Voting Resources
Scott Braddock
September 4th, 2014
Because of an absence of federal action on the problem of rampant worker misclassification in construction, we continue to track the progress of states across the nation that are trying to deal with what's been called “a...
July 28th, 2014
The special Texas House committee appointed by Speaker Joe Straus to scrutinize Gov. Perry’s job-luring pots of money – chiefly the Texas Enterprise Fund – got down to work last Wednesday. In its first hearing, the House...
March 13th, 2014
An unfortunate reality of the construction industry is that there are many instances of worker abuse. Much of this has been documented on Construction Citizen over the years. Terrible working conditions, worker...
January 31st, 2014
In Texas political races all over the state, candidates are being grilled about what they think of sweeping education reforms passed by the legislature last year. While there is pretty much universal agreement that the big...
January 9th, 2014
In what will hopefully be the first in a series of events like it across Texas, business leaders and educators from the Houston area gathered to talk about the best ways they can work together to put kids on track for the...
May 14th, 2013
You might think a proposal to force undocumented immigrants to be background checked, fingerprinted, photographed and entered into a database would be an easy sell with Republican lawmakers. But, you’d be wrong. With time...
January 28th, 2013
Texas has an estimated 1.7 million undocumented immigrants living between the Red and Rio Grande Rivers. Houston alone is home to about 600,000 of those. Texas has a 1200 mile border with Mexico (the longest of any state)....
January 2nd, 2013
The blue collar heroes we talk about all the time on Construction Citizen are constantly doing good works throughout the communities where they live. In fact, they do this work in an under-the-radar kind of way that causes...
June 15th, 2011
A well known immigration activist has come under fire for suggesting the reason Texas hasn’t passed an Arizona-style immigration crackdown is there are too many Hispanics in the legislature.Rebecca Forest with the...
August 8th, 2014
BASTROP – Now that Congress is on recess following an ugly meltdown over immigration and border security last week, lawmakers in Texas and around the country are diving into the time-honored...
April 30th, 2014
In a marathon hearing held by Texas lawmakers on the issues of workers’ comp and worker misclassification, representatives from businesses and labor came together to talk about what could be done to level the playing field...
February 12th, 2014
Now that the state is moving forward with a targeted crackdown on the practice of worker misclassification, which some in the construction industry have called “a cancer,” lawmakers are going to work through the summer to...
January 15th, 2014
Construction companies across Texas that work on public projects are on notice now that the targeted worker misclassification crackdown passed by the legislature in 2013 has taken effect.HB 2015 “Worker Classification” was...
June 16th, 2013
“If a piece of the building falls to the ground and breaks, they have insurance for that,” said a middle-aged man in a wheelchair in Houston. I sat in a small portable building behind a church, listening through an...
January 29th, 2013
Researchers at the University of Texas backs up what we've been saying for years: far too many construction workers in Texas are the victims of payroll fraud.
January 3rd, 2013
In Texas, we pride ourselves on job creation and entrepreneurship. This is the Promised Land, where you can be in charge of your own destiny. For many, if not most, this is true. For others, that rhetoric is used to dodge...
October 18th, 2012
This article originally appeared on ConstructionCitizen.com.Just last week, construction executive Stan Marek noted on Construction Citizen, “The labor situation in Houston is heading into the biggest crisis we...
February 10th, 2012
A fascinating story out of Kansas, where they’ve passed a law that would create a state-sponsored program to help businesses recruit workers who are illegally in the United States. Norman Adams with Texans for Sensible...
March 10th, 2011
There's a push in Austin for an Arizona-style immigration crackdown, including a ban on "sanctuary cities." Governor Perry has made the ban an "emergency item" in this legislative session. The debate boiled over on the...
