Texas GOP's March Madness: Ballot Initiatives Bound to Backfire

The Republican's proposals are a blueprint for backlash and could help mobilize a Texas blue wave.

Today, the Texas GOP published their ballot initiatives, which will be on the March 2024 Republican primary ballot. The ballot initiatives are racist, unhinged, and based on conspiracy theories. At this point, we shouldn’t expect anything less from the Republican Party of Texas.

Here they are; scroll down below for explanations and commentary:

Proposition One - Texas should eliminate all property taxes without increasing Texans’ overall tax burden.

As a homeowner in Texas, I can assure you that property taxes here are ridiculously high. Property taxes in Texas are the sixth highest in the nation.

Property taxes are a vital source of revenue for local government. The burden falls squarely on property taxes to compensate for the lack of other income. This money (property tax revenue) funds essential resources and public services for Texas citizens, including public schools, libraries, emergency services, road maintenance, and community safety measures.

We should all be in favor of reducing property taxes. However, “without increasing Texans’ overall tax burden” makes us wonder how we will pay for everything.

According to the Texas GOP’s talking points, they want the government to figure out how to do this and not implement an income tax.

In 2021, property taxes yielded about $73.5 billion in revenue. That’s more than half of all state tax revenue. Meanwhile, all other tax sources—the state sales tax, the tobacco tax, the business franchise tax, oil and gas taxes, et cetera—produced $71.9 billion that year. Public education alone costs at least $64 billion a year. 

In Texas, we already tax low-income individuals at a much higher rate than the wealthy. While taxing the rich might be a possible solution, but Texas voters just voted to prohibit wealth taxes. (Which was stupid, beyond belief.)

Republicans want to eliminate property tax but not replace it with income or wealth tax. So, how will we fund our government? Maybe they’ll expect us to pray for money to rain from the sky.

Proposition Two - Texas should create a Border Protection Unit and deploy additional state law enforcement and military forces to seal the border, use physical force to prevent illegal entry and trafficking, and deport illegal aliens to Mexico or their nations of origin.

Operation Lone Star has already cost Texas taxpayers billions of dollars. Of course, cutting off all revenue to the government with Proposition One may put Operation Lone Star out of business, but otherwise, it’s just throwing more money at a problem that Congress needs to fix.

We already have state law enforcement and military forces at the border. A “border protection unit” will be brown shirts for the border communities.

“Seal the border,” I think they mean a wall, but a wall is ineffective and destructive to nature. They could stop shutting down the ports of entry, which forces people to cross the rivers instead, but that wouldn’t help their political narrative.

“Use of physical force” means they want to give law enforcement the green light to shoot refugees for crossing the river when they close the ports of entry.

Congress needs to pass immigration reform. It’s as simple as that. Of course, Republicans currently hold Congress, and they’re more concerned with their culture wars and staying in political power. Until Democrats gain control, nothing at the border will change.

Proposition Three - The Texas Legislature should require the use of E-Verify by all employers in Texas to protect jobs for legal workers by preventing the hiring of illegal aliens.

During the last legislative session, multiple Democrats proposed punishing employers who hired undocumented immigrants. Each time, they were knocked down by Republicans who know very well how many Texas businesses rely on undocumented labor to run their businesses.

In theory, E-Verify would make employment impossible for undocumented immigrants, driving current undocumented residents out of a state and taking away the incentive for more to unlawfully migrate here. The GOP’s wet dream. However, it’s more complicated than that and won’t work.

We’ve already seen E-Verify fail in the states where it’s been implemented. In the states where it has been mandated, a surprisingly low percentage of affected employers comply.

Employers don’t care that much about legal status. They want a worker.

Plus, E-Verify is terrible at identifying undocumented immigrants. The vast majority can easily evade it, and as a result, E-Verify only catches about 20 percent of undocumented workers put through its system. Data show that from 2006 to 2018, it let 12 million undocumented hirings move forward, roughly 80 percent of all undocumented hirings attempted.

All the undocumented worker has to do is use a brother or cousin’s ID. Not like the employer will care. All this proposition does is prove the GOP is racist and doesn’t care about genuinely solving problems.

Proposition Four - The Texas Legislature should end all subsidies and public services, including in-state college tuition and enrollment in public schools, for illegal aliens.

We’ve heard a lot about this lately, repeated by right-wing commentators and politicians. The framing of the proposition stems from and perpetuates unfounded beliefs that undocumented immigrants disproportionately consume public resources despite evidence showing they also contribute to the economy, often paying taxes without being able to benefit from many public services and social programs.

Denying children access to public education, regardless of their immigration status, contradicts the established principles in many legal systems. Limiting access to education and other services can result in higher long-term societal costs, including increased poverty and reduced economic productivity.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states cannot deny public education based on immigration status, as per Plyler v. Doe (1982).

Denying education can harm individuals and society, exacerbating inequalities and hindering overall social and economic development.

Do the Republicans care about that? Nope, they just hate brown people.

Proposition Five - Texas urges the United States Congress not to grant any form of amnesty or a pathway to legalization for illegal aliens.

Fuck, this is so racist. Proposition five is inherently exclusionary and shows how the GOP refuses to acknowledge the complex realities and contributions of immigrants in society. This stance ignores the historical context of U.S. immigration and the potential benefits of integrating long-standing undocumented residents into the formal economy.

Instead of fostering a constructive dialogue on immigration reform, it perpetuates a divisive narrative that focuses on a racial and ethnic divide, ignoring any values of diversity and inclusivity.

I’m not sure what else to say about this proposition other than it’s incredibly racist.

Proposition Six - The Texas Legislature should prohibit the deployment of the Texas National Guard to a foreign conflict unless Congress first formally declares war.

This is basically about “states’ rights.” The Texas National Guard has been deployed to foreign conflicts without Congress’s formal declaration of war. This practice is not uncommon and has been part of the U.S. military’s operations for decades.

For example, National Guard units, including those from Texas, were deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, which were conflicts authorized by Congressional resolutions but not formal declarations of war.

There is a movement in Texas advocating for legislation to restrict the deployment of the National Guard to declared wars only. It is driven by the belief that the National Guard, traditionally a state militia, should primarily serve local and state needs rather than be involved in international conflicts at the federal government’s discretion.

However, there would be significant legal challenges to this since the 1990 Supreme Court case, Perpich v. Department of Defense, affirmed the federal government’s authority to deploy National Guard units overseas without the need for individual states’ consent. This decision cemented the dual-state and federal control of the National Guard, with federal authority being paramount in such matters.

Proposition Seven - The Texas Legislature should establish authority within the Texas State Comptroller’s office to administer access to gold and silver through the Texas Bullion Depository for use as legal tender.

Republicans want to be able to go to Kroger and buy groceries with a gold tooth. This proposition has to do with the GOP’s long-standing conspiracy theories against the Federal Reserve, mainly which originated from Tea Party Republicans. In fact, Ron Paul wrote an entire book about it called “End the Fed.”

Earlier this year, Pennsylvania native Senator Tan Parker introduced a bill to treat gold and silver as commodities and legal tender. But the bill didn’t go anywhere.

Republicans believe introducing gold and silver as legal tender could protect against inflation and currency devaluation. However, economists argue this is impractical due to the volatile nature of precious metal prices. For instance, if gold is stamped with a set dollar value, but the market price fluctuates, it could lead to situations where the metal is either undervalued or overvalued, causing economic instability.

But hey, at least the GOP can buy a Slurpee at 7/11 with a gold coin.

Proposition Eight - The State of Texas should ensure that Texans can give or withhold consent for any vaccine without coercion.

Welcome back, polio! Good to see you, smallpox! We really missed you, measles.

The same people who wrote this proposition believe that Bill Gates is implanting microchips in backwood bumpkins to turn them into robots. It shows a deep misunderstanding of public health and vaccines’ role in safeguarding communities.

By prioritizing individual choice over collective safety, this measure risks reversing decades of progress in disease prevention. History has shown that vaccines are crucial in controlling and eradicating infectious diseases; without widespread vaccination, we could see the resurgence of diseases once thought controlled or eliminated.

This proposition not only jeopardizes public health but also overlooks the societal responsibility we share to protect the most vulnerable among us from preventable diseases. But at least Republicans won’t be implanted with Bill Gates microchips.

Proposition Nine - The Republican Party of Texas should restrict voting in the Republican primary to only registered Republicans.

The GOP wants to make it so that when you register to vote, you register as a Democrat or Republican, like is done in other states. They want this because in Republican elections, especially in runoffs, Democrats can vote for the least terrible option and swing an election.

It’s possible that I may have had some impact in driving this decision.

In 2020, when I was still writing for Living Blue in Texas, I wrote several articles about Shelley Luther (R) v. Drew Springer’s (R) election, urging Democrats in SD30 to vote for Springer over Luther because Luther was a racist, Trump-backed b-word.

Springer won. Later data analysis proved it was due to Democratic votes. It really pissed off the Texas GOP.

Then, in 2021, in a runoff election for Texas’ Congressional District 06 between Susan Wright (R) and Jake Ellzey (R), I wrote another article encouraging Democrats in TX06 to vote for Ellzey over Wright because Wright was a Trump-backed candidate who vowed to continue her husband’s work.

It worked, and once again, the later data analysis proved it was due to Democratic votes. It really pissed the GOP off. It was the first and only time the Texas Scorecard wrote about me. (Although, I’ve tried to antagonize them into writing more.)

Although I don’t have enough readers to turn Texas blue, I do have enough to sway an election in North Texas. And I’ll do it again if faced with the option. For that reason, Republicans want to stop Democrats from voting in Republican runoffs.

Proposition Ten - The Texas Constitution should be amended to restore authority to the Texas Attorney General to prosecute election crimes.

Last year, the Republican Texas Supreme Court determined that Ken Paxton could not unilaterally prosecute election cases. The court said the law violated the separation-of-powers clause in the Texas Constitution.

ProPublica reported that Ken Paxton had been criminally investigating the people who help run elections. Paxton’s office unsuccessfully tried to indict election workers. This political overreach cost taxpayers over $2 million and only resulted in three charges.

Who knows how the Republicans plan to pay for something like this when they eliminate most of the state revenue, but like with all things, they likely didn’t think it through.

Ken Paxton is a crook. He’s under indictment and admitted in 2020 that Biden was supposed to win Texas.

Why do Republicans want to give Paxton this power? So they can steal elections and remain in charge because Paxton owns the libs and is a fierce culture warrior.

Proposition Eleven - Texas parents and guardians should have the rights, whether public schools or private, for their children and the funding should follow the student.

Vouchers. Again, with the vouchers. It’s dead. It’s died every time, but Republicans are stuck on it like a dog on a bone. They really believe this will give them the racial segregation in Texas schools they so long for, but it’ll never happen. Texas will not get any redder. Vouchers will remain dead.

Proposition Twelve - The Texas Constitution should be amended to require proof of citizenship before any individual can be registered to vote.

Requiring proof of citizenship before registering to vote is redundant and unnecessary because existing registration processes already include measures to ensure that only eligible citizens can vote.

Also, amendments like this would create additional barriers to voting, disenfranchising eligible voters, especially those who may not have ready access to documentation. There is no evidence to suggest that non-citizen voting is a widespread issue, making such measures disproportionate responses that complicate the registration process without addressing any problems.

The entire Republican Party has embraced both conspiracy theories and voter disenfranchisement.

Proposition Thirteen - Texas should ban the sale of Texas land to citizens, governments, and entities from China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

A bill that would have banned people born in China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia was debated in the 88th Texas Legislature. It failed, though, because even many Republicans saw it as racist.

White people are now a minority in Texas, and the majority of the Republican Party is white. They are so terrified of losing political power, evident by the countless racist ballot propositions they’ll put before their voters in March 2024.

The Texas GOP’s 2024 ballot initiatives reveal a profound disconnect with the state’s evolving demographic and ideological landscape.

The propositions, full of exclusionary rhetoric and impractical policies, serve to mobilize a base increasingly out of step with the broader Texan populace. As Texas becomes more diverse and its political engagement deepens, these measures may accelerate the state’s shift towards a more inclusive and pragmatic political climate.

In their attempt to preserve the status quo, the GOP is inadvertently laying the groundwork for its own decline, fostering the change they fear and propelling Texas towards a future that is not red but blue.

Remember to vote.

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