Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows said Thursday that creating a private-school voucher program in Texas is “the defining issue” of the legislative session, reassuring a crowd of conservative supporters gathered in Austin that their long wait for school choice was over.

School choice has already passed in the Senate, but now two bills that go hand in hand with school choice have been filed in the House on February 20th.

This week, for the first time, the new Speaker of the Texas House, Dustin Burrows, R-Lubbock, said school choice will pass. His comments come amid rising pressure on him to get the controversial bill across the finish line that would give taxpayer money for students to attend private school.