican leaders’ efforts to limit city and county spending through tighter appraisal caps, spending limits and a two-thirds vote required for bond elections.
Curry generally supports reining in property taxes. But he said he believes Waco’s city government has been responsible with their tax rates and fund balances while still providing services to residents.
Curry said he wants to make sure tax relief for homeowners doesn’t shift the tax burden to renters.
He is proposing a bill that would allow renters to protest the appraisals on the property they rent.
“Those are our friends, our family, our employees, and so it hurts small business too,” Curry said.
Data centers
Thornton and Curry agree more regulation is needed as companies rush to build data centers in rural areas such as Ross and Riesel.
Curry has been an outspoken critic against the Ross data center, a partnership between Infrakey and Lacy Lakeview. He described it as a speculative project without money, a deal or customer.
“I wish they cross their T’s and dot their I’s and come in and tell us how much water you’re going to use, and how much power you’re going to use and where are you going to get it?” Curry said.
“And oh by the way, your neighborhood out there is pretty ticked off, and you obviously didn’t do your homework because you’re in a huge Czech German community, and they do not just lay down.”
Curry supports a separate proposal for a data center in McGregor’s industrial park, calling it “a really good deal.”
The Heart of Texas Electric Cooperative, which serves the McGregor area, is a partner in the project.
“They had the power to do it,” Curry said. “They had the water to do it. It was a closed loop system. The company is actually putting up money to improve the community, putting up a lot of tax base, taking no money from the public whatsoever. It’s going to be great for the school district. It’s going to be great for the county, and it’s going to be great for the city of McGregor.”
Thornton stated more data center regulation is needed at the state level and the federal level.
“The whole reason communities are attracted to them at all is because of the potential to bring in so much money,” Thornton said. “Well, if they have that much money, they should not be getting a tax rebate. They should be paying for their electricity. They should be paying for whatever systems have to be in place to do their water.”
Vouchers
Curry and Thornton differ sharply on the $1 billion private school voucher system that Curry and other state legislators approved in 2025.
Curry said he supported it because he wanted children with special needs to have access to private schools.
Thornton opposes vouchers and wants that money to go to public schools. She said other states that have expanded voucher programs have seen a negative impact on public schools.
“It causes people with less income to have poorer schools and people with more income to have better schools,” Thornton said. “We already have more of that than we need. We need to be investing in helping our schools with a high concentration of economically disadvantaged kids achieve at the same level of our schools that have more moderate concentrations.”
Curry said that he would want more information about the performance of the current program before considering additional funding.
He said the competition against private schools has improved performance at public school districts, including Midway and Waco ISDs.
“We’ve made some strides,” he said. “Was it because of that program? I think it’s too early to tell. So no, I’m not largely in favor of going and adding a ton of funding to it.”
He stated he supports public education and will continue to do so.
“Public schools are the core of our community, and they always will be,” Curry said. “That’s not going to change. And my support for public schools, and overall my party’s support for public schools, is there. It’s in our heart.”
Community college funding
Curry and Thornton also want to address a funding gap that arose this year in community college funding from the state.
Since 2023, the state funding formula for community colleges has emphasized outcomes such as degrees and certificates rather than mere enrollment.
Schools such as McLennan Community College exceeded their expected metrics, but the state ran out of money to reimburse their costs. MCC had a $3.1 million state funding shortfall this year, which it made up with local tax dollars.
“They just grossly underestimated how successful our community colleges were going to be at doing that, but now we know better,” Thornton said.
Curry said he expects the Legislature to fix that funding mechanism and try to offset some of the money colleges lost this year.
“I’m certainly fighting for it – to make sure that funding is replaced,” Curry said.
Disclosure: McLennan Community College has been a financial supporter of The Waco Bridge within the past five years. The Waco Bridge is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.
