It’s Tuesday. Another Republican Corruption Story. This time, It’s Monica De La Cruz.
Or is this just how the system is supposed to work?
Until we get money out of politics, the kind of corruption Monica De La Cruz has been involved in is perfectly legal. You know, like the last Congressional session, when a bunch of Congresspeople took payoffs from Meta to ban TikTok. This is the kind of corruption that Citizens United has normalized in our government. The kind where a member of Congress is put in charge of overseeing an industry, taking tens of thousands of dollars from that same industry, even as that industry crushes the American people.
And nowhere is that more obvious than in South Texas.
In McAllen, nearly 41.5% of homes are uninsured. The highest rate of any major metro area in the United States.
And the person sitting in one of the most powerful oversight positions related to that crisis?
Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (R-TX15).
Over the past three years, while home insurance costs have surged and coverage has evaporated across Texas, the subcommittee she helps lead held just two hearings on the issue. Not one insurance company CEO was called to testify. At the same time, she’s backed legislation that makes it harder for homeowners to fight denied claims, opposed efforts to collect data on climate-driven insurance costs, and voted to cut federal disaster funding.
Oh, and she’s taken nearly $50,000 from the property insurance industry along the way. Today, Unlocking America’s Future, an advocacy group, released a damning report outlining the details.
Almost half of homeowners in McAllen are effectively gambling that nothing will go wrong in one of Texas' most disaster-prone regions.
It’s because they can’t afford insurance anymore. Premiums have jumped more than 55% since 2019 in Texas, one of the fastest increases in the country, while insurers are pulling back, tightening coverage, or leaving certain areas altogether. What’s left is a shrinking market with higher prices and fewer options. So families are making impossible choices. Pay the mortgage or pay the insurance. Keep coverage or keep groceries on the table.
The result is predictable. When the next flood hits, when the next hurricane rolls through, when the next “once-in-a-lifetime” storm shows up for the third time in five years, thousands of families are going to find out what uninsured actually means.
And here’s the part that makes all of this even more serious. We’re heading straight into what climate scientists call “Danger Season.” That’s the stretch from May through October when extreme weather ramps up across the country.
It happens every year, and it’s getting worse due to climate change. South Texas sits right in the middle of it.
The insurance crisis in the Rio Grande Valley is not some distant, hypothetical risk. The conditions are already there. And we already know what happens when they hit communities where nearly half the homes aren’t insured. It’s a “when” scenario, and the system is failing in a way that’s completely predictable, completely preventable, and completely ignored by the people who are supposed to be paying attention.
Monica De La Cruz serves as Vice Chair of the House Housing and Insurance Subcommittee.
That role is supposed to be oversight and accountability. It’s where lawmakers are supposed to haul in industry executives, ask hard questions, dig into why premiums are rising, why claims are being denied, why coverage is disappearing, and what needs to change. It’s where the public is supposed to get answers.
But while her own constituents are dealing with the worst home insurance crisis in the country, the oversight has been minimal, the accountability nonexistent, and the transparency nowhere to be found.
Over the course of three years, the subcommittee she helps lead held just two hearings on the home insurance crisis. Two total. And in those hearings, not a single insurance company CEO was called in to answer for rising premiums, denied claims, or shrinking coverage.
Then there’s the policy side. She’s backed legislation that makes it harder for homeowners to challenge wrongful claim denials, raising the barrier for people who are already struggling to get what they’re owed. She’s also supported efforts to block federal regulators from collecting data on how climate-driven disasters are affecting insurance costs.
And she voted for cuts to FEMA’s budget and supported funding decisions that left the agency stretched thin heading into storm season. Fewer resources for recovery and weaker preparedness when the next disaster hits. The crisis is growing, and the response from someone in a position to do something about it has been actively making it harder for people to protect themselves.
And then there’s the money, because there’s always money.
Monica De La Cruz has taken nearly $50,000 from the property insurance industry. And yes, this is technically legal. It’s standard practice in Washington. But that’s exactly the problem. When the system is built so that the people writing the rules are funded by the industries they regulate, you don’t need a backroom deal to understand how things end up tilted.
It gets even more glaring when you remember that De La Cruz is a former insurance agent, now sitting in a position of power over insurance policy at the federal level. You’ve got a lawmaker with industry ties, in an oversight role, taking industry money, while advancing policies that benefit that industry and failing to meaningfully challenge it.
It looks like the system is working exactly as designed. When nearly half of your constituents can’t afford insurance, and the person in charge of oversight is financially and politically aligned with the industry driving that crisis, what else are you supposed to call it?
And the people paying the price for all of this are the families in places like the Rio Grande Valley.
In lower-income communities, this is the difference between stability and starting over from nothing. Homeownership is supposed to be how people build wealth, how families pass something down to the next generation. But that only works if the home is actually protected.
And even for the families who are still holding onto coverage, it’s not much better. People are forced to carry policies they can barely afford, cutting back on everything else just to avoid defaulting on their mortgage. Others are dropping coverage entirely because the math just doesn’t work anymore. And maybe the most telling piece of all is this is that people are afraid to even file claims. They’re worried their premiums will spike, or their coverage will get dropped.
And to be clear, this isn’t just about Monica De La Cruz. Republican governance in Texas has spent years aligning itself with corporate interests first and working backward from there, and the results are showing up everywhere you look. Deregulate the industry. Remove guardrails. Cut oversight. Then turn around and offer subsidies, tax breaks, and incentives to attract more business, all while telling residents there’s no money for the basics, like public schools or a working electric grid.
You can see it in the way the state is run and in the way it’s sold. Greg Abbott is out here pitching Texas as a low-tax, low-regulation paradise for global investors. Meanwhile, the people already living here are dealing with rising costs, shrinking protections, and systems that don’t work unless you’ve got money to absorb the risk.
That’s the model. Make it easy for corporations to profit, and let everyone else suffer. Monica De La Cruz isn’t one bad actor. It’s the entire Republican governing philosophy. And it’s working exactly the way it was designed to.
In 2026, this is exactly what’s on the ballot.
Are we going to keep sending people to office who treat oversight like a suggestion while siding with the industries driving the crisis? Or are voters going to demand basic accountability, transparency, and a government that at least tries to protect the people footing the bill?
This is what voters are choosing between. A system that keeps rewarding the same behavior, or one that finally starts pushing back on it. And if nearly half of a region can’t afford to insure their homes, if families are one storm away from losing everything they’ve ever worked for, if the people in charge are still operating as if none of that matters, then accountability is long overdue.
It’s Tuesday. Another corruption story. It’s all right there, out in the open, operating exactly the way it’s supposed to. A system where the people in charge of oversight take money from the industry they oversee, where crises grow while accountability disappears, where families are left to absorb the risk while corporations collect the profit. This is what the system looks like when it’s working exactly as designed.
April 20, 2026: Last day to apply to vote by mail (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
April 20, 2026: First day of early voting (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
April 27, 2026: Last day to register to vote (Democratic primary runoff elections)
April 28, 2026: Last day of early voting (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
May 2, 2026: Last day to receive ballot by mail (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
May 2, 2026: Election day! (City elections/SD04 Special Election)
May 15, 2026: Last day to apply to vote by mail (Democratic primary runoff elections)
May 18, 2026: First day of early voting (Democratic primary runoff elections)
May 22, 2026: Last day of early voting (Democratic primary runoff elections)
May 26, 2026: Last day to receive ballot by mail (Democratic primary runoff elections)
May 26, 2026: Election day! (Democratic primary runoff elections)
Click here to find out what Legislative districts you’re in.
LoneStarLeft is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Very good, Michelle. Republican governance of Texas over the last 30 years, plus legalized corruption in Washington, have made Texas a home for the oligarchs and corporations, and a failed state for all of us.
I'm one of those in the RGV who seriously considered not renewing my home insurance.
Monica es Mala!!!!