The Texas General Land Office is urging the U.S. Department of Justice to drop claims by the Biden administration alleging the state discriminated against minorities in 2021.
In a letter sent Wednesday, the legal team representing the GLO slammed Biden officials for reviving a case accusing the Texas agency of racial discrimination in its allocation of disaster relief funds after Hurricane Harvey.
The case was first initiated in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development following an investigation by the department. It was referred to the Department of Justice a year later, which, according to the GLO’s recent letter, rejected it “in less than 48 hours.”
“While the Biden Administration has now lost its bully pulpit it used for political stunts like this, we now call on the DOJ to say what it said before, this is fake news,” stated Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham.
Buckingham was first elected land commissioner in 2023, replacing George P. Bush, who served in the office during the accusations made by the Biden administration.
According to Buckingham, the GLO at the time merely “developed the plan for its mitigation funding following HUD’s instructions and then implemented the plan HUD approved.”
That plan included racial and ethnic minorities making up around “two-thirds of the expected beneficiaries of the projects that were funded,” per a GLO administrative appeal cited in the Wednesday letter.
“The GLO is not at fault because HUD’s political appointees and the liberal advocates who controlled them wanted to hand-pick who should get funding and who should not,” Buckingham added.
The GLO argues that it allocated the roughly $4.3 billion in grant money provided by HUD, of which only a fraction is under question, with concern for the specific needs of Harris County and Greater Houston.
Still, some groups, like the National Low Income Housing Coalition, previously defended Biden’s HUD when officials concluded their initial case and found the GLO responsible.
“We urge HUD and DOJ to move quickly to resolve the remaining investigation and if necessary to move to enforcement in order to cure the discrimination that the state of Texas has engaged in,” stated Ben Martin, research director at Texas Housers, a member of the DHRC.
