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When Democrat Brandy Chambers read in The Dallas Morning News last month that her opponent, state Rep. Angie Chen Button, R-Richardson, now supports Medicaid expansion, Chambers could not believe it.
Button and other Texas Republicans have long resisted expanding Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program, even though Texas has the country’s highest uninsured rate. But Button said she now sees the need for expanding the program due to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left many Texans jobless — and without health insurance.
Button is not the only Republican lawmaker raising eyebrows about seemingly new policy positions now that the party’s majority in the Texas House is on the line. Another endangered incumbent, Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, recently expressed regret for supporting the divisive “bathroom bill” that sought to limit public restroom access for transgender people and headlined the 2017 legislative year without ever becoming law.
That legislation, along with Medicaid expansion, is among a litany of issues that are cropping up in the final weeks of the Nov. 3 election that will decide the balance of power in the Legislature’s lower chamber. The stakes are high, with the battle unfolding ahead of the 2021 redistricting process during which lawmakers will draw new political boundaries for the state.
