As Chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, Joan Huffman made a historic $5.1 billion investment on border security in the last legislative session. Senator Huffman has allocated over $12 billion since being elected to secure our southern border and crack down on human and drug trafficking. This includes constructing physical barriers over land and water, supporting our military and DPS officers at the border, boats to patrol the river, planes for aerial reconnaissance, andtechnology to monitor hundreds of miles of border. She passed legislation to stop cities from harboring illegal immigrants and designated drug cartels as terrorist organizations.
As a former prosecutor and criminal court judge, Joan Huffman Joan Huffman believes the first and most important function of government is to help keep its citizens safe. Huffman is the leader in the Texas Senate in the fight against gangs and violent criminals that prey on our communities. She strongly supports our law enforcement and has been consistently endorsed by law enforcement groups since her first campaign. She also passed legislation to prevent cities and counties from defunding their police departments, and passed a new law that will allow for the removal of rogue prosecutors that refuse to uphold the law. Senator Huffman passed the Police Protection Act, which increases penalties for crimes committed against our law enforcement officers, and the Damon Allen Act, which reformed the bail system to keep violent repeat offenders off our streets. Joan Huffman is leading the fight in the Senate against human trafficking, child sexual assault and abuse, and online sex predators – authoring laws that make it easier to prosecute and imprison criminals who sexually assault or abuse children. To crack down on fentanyl traffickers, Senator Huffman authored the bill that made it a crime of murder to sell or distribute fentanyl that causes a death.
Election integrity is vital to our democracy. Senator Huffman passed commonsense voting laws to protect the integrity of our state and national elections. She was the lead author of the state’s Voter ID bill that has been in effect since 2018 and passed additional legislation that empowers poll watchers and election judges, brings more transparency to the electoral process and voting by mail, and raises the penalty for illegal voting to a felony.
Joan Huffman wants to protect our Second Amendment rights because she understands our right to bear arms serves an essential role in public safety and protecting our families. Senator Huffman supported the landmark open carry, campus carry, and constitutional carry bills in the Texas Senate. Senator Huffman is against any law like a “red flag law” that would constrain an individual’s sacred Second Amendment right. Senator Huffman has been consistently endorsed by the NRA for her efforts to protect the Second Amendment.
Joan Huffman is cutting government red tape and burdensome regulations so businesses can grow and create good-paying jobs that provide greater opportunity for all Texans. By passing a balanced and conservative state budget that stays well below our Constitutional spending limits, Senator Huffman has helped ensure that the Texas economy remains the strongest economy in the country. To make our state less reliant on foreign semiconductors, Joan Huffman passed legislation to establish the Texas Semiconductor Innovation Consortium, which brings together academic, commercial, and industrial experts in the semiconductor field with the goal of making Texas the premier state for the creation and distribution of semiconductors.
As the Chair of Senate Finance, Joan Huffman helped pass a historic $18 billion property tax relief package, the largest state tax cut in history. If approved by the voters in November, it will save the average Texas homeowner over $1,200 a year on their property tax bill. The bill includes an increase to the homestead exemption to $100,000 and includes over $12 billion for property tax rate compression. It also creates a pilot project focused on limiting the growth in appraised values and provides property tax relief through rate compression.
Joan Huffman believes in strong public schools and in empowering parents’ decisions in their child’s education, so they can achieve educational excellence. Senator Huffman supports injecting additional state funds into our public education system to improve teacher compensation and school safety and raise the basic allotment. Joan Huffman also authored and passed legislation that gave retired educators over 70 years of age a one-time stipend, and if approved by the voters, a much-needed cost of living adjustment.
America is the greatest country the world has ever known. We cannot let woke extremists teach our children Critical Race Theory (CRT), a destructive ideology that seeks to pit our society against each other based on race. That’s why Senator Huffman proudly supported legislation that banned CRT in our schools and voted to ban all DEI programs from our institutions of higher education.
Joan Huffman believes in expanding access, lowering costs, and making healthcare more transparent and affordable for consumers. She passed legislation to expand telemedicine services and helped pass bills that lowered the costs of prescription drugs, including the insulin price cap bill. Senator Huffman appropriated crucial funding to expand access to mental health services and women’s health programs, and increased funding for our foster care system. Additionally, Joan Huffman authored and passed legislation that eliminated the sales tax on feminine hygiene products, child and adult diapers, maternity clothing, and wound care dressings providing savings to families across Texas.
After Hurricane Harvey devastated our state, Joan Huffman helped secure millions in disaster relief funds to help our communities rebuild. After Winter Storm Uri, she led the Senate in holding ERCOT and the PUC accountable. She used her legal expertise to ensure their responsibilities as stated by law were clear and enforceable. To protect lives and property from future disasters, she is working with federal and state officials to ensure all critical infrastructure projects get completed under budget and ahead of schedule.
Our children are under attack from the radical left’s efforts to undermine our family values. Senator Huffman passed legislation to prevent biological men from competing against in sports, banned explicit drag shows in front of children and stopped dangerous gender mutilation procedures on minors.
