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Texans continue to suffer at the helm of inflated housing costs. For too long bad landlords have squeezed tenants for higher rents. A rent freeze is needed across the board to help everyday Texans get by. We need pricing controls, more market regulation, new development and social housing to support our communities in building brighter futures together.

As the federal government continues to cut food stamps and subsidies, it’s time for Texas to pick up the slack. It’s time for Texans to support Texans and keep food affordable. We need to take action to bring down the cost of groceries for every day Texans. That looks like state-funded grocery stores, further investments in our food production sectors, state expansion of subsidized food programs, and more emphasis on sustainability.

Texas families work hard enough to keep the lights on and put food on the table. It’s time for Texas to step up to help working parents by providing universal childcare, implementing universal and extended paid parental leave to bring families closer together and set our young Texans on a path to success.

Every year, the Texas Department of Corrections spends 2.5 billion dollars to keep people behind bars. Despite this massive budget, state prisons have a 30.7% recidivism rate. Y’all, the numbers aren’t adding up. Instead of pouring billions into a system that consistently fails, the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent yearly on each individual imprisoned, are better spent on rehabilitation over incarceration.

A mental health approach in schools and policing promotes early intervention and de-escalation, addressing underlying issues before they become crises. We can improve policing by implementing mental health specialists in the Texas Department of Public Safety, limiting usage of police forces to violent crime, ending qualified immunity for law enforcement misconduct, and holding our public servants accountable. Texans deserve specialized care to keep our communities safe and flourishing. Invest in mental health workers on transit to prevent crises and protect riders.

Every day, our fellow Texans face harm under our current system. We need to implement speedier justice by allocating more funding to improve court processes. To give all Texans a fair shot in our justice system, we must end the bail system, which harms those most economically disadvantaged in our society. Additionally, we need to make sure our justice system works diligently to end wrongful convictions.

Texans have always prided ourselves on the liberties we hold, most prized amongst them, the right to free speech. However in recent memory and currently, our state government in collaboration with higher political powers has worked to strip Texans of this sacred right, and in many ways has done so. We must fight back against this rampant abuse of the people, as students, dissidents, and everyday Texans lose their civil liberties. We must uphold the first amendment, our sacred right to free speech, and actively work against any harm to these rights.

As an experienced student organizer and activist, Arshia has seen our Texas students beaten, brutalized, and falsely arrested. It was at his very campus at the University of Texas at Austin, where in the spring of 2024, he along with his peers rose in solidarity with students of conscious the world over, and met a militarized state and local police response which left many scarred and traumatized, by our state’s oppressive, authoritarian, and blatantly biased attitude towards dissent, and protest. In the time since, our political system has only pressed its boot more heavily on the necks of students, dissents, and protestors. We’ve had enough. It's time for new leadership that will prioritize justice, fight against this continued oppression, and stand up to authoritarian government.

Whether at the national level or here at home in Texas we are experiencing a rapid political decline into fascism. What starts in Texas has proven time and again to be adopted and uplifted to the national level, we saw it with the matter of abortion, we saw it with immigration injustice, and we’re seeing it with the school voucher scam, and with so many other precedents. We need to fight back against this organized political pattern of testing out the most oppressive policies in Texas, before exporting it nationwide. We need to stand up to politicians in this state who sell out our people in support of party politics. We need to fight back against the growing tides of fascism at home and nationally. As your leader for Texas HD49, Arshia will stand up, and fight back!