Dallas Morning News Endorses Nathan Johnson

“We recommend in Texas Senate District 16, Democratic primary”

By Dallas Morning News Editorial

As part of a cynical redistricting effort undertaken with the goal to pack as many Democrats as possible into ever-tighter districts, Texas Republicans remade Senate District 16 representing Dallas and inner ring suburbs.

They’ve gotten exactly what they wanted, a struggle between two important Democratic voices in the Legislature that will leave one without an office.

Incumbent Sen. Nathan Johnson, 56, and state Rep. Victoria Neave Criado, 43, should not be political rivals. But such is the zero-sum state of politics now that they are engaged in a bare-knuckled primary fight.

The theme of the race, at least according to Neave Criado, is that Johnson isn’t sufficiently tough on Republicans. She’s the fighter, according to her campaign.

We don’t doubt she is a fighter, and Neave Criado has done important work on behalf of not just Democratic causes but causes that benefit people across the state, particularly women.

But primary voters need to be careful what the word fighter means because Johnson has quietly become one of the most effective Democratic legislators in Texas. He has worked tirelessly, strategically and across the aisle to advance a swath of matters that help Texas be a better state. And he has stood in the path of Republican overreach in ways that the public can’t always see.

In politics these days, fighter really means noisemaker. We don’t think that is what Neave Criado is. She’s a serious lawmaker. But when she contrasts her stance as a fighter against Johnson’s, that’s the only meaning it can have. Because Johnson fights constantly. His fights aren’t on social media or in self-aggrandizing floor speeches that fire up the base only to alienate the broader electorate and the Republican senators Democrats need if they are going to advance their causes even an inch.

Johnson personally authored 99 bills in 2021 and 175 in 2023. In a Legislature that is hostile to Democrats, he actually gets bills passed.

Neave Criado has focused on a single vote from Johnson that increases the penalty for human smuggling and operating stash houses as evidence that he somehow is backing a racial-profiling agenda. This is a political distortion and not reflective of what actually happened when the Senate voted nearly unanimously, with 10 of 12 Democrats in support, to try to crack down on the sort of human smugglers who leave people to die in tractor-trailers.

It’s unfortunate that Republicans are getting what they wanted out of this race, a mud fight between two gifted Democrats. We wish Neave Criado hadn’t taken the bait. Her political future is bright, but it’s now marked by targeting a Democratic senator who has worked to improve the grid, water availability, access to health care and any number of issues critical to our future.

We urge voters to look at Johnson’s record and return him to office.

Dallas Morning News Editorial. Dallas Morning News editorials are written by the paper's Editorial Board and serve as the voice and view of the paper. The board considers a broad range of topics and is overseen by the Editorial Page Editor.

Nathan Johnson has always protected the right to choose. And he always will.

After Abbott and the extremists passed their radical abortion ban in Texas, I went to work for you in the Texas Senate to protect your right to choose.

1) I filed Senate Bill 78 to legalize medication abortion in Texas so that Texas women would have access to mifepristone and misoprostol. These FDA-approved medications are a safe way to abort a pregnancy without a clinical procedure. I was the only legislator in Texas to introduce legislation on this issue.

2) I filed Senate Bill 79 to nullify a 1925 Texas law that allows for the prosecution of women who get an abortion and those who help them. This was part of my effort to get rid of pre-Roe v. Wade statutes that prohibit abortion.

3) I filed Senate Bill 291 to protect from prosecution anyone who helps a woman travel out of state to obtain an abortion.

4) And when cities and counties around Texas started passing their abortion travel bans, I filed Senate Bill 45 to block them. These ordinances would deputize every Texan to sue anyone who helps
a woman travel through town on their way out of state to receive abortion medical care. Again, I was the only legislator in Texas to author legislation like this.

My record on reproductive and abortion rights stands in stark contrast to that of my opponent. Victoria Neave Criado stood with Republicans and supported legislation that Planned Parenthood opposed, and she voted for a bill that targeted abortion doctors.1 She has never filed a bill to protect or restore abortion rights—ever.

I will always support and defend reproductive freedom in Texas. What the extremists have done is cruel and dangerous, and it is inconsistent with American notions of freedom, privacy, and autonomy. That’s why I’m asking for your vote on March 5. With your support at the ballot box, I’ll go back to Austin to keep this fight going until we reclaim reproductive rights for Texas women.

Texas’ oversize property tax cut now will mean a big bill in the future

Politics dictated surplus spending, and we will pay in the long run.

By Nathan Johnson | Dallas News

Presented with an extra $32 billion of spending money this session, legislators spent more than half of it — $18 billion — on property tax reduction. Jubilation and self-congratulation followed. When the noise dies down, we’re left with a few questions: Should it have been more? Or less? How did we get to the number $18 billion anyway? Most importantly, given that we’ve created a permanent obligation to buy down future taxes, how are we going to pay for it when there isn’t a massive surplus?

Texas property taxes are high, and in recent years steep increases have created real financial strain for many residents and troubling incentives for others. Some level of property tax reduction was in order.

And though it took two contentious special sessions to get there, the final tax reduction package is well conceived: It raises the personal homestead exemption by 150%, compresses local school tax rates, temporarily caps dramatic spikes in commercial appraisal values, and in a related bill, exempts thousands of small businesses from the cost and nuisance of the dreaded margins tax. (Interesting note: The margins tax was created to pay for the last big property tax cut.)

These are major changes that will result in significant tax savings for homeowners and small businesses. That’s good, as far as it goes.

Unfortunately, it’s also reckless. You might even say it’s unconservative.

Dubbed “the largest tax cut in Texas history” (it actually is not, but never mind), it’s being funded this session by “the largest surplus in Texas history” (it actually is — but please read on). Large surpluses are not routine. We shouldn’t expect to have anything like this surplus in the future.

Consider why we had a $32 billion surplus this session. It’s mostly one-time money, with the rest owing to unsustainable deferral of expenses. More than $14 billion comes from various federal COVID funds, while another nearly $7 billion comes from inflation-inflated sales tax revenue. Meanwhile, funding public education in real dollars at 2019 levels would have cost an additional $15 billion. If you’re adding, that’s pretty much the entire “surplus.”

We’re not going to get another flood of unattached money from the federal government. We don’t want high inflation. Pretty soon we will have to fund our public schools like we said we would.

We must ask also about the consequences of not investing some of that $18 billion in other essential state responsibilities — one-shot investments like water infrastructure, affordable housing (renters were largely left out of the discussion, save for the disingenuous hope that landlords might pass on the tax savings they realize), and prison system upgrades; and recurring investments like education and health care. Investments like these produce economic (and social) returns in both the short and the long run.

So exactly how did we wind up at $18 billion? Why not $11 billion, or $13 billion, or $20 billion? The truth is uninspiring: It’s political. The number $18 billion did not come from a fiscal analysis aimed at determining the most beneficial and responsible way to spend the surplus, that is, as between tax reduction for the half of Texans who own homes, and investments in Texas’ lagging physical and social infrastructure. It was, for the most part, little more than an exciting and predictably effective campaign promise from the top. Another case of politics over policy.

Until the public demands more from government leaders, this is how policy will be made.

In the meantime, we have to deal with the consequences. I expect we’ll do just fine for a while. The Texas economy is marvelously strong, to some extent because of, and to some extent in spite of, our politics.

But one day, maybe because of and maybe irrespective of our politics, instead of a surplus we will face a deficit. What then? Will we fire school teachers to pay for property tax reductions for homeowners?

Fortunately and wisely we maintain a sizable Economic Stabilization Fund, better known as the Rainy Day Fund. We should not hesitate to draw upon it — heavily if necessary — to meet our responsibilities to the public. Perhaps that gets us past any shortfall. If not, legislators will have a difficult time cleaning up after the big tax reduction party of 2023, and the voters will not be happy when they see the mess.

Nathan Johnson is a Democrat representing Dallas in the Texas Senate. He wrote this column for The Dallas Morning News.