A state senator in Texas says one state county’s universal basic income program that would give people $500 a month is unconstitutional.
Republican state Sen. Paul Bettencourt sent a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Jan. 12 asking if the program enacted in Harris County, which includes Houston, last year in a 4-1 vote violated the gift prohibition clause in the state’s constitution, Fox News reported.
“We just can’t hand out money like popcorn on street corners to people that walk by,” Bettencourt told Fox News.
“If you advertise what’s clearly a no-strings universal basic income, and you do a lottery by zip codes, I’m very concerned that that is just fundamentally violating the gift clause of the [Texas] Constitution, which says the state can’t give money with no strings attached,” Bettencourt told the outlet.
The program, dubbed Uplift Harris, is a guaranteed income program similar to a universal basic income, except money is given to specific community members rather than distributed to people regardless of their needs or income.
The pilot program, which initially received more than 48,000 applicants, started on Jan. 12 and will distribute $500 a month to 1,924 applicants for 18 months, costing $20 million in COVID-19 American Rescue Plan funds, the Houston Chronicle reported. Applicants will be chosen at random to participate in the program, according to the Uplift Harris website. Bettencourt asked Paxton in the letter to provide an opinion on the constitutionality of the county’s program.
Article 3, Section 47 of Texas’s constitution does not allow lotteries or gift enterprises.
“I don’t like the concept of what I would call lottery socialism here because it’s based on specific zip codes, and it’s no strings attached,” Bettencourt told Fox News. “And that’s why I’m concerned about the gift clause of the [Texas] Constitution.”
Bettencourt told the outlet that he was concerned about the financial effects and how the largest county in the state adopting such a program could set a precedent for other counties to follow suit.
“That’s a $600 million expenditure, and that would have to be done by county property tax money,” Bettencourt said. “So these are important issues to decide before we just get involved in a discussion of what people think is a solution to a problem, but without ignoring whether the solution is legal in the first place. Unfortunately, the county judge down here was talking about expanding the program to cover people that crossed the border illegally. Now, there’s just not enough money in anybody’s governmental budget for all of this.”
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Uplift Harris is not extended to illegal immigrants. However, Fox reported that a Harris County judge is looking for cash assistance programs as an alternative to support those who are ineligible for the guaranteed income program.
In a response to Bettencourt’s letter, obtained by Houston Public Media, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee said the program does not violate the state constitution because the gift clause allows counties to distribute cash assistance to fulfill a “public purpose designed to benefit the entire county.”