Texas AFT endorses Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor

AUSTIN, Texas - The Texas American Federation of Teachers endorses state Rep. Gina Hinojosa for Texas Governor, as approved by its Executive Council on Saturday, Dec. 6.

"Gina Hinojosa is not only our best chance at flipping the governor's mansion for public education, she's also the best choice for governor. Period," said Zeph Capo, Texas AFT president. "This week, Gov. Abbott used his bully pulpit to dictate what student clubs would be allowed on our campuses, while one of my members in El Paso ISD shared that they'd bought their own Kevlar ves t to make sure they would make it home to their family. It's long past time to hand Abbott his pink slip and replace him with someone who'll give a damn. And that someone, without a shadow of a doubt, is Gina Hinojosa."

A state representative since 2017, Gina Hinojosa has been a steadfast supporter of public education from authoring bills to meaningfully improve the working and learning conditions of Texas's public school educators and students, to being a major leader in the fight against privatization. Before her time in the Legislature, she was an Austin ISD board trustee who worked closely with district employees and their union, Education Austin.

With the governor undertaking disastrous actions to suppress educators' freedom of speech and continuing to push his unpopular voucher scheme (to the detriment of his approval rating), the time is now to unite around the best candidate in the race, and our union of 66,000 pre-K-12 and higher education employees believes that candidate is Gina Hinojosa.

"I have just so appreciated working in partnership with Texas AFT for so many years, in the Texas House, and before, on the school board," Hinojosa told Texas AFT's Executive Council. "[Educators] sent me to the Texas House. … This is our run, together - just like every fight we had in the Texas House was together. I have done my best to be a fighter for teachers, for school employees, and I will continue to be that fighter."