With Democrats in Control, Hinojosa Will Have More Power Than She Ever Imagined

The Texas Tribune

AUSTIN, TX — When Gina Hinojosa was asked about what she would do as governor of Texas during her campaign, her answers reflected her belief at the time that she would be the lone Democrat with power fighting daily against a wall of Republican officials determined to stop her.

“We’re not going to have a Democratic-dominated Legislature,” she said at The Texas Tribune Festival in September when asked what GOP-led laws she’d repeal if she won. “That’s just reality. I live in reality.”

As it turns out, Tuesday’s election results delivered a political reality that will grant Hinojosa far more latitude to operate and impose her agenda than she may have ever imagined.

Hinojosa on Tuesday routed Gov. Greg Abbott to become the first Democrat elected to the Texas governor’s mansion in almost four decades. But Democrats also wiped out every other statewide Republican office and took the Texas House with a comfortable margin. Hinojosa will work with a Democratic attorney general — Nathan Johnson — instead of one who might have otherwise sued to stop her agenda, and while the state Senate retains a Republican majority, it will be led by a Democratic lieutenant governor-elect Vikki Goodwin.

Democrats infiltrated the Texas Supreme Court and the Court of Criminal Appeals, and were on the brink of taking a majority of the seats on the State Board of Education, which sets public school curriculum. Not to mention, she’ll have a key ally in the federal government in James Talarico, who won the U.S. Senate seat.

A clear question emerged out of the historic realignment: With Democratic allies to be sworn in across all levels of state government, how would Hinojosa wield her newfound power?

“The voters have delivered a mandate for change, and it is change they will get,” she said in her victory speech Tuesday. “We will lead with a politics of courage, not convenience. Progress will not be halted by partisanship, and Texas will bow down to no one.”

Hinojosa’s campaign declined to make her available for an interview Wednesday. She planned to announce “next steps” at a news conference set for Thursday afternoon following “successful initial conversations” with Abbott.

In her victory speech, she ushered in a new era, reiterating her campaign promise to pursue populist policies that would target affordability and improve public education.

“The days of treating our public schools like they are for sale are over,” she said. “The days of treating our tax dollars like your personal piggy bank are over.”

Among the immediate actions she vowed on the campaign trail to take: declaring “a high-cost emergency” in Texas and issuing executive orders to suspend the state gas and diesel taxes and to freeze electricity rates. She also promised to fire Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath on Day One, while combatting school vouchers passed in the last legislative session and ending school takeovers. (Morath’s term is set to expire at the end of this year.)

Also included in her “postpartisan” agenda were promises to give $1,500 from the state savings account to every Texas household, increase funding for public education, end the STAAR test and rein in data center development. She ran, too, on expanding Medicaid, something Republican leaders rejected for years.

That’s the kind of agenda, she said, that could attract support from Republicans.

But given her expectation that the GOP would continue to dominate state government, Hinojosa was also careful not to overpromise on what she could deliver for Democrats, especially when it came to undoing recent Republican priorities. In an October interview with the New York Times, she was pressed about what she would do about a 2023 Texas law that made unauthorized border crossings a state criminal offense. 

“I don’t support it, and I voted against it, and I stand by my record,” she said. “But I’m not going to pretend like I’ll have the power to convince the Legislature to do that. Even if I win, we still have Republican control of everything in this state.”

She said at the time her best tools to fight the GOP’s immigration agenda were to use the bully pulpit and the courts, adding, “My agenda will be one that 99 percent of us agree on, which is to secure the American dream, to save Texas public schools, put money in your pocket — a populist agenda, rather than fight fights that I know I can’t win.”

Even with a Texas House poised to go blue for the first time in 23 years, Hinojosa in her victory speech made clear she did not intend to adopt the GOP’s method of governance by partisan domination.

“This governor’s office does not belong to me, it does not belong to my party,” she said. “We did not end one era of single party rule just to usher in another. The same national pundits and political class who ignored and then misunderstood this campaign will declare this a victory for Democrats — they continue to misunderstand. This victory is so much bigger. It belongs to Texas.”

Throughout her campaign, Hinojosa made it a point to avoid the culture wars, arguing that voters were focused on economic concerns more than divisive social issues that rarely, if ever, manifest in their day-to-day lives. She declined to say at TribFest if she would repeal anti-LGBTQ laws such as measures restricting the bathrooms transgender Texans could use and banning pride clubs in K-12 schools.

But with Johnson elected to the attorney general’s office — which enforces state law and has discretion to launch investigations and civil lawsuits — Hinojosa may not need to repeal Republican-passed laws to blunt their impact. Johnson has said he would not spend agency resources enforcing laws like the bathroom bill, which restricts which public restrooms transgender Texans can use.

To LGBTQ advocates, the Democratic victories along the ballot already portend a better future.

“I don’t know if she’ll specifically go after repealing specific pieces of legislation, but I could see her being in support of legislation that helps add additional protections for communities or helps scale back some of the things that we’ve seen especially in education spaces,” said Brad Pritchett, CEO of Equality Texas.

He added that the new governing majority meant Democrats could return control to cities and local municipalities that Republicans did away with in recent years to restrict the kinds of progressive policies and anti-discrimination measures local governments could approve.

“I do believe that we will see an agenda from Governor Hinojosa that is more centered on uplifting Texans, rather than using government as a weapon to beat down people,” Pritchett said.

Texas Democratic Party Chair Kendall Scudder on Wednesday said he did not expect Hinojosa to deviate from her populist commitment just because she has more Democratic allies in office.

Hinojosa, he said, “is not going to be someone who builds a government to cut anyone who’s not a Democrat out of it. But she is going to be someone who’s very serious about intentionally building a government that allows regular working class people to have seats at the table when decisions are being made.”

Building a government that includes Republicans may be necessary to govern with a divided Legislature. But it would also be politically wise, if she wishes to be reelected, said Bill Miller, a veteran Texas lobbyist, adding that Hinojosa would have to present a positive vision rather than emphasize her opposition to Republican measures to sustain her governing majority.

“Republicans, at least in the last few years, were viewed as punitive,” he said. “They were against things, they were against people, they were against groups, and all of that proved to be their undoing on Election Day.”

Hinojosa has said her priorities are popular enough that part of her strategy will be pushing them forward and simply daring Republicans to oppose them.

“I challenge Republicans to be against any of it,” she said at TribFest. ”Are they against ensuring every Texas child has quality health care? Are they against returning money to the people? … What we are running on is an agenda to deliver for Texans, and I feel good about finding bipartisan support for that.”

That strategy could apply to other measures with wide electoral support that have been blocked by Republican officials now pushed out of power, such expanding Medicaid (a move Abbott and other legislative Republicans opposed) and loosening restrictions on THC (a prospect Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who fell to Goodwin on Tuesday, stridently opposed).

Hinojosa’s power as governor will also extend beyond the legislation she champions to a divided government.

Abbott used executive orders, emergency actions, disaster declarations, appointments, special overtime legislative sessions and vetoes to consolidate the powers of his office like no other governor before him. And once an elected official expands the power of their office, Miller said, their successors rarely try to limit their own authority. 

Numerous influential state agency appointments made by the governor are set to come up over the next couple years, including Secretary of State and various public university board of regents positions. University of Texas System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife will see his term expire in February, for example. The term of Texas Tech Board of Regents Chair Cody Campbell is set to end in December 2027. Their replacements on the boards could have a role in changing university efforts to do away with diversity programming and academic freedom.

Hinojosa could also end certain disaster declarations and revoke executive orders Abbott has imposed.

The sitting governor, for instance, repeatedly renewed an emergency declaration at the southern border. That move, along with other executive orders and disaster declarations, has enabled him to shift funds, pause regulations and award no-bid contracts at times of emergency.

Abbott also ordered the Department of Public Safety to help federal immigration agents find and arrest migrants who have warrants — a move that state Rep. Ramon Romero, chair of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said struck fear into many Latino communities, who now associate state police officers with federal immigration enforcement.

“Governor Abbott has already set the road map for what can be done with a very powerful governorship,” Romero said. Hinojosa’s “goal right now is to look at all the agencies that were pressured by Governor Abbott to make changes outside of the Legislature … [and] determine what changes need to be returned to the Legislature.”