NEWS — Federal, state candidates face grilling from The Border Organization

By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times

Three candidates for one federal and two state offices fielded questions on topics ranging from data centers to gun control from leaders of a regional grassroots community group during an accountability session held Sunday, Oct. 4.

The candidate accountability session was organized and hosted by La Organizacion Fronteriza/The Border Organization (TBO) and held in the San Felipe Exes Center Hall, 302 Mendez St.

The Democratic Party candidates who attended were Katy Padilla Stout, Democratic Party nominee for the Texas District 23 seat in the U.S. House of Representatives; Texas Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who is seeking re-election to the District 19 seat in the Texas Senate; and Texas Rep. Eddie Morales, who is seeking re-election to the District 74 seat in the Texas House of Representatives.

All of the Republican Party candidates seeking to represent Val Verde County at the federal and state levels skipped an accountability session. The Border Organization organizer Gage Brown said Brandon Herrera, who is running against Padilla Stout, declined to participate. She said Marcus Cardenas, who is running against Gutierrez, and Robert Garza, who is running against Morales, both said they would participate, but didn’t show.

About 65 persons attended the accountability session. Mario Arreola served as master of ceremonies for the event, welcoming those attending and inviting Dr. Mary Gonzalez to the podium to give a brief history of the San Felipe Exes Center.

Gonzalez, a member of the San Felipe Ex-Students Association, Inc., said the organization exists “because we believe in the education of our community, in the education of young students in order to succeed.” She also spoke about the functions of the Exes Center, which include holding events like the accountability session and serving as a monument to the importance of education to the community.

After Gonzalez spoke, Arreola called the session to order and explained how TBO conducts its public business.

Arreola said, “First, we are non-partisan. That means we do not endorse any candidate or political party. What we do endorse is our agenda, with a number of issues, which we have created through having hundreds of small group conversations in churches, homes, neighborhood walks and libraries over the past year in Val Verde, Uvalde, Kinney and Maverick counties.”

Arreola said TBO’s agenda would be presented as a series of questions posed by different leaders of the organization, adding the candidates would not be answering questions from the audience.

“The questions are posed in such a manner that the candidates should answer with a clear yes or no, and each candidate is given two minutes to elaborate,” Arreola said.

Arreola then introduced the candidates and invited Del Rioan Anakin Zulayka to the podium to ask the first question.

Zulayka’s question dealt with healthcare and SNAP benefits. He said he is a new father, and despite working to support his family, he does not have medical insurance.

“Securing the basic necessities is almost impossible for a young family like mine. It doesn’t matter how hard I work, the cost of living continues to go up, and my worst fear is not being able to provide for my daughters. Current leaders continue to play politics with the lives of Texans by refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, a measure that would expand affordable health care to more than one million Texans if enacted. Additionally, about five million Americans lost their SNAP benefits last year,” Zulayka said.

He asked the state candidates if they would support the expansion of Medicaid to ensure all Texans have access to healthcare and the federal candidate if she would support Medicare For All and restore SNAP benefits “for the many struggling families in our community.”

Gutierrez said yes to the question, adding Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has denied Medicaid expansion since the beginning of the Affordable Care Act, adding it has cost the state $100 billion. He said the expansion would affect about 570,000 Texans.

“Greg Abbott and the people who are not here tonight, our opponents, have chosen to tell the people in this community and all across Texas and give you the middle finger and tell you that you don’t deserve it, that you don’t need it, that the county could do better, and they can save you money, and all that’s BS,” Gutierrez said.

Morales also answered yes, and decried the three Republican candidates who did not attend the session, saying they did not attend because “they can’t face you because they know that you are hurting, they know that groceries and prices continue to increase and access to quality healthcare continues to vanish.” He added both he and Gutierrez supported the state’s Health Stabilization Act and co-authored HB3000, which allows rural communities to receive up to $500,000 in grant funds to purchase ambulances.

Padilla Stout said, “Yes, I would absolutely vote for Medicare For All. Healthcare is a human right and is something everyone should be entitled to.” She added the cutting of SNAP benefits is one of the reasons she decided to run for office.

“Cutting SNAP benefits does nothing but hurt and affect our most vulnerable children. . . and cutting of SNAP benefits also affects Meals on Wheels, so now we’re talking about not feeding our most vulnerable children, but also not feeding our home-bound senior citizens,” Padilla Stout said.

Amanda Griffin, a leader with The Border Organization in Del Rio, posed the next question, which dealt with data centers and high-voltage power lines.

Griffin, vice president of the Hill Country Preservation Coalition, asked Padilla Stout if she would support a moratorium on data centers and the state candidates if they would support a moratorium on data centers, give counties the right to vote on the issue and support a complete pause on 765kV power lines until alternatives are considered.

Padilla Stout said she “wholeheartedly supports” a moratorium on data centers, adding data center placement and construction should be subject to “at least federal minimal regulation before it even gets into the hands of the states, counties and cities.”

Morales and Gutierrez both said they supported a data center moratorium, with Morales saying that his district is one with the most proposed data centers and emphasizing the importance of not providing tax abatements for them. Gutierrez said he has asked Abbott for such a moratorium and urged the 765kV Howard-Solstice line be routed along I-10.

Former Del Rio Police Department Officer Eddie Cortez asked the next question, which dealt with immigration. Cortez said the Texas Legislature passed SB8, a law that requires local enforcement agencies to enter into an agreement with ICE to assist in federal immigration enforcement. He asked the state candidates if they would work to rescind Senate Bill 8 “and any other legislation requiring local law enforcement to work in collaboration with ICE.”

Cortez asked Padilla Stout if she would support “a humane and accessible pathway to citizenship for our undocumented neighbors.”

Morales said he learned in meetings with local law enforcement officers that the reasons behind SB8 were valid, but “the way they’ve implemented it has been the problem,” adding those meetings have also led him to believe they are not fully in favor of rescinding SB8, but added, “We do need guardrails,” then pledged “to work tirelessly to make sure that those changes are made, and we have fair treatment of all residents in District 74 and in the state of Texas.”

Gutierrez said he voted against SB8 and pledged to attempt to repeal SB8 if he is re-elected, and said, “What’s happening right now in our country, I want to be very clear, is illegal, and it must stop now, and these are Nazis and it is Gestapo tactics.” He said he would rather see the $10 billion he said has been “wasted” on border security to be used for healthcare and education.

Padilla Stout said, “Yes, I would absolutely support a pathway to citizenship for members of our community that have already been here. My grandparents were both undocumented. . . My father was a first-generation American who worked as a migrant farmworker.” She said her father eventually became an attorney, adding, “The best and the brightest are not always born in the most well-connected and affluent families.”

Questions about gun control were next on the agenda, asked by Denise Feldtman, a leader with The Border Organization in Uvalde, who told the audience she began going to every meeting of the Uvalde public school district’s board of trustees following the shooting of 19 students and two teachers at the Robb Elementary School. She said “the cries of the parents of the murdered children for transparency and accountability were falling on deaf ears.”

After speaking in some detail about the shooting, Feldtman asked all the candidates if they would support raising the age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 years of age, require universal background checks and restrict the sale of assault weapons.

All three candidates answered yes to all three questions. Each of the three also offered additional comments, with Gutierrez saying he also supported “extreme risk protective orders,” allowing a judge to temporarily remove firearms from the home of a person who is mentally ill or who has threatened to hurt others.

Padilla Stout said the Uvalde mass shooting was another reason she decided to run for public office, adding, “We can no longer pretend that this is not a problem.” Morales answered “yes” to all of the questions and praised Gutierrez “for being the voice of Uvalde.”

Betty Gonzalez, a leader of The Border Organization in Uvalde and the resident of a colonia called Uvalde Estates, asked each of the candidates, if elected, would they work to secure state or federal funds for areas with poor or no water infrastructure like Uvalde Estates in Uvalde and Moreno Valley Subdivision in Del Rio.

All three candidates said they would work to secure additional funding for water infrastructure for border counties. Gutierrez noted, “Water is the biggest problem facing Texas and the United States of America, and it’s the problem you don’t hear Republicans talking about at all.”

Carlos Coronado, a leader of the Border Organization in Val Verde County, posed the next question, to ask about jobs and minimum wage increases. Coronado asked the state candidates if they would work to introduce a workforce development initiative for “sustainable, living wage jobs.” He asked Padilla Stout if she would introduce a similar initiative at the federal level and support raising the federal minimum wage to at least $15 an hour.

All three of the candidates answered yes to the TBO questions.

The final two questions dealt with issues facing Eagle Pass residents. (See separate story.)

The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com