Taco Policy

Rep. Julie Johnson (00:00.056)
I always liked spending time with you and especially over tacos. Who can say no to that? So the only way to pay for the tax break is to cut your healthcare, is to cut food, to cut funding for everything we care about. So it was about the political power and clout and might and will that the LGBT community and activists had at that time.

Kat Vargas (00:25.196)
Welcome to another episode of Taco Policy where people, politics, and power collide, Texas style. You can watch us on YouTube or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. This week, I am home in the Dallas area and I am joined by Representative Julie Johnson. Representative Johnson, thank you so much for joining us this week.

Absolutely, I always like spending time with you and especially over tacos. Who can say no to that?

It's not like you have a whole lot going on. Like nothing's happening in the government this week. So it seems like a great time to sit down together. Before we get into it, I thought maybe to kind of ease in, we could do some like rapid fire really quick. What party is in control of the House? The Republicans. What party is in control of the Senate? The Republicans. And what party is in control of the White House? The Republicans. So who owns this shutdown? The Republicans. That's what I thought, but I wasn't-

Republicans.

Republican.

Rep. Julie Johnson (01:12.544)
Republicans.

That's what I thought, some of your colleagues on the other side didn't seem to know those facts. So I didn't know if that was going to be a trick question. So the shutdown has lasted much longer than was originally anticipated. And we're seeing now that SNAP but offense are set to be cut off this weekend. We've heard back and forth about are there funds available? Are there not funds available? What's the real story on what is happening with SNAP?

There are totally funds available. So Congress appropriated funds for SNAP and they are, it's the executive jobs to dispense those funds. There's $5 billion currently in the SNAP for contingency times just like this. It's just that the Trump administration has decided they're not going to disperse those funds because they want as much pain on the American people to get Democrats to blink.

know, they're trying, the Republicans are trying to leverage Unger as a weapon in politics, and it's just morally wrong.

So my understanding and every other shutdown that's happened, benefits have never been cut. They have made sure those have gone out. Because children especially who are one in four, one in five recipients of snap are children. In Texas, we've got 1.7 million children that are on snap, don't deserve to be caught in the cross hairs of whatever's happening regardless of who's in power. And so this is the first time we've seen that. And it does seem like the cruelty really is the point. We were talking before we started rolling that polling actually has shown that

Kat Vargas (02:42.914)
Voters aren't dumb. Voters know that Republicans own this shutdown and are responsible. is it, do you think it's that your colleagues think if people are hurting, maybe then they'll start blaming you guys? it, they taking that gamble with children or elderly or disabled, starving?

It's just so morally wrong to weaponize the hunger of senior citizens, to weaponize the hunger of kids, to weaponize the hunger of disabled people in this country. I mean, I just, for the life of me, can't figure out why Republicans are okay with that. I'm not okay with that. But at the end of the day, what we've had is, know, healthcare is on the line for millions of people. Over 100,000 people in my district rely on the healthcare tax credit. Wow.

to get healthcare and overwhelmingly I've had folks reach out to me say, hold the line, do whatever it takes. You know, we'll be okay. My office, I'm volunteering at a food bank, a food pantry. You know, I'm encouraging us. My message is be kind to your neighbors, check in on one another, help your neighbors, be compassionate to those around you, donate food, help. This is a problem that should never exist in this country.

But unfortunately, Republicans are just so hell bent on taking away your health care.

And this was over, you know, I was talking to my mom about this and she was like, well, you know, can't they just come to a compromise and maybe not fully extend them and limit it more? And I explained to her in order to do that, unless it's a clean, just extending what's already there, the subsidies that are already there, it would require a new, a totally new bill. And Republicans have long been campaigning on repealing the ACA. So if now they came in and they filed a bill that was a new Affordable Care Act bill.

Kat Vargas (04:37.358)
to make new subsidies, it's just not something they're gonna come to the table. So really the only option here is to extend these subsidies. And we even see people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who I know you sit on committees with, is not someone we normally see willing to come to the table. And even she's saying, the people in my district are coming to me and saying, I'm already getting what my premiums are gonna look like for next year.

It's three, four times I'm not going able to afford this." And she's saying, have to do something. And she came out and said that on their conference call this week, the speaker could not give the Republican caucus his plans for health care. He said, they're there. It kind of sounds like the concepts of a plan that we heard from Trump during the debate. So it's clear, they have no plan. And the easiest thing, the only thing to do right now is to extend those subsidies to make sure that more Americans are able to at least afford the health care they already have because...

There's no doubt that the cost is already, even at what it is now, it's astronomical. It is incredibly hard, especially if you've got a family, you've got kids that you're covering, all these things, your co-pays, all these things on top of your premiums. It's insane. It's very expensive to be sick in this country.

This takes some history. Let's just back up if we could just a little bit. Trump had a deal with big tech millionaires that said, you fund my presidential campaign, you get me back into power and I will give you a big tax break. That was the deal. And they funded his campaign to the terms of so much money. So now he has to pay, do his part and he's got to give them the tax break.

So the only way to pay for the tax break is to cut your healthcare. This is to cut food, to cut funding for everything we care about. The Corporation of Public Broadcasting, PBS Kids, transportation funding. They've cut everything because it's the only way they can pay for their tax cut. And it's still adding $4 trillion to our deficit. That's how big the tax cut they're giving to these tech billionaires. This is Elon Musk, this is the wife.

Rep. Julie Johnson (06:41.71)
People need to understand that why are we here? And so, you know, when they passed this in March, I voted against it then. And so it's no surprise that I've got to vote against it now. And the Senate Democrats, you know, caved at that point because the Republicans were saying, look, the healthcare doesn't expire till the end of the year. We have all year to solve this problem. We have all this time. Let's keep the government functioning and we can work on it because

This doesn't happen until the end of the year. Well, here we are now at the end of the year and nothing's happened. They've had all of April, all of May, all of June, all of July, all of August, all of September, all of October to come up with a plan for health care. And they have completely failed to do it. They have no plan. So now we're at the end of the year. When the gig is up, the piper is piping, the deadline is here. There is no more time to wait.

And so Democrats have to hold the line and say, no, the time is now. We're not giving in. There is no more time because now is when it is. And so that's kind of the why are we here and what are we talking about? And so there is no, hey, pass the CR. We'll deal with it later because everyone's getting their notices on health care. The reason you see Marjorie all riled up, it's because the notices went out earlier in Georgia.

They got their notices. And so she saw from her family and her constituents the horrible impact this is having on them and realized, you know, this is bad. And so next week across the country here in Texas, when everybody gets their notices, then all these other Republicans are going to realize, snap, this is really bad. We should do something.

Yeah, and no, I don't know if you saw, ran into one of your colleagues from the Senate, Ted Cruz, at the Houston airport the other week. And I walked up to a press conference that he was holding. Just so happened to be that he was right next to the security line as I walked up. And he was talking about how, it's really, so I'm with the filibuster and how, oh no, seven Democrats have to negotiate, but didn't seem to want to say that it's Republicans that have to do that negotiating and have to come to the table.

Kat Vargas (09:01.388)
Because when Democrats were in power and we did these CRs then, there were a lot of things that we had to put in and agree to that were not part of the Democrats plan. There were things that Biden took a lot of flack for that ended up going through, whether it was more spending that went down to the border and not in a way to actually help. didn't go to judges or anything like that. We had to say, OK, that's what it takes to keep the government open. It's compromised. You don't get everything that you want when you don't have a filibuster proof majority. That's right.

And it does not seem that Republicans have any interest in that whatsoever at this point. They are willing to let the kids starve. We've also seen that they're not willing to have any form of transparency. I saw this week that your office actually issued a letter about some oversight into ICE facilities, which already y'all were no longer able to show up as it previously were.

But now, like your point of contact, if I'm understanding the letter correctly, the point of contact you would normally go to to say, I've got a constituent being detained at this facility, or I want to know what's happening at this facility, or that point of contact no longer exists, you don't have that anymore. And it has made it to where there's even less transparency that you as members of Congress, that's part of your job, is that oversight.

yeah. On the Homeland Oversight piece, yes, they are not, it is constitut, mean, it is statutorily mandated that a member of Congress can go to these facilities unannounced and do oversight and do an inspection and a tour. And they are absolutely excluding us from that. We have, fact, the House has filed suit saying you don't have the right to deny us access. This is, this is a no.

And we're expecting a ruling on this very soon. And so, yeah, the House of Representatives, the Democrats in the House have, we filed 18 amicus briefs. We have filed suit in a number of times against this administration. And then we've also organized and orchestrated a legal strategy with other groups that are also suing.

Kat Vargas (10:50.03)
So I didn't even know that.

Rep. Julie Johnson (11:12.086)
And I'm a lawyer, so I got asked to be on that same task force studies. It's something that we follow, but this administration is just obliterating all constitutional norms that we know. Everything that we know about the rule of law and the way things are supposed to be and how you behave in a bipartisan government and in a democratic government, it's so shocking to

And it is, and it's whether it's with ICE and them, you know, showing up masked and, you know, kidnapping our neighbors off the street. I know like in your district there, people that are dropping their kids off at school who have been picked up. There is, and I get, I know your office gets the calls too, and I get DMs every single day from someone that said, you know, my dad or my brother or someone who has been here for 20 years has been doing the right things, went to, you know, go do his check-in that he's doing there.

you know, we keep hearing do the right thing, do the right thing. They're going to court, they're doing the right thing and they're not coming back out. And their family doesn't get answers. And now you can't give them those answers because you have no access either. And I don't think people realize before that was it was very normal. And your member of Congress could help at least to be like, hey, no, someone knows this person's here. Let's figure it out. Part of your, you know, your job as constituent services is also going to walk people through that process. OK, here's what you need to do.

Do you have this paperwork? And now all that's been limited.

The thing that is so incredibly disturbing, that as of the time that we are recording this, Congress has only worked 19 of the last 126 days.

Kat Vargas (12:52.462)
And then Johnson's like, I'm so tired. What are you tired from?

And where, what job out there can you only go to work 19 of four months, 19 days out of four months? Where does that exist?

And all the federal workers that aren't getting paid right now, they're showing up for all of these.

Right, right, I know. I flew out of Washington yesterday and I was thinking about all these TSA people and you know, all the folks and I'm grateful that they have come to work to keep the country going. Grateful I was able to get on a plane and come home. But you know, at what point do they not have choices because you know, lot of people have families, they have kids, they have childcare, they're not going to be able to pay because they don't have money in the bank. So they're going to have to stay home. They can't leave a two-year-old unattended. I what are you going to do?

I what do you do? So I think that you'll start seeing that ramp up. I'm told that hopefully after Veterans Day to plan on being maybe in DC because the original CR, it was set to expire November 21st. So the government was going to only be funded until then anyway. So we have to start all over again.

Kat Vargas (14:04.59)
That's November 11th. That means we're expecting this to go on for another two weeks. That is crazy.

All the votes, they canceled all the votes for next week.

That is crazy. I thought a lot people said, well, maybe it will open, maybe Snap will open. I'm like, guys, like they're not even scheduled to come in. They're not even pretending to negotiate because to negotiate you have to actually be present. You have to be there.

I yeah, I mean, I was supposed to be in DC all next week. They canceled all the votes. I was up there this week. I was up there the week before. And, you know, looking around, there's not a Republican to be found. They're just not there. They're not there to work. They're not there to meet. They're not there to solve problems. They're not there to talk. They're not there to see if there's any way we can get out of this and move forward. They're just on a stonewall of hurt and pain for the American people.

I mean, well, we know from tech crews that Republicans love a good vacation in a time of crisis. They're always happy to fly out. But what is the best thing that Texans can do right now? Whether the rep is Republican, Democrat, and they want the government to reopen, what do they say when they call?

Rep. Julie Johnson (15:10.762)
Well, they have to decide what it is that they want. Do they want the government to reopen with or without health care? If they want their health care preserved, they need to call and say, open the government and I want my health care. And you call Republicans' offices and say, open the government and I want my health care. There was a bill in the Senate that opened the government and kept the health care credits. They got voted down on the party lines. They could pass that bill.

get it over to the House. You know, mean, so there's options. If they don't want their health care, then they can call Democrats and say, open the government and I don't want my health care. You gotta be specific. Because people say, yeah, I want the government. Does that mean you don't want health care? no, no, no. I want my health care too.

Okay, so calling and being very specific when you call and like calling daily. Be nice to offices when you call. Like staff is some staff is also not being paid at this time. Sometimes none of the staffs can pay. So be very nice when you're calling into the Capitol, to district offices. They're working very hard. They're also coming in without pay. Hopefully that changes soon. I know one of my friends works in your office, but so we have kind of that we have a pay. There's action we can take on that.

Our staff is being paid right now.

Kat Vargas (16:23.982)
And I do want people to understand too, even if you don't have an ACA plan, you will be impacted by this. Your premium will also be impacted by this because when that money goes away, insurance companies don't just say, OK, I'm just going to eat the cost like that never happens. That's part of why our groceries are so high, because during covid they realize like, wow, people will pay this much and they kept the prices there. And so with with insurance, we're going to have the same thing of how are we going to make up this cost? They're not going to eat it. They're going to pass it on to those who don't have ACA plans as well.

and we're gonna see that cost go up. Your hospital bill will also go up because hospitals are getting less money. So everything's gonna get more expensive. It's not as expensive as our ACA.

Let's just go through some example math on how this works. So in healthcare, right now we already have a pretty large group of people that don't have insurance in Texas that are unfunded. And so the way it works is you put the, hospitals still have to see you. They still have to treat you. And so there might be 15 people that said, let's say that it costs $10,000 to operate the hospital and

they'll see 15 people in a day. then, five of them don't have insurance. Well, the 10 that do will each pay $1,000 and then all 15, the hospital stays open and all 15 people get treatment, right? But then what this stuff is, a whole bunch of people are gonna lose their healthcare. So now instead of 10 people paying that $10,000, it's gonna be only five people.

paying that $10,000 for the 15 people to get healthcare. So now those five people all have to pay $2,000 as opposed to all 15 people just paying their 15th share, right? So this is gonna affect every single person. This notion that, well, I get health insurance for my employer, it's not gonna affect me. That is absolutely not true. It will absolutely affect you.

Kat Vargas (18:22.478)
And to switch gears and kind of bring it back home to Texas. We did have a ruling yesterday from the Texas Supreme Court that judges can now on religious grounds, they can deny performing a same-sex marriage. I know you were the first openly LGBTQ plus member of Congress from the South. What was your initial reaction just like to the headline, just the raw reaction, not like Congress and Julie Johnson, just Julie Johnson, mom and wife?

I just think it's wrong and I don't think it's constitutional. You you can't just decide through a judicial commission that you're going to allow judges to ignore the law based on a belief structure. So does that mean that they can not do mixed-race marriages? Because, you know, we have Supreme Court opinions that say these are the law of the land and they cannot be denied. But you cannot discriminate when you are in an official public

capacity to uphold the law. And so I don't believe this is constitutional at all. I don't think that a judicial commission can just decide, oh, we're not going to follow those laws because we don't want to. That's not how it works.

switching back onto your Congresswoman hat, what do you state constituents who are worried right now? Because there people that are worried that one, how is this going to impact them if they go into courthouse and they're denied? Or for those who are already married that know, know, see, you see the Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that could potentially overturn same-sex marriage in West country, people are very, very worried right now. I'm sure you've had those conversations in your house as well of how do we protect...

you know, our family in this time, you know, what do you say to people who are just really scary?

Rep. Julie Johnson (20:06.414)
I'm scared too. You know, I love being married to my wife. My family, have two grown sons. My family is very important to me. I think that at the end of the day, to the LGBT community in particular, I was reflecting back on something because I'm speaking at the Dallas Black Tie Dinner, you know, week after nice.

I was remembering that this will be the 30th year since the first time I went to Black Times N.I. 30 years ago in 1995. And in 1995, reflecting back on the political journey of the LGBT community, we started

Please don't discriminate against us. Please let us see our partners in the hospital. Let us get domestic partner benefits. We don't even want marriage. Yeah. Some of the simplest of recognitions. And we were ultimately able to achieve marriage equality because the LGBTQ community put their political might in full boa. They were very active. We voted in very high numbers. We donated lots of resources.

We were a political force in politics and politicians were too afraid not to engage with us and be pushed. Because if you remember when Barack Obama was elected to the White House, he was not for getting here. So it was about the political power and clout and might and will that the LGBT community and activists had at that time. I would say people have gotten soft.

I'm flabby.

Rep. Julie Johnson (21:52.748)
You know, they've taken it for granted. They don't vote anymore. They don't donate the way they do. They don't volunteer. You have to engage. You have to be part of the process. And you cannot only complain and bitch because of the problems if you're not part of the process to either keep them from happening or fix them. And I think what we're seeing right now is for the last

while. People have been just kind of soft. We've been talking about our values, but people haven't really felt huge amounts of direct impact in the government. Nothing like what we see now, you know, with people being surreptitiously fired, with people being just snatched off the street without any due process, without any allegations of wrongdoing, of just cutting funding, you know,

just deciding not to spend a congressionally approved funding, just unilaterally deciding, you know, we're just not going to disperse that benefits, even though the law requires us to do that. And the list goes on and on and on on and on and on. And I think people are realizing, least my whole, is that their government does affect them. Their participation in our political system does matter, and their vote definitely counts.

And you were still in Texas House back in Trump's last midterm back in 2018. And we had a blue wave here in Texas. We picked up 12 seats in the Texas House, which is unheard of. All is well. Yeah, it was was nuts. And we ended up last cycle. We had voter turnout was down. We ended up losing a seat and in both chambers. So we've got to win those back. We've got to start winning. Do I think we're in a position that we're going to?

get the majority in either chamber of the state legislature? No. But I think we can start laying that groundwork and start winning some seats and the next cycle keep going. And I think we can get to that point. And I have heard that Republicans are scared of us getting to that point before the new census comes out. Yeah, they're very worried that Democrats couldn't take control of the state. One Democrat in particular they're worried about is James Tallarico, who is running for Senate. And I am going to put you on the spot on this one.

Kat Vargas (24:16.106)
I saw they put out a release with all the endorsements from across the state this week. And I noticed your name was listed at the very top. And it stuck out to me right away because his primary opponent, his main contender is Colin Allred. The seat you sit in now is Colin Allred's seat. So I know this had to have been a difficult decision of not only who to endorse, but if you were gonna weigh in at all or stay neutral, why was it so important for you to come out and endorse James Talarico in this Senate race?

James Talarico is my friend. You know, I've known him. came in. This is the same reason why Lizzie Fletcher endorsed Colin Allred. They're friends. They both got sworn into the U.S. Congress together. They've been their political journey together. James and I both flipped seats in 2018. We are dear friends. I sat right next to him on the House floor. I've seen up close and personal. This is not a slight against Colin.

But you know, I don't ever hear from Colin. He doesn't call me and Colin never asked for my endorsement. So there's that too. I mean, that's part of it. So he never reached out to me. But James, you know, called, he asked, we've talked, we've met several times, we visited about his vision and future for the Texas. This is not against Colin, it's just pro James. You know, I just think James is very talented.

You know?

Rep. Julie Johnson (25:41.986)
He's a great legislator. He's a great communicator. And he's very skilled. And he's my really good friend. This is like, Clay Jenkins was telling me a story that he worked for Barack Obama during Barack's presidential campaign. And he got sent down to Houston to see Sheila Jackson Lee to get her to endorse Barack Obama, the first black president. And she goes, son, did that boy send you down here to talk to me?

He goes, yes, ma'am, he did. He sent me to see if you would consider supporting him. His race is historic and your voice is important and we would be on. He goes, she goes, you I think that I think he's great, but let me just tell you something. Hillary Clinton is my friend and I stick with my friends. That's kind how it is with James. James is my friend and you know, we're just very close.

I do, I actually like that because it is, it's, know, those districts, you he was in Austin, you were up here in Dallas, weren't super close. There are over a hundred members of the, of the house. So to really have formed a close friendship with someone in the house says a lot. And it says a lot about like his character as well. And y'all were two of the ones like people might have saw, you know, James up on the mic a little more, but I know there were a lot of times too where it was like you were.

For people who aren't as familiar with your journey, like you are known as this like workhorse. And so you're like, when you were in the Texas house, it was, you were finding points of order. You were kind of writing bills. You were kind of doing a lot of the behind the scenes, pushing things that had to go. You kind of kept that same thing in DC where you're like, look, I don't need to be the person who's on every single TV. I'm going to get the work done for my district. And we need all those personalities. Cause we do see people that are like, I want to see Democrats doing this or that, but it's.

It's a balance that we have to have. know, and everyone plays their role. And so I do think it's interesting that y'all are such good friends because y'all are not that James doesn't work hard. That's not what I'm saying. But just your personalities are very different. So I love hearing that.

Rep. Julie Johnson (27:47.2)
You know, it's like, we both, we had a lot in common. You we both started our political journeys together. I mean, you form bonds with your classmates. And when you enter a political body, like I'm very close with a lot of my freshmen counterparts in Congress.

You're pretty popular actually with everybody. because what I've been told

But you know, and I'm very close with that. And I'm very close with a lot of the people that I came into the Texas house with, know, Jessica and I are good friends. John Busey, I mean, there's several. mean, there's lots of folks. because you're in it and you have to remember in the Texas house, there's times when we would be on the floor starting at nine a.m. and we wouldn't get off the floor till five a.m. the next day. And I'm sitting right next to James this whole time, know, day.

So you have a chance to really talk and really get to know each other and in a very meaningful way.

I think we're going to have, you know, that primary is going to be very competitive. I think our general is going to be, you know, very heated. We're seeing, you know, Gina and Jose has also announced, I saw, you know, that endorsement go out and she's someone who is not as well known as James, but she's another one who is a real fighter and where, where a lot of times he was kind of upfront on comms, on education and stuff. She was, you know, right there as well.

Kat Vargas (29:19.598)
was a great messenger on it really brought the case and really brought the receipts on Greg Abbott's corruption. So I think she will be able to make that case to Texans to see like, hey, this voucher thing didn't go through because Texans wanted it. It's because Jeff Yass gave Abbott $10 million to go in primary his own party. That's not something that's for Texans. It's for a Pennsylvania billionaire, not even our own billionaires. And know, she brought up points to that.

Under the new voucher scheme, Elon Musk could apply for one for his kids. And obviously he doesn't need a taxpayer funded coupon. So I'm very excited to see, you know, both of them see how our slate ends up being, see how we work together. And I hope something that I also enjoyed about seeing your endorsement of James was that you are known for really working down ballot. You have one of the strongest field games of any member of Congress, I think, especially here in Texas, where it is really hard sometimes to manage and know

Okay, which store do I really need to be hitting? Who needs another touch point from our campaign? You run a really strong challenge game. Even when you're in a safer seat, you're still out there meeting with constituents. You're getting to know before...

I my campaign game up against anybody. My team is really works really, really hard. They're very smart. And we've all been together every single one of my races. I mean, that's the thing. My team has stayed intact. We've won, I don't know, six, seven elections now. By at each time outpacing everything that everybody thought we would win by, you know, we work really, really hard and you're probably, you know, I rise all the boats and that's the thing.

And that's why I was like.

Rep. Julie Johnson (30:57.044)
I want everybody, when I have an event, if you're on the ballot in the area that shares those voters with me, you come because they're all voting. We share the same vote. I want them to get to know everybody. We all have to work together. We have to, Democrats, it can't just be self-focused. It has to be team focused. And that has been a huge part of my campaign strategy. Yeah.

And last cycle too, like you were cutting turf, which for those who don't know, that means like basically making the list of which doors to go knock. And you would do it for a house, Texas House candidates, because it can be expensive to get those lists and everything else. Yeah, there were times like, I wanna come knock. There was something that came and knocked in part of our district that did not even overlap our district. But you were like, no, it is good for all of us for Democrats to win. And I just really hope that our statewide candidates.

Alice and I, did a lot together.

Kat Vargas (31:43.584)
see that because we don't always see that. We always see there's a fight for resources, but no one's ever going to go down ballot and vote for a Democrat and be like, I'm skipping the top. right. I'm just going to leave all of that blank.

The thing is, the down ballot races are so critical to the state-wides. If you go back to 2018, you know, I'm the first Democrat to hold my seat in 40 years. I flipped 115 red to blue in 2018. And people thought, oh, this is gonna be really hard. This is gonna be a hard race. Maybe she'll win it by a point. But we worked our ass off and we won that race by 13 points.

We added a vote spread that helped our statewide ticket. And if you go to to Beto, Beto and I are good friends, but he didn't have to focus on 115. We took care of it and for the slate. And one of the reasons I think why he came so close was not just him, but was because we had competitive districts and campaigns all over the state. That's when Colin won his, he flipped 32. Was he flex or flip congressional seven?

We flipped 12 house races. We flipped two state Senate seats. You Nathan Johnson flipped his. I mean, we had down ballot candidates out there hustling day and night, knocking on votes, turning out the vote, because we had all these competitive seats and it benefited our statewide slate. We need that same synergistic approach to all for one, one for all. We're all going to go out there. But you know, when Beto had a rally, he invited me to come. It was inclusive.

when that's what our statew they need to include ever

Kat Vargas (33:32.92)
For a blue wave, we need a big ship that's gonna carry everybody. I absolutely agree on that. And, you know, kind of the last thing I wanna touch on, because you did say you've had your core staff has been with you for a long time. And I said, one of my friends, one of my really good friends is on your staff. And there's an account called Dear White Staffers that usually does post receipts. I've sometimes when some members of Congress maybe don't treat their staff real great. And I have said, Julie Johnson will never end up on that page. You are known for treating your staff so well.

treating them like people, you're not, know, and respecting them and no one's there just to get you coffee or anything, like they're part of the process. Why is that so important to you? Cause that is rare in Congress to have. It just is.

It's just humanity. You know, I've been low man on a totem pole before and you never forget what that's like. But it's been that way throughout my legal career when I had, you know, my long-term legal assistant worked for me for 25 years. You know, it's just that when you treat people with respect, hire, you know, these are my rules. I hire the smartest, most talented people I can find. And I have...

couple of things. One, I have a no drama office. If you're going to come in here and stir up a bunch of shit, that's a no for me. No drama. I want people who are smart, talented, who don't need to be micromanaged, who are bring their adulting best professional self to the table. And I give them all the room to work, think and bring their ideas, their creativity to the process. I don't presume to have all the answers.

Collectively, we are much smarter than anyone individually. And when you treat people with respect, then you get the best out of them. And so I have the best, brightest, smartest, talented staff, and I get the best from them. And I think that's one of the reasons why we win a fucked-on election.

Kat Vargas (35:33.838)
Love that. Thank you so much for joining us this week on Taco Policy. The last question I have for you, I ask every single guest, what is your taco policy? What's your taco order and how religious are you about it?

I love tacos. People say if you're going to have one island, food on an island, it's tacos. get lettuce, tomato, cheese, and ground meat. I love a good, crispy beef taco, man. I old school. you know, just, I love tacos. It's so great. My kids and I, we eat tacos. know, tacos are just a universal food. A, they're affordable. You can easily make tacos at home and you can feed a lot of people.

It's a good family dinner. It's something you can do. I used to make tacos with my sons all the time. It was something that is something easy to prepare that we could do as a family. And three, they're just good. Who doesn't love a taco?

Exactly. I mean, I bet some your Republican colleagues, if I took them for tacos, they probably would not be the greatest tacos.

They're always a little better with tequila though instead of ice.

Kat Vargas (36:34.254)
They are, they are. Little margarita, salt on the rim. Yeah. that. Yeah. But thank you again so much for being with us this week. Thanks for having me. And hopefully we get this government reopened soon with our healthcare protected. I love it. Thanks so much. Thank you. If you enjoyed listening, be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We're also on YouTube so you can watch the entire episode. Make sure you subscribe there too so you don't miss what's next. We'll be back next week.

In the meantime, you can follow me on social media at at howdy politics and check out our brand new show account at at taco policy on Instagram. Remember, this is your seat at the table for the future of Texas. This is Taco Policy.