With the primary runoff complete, we now have our full slate of Democratic candidates for the November mid-term election. It’s a strong slate, filled with candidates with rich and varied backgrounds and a passion to work to improve the lives of all Texans.
Here’s what your Democratic candidates will work for, if elected:
• Fully funding Texas public schools and fairly paying teachers. Every child deserves a strong neighborhood public school, but the governor’s elite donors want to suck the money out of them to turn a profit.
The voucher scam is set to drain billions of taxpayer dollars from our schools and Teacher Retirement System, to fund private education for the wealthy few.
• Ensuring quality and accessible healthcare for all. Big insurance and big drug companies put profits over patients. We need to rein in these out-of-control profiteers who are making healthcare more expensive and making Texans sicker.
Texas also has the highest uninsured rate in the nation. By expanding Medicaid, we can ensure more vulnerable Texans get the care they need while bringing billions in federal dollars back to our state.
• Stopping the data center giveaways. For decades, current leadership has failed to address the growing need for water in vast swaths of Texas. Now, tech companies are flocking to Texas to take advantage of our cheap energy to build their facilities.
These data centers are gulping down water, using precious resources that could supply entire towns. With them will come higher water and power bills, dry water wells and no real jobs. These data centers are of, by and for Wall Street. We need comprehensive planning that puts families before industrial giants.
• Strengthening our power grid: We must pass legislation that prevents another tragedy like the one during the February 2021 winter storm. That event left more than 700 Texans dead from complications associated with the failed power grid and ERCOT’s negligence. We will work to invest in fixing our grid to prevent future disasters, and to ensure the safety and protection of residents against the failed management of our power grid by ERCOT.
• Ensuring affordable housing for all. Every Texan deserves the opportunity to own a home. Meanwhile, rent prices should be stable and affordable so young Texans can save and one day purchase a home of their own.
Property taxes and insurance costs need to be reined in, ensuring that people on fixed incomes are not forced out of their homes. We need to streamline local permitting processes and reduce unnecessary regulations that drive up housing costs.
• Restoring trust and accountability in government. The comptroller’s office will use the power of the office to audit the voucher scheme; to expose how much it costs when the state refuses Medicaid expansion; and to stop no-bid contracts to wealthy donors.
An independent attorney general will investigate and prosecute officials – irrespective of political party – not for revenge or persecution, but to preserve the integrity of public service.
• Expanding voting rights and ensuring fair elections. Democrats will work to make voting easier, not harder.
They will work to enact automatic or same-day registration and online registration; to repeal the voter registrar deputization requirement; to legalize sending vote by mail applications to Texans on their 65th birthdays; to ensure universal, no-excuse vote by mail; and to remove undue burdens on students by placing polling locations at all institutions of postsecondary education.
In other words, Democrats will work for you, the voter, and not for their billionaire, out-of-state, voucher-obsessed donors.
This summer, visit our website at www.kcdems. us or subscribe to our newsletter (on our website) to learn how you can get involved in making these changes happen. Call our office at 830331-1243 or stop by (216 E. Blanco, Suite 201) to say hello and learn more about our activities and activism. We’ll see you at the Comfort Independence Day Celebration Parade on July 4.
Laura Bray is the former chair of the Kendall County Democratic Party. Candidate websites and the Texas Democratic Party contributed to this article.
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