Issue Position: Protecting All Texans

Issue Position

Immigrant Rights

Our national immigration policy has been broken for decades. We economically incentivize people to immigrate to the United States, and we need their labor. Then we punish them for being here and force them to stay in shadows. I support Congress pursuing comprehensive immigration reform to make it easier for people to travel here to work legally.

Meanwhile, the State of Texas should have no part in propping up a broken system. We must stop spending $800 million dollars a year on border security, and we must stop forcing local law enforcement agencies to act as immigration enforcement. Local communities should have the flexibility to determine what is best for their community regarding cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and no Texas law enforcement office should have the right to demand proof of someone's immigration status during a routine traffic stop. I will fight to repeal the anti-immigrant law Senate Bill 4.

I also support better integrating undocumented Texans into social life, including giving them access to driver's licenses and social programs such as Medicaid. Many undocumented immigrants end up in jail and at risk for deportation because of driving without a license. I will fight for Texas to issue driver's licenses to undocumented immigrants, so that they can safely take their children to school and attend work without fear of being pulled over for a minor infraction and put at risk of deportation. Forcing people underground serves no one, makes our healthcare and social systems inefficient, and causes real harm to thousands of Texans. We can do better.

LGBTQIA+ Rights

In Texas it is still legal to fire someone or deny them housing on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity. I will work to close that gap in our civil rights laws and provide comprehensive anti-discrimination protection for LGBTQIA+ Texans. This anti-discrimination protection would also cover discrimination from government agencies, counties, and municipalities, especially important now because of the Texas Supreme Court ruling that municipalities aren't required to provide the same benefits to the same-sex spouses of employees that they provide to opposite-sex spouses. I will also fight any recurrence of the bathroom bill as well as any other blatantly hateful bill that surfaces next legislative session. There are times to work across the aisle and time to stand and fight; hate legislation falls under the latter.

Sexual Assault Prevention and Enforcement

Sexual assault remains prevalent across the State of Texas. The University of Texas released a study in 2017 that found that 15% of undergraduate women at UT reported they had been raped, and 28% were victims of unwanted sexual touching. Positive advances were made last legislative session to ensure students feel comfortable reporting sexual assault, but more could be done.

Consent education needs to incorporated into reproductive education programs in our schools, and Texas needs to adopt a model of Affirmative Consent or "yes means yes". This will help shift the culture in Texas away from one that provides predators with plausible deniablity to one that encourages all participants in sexual behavior to actively be mindful of their partner's comfort and well-being.

Further, the backlog of rape kits waiting to be tested across the state needs to be fully addressed. While many cities have taken it upon themselves to clear the backlog, the state needs to support those cities, who are already tasked with increasing financial responsibilities. Allowing these rape kits to languish in evidence rooms is highly disrespectful to the victims who experience immense trauma and to the possible future victims who, if only the perpetrator was caught through the testing of that kit, would never be victims at all.

Sexual Harassment Accountability

In Texas, workers at companies with fewer than 15 employees have no recourse if they're the victims of sexual harassment. Furthermore, the reporting window in Texas is only six months. Workers are harassed at companies of all sizes, and figuring out how to report without risking your safety or employment often takes longer than six months. Every Texan deserves a workplace free of sexual harassment, and I will fight to apply the same sexual harassment protections to all workplaces and expand the reporting window to two years.

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