By Bill Ingram with Riley Ingram
Garland, TX – Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) has spent most of her adult life fighting on behalf of those who sometimes struggle to have their voices heard. She has served as a public defender, a civil rights attorney a Texas State Representative and is currently representing Texas’ 30th Congressional District in the US House. Now she has set her sights on the US Senate seat Republican John Cornyn has occupied since 2002. She believes her ability to communicate effectively and speak to real issues gives her an edge in a crowded field of candidates.
“Democrats are always trying to dissect why we’re losing or why we’re not winning demographics that we used to win,” Crockett said in an exclusive interview with The Garland Gazette. “I think at some point we got more impressed with talking to each other rather than talking to the people that we serve. It may be the lawyer in me, I got into politics because I was frustrated with what’s going on, I never wanted to be someone who frustrated my constituency. As someone who was a business major and did marketing while I was in law school, I’ve had to communicate with jurors and convince them, sometimes to save a client’s life, I see the benefit of building a rapport with people. It starts with being honest and plainspoken.”
Democrats have a notoriously hard time winning elections in Texas despite the fact that four of the five largest cities in the state – Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin – are solidly Blue. Crockett believes the key to victory is focusing on the things that we all have in common.
“It’s important to focus on the things that connect us all. Financially, we’re all a little uncertain. When it comes to our democracy, we’re all scratching our heads and wondering if it still exists. When we look at the state-sanctioned killings that are taking place, I think we should all be quite livid with what’s going on. Republicans have been aggressive in ways that we’ve never seen in our lifetimes. We’ve only studied some of this stuff in history. I’ve seen people, even recently, one of the Republicans who was running to be Governor of Minnesota said he doesn’t recognize his own Party and pulled out of that race. I received emails from people like that before I got into the race, saying, ‘This is just not my Party. I may not agree with you on everything, but I believe in you. I can see that you honestly believe in the things that you’re fighting for.’ I think that’s what it’s going to take.”
Crockett also sees the extreme unpopularity of many Republican policies changing the political landscape across the country and sees a path forward where there may not have been one previously.
“The Republican environment is just so incredibly bad,” says Crockett. “When you look at Miami and the fact that they flipped that mayoral race, I asked some of my colleagues what they did in Miami, it’s been 30 years. They said Republicans basically just stayed home. I think it may be more realistic to think that Republicans will say they can’t vote for their Party, but they can’t vote for Democrats. In Texas, being a Republican is more of an identity for them than anything. Some people may realize they can’t keep voting for their own demise, but they’re not necessarily going to cross over and vote for a Democrat. For the first time since the 90s Democrats have every state house race filled. We often have more than 40% of the races unfielded. Democrats have begun to consistently talk to voters, talk about Democratic issues, and for us it’s going to be important to note who we are as Texans right now.”
Crockett also believes she may have an advantage in this race because she can speak to and for people who often fail to see themselves on the ballot come election time.
“The plurality of the state is Latino, 41% of the state,” Crockett explains. “When we look at who’s voting, it’s Blacks and Latinos who aren’t voting. I actually think it’s a superpower that I am Black and a woman in this particular race in this particular state, especially since we anticipate that women will outvote men and I clearly do well with women. Also, knowing that two million people of color who are registered to vote did not vote at all in the last election, 700,000 of them being African-American, I think that expansion just has to be the name of the game. We continuously lose in Texas because we say we’re just going to get crossover voters, but we don’t go and get people who don’t normally vote to vote for us. We just spin our wheels, and they either vote for the Republican or they just don’t vote at all. We need to start talking to the people that no one’s ever talking to.”
Crockett is one of a growing number of politicians who have pledged not to take corporate money, making her a true representative of her constituents rather than beholden to big-money interests. She admits getting money out of politics is a steep hill to climb.
“It’s tough. Republicans aren’t interested whatsoever, but depending on the Democrat, many aren’t interested, either,” says Crockett “I’m very focused there. To be perfectly honest, there are very rich people funding campaigns and it’s a large part of why a number of the key issues never get solved. I think we’d be in a better position if we got that under control. I know there are organizations like Act Blue that work against corporate interests, but we even put language in the Freedom to Vote act that would limit corporate money, but it passed the House and didn’t get out of the Senate. Same thing with the Voting Rights Expansion Act. We definitely need to change the numbers in the Senate to make some of these fundamental changes and this is just one of those things that just has to be added onto an omnibus to get it done because there are so many other things in there that everybody wants.”
Texas is a largely Conservative state, but with the Republican Party abandoning fiscal conservatism there is room to expand that discussion to embrace many social issues that people care deeply about.
“I can identify with being a social liberal and a fiscal conservative,” acknowledges Crockett. “We have to start thinking about saving some money and where we spend our dollars, but I believe in investing the dollars more so into the people, the taxpayers, than where a lot of the money goes, which is into individual’s pockets. I talk about how offended people are that people get six dollars a day to eat with SNAP benefits, but they’re not offended that someone like Elon Musk gets eight million dollars a day from our federal government. This is about our priorities.”
Unlike a lot of politicians, Crockett has inspired young people who may not pay much attention to politics to start engaging with the process. Those young people have, in turn, inspired and empowered Crockett in her drive to make the world a better place.
“It’s incredibly important,” admits Crockett. “You know, when I got into this I never really imagined that my name would become known. Most people can’t name five members of the US House and there are 435 members, so I never imagined that people would know who I am. When I would travel the country, whether it was with Vice President Kamala Harris or others, I would receive friendship bracelets that were made by little girls whose moms brought them to rallies. Seeing that itty bitty girls had written notes for me and made me things made me reflect upon the importance of presentation and why it’s important that I stay in this fight. Not forever, that’s for sure, but to make sure that I preserve something for the next generation to participate in and fight for. One of the things that I tell young people is that I’m fighting for their future. Half of my life has already passed me by, this isn’t about me. It’s about what’s available for you. I understand that I’m still only the fourth Black woman to ever be elected to the US House from Texas. I was only the 22nd Black woman to ever get elected to the Texas House. I carry that with me every single day when I’m thinking about young girls who are looking and watching. I don’t know what people who came before me were thinking, but I know it was a lot more difficult for them, that they faced death threats, that they were doing things that they had not seen before, but it didn’t stop them. They didn’t make excuses.”
Crockett also sees it as part of her mission to get young people involved with the process, whether that means running for office or using their strengths to participate in other ways.
“I think it’s important to keep young people engaged and inspired if this is something they think they want to do,” says Crockett. “I’ve always had a very young staff, as far as interns and all kinds of stuff, because I didn’t have these opportunities. I felt like it was super important for me to give young people access to things I didn’t have. I still arrived where I am, but I can’t even imagine how far I might have gone if someone was making these opportunities available. I tell kids to follow their hearts and make sure it’s about the work that they seek and not the title. The work should lead you to the position, not the other way around. Maybe that work leads you to something else, like the fund raiser, the volunteer, the organizer, there are so many roles, but this Democracy belongs to all of us. It’s important that we all figure out where our place is and pursue it.”
It certainly seems that Jasmine Crockett has found her place and won’t be deterred in her efforts to represent the people who put their political futures in her capable hands.
The Garland Gazette has reached out to the campaigns of James Talarico, John Cornyn, and Ken Paxton.
