A dispute over a 2019 Texas constitutional amendment has become a campaign issue between Gov. Greg Abbott and his Democratic challenger, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, as early voting approaches. In an interview Tuesday, Hinojosa denied Abbott’s claim that she voted against making a state income tax harder to enact. Legislative records show she voted against House Joint Resolution 38, the measure that changed the process for approving such a tax. “I voted against a repeal of a constitutional ban on an income tax,” Hinojosa said, arguing that Texas already had a constitutional prohibition. The 2019 amendment, however, did not simply preserve the earlier arrangement: it required a two-thirds vote in both legislative chambers before a proposed income tax could go to voters. Reversing the change would also require a two-thirds legislative vote before a statewide referendum. Before the amendment, an earlier provision known as the Bullock Amendment allowed a simple majority of lawmakers to send an income-tax proposal to voters. The 2019 measure tightened that threshold. Texas voters approved it in November 2019, with 76% in favor and 24% opposed, according to the reported election results. Abbott said he supported the amendment to make adoption of a state income tax more difficult. He accused Hinojosa of wanting to preserve the possibility that a simple legislative majority could put one before voters. Hinojosa has previously spoken in favor of income taxes as one potential source of state revenue. In a 2016 interview, before she joined the Legislature, she said Texas relied too heavily on property taxes and lacked the “third leg” of a resilient economy that an income tax could provide. Asked Tuesday about those remarks, she said she had since concluded that corruption in the system, rather than the absence of an income tax, was the real reason for high property taxes. The exchange comes six days before early voting is scheduled to begin, with election week about three weeks away. The disagreement centers on both the record of the 2019 vote and what that vote means for the state’s future tax policy.