Cate's Policy Priorities

What are the true Texas values that unite us? Texans believe in hard work, helping their neighbors and standing up for fairness, equality and diversity. These are the values that unite rather than divide us. I believe they are worth fighting for.

True Texas values mean protecting our personal freedoms. This means living safely in your home, school and workplace. It means protecting free speech and not allowing book banning. It means freedom to practice your religion and freely loving your partner without threat from extremists. It means protecting and restoring your access to healthcare services, including prenatal, maternal and abortion services.

I will fight to ensure every child in HD98 can have a great public school education with the best teachers and end political interference from conservative extremists and Austin takeovers. I will fight to raise the minimum wage to ensure that each person can earn a living wage so you and your family can thrive economically.

We Texans value integrity and must demand that our representatives adhere to the law and apply it fairly to all. We must ensure our government operates without bias to religion, race, legal immigration status or political party.

People relocate to HD98 because of the excellent reputation of our public schools.
Unfortunately, the quality of our public schools is declining because of restricted
budgets, the Austin voucher scam, and ridiculous culture wars that ban books and focus on bathrooms. Enrollment in our ISDs is declining partially because of these divisive culture wars. I’ll fight to fully restore public school funding, pay teachers what they’re worth and take radical politics out of our schools.

School vouchers drain financial resources from our school districts by sending taxpayer money to private, unregulated schools. School budgets are under enormous stress because of cuts to local property taxes, stagnant basic allotment per student and suppressed business taxes. Even worse, federal funding cuts are gravely impacting special and early childhood education programs. Governor Abbott now has proposed a plan that could cut school taxes even more severely. I will fight to repeal the school voucher scam, fully fund our public schools, raise teacher pay and ensure every child has access to a high-quality education.

Local government rule of our schools and academic integrity are under attack. The
Texas Education Agency in Austin has taken over the ISDs of Fort Worth, Lake Worth and Houston and more are coming. This amounts to for-profit corporate outsourcing of our schools. State-mandated teaching methods, like the religiously biased Bluebonnet Learning curriculum, undermine how our children learn and their critical thinking skills. Teacher retention is declining across all our local school districts, and this exodus can only mean a race to the bottom. Our kids deserve the best, and I will not let them down.

We must create new sources of tax revenue so we can cut individual property taxes and improve housing affordability. I will work to diversify our tax base by exploring destination and sportsbooks gambling and legalizing marijuana, in addition to ensuring corporations pay their fair share.

Legalized gambling will create new jobs and business opportunities. Legalizing marijuana will not only help our veterans and others with chronic medical conditions, but it will also generate new tax revenue and jobs. Texans spend an estimated $3 to $5 billion a year at Oklahoma and Louisiana casinos and sportsbooks. In its second year, New York collected an estimated $140 million in tax revenue from legalized marijuana. This new tax revenue will pay for social safety net programs like early childhood education, Medicaid, healthcare services, and mental health services.

Too many families in HD 98 are struggling with the high cost of living. Affordable
housing and first-time homeownership are out of reach for many young families, which means declining public school enrollment. There are ways we can fix this in Austin and that’s what I’ll fight for. I will work to expand affordable housing options by cutting property taxes, adding local investment in our communities and ending anti-competitive corporate practices that drive up housing costs.

Our public and private healthcare insurance systems are in trouble, and too many Texans are uninsured or underinsured. ACA premiums are expected to increase an average of 24 percent for almost 4 million Texans in 2026. Federal Medicaid funding has been severely cut, which will mean a likely $778 million loss in 2026 to our hospitals. These cuts disproportionately affect our large uninsured population, children, the elderly, veterans and people with disabilities who rely heavily on Medicaid for essential chronic and long-term care. In health care, my priorities are to expand Medicaid, improve mental health services, boost access to prenatal, maternal and pediatric health care while negotiating with insurance companies to improve individual costs.

I support funding our social safety net programs that protect our most vulnerable neighbors. Working parents face sky-high daycare costs, making it harder for families to afford food, housing and health care. For daycare, I will champion innovative programs like the Universal Free Childcare program implemented in New Mexico. I will work to ensure every preschool child has a safe place to learn and grow, and every parent can pursue economic opportunity in the workplace.

True Texas values include supporting our individual fundamental freedoms. This means our unalienable right to make our own personal decisions without government interference—a more Libertarian point of view.

The conservative extremists in state government have, unfortunately, been effective in restricting reproductive freedom, attacking marriage equality, and dictating how we parent our children. They have banned books and then inserted religion in our classrooms by mandating the 10 Commandments be posted. This is just plain wrong and violates the separation of church and state. We need to respect the religious diversity in Texas.

I will defend your right to bodily autonomy, support marriage equality and protect the rights of all Texans—no matter your gender identity or racial background. I will stand up for freedom of speech, academic integrity and the right to privacy without government interference. The government has absolutely no place in our most personal decisions.

Texans deserve leaders who tell the truth, keep their promises and govern with integrity. Transparency and accountability are the foundation of public trust, and Texans have a right to know how decisions are made and how public resources are used. Government should serve the people openly, not operate behind closed doors.

Protecting integrity also means strengthening our democracy. I support expanding access to voting by mail and early voting, removing unnecessary barriers to voting and ending unethical gerrymandering. Voters should choose their leaders—not the other way around. Fair representation and decisions made by Texans (not decisions made at the insistance of those in Washington, D.C.) are essential to restoring trust in Texas government. I will oppose backroom deals and procedural loopholes that silence communities and avoid accountability.

The time for change in leadership is now. Tarrant County is a Blue county but all
Democrats and Independents must vote in every election to make real change. Our
district needs a experienced leader who will listen, act and restore the values we all share. I am that leader.

I am running to make Texas affordable for everyone, to defend our public schools from religious and corporate influence, to protect your personal freedoms, to bring integrity back to our government and end conservative extremism in our lives. Together, we can build a future where every person and child in HD98 has an equal and fair shot at living a safe, productive and loving life. I ask for your trust, your support and your vote in the primary election on March 3 and the general election on Nov. 3.

Let’s restore true Texas values—together.