In what he calls “essentially the most hostile” legislative session within the final 18 years, Texas Senator Borris L. Miles (D-Houston) has filed laws on public training, healthcare, policing, environmental justice and the preservation of Black historical past.
Miles warns that Republican-backed insurance policies are gutting protections for communities of shade and pushing Texas towards a future that doesn’t embrace them.
“That is essentially the most troublesome session that I’ve been in. They [Republicans] are serving in an conceited tone,” Miles instructed the Defender.
Miles believes lawmakers are pushing for insurance policies that harm city communities of shade, significantly Black Texans. These embrace college vouchers, the dismantling of variety, fairness and inclusion (DEI) packages and environmental deregulation.
“The MAGA [Make America Great Again] platform is certainly not supposed to offer any sort of advantages or any sort of assist or help to city communities of shade,” he mentioned.
Public Training
Miles expressed considerations about public training laws. He strongly opposes the college voucher system proposed via Senate Invoice 2, which can enable households to make use of taxpayer {dollars} to fund a personal college training.
“It’s not a college selection, it’s a personal college selection,” he defined. “It’s a system that’s going to profit the elite and…skim off the primary 3% of our premier college students in Black communities…They’re making an attempt to knock out the entire minority excellence that we’ve been ready to reach the final twenty years.”
Miles, a Sam Houston State College graduate in Legal Justice and Legal Science, additionally filed payments (SB 285 and SB 286) coping with “cash obtained for an open-enrollment constitution college to help an out-of-state college” and “monetary advantages” {that a} superintendent will get for the companies they supply. Miles clarified that these payments pertain to Houston ISD.
Talking on the discourse on DEI, Miles mentioned the initiatives helped minority college students attend predominantly white universities. He fears that the one individuals accepted to those universities are Black athletes.
“Let’s face it, if you happen to’re not a star athlete, most of those giant universities within the state of Texas usually are not concerned about having you at their campuses,” Miles mentioned. “Now that the Texans and Republicans throughout the nation have seen that it really works and it helps produce Black and minority excellence, they need to do away with it now…they’ve utterly demonized DEI.”
Well being care gaps
The senator mentioned he secured $8 billion for indigent well being care, a system offering free or low-cost medical care to people who can not afford it, in Houston and Harris County to deal with the challenges confronted by District 13 residents. This session, Miles’ invoice places one other $2 billion on the desk for “individuals of shade who don’t essentially have entry to high quality healthcare” that he expects will cross on the Capitol.
“I’ve been working exhausting to be sure that we attempt to stability the healthcare system and the training system and usher in fairness and equality to each of these establishments,” he added.
Air high quality and environmental racism
Environmental racism is one other battlefront for Miles, who has been a vocal critic of the Texas Fee on Environmental High quality (TCEQ). This session, he has filed “over a dozen payments” centered on air high quality allowing and batch plant services, pushing Gov. Greg Abbott to incorporate minority lawmakers in deciding on a brand new TCEQ chief.
Miles argues the state has persistently permitted polluting services like concrete batch vegetation and industries in communities of shade, thereby committing “environmental racism.”
“A Texas company [TCEQ] that needs to be working for its constituents and their major function is to maintain us wholesome and protected…It’s not doing that,” he mentioned. “Communities of shade are having to hold the burden for all Texans.”
Accountability in policing
Police brutality payments and citizen assessment boards (SB 280) with subpoena energy are yet one more prime agenda for Miles. Nonetheless, his makes an attempt have confronted backlash since 2010, when he began pushing for regulation enforcement reforms.
“The regulation enforcement foyer right here in Texas may be very, very robust, however I’ll proceed to file anti-police brutality payments so that folks within the metropolis of Houston and the state of Texas can really feel protected once they encounter regulation enforcement,” mentioned Miles, who’s a former regulation enforcement officer.
His present laws seeks to carry officers accountable by requiring the Texas Fee on Regulation Enforcement to check and report on incidents of racial profiling (SB 2288).
Housing fairness
Storms and energy outages have revealed inequities in Texas’ housing infrastructure, particularly in low-income senior housing. Miles mentioned he would goal tax credit score developments that neglect important safeguards like backup energy mills and water stress programs.
“These tax credit are given by the state of Texas, which may then be taken out into the open inventory market and bought…it’s taxpayers cash,” Miles defined. “It’s an incentive for individuals to construct these services…when a storm comes, we lose electrical energy, a few of these senior residents are trapped of their services as a result of they use walkers or they use scooters to stand up and down on the elevator.”
Preservation of historical past
Regardless of foreseeing backlash, Miles together with District 15 Senator Molly Prepare dinner have additionally filed a invoice (SB 283) to create the Texas African American Heritage Fee, “to determine, protect, interpret and promote websites reflecting this state’s African American heritage.”
“As an African American legislator, as one in all two Black senators on this state, I have to be transferring ahead expeditiously to be sure that we protect our historical past in order that our younger kids can know the battle and the wrestle that folks need to undergo, even to allow them to go to one in all these public faculties of their existence within the state of Texas.”
