She says it's time to get Texas "back to basics." Her first target is waste, fraud and abuse in state government, which she says doesn't come from civil servants who show up to their state jobs. It comes from vendor contracts that have "amassed under Greg Abbott."
Her plan borrows a name from Washington. DOGE refers to the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, which President Trump created by executive order in 2025. Hinojosa says she would "wipe clean" the vendor contracts she calls corrupt and use that money to pay teachers. She would also fire Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath and put an educator in the job.
Property taxes are the sharpest fight. Abbott's campaign says she voted 40 times to raise them. Hinojosa says she never has, and that when she sat on the school board, "we lowered property taxes." She points back at Abbott, saying the board of managers he installed at Houston ISD raised property taxes a year ago October. She calls that "taxation without representation" and says it violates the state constitution.
For people here, her pitch lands on two things: what teachers earn and what property tax bills look like.