Union Money, a Transit Mess, and a War on School Choice: Why Adrian Reyna Is Wrong for District 125

San Antonio's District 125 just got its first real look at the Democrat who wants to represent it in Austin. Strip away the campaign packaging and look at the record, and one thing becomes clear: Adrian Reyna's every position lines up with the special interests that built his career — not the working families of the West and Northwest Side.

Bought and Backed by the Unions

Adrian Reyna doesn't just belong to a union — he runs one. He serves as Executive Vice President of the San Antonio Alliance (AFT Local 67), the SAISD teachers' union, and sits on the executive board of the San Antonio AFL-CIO Central Labor Council. His campaign was lifted from day one by the organized-labor machine, with the backing of Texas AFT and its allies.

Now he wants a seat in the Texas House — where he would help write the very laws that set school budgets and govern the workforce his own union negotiates over. That is not representation. That is a special interest installing its own officer inside the Capitol. Every vote Reyna casts will carry the fingerprints of the union that put him there, because that union is exactly who he answers to.

A Seat on the VIA Mess

Reyna also sits as a trustee on the board of VIA Metropolitan Transit — and that board is presiding over a fiscal mess. VIA is pouring roughly $480 million into a single rapid-bus line, the Green Line, with another $322 million lined up for a second line behind it. Bexar County officials have openly warned that the agency's transit ambitions could balloon into the billions. And the board keeps voting still more money into the project, including additional spending on outside design contracts after construction was already underway.

Worst of all: when private landowners refused to hand over their property for the project, VIA moved to take it by eminent domain — seizing land from San Antonians who simply wanted to keep what was theirs. Adrian Reyna sits on the board behind those decisions. That is the judgment he is asking voters to send to Austin to oversee the entire state's tax dollars.

A War on School Choice

When it comes to your children, Reyna has already chosen a side — and it isn't yours. In his own words: "I oppose vouchers and ESAs," insisting that "public tax dollars should not be going to private schools." Texas families finally won the freedom to direct their own children's education through Education Savings Accounts. Reyna wants to slam that door shut.

It is no coincidence that the candidate who runs a teachers' union also fights to lock every education dollar inside the system that signs that union's paychecks. To Adrian Reyna, a parent who wants out of a failing school is a threat to the institution. He will defend the institution. He will not defend your family's right to choose.

Firmly Against Texas Border Security

On the issue that defines this moment in Texas — securing the border — Reyna lands on the wrong side, and it isn't our characterization. In its own endorsement of Reyna, the San Antonio Express-News editorial board reported that on Operation Lone Star, the state's signature border security mission, "Reyna is firmly opposed." The board noted that even the Democratic rival it compared him to "supports a scaled-down version of the border operation" — while Reyna opposed it outright.

Let that sink in. At a time when Texans are demanding a secure border, the man who wants to represent District 125 in Austin stands against the state's leading effort to deliver one — to the left of even his own primary opponent. That is not where the working families of San Antonio are.

A Tax-and-Spend Wish List

The rest of Reyna's platform reads like a progressive wish list with the bill sent to you. He declares that "healthcare is a human right" and wants to expand Medicaid to cover a million more Texans — a massive new government entitlement. He backs taxpayer-funded "free" community college and a slate of new spending programs. And to help pay for it, he wants to hike the franchise tax on Texas employers and chase what he calls "business property tax loopholes" — higher costs on the small businesses and job creators of District 125, costs that always land back on working families and consumers.

Add it up: a union officer bankrolled by union money, a transit-board member presiding over runaway spending and eminent-domain land grabs, an opponent of every parent's right to a better school, and a tax-and-spend agenda aimed straight at Texas employers. That is not a representative for the families of District 125 — that is a representative for the machine that made him.

San Antonio can do better. And this November, it can choose better.