Harris County Texas Commissioner talks guaranteed income program [Video]

HARRIS COUNTY, Texas — Calling it “plainly unconstitutional,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County to block a guaranteed income program days before the payments were set to begin.

Around 1,900 families would receive $500 in cash payments a month, for 18 months. And there would be no strings attached, and no rules on how they spend that money.

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, one of the strongest proponents of the pilot program, says the public purpose is very clear: to reduce poverty and help the poorest of the poor.

“This has nothing to do with the constitution,” Ellis told us on Inside Texas Politics. “Part of what I think General Paxton and my former Republican colleagues in the state legislature ought to be worried about is that slippery slope. What about vouchers?”

The Precinct 1 Democrat says …