By Juliana Vasquez | Staff Writer
The propositions on the last pages of Democratic voters’ ballots offer students an opportunity to weigh in directly on the issues that matter most to them.
Political Science Department Chair Dr. Patrick Flavin said although the propositions don’t enact real legislative change, they give legislators an idea of the issues voters in their party value.
“These propositions are really just a way for the party to hear the issues that are important to us,” Flavin said. “It’s a way for the public to cast their vote, not just for candidates, but to express their opinion on issues.”
The Democratic Party primary election ballot covers issues ranging from school funding to housing affordability and immigration policy. Here’s what Baylor students should know about each proposition.
Proposition 1: Texas should expand Medicaid and ensure access to affordable healthcare for all.
Proposition 1 asks whether Texas should expand Medicaid to cover more low-income adults who currently fall into the state’s coverage gap.
Dr. Forest Kim, executive director of Robbins Institute for Health Policy and Leadership, said because the states oversee their own Medicaid programs, they set their own eligibility requirements. Medicaid is available for children, pregnant women, disabled individuals, elderly and low-income adults who earn less than $3,261 a month and have no more than $5,000 in assets.
Because the requirements are so narrow, the Texas coverage gap is particularly wide, Kim said.
“There are [a] significant number of working individuals … where you are too rich to qualify for Medicaid … and you’re too poor to actually qualify for the next level of insurance coverage,” Kim said.
Texas currently has the highest uninsured rate in the nation, and is one of 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid coverage since its creation in 1965, which Kim said is likely why Democrats included this proposition on the ballot.
Proposition 2: Texans should support humane and dignified immigration policies and pathways to citizenship.
The American Civil Liberties Union released a letter reporting the inhumane conditions that detained immigrants are facing at Fort Bliss, the largest immigration detention site in the country.
In conjunction with other human rights organizations, the ACLU interviewed 45 individuals who are currently detained at Fort Bliss. Similar claims of inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants have been made in years past, most notably in regard to the buoy barrier in the Rio Grande River. The 2023 lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice claimed that the buoys raised humanitarian and environmental concerns, and it is still pending as of 2024.
Proposition 3: Texans should have the right to make their own healthcare decisions, including reproductive rights.
Texas law currently limits personal medical decisions through restrictions on reproductive care, gender-affirming treatment and access to public health coverage.
Texas has some of the strictest abortion laws in the nation, prohibiting almost all abortions except when the mother’s life is at risk and other reproductive services, such as access to birth control, are also heavily restricted.
Texas also has a law prohibiting doctors from “prescribing gender-affirming care to transgender minors,” according to The Texas Tribune, blocking transgender teens from accessing hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
Texas’ strict Medicaid eligibility requirements only exacerbate the issue of uninsured Texans.
“Because we have the highest uninsured rate in the state, we have outcomes that basically are related to that, and so people don’t have as much access to primary care, I would say [there are] higher rates of chronic illness,” Kim said.
Proposition 4: Texas should address the state’s housing crisis in affordability and access in both urban and rural communities.
Rising home prices, rent increases and inflation have made it harder for many Texans to afford stable housing.
Dr. Jerry Park, associate professor of sociology, said in an email that this proposition would be most impactful for low-income Texans.
“With little to no changes in minimum wages, and increases in inflation, which affect mortgages and rent as well as food and utilities, those who cannot commit more of their dollars to housing will struggle considerably,” Park said.
As people continue to flock to Texas cities, the suburbs are expanding and bleeding into rural Texan counties, exacerbating the problem by driving up prices and pushing homebuyers further into the country.
Proposition 5: Texas should fund all public schools at the same per-pupil rate as the national average.
Each student in the Texas public school system is worth $13,189, a number that has stayed steady since 2019.
Funding per student is found by dividing the state’s total education budget by the number of public school students.
Currently, Texas ranks 47th in per-student funding, giving students $5,664 less than the national average.
Proposition 6: Secure online voter registration should be accessible to all eligible Texas residents.
Presently, Texans must sign a physical voter registration application, and Texas has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the country. Voter turnout is also very low in the Lone Star State.
Online voter registration is considered a convenience that should encourage voter registration, and therefore, voting itself, as suggested by The Texas Tribune.
Proposition 7: Texas should have a clean and healthy environment that includes water, air and biodiversity. Texas must preserve the state’s natural, cultural, scenic and recreational resources.
As a major energy hub, Texas is also home to some of the top greenhouse gas emitters in the country, with federal rollbacks on environmental protections only increasing fears that Texas’ pollution will worsen.
Environmental Science Undergraduate Program Director and Senior Lecturer Julie King said this proposition isn’t a partisan issue.
“We’re concerned about pollution and specifically how it affects our health, so there’s a significant issue about pollution that is impacting Texans’ health and in water,” King said.
This pollution comes from the state’s energy industry (especially fossil fuels), transportation hub and electricity sector, all contributing to air pollution, sound pollution and water pollution.
Proposition 8: Texas should legalize cannabis for adults and automatically expunge criminal records for past low-level cannabis offenses.
Framed as both a public policy and criminal justice issue, legalizing cannabis has been a policy goal for Texas Democrats for at least over a decade.
In a 2025 poll, the Texas Politics Project found that 53% of Texas voters oppose a ban on hemp-derived products. In 2024, Texas arrested over 26,000 individuals for cannabis possession.
Although legalization would be popular with voters, Flavin said it would be the polar opposite of the policy the Texas legislature has been promoting within the status quo.
“Texas is going in the opposite direction with almost a blanket ban on hemp and THC products, so it would be a 180-degree reversal,” Flavin said.
Proposition 9: Texas should raise salaries to at least the national average and provide a cost-of-living increase based on the national Consumer Price Index every two years to current or retired school and state employees.
Texas’ current average teacher pay is ranked 31st out of the 50 states, with the average teacher salary being $62,463.
Although Texas is 31st, the Charles Butt Foundation found in a 2024 survey that “77% of Texas teachers say they are not paid a living wage.”
Economics professor Dr. James West said adjusting school and state employees to the CPI would work by evaluating the cost of goods that citizens buy.
“The way it works is the government defines a bundle of goods and services that the average urban consumer would purchase, and they track how much that costs through time,” West said. “So when prices go up … it’s a measurement of how much my salary would have to rise so I could afford what [I] would have bought last year.”
Proposition 10: Texas should ban racially motivated redistricting, ban mid-decade redistricting and create a non-partisan redistricting board to redraw lines every 10 years.
Following the 2025 mid-decade redistricting in Texas, it is no surprise that Texas Democrats are polling voters’ opinions on a nonpartisan redistricting board, especially given Texas’s reputation as a more heavily gerrymandered state.
“Voters should choose their elected officials, not the other way around, letting politicians draw lines,” Flavin said. “The usual impact of that is they draw districts that are very politically safe and re-elect incumbents of both parties.”
Compared with other states that have used nonpartisan redistricting committees, such as Colorado and Washington, voter attitudes and turnout tended to be higher, Flavin said.
“It has, on net, produced more competitive elections, and I think voters tend to be more supportive of independent commissions doing it,” Flavin said.
Proposition 11: The working class should be eligible for greater federal income tax relief and have their tax burden fairly shifted onto the wealthiest.
Lowering taxes for everyday workers while asking the richest to pay more is a way Democrats hope to utilize economic policy to make America more equitable.
Currently, the working class (assuming this means the bottom 50% of earners) already has a lower tax burden than the top 50%.
“The bottom 50% [of salary earners] are paying 3% of total tax revenues received,” West said. “The current system is quite progressive.”
Proposition 12: Texas should expand accessible public transportation opportunities in rural and urban communities so residents can get to their workplaces, schools and healthcare.
More people mean more cars on the road and with a quickly growing Texas population, the traffic congestion issue is steadily growing.
A solution to this issue could be an increase in public transit systems, an area Texas currently lacks, Park said.
“Texas major cities are far behind on reliable and affordable public transportation due to the long relationships with the oil industry that encourages individual driving rather than mass transit,” Park said.
Proposition 13: Texas should prevent individuals with a history of domestic abuse from purchasing firearms by implementing “red flag” laws.
People with documented domestic violence convictions would not be allowed to buy guns, aiming to reduce the risk of violence in domestic situations.
As of 2025, Texas implemented the opposite of a red flag law, with Senate Bill 1362 preventing officials from taking someone’s firearms if they have yet to be charged with a crime or protective order.
One in three Texans has or will experience domestic violence in their lifetime, with guns being the most commonly used weapon in domestic violence cases.
Though the measures don’t immediately change legislation, they send a clear message of the direction the Texas Democratic Party hopes to go and give voters an opportunity to show their opinions on the party propositions.
