Mike Olcott, a Republican who won last month’s primary election for Texas House District 60, invalidated News Channel 5’s Phil Williams’ claims that his opponent he defeated in the race, State Representative Glenn Rogers, was defeated by “billionaire” pro-school voucher “forces.”
Williams’ article reads in part:
A Texas Republican is sounding the alarm about billionaires who have tried to take over politics in his state — and may have their sights set on Tennessee next.
Lobbyists for two groups pushing school vouchers — sending taxpayer money to private schools — have used the recent defeat of several Republican incumbents in the Texas legislature as an example of what could happen if lawmakers don’t vote their way.
State Rep. Glenn Rogers, a conservative rancher from Mineral Wells, Texas, was one of those lawmakers targeted by pro-voucher forces.
On Wednesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show, Olcott responded to Williams’ piece supporting his former opponent, first taking issue with the investigative journalist’s description of Rogers as a “conservative” Republican.
“[Rogers] is not [a conservative Republican]. And if he was, I wouldn’t have run. There was a computer model done after every legislative session by a guy named Mark Jones, who’s a political science professor at Rice University. [Rogers] was ranked 65th out of 84 Republicans. He’s scored an F on Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. He gas repeatedly shown that he votes with the Democrats far too often. He joined 61 Democrats to impeach one of the most conservative attorney generals in Texas and the list goes on. He’s proven that he’s, really, a Democrat in Republican clothing,” Olcott said.
Olcott (pictured above, left) said although Rogers “puts up a good front to appear like a conservative,” he has supported “awarding Democrats chairmanships despite the fact that more than 95 percent of the Republicans in Texas opposed that practice.”
“And he still stands by it…As a matter of fact, the Speaker of the Texas House, the first time I ran against him, donated $305,000 to [Rogers] in a campaign, which is actually more than most state representative races cost in Texas. So he has to be loyal to Speaker Dade Phelan, who is himself in trouble. He’s about ready to lose a primary in Beaumont,” Olcott said.
Olcott went on to agree with Leahy that Rogers lost the primary election “for a whole series of issues” other than his anti-school choice position.
“The border played a big role. Property taxes. For instance, my opponent, Glenn Rogers, who claims to be a conservative, joined the Democrats to vote against an amendment to the budget that would have given us $8 billion more in property tax relief. Yet, when he sent out his mailers in this recent campaign, he bragged about how he was fighting for property tax relief. So continuing to try to deceive the voters of this district. But you’re exactly right. The school vouchers were definitely an issue in this election, but so was the border and property taxes. Those were all three very big issues and he is bad on all three,” Olcott said.
Olcott also called out the claim that Rogers was defeated by “billionaires,” noting how Rogers’ own campaign received at least six donations from a Texas billionaire.
“So he receives funding from billionaires himself. But you should know that these so-called billionaires he likes to talk about probably contribute less than 12 percent of my campaign contributions,” Olcott added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Mike Olcott” by Mike Olcott. Photo “Phil Williams” by Phil Williams.
