By Juliana Vasquez | Staff Writer
Beyond the candidate names, the last pages of the ballot invite students to make their voices heard on the issues that matter most to them.
Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. David Bridge said the propositions on this ballot are mainly a poll to get voters’ opinions.
“These propositions, they’re non-binding, so it doesn’t [matter] how people vote on them, doesn’t mean that they’re enacted,” Bridge said. “The Republican Party is taking a public opinion poll among primary voters.”
The ballot questions gauge voters’ opinions on state spending, healthcare and political power. Here’s what students should know before casting a vote on each proposition.
Proposition 1: Texas property taxes should be assessed at the purchase price and phased out entirely over the next six years through spending reductions.
Proposition 1 would tackle an issue that Texas homeowners love to complain about — property taxes.
Dr. Paul Mason, associate professor of accounting, said this proposition would essentially save taxpayers money.
“At the core [it would put] money back into taxpayers’ pockets … limiting the amount of property taxes that people are paying,” Mason said.
Although this would add money to taxpayers’ pockets, it would also have the opposite effect, taking funds away from services that property taxes currently pay for, like road construction and schools.
Mason said this is also revenue that taxpayers can reinvest in local economies, specifically in small businesses. Nonetheless, although local economies might hurt initially, in the long run, it would likely benefit local businesses.
“Reducing taxes in the near term might hurt the budget in Texas, but then on the flip side, you’ve got money coming back into the business environment because taxpayers now have more money to spend,” Mason said.
Proposition 2: Texas should require any local government budget that raises property taxes to be approved by voters at a November general election.
Putting taxes back into voters’ hands is what Proposition 2 aims to do, Mason said.
“This is almost more of a democracy question than it is a tax question … because it puts the ability to choose in the voters’ hands to say, ‘Yes, we agree with the changes that are in place,’” Mason said.
Within the status quo, local governing bodies set property tax rates without voter approval, yet those rates cannot exceed 1%. These taxes are used towards local services, funding school districts, emergency services and public city services, among other things.
Mason said this proposition would make the budget more democratic but less flexible, encouraging city governments to plan more efficiently.
“[This] could help cities operate more efficiently because they have to say, ‘I don’t want to go raise property taxes and take it to a vote, so let me budget efficiently and really assess what we are spending on and have a more balanced budget,’” Mason said.
Proposition 3: Texas should prohibit the denial of healthcare or any medical service based on the patient’s vaccination status.
Texas has already taken steps to protect the unvaccinated’s access to medical care with House Bill 44 during the 88th Legislative session, which requires physicians to “implement a vaccination policy but requires them to permit conscientious, religious, or medical exemptions like those seen in schools,” according to the Texas Medical Association. These protections extend to those on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.
This proposition would only further the established policy agenda, opening exemptions to all patients and broadening their scope.
Proposition 4: Texas should require its public schools to teach that life begins at fertilization.
Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022, the Republican Party decided its stance on future anti-abortion arguments. One goal is to set a stronger definition of when life begins in students’ sex education classes.
Bridge said this proposition is a smart way for the party to gauge how voters feel about abortion, given that it was relatively popular among Texans before Roe v. Wade’s overturning.
“This sounds strange, but Roe was popular in Texas,” Bridge said. “Abortion is a very complex issue; it is not as simple as pro-life, pro-choice. There’s lots of room within both of those maneuvers, and the Texas Republican Party is trying to figure out where they should locate themselves.”
Proposition 5: Texas should ban gender, sexuality and reproductive clinics and services in K-12 schools.
Proposition 5 would remove a range of gender and reproductive health services from Texas public schools, shifting students’ access to care off campus.
In Texas, only about 19% of schools offer a form of sex education, and the teen birth rate is at 19.4 births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19.
Dr. Lenore Wright, professor of philosophy, said in an email that she wonders what Proposition 5 would be needed for, considering the passage of Senate Bill 12 last August.
The bill requires parents to give consent for their child to receive instruction on health education, sexual orientation and gender ideology.
Proposition 6: Texas should enact term limits on all elected officials.
Currently, the Texas Constitution does not impose term limits on any elected officials.
Evidence suggests that term limits would encourage more fresh faces to run for office, toppling the empires incumbents build over decades in office. However, there’s also the argument that term limits ignore the value of institutional knowledge that incumbents gain from decades in office, with frequent turnover potentially destabilizing the office.
The Texas Legislature currently has 26 incumbents and three new members in the Senate and 119 incumbents and 31 new members in the House, with the average age of senators being 62.1.
Proposition 7: Texas should ban the large-scale export of our groundwater and surface water to any single private or public entity.
Texas loses about 51 gallons of water every day and is currently facing a water crisis, with the state likely to run out of water if a prolonged drought were to occur.
Certain Texas cities import water from rural areas as their populations boom. The three major users of Texas water are municipal districts, agriculture and industrial groups, all steadily growing sectors in Texas, with agriculture being the largest user of Texas water out of the three.
Proposition 8: The Texas Legislature should reduce the burden of illegal immigration on taxpayers by ending public services for illegal aliens.
Some of the benefits undocumented immigrants are eligible for include emergency medical treatment under Medicaid, treatment and immunizations for diseases, short-term disaster relief, mental health services, child and adult protective services, free K-12 public education and federally subsidized school lunch.
Undocumented immigrants still pay federal, state and local taxes, paying an estimated $12 billion in annual property taxes and billions towards federal payroll taxes.
Proposition 9: The Republican-controlled Texas Legislature should stop awarding leadership positions, including committee and subcommittee chairmanships and vice chairmanships to Democrats.
Legislative committees are generally bipartisan, and Bridge said they historically favor the majority party’s composition within the legislature.
“Adding more Republicans to the committees and taking away Democrats, it’s not going to change what … comes out of the committee,” Bridge said. “I’m not saying that’s good or bad, just probably will be more conservative.”
Proposition 10: Texas should prohibit Sharia Law.
Sharia Law is the divine guidance that Muslims follow to live moral lives and grow closer to God.
There are unfounded claims that Sharia courts are popping up around Texas, suggesting Muslims are secretly building an alternative legal system, a claim that has inspired Proposition 10.
Dr. Francis Beckwith, professor of philosophy, said attempting to enact policy in line with this proposition would be unconstitutional, as per the Free Exercise and Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
“I think it’s a bad idea politically to intentionally target a religious group, and that includes everybody,” Beckwith said. “It’s not only a bad idea because it’s unconstitutional. It also underestimates the ways in which people from diverse religious groups, when they come to the U.S. … how they wind up being good Americans like everybody else.”
In the end, the propositions may not write policy, but they reveal what voters and the Texas Republican Party value. Even without legal weight, the results help shape the priorities lawmakers carry into the next legislative session.
