Just over a week after Democrats took control of Texas, they are already using the opening of the pre-filing session to signal an ambitious effort to reshape the state completely.
Tuesday’s election won Democrats control of the state House and the governor’s office for the first time in decades. Democratic lawmakers wasted no time filing hundreds of measures that will move Texas closer to the model of other high-tax, high-regulation blue states. Still, many of the highest-impact proposals center on expanding entitlement programs, reversing recent Republican education reforms, drawing down the state’s substantial reserves for direct cash payments, and dismantling key immigration-enforcement tools.
At the center of the fiscal debate is Democratic Texas Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa’s signature proposal to send every Texas household a one-time $1,500 “Corruption Tax Refund” check, costing about $17 billion. Hinojosa promises not to raise property taxes in Texas. Instead, the money would come from the state’s $27.5 billion Rainy Day Fund, built largely from oil and gas severance taxes and investment earnings. Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez has already filed the necessary legislation, and Hinojosa said she would declare a cost-of-living emergency on day one to prioritize pillaging the fund.
The emergency declaration is the only way to tap into the surplus because, as it exists, the money can only be used for genuine emergencies like natural disasters or oil-price collapses. Given Texas’s energy-dependent economy remains volatile, drawing down two-thirds of the fund’s balance makes it seem like Hinojosa is knocking on insanity’s door.
But Americans shouldn’t be shocked. Hinojosa’s approach of treating a state surplus as available spending money mirrors a pattern visible in other states that shifted toward unified Democratic control.