One of the members of the Harris County, Texas governing body stood alone in rejecting a guaranteed income program, arguing that the $20 million that was used for the program should've been redirected somewhere else.

"I'm an engineer with 40-something years experience, working with 20 counties in Texas, 50 cities in Texas. And what I do know is $20 million could have been taken to any underserved neighborhood in Harris County and would have been helpful for [15 to 20,000] people — ten times as many people could have been helped," Tom Ramsey of Precinct 3 told Fox News Digital.

The guaranteed income program called Uplift Harris, which passed the Harris County Commissioners Court by a 4-1 vote last year, was funded with $20.5 million from the federal American Rescue Plan Act. Houston, the largest city in Texas, makes up most of Harris County's population.

The Harris County Commissioners Court is an elected body of four policymaking actors and the county judge that meets bi-weekly to serve Harris County, Texas. The county judge serves as the county's chief executive officer.

SAN FRANCISCO SUED OVER GUARANTEED-INCOME PROGRAMS BLASTED BY CRITICS AS RACIST

Last week, the commissioners were reportedly looking to revive Uplift Harris after it was struck down by the Texas Supreme Court.

Harris County officials met to discuss reviving the program, but would place some spending restrictions on participants. The proposed restrictions were to limit the funds to approved spending categories, a move that Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said should prevent any legal challenges against the program.

The Harris County Commissioners Court last week brought up two options for reviving Uplift Harris. One of them is re-enrolling participants with a debit card and placing stricter restrictions on spending, according to Houston Public Media.

Many of the members of the Commissioners Court supported this option, the Houston Landing reported.

"The second option would require requiring a new application and selection process, as well as a new vendor to operate the program," according to the outlet.

The new program has not been approved yet. The commissioners will discuss details about the proposed revisions to Uplift Harris further at the next scheduled Commissioners Court meeting, a spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

Ramsey added that the data does not show that guaranteed income programs work.

"They don't change anything. You look at the data in terms of where they are two years later, three years later, it hadn't happened," he said.

JUDGE PUTS PAUSE ON ST. LOUIS GUARANTEED INCOME PROGRAM THAT PAYS POOR FAMILIES $500 A MONTH

A recent survey showed that Austin, Texas' guaranteed income program helped address the problem of housing insecurity in the city. Austin’s city council in April approved a $1.3-million contract to keep its guaranteed income program running after it launched in 2022.

Some studies have shown that the pilots have produced positive results, Fox News Digital previously reported. 

However, some of these programs face funding and legal challenges, including a guaranteed income program in St. Louis that was halted due to a court order last month.

The effort to revive Uplift Harris came after the Texas Supreme Court issued a ruling in June that prohibited Harris County from operating the program. 

The court raised "serious doubt" about the constitutional merits of the program. 

Uplift Harris was never able to distribute the funds due to the court order. It would have distributed $500 per month for 18 months to selected participants, The program started on Jan. 12, and enrolled over 1,900 applicants among a pool of more than 85,000 applications. 

The Texas Supreme Court's ruling on Uplift Harris came after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit arguing that Uplift Harris is "plainly unconstitutional." Paxton's lawsuit stemmed from Republican State Sen. Paul Bettencourt urging the attorney general to review Uplift Harris' constitutional merits. 

Ramsey, the only Republican in the Harris County Commissioners Court, argued further that his fellow Harris County commissioners are trying to "sidestep" the attorney general's concerns about the program.

"All they're trying to do is sidestep the attorney general's concerns related to it," Ramsey said.

He continued, "I'm glad he did it. I hope he's paying attention. I'll hope he'll engage at this point and see it for what it is. But, I don't think any of my concerns have been addressed in terms of who is being considered and the big scope of it. Twenty million dollars could change a neighborhood for 50 years."

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In response to Harris County Commissioners Court efforts to revive Uplift Harris, Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee told Fox News Digital that the "current program is legal."

"The county may create a new program with spending restrictions to address politically charged challenges brought by Republican officials. It is my hope that this new program will not bring another lawsuit from the AG, and allow Harris County residents to receive much needed relief," Menefee told Fox News Digital.

Menefee previously defended the program against Paxton's lawsuit, arguing that the Texas Constitution contains existing state statutes enabling counties to issue cash assistance that serves a "public purpose designed to benefit the entire county."

It’s all about the vibe. 

A word not usually associated with presidential politics — more with late night parties and a bong — is now the only thing that matters. At least if you’re Kamala Harris. 

She’s on the cover of Time — with an admiring sketch that makes it look like she’s already president — because of "the swiftest vibe shift in American political history." 

DESPITE RUNNING MATE’S ULTRA-LIBERAL RECORD, MOST OF THE MEDIA JUMP ON THE WALZ-WAGON

Is that all it takes to win? It doesn’t hurt that the vice president has surged in the polls, raised truckloads of cash, become a cultural phenomenon, had a relatively successful rollout of Tim Walz, and will get a further bump from the Democratic convention. 

But after that, will it prove to be a sugar high? Will her numbers slide back to where they were in the face of Republican attacks?

For the time being, at least, Donald Trump seems off balance, his attacks on Harris aren’t sticking, and he openly pines for Joe Biden after spending years preparing to run against the frail 81-year-old president. 

What’s more, with Biden bowing out, Trump, at 78, is now the old man in the race. And many of the pundits who spent their time defending Biden’s mental acuity have now flipped into arguing that Trump is just losing it.

I thought he disproved that in his hour-long press conference, though he does have a tendency to ramble. It reminded me of our recent Mar-a-Lago interview, when he was sharp and serious across at least 15 topics.

But the media, which have been largely anti-Trump for nine years, trashed the presser. "Wackadoodle," said HuffPost. "Unhinged," said Rolling Stone.

Still, how did it help him to say that his inaugural crowd was as big or bigger than for MLK’s famous 1963 "dream" speech?

The former president was widely ridiculed for saying at the news conference that he once endured a helicopter emergency landing with Willie Brown, after the ex-Kamala boyfriend denied it. But it turns out there was an emergency landing–with another black politician from California. He had mixed up the names.

IN BATTLE TO DEFINE HARRIS, TRUMP HITS DEMOCRATIC COUP, AD CALLS HER 'DANGEROUSLY LIBERAL'

Trump has always run as the strongman, the fighter, the leader of a movement, one who transformed the party from its Reaganite roots. Has Harris made it safe for wobbly Republicans and independents who don’t like his conduct to find in her a safe harbor? 

Allies are pleading with him to be more focused, including two former top Trump aides, Larry Kudlow and Kellyanne Conway. On Fox Business, Kudlow asked this about his ex-boss: "Don’t wander off, don’t call her stupid and all kinds of names, stay on message?"

"The winning formula for President Trump," said Conway, "is very plain to see. It’s fewer insults, more insights, and that policy contrast."

In a two-hour conversation with Elon Musk on X, plagued by technical glitches, Trump said the Time cover sketch of Harris "looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live" and that she very much resembled Melania. He circled back to call Kamala "a beautiful woman." (Musk says that traffic peaked at 73 million views.)

One result of Trump’s media blitz is that it prompted Harris to finally take substantive questions from her press corps (this is after her 70-second gaggle with brief, clipped answers). He is running against a media establishment that is treating Harris like a queen.

I’m not taking anything away from Harris and the shrewd way she’s handled the last three weeks. Having watched several of her TV interviews while Biden was still running, I told people she had improved tremendously from the hesitant and hyper-cautious speaker of the early days.

But the mainstream press hasn’t made an issue of Harris’ refusal to sit for a single interview, despite constantly criticizing Biden for avoiding the media. She just brushes it off by saying hopefully by the end of the month. Yet Trump and JD Vance have hammered the issue so hard that journalists have been forced to cover the controversy, framing it as "Republicans accuse Harris" when it should also be part of their job.  

The former president said he would be less divisive after barely surviving that horrendous assassination attempt, but he soon announced he was abandoning the approach–a classic Trumpian pattern. He called Harris dumb as a rock and questioned her racial identity before the National Association of Black Journalists. 

TRUMP VS. NABJ: HOSTILITY AND QUESTIONS ABOUT JOURNALISM

Trump also said the Harris camp was using AI to fake large crowds at the Detroit airport, when wider shots proved there was an audience of thousands. 

And perhaps he was rattled by what he says was an illegal hacking, with internal documents sent to three outlets – Politico, Washington Post and New York Times – which have declined to publish the material.

"I absolutely HATE the Fake News Media," he posted after the Musk chat.

But keep in mind: Trump has a much easier path to 270 and may well win. Harris is drawing new supporters but also losing among some demographics that favored Biden. She has to be considered the underdog. She has to deal with her policy flip-flops and persuade voters that the first black female president and Asian-American president would be a plausible commander in chief. 

One sign that’s no longer unthinkable: Politico has a piece on how "progressive national security professionals already are angling for positions in a possible Kamala Harris administration."

The Time cover piece is overwhelmingly upbeat. Her excitement "resembled the early days of Barack Obama…She seems matched to the moment: a former prosecutor running against a convicted felon."

And: "Harris’ brand shift—the happy-warrior attitude, the viral memes, the eye roll at Republican ‘weirdos’—has already done what no Trump opponent has ever been able to do: snatch the spotlight away from him."

We’ll see how far the new vibe can take her.