Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has sued Harris County for instituting an unlawful “guaranteed income” program that redistributes public money in a manner that violates the Texas Constitution.
Announced by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in 2023, the program would randomly select 1,928 eligible Harris County residents by lottery to receive $500 cash payments for 18 months with “no strings attached.”
The money itself comes from the $20.5 million the county received through the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act which was specifically intended to be used for COVID-19 relief initiatives.
The program was met with additional backlash when it was announced that certain classifications of noncitizens would be eligible for the handouts.
The Texas Constitution expressly forbids “any county, city, town or other political corporation or subdivision of the State … to grant public money or thing of value in aid of, or to any individual.”
Harris County’s program to give public money away with no conditions, no control over expenditure of that money, and no guarantee of public benefit is prohibited.
The Constitution also provides that everyone has “equal rights, and no man, or set of men, is entitled to exclusive separate public emoluments.”
This lottery-based handout violates the Texas Constitution because the selection of recipients is inherently arbitrary. County governments have limited authority to act and, like all governments, can only act in accordance with the Constitution. Harris County has exceeded that authority.
“This scheme is plainly unconstitutional,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Taxpayer money must be spent lawfully and used to advance the public interest, not merely redistributed with no accountability or reasonable expectation of a general benefit. I am suing to stop officials in Harris County from abusing public funds for political gain.”
On August 7, 2023, Hidalgo, known as a woke judge who looked up to the propaganda of Anthony Fauci, announced she had been diagnosed with clinical depression and would be taking a temporary leave to receive treatment.
“It is important for me personally and professionally to confront this issue swiftly, so I will be taking a temporary leave from the office while I am receiving treatment,” Hidalgo said.
Hidalgo’s leave of absence was the second one she had taken in 2023 when she traveled to her native Colombia in January to visit an ailing relative.
In 2022, Texas Rangers investigated and indicted three of her staff members over allegations they unfairly awarded an $11 million COVID-19 vaccine campaign contract to a Democratic strategist known as Elevate Strategies.
In March 2022, ABC13 news reported: Even though the judge responded to reporters’ questions for about 18 minutes, Hidalgo offered little to no details about her or her staff members’ discussions with Elevate Strategies founder, Felicity Pereyra, prior to her being awarded the contract in June 2021.
Investigators said text messages and emails between senior staffers show they communicated with Pereyra in January 2021 and allowed Pereyra to review and revise the project’s scope of work nearly a month before a bid for proposals was publicly available to all on Feb. 19, 2021.
Even though the contract was canceled in September 2021, Elevate was still paid $1.4 million.
The county said Elevate will keep about $200,000 that it incurred through “legitimate expenses to which they would be entitled to by law.”
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CINDY LEAL MASSEY, TEXAS AUTHOR
Clever Journeys 
Flagrant corruption.
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Here’s what they do: they vote in schemes they call legal taxes, and then they sit around in their sandboxes playing with all the money they raked in, like they’re in Las Vegas.
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Exactly. I’ve noticed over the years that multi-state lotteries are consistently won in New Jersey, California, Washington state, Illinois, New York. NEVER in a red state. Coincidently mafia family members (Whitey Bugler) win them often.
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