The weeks before taking office are a crucial time for incoming officials. It’s when they coordinate legislative efforts, develop strategy, and, most importantly, hopefully listen to the people who elected them. This petition explains why we voted for them and what we expect in return: requirements that protect Texans and keep our government from falling under the control of corporations and millionaires.

Dear elected officials,

We the People of Texas hereby require policies from incoming representatives that define who we are, how we operate, and what our goals can be, in exchange for the millions of votes cast in November 2026 for you and against the previous administration.

We are grateful for your efforts thus far, and we have high expectations for your term in office. The following are our bare minimum expectations of you, your staff, and your tenure as representatives. We the People will continue to organize behind the candidates we believe can best fulfill them.

Policy that defines who we are:

• Legal Immigration over Incarceration
  Create legal pathways to entry, reduce criminalization of immigration
  -End state cooperation with ICE
  -Pioneer a new Immigration Intake Facility, an Ellis Island in El Paso, Texas
  -Build a legal path of immigration to Texas. If Federal Immigration Policy prohibit immigrants wanting to work in Texas, then let's do our due diligence and put them to work in our State.
• Rights of the Individual
  Protect individual's rights to self determination
  -Bodily autonomy codified for all Texans
  -Audit Texas' legal code to investigate why Texas incarcerates more people per capita than our peer states and countries
  -Allow changes to gender markers on all state documents. 
  -Allow gender affirming care for all and counseling for minors 
  - Repeal 2025 S.B. 12 restrictions from schools 
  - Repeal restrictions on gender neutral bathrooms
  - Repeal Right-to-Work restrictions
• Texas First Investments
  Dollars earned by Texans shouldn't be used for domestic or foreign war crimes 
  -Divest from genocidal companies and countries
  -All future investments of public money in foreign countries should be put to a popular vote
  
  

Policy that defines how we operate

• Revoke State Funding Threats
  No more coercing local governments to bend to the State's will
  -Remove the Governor's ability to control local governments through threats of withholding State funds.
• Reform Campaign Financing
  Elections in Texas should reflect the will of all Texans, not just millionaires and corporate giants
  -Limit individual donations
  -Eliminate PAC and super PAC spending during election seasons
  
  
• Enact common sense digital privacy protection
  Protect Texans from predatory commercial invasions of privacy
  -Ban corporate AI partnerships in schools
  -Prohibit state and local government contracts with AI-based mass surveillance companies
  -Full moratorium on all data centers until environmental, housing, and health impacts are publicly studied and addressed

Policy that defines what our goals can be

• Establish a Texas Social Contract
  Define the contract between Texas and Texans
  -Define minimum wage
  -Define living standards
  -Define education standards
  -Establish a system for ballot referendums
• Enact Voter Protections
  Texans should never lose their ability to direct their leaders
  -Online voter registration
  -Expanded access to mail-in ballots
  -Accept student IDs 

These requirements represent the bare minimum needed to put working class Texans first and ensure corporate interests don't drown out the will of the people.

Sincerely,
We the People of Texas

(cover photo by  Austin Hansen)