True Affordability Starts With Who Actually Protects Texas Families

Texas families feel the squeeze every time they buy groceries, fill the tank, pay the mortgage or rent, or open the property-tax bill. Affordability is not an abstract slogan in Austin. It is the monthly reality around kitchen tables from Arlington to Hurst to east Fort Worth.

One of the biggest, quietest parts of that reality is tax policy. Texas has long stood apart by having no personal state income tax. In 2019, voters approved a constitutional amendment by nearly three-to-one that bans one unless the Constitution itself is changed. Getting that amendment on the ballot required a two-thirds vote in both chambers of the Texas Legislature. It passed the House 100-42 and the Senate 22-9.

Several Democrats now seeking higher statewide office voted no, including State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (running for Governor), State Rep. Vikki Goodwin (running for Lieutenant Governor), and State Senator Nathan Johnson (running for Attorney General). A legislative record is not rhetoric. When people show you who they are by their votes, believe them.

Tarrant County Shows the Tradeoff Is Not Inevitable

Local government is where tax policy hits the mailbox. In Tarrant County, under Republican leadership led by County Judge Tim O’Hare, the county adopted its first-ever homestead exemptions (at the full 20 percent allowed under state law) for both county government and the hospital district. Over three years the county property-tax rate was cut 17 percent and the hospital-district rate 26.5 percent, set each year below the no-new-revenue threshold.

These cuts did not come from gutting core services. The county opened a new law-enforcement training center, raised pay for deputies and officers, equipped personnel with body-worn cameras, funded specialized units on narcotics, human trafficking, cold cases, and auto theft, expanded mental-health diversion and youth programs, and improved services for residents with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Lower taxes and stronger public safety are not in conflict when officials treat taxpayer money as a trust rather than a blank check.

Protecting Women and Girls Is Common Sense, Not a Culture War

Over the past six years Texas has enacted some of the strongest legal protections in the country for the privacy, safety, dignity, and fair competition of women and girls. Republican lawmakers authored and passed House Bill 25 (K-12 sports by biological sex), Senate Bill 15 (the Save Women’s Sports Act for colleges), and Senate Bill 8 (the Texas Women’s Privacy Act covering restrooms, locker rooms, changing areas, prisons, and domestic-violence shelters). Governor Greg Abbott signed them.

Democrats overwhelmingly voted against these measures. The practical stakes are straightforward: a teenage girl changing after gym class, a woman recovering in a shelter, an incarcerated woman, or a female athlete competing for a scholarship should not lose the spaces and opportunities Title IX was written to protect. One party wrote the bills, passed them, and signed them into law. The other consistently opposed them.

Property-Tax Relief Has Grown Under Republican Majorities

The school-district homestead exemption is the largest single tax break most Texas homeowners receive, and it affects renters too because property taxes are baked into housing costs. When Democrats last controlled the Legislature, the exemption sat at a modest $15,000. Since Republicans won majorities in both houses and statewide offices in 2002, lawmakers have repeatedly advanced larger exemptions, secured the supermajority votes needed to put constitutional amendments on the ballot, and watched Texas voters approve them by large margins.

In November 2025 voters approved another increase, bringing the base homestead exemption to $140,000 for all homeowners plus an additional $60,000 for seniors and Texans with disabilities—up to $200,000 of a home’s value shielded from school taxes. Looking ahead, both Governor Abbott and Lieutenant Governor Patrick have outlined further plans to reduce the largest piece of the bill (maintenance and operations) by shifting more of the burden to the state. Texas already tried the alternative under earlier Democratic control: more spending, more taxing, and little relief.

Socialism Sounds Nice Until It Hits Texas

The open seat in House District 94—covering parts of Arlington, Hurst, and east Fort Worth—is a clear choice about direction. Ideas drawn from the Democratic Socialists of America sound generous on a poster: government control of major industries, higher taxes, weaker borders, shorter workweeks, and “free” health care. In practice they mean politicians, not prices and private owners, deciding who runs energy plants, housing, and medical services. Venezuela’s oil-industry takeover is a recent, cautionary example of shortages and economic collapse despite vast resources. National single-payer proposals cost tens of trillions that will not come only from billionaires.

Texas energy jobs, the electric grid, border security, and constitutional checks and balances are not experiments to discard. District 94 needs a representative who will say plainly that work should pay, schools should serve kids, law should mean something, and families should keep more of what they earn.

The Record, Not the Rhetoric

Cheryl Bean is a longtime residential builder, former high-tech engineer, grandmother, and entrepreneur who has lived the path from a used trailer as a newlywed to building homes for Texas families. She is running to restore home ownership for young people, keep seniors in their homes, lower the cost of living, deliver tax and insurance relief, prioritize public education, create better-paying jobs, and keep families safe.

Election Day is November 3. In Tarrant County the non-federal voter guide lists candidates who align with the priorities above—from statewide races through local judicial and commissioner seats—including Cheryl Bean for State Representative, District 94.

True affordability is not promised by the people who voted against banning a state income tax, opposed basic protections for women and girls, or treat larger government as the solution after collecting more of your money. It is delivered by leaders who have already shown, through votes and results, that they will let Texas families keep more of what they earn while protecting the basics that matter most.

Visit CherylBeanfortexas.com for more and find your polling location.