His reasons for running trace back to his roots, he said. Worku is an Ethiopian immigrant from a working-class family and first-generation college student. Issues facing families like his — including rising costs of living and difficulty affording homes — as well as a desire to push back against Republican actions at the federal level led him to enter the race, he said.

Republican incumbent faces challenger, Democrat uncontested for Texas House District 91

## About Yisak Worku

Degrees

Bachelor's, University of Texas, Computer Science

Yisak Worku | BallotReady

Yisak Worku is an Ethiopian immigrant. He earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Texas.

Republican incumbent faces challenger, Democrat uncontested for ...

Yisak Worku earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Texas at Dallas.

Texas House of Representatives District 91 - Ballotpedia

Yisak Worku has experience working as a political activist.

Yisak is a first-time candidate for political office.

2026 Texas General Election

Worku believes in raising taxes on corporations to fund cheaper energy and better transportation, he said.

“We tax them, we use that money to build the infrastructure that they benefit from, and then they can profit off that,” he said.

Other issues central to the 23-year-old’s campaign are health care, education and immigration.

Advocates for protecting unions, organizing and strike rights, and ending right-to-work laws, anti-union training, and employee misclassification.

Calls for a $20 hourly minimum wage indexed to productivity.

## Wages / Job Benefits

Unions are the backbone of our economy. They provide a safety net for workers and a voice for workers. We need to protect unions and not destroy them. We must protect our right to organize, strike, and end right to work, anti union training, and employee to contractor misclassification. 

Our Minimum Wage is as low as a wage can be in this country. We need to raise the minimum wage to $20 an hour and index it to PRODUCTIVITY so were paid more as we do more.

Advocates for taxing corporations to fund infrastructure they use.

Advocates for taxing corporations to fund cheaper energy and better transportation.

- Advocates for taxing corporations to fund cheaper energy and better transportation.

Economy

Calls for medical and social workers to take a larger role in responding to crime, addiction, homelessness, and mental-health crises.

## Criminal Justice / Public Safety

Policing is not about upping arrest stats to pad the count or meeting ticketing quotas. It is about a prepared member of our community who comes to assist in a time of crisis. WE have seen that far too often our police represent an antiquated form of emergency response that was not designed with todays problems in mind. We are no longer in the high crime 80s and 90s, we are in a homeless, drug addiction and mental health crisis nationwide.

It is time for medical and social workers to take center stage in fighting the crimes we see today.

Advocates for decriminalizing drug possession and establishing science-based drug regulation.

## Drug Policy

Drug possession makes up between 70k to 100k arrests a year, many times the rate of sale and manufacture arrests. Instead of working to help and protect those with addiction we send them to a brutal and abused criminal justice system just to fill up our for profit prisons. We must decriminalize drug possession and move to standardized and formal regulation based on science back backed risk assessments.

As of July 22, 2026, Yisak Worku’s website did not contain information on this issue.

Public Safety

Supports protecting abortion access through viability and access to contraception.

## Abortion / Contraception

Women have the right to choose. We need to protect this right and not destroy it. We need to ensure that women have access to safe and effective contraception and abortion services. Starting a family is a choice a miscarage is not, rape is not, child pregnacy is not. So the right to abortion must be protected through viability without question.

Advocates for expanding Medicaid to increase healthcare access for low-income households.

## Healthcare

Medicaid is in an abysmal state. It is underfunded and inaccessible to many. We need to expand Medicaid so low income households can access the care they need in the short term and fix our over priced and under effective healthcare system in the long term.

Healthcare

He believes the state should expand Medicaid. He also opposes private school vouchers.

“Improvements I would like to see for a public education system comes in the form of reduced class sizes and increased teacher counts, but that’s going to require more funding, more taxation. Increased teacher pay — more funding, more taxation,” he said.

Regarding his approach to governance, Worku said he wants to say yes as much as he can because the government has operated too slowly to address problems.

## Education

Public Education is core to giving our kids a chance to do better and reach higher than we ever could. Attempts to paywall better education behind private/charter schools with selective and exclusionary admissions is unacceptable. All students deserve to succeed, not just a lucky few! We must oppose school vouchers and instead of pulling away money from our schools, we must invest into their universal success. Starting Teacher Pay in western DFW alone can vary by 20k depending on isd. In Tarrant county there are multiple starting pay discrepancies between neighboring districts of around 5k. And still on the high end of pay teachers are still just barely above cost of living in their area. It is only after 20 to 30 years of work that some teachers approach the average wage of where they live. Teaching is no less important than any other kind of work and teachers must be paid no less than the median salary in their district starting.

Opposes school vouchers and calls for investing in public schools instead.

## Education

Public Education is core to giving our kids a chance to do better and reach higher than we ever could. Attempts to paywall better education behind private/charter schools with selective and exclusionary admissions is unacceptable. All students deserve to succeed, not just a lucky few! We must oppose school vouchers and instead of pulling away money from our schools, we must invest into their universal success.

Advocates for increased public-school funding to reduce class sizes, hire more teachers, and raise teacher pay.

- Advocates for increased public-school funding to reduce class sizes, hire more teachers, and raise teacher pay.

Education

Calls for state funding to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from water and increase consumer reporting and transparency.

## Environment / Energy

Water is core to life and having clean, affordable, safe water for all is the bare minimum. In spite of this obvious truth, water infrastructure in this state is below par. Moving forward the state must move to fund the removing of PFAS from our water and increase reporting and transparency to consumers.

Advocates for expanding solar and wind energy to reduce electricity costs and support infrastructure and local economies.

## Environment / Energy

Water is core to life and having clean, affordable, safe water for all is the bare minimum. In spite of this obvious truth, water infrastructure in this state is below par. Moving forward the state must move to fund the removing of PFAS from our water and increase reporting and transparency to consumers.
Green Energy is now cheap and abundant and will only be more so moving forward. We must take advantage of our plentiful sun and wind to build the cheapest electricity in the nation. This cheap energy will be the back bone of our infrastructure revival allowing us to reshore jobs and build strong local economies.

We Should have never been valuable to the power outages of 2021. It was a mass failure of the state and it only happened because of a desire to avoid the regulation joining the other grids would have meant for the energy sector. These companies enabled by lawmakers abandoned and price gouged us at a critical moment. Never Again Join the Grid!

Calls for Texas to join other electricity grids.

Energy & the Environment

Voting & Elections

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Yisak Worku

Yisak Worku's campaign for Texas State Representative, District 91, is his first entry into politics.

Yisak Worku, Democratic candidate for Texas House District 91

For Candidate Yisak Worku on Issue economy: Supports raising taxes on corporations to fund cheaper energy and better transportation infrastructure.

For Candidate Yisak Worku on Issue healthcare:  
Supports expanding Medicaid.

Opposes private school vouchers and advocates for increased funding, reduced class sizes, and higher teacher pay in public education.

Yisak Worku's campaign for Texas State Representative, District 91 is his first entry into politics.

Buket Urgen

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- Your state representative represents the interests of your local district in the Texas House of Representatives. The State House of Representatives, along with the State Senate, makes up your state lawmaking body: the Texas State Legislature
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