As Alec writes, “Warner’s objections are rooted in the reality of his district: It contains not a single private school, so to Warner, taxpayer money for the new vouchers would clearly be flowing elsewhere, mostly to well-off families in metro Nashville, Memphis and other cities whose kids are already enrolled in private schools. Why should his small-town constituents be subsidizing the private education of metropolitan rich kids?”

I recently wrote about politicians in Texas who have made similar arguments — and faced dire political consequences. Gov. Greg Abbott has made passing vouchers for all Texas students a top priority and pursued aggressive campaigns against lawmakers in his party who did not fall in line. Among them were two incumbents he had endorsed two years earlier.

While Abbott’s hard-line stance on vouchers is relatively new, the movement supporting them is decades old. I found that Christian conservative donors and a network of organizations they fund or lead have been laying the groundwork for vouchers over the past 30 years, making strategic investments in pro-voucher lawmakers.

“I remind myself that we have no loyalties, belong to no groups, call for no prescriptions, believe in no creeds above the truth.”

— Senior editor Jesse Eisinger addressing the newsroom after ProPublica won the Pulitzer Prize for public service for the “Friends of the Court” investigative series on influence and ethics at the U.S. Supreme Court. Read more in our latest impact report.