Chris Bell on the Issues

Chris Bell is running for the Texas Senate in the Gulf Coast’s District 17 because it's an incredible opportunity to make progress on the issues he cares about the most: public school education, access to health care and ethics reform.

He has been a leader since his days on the Houston City Council and in Congress. Now his experience can work for us in the State Legislature!

SCHOOLS THAT WORK

As your senator, Chris will make sure Texas invests in our future by giving our public schools the resources they need to provide our children with a rigorous and useful education. He will work to end the state's over-reliance on high-stakes standardized testing; getting our children ready for college should be more important than getting them ready to take yet another standardized test. He proposes significantly increasing the state's share of public education funding - and cutting local property taxes paid by homeowners - by getting rid of tax loopholes. He will oppose any effort to create private school vouchers that would take billions of dollars from already under funded public schools.

PROVIDING BASIC HEALTH CARE

Government can't solve every problem, but it should never make a problem worse. That's what has happened with children's health care in Texas. Chris believes the extraordinarily high number of uninsured children in Texas is a moral crisis that should be met head-on. Privatizing social and health care services is an unmitigated disaster that left 120,000 children without coverage under the CHIP program and cost Texas almost $1 billion in federal matching funds. And when it comes to scientific and technological advances in medicine that could save or improve countless lives, Chris will not support anyone, especially politicians in Austin, standing in the way.

HOLDING GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABLE

If we are going to change the way business is conducted in Austin, we are going to have to hold our elected officials to a higher standard and ensure that their actions are transparent and accountable to all Texans. That's why Chris supports campaign finance reform and stricter enforcement of ethics rules.