Hinojosa denies she voted against a ban on state income tax in Texas, contradicting legislative records

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has criticized his Democratic challenger, Gina Hinojosa's vote in 2019 against changing the Texas constitution to ban a state income tax. Hinojosa has disputed that and did so again on Tuesday during an interview with CBS News Texas. 

Hinojosa disputes Abbott's claim

"Nope, not true," said Hinojosa. 

When told that's what the legislative records show, Hinojosa replied, "I voted against a repeal of a constitutional ban on an income tax. That's what I voted against."

Hinojosa, a state representative from Austin since 2017, said there was already a ban on a state income tax. 

"It was already unconstitutional," she said. "It is unconstitutional in our state constitution. It was put there by Bob Bullock, a Democrat, and I voted against repealing the ban on the state income tax."

Legislative records show otherwise. There was a "Bullock Amendment" approved by lawmakers in the early 1990's. It allowed a simple majority of lawmakers in the House and Senate to send it to the voters and have them approve a state income tax.

The legislature's 2019 vote on HJR 38 changed the Texas Constitution to ban an income tax and made it nearly impossible to reverse. 

What the 2019 vote changed

That vote required a two-thirds majority in the legislature to send it to voters, who overwhelmingly approved the ban in November of that year by a 76 to 24 percent margin. To reverse the ban would also require a two-thirds majority in the legislature before voters could have the ultimate say in a statewide referendum. This information is also listed in the House Research Organization's analysis of HJR 38.  

During that 2019 vote, State Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, urged his fellow Democrats to approve this change. 

"I hope that everyone will vote for this constitutional amendment," Raymond said. "I was here when we passed the other one, saying if we ever had a state income tax, the people would have to vote on it first. I think we should vote for this."

The governor told CBS News Texas that he pushed for the constitutional amendment. 

"To be clear, what I did was an effort to make a state income tax unconstitutional," said Abbott. "I achieved my goal. She was against that because she wanted to hold out the possibility that a mere majority in the legislature would be able to impose a state income tax."

In our interview with the governor last week, he pointed to comments Hinojosa made about a state income tax 10 years ago during an interview she did while she was running for her Texas House seat. 

She told KXAN-TV, "We rely so heavily in this state on property taxes, too heavily in my opinion, because we don't have the third leg of that stool that's required to have a robust and strong and resilient economy, which would include income taxes."

When asked Tuesday if she stood by her comments in 2016, Hinojosa told CBS News Texas, "Before I was ever in the House - and I've been here for a decade - before I was in the House, I thought, I didn't know about the corruption. I thought the reason we had high property taxes was because we didn't have an income tax. But the real reason is because of the corruption in the system."

Income tax dispute ahead of early voting

The back and forth over her vote on a state income tax comes at a crucial time: there are six days before early voting begins. Election week is just about three weeks away. 

Watch Eye On Politics at 7:30 Sunday morning on CBS News Texas on air and streaming