Texas Supreme Court Puts Harris County ‘Guaranteed Income’ on Hold.

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has prevailed in petitioning the Texas Supreme Court to put a halt to a “guaranteed income” scheme by Harris County that he said violated the state constitution.

The Texas Supreme Court issued an order on June 14, granting Mr. Paxton’s request for a stoppage of payments made under the “Uplift Harris” program, which involved “no strings attached” disbursements of $500 to nearly 2000 residents for 18 months.

“Although we make no definitive statement about the merits, the State has raised serious doubt about the constitutionality of the Uplift Harris program, and this potential violation of the Texas Constitution could not be remedied or undone if payments were to commence while the underlying appeal proceeds,” Texas Supreme Court justices wrote in the order.

Mr. Paxton first sued Harris County over the “guaranteed income” program in early April, arguing that the scheme redistributed public money in a way that violated the Texas Constitution, which forbids any county, city, or town from granting public money to any individual. He argued that the Harris County program amounted to an unconstitutional lottery-based handout because the selection of recipients was arbitrary and the public money was given away with no conditions, no control over the expenditure of that money, and no guarantee of any public benefit.

The scheme was announced by Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in 2023. Under the program, 1,928 eligible Harris County residents would be selected by lottery to receive $500 cash payments for 18 months with no conditions. The funds came from the $20.5 million the county received through the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act, which Mr. Paxton argued was specifically intended to be used for COVID-19 relief initiatives.

After a lower court denied Texas’s request for emergency relief in the form of blocking the program, Mr. Paxton filed for emergency relief with the Texas Supreme Court, which granted a temporary, administrative stay in late April. Now, on June 14, the high court granted Mr. Paxton’s request to prohibit all payments under the Uplift Harris program pending further orders of the court.