“I will always stand up for the separation of church and state,” James Talarico told a standing-room-only crowd at the Texas Tribune Festival Sept. 24 in Austin, Texas.
Talarico is a Presbyterian seminarian running for the U.S. Senate from Texas as a Democrat. His Republican challenger is current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who also was invited to speak at TribFest but never responded to the invitation, said Matthew Watkins, editor in chief.
Watkins interviewed Talarico for about 45 minutes, then turned to the audience for 15 minutes of questions with Talarico. The event was held at First Baptist Church of Austin, the largest of six venues used for the three-day festival of ideas. The church’s sanctuary seats nearly 1,000 people.
Christian nationalism
Although Watkins and Talarico sat beneath an enormous cross dangling in the air above the chancel, Watkins did not ask Talarico a single question about religion, which has been a defining feature of this year’s Senate race. Paxton and some conservative evangelical pastors have accused Talarico of not being a real Christian because of his progressive social views.
During the Q-and-A, an audience member asked Talarico to clarify a previous statement that “there’s nothing Christian about Christian nationalism.” Where is the line between faith informing political views and the kind of Christian nationalism Talarico condemns, she asked.
“Many of you know that my faith is essential in my life,” Talarico replied. “My granddad was a Baptist preacher in South Texas. He told me when I was real little that our job as Christians is we’re supposed to follow those two commandments that Jesus gave us — to love God and to love neighbors. And there’s no exception to that second commandment. I’m not just supposed to love my Presbyterian neighbors. I’m not just supposed to love my Christian neighbors.”
The difference, he continued, is “I don’t want the government forcing a religion down my throat. So why would I do that to my Jewish, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Hindu, agnostic, atheist neighbors? That’s not love.”
That’s why he has called out Republican efforts to “build a theocracy in this country,” he added. Such legislation is unconstitutional and “deeply un-Christian because they violate the greatest commandment to love God and love neighbor.”
Texans need a senator “who’s going to confront Christian nationalism and do it not just on constitutional grounds, but on theological grounds. I will always stand up for the separation of church and state,” he said to thunderous applause.
“The separation of church and state is not the same thing as a separation of faith and politics.”
He added: “It’s important, especially, for all of us to remember that the separation of church and state is not the same thing as a separation of faith and politics. This is the mistake we often make. We all bring our moralities, our philosophies, our ethics, our worldviews to our politics, and faith is no different. I bring my faith to my politics, and I hope others do too, just like Dr. King brought his faith to his politics. Dorothy Day, Dolores Huerta, Mr. Rogers, all these people brought their faith to their work, to their action, their activism, to their politics. And that’s a good thing.
“We should share across traditions why our values inform our policy beliefs and our actions out in public. What I want is a spiritually enriched political discourse in this country. And I want our politics to be rooted in something deeper than partisanship.”
Talarico said Texans and Americans can have “beautiful, rich debate … while also not institutionally merging church and state, without forcing with state power a certain religion onto the entire population of this country. So we’ve got to keep those two things separate. We’ve got to defend the separation of church and state and then we should encourage an integration of faith and politics.”
What’s going on in Texas?
If Talarico wins the general election in November, he would be the first Democrat elected to the U.S. Senate from Texas since 1988. Current polling shows him slightly ahead of Paxton, who is perhaps the most controversial Republican on the ballot in Texas this year.
“I’ve covered Texas politics enough to be completely disoriented by this,” Watkins said. “What’s going on? What is happening?”
Talarico responded: “I think we are building a movement across this state that’s bigger than any one politician, including me. It’s bigger than any one political party. This is working people coming together across the political spectrum, across communities to take on a broken, corrupt political system that is holding all of us back.”
As he travels across the state, Talarico said, his staff has to keep finding larger and larger venues because there is so much interest in his campaign.
“I stay to the very end, I shake every hand, I take every selfie, I answer every question. And I can’t tell you the number of people who come up to me at the end of these events and say they’ve never voted for a Democrat before or the number of young people who come up to me and say it’s the first political event they’ve ever attended. And so I think there’s something special happening across the state of Texas, and I really do think we are going to make history on Nov. 3.”
This is why Republicans on the state and national level are “terrified” and pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the Paxton campaign, Talarico said.
“They are terrified of people coming together … to take on the people at the top who have been screwing all of us over for decades.”
“People at the top are terrified of this movement we’re building. They are terrified of people coming together across party, across race and gender and religion and culture to take on the people at the top who have been screwing all of us over for decades. And so they’re going to do everything they can to cling on to power.”
While Republican donors can write big checks, the power of money cannot overcome the power of the people, he said. “Our campaign is powered by people who give $5, $10, $15 at a time.”
Asked about how a Democrat can win a statewide election in a reliably red state like Texas, Talarico said he is building “a big tent.”
“It’s got to be Democrats, independents, Republicans,” he said. “It’s also got to be people who are fed up and disillusioned with this political system, people who have kind of tuned out politics. Oftentimes swing voters aren’t choosing between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. They are choosing between voting and the couch. And those are the voters I’m trying to reach every day, the younger voters who just feel like this whole political system is just hopelessly corrupt, that there’s nothing that they can do to change things.
“I’m not trying to convince them that politics isn’t corrupt because it is. There’s way too much influence from this big money. What I’m trying to convince them of is their power to change it. I’m trying to persuade them of their own power in this democracy.”
Talarico, who is 37, predicted there will be historic youth turnout in the election, just as there was in the Democratic primary.
Talarico’s record
For anyone who wonders what positions Talarico might take as a senator, he said: “You don’t have to wonder what kind of senator I’m going to be because I’ve served for four terms in the statehouse and … I’m very proud of that record. I brought Democrats and Republicans together to pass 60 bipartisan bills, bills that lower the cost of housing, that lower the cost of child care, that lower the cost of prescription drugs, including insulin. And I think that kind of bipartisan record of accomplishment, that record of delivering for working people is exactly what most folks, whether they’re Democrats or Republicans, are looking for in their next U.S. senator.”
Watkins asked Talarico if there will be a public debate between him and Paxton before Election Day. The Talarico campaign has proposed several debate options but the Paxton campaign has not accepted any.
Talarico responded with his own breaking news: “Today I’m challenging Ken Paxton to a debate on Fox News. … Let’s go to Ken Paxton’s safe space. Let’s do Brett Baier on Fox News. … I am proud of my record and I’m not afraid of hard questions.”
The reality is that Paxton “is running from a fight and that sounds like low T behavior to me,” Talarico joked, throwing back at Paxton an accusation he has made about the Democrat.
“Texans deserve to make an informed choice in this really critical race,” he said. “So I’m challenging Ken Paxton to a game on his own turf. He’s been running from accountability his whole life and it’s time to stop running.”
“He’s been running from accountability his whole life and it’s time to stop running.”
‘Every accusation is a confession’
Watkins asked Talarico about some of the specific allegations the Paxton campaign has lodged against him, and Talarico denied them all.
“Every accusation is a confession for Ken Paxton,” he said. “He is accusing me of selling out to China when he has taken massive donations from real estate developers linked to the Chinese Communist Party. He accused me of being soft on China, but he’s the one who took an all-expense-paid luxury trip to Beijing and met with Communist Party officials. I’ve never even been to China.
“I’m curious what they’re going to accuse me of next. I’m sure I’m going to see a TV ad saying that I’ve been impeached by my own party, that I own 15 homes on a government salary. I suppose there’s going to be an ad saying I stole someone’s $1,000 pen. Every accusation is a confession, but it can’t obscure the truth, which is that Ken Paxton is the most corrupt politician in Texas and shouldn’t be anywhere near the United States Senate.”
Talarico also said he is a capitalist, not a socialist. “I believe in free enterprise. I believe in competition. I believe in free markets and growth.”
The problem, he continued, is that what most Americans today think is capitalism really isn’t. “This system only works for those who can afford to buy politicians like Ken Paxton, who can afford to buy access and control. This is not capitalism; this is crony capitalism. Dr. King once said we have socialism for the rich and we have rugged individualism for the rest of us. And that’s what this country looks like right now.”
Other highlights
In other highlights of the interview, Talarico said:
- He has not changed his mind on transgender athletes in high school sports. He opposed an earlier state bill “because it was a blanket statewide ban without any appreciation for nuance. I supported an amendment to that bill to allow local officials, local education officials, local sports officials to decide on an athlete by athlete, sport by sport basis if there’s safety and fairness. … I’ll always like to make sure our student athletes and every sport is safe and fair. Those are not mutually exclusive goals.”
- Access to abortion and women’s health care is not something to be legislated. “I believe every single person in this country has a God-given right to control their own bodies, to control their own lives. This is one of the fundamental rights in our democracy.”
- He is hopeful the current crisis in immigration policy created by Trump administration could lead to congressional action on a compromise on immigration. “The current crisis with masked men in unmarked vehicles killing people on our streets, my prayer is that this crisis will actually lead to us finally passing comprehensive immigration reform.”
- He believes most Texas are both pro-safety and pro-immigrant. “What people are tired of is those two things being pitted against each other, of us being told you got to pick between security and welcoming the stranger. And we don’t have to pick between those things. We can have a system that keeps out people who need to do us harm and welcome those folks who want to contribute to this nation. That is absolutely possible.”
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