Texas just did something it hasn’t done in a generation. On Tuesday, voters ended three decades of Republican control of the governor’s mansion and elected Democrat Gina Hinojosa. Elections have consequences, and the times are changing next door. Louisiana should watch closely, learn early, and refuse to follow.
The warning signs are not hidden. They are in the campaign’s own words.
Hinojosa ran as labor’s candidate from day one. The Texas AFL-CIO endorsed her in the primary. She is a card-carrying member of the Communications Workers of America. She has stood on a picket line with UNITE HERE. On Labor Day she promised that, as governor, she would stand with workers on the picket line and fight for the right to organize. At the rally celebrating her primary win, one of her legislative allies said the goal was to flip Texas from a “right-to-get-fired state to a union state.”
Translate that out of campaign language and the agenda comes into focus: more leverage for organized labor, more pressure on right-to-work protections, and a state government that sees the picket line as its home base. Add her record defending prevailing wage mandates, and the cost of building anything in Texas is headed one direction.
That is a policy error, and Louisiana has spent decades learning why.
Louisiana has been a right-to-work state since 1976. That law means no worker can be forced to join a union or pay dues to keep a job. It is a matter of personal freedom first and economic competitiveness second. When site selectors rank states for new plants, right-to-work status is often a box that must be checked before a state even gets a second look. Louisiana has checked it for fifty years. We should not give that away.
Texas has long been our toughest competitor for industrial investment along the Gulf. If Austin now starts tilting the field toward union mandates and higher labor costs, that is an opening for Louisiana, not a model. Businesses that value flexibility, predictable costs, and a direct relationship with their workforce will be looking for a stable neighbor. We should be that neighbor.
None of this means Texas changes overnight. Hinojosa still has to work with a legislature that will decide how much of her agenda survives. But a governor sets the tone, signs or vetoes the bills, and appoints the people who run the agencies. Tone becomes policy faster than most people expect.
Louisiana’s job is simple: stay the course. Protect right-to-work. Keep labor costs predictable. Keep government out of the middle of the relationship between employers and employees. And make sure every company rethinking Texas knows Louisiana’s door is open.
Elections have consequences. Let Texas live with its choice. Louisiana should make a better one by standing still.