Texas has a privatized foster care system which means the state contracts with private entities to perform our foster care services. The contractor servicing Dallas county consistently demonstrated poor performance and harmful outcomes for the children in their care. Yet, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) found themselves without adequate tools to respond quickly and they lacked enforcement mechanisms to force compliance with agency standards. Aicha teamed up with a conservative state senator to pass a package of three bills that would reform this process. The bills provided the agency with the ability to end contracts early, to quickly reassign an existing contractor to service that catchment area so families would have no disruption in their services during reprocurement, and the ability to penalize failing contractors. With the implementation of these new laws, Aicha hopes to see improved health and wellbeing of foster children, increased family reunification rates, and strict accountability for private contractors.

Texas is facing a dire mental health crisis fueled by our workforce shortage of mental health providers. A majority of Texas counties are without any mental health professionals. Aicha passed two key bills to increase mental health access by increasing the number of psychologists, counselors, and therapists trained in Texas. Aicha directed the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to develop a pipeline so students from junior and community colleges can easily continue their training at four year universities and graduate programs in an efficient timeline. Aicha overcame intense Republican opposition to revive the Texas Mental Health Professionals Loan Repayment Assistance Program to provide student loan repayment assistance to qualifying mental health professionals practicing in high need areas, including all school counselors.

Kinship caregivers are family members and friends who step up to care for children whose parents are temporarily or permanently unable to care for them. Some kinship caregivers have formal custody of the children but many do not (informal kinship). Oftentimes kinship caregivers are grandparents, aunts and uncles, or cousins who are looking after traumatized children with nowhere to go. Taking care of children is not easy and can become quite costly. Aicha has fought to increase funding for resources to support these families. She also secured money in the state budget to raise awareness of the existing resources available to families that often go underutilized. There are instances when kinship caregivers are looking after a child for whom one or both parents pay child support. However, the child support goes to a parent who does not have custody of the child or into a separate account. Either way this money is inaccessible to the person who is actually providing for the child. Aicha and State Senator West worked to address this issue with the passage of legislation to ensure child support follows the child and is accessible to kinship caregivers.

As an educator and higher education professional, Aicha knows how important, and how challenging, the transition from high school to college or vocational training can be. She has passed a number of bills to support students during this journey including legislation to curb financial aid displacement, reduce the number of credit hours lost when transferring, and making it easier for students to graduate on time with minimal debt. Aicha has also worked with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to create pipelines for high-paying jobs in demand. Aicha hopes to make House District 109 a beacon of opportunity for all. 

In recent years, Texas has seen our emergency rooms targeted with cyber attacks and shuttered by power outages causing havoc and harming patients in critical emergency situations. In response, Aicha passed a law that will require emergency rooms to submit a written plan to the Health and Human Services Commission explaining their protocols to reroute patients and maintain emergency services in the event of a cyber attack or power outage. 

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson was an icon and a giant upon whose shoulders I stand. She represented our community for 50 years serving in the Texas House, Texas Senate, and the United States Congress where she diligently built up North Texas into the economic powerhouse we are today. Aicha is the author of the Eddie Bernice Johnson Memorial Highway Act which designates a portion of US 67 as the Eddie Bernice Johnson Memorial Highway. Congresswoman Johnson didn’t just blaze a trail, she paved the road — and now every time someone drives down this stretch of highway, they’ll be reminded of that fact. 

Aicha worked with the Speaker of the House, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor to award a Texas Enterprise Grant to John Paul Mitchell Systems which secured the relocation of their corporate headquarters from California to Wilmer, bringing new high-paying jobs and over $12 million in local capital investments to House District 109. Aicha passed an amendment to the state budget that brought a million dollars to Cedar Hill to begin the addition of a Senior Activity Wing to the Alan E. Sims Recreation Center. Aicha has supported other investments in the state budget that will funnel millions of dollars in workforce training, new schools, better roads and bridges, and safer communities right here in our district. 

Childcare has become more costly and less available. The options are even fewer for first responders, healthcare professionals, and shift workers who don’t work a 9 to 5. These families are often served by home-based childcare providers — independent small businesses often owned and operated by women. Dozens of home-based childcare providers across the state risked closure due to red tape and burdensome regulations until implementation of a new law filed by Aicha Davis. This law cut red tape by implementing the state’s Childcare Licensing Division’s rigorous minimum care standards as the regulatory consistency across the state — ensuring high standards for child health and safety and giving childcare providers a uniform set of clear guidelines. By eliminating these duplicative burdens, dozens of businesses in Dallas county alone were able to keep their doors open to working families.