State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr., representing District 142 (D-Houston), does not mince words when it comes to Texas politics.
After more than four decades in office, the veteran Democrat says his job represents the underserved, although only a fraction of his 113 bills will become law.
“The system is designed to kill bills, not to have bills passed,” he told the Defender, expressing his concerns about introducing bills in a Republican-led House and Senate. “I’m just gonna keep on fighting for the people. At some point, Texas is going to have to wake up and face the music because we can’t keep going down the road.”
Protecting Black families
A former attorney and the chair of the Committee on Juvenile Justice & Family Issues, Dutton is targeting systemic injustices in Texas’s child welfare system. His HB 2235 revised the definitions of abuse and neglect, and HB 2350 expanded who can file or intervene in parent-child relationship cases by allowing more relatives and certain non-relatives with substantial past contact to seek custody under specific conditions.
“For example, when Child Protective Services looked at the abuse and neglect of a child, they typically had all different kinds of definitions for that,” Dutton explained. “When it came to Black families, it was terrible.”
Education
As Senate Bill 2, or the “voucher bill”, which will allow families to use taxpayer dollars to fund their children’s private education, heads to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk to be signed into law, Dutton remains opposed. His perception of the bill is an “unwillingness” from his colleagues across the aisle to “fix what’s wrong” with public schools, like reading proficiency among third graders.
Dutton explained that despite the bill’s passing, most Texas children will continue to attend public schools.
“They’re passing vouchers because they’re trying to help poor kids. But if you wanna help poor kids, why won’t you expand Medicaid?” Dutton asked. “Many of them tell you they’re pro-life. They’re not pro-life. They’re pro-birth because they don’t give two hoots about a child once they’re born.
Instead, he wants the House to focus on children’s academic acumen, including reading by the third grade (HB123). Dutton’s alternative is investing in teacher quality and early childhood. In Houston, only 27% of third-graders read on grade level. He believes that students drop out of school later in life because they could not read in the third grade.
“Then they become discipline problems,” he said. “As a consequence, it results in too many children making negative choices in their lives.”
Dutton has also filed HB 5001, which will raise educator salaries by taxing electricity generators—a bold but symbolic move. He added that it would also address gender pay disparity, with women comprising most of the teaching workforce.
At some point, Texas is going to have to wake up and face the music because we can’t keep going down the road.
State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr.
“That’s one of those bills that’s not gonna pass,” Dutton admitted. “But it does indicate that we need to do something about raising teacher pay.”
HB 2 passed the House recently. It’s another bill that increases school districts’ money per student, raises teacher salaries and limits hiring uncertified teachers.
Dutton has also filed HB 2848, which proposes a tuition and fee exemption and refund program for certain students attending Texas Southern University (TSU) or Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU).
Justice system
During the 89th legislative session, Dutton has continued his decades-long push for criminal justice reform.
Among his proposals are raising the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18 (HB 2234), abolishing the death penalty (HB 2237) and creating legal services for indigent inmates (HB 2647) who have less than a $5 balance in their trust fund account.
“It’s crazy to think of 17-year-olds as adults for criminal offenses, when we don’t let them vote,” he stated. “Just the number of people who have been released from death row on a claim of actual innocence ought to tell us that there is something wrong when it comes to implementing the death penalty process in Texas.”
Environmental justice
Dutton’s HB 2935 envisions a state park near the Julia C. Hester House to make green spaces accessible to the people of surrounding neighborhoods.
Although Houston’s Fifth Ward residents are grappling with the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) residential soil test that found non-threatening levels of cancer-causing contaminants, including Hester House, Dutton argues it is a mechanism to drive prices down for developers in the area.
“We seem to be talking about a cancer cluster insofar as the Black people who live there, but when I look around, I see them continuing to build houses that are occupied by non-black people in the same area,” he said. “So, how could it be a cancer cluster for us and it’s not a cancer cluster for them?”
Dutton has also introduced environmental equity bills like HB 2642 and HB 3217, which expand who can contest industrial pollution permits and require the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to assess the cumulative effects of nearby emissions, a significant shift from the agency’s current practices.
Healthcare
Opining that health care should be accessible to all Texans, Dutton has filed HB 3216 to expand Medicaid eligibility for working-class parents for whom federal matching money is available.
“There are just too many people who have a job who work every day, but can’t afford medical insurance or their company doesn’t even offer medical insurance,” he said. “For every dollar that Texas spends on expanding Medicaid, it gets $9 back from the federal government. There is a huge financial incentive for doing it.”
Black legacy
A lesser-known but meaningful bill for Houston’s Black community is HB 5363, which would establish the Historic Texas Freedmen’s Cemetery Designation Program to recognize and protect cemeteries containing the graves of formerly enslaved Black individuals.
“How we treat our ancestors has a lot to do with how we treat our future,” he said.
Dutton tied the need for Black cultural preservation to a broader call for historical honesty and to recognize Black history as American history.
“We should make every effort to make sure that people know about the contributions from Black people in this society,” he said.
