A Texas judge has temporarily reinstated rules for the state’s Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) Program. This means women and minority-owned business owners can qualify for the state’s program—for now.
The judge’s ruling comes after several business owners and a trade association sued the state of Texas and acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock over emergency rules that removed women and minorities from the HUB program. The plaintiffs also sued the state for stripping them of their HUB certifications.
According to the Texas Tribune, the judge ordered the reinstatement of six businesses that sued the Comptroller’s office over the emergency rules.
State lawmakers passed bipartisan legislation during the 1990s to boost minority- and women-owned businesses seeking state contracts. While the program does not set quotas for the number of HUB-certified businesses, it sets goals that state agencies have strived to meet.
The plaintiffs include businesses in the Houston area, one in the Fort Worth region, and the greater Houston chapter of the National Association of Minority Contactors, a non-profit trade association representing 155 minority- and women-owned contractors. In addition to Hancock, the lawsuit names the leaders of the Texas Department of Transportation, Texas Health and Human Services Commission, and the Texas Facilities Commission.
The plaintiffs argue that all these departments implemented Hancock’s changes to the HUB program.
HUB Program In Texas
According to the Comptroller’s Office, HUB businesses received 3,634 contracts totaling more than $4 billion in 2024. While GOP state lawmakers pushed for legislation to kill the HUB Program entirely, the bill failed in both chambers.
In October, Hancock announced that his office would not issue new certifications or renewals while the program was under review.
The move coincided with the Trump administration’s policies of ending diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Hancock’s office took things a step further by citing emergency powers to restructure the program, removing all women and minority businesses, and limiting the eligibility to service-disabled veteran business owners.
“In this country, the legislature passes the laws, not the comptroller, and Texas is no different,” Alphonso David, president & CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum, and lead counsel for the plaintiffs, wrote in a statement. “Acting Comptroller Hancock took a program created by statute and rewrote it without any legal authority. His actions are baseless and unlawful and must be reversed.”
Travis County District Judge Amy Meachum set a trial date for the suit on Nov. 9.
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