The Greater Houston chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors (NAMC), together with four Texas-based contractors, have sued the State of Texas, following the suspension of the Texas Historically Underutilized Business (HUB) program by acting Comptroller Kelly Hancock in October of 2025, and Hancock's subsequent issusance of "emergency rules" in December of 2025 restricting the HUB program to service-disabled veteran-owned businesses and renaming it the VetHUB program.
The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary injunction against Hancock's rulings and for the HUB program to be reinstated as originally set out by the Legislature until a ruling in the lawsuit is issued, meaning (if the court ordered the reinstatement) that minority- and woman-owned businesses would once again be eligible for certification under the HUB program. The plaintiffs argue that Hancock had no authority to modify a program that was created by an act of the state Legislature. Part of the lawsuit states that Comptroller "the Comptroller threw out entire provisions of the statute [creating the HUB program] and effectively wholesale rewrote them."
Hancock, in announcing the order freezing the HUB program, pointed to "compliance with the U.S. Constitution, Texas Constitution and Gov. Greg Abbott's Executive Order GA-55" as the rationale for the freeze in October. In a statement responding to the lawsuit, Hancock made reference to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023 ending affirmative action in college admissions, as well as Abbot's executive order. The lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs argues that under the Texas constitution's separation-of-powers framework, no state agency (such as the Comptroller) has the authority to decide the constitutionality of any statutes, and cannot override the Legislature's creation of laws.
Texas State Senator Royce West, who co-authored the legislation creating the HUB program in the Legislature in 1999, was quoted as saying: "The Comptroller doesn’t get to override [the legislation creating the HUB program] because he disagrees with it - that’s not his role under the Texas Constitution[.]"
Read more about the suspension of the HUB program and its reimplementation as the VetHUB program last year at https://dbegoodfaith.com/item.php?item_type=news&news_id=2533 and at https://dbegoodfaith.com/item.php?item_type=news&news_id=2536.
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