A judge has sided against the state after acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock stripped women- and minority-owned businesses of their Historically Underutilized Business certifications in December.
An Austin district judge on Monday temporarily blocked Texas’ removal of women and minorities from the state’s Historically Underutilized Business program.
Four business owners and a trade association sued the state of Texas and acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock on March 2 over the agency’s emergency rules that removed women and minorities from the HUB program and stripped their businesses of their HUB certifications. The temporary injunction on Monday blocked the emergency rules and re-instituted the plaintiffs’ certifications.
The HUB program was created through bipartisan legislation during the 1990s to give minority- and women-owned businesses a leg up when seeking state contracts. The program does not set quotas for the the number of HUB-certified businesses, but sets goals that state agencies generally strive to meet…