Campaign Journal & Policy Dispatches
REAL-TIME GRASSROOTS UPDATES

"I know what it’s like to stay up late balancing books, tracking client retainers, filing quarterly estimates, studying local regulations, and helping build ventures from the ground up without an army of accountants or an HR department. I don't run a corporate payroll, and I don't take orders from corporate donors. My platform is built by a solopreneur, for solopreneurs—protecting your property rights, lowering your overhead, and making sure the government stops treating independent hustle as a cash register."

Austin politicians love to give photo-ops to multi-billion-dollar conglomerates like Amazon, Tesla, and massive out-of-state corporate developers. But the real heartbeat of Texas isn't corporate boardrooms—it is the millions of solopreneurs, independent contractors (1099s), single-member LLCs, freelancers, digital creators, and home-based tradespeople who wake up every day and build their own future with their own two hands.

Under current laws, government at every level treats independent self-reliance with suspicion or greed: cities ban you from working quietly in your own home, the state hits you with paperwork traps when you try to expand, and the federal tax code hits you with a punitive 15.3% Self-Employment Tax from dollar one.

Here is our 3-tier statutory blueprint across Municipal, State, and Federal government to unleash Texas solopreneurs:

1. Municipal (Katy Mayoral 2028): Legalizing Home-Based Enterprise & Ending Commercial Rent Extortion

• By-Right Home Enterprise Protection: Forcing a solo web developer, tax preparer, mobile repair technician, seamstress, or tutor to rent a $3,000/month commercial storefront just to earn a living is economic extortion. We will amend municipal zoning to guarantee an uncompromised statutory right to operate low-impact, non-hazardous solo businesses from your primary residence by-right, while banning predatory HOA fines on quiet home enterprise.
• Zero-Fee Solopreneur Safe Harbor: Free, 1-page online municipal registration for solo operators under $150K gross receipts, with complete exemption from commercial occupancy certificates and unnecessary inspections.
• 15% Local Micro-Procurement Carveout: Require that at least 15% of municipal contracts under $50,000 (city IT maintenance, media production, translation, notary pools, minor facility repairs) be awarded directly to certified local Katy solopreneurs, abolishing exclusionary $2M corporate bonding walls.

2. State (Texas Governor 2026): The "Solopreneur-to-Employer" First-Hire Runway

• The TWC First-Hire Shield: Why do solopreneurs stay solo? Because going from 0 to 1 employee triggers state unemployment tax accounts, federal 941 filings, FICA/FUTA/SUTA matching taxes, and mandatory $50-$150/month software fees to ADP or Gusto. Under our platform, when a solopreneur hires their first W-2 worker, the Texas Workforce Commission (TWC) covers and directly files 100% of employer payroll taxes for 12 months, paired with a $7.50/hr state wage match ($15/hr living wage floor) and permanent free access to a state digital filing tool.
• Permanent Single-Member LLC Charter Protection: Automatic perpetual good standing for solo LLCs under the state franchise tax threshold ($2.47M), barring the Comptroller from issuing surprise $50 late fees or administrative charter forfeiture traps over routine informational reports.
• TDI Solopreneur Health Insurance Cooperative: Directing the Texas Department of Insurance to charter an association health cooperative allowing solo contractors, freelancers, and small business owners to pool together to buy comprehensive health coverage at large-employer group rates.

3. Federal / National: Ending the 15.3% Self-Employment Tax Penalty

Under current federal law, W-2 employees pay 7.65% in payroll taxes while their company pays the other 7.65%. But solopreneurs are forced to pay both halves (15.3% Self-Employment Tax) starting on the very first dollar of net earnings over $400—and the federal standard deduction doesn't offset it! A solo worker netting $35,000 pays nearly $5,000 in SE taxes even if their income tax is zero.

Our national reform replaces this punitive drag with an affordable $150 flat annual registration fee on Schedule C, paired with a $100,000 (single) / $175,000 (married) Standard Deduction. Solopreneurs keep their first $100K tax-free to reinvest in tools, equipment, inventory, and savings.

"A marriage license is the most legally binding contract an individual can enter into. In Texas, a 16- or 17-year-old cannot buy a lottery ticket, rent an apartment alone, or easily hire an attorney—yet our laws still allow them to be wed. It is time for Texas to follow California's lead and set an absolute minimum age of 18 with zero exceptions."

Protecting children from exploitation, coerced marriage, and statutory abuse is not a partisan matter—it is a moral and constitutional obligation. Yet in Texas today, a dangerous legal loophole remains open under the Texas Family Code that continues to place minors at severe risk.

In 2017, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 1705, which rightly prohibited marriage for children under age 16 and eliminated parental consent loopholes. However, lawmakers left open a major compromise: under Texas Family Code §§ 2.003 and 2.101, minors aged 16 and 17 can still be married if they obtain a court order removing the 'disabilities of minority' (judicial emancipation) under Chapter 31.

Why the Judicial Emancipation Loophole Fails Texas Youth

On paper, judicial emancipation was intended to verify that an older teen is self-sufficient. In real-world courtroom practice across Texas, this legal avenue has functioned as an exploitative workaround:

• Concealing Statutory Rape: Child protection advocates and survivor organizations have documented that marriage exceptions are frequently used by adult predators and abusive family structures to shield adults from statutory rape prosecution.
• The Illusion of Legal Agency: Minors do not possess adult rights. Even if technically emancipated for marriage, a 16- or 17-year-old girl cannot easily sign an independent lease, obtain a credit card, or check into a domestic violence shelter without triggering parental notification, leaving her legally entrapped in an abusive household.
• Coerced Consent: Minors rarely have independent, court-appointed legal representation during emancipation proceedings. When family, cultural, or religious pressure is applied, young people are rarely in a position to resist adults demanding they marry.

The California Precedent: A Clean, Zero-Exception Standard

California recently enacted landmark legislation establishing an absolute, unconditional minimum age of 18 to marry, eliminating both parental consent and judicial waiver exceptions entirely. California joined a growing coalition of states that recognize a simple, protective truth: no child under 18 has the developmental or legal standing to enter into a lifetime marriage contract.

The Statutory Framework of HB-2032

As Governor, my administration will introduce and champion House Bill 2032 (HB-2032)—The Texas Child Marriage Abolition & Minor Protection Act—mimicking California's zero-exception standard:

1. Absolute Statutory Age Floor (§ 2.003 & § 2.101): Repeals the judicial emancipation exception for marriage licenses. Codifies that a county clerk may not issue a marriage license under any circumstance if either applicant is under 18 years of age.
2. Declaring Underage Marriages Void (§ 6.205): Amends the Family Code to establish that any marriage contracted by a person under 18 years of age is void ab initio and contrary to the fundamental public policy of Texas.
3. Non-Recognition of Extraterritorial Child Marriages (§ 1.103): Bars Texas state agencies and courts from recognizing marriages solemnized out-of-state or abroad if either party was under 18 at the time of the ceremony, stopping predatory forum-shopping across state lines.
4. Officiant & Adult Penalties: Establishes Class A misdemeanor penalties for any adult who knowingly enters into or facilitates an underage marriage, alongside statutory civil liability providing treble damages to survivors.

Greg Abbott's 12 Years of Status Quo vs. Real Child Protection

For 12 years, Governor Greg Abbott has chosen culture-war posturing over common-sense child safeguards. Despite repeated appeals from bipartisan coalitions, children's advocacy groups, and survivors of forced child marriage, the Governor's Mansion has refused to close the emancipation loophole, leaving Texas children vulnerable.

Texas youth deserve the freedom to grow up, finish high school, earn their tuition-free Associate Degree under our Statewide Early College initiative (HB-2027), and enter adulthood with their autonomy intact. On Day One, my administration will designate HB-2032 an Emergency Legislative Item. We will end child marriage in Texas once and for all.

"Whether it is Representative Gina Hinojosa fighting on the Texas House floor to protect our public schools or my campaign organizing for Statewide Early College and living wages, our ticket is united: Greg Abbott's 12-year corporate monopoly is coming to an end."

As Texans look ahead to the pivotal 2026–2030 Gubernatorial term, the choice facing 30 million people could not be starker. For over a decade, Governor Greg Abbott has governed Texas as a personal fiefdom for billionaire campaign contributors—forcing four consecutive legislative special sessions to ram through private school vouchers, withholding billions in public school surpluses, rejecting over $54 billion in federal healthcare funding that caused 26 rural hospitals to shutter, and signing laws stripping mandatory 10-minute water breaks from construction workers in 105-degree summer heat.

Inside our party, I stand in complete solidarity with Democratic colleagues like Representative Gina Hinojosa. Gina has served as an uncompromising champion on the front lines of the Texas House of Representatives, holding the line against Abbott’s relentless private voucher schemes and fighting tirelessly to protect public school funding, teachers, and student dignity.

What unites our Democratic horizon is a shared, non-negotiable truth: either of us on the ticket represents an infinitely better, more ethical, and transformative future for Texas than four more years of Greg Abbott’s corporate neglect.

The Working-Class Complement to Legislative Resistance

My candidacy brings the perspective of a practicing tax strategist, licensed health insurance agent, and working-class father into this coalition. While legislative leaders battle within the Capitol corridors, my campaign is organizing working families across Texas behind bold structural solutions that speak directly to their daily kitchen-table realities:

• Statewide Early College Integration (HB-2027): Transforming every comprehensive high school in Texas into an Early College campus where students graduate with both a high school diploma and a tuition-free Associate Degree—saving working families up to $40,000 while raising minimum teacher salaries to $85,000.
• Texas Patient Bill of Rights: Reclaiming $5.4 billion in annual federal Medicaid expansion on Day One to reopen closed rural hospitals, outlawing surprise medical bills with a 100% legal hold-harmless guarantee, capping insulin at $25 and asthma inhalers at $30, and mandating that insurance corporations honor doctor-prescribed care.
• The $100,000 Standard Deduction & Renter Circuit Breaker: Ensuring working families making under six figures pay zero state tax burden, alongside a 20% annual circuit breaker on rent that translates property tax relief directly to Texas renters.
• The $15/hr Livable Wage Co-Funded Partnership: An 18-month TWC bridge subsidy splitting wages 50/50 with small businesses and having the state pay and file all employer payroll taxes (FICA, FUTA, SUTA) for the first 12 months to eliminate hiring risk for neighborhood mom-and-pop shops.

Greg Abbott wants Texans to believe the Governor's Mansion belongs to the wealthy few. Together—in solidarity with public school educators, labor unions, healthcare workers, and Democratic leaders across the state—we are building an unstoppable coalition to prove that Texas belongs to the working class.

"Texans will no longer rent the picket fence dream. Greg Abbott has sold away the picket fence dream to corporations."

Across Texas, Wall Street private equity firms and hedge funds have bought up tens of thousands of single-family starter homes, outbidding young couples with all-cash offers and converting American neighborhoods into permanent corporate rental fiefdoms. Meanwhile, families who do manage to buy are terrorized by aggressive Homeowners Associations (HOAs) with non-judicial foreclosure powers, seizing families' homesteads over assessment disputes, bureaucratic fines, or cosmetic paint colors.

Under the Picket Fence Protection Act, my administration will enact four non-negotiable statutory pillars:

1. Abolish HOA Home Repossession Powers: Homeowners Associations are completely stripped of foreclosure and repossession powers under the Texas Property Code. Constitutional homestead protections must be inviolable against HOA fines or fees.
2. Ban Corporate Purchases of 1–4 Single-Family Homes: Institutional corporations and private equity funds are strictly prohibited from purchasing existing 1-to-4 unit residential homes. Houses are for families, not Wall Street speculation.
3. Mandatory Corporate Divestment: Corporations must divest from existing single-family rental holdings over an orderly timeline, systematically transferring homes back to Texas working families and first-time buyers.
4. Expedited Permits for Genuine Builders: Corporations that wish to deploy capital in Texas must expand housing supply by building new multi-family apartment communities and developing brand-new single-family subdivisions from raw ground with fast-track state permits.

This housing platform is paired with our Verified County Renter Registry to eliminate squatter scams and grant lawful tenants certified legal standing, enforceable 24-to-48-Hour Habitability Repair SLAs for AC and mold, state-backed Tenant Eviction Defense Navigators, and TCOLE-Sponsored Neighborhood Watch Integration to guarantee community safety.

To fund our schools and raise minimum teacher salaries to $85,000 without property tax spikes, we lower THC retail and repackaging license fees back to the original $150 to empower local entrepreneurs, direct 100% of cannabis sales tax solely and directly to Texas Public Schools, and enact full retroactive expungement of non-violent cannabis records.

Albert Einstein once noted that "all that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual." Yet in Texas today, our public education system has been subordinated to high-stakes standardized testing and skyrocketing college tuition that locks working-class families into intergenerational debt.

My administration's flagship priority for Texas is the universal integration of Statewide Early College High Schools. Under this policy, every high school junior and senior in Texas will have tuition-free access to dual-enrollment college coursework, graduating simultaneously with a high school diploma and a 60-credit Associate Degree or industry-certified vocational credential.

This plan saves Texas working-class families an average of $40,000 in higher education costs, gives young adults an immediate head start in the workforce, and fuels our state economy with high-skilled, debt-free professionals.

Why are public school cafeterias across Texas serving ultra-processed, frozen mystery food trucked in from distant corporate factories while Texas family ranchers and farmers struggle to maintain their land?

Our Texas Farms to School Lunches initiative (hotschoollunches.net) enacts statutory procurement mandates requiring Texas independent school districts to direct a minimum of 40% of their meal budgets directly to Texas agricultural producers.

When we feed our children fresh, local, nutrient-dense Texas beef, poultry, milk, and seasonal vegetables, student focus and academic performance increase while millions of dollars stay circulating right here in Texas rural communities.

In 2024, I ran an independent grassroots campaign for the United States House of Representatives in Texas Congressional District 22. We mobilized passionate working-class volunteers across Fort Bend and Harris County to gather thousands of voter petition signatures.

We came up just short of the final certified ballot threshold — but that experience provided an invaluable education on how the two-party establishment rigs ballot access laws against independent working-class candidates.

From the 30% petition challenge fallout rate to circulator notarization technicalities, those lessons now form the tactical foundation of our Texas Candidate Runbook (howtorunforoffice.net) and our 2026 Gubernatorial field campaign.

Texas voters approved increased home exemptions and business property tax reductions retroactively. But property tax cuts alone do not solve the structural reality for the 60% of Texans who rent or make under $100,000 per household.

I urge Texans to now focus on the Standard Deduction: our true common ground. As a practicing tax strategist, I advocate for an unshakeable standard deduction of $100,000 for single filers, $150,000 for head of household, and $175,000 for married couples — offset with a $150 flat tax fee to all Schedule C filings of earned and unearned income when applying the standard deduction. For earned income over the standard deduction and under $250,000, rates receive a tax reduction down to 1% — with normal federal income tax brackets resuming only after $250,000 — prioritizing permanent, structural tax relief for working-class and middle-class Texans.

By shifting tax relief away from billionaire loopholes and corporate abatements directly toward working households, we give every family the breathing room to buy groceries, absorb inflation, save for a home, and invest in their children's future.

As a renter who has spent years at the heels of buying a house only to watch prices outpace wages, I know the frustration of dealing with neglected apartments, broken air conditioning, and predatory mandatory fees.

Landlords already have an expedited court eviction process to protect their cash flow. What protects renters? We are proposing a County Registry for Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

My IT colleagues know exactly what this means: applying the ITIL ticketing workflow to habitability. When a tenant files a maintenance ticket for HVAC, toxic mold, or severe pests, the county ticketing clock starts ticking. If repairs aren't completed within statutory windows, rent escrow and penalties kick in automatically. If we pay our rent on time, landlords must fix essentials on time.