FACT SHEET: Democrats Deliver for Texas Communities of Color

Today, Texas Democrats held a press conference in Fort Bend County – the most diverse county in Texas – to highlight how Texas Democrats in Washington, D.C. and Austin have uplifted Texas communities of color through the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other historic legislative actions.

Democrats also highlighted in detail how, when we win at the statewide level in November, we will work to reverse the dangerous policies of Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton – policies that have caused disproportionate damage to communities of color around the state. 

Read below for a fact sheet on how Democrats are delivering – and will continue to deliver – for Texas communities of color:

Housing

America’s history of using public policy and private lending restrictions to close neighborhoods off to Black families and other people of color and strip equity from their communities is long, painful, and unresolved to this day. The Trump Administration made matters worse by gutting fair lending and fair housing protections for homeowners. 

Democrats will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act, the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule, and the disparate impact standard, and hold lenders accountable for discriminatory practices. 

Democrats will give local elected officials tools and resources to combat gentrification, penalize predatory lending practices, and maintain homeownership, including exploring targeted rental relief when exorbitant rent increases force long-term residents from their communities and tackling persistent racial bias in appraisals that contributes to the racial wealth gap.

The Biden Harris administration, directing the Department of Housing and Urban Development, announced $759.7 million for grants to support sustainable and affordable housing in disadvantaged, Tribal, and low-socioeconomic communities, including $365 million to identify, remediate, and protect the most vulnerable and disadvantaged from the harmful effects of lead-based paints in homes.

From the American Rescue Plan (March 2021): The Emergency Rental Assistance (ERA) programs played a key role, as part of broader administration efforts, in preventing what many predicted would be an eviction tsunami after the expiration of the CDC’s eviction moratorium.

• State, local, and Tribal governments made approximately 4.3 million ERA payments to eligible households as of January 2022. Over 80 percent of these payments went to very low-income households. Approximately 40 percent of ERA beneficiaries self-identified as Black and approximately 20 percent as Hispanic.
• A new analysis by Princeton University’s Eviction Lab finds that millions of renters avoided the threat of eviction last year due to the federal government’s serious and unprecedented interventions, in significant part through the American Rescue Plan. 
  • The analysis also finds that low-income and majority-Black neighborhoods that typically see a disproportionate share of eviction cases experienced the largest absolute reduction in filings.

Economic Issues (ref. p. 5-7 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

Black and Hispanic people are 1.8 and 1.5 times as likely to be in poverty than white people, according to 2019 census data.

The United States is alone among advanced economies in guaranteeing neither paid sick leave nor paid family leave for all workers. Hispanic and Black non-Hispanic workers are less likely than their White non-Hispanic counterparts to have access to paid leave. After controlling for demographics and employment characteristics, Hispanics are nearly 10% less likely than their White non-Hispanic counterparts to have access to paid time off. 

Republicans voted against Biden’s Build Back Better bill that would have guaranteed 4 weeks of paid leave so workers wouldn’t have to work while sick or leave sick kids at home, and 12 weeks of paid maternal leave so that women wouldn’t have to return to work while still recovering from childbirth, and could instead be home to recover and bond with their baby.

Democrats fought to increase wages and benefits for paid caregivers in all settings, which will improve working conditions and quality of care while enabling family members to rejoin the workforce. 9 out of 10 caregivers are women of color – Republicans who voted against Biden’s Build Back Better proposal also shot down pay and benefit equity for women of color working in childcare, eldercare, healthcare, and other care-related jobs. 

We cannot hope to raise wages without taking on the profound racial biases at work in our employment system. The wage gap between Black workers and white workers is higher today than it was 20 years ago. It takes a typical Black woman 19 months to earn what a typical white man earns in 12 months—and for typical Latinas and Native American women, it takes almost two years. Democrats believe we need to be much more proactive and aggressive in rooting out discrimination in our employment system. Democrats increased funding to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and increase its authority to initiate directed investigations into civil rights violations, violations of the rights of people with disabilities, and violations against LGBTQ+ people, especially transgender women of color. 

Democrats proposed to raise wages for working people and improve job quality and security, including by raising the federal minimum wage so it reaches $15 an hour by 2026 but Republicans stood in our way. 

The raise would increase wages for less than one out of five (18.4%) white workers – but about one in three (31.3%) Black workers and one in four (26.0%) Hispanic workers would receive a pay increase. Because they are particularly underpaid, women of color would disproportionately benefit from the Raise the Wage Act: 22.9% of those who would receive pay increases are Black or Hispanic women.

Republicans voted against this. Abbott has said this would disadvantage small businesses, but the reality is that raising the wages of these workers would result in an immediate increase in their spending, thus increasing the number of customers who can shop at these small businesses. 

The Biden-Harris Administration is committed to ensuring that federal investments build wealth and opportunity for underserved entrepreneurs and small business owners. On the centennial of the Tulsa Race Massacre, President Biden announced a number of steps to narrow the racial wealth gap, including setting a goal of increasing the share of federal contracts going to small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs) to 15 percent by 2025 – a 50 percent increase from most recent spending levels.

Abortion and Maternal Care

A recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also found that Black women died of maternal causes at nearly three times the rate of white women in 2020. 

In order to address this issue of maternal equity, the Biden-Harris administration has addressed Maternal Equity in the following ways:

• Expanded Social Services: Stronger partnerships between the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, Agriculture, and Health and Human Services will help make it easier to enroll in federal programs for housing, food, childcare, and income assistance, as we know health care is only one part of what makes for a healthy pregnancy.
• Better Trained Providers: More providers will be trained on implicit biases as well as culturally and linguistically appropriate care, so that more women are listened to, respected, and empowered as a decisionmaker in their own care.
• Improved Maternal Health Data: Through enhanced federal partnerships with state and local maternal health data collection entities, communities, hospitals, and researchers will have access to better data so they can analyze poor outcomes during pregnancy and make improvements to support healthy pregnancies. This is especially important for women of color, as one of the leading causes of these higher mortality and morbidity rates is the lack of data collected on non-white women.
• A More Diverse Maternal Care Workforce: Federal agencies will invest more in hiring, training, and deploying more physicians, certified nurse midwives, doulas, and community health workers to support women during pregnancy, delivery, and postpartum. The federal government will work to ensure these providers come from diverse communities and backgrounds.
• Extended Postpartum Coverage: States are encouraged to extend Medicaid coverage from two months to one year postpartum, so that women do not lose or have changes in their coverage during or soon after pregnancy. Texas Republicans have turned down over $10 billion in funding just to play political games by denying Medicaid expansion, so history shows that Texas won’t have this access unless Democrats are in power at the state level.
• Investments in Rural Maternal Care: Rural health care facilities will have more staff and capabilities to provide maternal care through increased funding from the expanding the Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies Program and more robust training for rural health care providers.
• A Maternal Mental Health Hotline: Providers will be trained on mental health during pregnancy, and women will have access to a national, confidential, 24-hour, toll-free hotline if they are experiencing mental health challenges.
• Substance Use Services: Federal agencies will partner with community-based organizations to ensure that addiction services and people trained in substance use disorder during pregnancy are more available.
• No More Surprise Bills: Through the No Surprises Act, women are now protected from certain unexpected medical bills, which may occur during pregnancy, postpartum care, and/or delivery.

Activists say abortion bans will only push pregnant people into poverty or into debt. Pregnancy and childbirth alone can cost thousands of dollars.

Activists who work in Black and brown communities fear the socioeconomic effects of this decision. Abortion rights, they say, are an economic and health justice issue. Abortion rights advocates also say there are several factors that may go into a person's decision to seek an abortion, including health care access and quality, financial support and willingness to be pregnant.

In the most recent data from the CDC in 2019, Black women had the highest rate of abortions with 23.8 abortions per 1,000 women.

Hispanic women had 11.7 abortions per 1,000 women, according to the CDC. White women had the lowest rate: 6.6 abortions per 1,000 women. The majority of these women -- 56.9% -- were in their 20s, according to the data.

Democratic leaders have fought back against Abbott and Texan republican draconian abortion bans by creating sanctuary cities in Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Denton, San Marcos, and most recently Houston – all agreeing to deprioritize and cut off funding to attempts to persecute these women and their doctors. While it’s great that these cities have taken steps to protect women – and from what the numbers show, disproportionately women of color – we shouldn’t live in a state where only some of us are safe to make choices based on what’s best for our health and our lives. 

Black and Hispanic teen girls experience the highest rate of teen pregnancy, and when given the chance for the federal government to cover this expense through the CHIP health care program in 2021, by turning down this federal financial aid and instead passing the bill onto Texas taxpayers.

The Biden Harris administration has responded to these oppressive state laws by implementing federal protections- including Medicaid coverage for traveling out of state to access abortion care and strengthening Federal anti-discrimination laws to ensure that women aren’t blocked out of receiving appropriate medical care.

Healthcare (ref. p. 17-20 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

Even when factors like income, age, condition, and insurance are comparable, research has shown that Black and brown people are still failed by the health care system.

Research has shown that racial and ethnic minorities often receive lower-quality health care than white people.

Approx. 3.9 million Black people, 1.5 million AA and NHPI people, and. 10.9 million Hispanic people were uninsured in 2019 before President Biden took office.

Over 1.3 million people of color fell into the Medicaid “coverage gap” and were locked out of coverage because their state refused to expand Medicaid. Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the country. Last year activists and democrats begged Greg Abbott to expand Medicaid coverage – which would have given coverage to over 2 million Texans, most of whom were Black, Latino, and AAPI, including their children; however, instead of standing up for Texas, Abbott played political games by denying contraception coverage and Abbott and state leaders rejected expansion of Medicaid in the 2021 legislature session – not only keeping coverage away from the thousands of Texas of color who they knew fell into the coverage gap, but also passing the cost of these coverage gaps onto Texas taxpayers. 

The expanded coverage you’re experiencing now is thanks to President Biden and Texas Congressional Democrats  – despite Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton, Ted Cruz, and John Cornyn’s best attempts to keep it away from you.

By refusing Medicaid expansion under the ACA, Texas has already missed out on billions in federal funding that would otherwise have flowed to the state to provide medical care for their low-income residents. And in addition, the state’s emergency rooms are providing $5.5 billion in uncompensated care each year, treating patients who don’t have health insurance (as noted above, the state is receiving about $2.5 billion in annual federal funding to cover uncompensated care). 

The Inflation Reduction Act (August 2022) locks in lower monthly premiums – about 197,000 AA and NHPI people became newly eligible for premium savings last year, with more than 150,000 uninsured AA and NHPI people having access to a plan with a $0-premium plan in 2021; 80 percent of uninsured Latinos had access to a plan for $50 or less each month and 69 percent could find a plan for $0 a month in 2021; more than three quarters of uninsured Black Americans had access to a plan with a monthly premium of $50 or less and about two thirds could find a plan for $0-premium plan in 2021.

By continuing the improvements made through the American Rescue Plan, the Inflation Reduction Act will help keep free or low-cost health insurance available. About 120,000 more Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islanders will have health insurance coverage next year, compared to without the IRA; Over half a million more Black Americans will have health insurance coverage next year, compared to without the IRA; Nearly 700,000 Latinos will have health insurance coverage next year, compared to without the IRA.

Since President Biden took office, the uninsured rate has reached a new historic low: 8% and over 5 million Americans have gained health insurance coverage.

Americans pay 2-3 times more for their prescription drugs than people in other wealthy countries. High prices contribute to racial and ethnic health inequities. President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act will lower health care costs, including prescription drug costs, and expand health insurance coverage.

• Caps the amount that seniors will have to pay for prescription drugs they buy at the pharmacy at $2,000 a year, giving peace of mind to seniors who no longer have to worry about spending thousands and thousands more on prescription drugs.
• Caps the amount that seniors will have to pay for insulin at $35 for a month’s supply.
• Provides access to a number of additional free vaccines, including the shingles vaccine, for Medicare beneficiaries.
• Will further lower prescription drug costs for seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate the price of high-cost drugs and requiring drug manufacturers to pay Medicare a rebate when they raise prices faster than inflation.

Among adults 65 and older, Black Medicare beneficiaries were roughly 1.5 times as likely as White beneficiaries to have trouble affording medications, and about 2 times as likely to not fill needed prescriptions due to cost. 

Among adults 65 and older, Latino Medicare beneficiaries were roughly 1.5 times as likely as White beneficiaries to have trouble affording medications, and about 2 times as likely to not fill needed prescriptions due to cost. 

Environment (ref. p. 21-25 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

From the Inflation Reduction Act (August 2022): 

• Families in affordable housing units will benefit from resources to support projects that boost efficiency, improve indoor air quality, make clean energy or electrification upgrades, or strengthen their climate resilience. ($1000/year in tax credit). 
• Creates Environmental Justice Block Grants, and a dedicated program to tackle pollution in port communities – where air pollution is especially dense and deadly.
• Funds a range of programs to reduce air pollution, including for fenceline monitoring and screening near industrial facilities, air quality sensors in disadvantaged communities, new and upgraded multipollutant monitoring sites, and monitoring and mitigation of methane and wood heater emissions.
• Upgrades affordable housing with HUD funding to reinforce homes against climate impacts, and increase water and energy efficiency.
• Expands USDA’s Urban and Community Forestry Program with tree-planting projects that help cool neighborhoods, with a priority for projects that benefit underserved communities.
• Advances transportation equity and resilience with a new Neighborhood Access and Equity Grant program to improve walkability, safety, and affordability, including projects to protect against extreme heat, flooding, and other impacts.

From the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (November 2021): ​​

• The Inflation Reduction Act contains a significant amount of money to help address environmental injustices and address health inequities. 
• Better Air Quality for the Most-Impacted Communities: Our State of the Air Report shows that people of color were 3.6 times as likely than white people to live in areas with the most unhealthy air. 
  • The law includes a greenhouse gas reduction fund that will help deploy clean energy and pollution control technologies in low-income and disadvantaged communities, as well as funding for air pollution monitoring in disadvantaged and low-income communities. 
  • Environmental and climate justice block grants included in the law will provide funding for community-led projects that can include pollution monitoring, mitigating health risks from extreme weather events and increasing public engagement during federal rulemaking processes.
• Delivers the largest investment in tackling legacy pollution in American history by cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaiming abandoned mines, and capping orphaned oil and gas wells.
  • In thousands of rural and urban communities around the country, hundreds of thousands of former industrial and energy sites are now idle – sources of blight and pollution. 
  • Proximity to a Superfund site can lead to elevated levels of lead in children’s blood. 
  • The bill invests $21 billion to clean up Superfund and brownfield sites, reclaim abandoned mine land and cap orphaned oil and gas wells. 
  • These projects will remediate environmental harms, address the legacy pollution that harms the public health of communities, create good-paying union jobs, and advance long overdue environmental justice.
  • This investment will benefit communities of color as it has been found that 26% of Black Americans and 29% of Hispanic Americans live within 3 miles of a Superfund site, a higher percentage than for Americans overall.

The Supreme Court is coming for the EPA and other parts of the government, in an effort to do away with environmental regulations and regulations in general—which will severely impact Black people. For example: right here in Harris and Fort Bend Counties, Black residents are suffering from cancer and are demanding that Union Pacific clean up their neighborhoods that the railroad company contaminated with creosote — a cancer-causing substance used to preserve rail ties. Republicans have made it clear that they will not enact legislation to protect these communities, but will continue to prioritize their corporate donors over the health of their constituents.

In contrast, Democrats have proposed the The Environmental Justice For All Act that would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to allow communities to sue polluters for intentional discrimination and remedy the disproportionate impact of pollution on Black, Latino, Indigenous and other vulnerable communities.

Infrastructure (ref. p. 48-50 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

The need for action in Texas is clear. For decades, infrastructure in Texas has suffered from a systemic lack of investment. In fact, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave Texas a C- grade on its infrastructure report card.

From the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law:

• Delivers clean water to all American families and eliminates the nation’s lead service lines. 
  • Currently, up to 10 million American households and 400,000 schools and child care centers lack safe drinking water. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests $55 billion to expand access to clean drinking water for households, businesses, schools, and child care centers all across the country. 
  • From rural towns to struggling cities, the legislation will invest in water infrastructure and eliminate lead service pipes. As we’ve seen in Flint, MI and now Jackson, MS, communities of color are most likely to live in the areas where water failure creates extreme and prolonged vulnerability. Democrats are fighting to address these issues proactively, rather than waiting for a crisis to hit.
• Improves transportation options for millions of Americans and reduces greenhouse emissions through the largest investment in public transit in U.S. history. 
  • America’s public transit infrastructure is inadequate – with a multibillion-dollar repair backlog, representing more than 24,000 buses, 5,000 rail cars, 200 stations, and thousands of miles of track, signals, and power systems in need of replacement. 
  • Since 2011, commute times have increased by 11.4% in Texas, and on average, each driver pays $709 per year in costs due to driving on roads in need of repair
  • Local and tribal governments in Texas will also be eligible to compete for $6 billion in funding for a new Safe Streets for All program which will provide funding directly to these entities to support their efforts to advance “vision zero” plans and other improvements to reduce crashes and fatalities, especially for cyclists and pedestrians
  • Communities of color are twice as likely to take public transportation and many of these communities lack sufficient public transit options. 
  • The transportation sector in the United States is now the largest single source of greenhouse gas emissions. The legislation includes $39 billion of new investment to modernize transit, in addition to continuing the existing transit programs for five years as part of surface transportation reauthorization.  
  • In total, the new investments and reauthorization in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal provide $89.9 billion in guaranteed funding for public transit over the next five years — the largest Federal investment in public transit in history. The legislation expands public transit options across every state in the country, replaces thousands of deficient transit vehicles, including buses, with clean, zero emission vehicles, and improves accessibility for the elderly and people with disabilities. Texas would expect to receive approximately $27.5 billion over five years in Federal highway formula funding for highways and bridges

Education (ref. p. 9-16 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

The American Rescue Plan recognized and continues to address the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on underserved students. 

• Districts and states must spend a combined minimum of 24 percent of total ARP ESSER funds on evidence-based practices to address lost instructional time and the impact of the coronavirus on underserved students, such as summer learning and enrichment programs, comprehensive afterschool programs, and tutoring. 
• School and district leaders must ensure that these efforts respond to students’ social and emotional needs as well. 
• ARP ESSER includes a first-of-its-kind maintenance of equity requirement to ensure that high-poverty school districts and schools are protected from funding cuts.

A 2018 report from The Education Trust found that the highest poverty districts receive 7 percent less per pupil in State and local funding than the lowest poverty districts.

Studies show the remarkable benefits of preschool programs, but such programs are too often out of reach for children of color and low-income children. Dramatically unequal funding between school districts means some children learn in gleaming new classrooms, while students just down the road navigate unsafe and rundown facilities. Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, high-poverty school districts struggle to attract certified staff and experienced educators. And students of color and children with disabilities face disproportionately high rates of school discipline that removes them from the classroom, with lasting consequences.

Criminal Justice and Gun Violence Prevention (ref. p. 28-31 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

Justice should not be influenced by wealth or privilege. We must address the institutional and implicit biases that lead to unequal treatment of people of color, people with disabilities, low-income people, immigrants, religious minorities, veterans and the LGBTQIA+ community. We must redefine the goals of our public safety system to focus on preventing crime and addressing the underlying causes of criminal activity. End the treatment of social problems such as addiction and homelessness with criminal statutes and incarceration.

From the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (July 2022):

The Act will help schools hire more school-based mental health professionals and build a strong pipeline into the profession for the upcoming school year. In total, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act will invest $1 billion over the next five years in mental health support in our schools, making progress towards the President’s goal to double the number of school counselors, social workers and other mental health professionals.

• This will increase the number of school psychologists, counselors, and other mental health professionals serving our students.
• Expanding Medicaid to include mental health services for children.
• The impacts of this will not only address the alarming number of mass shootings perpetrated by shooters who were identified by teachers and classmates as potential threats in this vein, but will also intervene with the school to prison pipeline by providing student interventions by mental health professionals, rather that school police officers. 

In addition, the Act: 

• funds crisis intervention, including red-flag laws; 
• keeps guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and to others; finally closes the “boyfriend loophole;” 
• requires young people ages 18 to 21 to undergo enhanced background checks; 
• includes the first-ever federal law that makes gun trafficking and straw purchases distinct federal crimes; 
• clarifies who needs to register as a federally licensed gun dealer and run background checks before selling a single weapon; 
• provides historic funding to address the youth mental health crisis in this country, especially the trauma experienced by the survivors of gun violence; 
• and invests in anti-violence programs that work directly with the people who are most likely to commit these crimes or become victims of gun crimes.

From the Safer America Plan (July 2022):

• Funds the police and promotes effective prosecution of crimes affecting families today, including by funding 100,000 additional police officers who will be recruited, trained, hired, and supervised consistent with the standards in the President’s Executive Order to advance effective, accountable community policing in order to enhance trust and public safety;
• Invests in crime prevention and a fairer criminal justice system, including by investing $20 billion in services that address the causes of crime and reduce the burdens on police so they can focus on violent crime, and by incentivizing the reform of laws that increase incarceration without redressing public safety;
• Takes additional common sense steps on guns to keep dangerous firearms out of dangerous hands, including by calling on Congress to require background checks for all gun sales and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

As part of this plan, Pres­id­ent Joe Biden also announced a land­mark proposal to estab­lish a $15 billion grant program called Accelerating Justice System Reform. The plan would help states reduce unne­ces­sary incar­cer­a­tion and improv­e public safety without lock­ing up more people. Biden’s last proposal focuses on the following ways to improve how we create safer, more equitable communities – with the following elements being specifically targeted towards equity and safety in communities of color.

• End the crack-powder disparity and make the fix retroactive. The Safer America Plan calls on Congress to end once and for all the racially discriminatory sentencing disparity between crack cocaine and powder cocaine offenses—as President Biden first advocated in 2007—and make that change fully retroactive. This step would provide immediate sentencing relief to the 10,000 individuals, more than 90% of whom are Black, currently serving time in federal prison pursuant to the crack/powder disparity
• Expand community violence interventions with $5 billion over 10 years. The Plan appropriates $5 billion to expand and build the capacity of focused deterrence, violence interruption, and hospital-based programs. Community violence intervention (CVI) programs are effective because they leverage trusted messengers who work directly with individuals most likely to engage in or be victimized by gun violence, intervene in conflicts, and connect people to social, health and wellness, and economic services to reduce the likelihood of violence as an answer to conflict.
• Promote common sense reforms in the states. As noted above, the new $15 billion Accelerating Justice System Reform grant program will not only support crime prevention strategies; it will also incentivize state criminal justice reforms such as repealing mandatory minimums for non-violent crimes.

Voting Rights (ref. p. 7-8 of the Texas Democratic Party Platform)

Every Republican – from Greg Abbott to your local secretary of state to your Republican U.S. House Representatives who are all up for election this year – have all weaponized your representation by attempting to strip you of your voting rights. 

Republicans at every level of government have deliberately tried to make it harder for communities of color to have their voices heard. From voter roll purges, to reducing polling locations to make it harder to get to the polls, to gerrymandering to water down the representation of our communities. 

Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, Ken Paxton and state leader passed SB1 – a law so restrictive and regressive to voting rights that Texas Democrats risked arrest by leaving the state in order to delay the vote and go to Washington, DC to beg Congress to reinstate the protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.