Are Republicans trying to kill off rural towns? Sure looks like it! Who would want to live here when the schools are underfunded, hospitals are closing, and Austin is bossing us around like we are all babies? Republican districts were gerrymandered into rural areas, since they are SO Republican, to keep them safe Republican. Feeling safe? Schools are like prisons due to school shootings the Republicans won’t control, or can’t, not sure which is worse. Economic development is a new Dollar Store? Get sick or hurt? That “golden hour” is travel time now.

Save Public Schools

The vouchers are coming for public schools and public-school teachers. Rural public schools cannot survive them. Small private religious schools will undermine existing school systems which are already struggling with underfunding and low teacher salaries. My opponent allowed vouchers to go to the floor and voted with Abbott. It’s time to put party aside and vote for the person who will never ever vote for vouchers. Wait till pro ball teams figure out their free talent pipeline has dried up when there are no public-school teams anymore.

Save Rural Hospitals

Medicaid non funding short-changes all hospitals, but especially rural hospitals. Hospitals have closed across all rural areas and low funding from lack of insurance in the rural population. Rates of reimbursement are lower in non-urban areas as well. Medicaid expansion is important to reduce mortality by increasing access to decent care by children, mothers, and poor seniors. Medicaid expansion would bring in millions of dollars to hospitals and the healthcare community. 

Losing the War on Cities

Abbot’s ‘Death Star’ (HB 2127) bill kneecaps democracy in Texas and went into law in 2023. Cody Harris voted for it. Abbott has systematically stripped the ability of locally elected officials to make policy and regulation in their own communities. Austin supports out-of-town businesses in doing whatever they want in places they don’t live, often driving down property values and offering little benefit to the local economy. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/06/07/texas-republicans-cities-local-control/

Guns

Let me remind you that Democrats in rural Texas have guns and are loaded for bear. NO ONE IS COMING FOR YOUR GUNS IN RURAL TEXAS, FOLKS!! Stop falling for that.

To republicans, WOMEN have no rights and no say.

Women risk their lives getting pregnant and Abbott, backed by his billionaire religious sugar daddies, are willing to discard them like they are nothing. Fifty percent of pregnancies end in natural miscarriages for a myriad of reasons. What if daily pregnancy tests were instituted? Half of all pregnant women could go to jail. Want Texas to be full of only men? Now that is a scary thought. If they can conscript our lives without permission, what about our votes and our bank accounts? Our only use is to give birth? Think they won’t go that far? Really? Yes, really. It is money, right? It would be so much cheaper not to educate us, force us into marriage and discard us when done, right? No worries about competition from women. Just like the good old days when “America Was Great.” Smart men know it is dumb to make women afraid to have sex.