WACO, Texas — It's an election year and with the fight for State Representative of House District 55, you will likely see campaign ads everywhere in Central Texas. It's catching the eyes of voters, but some could be misleading.
For Jeff Howard, he saw a political ad stating that funding for educational savings account would be giving taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants for education.
Patrick Flavin, Professor of Political Science at Baylor University, says education savings accounts have been proposed and debated, but it's not currently the law in Texas.
"It's not sort of the basic provision of public schooling," Flavin said. "This would be something different that people would have to opt into and so there's probably more ability for Texas to write a law there that would make those education savings accounts available only to citizens. Of course, in a political ad, all sorts of claims can be made and that's especially true when you have legislation that didn't pass. It was debated at length in several special sessions, but it's not currently a law, it's certainly a key issue in the upcoming Republican primaries. It's not surprising to me at all that it's an issue that's being featured prominently in these political ads."
Ever since a 1982 Supreme Court decision, children have the right to education regardless of citizenship.
"They can't be denied education based on whether they're a U.S. citizen or not," Flavin added.
Flavin says the ad claims can be confusing.
"It's very much a gray area in terms of of how claims that are made are adjudicated, whether they're true or false," Flavin said.
What Flavin does know is Texas has laws in place.
"It does require disclosure of who is producing the ad," Flavin said. "The Texas Ethics Commission that oversees this wouldn't allow a candidate to claim, that they were say the incumbent of a race if they weren't right, something very factual. I think that's why it's so important to know where the ad is coming from."
Flavin recommends viewers and potential voters to pay to attention to who put out the campaign. Make sure you are hearing it directly from the candidate, and it's not being filtered or misconstrued by an outside group.
"This is really the election that matters," Flavin said. "Voters should take just a little bit of time, it doesn't take a ton, and just go to the candidates official website. That's going to provide you information directly from the candidate. It's probably going to be more accurate than sort of all the outside information or information coming from groups. It does require a little extra that of citizens when we're casting our vote, but I think it's time well spent."
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