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Ben Crockett

Ben Crockett served as a research associate for the Government for the People campaign at the Texas Public Policy Foundation during the summer of 2023. Currently, he studies at the Bush School of Government, where he continues to hone his skills and expand his knowledge in the world of politics and policy.

Local Government

Lawful Graft on Manor Road

Austin’s NGO machine isn’t breaking any rules. That’s the problem. Since October 2023, the City of Austin has paid $1.58 million to a progressive nonprofit with deep ties to Democratic socialism: the Workers Defense Project (WDP). Curiously, three councilmembers who oversee that spending—Vanessa Fuentes, José Velásquez, and Mike Siegel—won their seats with support from a political committee run by WDP’s own affiliate. Curiouser still, the organization’s lobbyists have worked city hall continuously...

September 3, 2026

Local Government

Zoning Promised Order, But Delivered Scarcity.

Texas adopted Hoover’s blueprint a century ago. Today, the bill is due in higher prices and lost liberty. Progressive-era policy rears its head in Texas housing. A century after Herbet Hoover put housing under government management, innovation has faltered, consumer choice has dwindled, and costs have exploded. Popular sentiment casts Herbert Hoover as a do-nothing,...

December 16, 2025

Local Government

Defending Home-Sharing is About Protecting Basic Freedoms

Cities across Texas are finding ever more creative ways to regulate away property owners’ rights. For Texans who rent out their homes—whether through short-term platforms like Airbnb or long-term arrangements—local ordinances have created a maze of rules that bring uncertainty, high costs, and diminished freedoms. It wasn’t always this way. For generations, Texans opened their...

January 10, 2025

Election Integrity

A Free And Fair Election Would Have Zero ‘Glitches’

Large counties have “glitches” on Election Day. Why do counties like Harris County, Texas, and Maricopa County, Arizona, continue to experience electoral irregularities? Are large counties just overwhelmed by Election Day? As the nation inches closer to that day, preventing these “glitches” becomes more crucial. Even a relatively small error, such as incorrectly tabulating 1...

September 10, 2024

Election Integrity

The Left Is Attempting To Take Over Local Election Offices

Democrats have been on a swing-state crusade to rid election boards of anyone who is more concerned with the fairness and accuracy of our elections than with making sure the Democrat comes out on top. The left’s strategy is predictable yet effective. Utilizing a sophisticated information campaign that includes law articles, op-eds, boots-on-the-ground activism, and large...

September 6, 2024

Local Government

Two Conservative Cities Ease Their Property Tax Burdens, Again

Earlier this week, we wrote about the great work that Tarrant County commissioners had accomplished through their FY ’24 budget framework (which cut spending, kept the tax rate to a minimum, and included a homestead exemption). And now, it appears more North Texas local governments are prepared to act in ways that benefit taxpayers. The...

August 17, 2023

Local Government

The Left’s War on Language Strikes the Lone Star State

Texas cities are in an abusive relationship with the English language. As city officials draft their budgets for the upcoming fiscal year, you might think these public-facing documents are being filled with data points and explanations. But increasingly, they’re being filled with something else: woke-speak, the dialect of the progressive intelligentsia. Without fail, these municipal...

August 16, 2023

Local Government

Water Strikes, HB 2127, and Liberty

U.S Congressman Greg Casar recently went on a food and “thirst strike” for eight hours, for which he was mocked relentlessly online. As many people rightly pointed out, most people go without food and water for this long every 24 hours; it’s called sleeping. Nevertheless, Casar fasted to make a point—that House Bill 2127, a...

August 10, 2023

Local Government

Budget Talk Doesn’t Come Cheap

In Austin, one team remains undefeated. Not the Longhorns—rather, city officials’ propensity to spend Other People’s Money as though it were a professional sport. And while it might make progressives on City Council temporarily feel good, their excesses come with a big price tag. In fact, the average Austin homeowner paid $9,219 in property taxes...

August 10, 2023

Local Government

Bringing consistency to small business

In Texas politics, lies travel like one-day express mail from Austin to the rest of the state, while truth often lumbers behind on the back of a slow horse. You’ve probably read the news about the horrors House Bill 2127 soon could inflict upon the Lone Star State: “water breaks banned,” “hairstyle discrimination,” which have...

August 1, 2023

Local Government

Fiscal Responsibility, Big City Budgets, and Indiana Jones?

“It belongs in a museum” could easily be used to describe progressives’ application of fiscal responsibility to big city budgeting. Of course, they all claim to believe in it. Even President Joe Biden said, “The (budget’s) first value is fiscal responsibility.” In practice, however, fiscal responsibility is the Bud Light of city government budgets: seemingly...

July 19, 2023