For those who don’t know anything about the “Uplift Harris” program yet, well, it was just this new joint effort from Harris County to lend a helping hand to the residents who have tighter finances. As per this program, just to give you a perspective, well, they spent a total of $500 on selected individuals and tried to make life easier for them. All in all, this program was a good effort to help out the people and businesses who are in need, you know, the ones that lost their livelihood during the COVID-19 pandemic. Actually, the program ran a “lottery” in which some persons got selected based on pre-established criteria, mainly playing on the criteria of being lower-income people earning 200% or less than the federal poverty level measurement.
And sure, the dollar bill flowing into the program came mainly from those who were given pandemic relief in the form of money from the government. But the county wanted the funds to go directly to those who are in need and used for absolute necessities, instead of that, there was no such control over where the funds were being spent. And that is mainly what has caused this Harris County Guaranteed Income Lawsuit in the first place.
Texas Attorney General vs. Harris County
You see, back this same year in the month of April 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was the one who filed a lawsuit against Harris County in order to stop the Uplift Harris program from functioning. But why’s that though? Everything sounds good and fair with this program, so what’s really wrong? Well, just to give you a perspective on things, you see, Paxton claimed that this program went against the Texas Constitution which says that the government is not allowed to give public money directly to individuals without a clear benefit for the public. In his opinion, the giving of unrestricted cash payments did not satisfy this requirement. And sure, the case was taken to the Texas Supreme Court where it was ruled in favor of Paxton in the month of June of the same year 2024.
Revised Program and Renewed Legal Battle
All in all, after the court’s ruling, Harris County had the program redesigned in the month of August 2024. As a result, you see, the county scrapped direct cash payments and created prepaid debit cards, which could only be used for basic expenses such as rent, grocery, utility, and medical expenses. Just so you know, the county anticipated that by making these adjustments, both legal issues would be resolved and that such support would be extended to the needy, right?
However, one month later in September 2024, Attorney General Paxton filed a second lawsuit alleging that the revised program was in fact still unconstitutional not even with the changes. As per his claim, they are not fixing the root problem, instead, just changing a few things and calling it a new program, but in the end, it is just the same thing once again.
