Democracy in Texas: Beto O’Rourke
June 1st, 2023
“We're in this fight for life – there are no sidelines in democracy.”
Beto O’Rourke is a fourth-generation Texan, the former US Representative of Texas’s 16th Congressional district, the Democratic Party’s nominee for the U.S. Senate in 2018, and the Democratic nominee for the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election. He is also the author of We've Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible.
We discuss the outsized importance of Texas politics for the nation. Republicans have relied on winning Texas’s electoral college votes to clinch presidential races. However, even without investment from the Democratic party, the trend over the last three presidential elections is improving for Democratic candidates. Texas is currently the hardest state in which to vote and to register to vote. Broad and consistent participation from citizens is vital to changing the status quo. The fight for democracy goes on forever and no victory is ever final.
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Credits:
Host: Mila Atmos
Guest: Beto O’Rourke
Executive Producer: Mila Atmos
Producers: Zack Travis & Sara Burningham
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Beto O'Rourke Transcript
Mila Atmos: [00:00:34] Welcome to Future Hindsight, a podcast that takes big ideas about civic life and democracy and turns them into action items for you and me. I'm Mila Atmos.
For many years now, we've heard that Texas holds the key to the future of American democracy. But in a state that's adopted ever more extreme gun laws and abortion bans, that future looks kind of bleak. When we had Cecile Richards on, she told us that we cannot abandon Texas. But is Texas abandoning its citizens?
Joining us today is Beto O'Rourke. A fourth generation Texan, he's the former US representative of Texas's 16th Congressional District, and prior to that served on El Paso's City Council. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for the US Senate in 2018, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, and the Democratic nominee for the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election. He's also the author of We've Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible, which came out in August of 2022 in the midst of his race for governor.
Welcome to Future Hindsight. Thank you so much for coming back on the show.
Beto O'Rourke: [00:01:54] Mila, it's good to be back with you. Thanks for having me on.
Mila Atmos: [00:01:57] So let's get straight to it. Why is Texas important?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:02:03] Texas is important for some very obvious reasons. We now have, thanks to our population growth, 40 Electoral College votes, which means that our state will decide likely the outcome of presidential elections in the very foreseeable future. For a very long time, ever since the 1980 presidential election, Texas has been reliably red. Republican nominees for the presidency have always been able to count on it.
But an interesting thing has happened over the last ten years or so without much investment or involvement from the National Democratic Party, this state has moved ever closer towards the blue column. So in 2016, for example, you saw Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vastly outperform Barack Obama's 2012 performance in 2020. You saw then Vice President Joe Biden outperform Secretary Clinton's performance. This is the natural trend tendency incline of the state of Texas without investment. You look at what happened in a state like Georgia, a third of the size of the state of Texas, which received probably ten times the investment and involvement from the national party and large dollar Democratic donors. And you see what's possible. Joe Biden won the Electoral College there in 2020, and you had two stunning upset Senate victories in 2021 and then another one in 2022. And if Republicans can no longer count on the 40 Electoral College votes of this state, they do not have a viable path for the presidency for just about ever. Now, that's the immediate opportunity.
The even bigger, longer term opportunity, Mila, is what this state represents for American democracy. This is in essence, what your show has been about, and it's why I'm one of your devoted listeners and why I think we share a common cause in making sure that this country can meet this moment where democracy and the right to vote is under attack unlike any time in our lifetimes. It is harder to vote right now in the state of Texas than it is in any other state in the Union. That means my 30 million fellow citizens are living in something that is not quite a democracy. When you have lines to vote that stretch six, seven, eight hours long; when you've had more polling place closures than any other state; when you have voter ID laws that allow you to use your license to carry a firearm to prove your identity at the polling place--but not your student ID to do the same; when you have one ballot drop off location per county--including in counties like Harris, home to Houston, which has more people in it than the state of Nevada; when you have a racial gerrymander of our congressional districts, not my words, but the words of a Republican dominated federal judiciary who threw back the badly drawn
districts in 2017, you begin to appreciate what we are up against in the state of Texas. Not only are we the site of the greatest ongoing attacks on democracy in America, but we have been the place where those attacks have occurred before. You look back 100 years ago to the white primary, which was instituted in Texas in 1923, that forbade any voter participation by African Americans in the state of Texas for more than 21 years. Some of the worst occurrences of Jim Crow.
We may be the site of the worst crimes against democracy, but we are also the place that has produced the heroes who have always overcome it. In my hometown of El Paso, Dr. Lawrence Nixon rose up against that white primary in 1923 and eventually overcame it. Ultimately, in the Supreme Court decision Smith versus Allwright that laid the ground for another great Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson, to a 1965, signed the Voting Rights Act into law, which created the first true multiracial democracy in American history. That all came from Texas, though the greatest attacks are taking place right here in this state. I think the greatest hope also exists in Texas right now. And that's why we need everyone not only to pay attention to what's going on in Texas, but to help this fight because it benefits not just those who are living here, but by extension, everyone in this country.
Mila Atmos: [00:06:47] Do you think that importance is really being seen and taken seriously by your own party at the national level? And what do you wish non-Texans and national politicians would pay attention to?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:07:00] In a word, no. National Democrats have no clue about Texas. I wish they would. I mentioned how tenuous our democracy is in Texas. But Mila, you know that it's under attack in a very precarious position in this country at large. Though the insurrection was repelled on the 6th of January 2021, and Joe Biden's lawful, legitimate, democratically decided election was certified, that insurrection is still rolling through statehouses across this country, and nowhere more so than in the state of Texas, where they are in session right now in our state legislature, continuing to try to change our election laws to make it even harder to vote and not harder for all people to vote, but especially young people, Black people, brown people and those increasingly with disabilities in this state.
If our party stands for democracy, which I believe the Democrats do, ever since John Lewis crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965, and then LBJ followed suit with the introduction of the Voting Rights Act in that same month of March of '65. If that's what we stand for, then we've got to make our stand here in this state. The progress that the Democratic nominee for president has made without lifting a finger in this state over the last ten years with a little investment, as Georgia showed us, and a lot of hard work as Stacey Abrams proved, we can win this state.
But Mila, you know who is taking this seriously? That's the Republicans. So they see what's coming. They read the same trends that I read. They see the same thing that I see across the 254 counties of this state. And they're not taking it lying down. That is why they have imposed the most awful series of voter suppression and intimidation laws seen anywhere in America since the era of Jim Crow. With the neutering of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, with the Shelby decision, Texas was first in line literally minutes after that Supreme Court decision to make it the hardest place to vote and to register, to vote, to participate in our politics and to be engaged in civic life. And they did that -- Republicans -- not because they hate democracy. I think that was just collateral damage, perhaps in their mind, if they thought about it at all. But it was their attempt to retain, to hold on to, and to grow their power. That's why you see people outside of Texas Southern University waiting six, seven, eight hours to vote. Imagine the number who can't afford to do so because of the jobs they're working. The folks are taking care of the children that they're raising, the indignity that they don't want to have to suffer. And now in this last election in 2022, they have begun removing polling places from colleges like Texas A&M University, one of the largest institutions of higher learning in this country because they fear what young people will do.
So we are taking this seriously here in Texas. We would love the rest of this country, including the Biden administration, the Department of Justice, to take it as seriously as we do.
Mila Atmos: [00:10:15] Yeah, well, you just said that Texas is the hardest state to vote in and to register to vote, which is true. And it has a really long history, which you write about in your book, and you argue that this is deeply ingrained to who we are as a nation. I'd love for you to tell us about the 1886 election from the prologue in your book and how it relates to today.
Beto O'Rourke: [00:10:40] There were a series of what were called at the time election outrages in Texas in the 1880s, so long after Reconstruction had ended with the great compromise or great capitulation that brought it to a close. There were still African American officeholders in the state of Texas. In fact, the first Black sheriff elected to any county in the United States of America was elected in Fort Bend County, just next to Harris County, home to Houston, Texas, in the 1860s. Half of the office holders in Fort Bend County were African American. By 1886, there and in Washington County, home to Brenham, Texas, you saw the continued rise of not just African American political power, but true small D democratic political power. We were really experiencing democracy for the first time in American history. Well, this was too much for the white nationalists in Texas at the time. And they began to violently organize through militias, intimidating tactics that tried to scare off Black voters, Black politicians, Black officeholders and Black candidates, and went so far in some cases, to actually steal the votes and the election outcomes in contested races and places like Washington County, or to engage in pitched militia battles in places like Fort Bend County, where all of the Black office holders were run out of office by the then governor of Texas, Sul Ross.
So these outrages make their way up to the United States Congress, where investigations ensue. And out of those investigations are proposed federal election laws that would ensure that the federal government oversees elections taking place in places like Texas or Mississippi or Louisiana or other places where the right to vote is threatened. The pro-democracy party at the time, which happened to be the Republicans, had a majority in the House of Representatives. They had one in the Senate. And Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, had run for the presidency on the promise to restore voting rights to African Americans. So this federal elections bill proposed in 1890 passes the House of Representatives is, by all accounts, set to pass the Senate when it is held up on the horns of a filibuster led by a Texas senator, perhaps not unlike the Texas junior senator that we have today in the United States Senate who says, "listen. To my colleagues in the Senate, let us," meaning the white men in power, "handle this state and the people who live in it by ourselves. We don't need your federal intervention or oversight." And Republicans at the time the pro- democracy party weak in the knees, not willing to have the courage of their convictions, blink. They balk. They step back. And the last best chance for voting rights in America dies. For 75 years, from 1890 to 1965, when the combination of John Lewis and other
civil rights marchers and heroes and LBJ were able to get that Voting Rights Act passed in 1965.
So, Mila, the way I see it, we're in this 1890 moment where there are all these documented outrages taking place across the United States of America. We up until recently had a pro-democracy party in control of every lever of government, the Democrats in the House and the Senate and the White House, many of whom, including the president, had campaigned on restoring voting rights to those who had had them deprived. And yet, though the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act has been written and passed the House, though the For the People Act had been written and passed the House, it was held up on the horns of a filibuster in the Senate. And our party from a distance, all the way back here in El Paso, seemingly failed to lift a finger to do anything to make sure that this last best hope while we still had a majority, would pass and restore these voting rights that had been taken from us in the 2013 Shelby decision. That leaves us where we are right now with a divided House and Senate, with nominally a pro-democracy president in power still but wanting for action and leadership, especially in places like Texas, where we have every opportunity to succeed and not just to the benefit of Democrats, although Democrats will certainly do better when more people can vote.
But, Mila, there's a reason that Texas has the most onerous laws on reproductive health care in the nation; why we lead the country in the maternal mortality crisis that is three times as deadly for Black women; why We lead the nation in school shootings; and why, nearly a year after the Uvalde massacre that claimed the lives of 19 kids and two teachers, nothing has been done to make it less likely to happen to any other child in this state. It's the reason why we don't have a functioning electricity grid, why we have more people who are uninsured than any other state in America. This isn't what the people of Texas want. This is a failure of democracy and it is literally killing the people of this state. So this is not theoretical. This is not the abstraction of democracy. This is the inability of people to govern themselves. And it is resulting in the loss of life all around me. And that is why I am so passionate about this. And while I generally am supportive of Democrats and I'm grateful for so much of the great work that Joe Biden has done as president, we desperately need leadership right now on this issue. If not, we're going to see even worse things happen in Texas and by extension, the rest of the country.
Mila Atmos: [00:16:40] Well, I think you're one of the very few people who connects the dots so clearly that what we're experiencing is a failure of democracy. And I think people just don't want to acknowledge that. I don't know. I think they just feel like, well, you know, we averted the crisis. Biden was elected and whatever happened on January 6th, we're moving on and it's going to be okay. But it's not. It's not going to be okay.
Mila Atmos: [00:17:06] We are going to take a quick break. And when we come back, Beto and I are going to talk about Texas as a battleground for civil rights.
But first. I've got a show you have to check out. It's Forum, from NPR member station KQED in San Francisco. In an increasingly divided world, hosts Alexis Madrigal and Mina Kim share conversations that inform, challenge and unify listeners with big ideas and different viewpoints. Every weekday Forum brings together remarkable people in conversation, all about the culture, art and news of the day happening around the country California and the San Francisco Bay Area telling true and noteworthy stories. Forum grapples with the problems that threaten to stump us and the ideas that inspire us. Find forum wherever you get podcasts or visit KQED.Org/Forum.
And now let's return to my conversation with Beto O'Rourke.
Mila Atmos: [00:18:08] You have been courageously outspoken about gun safety in the wake of El Paso and Uvalde. And as we tape this, parents of children killed in Uvalde were at the state capitol in Austin, making sobbing pleas for stricter gun control in a hearing that stretched from late night into the early hours. So much about this is horrifying. Their loss, the fact that they have to go and beg for change as common- sense bills languish in the legislature, and it feels totally disrespectful that they have to do this in the middle of the night. It's so hard not to feel hopeless about this. Where do we direct our anger and our grief when it comes to guns?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:18:53] Those Uvalde parents are my heroes, and they're the heroes of millions of their fellow Americans, probably millions of people around the world who would understand if those parents never wanted to show their faces in public again. If those parents had completely given up on a government that so badly failed them, not not just following the shooting, where they're still waiting for the details and
the facts and the truth about how their children were killed, still waiting for accountability for those in law enforcement in Uvalde, the state troopers who so badly failed them on that day. But the failures that preceded that day in May in Uvalde, when this state government knew after El Paso and Sutherland Springs and Santa Fe High School and Midland, Odessa and countless mass shootings in this state, that our gun laws were one of the contributing factors to the slaughter that we were witnessing. And those in power did nothing to prevent this totally predictable tragedy. And yet those parents have not given up on all of us. And in fact, they're confronting those in positions of public trust in the state capitol, making sure that they do everything they can out of the hope that their sacrifice, their service, their struggle will compel those leaders, Republicans and Democrats alike, to do the right thing.
And the things that they're asking for, Mila, are not, by any measure, out of bounds of the kind of middle of the road consensus positions that most Republicans and Democrats already agree on, like raising the age of purchase for an AR-15 to 21. Most of those parents, in fact, I don't know if I've heard any of them ask for a ban on an AR- 15 or the mandatory buyback of AR-15. Those are other positions that are out there that I happen to agree with. But maybe those aren't politically viable in Texas right now. What they're asking for is very viable. Raise the age to 21. You know, the kid who shot their children waited patiently till his 18th birthday to buy that AR-15 perfectly legally in Texas. He bought not one, but two of them, hundreds of rounds of ammunition. If the age was 21, we would have purchased a few more years for some possible intervention in that young man's life to prevent that disaster, an intervention like a red flag law, something else that they've been asking for that doesn't exist in Texas right now that might have prevented that shooting. The young man who killed those kids prior to walking into that elementary school was known by his friends as a quote unquote, school shooter, before he ever shot anybody in any kind of school. That's the kind of red flag that could have been brought to law enforcement that would have allowed them to go to his house, perhaps to remove those guns from his possession until we could determine whether or not he posed a threat to himself or to others. They're asking for things like a universal background check. You know, right now, if you go to a federally licensed gun store, you have to go through a background check. In Texas, most people understand that. They agree with that. They may not know, however, that in Texas, if you buy from a private seller from the back of someone's trunk, a neighbor of yours, a family member, whomever, there is no requirement to go through a background check.
So that could prevent unnecessary gun violence and gun deaths in our state. So these parents are the source of inspiration for me. They give me hope.
You know, you ask about who we should direct our anger towards. I think we should direct our action towards those in these positions of power. Right now in the state legislature who literally have it within their control to determine what our gun laws are going to be going forward, of whom we're asking, not the world and not the perfect, but the good. Three very common-sense consensus positions that most of us can get behind. Gun owners, non-gun owners alike, just all of us can agree on at least that much. And here's the final thing on this. I mentioned when we were talking about democracy in Texas, we were subject to 75 years of Jim Crow from 1890 to 1965 because those who purported to believe in democracy didn't stand up and do the right thing. But in those 75 years of darkness, there were people I mentioned, John Lewis and Dr. King and Septima Clark and a number of people, you know, hundreds of thousands of people who did the hard work, day in, and day out. They, over those 75 years made the Civil Rights Act of '64, the Voting Rights Act of '65 possible. It didn't happen in a cycle. It didn't happen over a single election. It wasn't attributable to one single person. It was a movement over years. And in that case, generations. I think restoring sanity to our gun laws in this country is a very similar struggle. And if we look at it in those long terms and don't become frustrated or give up if it doesn't happen right away, although it should, and instead take solace and inspiration from the example set by these Uvalde parents, by Shannon Watts of Moms Demand, of the countless heroes in this movement who are standing up right now before city councils and state legislatures, then I think we're going to understand that ultimately we are going to overcome and prevail, and we've just got to stick with it. And as Dr. Nixon, the protagonist, the hero of this book that I wrote last year called We've Got to Try, said, you can tell me I can't do it, but I've got to try. And they're telling us right now, we can't do this in Texas, but we've got to try. And our effort will ultimately provide the outcome that we're looking for.
Mila Atmos: [00:25:02] Yes. Yes. We've got to try despite the odds, because if we're not doing that, then, you know, what are we doing anyway, right?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:25:11] Why are we here?
Mila Atmos: [00:25:12] Why are we here? Why are we doing this? So during your race for governor, you were an unabashed pro-abortion rights candidate. And for many of us outside of Texas, in the wake of SB-8 passing, we thought for sure this would be the clincher for you, especially in light of the referendum in Kansas in the summer before the general election. Did you expect more folks to turn out for abortion rights?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:25:35] Mila, I did. You know, we've talked a lot about history on this podcast so far and the central role Texas has played in the development of American democracy. Here's another example. Prior to 1973, abortion was just as illegal in the state of Texas as it now is. Following the Dobbs decision of 2022, And Greg Abbott's incredibly cruel total ban on abortion that begins at conception. But no one rode to the rescue of Texas women in 1973. It was Texas women themselves who did the work and had the courage and made it possible to win the right to make their own decisions about their own bodies, their own health care, and their own future. And it was Texas women like Jane Roe of Roe versus Wade, or her attorneys, Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, both Texas women who prevailed upon an all-male United States Supreme Court and won that right enshrined in Roe versus Wade, not just for the women of Texas, of course, but for women across this country that came out of Texas. So you can have the worst attacks on democracy, on people's civil rights, on their human rights. But you will also, in so doing, produce the heroes necessary to overcome that.
And so look, am I disappointed about the outcome of the 2022 Texas governor's race? I absolutely am. Especially given the clear difference between the candidates. You had, you know, a governor who was responsible for that abortion ban that not only took away the rights of Texas women, but consigned many of them to unnecessary suffering and even death in a state that leads the nation in much of the developed world in this maternal mortality crisis that is absolutely compounded by removing access to reproductive health care. The fact that we lead the nation in school shootings and gun violence is a leading cause of death for children and teenagers. We lead the nation in childhood diabetes deaths because we have the lowest level of health insurance in the nation. We're one of the last states to not expand Medicaid, even though, once again, our state through LBJ, came up with Medicaid itself in the 1960s. And here I was the candidate who wanted to expand Medicaid, who wanted to restore reproductive health care access, who wanted to work with a legislature to ensure we had common sense
gun legislation to both protect the Second Amendment but protect the lives of those in our lives as well, and where all these issues came to a head in this state unlike any other. For us to see such low levels of voter turnout, especially amongst young people who understand these issues better than anyone else and will have to live with the outcome of this election more than anyone else was really disappointing.
You know, for some, there's only so much heartbreak and disappointment they're willing to take before they just drop out of the process altogether. And yet these things aren't decided in a single contest or election. You know, the fight is a very long one. And when I look at it from that perspective, then this defeat, while not a very pleasant one, is immaterial as long as we ultimately overcome and I don't mean Beto O'Rourke winning a statewide political election, I don't know if I'll be a candidate again in a statewide political election. I just mean the forces that support democracy, free and fair elections, the right to vote, personal autonomy, civil rights, human rights, you know, as long as we ultimately overcome in Texas and in this country, then our contribution through these races that we've run, through the work we've done through Powered by People and registering voters and standing up for voting rights, all of that will have been well worth it. I'm so grateful to have been part of these campaigns and to be in the work right now with no idea of relenting or stepping aside or doing anything other than joining with my fellow Texans and Americans in making sure that we do the necessary work. That was Laurence Nixon from 1923 until 1944, when the white primary was was ultimately overcome. That was those three heroic Texas women in the 1973 Supreme Court decision. That was LBJ in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act. Each of these major victories for American democracy and our understanding of who we are were years, decades, generations in some cases in the coming. And there were many people who had to be part of that victory. So I count myself lucky to stand amongst millions of my fellow Texans who are doing this work right now and at some point will bring us to the victory that we so deeply and richly deserve based on who we are as a people, as a country and as a state.
Mila Atmos: [00:30:54] Yeah, I like the way that you situate us as Americans and Texans, of course, in this big struggle for civil rights, human rights, and that it's, you know, a decades-long endeavor and playing the long game. I have a question about LGBTQ communities. Texas lawmakers this year are debating whether to block transgender kids access to transition related health care, classify businesses that host
drag shows as sexually oriented establishments and limit public school lessons on sexuality and gender identity. How do you think about this latest battlefront in the culture wars and how do you think about fighting back against it?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:31:37] You know, it's interesting that at a time where most Texas kids in the fourth grade can't read at grade level, where we're seeing the largest exodus of teaching talent in Texas history, schoolteachers are fleeing the profession by the tens of thousands. You have substitutes who are teaching for the entire year. You know, my youngest son, Henry, last year had substitutes for the entirety of his academic year, didn't have a permanent classroom teacher, and unfortunately, he's not the exception. It is increasingly the rule. You have rural communities who still can't access the Internet, who have water systems where you can't drink what's coming out of the faucet. Hospitals have closed down and people cannot get medical care. You have really critical unmet needs across the board in this state, like trying to get a functioning electric grid and those in power choose to instead of fixing any of these problems, which, by the way, are inherently nonpartisan. Every day, normal walking, talking Texans care about public education. We care about doing right by one another. We want each other to be healthy and to be able to live to our full potential. These are the low hanging fruit of government at a time of record surpluses, by the way, Mila, in our state budget, thanks largely to what the federal government has sent down to us. And instead of addressing these problems, our state government is attacking literally the most vulnerable people in the state of Texas right now, and they're doing it solely for political profit to deflect and distract from these real unmet problems. And though they may do better in their next Republican primary battle for being tougher on these transgender kids and their families, they are driving out talent from the state of Texas. When there is a war on women, a war on the LGBTQ community, a war on immigrants in this state. Look at the long-term harm that you're doing to these individuals, to these families and to the economy and to the state of Texas just through that issue. And then look at the long- term harm you're doing by not addressing the real problems we have in pre K through 12 right now as we try to produce a workforce that's competitive globally with every other nation on the planet. So this is a huge, huge missed opportunity and is a display of wanton cruelty that is going to do deep, long-term damage to the state of Texas.
Mila Atmos: [00:34:29] Indeed. I want to pivot here a little bit. When you were first on the show in 2018, you were running for US Senate. It seems like forever ago. So much
has changed and in many ways for the worse. I remember you as being super enthusiastic about public service in a way that was fresh and exciting. Frankly, it was electrifying. It got a lot of people off the sidelines. So much has changed since then, but if you had to pick maybe 1 or 2 things you've learned in that time, what do you know now that you wish you had known then?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:35:06] You know, here's something that that is becoming more clear to me over time, certainly since you and I talked in 2018. And that's the idea that that no victory ever won in American democracy is ever final. Democrats, perhaps more than Republicans, have failed to realize or learn that or accept it. You know, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which created the first multiracial democracy in America, which was reauthorized under Republican and Democratic presidents alike all the way up until the Supreme Court decision in 2013 that destroyed it. I think many people felt as though we had achieved this extraordinary plateau and there was no going back. There's no way we could slide back from that. All we could see was progress. And I was one of those who felt that way and felt that if there was a problem in America is that we were making progress. But it just wasn't quick enough. Never did I think we could slide so far back as we did when that 2013 Supreme Court decision was made and even at the time, in 2013 and 2014, and I was a member of Congress at that time, I don't think I fully appreciated the deep, deep damage it was doing to our democracy, especially in states like Texas.
Roe versus Wade is another decision. I think Democrats are those who believed in a woman's right to make her own decisions about her own body, kind of to some degree, and not all people. And there were some who valiantly fought because they realized that that victory wasn't final. But many of us, again, perhaps myself included, thought, you know what? We won that one. We're never going back. It's just absolutely unthinkable. So that understanding that no victory is final, on the one hand, it could be really depressing. You can look at yourself in the mirror and say, you know, we just won this really big decision, this really big election, this really big legislative victory. And you're telling me that's not final and we have to keep fighting. The answer to that question is "yes." But as soon as you accept it and realize that's the life that we live in this democracy, then that just becomes part of your wiring and you're in for that fight. And you find joy in that. And the partners and the friends and the allies that are part of that fight. So that's been a big change for me, that there's no election, presidential or
otherwise, that settles things forever. There's no Supreme Court victory, there's no legislative decision in Congress that's going to make things okay forever. That just doesn't exist except in a fantasy land.
And the other related lesson is that this fight goes on forever. And you know, Mila, since we last spoke on that podcast in 2018, you know, I'd entered that Democratic presidential primary field, very crowded, very talented field, one that I did not last a long time in. And when I left that primary at the end of 2019, you know, I remember calling my wife Amy the night it was clear that we could not continue. We had no viable path. And I said, you know, I don't ever want to be involved in politics again. And if I could, I'd crawl into a cave and I'd hide from the rest of humanity forever. I've given all I can. Clearly, this is not the path for me. But when I got over what it meant to me and my ego and my self and really looked at what was going on in my state and in this country, and that the people who were quietly, without acclaim or applause, doing the hard work to try to save our democracy. I was really inspired. And I realized, listen, I've got to be in this fight right alongside them. We started Powered by People to amplify that work of voter registration and protecting voter rights and trying to advance voting rights legislation. The state level and federally. And I think Amy and I really just began to understand, look, whether we're an office holder, whether we're a candidate, whether we're a volunteer, we're in this fight for life. There are no sidelines in democracy. There's never a time to check out and watch other people go in and do the heavy lifting and the hard work. All of us have to do what we can with what we have, where we are, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt. And for me, that's meant running for office. It's meant volunteering, it's meant donating, it's meant just doing whatever I can at the moment with what I've got. And so that's where I find myself today. And that's definitely... I don't know if it's a change. It may just be a different way of seeing things and when we first talked in 2018.
Mila Atmos: [00:40:02] Well, I admire you for putting yourself out there on the forefront because it clearly isn't easy and most people don't have the kind of courage you have. First of all, to run for office, you know, in a stacked field with the odds clearly against you and to speak so clearly with conviction about your beliefs and why you're running and why we have to be in this together. So you said that the fight never ends. And with that in mind, let's look to the next generation. You just finished teaching a seminar at the University of Chicago exploring the present and future of US democracy, using Texas
as a case study. And I feel as though our lucky listeners have gotten a glimpse of that seminar in this hour. But what was your biggest takeaway from that class and your students?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:40:52] Well, first of all, anyone of my generation -- I was born in 1972, so I'm 50. I'll be 51 later this year -- should do everything they can to spend as much time with the generations that follow ours, because you will undoubtedly be inspired by young people who are leading right now on everything that matters. Some of the issues we've talked about: democracy, voting rights, gun violence, reproductive health care, but issues that affect all of us globally, like climate change or the fact that this country is at war all over the world directly or through proxies. And it's unclear how that can be resolved non-violently going forward. These students, graduate students and undergraduate students, just like young people all over this country and all over the planet, are wrestling with the answers to these questions. And they're not waiting for us to figure it out. They're doing the hard work themselves with the humility or wisdom of trying to gather as much evidence and experience and expertise as they can around them, whether you're old or young or rich or poor or powerful or not powerful. And I just find that commitment to the greater good and to public service and the unwillingness to accept defeat or giving up at what is seemingly an intractable problem, like the lack of progress on gun violence, to just be deeply inspiring and energizing. And it's made it so much easier for me to recommit to the work that I want to do, even if I don't know the role or form that my work will take. I just want to be in the fight with these people.
They are going to be the answer to this challenge that I want to share with you in kind of a personal exchange I had with one of the students we were talking about. This is an 18-year old, so just aged into the franchise. And I was sharing with him my deep disappointment at the very low level of voter turnout amongst young people in Texas in 2022, with so many important issues that will primarily affect young people on the ballot in that gubernatorial race. And we started talking about gun violence. And I asked him, "what do you think it is going to take for our laws on guns to change?" Because he was saying that this would be a motivator for young people to vote if they saw progress on this issue. And he said, "you know, Beto, everything that it should have taken for our gun laws to change has already happened." When little kids are slaughtered in in Sandy Hook, when teenagers are hunted down in high school hallways in Parkland or Santa Fe, Texas, when people are killed in churches in Sutherland Springs or out on the
streets of Midland, Odessa, when they are mowed down in a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, when 19 kids are shot and some so badly disfigured that their parents have to identify them by the shoes they're wearing in Uvalde. And nothing changes. That really says something about our politics, our democracy and whether this government works at all and whether it's worth our time to participate. Now, he had not succumbed to that despair that he was describing, but I thought that was a really compelling description of what young people see when they look at us. Those who had the chance to hold political office to the governments who hold power today, federally, state and locally, and in the face of these obvious horrors, to do nothing or to double down on those things that have so badly failed these defenseless children who don't have a vote or a voice. But through the votes and voices of those who actually have political power right now, that's what we're up against. But it is young people like this 18-year old who was telling me this story, who rejected that understandable despair and that dislocation from democracy and have redoubled their efforts to be part of the solution. They may not be able to define that solution right now, but they're going to be part of it.
Now, I don't want to discount the effort of those generation that preceded mine, of my generation, of others who've done everything they can. As I said, with the civil rights and voting rights effort, those 75 years from 1890 to 1965, many countless, nameless, unsung heroes did their part to make sure that when John Lewis took his life in his hands crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March of 1965, that it provoked the outrage and serve as a catalyst that this country needed and allowed Johnson, really compelled Johnson, to bring a joint session of Congress together to make that very famous speech on the 15th of March that ultimately ended up in him being able to sign the Voting Rights Act that summer. So the generations before this young generation today have in many ways done their part. But I think it's this generation that's going to bring it home, and I'm just terribly excited about that.
Mila Atmos: [00:46:27] So looking ahead to 2024, we've heard your call to pay attention to Texas. What do you need from the rest of us?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:46:35] People have been so generous in the campaigns that I've run, contributing whatever they can, whether it's 25 bucks or 2,500 bucks to make sure that we have the resources to reach voters. And for that, I am deeply, deeply grateful. And those who have contributed have made profound changes to the state. We may not
have won at the top of the ticket, but really important battles down ballot were won because of these contributions. Lina Hidalgo, who is the county judge of Harris County, terrific candidate, terrific judge, won that in her own right, but was certainly helped by all of the contributions coming into this state that ensured that she and others like her had the resources there. We need to do that, not around just candidates and certain elections or given cycles, but it has to be consistent. And so people's willingness to pitch in to groups like ours. It's called Powered by People. And you can find us online at Poweredxpeople.org or the Texas Democratic Party or other groups that are supporting democracy and civil rights. The Texas Civil Rights Project is another great example. The Texas Organizing Project, another great example. There are many people, many organizations in Texas who day in and day out, year in, year out, are doing the really hard work and they need your help. And again, I'll make the case that while you're helping in Texas is certainly going to benefit the people of Texas, it will by extension, benefit everyone across this country. Given the outsized role we play in electoral college politics, in voting rights, in democracy, and on really important issues like gun violence, reproductive health care, climate change and too many to mention in this brief conversation. So I'm so glad you asked and again, so grateful for those who've stepped up and encourage you to continue to donate, to contribute, and to not sleep on Texas.
Mila Atmos: [00:48:39] So this show is about civic engagement, and you just told us what we can do to support Texas organizations and making democracy better in Texas. And we were talking about how this is really an ongoing fight, so what are two things we, our listeners, everyday people could be doing to be in the fight for democracy as a way of life.
Beto O'Rourke: [00:49:02] You know, democracy very often is reduced to voting. And clearly that's important. And it may be one of the most important things that we do in a democracy. But that's not all that democracy is. Democracy is going to the state capitol following the lead of these parents in Uvalde, holding those in positions of public trust accountable for the jobs that they're supposed to do for those they represent. Not for Republicans, not for Democrats, not for Independents, but for all of us as Americans, as Texans or whatever state you happen to live in. It is considering running for office as hard as that might be. And no, there's nothing easy about it. There are literally thousands of contested elections just in the state of Texas every other year. Hundreds of those races go uncontested because the incumbent has no challenger. And without a
challenger, there's no contest of ideas of track record effectively and functionally. There's no accountability. And you don't get as good a government as you would otherwise have if you had a spirited debate about the future of your school district, your city, your county, your state or your country, we shouldn't be afraid of engaging one another always peacefully, nonviolently, civilly, as you model on this show in the best traditions of who we are as Americans. Something that I really do believe has, by and large, mas o menos set us apart from so much of human history and so much of the rest of the world, but something that we are at risk of losing right now. And we're going to lose it not only if we don't pass voting rights legislation, not only if we don't win important elections in the state of Texas, but if everyday people like you and me and those listening to this don't step up and do our part. Voting - yes, registering. Come on, you got to do that. That's the the penny ante. But I hope that you'll also consider going to your school board meeting and speaking up, going to your city council meeting and just listening to what those who are in these elected positions have to say. And then again, considering running for office, we need a greater depth of diversity in those who hold these positions of public trust. And that only happens when you step up and get after it.
Mila Atmos: [00:51:28] Hear, hear. So here is my last question. Looking into the future, what makes you hopeful?
Beto O'Rourke: [00:51:37] I'd have to say, though we lost this election in Texas in 2022. Just traveling the state and meeting so many thousands of people who have committed their lives to making this a better place and a better country. And they do that in their own ways unofficially working to ensure that veterans are connected to their service-connected disability benefits or don't have to wait months or years to get into the VA, literally just becoming citizen advocates for those who put their lives on the line for this country. People who make sure that returning citizens, those who have committed crimes, have served a sentence, have now been restored to civilian life, have their rights restored along with them, and are able to participate in our politics. You know, folks who advocate for people to get health care so they don't die of diabetes at the age of 14 years old. Those who are running for office, those who are knocking on doors and giving precincts to elect good people into positions of public trust. These are the folks that I've met and got to work with over the course of this last year and really over the course of the last six years and traveling the state of Texas in various campaigns and
roles. And they're just so damn amazing and heroic and cheerful and committed to the fight and undeterred, when we don't win the big ones at the very top of the ticket because they know day in and day out, they're making a difference with the people that they serve and that ultimately one day we really will overcome. And it's a matter of time and effort. And if each of us is willing to put in the time and step up the effort a little bit, that day will come much sooner. So that's deeply inspiring to me and keeps me engaged and committed to the work that I'm doing here in Texas right now.
Mila Atmos: [00:53:35] That's beautiful. I love that you said that they were undeterred. That is indeed hopeful. Well, Beto, thank you so much for joining us on Future Hindsight. Again, it's really a pleasure to have you on the show today.
Beto O'Rourke: [00:53:48] Thank you for having me back. I love the conversation. Thank you.
Mila Atmos: [00:53:52] Beto O'Rourke is a fourth generation Texan, former US congressman representing El Paso, and the author of We've Got to Try: How the Fight for Voting Rights Makes Everything Else Possible.
Mila Atmos: [00:54:09] Next week on Future Hindsight, we're joined by Dr. David Priess. We talk about the intersection of civic engagement and national security. Dr. Priess is currently the director of intelligence at Bedrock Learning; he has served at the CIA as an intelligence officer, a manager and a daily intelligence briefer during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W Bush. That's next time on Future Hindsight.
And before I go, first of all, thanks for listening. You must really like the show if you're still here. We have an ask of you. Could you rate us or leave a review on Apple Podcasts? It seems like a small thing, but it can make a huge difference for an independent show like ours. It's the main way other people can find out about the show. We really appreciate your help. Thank you!
This episode was produced by Zack Travis and Sara Burningham. Until next time, stay engaged.
The Democracy Group: [00:55:15] This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.