Labor & Business

When my younger sister was born, she was 10 weeks premature and required around-the-clock care. Our mom didn’t have access to family leave, so while she was with my sister in the NICU, the hotel she worked at called her and fired her over the phone. So there she was — no job, mounting medical bills, and a baby struggling to survive. 

Thankfully, my sister got better. But things have gotten worse for workers in this country.

Workers and small businesses keep our economy running. But right now, the deck is stacked against them. Giant corporations get tax write-offs when their CEOs fly on private jets, while the average family is struggling to get by. 

Billionaire mega-donors and their puppet politicians want you to believe that if we raise the minimum wage, support paid family leave, or allow workers to unionize, it’ll kill jobs and crush the economy. But the evidence doesn’t back that up.

We don’t have to choose between supporting workers and supporting businesses. Doing both is how we ensure hard work is rewarded and every American has the opportunity to earn their way into the middle class.

From my 100% pro-labor voting record to my leadership as Vice Chair of the Committee on Trade, Workforce, and Economic Development in the Texas House, I’ve spent my career fighting for workers, connecting Texans to more good-paying jobs, and making Texas the #1 place to start and grow a business.

This is not a comprehensive list! If you have policy ideas you want to see from your next U.S. Senator, please reach out HERE. We want to hear from you!

• Raise wages and reward hard work: Raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, expand overtime eligibility, and incentivize CEOs to pay fair wages by creating a special tax on corporations that pay their top executives more than 250 times their median worker’s salary. Implement tax credits and subsidies to help small- and medium-sized businesses adapt to a minimum wage raise without cutting jobs or hours.
• Even the playing field between giant corporations and small businesses: End the extreme tax breaks that allow the largest corporations to pay $0 in federal income taxes so that we can help more entrepreneurs make their dreams a reality. Expand support for Community Development Financial Institutions and community banks to increase access to credit and capital, broaden eligibility for Small Business Administration loan programs, and support states in providing more equity investment and technical assistance for small businesses.
• Protect the retirement benefits working people have earned: Fight tooth and nail against attacks on Social Security and Medicare, ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share into Social Security by eliminating the tax cap on those earning over $400,000 a year, and incentivize employer-sponsored pensions.
• Ensure AI works for working people: Protect workers from invasive AI surveillance in the workplace; use AI to make jobs safer and less repetitive, rather than to eliminate them; create pathways for workers to move into higher-skilled, better-paying roles as the economy evolves; ensure AI companies follow the same copyright laws as everyone else; include worker voices in government-funded AI research and development, and defend the right to transparency and human review for automated decisionmaking around promotions, discipline, and terminations.
• Ensure no Texan has to choose between their career and their family: Pass paid family leave legislation that would allow Americans to take time off work to bond with a new child or care for a seriously ill family member, and expand access to affordable childcare (which helps businesses, too!).
• Support workers’ right to unionize: Pass the PRO Act so that all working people have the freedom to join together and negotiate with their employers for better wages and working conditions. 
• Keep more jobs in Texas with fair trade policies, not counterproductive tariffs: Repeal the Trump Administration’s overly broad tariffs that are hurting consumers and businesses. Instead, advocate for and approve trade deal protections that prevent foreign competitors from undercutting American workers by exploiting weak labor laws abroad.
• Reduce labor shortages and bring down costs with smart immigration policies that don’t harm American workers: Make it easier for small businesses to hire migrant workers in sectors like housing construction and agriculture to reduce labor shortages, address supply chain issues, and lower costs. Ensure strong labor standards on those visas and crack down on employers who game the system to displace American workers or suppress their wages.

• Reduced costs for small businesses by approving an increase in the business personal property tax exemption and the minimization of licensing and regulation fees for businesses in their first year of operation.
• Helped ensure families don’t have to choose between a career and their family by making high-quality childcare more accessible and affordable and establishing a regulatory framework for family leave insurance policies. 
• Invested in the next generation of Texas workers by supporting an increase in Registered Apprenticeship programs and requiring local workforce boards to develop specific strategies to connect young people to workforce training and job opportunities.
• Made career and workforce training more affordable by creating tuition and fee exemptions, establishing the public junior college state finance program, and supporting the creation of the Lone Star Workforce of the Future Fund. 
• Authored legislation to raise wages and support unions by increasing Texas’ minimum wage to $15 per hour, making Texas a Right to Organize state, and codifying overtime protections for workers.
• Made workplaces safer by supporting legislation to establish a workplace violence hotline, to strengthen the appeals process for investigators in child labor violation cases, and to clarify that sexual harassment in all workplaces is unlawful.