Determinants of Voting on Education Savings Accounts: Evidence from Tennessee

Tennessee passed voucher-style Education Savings Account (ESA) legislation in 2019. We analyze the roll call vote in the Tennessee House to better understand the role of constituent, legislator, and special interest influences on support for school choice. This is accomplished using a binary probit model with legislator vote as the dependent variable. We find that legislator voting behavior in this context is most significantly determined by party affiliation and the presence of campaign funding from the Tennessee Education Association (TEA) rather than the demographic characteristics of their constituents.