Cate's Policy Priorities

Everyone deserves safe, affordable housing, yet many Texas families struggle to buy their first home. In HD98, the average home costs more than $600,000 and housing supply is tight. Renters increasingly spend 40 percent of household income on rent. At the same time, skyrocketing electricity rates—driven in part by sweetheart deals for commercial users—are raising costs for residential customers. Continuing down this path is unsustainable for the future of our children and community.

Texas residential electricity rates have risen about 30 percent since 2021 and are projected to rise another 29 percent from 2025 to 2030. Key drivers include demand from data centers and other commercial users, unnecessary grid upgrades, inflation, tariffs, and extreme weather. Low- to moderate-income families now spend about 10 percent of income on energy. (1) Lives are also at stake: nearly 200 seniors, disabled people, and others froze to death in 2021 after an energy grid failure caused by the Abbott administration and Republican-majority legislature.

How We Fix This:

1. Cate will fight to improve housing affordability by increasing supply and lowering construction costs through regulatory reform. Texas should partner with HD98 cities to streamline permitting, reform zoning, support first-time buyers, and allow more homeowners to build accessory dwelling units. All this must be done in partnership with our municipalities.

2. The legislature should pass innovative programs like the Fair Rent Incentive Act (HB 203, introduced in 2025), which would lower tax rates for landlords who charge fair market rent or less and pass the savings to renters. The goal is to help renters spend far less than 40 percent of income on housing and utilities. This is a win-win for all.

3. Cate will fight to ensure data centers and other high-demand commercial users pay their fair share instead of shifting costs to residential customers and small businesses. These commercial users must provide their own power capacity and pay for their own grid infrastructure and connections.

(1) https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fact-sheet-a-plan-for-american-electricity-affordability/

Our children, our homes and our public school systems are the heart and future of our community. Well-funded, safe public schools attract new families, support local businesses, strengthen our workforce, protect home values, and help keep HD98 and Texas the kind of place we choose to call home. Cate Brennan believes we must act now to protect these important assets because a well-educated population is the best pathway to our continued long-term economic success and low crime rate. Our schools are not one-size-fits-all, and decisions on funding, teacher staffing and pay, and curriculum belong with our local school boards.

Our valuable public school systems are struggling with ongoing deficits caused by decreased enrollment and chronic underfunding by the state. A recent Texas comptroller report on private vouchers shows at least 5,366 students within our districts have applied for private school vouchers for the 2026-27 school year. (1) This equates to a loss of $33,349,690 to our local schools and minimum of $53,660,000 subsidy to the private school industry. Total cost to taxpayers in HD98 is $87,009,690! (2)

HD98 taxpayers must demand a separate segregated public school fund, budget transparency, and voucher system accountability. GCISD, KISD and CISD are subject to Robin Hood rules. These districts sent $53.8 million in 2025-26 to Austin under recapture. There is very little budget transparency but we know that $2.564 billion of excess local revenue was diverted to the General Fund (aka Rainy Day fund) in the 2025-26 budget. (3) This “surplus” equates to a state property tax, something forbidden by the Texas Constitution. The Texas legislature must cease using our local property taxes for other purposes. Cate will fight to change this.

Additionally, Texas must stop bleeding our tax dollars by giving tax abatements to data centers, special interests and large corporations.  In 2025, $1 billion in our tax abatement dollars was gifted to data centers alone! That same $1 billion would pay the salaries of 5,500 teachers for three years! We taxpayers must recapture this tax money to fully fund our public schools and increase teacher pay to improve retention and quality.

While public schools in Grapevine-Colleyville, Keller, Southlake and Euless continue to be highly ranked, the rankings are trending downward, and we’ve seen devastating closures of elementary and middle schools. Cate believes we must change how we fund our public schools to meet our current and future needs. The “Robin Hood” system of funding schools, in place since 1991, must be replaced by a new system based on student enrollment instead of attendance. Private school vouchers will greatly contribute to this downward spiral because of even greater loss of funding.

How We Fix This:

1.      Increase the basic allotment per student to at least equal to private school vouchers. Why should our public school children be worth less than private school children? The U.S. average funding is around $15,500 per student.

2.      HD98 taxpayers must demand a separate segregated public school fund, budget transparency, and voucher system accountability.

3.      Stop subsidizing tax abatements to data centers, special interests and large corporations; use this money for our public schools.

4.      Defund private schools vouchers with some limited exceptions for students with disabilities.

Special education and early childhood education are complex issues that will be addressed separately.

(1) https://educationfreedom.texas.gov/newsupdates/updated-demographic-information-on-tefa-participation/

(2)   Average daily allotment for public school students is $6,215. Private school vouchers range from $10,000 to $30,000 per student.

(3) https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/Tea.FspReports.Web/

Our private and public health care and insurance systems are in serious trouble, with serious consequences for children, seniors, veterans, families, and communities. Texas has the highest uninsured rate in the U.S.: 19.2 percent, or more than 5 million people under age 65. (1) ACA premiums rose an average of 35 percent after federal cuts in 2025; typical coverage for a 40-year-old was $5,868 in 2025 and will be $7,932 in 2026.

We know that health insurance:

1. Encourages preventive care - Coverage often includes free or low-cost vaccines, screenings, and wellness visits, helping catch problems early and improve quality of life.

2. Supports early diagnosis – Providers can catch conditions when they are easier and less costly to treat.

3. Improves health outcomes - Insurance is linked to lower mortality, better chronic disease management, and improved overall health.

4. Protects families from debt - Coverage reduces out-of-pocket costs and catastrophic expenses; 58.5 percent of people who declared bankruptcy said medical bills contributed.

5. Makes communities healthier - Insurance supports access to vaccines and timely care, reduces disease spread, and lowers uncompensated care costs for hospitals.

6. Strengthens the economy - Insured people are more productive, miss fewer workdays, and support stronger local economies. (2)

How We Fix This

The U.S. needs a major overhaul of its private and public health care systems. While that requires federal action, Texas can take immediate steps.

1.      Expand community health centers for low- and moderate-income families with and without insurance. With nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians, these centers can provide preventive care and chronic disease management for conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

2.      Expand Medicaid and CHIP for families, children, pregnant women, and people living with disabilities. Texas’ refusal to expand Medicaid keeps more than 600,000 Texans uninsured. Hospital leaders support expansion, and analyses by Methodist Healthcare Ministries and Texas Impact show it would have increased economic output and created hundreds of thousands of Texas jobs.

3.      Reduce administrative costs and service denials through regulation.

4.      Regulate prescription drug and medical service costs without cutting provider fees.

5.      Improve mental health access through early diagnosis, intervention, and medication management.

Maternal and infant health care will be addressed separately.

(1)    https://www.centerforpolicyprogress.org/_files/ugd/87a795_eaf6de9bef704bed9c94e757644245f5.pdf

(2)   https://www.kff.org/private-insurance/state-indicator/people-0-64-employer-coverage-rate-by-age/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%22Location%22,%22sort%22:%22asc%22%7D

Building an 88-acre hyperscale data center 500 feet from a Keller neighborhood and one mile from its elementary school is a spectacularly bad idea. Not far behind is the stunning failure of leadership by former Keller mayor Armin Mizani, who was briefed on the project by the developer and Westlake officials in December 2024. Mizani violated the duties of his office and the trust of his constituents when he did not inform the Marshall Ridge or Keller residents of the development. It is no surprise that Mizani took at least one campaign contribution from Hillco PAC, which is associated with Hillco Partners real estate/Hillwood Development/Ross Perot Jr./Circle T Ranch.

Aside from Mizani’s failure in the Westlake debacle, Texas has a long history of favoring commercial real estate developers and, more recently, data centers to the detriment of home and property owners. The audit ordered by Gov. Abbott does not address problems related to site selection, water usage, noise and light pollution, driving up energy costs, safety, and quality of life issues. An audit merely counts these things and offers an analysis. We need to fix this in the Texas Legislature.

How we can fix this:

1.      Foremost is regulation. If we’ve learned anything from Westlake, it is that we need to more tightly regulate data center’s use of electricity, cooling systems, emergency generators, chemical discharge, and site selection. We must also regulate and tightly monitor noise, light, air and water pollution. Regulation needs to extend to data centers that operate “behind the grid.”

2.      Second, transparency, transparency, transparency. Had Westlake and Keller government officials and the developer been transparent with the community, this abhorrent site selection and subsequent impact on all parties could have been avoided. Additionally, Texas must ban state, county and local government and elected officials from signing non-disclosure agreements with developers.

3.      No taxpayer support: Data centers do not need financial incentives from state and local governments. Most estimates cite that Texas will give away $3 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years, with more tax abatements coming from local governments. This money should be repurposed to support our public schools and healthcare system.

4.      Incentives: Data centers don’t need financial incentives for operating “best in class” practices. The incentive is that they get a permit to build and great people to build and operate them.

5.      Community impact: The strain on the local community and infrastructure during the building phase must be controlled. Local people are being evicted by landlords who then charge exorbitant rents to temporary workers. County and other roads are severely damaged by the constant traffic of heavy trucks.

6.      Ultimate local control over data center development. Local and county governments know what’s best for their residents and must be able respond with their own zoning restrictions and authority. The so-called Death Star bill works against local control. It should be repealed.

No one is saying that data centers are bad, and we will need more as demand grows for artificial intelligence (AI). But we need policies to protect Texas residents and workers first and corporations second. We need radical transparency and regulations that protect our quality of life.

https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-directs-comprehensive-data-center-audit

https://www.texastribune.org/2026/06/04/texas-death-star-bill-update/

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.