Democrats haven’t won a statewide office in Texas since 1994. So this year, the Democrat at the top of the ticket is seeking to topple Republican Gov. Greg Abbott – by pretending to be a conservative.
No, really.
Texas state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat from Austin, is out with a new ad in her campaign for governor: “Welcome to Texas, y’all, where we celebrate freedom from big government.”
A narrator continues, “So, relax. There’s only 10,000 Flock cameras reading your plate, logging where you sleep and pray, no warrant needed in Greg Abbott’s Texas.”
The hypocrisy is astounding.
The 15-second ad is a quick-response campaign piece attempting to capitalize on a growing negative reaction to Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers.
Here in Texas, Flock cameras have already been abused to spy on citizens. On Tuesday, Houston Public Media reported that a Katy police officer will face charges for stalking his ex-wife, using Flock cameras to track her. The stalking went on for more than six months.
But Hinojosa’s ad isn’t taking issue with the cameras; Hinojosa herself has no objection to big government – she’s just hoping to draw away disaffected (and poorly informed) conservatives.
Her whole political agenda is, in fact, big government. Hinojosa was a vocal proponent of school closures and mask mandates during COVID-19.
On education, she’s desperate to kill Texas’ school choice program, calling it “corrupt” and claiming it drains the coffers of public schools.
None of that is true, of course. The Texas Education Freedom Accounts (TEFAs) are wildly popular with Texas families. When the state began taking applications, more than 42,000 applications came in during the first 24 hours. And while the program is capped at under 100,000 students, more than 274,000 families applied, representing roughly 4% of all schoolchildren in the state (and far exceeding participation rates seen elsewhere).
But Hinojosa is committed to ending the program – and ensuring that Big Government remains in control of what Texas children learn.
She supports expanding Medicaid in Texas via the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) – and universal healthcare, through some form of “Medicare-for-all.” That system would ensure that all doctors are employees of Big Government and all patients are beholden to it.
And Hinojosa wants a reopened border with Mexico, even as she admits that securing the border has kept Americans safer.
“I will say there are few crossings at our Mexico border because of what Trump has done,” she acknowledged recently. “Has that made Texas safer? Likely, yes, likely. It has made Texas safer in that sense, but less safe when it comes to these ICE raids…”
And on other matters – from voter IDs to mutilating confused children in the name of “gender affirming surgeries,” Hinojosa is squarely out of step with the vast majority of Texas (and moderate Democrats, for that matter).
That’s why she’s now focusing on Flock cameras, data centers, and a check to voters for $1,500 each as part of a “Corruption Tax Refund.”
These are gimmicks, not political positions, as evidenced by the fact that Hinojosa never opposed Big Government when it came to the censorship of political speech, surveillance of political rivals, or deplatforming of Americans, all at the behest of the Biden administration. These abuses of our civil liberties were stopped by conservatives, like Gov. Abbott, while Hinojosa was nowhere to be found.
It is said that “hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to virtue.” Gina Hinojosa isn’t against Big Government; like many other progressives in the running this cycle, she’s eager for Big Government’s return. But she’s canny enough to know that’s not a winning message in Texas.
Texans won’t buy it.
