Beto O'Rourke on what he's learned about people

Beto O'Rourke on what he has learned about people during his years on campaign trails, and what makes politics good.

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George Mason:
Welcome to Good God, conversations that matter about faith and public life. I'm your host, George Mason, and in our continuing series called Good Politics, we have a special guest today, Beto O'Rourke. We're so glad to have you. Congressman O'Rourke, thank you for spending time with us. We look forward to this conversation.

Beto O'Rourke:
It's my pleasure, George, and appreciate the invitation to join you today. I'm looking forward to the conversation as well.

George Mason:
Well, thank you. So let me do a little more introduction here and say that for three terms you were Congressman from El Paso, where you continue to live now, you were candidate for the US Senate against Ted Cruz, and you were a four-time presidential candidate during the 2020 season. But a lot of things you've been involved in during that period of time that have actually moved us toward a conversation like this, about good politics, because especially during your campaign against Ted Cruz, you just blanketed every county in this state and really stirred up a lot of voters. In fact, before Joe Biden received the most votes of any Democrat in Texas, you held that record during that race. So what did you learn about the political climate and about good politics, if I can put it that way, during that period?

Beto O'Rourke:
I learned that Texans are good people, that's politics at its root. Politics is about how people come together and do something collectively that any one of us is unable to do on our own. And in concert, especially in a democracy, we elect those who will represent us, we decide together the path forward for our city or our town, our state, or our country. And traveling those 254 counties and visiting hundreds or thousands of cities within the state of Texas and meeting hundreds of thousands of people and winning millions of votes at the end of the day, that's what came home to me, that be you a Republican, a Democrat, an independent, White, Black, Mexican-American, 10th generation Texan, or you just got here 10 days ago, you're a good person.

Beto O'Rourke:
And that was proven time and again in the kindness and generosity shown to me in the civility with which I was approached, especially when somebody didn't like me or didn't like the positions that I held or the policies that I pursued. It was really the exception when someone was ugly or unkind or vicious or malicious. I remember being at a rally in San Antonio. A really big crowd came out, I don't know, maybe 800,000 people, and there was a small contingent, all heavily armed with weapons of war, AK47s, AR15s, big American flag, and they were there to protest and to cause a scene. At every event, George, that we had, almost without exception, I would conduct the event as a town hall. So anyone who had something to say or a question to ask could do so, and they would literally be given the microphone.

Beto O'Rourke:
I asked the person who was supporting me at the event to hand the microphone to the leader of this group that was protesting. And they were chanting stuff when I was talking, they were trying to interrupt the event. I said, "Look, you don't have to do that. I will give you the microphone. You say your piece, and I'll do my best to respond." And that's exactly how it worked out. It wasn't necessarily easy, and it was certainly confrontational and uncomfortable probably for all involved. But at the end of the event, after I'd had a chance to shake everybody's hand, the leader of that group came up to me to shake my hand and to give me his phone number and he said, "You know what? I'm really impressed that you actually wanted to hear what I had to say, and it looked like you listened. I can tell that we disagree, but next time you're in San Antonio, give me a ring. I'd love to sit down and talk with you."

Beto O'Rourke:
And so, at a moment that this country is so divided and so highly polarized, and we think that our differences are going to define us forever and that there's no coming back or coming together, I just know from my time in Texas and especially traveling the state, that the best is yet to come, and the best is within us, and you just have to give people a chance to do that. So that was my big takeaway from traveling [inaudible 00:04:59].

George Mason:
Well, great. I'm not sure that since that time we have improved very much in the civility of politics. It seems to be, I was watching a hearing today with a director of Homeland security, and it was a conversation that you sort of knew whether the person was a Democrat or Republican generally by the tone of the questioning. And it just seems there's so much adversarial ism going on in our partisanship that it's very hard to get to the common good. And yet, you had a famous road trip with Will Hurd, who we've also had on, on good politics. And you demonstrated as two-fellow congressmen across the aisle that if you are searching for the common good, if you're trying to do what's best for the country, you can listen to one another and find a way forward. Why is it so hard to find the Beto O'Rourke Will Hurd dynamic in our politics today?

Beto O'Rourke:
I think it's there, and it may be a latent force or opportunity within us at this moment. George, I think though so much has changed since 2017, four years ago when Will and I made that trip, including the fact that so much of the Republican Party is now beholden to the former president and the big lie in which he traffics that essentially asserts that the 2020 election was stolen, that Joe Biden is an illegitimate president, that there was widespread fraud. And it was that lie that certainly inspired the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol, and were five people, including a Capitol police officer were murdered. And it's that lie that to this day, so many elected Republicans continue to repeat to the point that Liz Cheney, who refused to repeat it was removed from her leadership position.

Beto O'Rourke:
Now, George, having said that, I do not think that every Republican believes that lie or as complicit in the former president's crimes, I want to make that clear, but it is very hard to find that good-faith partner at a time that the party has more and more come to resemble a cult of personality around the president. I don't think that has to be the end of things, and I certainly hope it won't and I'll do everything in my power to work to make sure that it isn't. And I think we always have to remember, Abraham Lincoln and his extraordinary generosity and kindness and charity in his own words, that he evinced in his second inaugural address at the end of the Civil War that had claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. And he talked about not acting in malice, and instead acting in charity.

Beto O'Rourke:
And he had an extraordinary humility, especially as it regarded the Confederacy and those who've taken up arms against the Union. You could see that his intent was to bind the country back together, regardless of or maybe even including the crimes that had been committed, and the very serious sins of slavery, human bondage and the depredations that, that begat the Civil War. So, that's our moment of greatest crisis, and we can look to what our greatest leader did in its wake. And I hope that proves instructed to us now, that we may disagree and we may see some things that really trouble us on the other side of the aisle. And yet we're all still Americans, we're all still human beings, and we've got to find a way to come back together.

George Mason:
We do. And as fellow human beings and citizens, there are politicians and then there were the people, and obviously politicians are the people too in our system. But I do want you to speak if you would, to the question of how do we encourage more people to participate in our democracy, because I think some of the noise of these current times and the broken relationships that have happened in families and in religious communities over political differences that have come to define us more in our friendships, in our families, it's just been a remarkably painful time. It makes some people retreat, I think, and say, "It's not worth becoming an advocate, becoming engaged in the political process." What would you say to people to help them draw upon a motivation that says, "Here's why you should be involved. And here's how you can be involved constructively."

Beto O'Rourke:
It's such a good question, and I don't know that it's ever been more timely. The fate of democracy is truly an open question, unlike any time, certainly in our lives and perhaps the life of this country. It is the insurrection that we saw on the 6th of January. It's the complicit members of Congress who sought to overturn an election. It was that bitterly hard-fought contest that resulted in Joe Biden legitimately, lawfully, democratically being elected to the highest office in the land. And it has all the recriminations that have flowed and followed since then. But when you add to that, the fact that there are more than 360 voter suppression bills pending or passed in 47 different state legislatures, all of which by the way, would constrict or constrain the right to vote, you recognize that we are under the greatest attack against democracy, perhaps in the life of this democracy, and much in the same way that our country...

Beto O'Rourke:
Republicans and Democrats, by the way, came together in 1965 to meet the forces that were arrayed against democracy and against the enjoyment of full civil rights of all our fellow Americans and passed the Voting Rights Act, and the year before, the Civil Rights Act. I think Republicans, Democrats, independents, again, have an opportunity to engage. And as you suggested, to vote and to advocate and to register others and to participate civically, but also to push for the Voting Rights Act of our day, which is known as the For The People Act that is pending in the United States Senate right now. This is really our 1965 moment to tell one another, this current generation and every that follows this one, just to we are and what we represent. And if we fail this test, it's not as though we will lose convenience at the ballot box, it is very possible that we will lose democracy itself. And for those students of history, we know that democracy briefly flourished 24, 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece, and then essentially vanished from the earth for millennia until it reappeared in full force in America.

Beto O'Rourke:
And we really only had a multi-racial democracy in this country since 1965. This is the exception, not the rule in human history or on planet earth today, and we could just as easily lose it. And so if that appeals to anyone, this make or break, do or die moment that we're in, now is the time to step up and be engaged. And that can come in any variety of forms from voting to registering, to reaching out to your United States Congressperson or Senator, or writing a letter to The White House, but now is the moment that we're being tested and we cannot be [inaudible 00:12:56].

George Mason:
And the For The People Act as I understand it, still doesn't have enough Democrat votes in order to pass at this moment. So there's a lot of need for advocacy to that end I think. One question, beyond the question of federal legislation, congressional legislation about that versus state legislation, how would the For The People Act impact the states that have all been operating with their own set of election laws? I mean, states run their own elections, that's part of our constitutional approach so far. So we have as you said, these 43 states that are, there's a lot of voter suppression laws in your language, I think they would say voter integrity, but the net effect is, as you've suggested, more of a limitation on voting, would there be a supersession of those state laws by this For The People Act?

Beto O'Rourke:
In a word, yes. And it's much like the decision we had to make as a country in 1965. Texas could decide that there would be a poll tax, for example, or a literacy test, or as Texas actually did for 20 years, institute and all-white democratic primary at a time that the democratic primary was dispositive in determining who our member of Congress or US Senator or Governor, or frankly, given our weight and the electoral college, who the president would be, for 20 years from 1924 to 1944. So in the lifetime of some of those who were still with us, if you were a Black man or a Black woman in Texas, you literally by law could not participate in our election.

Beto O'Rourke:
So the response to that was yes, to supersede at the federal level, through the 1965 Voting Rights Act and say, "Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, the states of the former Confederacy, you do not get to pick who is allowed to vote, who will be eligible to register and who can cast a ballot. We're going to make sure that whether you are White or Black, just as long as you're an American and you're eligible, that you will have no obstacle or interference and casting that ballot." What happened to that law course is in 2013, the Supreme Court through their Shelby decision, removed what is known as the preclearance provision, whereby previously Texas had to go to the federal government and say, "Look, we're thinking about changing the number of polling places, or how we ascertain your identification through voter ID, or these current congressional districts, we're going to change them. And DOJ would say, "Yes," or they would say, "No, you have to make these changes because they disenfranchise a certain part of your population," that protection was removed.

Beto O'Rourke:
And in the eight years since the Shelby decision, you've seen the most onerous voter ID laws in the country, a racial gerrymander of our jurisdictions, and you've seen a 750 polling place closures concentrated in the fastest growing Black and Latino neighborhoods in Texas. Whatever the intent, the effect and the outcome is, it's been a lot harder for communities of color and those in big cities to be able to participate in our politics. And again, whether you're a Democrat or Republican, you shouldn't want that. You should want elections won on a contest of ideas and track record and vision, not on restricting who's able to participate. And so, that's really a job because it affects the civil rights of the people of this state, it's really a job for the federal government. And that's why I am hoping at least that the For The People Act will ultimately pass and be signed into law by President Biden. And yes, it would roll back all of these voter constriction or voter suppression.

George Mason:
Good. Well, we don't have much time left, but one more question then to follow up on that. When I talked to Will Hurd, we talked about, the threat to democracy is not just at the ballot box generally, and voter access in elections and fairness in that respect, but also this continuing practice of gerrymandering districts, that makes representative form of government less and less representative. So for instance, my particular district is one in which my congressmen wins by about a 92% percentage every time. So therefore he has no interest in actually hearing from me or responding to me because he doesn't really represent me. And this makes for a disenfranchisement, I think, and a discouragement of people who feel like their representatives don't represent them. Now Will's suggestion to that is that there be a standard deviation of maybe a six or 8%, but every district be a competitive one, as close to 50/50 as possible, so that we don't have as much partisanship in that respect, but we are getting ready to head into gerrymandering time again this fall, with redistricting, Texas has two more congressional seats.

George Mason:
And do you see any possible way for us to influence that process in order to make it fairer? Or are we headed toward 10 more years before the next census and redistricting before we're going to make progress on it?

Beto O'Rourke:
I think you described the situation perfectly. And I think that Congressman Hurd's solution is a good one, to draw competitive districts that force representatives to campaign to everybody and to listen to everybody, be more responsive to everyone and to be accountable to the people that they purport to represent. And to be clear, Democrats and Republicans both engage in gerrymandering, it's members of Congress choosing their voters, instead of voters choosing their members of Congress. That's the system that prevails in Texas today. Really, the only hope we have is that bill that I mentioned earlier, the For The People Act, which would mandate non-partisan independent redistricting commission. So, the politicians, the Will Hurds and Beto O'Rourkes of the world are not allowed in the room.

Beto O'Rourke:
Instead, you draw for competitiveness, you draw for compactness, you draw for communities of interest. And you draw them in such a way that, to one of your first questions that you asked, there's a real incentive for people to vote because unlike many, I don't get on my high horse and look down upon those who don't vote. I think there are many people who have wisely chosen not to vote in Texas because they recognize that their vote has a very diminished impact. They've been drawn into a district where they have no hope of changing the outcome. Unfortunately, in Texas's history, it's very often Black Texans and Latino Texans who are drawn into a district to give the incumbent an overwhelming advantage, diluting the power of their vote, or drawn into a district where they have an absolute marginal opportunity to impact because they have been, so-called cracked into a certain district.

Beto O'Rourke:
So nonpartisan redistricting, getting the politicians out of the game, that's my hope and passage of the For The People Act, would make that a reality in Texas, otherwise what you just described as our future for the next 10 years, that will hold. And you will have these drawn by that current occupants, and the people will be left out of the process unfortunately.

George Mason:
While you don't hold office currently, thank you for continuing to engage and to continuing to challenge us and to participate in this democratic process. Good politics involves all of us, and we are grateful for the inspiration and the challenge that you've levied to us in this program. And we look forward to talking with you again down the road. Thanks.

Beto O'Rourke:
Likewise. Thank you for having me on and thanks for engaging in the conversation.

George Mason:
You bet. God bless.

Beto O'Rourke:
Adios.

George Mason:
Adios.

Beto O'Rourke:
God bless. Thank you for doing that, George.

George Mason:
You're welcome.

Speaker 3:
Good God is created by Dr. George Mason. Produced and directed by Jim White. Social media coordination by Cameron Vickery. Good God, conversations with George Mason is the podcast devoted to bringing you ideas about God and faith and the common good. All material copyright 2021 by Faith Commons.