Carolyn Boyle presented "Parent Power at the Polls" for the Texas Politics Speaker Series on March 7, 2007.

Dr. James Henson: I'd like to welcome everyone here to the Texas Politics Speaker Series, sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts and the Department of Government here at the University of Texas at Austin.

I am most pleased to welcome Carolyn Boyle, the Chair of Texas Parent PAC, here today. She's the holder of two degrees from this university. And Ms. Boyle cuts a unique profile, it seems to me, in modern Texas politics, and this is why we invited her here today.

Parent PAC is a very rare example of grassroots organization that has had a very rapid and very direct impact on the political process in Texas. As I expect she will discuss, Parent PAC seemingly came out of nowhere in 2005 to become a key player in the last election cycle in public education issues, and the effects of their successes are still being felt throughout the state and certainly throughout the legislature.

So without further ado today, we get to hear about this success and about its implications for the state. So please help me welcome Carolyn Boyle. [Applause]

Ms. Boyle: Okay. It was terrific of you to invite me to be here today. And it was terrific, also, to be able to walk on campus on this beautiful spring day, and it brought back a lot of memories for me.

As a part of his introduction, he did not tell you that I got my two degrees in journalism. And it truly was great preparation for a career which has been extremely interesting. Journalism I do think is a great liberal arts major. And in the process, you also learn a trade.

And as a part of my journalism training, I learned a lot about asking questions and asking questions of people in power, and kind of that it was okay to be just kind of forthright and aggressive and uppity. And that was actually very good training, I think, for the PAC work that I've gotten into in the past couple of years.

At the time I was at UT and about your age, I don't think I ever dreamed I would be doing the kind of work that I'm doing right now. I think when I was 20, I totally would have had trouble even coming up with a picture of me as a person's mother.

And I also never dreamed I would be doing something that's as high-profile as what Texas Parent PAC has been, because I was kind of a shy person as a student and positively did not like public speaking, which I've ended up having to do a lot. And I also when I was in college never would have dreamed that I would enjoy going forth and begging people to give me money, which is something that a PAC has to do, too.

But I'd like to tell you that it's really important to just know that at the time you graduate from this university, you will leave with so many talents and skills, and the world is yours to go forth and do all kinds of adventurous things. So I'd like to tell you just a little bit about a huge adventure that I and many other parents have been involved in for the past two years, and it's kind of a story, really.

So I'm not here to give you a speech today; I'm kind of here to tell you a story. And I loved his expression that Texas Parent PAC came out of nowhere, because we in fact did come out of nowhere, and it all started in 2005.

And I was told some of you all may have worked at the capitol in 2005 or were watching what was going on there. It was a very frustrating session at the capitol, and it was very frustrating for parents who were watching what was going on and, also, watching what was not going on. And what was not going on was that the Texas legislators were not taking care of the children.

We had big problems with how to pay for public schools. There was a court order, you know, that we really needed to do a lot about how to pay for schools, and the legislature could not figure it out, would not focus, would not come up with solutions. They kept meeting and meeting in session after session after session, and it was an extremely frustrating thing for parents to watch. And it was frustrating for me personally because I was kind of involved at the capitol at that period and was watching kind of up close what was happening.

And so I and a small group of parents just kind of got together and said, Enough is enough; we need some new talent at the capitol. So I quit my job and started looking for some other parents to really join with me to create a PAC, to try to bring in some new talent. And when I talked with Jim, he said, Tell them how much of a critical mass of people it took to create a powerful political action committee. And the answer is five. It took five.

And it was actually a little hard to even find the four other parents to come and join with me, because it was something new, it was kind of scary, it was really taking on the power structure of Texas, it was putting ourselves personally out on this really big limb. And so I was thrilled to find four other parents to join with me to create Texas Parent PAC.

And it all happened and we came out of nowhere in July of 2005. And we kicked it off with a press conference. It was kind of a bold press conference, and it was really bold because we truly were just forming this group and really at that point were trying to even figure out what to do and how to do it.

But we called a press conference. We invited all the capitol press corps to come. We told them the parents of Texas were really angry and disappointed with the Texas legislature and it was time for a change, and that we were going to go forth and raise a quarter of a million dollars and go across Texas and recruit some new talent and help to bring about a change at the capitol.

At the time, we just pulled that number out of the air; it sounded like a quarter of a million dollars was a good number. And a couple of the capitol press corps reporters said, Do you think you all are being a little bit ambitious, you know, thinking you can raise a quarter of a million dollars? And we said, Well, do you know how many parents are out there in Texas? And we said at the time that we thought the potential was great.

So we told Texas the parents were mad, that we believed the parents of Texas were a sleeping giant and we were going to go forth and wake them up. And the press coverage was very good and very kind, and it's partly because, I think, the news media really like a story and they like the idea of this little group of parents who were mad taking on the big boys of Texas. And so it was at that point that we actually started on the nitty-gritty of developing a PAC.

And when he invited me to come, he asked me to talk to you a little bit about, How do you create a PAC? And I'd like to tell you our story, but I kind of hope that our story might become something that can inspire you, either in the next few years or ten years from now or 20 years from now, because we need many more people in Texas forming PACs, talking to people about the importance of really being involved in politics, electoral politics, and turning people out at the polls, you know.

And it truly doesn't take a whole lot of people to reach out and really make a difference in campaigns. In terms of just kind of details, it was like to begin with, we did form a non-profit corporation to provide some protection for the people who serve on the board of our PAC. We also had to create a logo, which is printed on the piece of paper I passed out to you.

And it's if people are watching this on TV, you can check out our site, which is Txparentpac.com. And we also, you know, had to quickly print letterhead and put up a site on the web and explain to people who we were.

And part of what Texas Parent PAC was designed to do and actually has done was to be a really, truly bipartisan PAC. We started out with the goal of working on the campaigns of ten republicans and ten democrats. And part of the challenge is to tell people you actually can be a bipartisan PAC in Texas. You can be mainstream, focus on children and focus on issues without getting pulled to the right or to the left to a particular party.

We early on realized we needed some guiding principles to explain who Texas Parent PAC is and pretty much what we believe in, in order to be able to find candidates who would support those guiding principles. So it was about a one-month project even to figure out, What are our principles? And you can actually read those on our site, also, but the main ones are that we were trying to find candidates who would speak for children at the capitol.

You know, there are people at the capitol to speak for all kinds of special interests, but there aren't enough people who speak for children. And we thought that it was very important to find candidates who would make that commitment to be people who would listen to parents and speak for children and really protect our public schools, because our public schools are very, very important to Texas.

We also have in our guiding principles that we wanted candidates to truly represent the people back home. And of course, most of you would think, Well, isn't that what they're supposed to do? Yes, that's what they're supposed to do, but there are many legislators who do not do a good job of representing the people back home.

So it was important for us as we were talking to potential candidates to find people who would really commit to do that, to pay attention to what the people back home said and to give the viewpoints of the parents a whole lot more importance than the people who were really trying to harm the public schools and denigrate the public schools.

So the PAC was formed. We had a small board of directors. We had a logo. We had letterhead. We had a web site. And at that point, it was clear to us a couple of things. One, the people who were the leaders of the PAC truly needed some consultation.

We were reading books about campaigns, and we were going to campaign schools, but we were basically just a bunch of parents. And so one of our first tasks was to try to find a republican campaign consultant who would work with our PAC and to provide us advice throughout the campaigns.

Lo and behold, all of the republican campaign consultants we talked to in Texas would not touch us with a ten-foot pole, and partly because we were kind of taking on the leadership of Texas. And they would talk to us, and they would be kind, and then they'd say, No way, Jose, would we work with Texas Parent Pac, because you all are trying to do something that's just a little bit uppity.

So, fortunately for us, we did find over in Baton Rouge a really good republican campaign consultant named Fletcher. His name is Roy Fletcher, who he said, Yeah, Texas; that's great; I'm over here in Louisiana; no one can, you know, get back at me for helping you. And he actually ended up being just a fantastic part of our team.

So once we were to that point, it was time for us to start looking for candidates. And some of what we did was to go out and recruit candidates; we also tried to just talk some people who were thinking about running into becoming candidates, but what we mostly did was interview people who were like campaigning already and trying to decide between two different candidates.

We typically would go and interview those candidates, talking with them for about two hours at a time. And in two hours, you can learn so much about people and what their issues are, what their values are and what motivates them.

And I have to tell you we have some great people in Texas. And at the end of two hours with the candidates, sometimes we would leave those rooms saying, This is the most fantastic person I've ever met, you know, so well-grounded, so mature, so experienced, with such a commitment to their community, you know, just fantastic people, the kind we need at the capitol. And then sometimes we'd leave these meetings and say, Oh, my gosh, that is not the kind of person we need at the capitol.

And in the course of the 12-month period, we got pretty good at talking with candidates and figuring out which were the kind of people who would really speak for children, who totally believed in the principles of the PAC. And we came up with some candidates who just, you know, were the kind of people Texas really deserves.

And because these were such fantastic candidates, it was what motivated us to go forth and raise money. And it's hard raising money. And it takes just calling people up on the phone and saying, "I am desperate for money," something I thought I would just hate doing, but, you know, once we had these fantastic candidates that Texas really deserved, you know, it was possible to go forth and do that. And we raised money through parties, through direct-mail, calling people on the phone, e-mailing people.

And it was really important to find people who cared about the public schools and also could write us big checks. And people came out of nowhere. You know, all kinds of people read the coverage in the newspaper and said, You guys are doing what really needs to be done. And so many people just called in a surprising way.

I was called by a person I had worked with on The Daily Texan many, many years ago, and I actually hadn't talked to him in 25 years. He called me up on the phone, and he said, Carolyn, I was reading a quote from you in the newspaper about Texas Parent PAC, and I just have to help; do you actually need a big check. And I said, Yes; I need a big check tomorrow.

And so we were just extremely blessed with the people who came forth and helped us on this effort and trusted a group of parents who were just trying to do what's right. So we took the contributions and used them in so many ways helping our candidates. We were able to help them with staff for their campaigns.

We paid for yard signs, TV time, radio spots, telephone banks, direct-mail, and plenty of those robo-calls, which are really kind of annoying, but they get people off the couch and to the polls. We also reached out and just brought in a lot of parents to help with campaigns, block walking, telephone calling, working at the polls. And it was great that we were able to activate the sleeping giant, which is the parents of Texas.

It turned out you know, at this press conference, we boldly said we were going to raise like a quarter of a million dollars. We actually raised half a million dollars, you know, which was way more than we ever thought we'd be able to raise. It ended up 12 of our candidates won. These were like 12 candidates who had this you know, that were just wow-wonderful people and were able to win.

It ended up one of our kind of marquee campaigns, which is what one of the reporters called it, was challenging Kent Grusendorf. And he was the chair of the public ed committee in the Texas House, and he was a disappointment.

And of course, he has lost and he's gone, so I would probably prefer not to talk about, you know, all the ways he was a disappointment, but he was more driven, I believe, by ideology and less about really trying to improve the public schools. So Texas Parent PAC was involved in helping the person who challenged him, Diane Patrick. And she was a great candidate, is a great legislator and is a source of pride to us.

Just in terms of the impact that we're having at the capitol right now, I do think those 12 candidates we helped elect are doing a terrific job. And people are telling me just because of Texas Parent PAC having challenged a number of incumbents, people have changed at the capitol. And it's turning out the attitudes of many people have changed, that they're listening more to parents. They're calling up superintendents more. They're talking to the members of the school boards more.

And time will tell, you know. I'm talking to you today in early March, so we have a couple of months to go, but our hope is that because the parents spoke loudly at the polls and turned out and helped to elect some really good, pro-public school folks in the Texas House, our hope is that the legislature has changed and will be more responsive to parents and to schools and just taking care of our children.

I was asked to talk a little bit about Texas Parent PAC in 2008. And of course, one of the reasons we're excited about 2008 is we know a whole lot more than we knew in 2006. It was like totally going back to college in campaigning in terms of everything we were able to learn in 2006.

So I do think we're going to be a little more savvy even in choosing candidates and helping them to plan their campaigns. And it's and we've learned a lot about what you have to do to raise money, and truly have a whole new appreciation for the importance of money in campaigns. You know, it is critical.

And so right now, we're involved in reaching out, raising money, trying to find more parents who will volunteer with us helping with campaigns, and, also, join with us in just kind of looking for really good candidates, those kinds of candidates who will just wow the people of Texas.

So I'm interested in some questions from you guys. I've just kind of hit the high points. I have passed out a piece of paper that has the names of the 12 candidates that were endorsed by Parent PAC and won. And if you're interested in learning more about those candidates and you're watching this on TV, you can find the names of those candidates at the Parent PAC website, Txparentpac.com.

Questions?

Dr. James Henson: This gentleman's going to bring a mic around. So if you could wait, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Man 1: Yes. Could you just expand a little bit on the principles of your organization?

Ms. Boyle: Well, do you know what? I just wish I had brought a list of the principles with me, but I'll just kind of tell you generally what they are. It's like eight principles.

One of the principles and the principles have to do with the principles of a pro-public school candidate. Okay?

Principle Number 1 is, "I speak for children." I mean that is paramount. We need legislators who speak for children, all children, in the public schools, children of all races, kids who can speak English, kids who can't speak English, kids who are disabled, kids who come from poor homes. You know, the children of Texas have so many challenges in terms of public education, and we need legislators who are constantly thinking about what those children need.

Principle Number 2 is, "I will listen to parents," I mean which seems pretty simplistic, but there are a lot of legislators who do not listen to parents and care about the public schools, you know. It's not too much to ask I don't think to say, Speak up for children and listen to parents.

And one of the principles is, "I will represent my district back home." There are too many legislators who are totally up there to represent the people who gave them a lot of money or the people who were pushing all kinds of special-interest legislation, you know, which is not something that's in the public interest for the people back home. So, you know, we're interested in people who will speak up for the folks back home.

One of the principles also has to do with, "Support local control of the public schools," just because the people in local communities know a lot about what their schools need and what is needed to really nurture those schools. We think there has been too much government from Austin trying to tell the local public schools what to do, as well as providing mandates.

You know, there are just mandate after mandate after mandate on the public schools, and we believe that there needs to be more local control. And people like the PTA and the school board members are the people who truly can just nurture and protect those schools.

We also believe that public schools need to be adequately and equitably paid for. You know, we need to have enough money for the public schools to really do a good job, helping all children to learn and to graduate and to be prepared to come to the University of Texas if they want to.

We also believe that public money should only be used for public schools. In Texas, there are a lot of people pushing taking away money from the public schools to pay for tuition at private schools, and one of our principles is, We believe that the taxes that are collected to fund the public schools should be used solely to fund public schools.

Any more questions?

Ms. Boyle: Okay.

Dr. James Henson: You know, you talked about in a sense challenging the leadership of the state, but I noticed that you also I mean in an interesting way, you backed both republican and democratic candidates. Can you talk about what that experience was like in the current environment as you sort of interjected yourself in a range of different races, sometimes in primaries, as I recall, and sometimes in generals?

Ms. Boyle: Okay. So just what it's like getting involved in both republican campaigns as well as democratic campaigns?

Dr. James Henson: Yes.

Ms. Boyle: Well, do you know what? It turned out that our candidates were just such wonderful mainstream people, we really didn't kind of get involved as republican or as democrat; it was just trying to help those really terrific people, and party didn't really play a big part.

In terms of just the larger scene, it turned out that most of the candidates we supported in the republican primary weren't the candidates that were the chosen ones by the people in power. And so probably that just made it harder for us and for those candidates, just because there were not many PACs helping our candidates republican candidates partly because of them not being the chosen ones or, else, the candidate we supported was challenging a republican incumbent. And that just made it hard.

And I think it'll be obvious if you look at these numbers on the piece of paper I passed out to you. Many of these races were very, very close, extremely close. I mean like 100 votes or less. And just in terms of these winning candidates, all of them had terrific campaigns and campaign managers and consultants.

So it's not like Texas Parent PAC was, I mean, who came in and helped them with their campaigns; our goal was to be able to bring to the polls just enough parents to be able to push them over the top and win. And so it's obvious if a candidate won by 200 votes or 400 votes or 500 votes, if Parent PAC was able to bring to the polls those 400 votes, we were able to push them over the top.

And I do think that in many of these races, just us jumping in and providing money and providing volunteers and paying for yard signs made a huge difference. And probably about half of these 12 winning candidates at some point in time said to me personally that Texas Parent PAC getting involved was the turning point in the campaign. And we're glad that parents jumping in were able to do that.

I don't know if I answered your question.

Dr. James Henson: Yes, you did.

Ms. Boyle: Okay.

Man 2: I was wondering. Do you as a political action committee, do you have any dealings with the candidates after they've been elected? Do you have any influence on their decisions? This question stems from I was a student in a public high school in San Angelo, where Drew Darby was elected.

Ms. Boyle: Yes.

Man 2: In high school, the school board committee was it was very troubling. We had a lot of problems with that committee. And you talked about local administration and local support for these schools. Could someone come to you and use you as a vehicle to get their voice heard by the legislators, and things of that sort?

Ms. Boyle: Okay. I appreciate that question.

Texas Parent PAC is not lobbying at the capitol. And it has been interesting to me, because a couple of our candidates have called and said, Well, something's coming up; do you think I should vote yes, or no, or whatever. And when they call, I say, You know what; we trust you, and you are such a good person with such good judgment; there's plenty of lobbyists for the PTA and for the teacher organizations and the school boards; there's all kinds of people that you can call.

So we aren't actually, you know, lobbying. We're not trying to influence those candidates who are over at the capitol now. Pretty much, we're focusing on 2008. So I'm probably I and a couple of people on the PAC board are monitoring what's happening at the capitol, because it will kind of play a part in which people we plan on challenging, you know.

We're looking at the bills filed. We're looking at the kinds of comments people are just making in committee and on the floor. I've been talking to some parents who've been going over to the capitol and talking with legislators. And so I've been asking them, Tell me if they're listening to you; or are they just kind of acting I was actually going to use the word "jerk", but, you know, it's not like they would act like jerks.

But so it's kind of like we are interested in just watching everything that's happening in the capitol, to help us to figure out places where some new talent is needed.

Man 1: Personally, here in this city, I was blown away by the quality of people stepping forward for the school board, one of the most difficult jobs, I think, in Texas or anywhere. Do you all get involved at the school board level? I know you can't spread yourselves too thin, but that seems to be kind of a real critical point in terms of public schools.

Ms. Boyle: Well, maybe in ten years, we'll do that. Right now, pretty much it's all we can do just to deal with what's going on at the Texas capitol. Hopefully, you know, over time, there'll be some spinoff groups, you know, local groups who'll be focused more on the school board, because it truly is extremely important to have good people on the school board.

And in terms of us looking for potential candidates, some of the legislative candidates had served on school boards before. And the people who have served on school boards totally get these issues, you know. They totally understand it and are extremely good legislators just because of being able to come in with the knowledge.

Man 1: Like farm clubs?

Ms. Boyle: Yeah. Right. And it's important, I think. Probably in the last year, we learned a lot about which candidates win and which candidates lose. And it really helps if the candidates have run for office before, if they've run to be a county judge or on the city council or the school board.

You know, that it really helps to have had campaign experience, because running for the Texas legislature is really getting up into the big leagues. And if you've practiced, you know, in the smaller leagues, I think it helps a lot.

Dr. James Henson: I want to ask you another. I want to sort of push you backwards a little bit, because there's something that's really striking to me in looking at your personal history in a sense, I mean at least as represented by your rŽsumŽ.

But there's this tracking where you kind of move presumably with a child through the PTAs. And then, you know, a few years later, you're kind of engaged at this very high level in this very successful endeavor.

I wonder if you have if you're very aware of or if you can talk a little bit about where you went from being, you know, kind of a service-oriented parent to somebody who says, you know, "This is just" I mean, again, I may be putting words in your mouth "Something is really amiss here, and I really need to get involved at a different level." Could you talk a little bit about how and when that happened?

Ms. Boyle: Okay. Well, okay. I was not expecting quite this personal of a question, but I'll gladly answer it, because you're the teacher. [laughter]

Ms. Boyle: Okay. Well, I was the president of the PTA when my daughter was in fifth grade. And I really liked being president of the PTA, which means I needed to get a life. Right? I mean but it was interesting for me to be able to organize a bunch of parents to work for children.

And it was also kind of a radicalizing experience for me, because I learned how little money the public schools had, and the PTA had to work so hard to raise so much money just to provide basics at the school. So at the conclusion of my year as president of the PTA, I thought, I need to change my career; I'd really like to have a job that's kind of like being the president of the PTA.

So at that point, I did take a part-time job as the coordinator of a group called the Coalition for Public Schools, and it was a great opportunity for me. It was a coalition of about 40 groups that were lobbying at the capitol to oppose using public money to pay tuition at private schools. And so I came in not really knowing all about the whole scene at the capitol, but I had to learn very quickly.

And so I worked in that job for about eight years. And it was a real blessing to be able to work with 40 groups and to see what was going on at the capitol up close and personal.

Of course, sometimes you don't want to see what's going on at the capitol up close and personal, which is why 2005 was extremely frustrating for me, because I knew too much, I had seen too much, it was not how the process is supposed to work. And I knew that some change was needed.

And terms of me personally, I was also just at my church, we were taking about nine months reading the book called "The Purpose-Driven Life." And so I spent about nine months reading that book, studying that book and, also, taking some other classes at church. I was learning about the gospels and called by Jesus to work for justice.

And so it was the confluence, I think, of kind of a calling for me personally and also knowing that I was someone who truly had learned a lot about how things work at the capitol. And I had worked with the coalition of 40 groups, and I knew a lot of people, had been well trained at the University of Texas in journalism and PR. And so it was time for me to quit my job and reach out to a bunch of other courageous parents who joined with me.

Dr. James Henson: Were you surprised at the extent of the response you got?

Ms. Boyle: Was I surprised? Yes, I was surprised. And it's partly because it was, kind of like I had mentioned earlier, that the news media likes stories. And they liked the idea, you know, of some parents, just some regular old parents and we really are regular old parents taking on the big boys and really playing in the big leagues when we should have been back on whatever it's called in sports the minor leagues.

Yeah, we skipped the minors. We went to the big leagues.

And probably, I think, one of the reasons we surprised people is because people aren't used to the PTA way of doing things, you know. People who were trained through the PTA are used to working really hard and not getting paid for it. They're used to reaching out to friends and relatives and bringing people together.

You know, Texas Parent PAC is a very-low-overhead operation. We have no office; we have a post office box and a telephone. And we work on our dining room tables and our computers at home, and we work until midnight. And so I mean I don't think people thought we would work as hard as we did without having a real big-league, highly paid team.

And people I think also were surprised how much money we raised. I was surprised how much money we raised.

And so but the you know, it's important to tell you guys, you know, it's possible for a small group of people to really change things, make a difference and get people's attention, and, you know, which takes me back to your original question.

What is the critical mass did it take to create a political action committee? Five. And of course, you can start with five, and then we added more to our board. And then we added volunteers, and then we added people going out raising money.

And the news media coverage has been extremely kind to us.

Dr. James Henson: Any more questions?

Dr. James Henson: Carolyn, well, thank you very much. It was everything we hoped for.

Ms. Boyle: Thank you.

Dr. James Henson: Please. [Applause.]