Taco Policy

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (00:00)
The biggest tool for upward economic mobility on the globe is the American public school. As a party, we need to just stay true to who we are and be unapologetic about it. The path forward is one that is really tough and it's very hands-on. It's a lot of work and it's that grassroots perspective of filling precinct chairs, filling county chairs, and turning our base out.

Kat Vargas (00:27)
Well, we are here with the Texas Democratic Party Chair, Kendall Scudder. Thanks for meeting up with me on this.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (00:32)
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Kat Vargas (00:34)
Absolutely, we've had quite a bit of news this week. It hasn't been a slow news week at all. Lots of things with Epstein files, but here at home, it has been one of the big stories has been that Kim Paxton is once again filing one of his frivolous lawsuits as he tends to do. This time targeting Jolt, which is one of our Latino organizations. They really focus on, you know, registering Latino voters. And we just see it as this continued tech. We know that we saw last fall.

It was same thing where they were raiding like, I believe this houses ⁓ down in South Texas for, you know, same thing, just registering Latino voters. You know, we keep hearing they think that they've won the Latino vote, but do you think they would be doing this if they really were? We're winning.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (01:19)
Well, they're not just doing it to Latino orgs, by the way. They're doing it to any org that isn't doing their bidding. So like if you find a nonprofit that's just here to help people, they're going after them too. And because they aren't using their nonprofit to help them politically, it's pretty gross. ⁓ And so I hate that this is happening to Joel and all these groups that are really just trying to encourage engagement.

There shouldn't be anything wrong with that. I don't understand what's even controversial about, you know, helping people get out to vote. I mean, maybe you should just try having better ideas. If the problem is that when people show up, don't like you, you should reconsider what you're standing for.

Kat Vargas (02:02)
Exactly.

Texas is one of the hardest states to vote in, as is. They're doing this great work. we know that lot of times, Pax and Files, these lawsuits, not because they have any merit, it's a mixture of, he is in a primary with Cornyn, so part of it's his PR strategy to look like, oh, look at me being tough. But then it's also just that he knows he can't win a lot of times. And it's just like we saw with the lawsuit with Beto over the summer.

The goal for him is just to bankrupt these organizations and cost them so much money. And it's at our expense as taxpayers that we're paying for these frivolous lawsuits. ⁓ But we do have the AG's race on the ballot this year. We have a primary. I'm not going to make you get into the AG's primary, but how do you feel about our chances at some of these statewide races that we have this year?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (02:53)
I think that 2026 is probably the best opportunity we've had in probably since 2018. And what we have to do to be successful is learn the right lessons from 2018. So the things that I hope that we pick up on are showing up everywhere across the state, looking people in the night, asking them for their support went a long way, number one. Number two, what can we do to better capture data and make sure that we're not just doing it one election cycle?

2018 I think everybody got really excited, but it all went to campaigns that then went away or you know better creative power by people It's been hugely successful What can we as a party do within our apparatus to make sure we're capturing that you know this cycle and not just losing that opportunity Things like that are what we're trying to kind of capitalize on as this cycle goes in I think very top of the ticket with Senate is obviously the most sexy one that everybody's the most interested in but you know

depending on how good of a year it is, if you believe the top of the ticket is what carries it, could have tailwinds. I'm not the person who tends to believe top of the ticket carries it. I think bottom of the ticket carries it for top. And so I think you're going to have some surprises this year. We're working really hard to recruit candidates down ballot and make sure we have high quality folks that are running. think candidates matter and having people that are from communities, having ties in them, talking like folks in their communities do. ⁓ I think it can move the needle.

and it can translate that ballot. If we do it strategically and we do it in a way that matters and if that is proven true, I think all these state-wides have some real opportunities, you know? It's just a matter of how can the people at the top, you know, work their turnout games.

Kat Vargas (04:38)
And we just saw, you two weeks ago on election day, did have, you know, I saw the press recently came out. We had a lot of actually victories like in Texas and in rural areas too, like in Lockhart. We had a city council race that we won and Sy Fair completely swept the school board races. I saw down the ballot, there were some wins really just all over the state. There was a lot of talk about the props that were on the ballot and I'll get to that a little bit. But I do think it shows and these were some areas that weren't expected and there were like Taylor and Matt over in, you know, Senate District 9.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (05:08)
school

boards in Hood County. I mean, we just had some incredible successes down ballot and I think they got overshined by the failures in the props department. I, you know, I don't blame people for being frustrated about it. I was really frustrated and upset about it. The point of frustration for me is why the hell were those even on the ballot? I mean, it takes 12 Democrats in the House to even get it on the ballot. And so at some point,

Kat Vargas (05:10)
I didn't even know about this.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (05:37)
working that defense the we were supposed to could have prevented that. We don't everybody knows we don't have the resourcing in Texas to accomplish it. We don't have the ability, let alone the willpower to flush millions of dollars on these props. We should have killed them where they started. And I just, really hope that lessons are learned from that and going into the next ledge session, we can corral our house Dems to do more. And hell, we broke quorum for two weeks.

Why couldn't we have done that to stop resolutions that put propositions on the ballot? I was incredibly frustrated by it. But it overshadowed some real successes that we had. The races that we were active, engaged in, we had large over-performances. And I think that we can just try to channel that and keep it moving throughout the cycle as we progress.

Kat Vargas (06:28)
No, it was. It was frustrating to see some of these props that made it long. Because like you said, it took 12 Democrats having to support it in the House. And we were told they put out, know, press release and put out a statement that if Republicans passed vouchers, they wouldn't pass a single, ⁓ you know, resolution for an amendment to get on the ballot. And so we shouldn't have had any. You know, I think they lasted maybe like the week of vouchers passing before they kind of backed down on that. And it's this frustration that people are seeing.

not just in Texas, it's across the country. And we kind of had a little bit of a reprieve from it with the quorum break where we had this moment of like feeling, yes, this is Texas Democrats and we know how to fight. the props kind of were that reminder again that no, like there's a lot that we really failed on. And so do you think like we are at this moment of a party that people are starting to pay attention and listen and know like, know like the base wants you to actually fight.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (07:17)
I sure hope so. think a lesson to learn from the quorum break was that when people are watching, they'll do the right thing. Most of them. There's some of them that even when people are watching won't. And that's an important thing to remember too. ⁓ But when people aren't watching, when people aren't paying attention and giving the scrutiny, what are they doing? I think we have some state House members that have a real North star that you don't have to stress or worry about if they're going to let some of those horrible props hit the ballot.

I wish we get the whole caucus there. ⁓ I just, I came in in the middle of a ledge session and you know, perhaps there was some naivety there that just kind of being loud and progressive could help move people in that direction. But there just has to be a real concerted effort that's made from the very beginning of the ledge session next time that says, are the types of things we...

are fine with you negotiating on? What are the types of things that are completely unacceptable for you to negotiate on? And then I think it's on us to have some teeth on that. And how do we work with some of our partners around the state to make sure that if you do break some of those barriers that we as a caucus have decided you shouldn't, you know, what's the accountability there?

Kat Vargas (08:31)
Yeah, and think something that I didn't realize was that the Texas House Democrats do not issue out a vote recommendation to members. Right. On the GOP side, do. The Senate Democrats do. It's just in the House that that's not done. And so then how do you hold people accountable? And I don't think people realize it's kind of the House is really like the Wild West, where there are much more allegiances, like small allegiances between members of, I'll help you with this bill, and it's across party lines versus to the party and to our base.

⁓ which is very frustrating to voters. to me, that's why we have lost in areas down south, because it's what difference does it make if I don't actually see you fighting for me?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (09:08)
Yeah, Kat, to your point, if I can't tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, I don't know how voters are supposed to be able to.

Kat Vargas (09:14)
Yeah, and it's not exciting. I mean, we've had low turnout. You know, we have not had gotten back to that 2018 level turnout. You we talked about 2018 a little bit. You know, in 2018, you know, we had Beto that excited candidates. We had Down Ballot that really excited, you know, voters to come out and vote. And we saw that turn and that made a huge difference. And we haven't gotten back to that level since then.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (09:35)
Yeah, I do think that we might have learned all the wrong lessons from that as an institution, as a party. I I think people walked away from that 2018 election and they just said, well, that didn't work. Instead of walking away and saying, wow, what progress we made, let's continue doing that. And so, you know, that's not throwing shade. It's just saying like, everybody's doing the best they can with what they got. But to me, the path forward is one that is really tough and it's very hands on.

And it's a lot of work and it's that grassroots perspective of filling precinct chairs, filling county chairs and turning our base out and not treating your base like, well they'll show up. They'll be fine. We'll work for the people in the middle. I'm sorry. ⁓ Trying to get the Cheney vote hasn't been going so hot for us. ⁓ And if it's done anything, it's moved the scale of progressivism and conservatism to the right.

Because while we've played the middle, they kept moving to the right and those people who won't be a part of a party, they've stayed in the middle. So they've moved right. And I just think that as a party, we need to just stay true to who we are and be unapologetic about it and start earning our base back because I think we've shown quite a bit of disrespect to the base over the last few cycles.

Kat Vargas (10:52)
think so. And I think someone's been interesting, and I won't put you on the spot as far as the Senate primary, but we're hearing that Jasmine Crockett isn't considering possibly entering. And something that she's really said is her focus on is if she enters, she's looking at all the data to say, she's aware there's a portion of voters who will never vote for her. Probably 90 % of those would not vote for any Democrat anyways. And she's like, I'm looking at, I, for those voters that maybe I would turn off or that I can't get.

Am I able to bring in enough voters to counter that? And I think that's really, really smart. And she's got that calibration. And I think my fear is, with all of our statewide, it's always a thing of, yes, you've got to speak to, have a big tent and everything. But we do tend to push really in the center a lot of times. we've seen time and time again, that hasn't helped. We've seen since 2018. So that was part of the problem in 2020 was then we ran a lot of moderate candidates. And no surprise, they didn't quite get the same enthusiasm that Beto did.

So I do think it'll interesting to see what Jasmine does. think she's going to cause whatever she decides to do. It's clear she's causing some recalibration in the current candidates, making them sweat, which just like as a woman, I'm like, yes, absolutely. You should make these men sweat. ⁓

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (12:03)
Well, here's what I'll say. You know, I'm Switzerland. I love all my Democrats equally. People know my personal politics and they can make assumptions about what my ballot looks like, but I don't pick sides in primaries ⁓ for a couple of reasons. And we can talk about that in a sec. But you know, I've had conversations with every candidate running for Senate right now, ⁓ whether it's, know, James Salarico calling all red or it's ⁓ the candidates, Emily Morgan or Mike Swanson, who folks don't know as much.

I love all my Democrats equally. I've talked to all of them and it feels like every candidate in the race, know, at least is telling me that they're on board this idea of base turnout. And I think that that's gonna be crucial for our success, not just as statewide, but also holding onto places we've been losing, like the RGV and border communities like Laredo. Base turnout is what it's all about. And I hope that that translates as we get through the primary as well.

Kat Vargas (12:59)
And kind of staying on this topic of the Senate primary, there's been a lot of chatter online this week. Congressman Joaquin Castro came out and said part of what kind of his delay is in making his decision for AG is over the summer. And this was public during the summer that, know, Alred, Talarico, Castro and Beto were all in these talks of trying to have some coordinated sleep.

It came up very quickly that all of a sudden, hey, I'm gonna do what I think is best. You guys are cool to do what you wanna do. We saw the other three kind of keep working together and then something happened. That ballot has not appeared for this really coordinated slate. And there's been a lot of talk of, know, TDP should know this happened. I've kind of tried to come on and be like, hey guys, this was between the candidates. You don't really have a say in where people are running. So what is, so the people know, like what is TDP's role in primaries?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (13:50)
think that people have this idea of what a the party is, right? And the party should be like the orchestrator of how it all happens. But the reality is each of these campaigns are independent entities. And what makes Texas different than other states is that we've got a weird quirk in state law where the party runs the primary in Texas.

So in a lot of other states, voter, ⁓ your voting administrator or your ⁓ secretary of state or whoever would run the election, but in a primary in Texas, the parties run it. So this position that I take and the position that I strongly believe the party should take is that we don't pick winners and losers, voters do. And

I am the one person in the state that is supposed to be the referee treating everyone fairly who chooses to run. I am charged with administering the primary, right? If I weren't administering the primary, maybe I would be having some more intense discussions, but whether you are Mike Swanson and Emily Morgel or you're Colin Allred and James Talerico, you should feel like you were treated fairly. And that's the position that I've taken. I don't like when parties pick winners and losers. So as a result,

I know that there are people that want us to come to the table with this big slate and shove everybody into the right seat whether they like it or not and say, sit down, shut up, you're gonna run for LG or whatever. I just don't think it's the right thing for the party to do. And let's pretend in our world where it was and where I did. Well, I think I'd get a lot of criticism for a slate that contained no women. I think I would be getting some criticism that that slate is not representative of the people of Texas. And so like,

I understand that people are afraid of primaries. I understand that our party is inherently risk adverse. I am not. I think that primaries are good for our party. If primaries were bad for the party, Republicans would have been losing decades ago. So we may have the most expensive Democratic primary for Senate this year, and that will be money that is poured into turning Democrats out to vote. And as the chairman of the party and the guy who's in charge of base turnout, I'm thrilled to hear it.

and I think it's a sign of a strong party. I know everybody may not agree with me, but understand, like, if I'm not treating these candidates fairly, nobody is. Like, literally, I am the one charged in state law to not meddle, and I don't intend to. They've all reached out to me, they've all asked me my opinion, I'll give them my opinions, but I'm not here to push anybody. This party belongs to you. It belongs to your viewers. It doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to the party establishment. It doesn't belong to consultants.

If you think that you're good and that you'd be a great AG, if you think you'd be a great land commissioner, then file and let the voters make that decision. Because I have a lot of faith that our Democratic primary voters are smart people and they'll be able to give us good candidates. And once they do, we bear hug them and we move forward. And my job is to turn out the base to win some elections in November.

Kat Vargas (16:50)
Yeah, and I won't call any particular candidates, especially not in front of you, but so if people have a problem with how those negotiations things happen, that is solely with the candidates and they should speak with them about it.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (17:00)
Yeah,

and I mean, they can talk to me about it. I'm happy to, but you know, I only really talk to candidates about whether they can get access to the voter file or how to get them access to the voter file, any protocol and questions they have about filing. Outside of that, you put your campaign together, you let the people of Texas understand why you're the best choice, y'all will make the choice. And then after the primary in March or in May, however that goes, we're all going to be sprinting forward. In the meantime, our party's working on some pretty exciting things, you know.

Right now in districts where we don't typically have candidates, we're working on recruitment efforts. Once we have a candidate, I don't do any recruiting. But if we sit here and we have vacancies, we work on recruitment. think we have some really exciting stuff coming up on the recruitment front right now. So once we hit filing, I do believe we will have more candidates than we have ever had as Democrats in this state for state and federal offices. We're working on putting the coordinated campaign together, which will be rolled out after the primary. And we're making sure that we know

who's on first, who's doing what, that we're operating out of the same funnel instead of competing with each other. Those are the kinds of things I'm focusing on.

Kat Vargas (18:03)
Now for people that aren't familiar, what does a coordinated campaign mean? Because I don't think some people are aware how some of these processes work.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (18:09)
Well,

there's what a coordinated campaign actually is versus a coordinated campaign we've always been told what it is, right? What we've always been told is that the coordinated campaign is just everybody talking to each other and working together. But a real coordinated campaign, what it actually is, is us operating in the same funnel together within our data systems so that people aren't duplicating efforts where we're legally able. There's some real complexities in the compliance space there. ⁓ But basically, all of us operating in the voter file in a way as if we are on a same team.

not as if we are a bunch of separate entities that we just have to trust that they're doing what they say they're gonna do. Because frankly, we've operated that way in the past, it hasn't been successful. And it's hard to broker those agreements. Actually, this could go back to the last discussion we're having. Let's say that I did involve myself in picking these candidates. Let's say I told, know, better work, you're gonna run for governor and whether you like it or not, right? And then Gina Hennahos says, well, I wanted to run for governor.

And let's say Gina Hedda also won that primary. Well, how do I work with Gina to put a coordinated campaign to win the state when I was so disrespectful putting someone else in that spot, right? So it's just another, you kind of have to be a peacekeeper as the chair to bring everybody together so that we can joint up on strategy when the primary is over.

Kat Vargas (19:27)
And what are we going to see that's different this cycle as far as turnout? Because we did have a lower turnout last cycle. Before that we had lower turnout in Texas. So what is it that we're going to see to really increase turnout in our rural areas, down in the Valley, and really just all over the state? Because even Houston and Dallas, we both, they always like to say we're counting on them to save us, but I just want to point out turnout in Houston, turnout in Dallas was not super great. Wasn't great. This last cycle either.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (19:52)
Now, I mean, I think you're gonna see actual staff members on the ground across the state. ⁓ I think that you're gonna see slates of candidates. I'm on a mission, man. I'm on a mission to fill every state and federal office in Texas. Never been done before. I might miss it, but I'm gonna shoot for the moon and we're gonna get as close as we can. And if we do that, what that's gonna mean is that you have active campaigns around the state, but it's not good enough just to have a candidate. They have to be.

ushered and guided and coached on what they should do, given talking points. And so I think you're going to see more kind of handholding of candidates this year than what you've typically seen. We aren't going to have the staffing to run on their campaigns, right? But we do have the staffing and the ability to call, you know, monthly meetings with our candidates to talk about what we're hearing, what we're doing, where we're out on the coordinated and keep them in the loop that hasn't really ever been done. And most importantly, I think what you're going to see is a cohesive message.

everyone is singing from the same hymnal. Now, you may be saying it a little bit differently because your community's a little different than other parts of the state, and that's okay. But I do think it's important that we are driving home the issue of affordability until we're blue in the face. That is the issue. ⁓ All these other issues are important, but I think leading with affordability is crucial. If you're on a state-level race, affordability is crucial, but also,

tying things back to public schools. Greg Abbott took a bribe from an East Coast sugar daddy to defund your community public schools. But what I don't want, what I don't want are candidates going around this state talking about rolling back the voucher program. It's fine to talk about rolling back the voucher program, but you have to come to people with a vision for what can be, not just constantly trying to stop bad things. I want candidates to talk about us having the best funded public schools in the world.

The way we did the last time Democrats ran this state, I candidates to campaign with vision. That's the goal. And I think you'll see the party working in cohort with these folks to try to help make sure that our messaging is a little bit more tight this cycle than what we've seen in the past.

Kat Vargas (21:54)
Yeah, and I do think that vouchers do present this really unique opportunity for us because Abbott, he's not an easy incumbent. Even with his approval ratings on paper not looking great, we know that he has a huge war chest. He's starting with almost $100 million. And there's no cap on contributions. So, Yas can keep writing those huge checks to him. I'm also like, I mean, it couldn't even have been like one of our own billionaires. It was an out-of-state billionaire that had to come in for the final push.

We do see people even in rural areas, in red areas, that are really unhappy because they know how this voucher scheme is already impacting the communities and it hasn't even gone into effect yet. ⁓ We know one of those areas that we're seeing it, you know, we're already seeing schools close. They had kind of hoped that, you know, maybe during the session we'd see the per student allotment increase. It did not increase in a way to alleviate any of the current stresses that they're feeling. I got news on Friday, one of my, or not one of my might.

childhood elementary school is closing. And I was like on the couch just like crying because it's a title one school. You know, I grew up when I was younger, you before my parents, so my dad was an alcoholic. And so school was like my escape. was where it was just like fun and it was a safe space. And then when my parents eventually did split the music teacher there who's still there now had free after school programs three days a week. So my mom couldn't afford after school child care. I would have been home by myself. Sometimes I would walk with a neighbor.

But I had somewhere safe to be three days a week, wasn't getting in trouble. It was a really unique program. Mr. String, who his first year there was when I was in kindergarten, and like I said, he's still there now. It's the only school he's ever taught at. And he probably could have gone on to consult on different music programs and do all these things, but he

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (23:35)
Secretary of Education.

Kat Vargas (23:37)
He

chose to stay knowing the impact that he was having, especially with the demographic of kids that that school serves, that there were so many kids like me in worse situations than what I was in. Because at the end of the day, I still did grow up very, very blessed with my mom. And it's that kind of thing. Like it was... I'm gonna brag about it even some more. So it was not just a music program or an after-school program. Choir was... In winter, he would do like an original musical every year.

And so like one year, like Santa and Mrs. Claus switch places. Another year, you know, Santa went on vacation. The Dad's Club would like make these intricate like sets and stuff. Like I remember when they switched places, there was this washing machine, this like fake washing that like bubbles actually came out of. And so it got parents involved. And then in the spring, he would do another original musical that was done by like a decade theme. So I remember being a Tom Cruise fan girl, chasing him around.

on stage in like fifth grade. And it was things like that. And then we'd have this drumming group that's like open for the Cowboys and the Mavs and all these really cool things. And it gave students, you know, sense of pride. And, know, this is an area where over half the kids, you know, are at risk of, you know, dropping out before they graduate. Those are the schools that we're seeing shut down. It's not the schools in the wealthy areas that get picked. Even though this elementary was award winning and got so much good press for GCISD.

It's the one they picked. And we're seeing that all over the state. And as people are seeing this, what I'm telling people is if you see this as the loss that it is, then I hope you're ready to grab a clipboard, lace up your shoes, and go knock on some doors. Because this is the year people are seeing those schools be shut down.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (25:21)
Well, the fight isn't a culture war, it's a class war. It's just the reality of it. And I know that may make you sound strident, but it's just the truth. I'm from a super low income family in rural East Texas. All the opportunities I had in my life was because we had public schools there that allowed me to do it. If not, I'd be on a farm today and nothing against folks who chose to do it. It wasn't what I wanted to do. I just think the biggest...

tool for upward economic mobility on the globe is the American public school. And the billionaire class knows it. And they want to keep us uneducated because it will reduce our opportunities, keep us on assembly lines, keep us in factories, keep us on farms. And it, to me, is kind of the crux of what we're actually fighting. We're fighting to make sure people have opportunity. Every bit of opportunity that they want to live an American dream.

That's what we're trying to do and that's what the public schools are about. And so to me, when we're talking about state issues next year, it's affordability and it's public schools.

Kat Vargas (26:26)
And for, you know, people that are at home, that are listening, that are on their way to work right now listening to this, and they know Republicans have been in control of the state for 30 years. If there's anything that you have that's a problem with the state, it is because of Republican control.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (26:40)
yeah, does anybody feel like their taxes are lower now than they were 30 years ago? Is your neighborhood safer than it was 30 years ago? Are your schools better than they were 30 years ago? Are the bridges and roads better than they were 30 years ago? mean, 30 years ago was when Democrats ran the state, and for the last 30 years, Republicans have been systematically disassembling all the great things that Democrats put in place when we built Texas. And, you know, we built it, we can save it. We just have to make sure we're taking that message to people and showing them that we're focused on the issues that are important to them.

not necessarily just on the issues that are important to us.

Kat Vargas (27:13)
And not only that though, for the people that are at home, what is it that they can do? Because it is, it's time, like the cycle's already started.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (27:18)
Be

a precinct chair, number one. When fascism is knocking on the door, is not the time for imposter syndrome. A precinct chair is like Captain Democrat for your neighborhood. And if you're nosy like me, it gets you access to the voter file and you can see how your neighbors vote. And that's kind of cool. But I am right. Me too. But basically, you you would be the person that's in charge of knowing who the Democrats are in your neighborhood and going to remind them when elections are happening that it's time for me to get out and vote and where they can go and helping them.

Kat Vargas (27:24)
What is a precinct sure?

Very nosy.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (27:48)
to get that accomplished. Half of precinct chairs in Texas are vacant. We've not been building the way that we were supposed to. And becoming a precinct chair is number one. All you have to do is reach out to your county party. They will trip all over themselves, I would assume, to make you a precinct chair. If you're in a precinct that already has a precinct chair, reach out to your precinct chair and be like, hey, what can I do to help? A lot of them have been doing it for so long, they're really wanting to pass it off to somebody. They're tired. But also, you would have a buddy that can teach you how to do it.

And so that was my number one thing to tell people.

Kat Vargas (28:20)
What's that time commitment look like for someone?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (28:22)
Well, state law, you'd be an elected official, right? State law says that your obligation is to show up to quarterly meetings, so four times a year. Okay. And so the organizing piece is what you can do. You know, it's not, no one's gonna come and beat down your door because you didn't do enough, and just, honestly, there's just never gonna be enough hours in the day to do everything you possibly can do. So we put a plan together, we put together some of our organizing strategy and try to apply it there.

and do what you can. Everybody's doing the best they can with what they've got. Democrats are just so hard on each other, right? Everybody's doing the best they can with what they've got. And it's hard, it's a slog. We're all underwater. ⁓ But being mean to each other isn't what's gonna dig us out of this and solve it. We gotta start acting like we're on a team, moving in the same direction with the goal of trying to win elections. If you see a Democrat that's not doing enough, you don't go up to him and say, hey, you piece of shit, how dare you? You go up to him and you say, hey, looks like you're struggling, what can I do to help?

That's how a team operates and in Texas we've been in silos and fiefdoms for so long that it doesn't feel like we have that ingrained in us as Texas Democrats. We've got a lot of fight in us. We don't have a lot of working together with kindness and that's another thing that I'm really trying to bring around the state. So being a precinct chair, we're here to help you and there's going to be some critics, there's going to be some people who don't like it, but ultimately we're all on a team together and this can be your part to fight fascism.

Kat Vargas (29:48)
And I do want to tell people, because I don't know if you're going to do it, to definitely become a sustaining member for the Texas Democratic Party. You know, if it's $5, $10, all those that sustain me, you're committing to a monthly donation. That helps you guys know, okay, we can count on this money. We can hire staff.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (30:02)
Well,

since you brought it up, know, the chair's job is always to beg for money and I try not to do it all the time. ⁓ here, I know this is the part where everybody turns the show off and stops listening, but hear me out on this one. ⁓ When I started getting active in the party, I thought they had a lot more resources than they did. I was shocked to find out when I became chair, we were at fifteen hundred monthly donors. There were six million people in Texas that went over Joe Biden. Fifteen hundred were given monthly.

And so you were talking about running a statewide organization with 20 grand in mind. And you just can't do it. You can't staff, you can't operate it. And that is no one's fault with the TDPs. You can't blame other people. The grassroots has lost confidence in them or they were not asked to do it. Right. So we have to go out and try to re-arm people's confidence or just simply ask them to go to texasdemocrats.org and become a monthly donor. I want to get 2 % of people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 to become a sustaining donor to the

That's my goal. If we did that, if 2 % of Joe Biden voters gave 10 bucks a month, we'd be bringing in $1.2 million a month. At that point, I'm handing checks to county parties. At that point, we would have had enough money to rampage against every prop that we hated on that ballot. We would have been able to sink a million dollars or two in that ⁓ SD9 special, right? I mean, then we have a party we could be proud of, but it...

It's on us to earn the support of the grassroots back. And I don't blame anybody but us. And that's part of the job of the new chairman is to try to get out there, show people we're slogging away to try to get us there.

Kat Vargas (31:39)
And you're making a lot of changes. I guess it was like a month ago now. The big news was that HQ for the party was moving from Austin. Dallas is like the main HQ, but there will be kind of satellite offices elsewhere. There were some feelings about staff changes as a result of the move and all that. I know for me, reading and not reading super into it, because I just don't think most people really care.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (32:05)
Perry

and the Weed.

Kat Vargas (32:06)
It's very in the weeds, like most people don't care, like, okay, what? first, like, why the change?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (32:13)
Well, I think decentralizing is really important. You can't run an entire state's operation out of one city. It doesn't matter if it's Austin, it doesn't matter if it's Houston, okay? You can't run one state's operation out of one city. I also think Austin's very different than the rest of the state. And I do think that there's been some damage to our comms apparatus as a result. My goal is to try to decentralize, so we're gonna be opening up an office in DFW, we'll have an office in Austin.

We'll have an office in Houston. They will all have different administrative functions for the party. And then we're going to have organizing satellite offices, one in Amarillo and one in Eagle Pass. And those were strategically picked because those were places where either in the case of Amarillo, where we have huge swaths of vacant county chairs that we need to be on the ground recruiting. I did like eight events this summer up in the Panhandle and in the Permian Bay and trying to recruit county chairs. And we recruited some, but it has just become very clear to me that we've got to be more.

accomplishing that. And then for the purpose of Eagle Pass, those county parties down there just don't get help. They don't have support and a lot of them don't really understand kind of the strategic path of how to move forward because they've been safe counties for so long that no one ever invested and took time to teach them how to do it. And so they will have very different focuses as organizing offices, but organizing offices nonetheless, and hopefully it's just the beginning. Hopefully we'll get some more offices around the state too.

⁓ But my goal is just to make sure that if you live in a part of Texas, you can Google Democrat office near me and very easily find one. And Eagle Pass and Amarillo were two places where they couldn't.

Kat Vargas (33:46)
And one of the criticisms, well, before I say this, this was up like for a vote. And so it's not something that like you, you know, allowed to decide it did go up for a vote. And it had been talked about for quite a while about, you know, would the party move or not move. But one of the criticisms I have seen was that Dallas is kind of going to be one those HQ offices and people have said, well, is this because you're a chair and you live in the Dallas area? What happens when you're not chair with the office? Are we going to keep moving, you know, where HQ is to whoever the chair is? Like, is there...

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (34:15)
I can't speak to whatever the next chair will do, but as long as I'm chair, I want to make sure that our major metros have some representation. I want to make sure central Texas has an office. I think the Gulf Coast needed an office. think North Texas needed an office. We were originally looking at Fort Worth. There were just some logistical things that popped up there. And I'm excited that we're going to have an office in South Dallas. South Dallas is where a lot of our democratic votes come from. And frankly, I think they've been really

kind of cast aside by our party and not treated as if they are votes we're supposed to go out and earn. And I think having a headquarter office there would be really beneficial to us with re-sinking ourself with our base. And I understand, I have to live somewhere in the state, The first several months of my chair-ship, I mean, I've already done events in over 70 counties in the state. It's not that I'm not traveling everywhere.

burning up the road, but you North Texas is 8.3 million people and they deserve to have an office here. I'm sorry. When you look at state house gain opportunities, huge in North Texas. When you look at congressional opportunities, particularly with these new maps, huge in North Texas. ⁓ I think Collin County, Ellis County, Kauffman County, Denton County, Tarrant County. I mean, all these these areas in North Texas, I think there's about to be some real movement there and the state party needs to be a part of it. So

We're gonna be active and engaged all across the state. I know change isn't easy for everyone to swallow, but that's okay. I ran to be a change candidate. And if I'm not reelected, that's fine. That's the prerogative of the people of Texas. This party doesn't belong to me. It doesn't belong to the consultancy class. It doesn't belong to the elected officials. It belongs to you and it belongs to the grassroots. Republicans have understood that. They have allowed their grassroots to run their party.

We have not. And I think we should take a stab at it. That's what I'm trying to do by decentralizing the

Kat Vargas (36:16)
And you are a pretty young chair here, millennial. And I just saw you were with Anderson Clayton, who was the North Carolina chair, who's the youngest chair in the country. ⁓ I'm interested, like, you know, are you all coordinating some talking about, you know, different challenges you all have? And they have a lot of rural areas just like we do, which one I think Anderson is like absolutely brilliant. And love to talk to her. I've never met someone who was like, no, I can tell you like now, given they have less precincts than we do.

But she can tell you like by precinct the data there and she can tell you, what the demographics are, by how many votes they need to flip a certain one, all this stuff. it's great. are you coordinating with like with her and some other chairs figuring out what's working? Like, how is that coming? Like, that's just a curious.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (36:57)
Yeah,

the chairs talk quite a bit, I ⁓ chair Clayton and I talk very often. Big fan. I think she's just doing wonderful things in North Carolina. And when I first got elected, she was the first state chair that I called because we're both chairs that are in the youth caucus and there are only four in the country. When I got elected, there were three. So we just got another one in Wisconsin. ⁓ But, know, Chair Clayton, I just have a great admiration for. She's got huge energy. Now we're very different people.

And one of the things that I am jealous of is I wish I was good at social media as she is. The problem is I hate social media and I just can't find it within myself. I've got too much administrative stuff I'm dealing with, but I'll call her and ask her for advice and she's just a spitfire. She's killing it and we're just lucky to have her. I think we need more young chairs around the state and around the country and the state. We need more young chairs because I'm sick and tired of a party.

What I think is different about young people versus older folks and nothing against my older folks, they're carrying this party on their back without a doubt and I'm incredibly grateful to it. I think there's a different fire in young people because they're angrier. know older folks are angry too, I get it. But I'm saying younger people have been dealt a real shithand and they're furious about ⁓ the lack of opportunity we've been given versus our parents. And that fire just brings something different to the table in leadership.

And I think you see that in people like Anderson Clayton. I hope people see it me as well.

Kat Vargas (38:26)
Yeah, and I think, and you talked a little about consultants. I know, I think one of the things I really love about Anderson is just that she knows the state really well. so candidates trust her as well. Tour, you know, here, you know, our candidates a lot of times tend to trust DC consultants who love to treat our state like an ATM, especially our state-wides. They love to come in. Sometimes they'll swoop in early and they'll recruit these candidates and they'll tell them, if you just do these things, Tour, sometimes we see like when someone...

first recruited by them, it's something that we do all of, and we kind of see them change and shift into this kind of DC candidate instead of a Texas candidate. ⁓ What do you think, is that...what's the solution for us, like, to get out of that, like, habit? Because it's terrible. It's a lot of money. It's money that goes to DC and not voter outreach.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (39:13)
of it let's talk about why. The reason why is because we lost for so long in Texas that a lot of the folks who have winning records end up leaving and they'll set up shops somewhere else. You don't have a lot of folks with, and the folks that you do have here that have winning records are inundated. They don't have the bandwidth to help every single candidate in state. So you end up seeing people going places like DC to try to find help.

And then you end up hiring people who just don't give a shit about the state. They don't care about its long-term investments. And so as a result, you don't get the kind of development in the state that we would hope for. So how do you fix it? Well, you fix it by training up your staff here. And I think you start with finance staff because that is what all the campaigns have the hardest time finding is finance staff. So how do we make sure that

We have enough finance staff in the state that are trained up so that if you're a new candidate, you don't have to worry about who you call to get help. You have somebody there to do it. Right now, you put postings out for finance staff. You don't even get bytes. And so that's one thing. If somebody wants to work in politics, advice I have for you, start learning finance. Come to Texas. If you want to start learning how to do that, I will link you up with folks that can help train you. We'll get you on some campaigns. Let's go.

Kat Vargas (40:35)
I'm not learning finance.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (40:36)
I'm just telling you, I need people all around the state that know how to run call time, know how to pull lists, know how to put events together, know how to put finance plans together and are here to raise money. ⁓ That's always the first person you hire, last one you fire and it's, it's broke. So what'll happen, all that is just to say, what happens is when you decide you want to start running, there's nobody here that can do finance. So you try to reach out to finance consultants. They're all in DC. And then they say, as you start to build your campaign, ⁓ well I've written your budget, I've written your finance plan, I've done this.

Here are all of my friends who do all of these things and they don't live in Texas. And so I think it starts with finance staff. That's my opinion.

Kat Vargas (41:12)
And that's a really interesting point that I had not previously kind of thought about and put together. And I know we're kind of closing up. I do want to ask you, because I ask every guest, what is your taco policy? What's your taco order? How religious are you about it?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (41:29)
So my taco joint is Lob and Geta in East Dallas. ⁓ You can always trust a fat boy when he tells you about good tacos, and that's me. I probably eat at Lob and Geta three times a week if I'm in Dallas. These days I'm not in Dallas for tacos three times a week, but when I'm in town, it is my stop. ⁓ Today, we're filming this on a Sunday, and Lob and Geta's closed. So you came to East Dallas, we chose to go to Chilango's.

and I did a carne asada on flour. That's where I think I'm pretty controversial is that I'm not into a corn tortilla.

Kat Vargas (42:06)
But it's also Texas like you know my husband and I have this debate a lot you know I I do my street tacos on corn But it is a very like flour tortillas are very very Texan He you know his family and originally his family was originally from Mexico. He was born in California in California No, it's all corn here. It is like flour like that's what my grandmother made every single morning was flour tortillas So I don't think that's that controversial

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (42:27)
The with the corn is the integrity of it. Like I need a tortilla that holds up. And when you bend it too hard, you fold it the wrong way, it snaps, it breaks, your taco falls apart, you don't have that problem with flour. And so to me, it's just an efficiency model that I have to go for the flour.

Kat Vargas (42:51)
I love that though, but I know it is. I don't think, again, I think lots of areas in Texas, especially against south Texas, a lot of it is flour that's down there.

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (42:59)
At La Banchetta, they have an alambre, which is like whatever you want, like peppers, onions, cheese, they grill it all up together. And then you have this like build your own adventure. That's my go-to order is I do a steak alambre at La Banchetta.

Kat Vargas (43:16)
Love that. Now I'm like, okay, that's on my list. Yeah, now I have to come back. And East Dallas actually has like really great like on the ground organizing that they do and everything. Yes, the funky East Dallas Democrats as they call themselves the Fed. ⁓ But no, thank you so much for your time, you know, meeting up with me on a Sunday. Is there anything else that you want people to know whether it's about the party or just about Texas Democrats in general?

Kendall Scudder, Chairman Texas Democratic Party (43:19)
Got to come back to East

East Dallas is the best Dallas.

You know, what I would just tell people is that my style is a little bit different than what we've seen from the party in the past. I'm not a show horse, I'm a work horse. ⁓ I do all of the interviews and I'm happy to talk to people about it. I'm not always as good at the quips. I keep my head down at work. That's what happens when you grow up on a farm, okay? You just learn how to work hard. I'm doing 16, 18 hour days every day as a volunteer to try to pull this sucker out of a ditch. And I know every person watching here is too.

And I just wanted, I think that people deserve to have a state party that works as hard as them. And that's what I'm trying my hardest to deliver. I'm gonna make mistakes and there's gonna be some marks that we miss. It's a big state and it's hard to carry it. But I really do feel like we're moving in the right direction as an organization internally. I think we're really cleaning up our operation and the eye on the prize is November of 26. And we're trying to make sure that when we get our nominees in March, we can jump feet first in.

coordinated campaign, not building planes while we're flying it. We just did it beforehand. That's what this has been about, building and getting ready for next year. I'm very excited. I think we have really good things in store for us next year. We just have to get along and work our asses off.

Kat Vargas (44:55)
Well, thank you so much for your time, Jared. If you enjoyed listening be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcast 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

Kat Vargas (45:21)
Remember, this is your seat at the table for the future of Texas. This is Taco Policy.