The intent of legislation should be to protect people, create equal opportunity, and to work towards a more efficient lifestyle, not to force personal beliefs on other community members.
Reproductive rights
Do you want the government in your doctor’s office making personal, life-altering decisions for you and your family members, or simply taking that decision away from you altogether, regardless of the opinions of your medical professionals? I don’t.
Women deserve the right to bodily autonomy. Texans deserve the right to control their futures and make their own medical decisions based on their needs and the opinions of their medical professionals.
More importantly than my opinion on this matter are the facts: Multiple polls show that more than half of Texas residents support abortion access in most, or all, circumstances, and around 80% of Texans support abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. If this is what Texans want, then why are our elected officials banning these decisions, and enacting some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country?
These bans have put Texans at risk. They have caused doctors and citizens to flee from the state, medical facilities to close, doctors to stop performing medically necessary procedures in fear of legal repercussions, and so many other negative results. This is unacceptable and we need representation that portrays the actual needs and wants of the public.
Education
Our youth represents our future, and it’s our duty to offer them comprehensive and equal education. To provide the education our youth deserves we must offer adequate pay to our teachers and administrative staff. Inadequate wages have caused teacher shortages, over-crowded classrooms, burnout, higher turnover rates, and many other setbacks that negatively impact the education of our youth. Schools in low-income communities, which already experience education inequality, are more greatly affected by these setbacks, causing an even greater disparity in the education their students receive.
The school voucher program that our Governor and many Republican party members support, has been proven in other states to drain funding from rural school districts. Subsidizing religious private schools is a violation of “the separation of church and state”. Taxes should be funding our public schools not private schools. We can not allow these vouchers to drain our rural schools’ funding and overstep the boundaries of our personal religious freedoms.
At a rally, Representative Raney stated, “Governor Abbott understands the value of a good education”, regarding their support for the voucher program. If Governor Abbott or Representative Raney want to offer “good education”, wouldn’t that mean increasing funding for public schools, to benefit all the children in the district, rather than to give a select few the ability to obtain superior education at a different facility?
Immigration
Our current immigration policy is shameful. This country is built of immigrants and on the backs of immigrants. We have hard-working people in our state spending tens of thousands of dollars, with some waiting decades to be approved for citizenship. All the while, immigrants are being demonized, dehumanized, and treated with hostility.
Rather than funneling even more taxpayer money into failed border security programs, let’s invest in improving our immigration system.
While the Texas State Legislature has limited direct authority over immigration policy compared to the federal government, the legislature does and can pass laws that impact the lives of immigrants in various ways. Also, recent overreaches by the Abbott administration with bills like SB 4 show how important it is to set a baseline for what is acceptable.
I would vehemently oppose any state law that encourages and recruits state law enforcement to overreach their jurisdiction and become ICE agents for the state, not just because it violates the supremacy clause of the constitution, but because it’s immoral and cruel. I would support state laws that provide protections and benefits for DREAMers and undocumented people in general. I support passing laws that expand healthcare access for undocumented people, protect them from workplace exploitation, grant them access to in-state tuition at public schools, and provide better legal assistance for all undocumented individuals.
We boast to the world that we’re the greatest country, the most free, and that we offer an “American Dream,” based on the idea that you can not only survive but thrive in our country, no matter the circumstances of your birth. Let’s build an effective and humane state immigration policy that we can be proud of and that can live up to that promise!
Criminal Justice
Our justice system is past due for improvements and restructure. Texas consistently ranks in the top 10 states with highest rates of incarceration in the country. This statistic contributes to the fact that the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.
Texas has unethical practices relating to the care and treatment of inmates. For example, many state-run prisons in Texas don’t have air conditioning outside of their guard facilities. In a state where temperatures frequently exceed 100°F, the inmates’ prolonged exposure is dangerous and inhumane.
Also, prisons in Texas exploit inmates by requiring them to perform unpaid labor, often under the threat of revocation of commissary privileges, loss of opportunity to shorten their sentences, cell confinement, and more. Private companies outsource labor to our prisons and profit from the forced labor of inmates. This system of modern day slavery is an incentive to jail more Texans.
We have to establish laws that enforce humane living conditions, abolish unpaid labor, and address practices that disproportionately harm marginalized communities. We have to implement a system that priorities rehabilitation and doesn’t incentivize the incarceration of citizens. We need to legalize and tax marijuana, and invest in the aspects of our communities that are proven to contribute to incarceration rates, such as education, poverty, and unemployment.
Health Care
Health care is a necessary aspect of life, and therefore it should be a human right, not a luxury.
Access to healthcare is a major hurdle for a lot of Texans. For several years in a row now, Texas has led the country in the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance. Nearly 1 in every 5 people in Texas is without insurance, which is more than double the national average.
With our state struggling to offer affordable and comprehensive healthcare options, why are our elected officials refusing to expand Medicaid and turning down billions of dollars in Medicaid funding from the federal government?
If elected, I would support legislation that would expand Medicaid and strengthen our community health centers. I would contribute legislation that would address and tackle disparities in health care, and promote the awareness and expansion of mental health resources for all of our community members.
Unions
I come from a family of union workers. We will forever be grateful and supportive of the opportunities they’ve provided us.
Our unions protect our best interests. They set standards for safety, fight for adequate wages, and battle for benefits.
We have the unions to thank for weekends, health insurance, retirement, overtime pay, paid time off, sick leave, parental leave, and so many more benefits we take advantage of daily. Our unions need to be protected, supported, and their expansion less restricted.
Current legislation prohibits public employees from striking or engaging in an organized work stoppage against the state or a political subdivision of the state, by revoking that employees civil service rights, reemployment rights, benefits, and other perks they’ve earned working in those positions.
This is another example of our government overstepping and taking away individual choice and freedoms.
Minimum Wage
Minimum wage was created to protect employees and create a baseline for a minimum standard of living.
When discussing minimum wage, I think Franklin D. Roosevelt said it best:, “..no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By “business” I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”
The Texas minimum wage has been $7.25 for over 15 years, while the cost of living has increased significantly, specifically when we saw inflation hit about 10% in 2022, the biggest jump in inflation we’ve seen in over 40 years.
The lack of care and respect our government officials have for our working class is an embarrassment. I believe our employees should be appreciated and treated with dignity, to do this we need to increase our minimum wage to $15 an hour.
Environment
Our Earth is the only option for a habitable planet and it should be treated as such.
The fact that there are “climate change deniers” is nonsensical. A VAST majority of scientists, researchers, climatologists, and other professionals who’ve spent years or even majorities of their lives studying these issues intimately, agree that we are facing a climate crisis. Who are we, as regular citizens, with no background in these fields, to say that they are wrong? I would rather err on the side of caution than destroy our one and only life source.
We can not wait until the Earth is uninhabitable before we decide to make a change and become concerned with this crisis.
I will support legislation that works toward reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and begins to replace those options with renewable, clean energy sources. I will support environmental conservation and specifically fight to implement policy to protect our aquifers from over-extraction!
