The Texan Podcast - Interview: Rep. Ramon Romero on the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, House Speaker Election

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Rep. Ramon Romero (D-Fort Worth) sat down with The Texan's Senior Reporter Brad Johnson to talk about being appointed to chair the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, his views as a Democrat recapping the Texas House speaker election, and more.Listen to more interviews from The Texan wherever you get your podcasts. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave us a review.

Everybody is Brad Johnson senior reporter here at the Texan. Today we have representative Ramon Romero, Democrat from Fort Worth. Welcome. Thank you for having me, Brad. Glad to be here. Ramon, you've won the chairmanship this past year for the Mexican American Legislative Caucus. Tell me about that. How's that been?

Oh, it's been a goal of mine over the last couple of sessions to lead our caucus. And thankfully, you know, unanimous votes. So we won by acclamation. Everyone on our card, myself, Vice Chair Erin Gámez, the joy to have her as a co-pilot for MALC, you know, Armando Martinez, Marian Perez, and Armando Walling as our general counsel. 39 members of our caucus now. 33 Democrats, six Republicans. Glad to just bring on the team. Mark LaHood from San Antonio and Denise Villalobos from Corpus Christi.

Super diverse. Oldest Latino caucus in the country now 51 years since 1973. Coincidentally, the year I was born and also the largest caucus in the country. So it's a real joy to bring us together. It's been fun. And I'm glad that my colleagues believe in my leadership in a time like we're facing right now. Not many of the caucuses in the legislature are bipartisan, especially those that are as big and as influential as Malk. How do you balance that? Yeah, that's been the challenge that I've issued to every member of our caucus that as much as you may want to talk about what you're the most

passionate about, that might belong in your respective caucus, Democrat or Republican. But whatever message that you have, whatever is the most important, whether it's public education, immigration, job, workforce, anything, whatever it may be, where's the middle ground? And if you were speaking to a colleague from the opposite party, how would you kind of change your tone? What would you talk about that would ensure that that person would be on your side or that you'd be leaning in the same direction? And what it's allowed is for more of us to

focus on really the more important issues, which are always right down the middle. And it's really nice to bring in both Democrats and Republicans. And sometimes we don't have enough time around each other. And when you hear another member from the opposite party makes so much sense, then you can look at everybody else and go, see what I mean? This is why we're bipartisan. We're going to get things done. And I think our caucus is strong, 39 votes. Think about every constitutional amendment

that we'll be facing to have 40 strong. Malk is in a really good position to lead the bipartisan effort that we should have and what I believe that Speaker Burroughs is expecting. What's the lane you think the caucus fits in? Because you know you've got on the right the Freedom Caucus, you've got the party caucuses themselves. Mount's really big.

And so what lane, what's the lane there for? Well, I can tell you that I don't think that there's any member of our caucus that considers themselves very far right or left. And I think that if there are members that consider themselves in that position, they're finding the conversations very fruitful. Again, as we discussed a minute ago. I think, look, I mean, ultimately, the people that do the work of the state,

the people that are really put their heads down in appropriations, put their heads down in each of their respective committees, they're the members of MALC. So they're very well respected. And it shows by the committee assignments that Speaker Burroughs gave the MALC members. I think we're in really good places to serve all of our districts. And one thing I like to brag about is with the exception of Dominic Laughlin who can join next year.

MALC, we have 100% of the border. From the tip of El Paso to the southern tip in Brownsville. And with everything that's going on on our border, from the election to border security to the reimbursement that might be happening we have a voice and we're really looking forward to working with the governor and lieutenant governor and the speaker and making sure that that our voice is respected that's why it's so important that we're bipartisan. Why can McLaughlin join next year? So our bylaws our current bylaws allow you to serve if you're of Latino descent or if you serve the district over 50 percent but you

do have to wait one session. Gotcha okay so let's talk about some of the policies you mentioned to serve if you're of Latino descent or if you serve the district over 50 percent, but you do have to wait one session. Gotcha. Okay. So let's talk about some of the policies. You mentioned the reimbursements. I know we've kind of talked about that a bit before. What is it you want to see come out of a potential reimbursement for these border security costs

the state is trying to get? Well, the way I look at it, Brad, is real simple. There's been so much talk about war on the border, invasion on the border, and all these things. And look, I have family in Piedras Negras and Acuña all the way down into Zacatecas. So I know Mexico. And my former father-in-law was a member of the legislature in Zacatecas. I have friends all over government in Mexico. They are our partner. They have wanted to be our partner. Unfortunately, a lot of people want to come to this country.

Why? Because this is the best place on earth to live. And as long as it's the best place on earth to live, people want to come here. But the politics of the time, and we can argue about whether Biden did the right thing or Trump did the right thing, but what we know is the people of Texas, the taxpayers of Texas, have had to foot the bill for a long time. For the direction that our governors and even our presidents have led us in. of Texas, the taxpayers of Texas have had to foot the bill for a long time for the for the direction that our governors and even our presidents have led us in. So because of that, just under the Biden administration alone, Governor Abbott has said spend 11 billion dollars, but we know there's been many more billions

spent in the first Trump administration and even in Obama's administration. Every mother and father that's struggling to put food on the table right now or a business owner that isn't, we pay the bill. And so, yeah, I want to see that money come back just as much as Governor Abbott does. But the point that I'm making to Abbott and to their teams is if this was a war anywhere else in the world, we'd be rebuilding after that war. So if we get to the point where we feel like we have secured our border and we have done these things, these reimbursements help us get there, then let's rebuild that area where that war took place. Let's build that infrastructure. There are airports, roads, bridges that we have to rebuild, schools that have never been built, law school that's never been built, academies for law enforcement that can be built. Rather than send all our agents from all over the state leaving their families behind in North Texas, Central Texas, West Texas. Let's hire some

of those folks right there in South Texas down in the valley in West Texas and El Paso. And let's keep them at home. And I think that we'll have a more efficient, stronger border than we've ever had before. Has the governor been receptive to that? Yeah, we met with his office and you know, met with his chief of staff, Robert Black. And I think, you know I've you know been here now going into my sixth term those relationships start to pay off and I think that we're gonna we'll at least have an impact on the discussion. Now are

they giving me yes Ramon yeah we got it it's your plan. No it's not I don't think it's ever gonna be that it's always gonna be the governor's plan we just hope that we're able to to shift him in the direction where he actually supports the members and look I, we have Julian Ahosa and we have Adam Ahosa, you know, two senators there that I think they want the same things for their border regions. It's time to deliver for South Texas. You mentioned schools and kind of ties into the recent federal policy emphasizing and executing deportations. Before we get to the school side of that,

what's your thought on this new Trump administration policy and at least what the stated priority is in deporting known violent criminals who are committing crimes here? I think that I go all the way back to Obama where Obama was deporter-in- chief. He had a really robust effort on making sure that the most dangerous of those persons that are here in our country that have committed crimes, we're going to go after them first. And they did a really good job of that. I mean, he deported a lot of people. The state of Zacatecas alone had over 400,000 people come back to Zacatecas. Not all of those were criminals. Unfortunately, a lot of those were seniors.

And one of the things I remember most was listening to a priest talk about it. And he says, you know, they gave us those that don't have a lot to give back to our country. But what we gave them was our youth pointing to his bicep. You know, it's a natural resource that Mexico gave. If they made a mistake while they were here and those were violent crimes, I don't want to hear any more than anybody else does. But if those are not criminals, I'm not ever going to prescribe to the fact that just presence alone makes them a criminal alien.

When I go to church with that person, when my son or daughter goes to school with that person, when I've loved this person as a neighbor, I'm not ever going to see that person as anything but a productive member of our society that's paying taxes and is really supporting our country. And what most Texans don't understand, they're the ones keeping your costs low. They're the ones lowering inflation. They are the ones that are building your house and keeping that appraisal down. A lot of folks don't realize, well, actually, I can say it this way. I'm American, born in Fultworth, Texas. My family's from Zacatecas.

I'm proud of my heritage, but I'm proud to be American. And just as proud as I am to be American, I'm damn proud to be a Texan. And what I know about being a Texan is that we're real lucky to have that neighbor in Mexico. George W. Bush understood it. For whatever reason, the East Coast from Florida to D.C. is running the direction of Texas. And I wish that Texans started to stand up for the fact that this is what's kept costs low. We've got an incredible workforce that's incredibly well-trained. And not only do they do the job, but they do it well and they do it faster than most. If people were serious about deporting a workforce along with, because look,

it's over 50% of the people that are being deported right now have no criminal history, if that ends up being our workforce you can expect your appraisal to go up. It's gonna cost so much more to build a house and it doesn't matter how much they raise your homestead exemption. They're not gonna give you another 200 300 thousand but that's the kind of cost increases we can see in homes. I tell people we're gonna California or Texas real fast because our cost of homes, people live in Austin, we're already there and it's about to happen in Dallas, it's gonna happen in Fort Worth, it's gonna happen in San Antonio. I'm just

not in a hurry to get there. I want to keep our costs as low as we can and I think that this deportation of our workforce is really dangerous and people haven't figured out how to do the math yet. It's real simple appraisals, higher inflation on the costs of goods to build that house next door because all these people, what is it? 1500 people now a day? It was 1100 to 1200, now it's 1500 people. They all need a house. It's just going to make it cost more. So on the school side you know we saw a couple school districts one in particular put out a letter expressing concern about

this deportation policy and how it would affect students going to school people who may have committed a crime by crossing the border illegally but nothing else you know what do you think of that? Is it founded, well founded, or is that, are people concerned with something that, at least yet, hasn't been come to fruition? I think these are kids scared for their parents. If you look at that young lady that took her life, and some people say use her name,

I don't wanna use her name because her mother hasn't given me permission, even though I've tried to reach out to her and talk to her. Kids are the ones paying the real price. These aren't adults. This is where political rhetoric, you know, actually where the rubber meets the road. And the kids are the ones that are actually struggling. They know mom and dad take them to school. They know that mom and dad in a lot of cases have to wait outside to pick them up

because we're trying to keep our kids safe. So there's a pickup point, a drop off point, and mom and dad don't necessarily want to be waiting in that line. A lot of cases, they don't have a driver's license because we live in the state for the last 20 years where we don't, we don't want to ID people because we fear them or we think it's a magnet rather than ID them. And that way we know who they are because they have no criminal history. I mean, give them an ID, right?

Give them an ID. Yeah. I mean, I think that there's, if you're an asylum seeker walking through Mexico, Mexico wants to give you an ID because they want to know who the heck you are. Yeah. Why we're we're not understanding of how important that is. So if someone doesn't have any criminal history and they're willing to walk into DPS and give their fingerprints and say, don't worry about me.

I'm good. I'm just trying to get my daughter to school. I'm just trying to pay insurance and pay my taxes and so on. Even whether you want to employ me or not, I think this is what's happening now. And what's the plan? I mean, you could argue that it's a deterrent now. They want to make people feel like if you go to this country, your children won't even get an education here. Removing that constitutional right, something that I can't believe that this country has gotten to this point. A country that needs to grow, a country that needs a workforce, a country

that needs to be fed. And here we a workforce, a country that needs to be fed. And here we are saying, I don't think so. Only thing that's gonna happen is we'll shift from kind of a producer to a service industry. I hope your bank account's getting really fat bread because I mean, that's the only way you're gonna, you're gonna have to live off of the- I'm in the wrong industry for that.

I mean, you tell me, are you living off of your interest? There's a whole lot of people out there that are. I'm not one of them. I think the vast majority of Texans aren't. And look, we're being fooled by media. We're getting fooled by the people that can talk about it more, talk about it louder. And when it comes down to doing the math, I don't need a calculator most days to understand that I can't pay my bills. It's either there or it's not. And I just want people to just start doing more of that. And I wish our politicians wish our politicians again in Texas stand up for Texans.

You know, we don't need to change to what Washington wants us to be. We can stand up for ourselves. It ain't broken, Texas. We can't brag on one hand how great it is, how fast it's going. And on the other hand, say, oh, my God, it's falling apart. It's not falling apart. It's been good for a long time. So I've never moved out. My whole 51 years been right here in Fort Worth.

Well, with the exception part time in Austin. Do you think Operation Lone Star has worked? I mean, I think that it's definitely gotten all the attention of the world. And if people wanted to build a wall in Mexico and they feel like that's more secure, that we couldn't have done it through technology and witnessing and creating a process by which I think Biden was on his way to getting there and making sure that people, you know, registered in a different country and then had the orderly process. But I think there's a lot of desperation around the world. I mean, you can look at Venezuela alone. I mean, these sanctions, the embargoes, their oil, their lack of ability to sell their oil. It's created a crisis. Venezuela doesn't want those poor people. They're sending them out and they want somewhere to go.

And Cuba, same situation. I mean, people that look at and realize, wow, there's almost 400,000 Cubans and almost 400,000 Cubans arriving just at the Texas border in one year alone. That didn't used to be the case. Something drove that migration. A lot of our own policies are what's driven that. But look, it's too late. That ship has sailed.

We're gonna continue to build that wall under the current administration. It's gonna cost us a lot of money. But don't be fooled. We're either gonna have a workforce or not. And costs are gonna go way up before they come back down. I mean, look at eggs. Go look at what it's gonna cost for a piece of lumber now.

We're not even getting to the tariffs yet. Just the cost of getting it out of the ground and getting it on the job site, it's going to really increase. I'm scared. I'm scared for families. I'm really scared for young men and women in their 20s and 30s.

They want to buy a home. I bought my house that I live in when I was 21 years old. Paid $21,000 for it. Nobody has that deal anymore. Nobody. And the fact that now that house, that same house is going to cost somebody six or 700,000, I mean, how do you do it today? And the fact that that dream is gone in 20 years, I'm sorry, but it pisses me off

because the people that make the decisions here, they've had opportunities to keep costs low, they just haven't done it. Think about the money we're sitting on right now, sitting on a $32 billion surplus, 23, I'm sorry, rainy day account, 23 billion coming in as a surplus. I call surplus and over taxation of its citizens. And now you're holding the money. Sounds like a Republican saying that. Hey, listen, I mean, unfortunately Republicans don't sound like Republicans anymore.

I mean, they should be, they should be screaming at the fact that, you know, the comptroller could tell you how many, how many billions of dollars went unspent because the governor didn't get his vouchers and teachers didn't get paid and schools are closing. How is that possible that we can brag about earning a billion dollars on that rainy day account? So listen, you're listening to hear that we're earning over a billion dollars on that rainy day account. Listen, you're listening to hear that. We're earning over a billion dollars on that rainy day account per year.

It's about a three and a half, four percent return on our money. But the cost of building a road is increasing 20% per year. So, you tax me, spend my taxes, otherwise give it back. You know, I just don't know how we're still here. People are,

if I'm in a room of a chamber of Commerce and I tell them that we're earning over a billion dollars a year now, people start clapping and smiling and then you tell them the cost of a road. Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. That's right. You built 15% less road. You built 15% less road and everybody knows that congestion is coming. It's already terrible in a lot of places. It's only gonna get worse. You know, our water projects, all these priorities we're talking about, education. They say you can't throw money at the problem, but how about you just throw the money you already have at it? I'm not going to tax you more. I'm just going to put the money you already given me.

So, I don't know. I'm not Republican, by the way. I'm just kidding. So I'm curious your take on the election last year. Board of Security was, and immigration generally, were the biggest issues, especially in Texas. You had every poll, and that's the one that tops every other issue. Democrats did not have a good election. Clearly.

What's your takeaway from that? Well, it's many different things. One, I think the Democratic Party really learned a real lesson on how to talk to its community and what it really needed to hear. And I think that the old isn't working anymore. The Republican Party has done a tremendous job in South Texas, certainly, in getting down and spending money there. In 2020, when COVID was going around, Democratic Party decided not to knock on doors. Well, in that part of the country, you always knock on doors. So suddenly those people that would go out and knock on doors of their neighbors and say, hey, this is who we're voting for. Now, not only were they not knocking on doors for Democrats,

they might've been knocking on doors for Republicans. At the same time, we have a voter bill that Democrats decided to move to Washington because it was so bad. There was a chilling effect. There was a chilling effect of vote by mail. There was a chilling effect on voter registration, chilling effect on, you know, re-registering. And that's why we have a drop in Texas, 6% drop in Texas. All of our blue cities didn't perform. What does that tell you? That tells you that people did not either get motivated by the top of the ticket or they might have just been saying, you know, it's just not worth voting this time. This guy's out to, they're out to

get anybody that makes some small mistake. I'm not gonna go through with it. Can't even get water when I'm in line. The lines are too long. All these different excuses that people made. But look, for years and years now we've seen Operation Lone Star and other dollars, billions and billions of dollars get spent in South Texas, creating real jobs, giving people jobs that we've been talking about for a long time. Hotels are full, restaurants are full, suddenly their economy is doing pretty good down in South Texas, but who's paying for it? Every Texan from West Texas to the Panhandle and so on, and we've been

sold at securing the border on this stage, including getting the way of our federal agents is the way to go. $11 billion. So it's money and you know, money talks. And I think a lot of people in South Texas really believed in that. And then on top of it, I mean, if you tell everybody the Democrats are trying to turn your girls into boys and boys into girls, and that's the only message. If you tell everyone that every single immigrant is a rapist and a murderer and you keep saying that over

and over again, then you forget to look at the people that you love, again the people you go to church with, the people that our kids go to school with, and they demonized an immigrant population. And I think that for people like me, they used to get called a wetback, you know, I have a problem with that. And I know who my people are and I know how hard the, the, that community really is. So I think while we pushed back so hard, we didn't take a, we didn't do a really good job of listening to our own family members and our friends and saying, why are you going to vote for Trump this time?

You know, instead we kept telling them, you know, you're wrong. I know more than you do. And they thought, does this guy think I'm stupid? Does this guy think I can't do my own, my own research? And I just think we did a poor job of that. And I think that we have to do a much better job of that moving forward as a Democratic Party and conveying a message that we have a prosperous nation. We have a prosperous government. We sure as hell are really prosperous here in Texas. And then I think the blue states are in the blue regions, Dallas, Harris, Tarrant, there, which we just didn't turn out.

You know, would it have made a difference in Texas? No. But we saw the same thing in the swing states. People didn't turn out. Can you blame it on Biden for not leaving when he should have? I think so. I think we should have had a good primary and we also should have. I think so. I think we should have had a good primary and we also should have won Congress. There's no question that we should have won Congress. We would have had the checks and balances that I believe are necessary in government. When you have one party run for so long and you can see it right here in Texas, the pet projects become priorities instead of the meat and potatoes of what people need every day. You know, we have the power here in Texas to lower the cost of fuel for our residents.

We could lower the fuel tax if we wanted to. People keep talking about raising it. You know, $23 billion surplus year after year after year after year. People can say we should either get more or lower my taxes. We haven't done it. You know, so we're going to regroup. Look, we're getting beat up right now a lot, the Democratic Party. But what I know about the Democratic Party is, you know, we're not going to take any and we're going to continue to talk to our residents and, you know, we're going to throw

punches. And that's what we plan on doing. If it's an attack, you know, we're going to fight back. and that's what we plan on doing. If it's an attack, we're going to fight back. And look, I mean, I'm encouraged though, right now in Texas. I think Speaker Burroughs, for the Latino members of MALC, did a hell of a job in appointing us to a lot of really great committees. The fact that we have a Speaker Pro Tem and Joe Moody, a MALC member for a long time, very, very smart guy

on criminal justice, somebody that's going to be able to speak to all Texans about the things that we care about. And then also make sure that the monies get spent in the right places on appropriations. Armando Walli, a key member, Gene Wu, key member, lots of key members throughout the entire delegation on key committees. The message I keep hearing from you is very economic focused. Yeah. Back on the election and lessons for Democrats, were social issues too much of a focus? Did that hurt the Democrats this time around? You know, I

think so. I think we just never got back on message. You know, we never got back on that economic message. We never got back on how do you recover from COVID? How do you recover from an economic stimulus plan? How do you recover from, you know, such a huge tax break you know, right before COVID? Those are trillions and trillions of dollars that we had to recover from. And we had record inflation.

Why? Because we had to print paper and we gave it to people. We're in a nation so great that we can write print money to keep your business alive through PPP funding, give you a stimulus check so you can keep your family life running, and then somehow we expected prices not to go up. President Biden did a really good job of lowering inflation, lowering unemployment, getting the markets going to, you know, some of the highest they've ever been. And people still didn't feel it. Why? Because the market can keep going all at once. If you don't have money in the market, who gives it down? A lot of people didn't have their money there.

So they just didn't feel it. Average everyday people did feel it. Trump did a hell of a lot better job of conveying that the American dream was going to go through him. I have a hard time believing that those people that voted for Trump are not also looking and going, did I make a mistake? Now that I'm not going to have that earned income, that earned that child tax credit if I don't get $3,000 per child. When Medicaid is cut, when there's another tax cut for the rich, is it going to trickle down to me as Ronald Reagan used to say some people believe that it does and I think that the billionaire class definitely believes that we will get this economy moving just give us the tools does that is that going to trickle down to somebody that's 65 years old right now they'll be gone before this ever comes back and that's if it comes back in the meantime they're gonna lose those entitlements. Somehow an entitlement sounds like a bad word. I just don't understand how in this country where we're so wealthy and we have the power to do so much to save kids, to create the most educated class in the whole world, that's not our

absolute number one focus. And it's just again we're too rich. This state's a good proof of it. We're so successful that we can focus on things even though the need is so great. CPS has never been fixed. So many kids that are unadopted right now don't know how to fix that. So many police officers that want to quit can't fix that. Teachers that serve one year, two years, three years. This isn't the job for me. can't fix that. Teachers that serve one year, two years, three years,

this isn't the job for me, can't fix that. Kids don't want to go to school anymore, can't fix that. We're just going to hope that they're going to go down make a minimum wage job and keep letting businesses train them. I've had a business for 31 years since I was 19 years old. The only signature on the bottom of my paycheck has been my own signature for 31 years. My economic message is because I'm the fiscal conservative that I always have to be as every other business owner is. I've been forced to train the workforce. We've been continuing to do that.

And I think that that's what Texas is gonna have to take a really serious look at. I'm glad that that's one of its emergency items. Governor Abbott, we're ready to work with you on workforce. We're ready to work with you on workforce training. We shouldn't get serious about it. We need to give these kids on our high schools hope. If they don't want to show up for school

because they don't want to learn traditional learning, if they're in the 10th or let's say the 11th grade and they've only got four credits and they're only there because they don't want their mom to get a fine, then what hope am I giving that child? I'd hope that the governor can get serious about that and say, I'm going to lift you out of that spot. I'm going to put you in a $20, $40 an hour job as a diesel mechanic,

you know, working for Toyota, maybe even. But first, I'm going to teach you math and I'll make sure you know how to read, even if I'm having to teach you in the 10th or 11th grade. So you mentioned Speaker Burroughs. I'm curious your thoughts on, first of all, how that's gone so far. There was a Speaker Burroughs. I'm curious here your thoughts on first of all how that's gone so far. There was a really brutal speaker fight, one we've never seen before, right? We've never reached the floor the first day and not knowing how this was going to turn out. And then of course you know during the

vote you were one that flipped from Anmary Ramos to Burroughs on the second vote. Why? Why'd you do that? This is the fourth speaker fight. It's the first speaker race that I've had in five or in six terms. It's pretty extraordinary when you really think about that, you know, that there's always somebody jockeying for that top position. Is that just kind of baked in just the nature of it? Or has this been especially volatile of a period?

No, I think that this is the first time when the Republican Party was split. I had a Republican come and tell me the Democrats were in control. I said, how in the hell is the Democratic Party in control when y'all have 88 votes, man? I was like, y'all are in full control. The problem is y'all don't know how to agree. 88. And they only have to get to 76. Did Dustin Burroughs or anybody in the Republican Party really have to have my help? No. Did they have to have any Democratic vote?

No. But fortunately, if you want to get the 120 people in the middle that are actually going to do the work, you would hope that every speaker's race ends up turning out the way this one did, which is a difference of opinions. The right people came back together. And look, I was out because I told myself from the very beginning that I would wait and see.

I didn't want to be the first one in. Every speaker's race, I've always been the last one to come in. This is the first one where the numbers just happened to work out the way they did. And I think that's what made it kind of brutal because people felt like, oh, that's a Fisher. Let's go after him.

I think most of us included those of us that voted for Annamaria Ramos the first time, always knew that there were two candidates, there were two camps that were distinctly different by who was funding them, by the promises that one of the camp made and the promise or the expectation of bipartisanship. If you expect bipartisanship, OK, I'm generally going to work there because that's where the people that's where the 120 are.

Right. You can't get to 120 unless you have Democrats and Republicans. So the other side felt like they can do everything by one party and they should be majority rule. I don't I don't believe that's never been the way I've understood the best democracy to work. But in terms of flipping, I didn't flip. I voted for the Democrat that was in the race and then once she got eliminated, then I voted for Dustin Burrows. And it's real simple for me. I was asked before, why did you vote for Dustin Burrows? Look, I served with Dustin Burrows and my first, he's my classmate. When he first came, we both served on county affairs and I sat next to him. We had conversations all the time about

Lubbock, about Fort Worth, about our similarities, him being a lawyer, me being a small business owner, and I think that he quoted Garnett Coleman well. You know, we serve the same people. Rich people, poor people, and everybody in between. We serve Texans. I think that was perfect in the way he put it. I think that's the way he's gonna lead. That's what he conveyed to me that was different from the two candidates. And I love I love David Cook. You know, he's from my county. He's from Tarrant County.

But I think that the experience that Dustin Burroughs has his commitment to the way things really have to run, not the way they should run, not the way they could run, but the way they have run both Democrats and Republicans. Am I sudden that I'll never become a chairman? Sure. You know, as someone, like I said, I've been running a business for a long time. I would have loved to have run one of our committees. I definitely believe I have the qualifications, but every committee is a great committee. I ended up on pretty good committees. I'm excited about working on natural resources. I'm excited about water policy. Like, I'm going to nerd out on water policy. I'm a about working on natural resources. I'm excited about water policy. Like I'm gonna nerd out on water policy. I'm a former city of Fort Worth planning commissioner.

Tarrant Regional Water District is excited about my opportunity to help shape how we make sure that there's enough water for all of us to continue to live in the lifestyle that we live. I mean, we don't need to train those lakes, do we? Like I want my recreational lake and I still want to have water too. It's a hell of a session for you to be, you know,

raring for water policy fights. I mean, it's going to be exciting, man. I mean, I think that this is what a lot of people just seem to understand, including those on the right that think that they're, you know, that this is a terrible session. Like, man, just, just slow down. They say slow your roll. It's going to be fine, you know, and be happy being one of the 120 in the middle. If you want to be a flame thrower on one side or another, okay go do it. I joked with someone the other day, a

former, I won't tell you who I was talking to, but they were saying, man what do you think about these people back on the back mic? I said don't worry man, this American Idol. I said what do you mean? I was like look it's a job interview. Some of these people are gonna make a career out of proving that they can you know throw, you know throw, just stop the wheel from turning. It's not what they need to come down here. They need to come down here learn. This is hard. This is hard work. All the committees I've been on so many times I didn't know anything about what I was gonna do. My god serving on insurance was like drinking from a fire hose from both ends and

look it was great though you know you, you learn so much. So get down here learn get to work people of Texas need you Sometimes it's Easiest to to see things from afar. And so I want your take on The internal fight within the Republican Party from someone on the outside from someone on the outside? Look, I think that the Republican Party, as long as they get a majority, they've used since I've gotten here,

the people of Texas have spoken. And they believe that because they won 53% or 55 or 57, that that means that they have full control over everything and that only their policies matter. All these kids in my district, they might have Republican parents or Democratic parents. I don't think that my school board of trustees cares, makes a difference who they're going to serve. They're going to teach them all the same. You know, so their belief is we run the whole show and they don't need, we don't need to listen to them. They

don't need to pass a single bill. They don't have a genuinely good idea, and that's where they want us. They want people all over Texas to understand that if you're served by a Democrat, you're not getting anything. You're not gonna win. You just happen to live in the wrong place. So they're speaking out of both ends of their mouth when they talk about, you know,

it doesn't matter what zip code you live in, you're gonna get a good education, well, unless you're served by a about, you know, it doesn't matter what zip code you live in, you're going to get a good education, well, unless you're served by a Democrat, you know, and that's just not the way to go. So there's people that are that hard, and it's because they want all or nothing. They want punishment for their own colleagues if they don't vote correctly. Certainly, we can see what happened on vouchers. They didn't vote right on one thing, and then they were lied about in terms of not being strong on border security. You know, if Steve Allison were here, you know, he'd spend all day talking about

how he knows his voting record on the border, and yet the mailers said otherwise. I think that they're going after their own. Sadly, they took out some incredible members of the Texas legislature. Some of the people that retired for price always comes to mind, number one. I mean, that guy was an incredible member. When we think about all the mental health crisis that we have in Texas and that member is gone because he didn't feel like this was a place for him anymore, that's a bad thing for Texas when we have the crisis that we have right now. I said something about Don

California by Texas earlier, right? There was a piece just yesterday that came out the Fort Worth report. It said that California has one, I'm sorry, 70 mental health professionals, pardon me, one mental health professional for every 70 people in California. And in Texas, we have one mental health professional for every 700 people in Texas. Ten times better in terms of the ratio there. That's how big the gap is. I can't talk about mental health unless we actually have people in the field. That was his field.

That was Ford Price's field. How to increase access, how to bring more people in the field, how to raise wages. And look, we're just removing, we're losing some great people. I wish it hadn't happened. And I'd hope that the Republican voter back home really is paying attention. And if you want to vote for the flamethrower, just know that's not the person who's coming down here to get to work. He may be the loudest or she may be the loudest, but you need somebody that's going to come

down here and be quiet, put their nose to the grindstone, learn, come back home, give me a town hall meeting where all they talked about is a success that they did on a bipartisan fashion. We're going to be, we're going to, we're going to keep moving this state in the right direction. Does that apply to the flame throwers in your party? Oh yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely.

If you were to come and be a flame thrower on the left and you think that that's the, that's the, what, what, what you're going to bring home for your, for your district, you're wrong. It's not going to happen on either side. I mean, I learned that from Speaker Laney when I first came in. He looked at me and told me, what do you think? And he said, and I said, I really don't know. I'm a business owner. I'll build swimming pools.

Like, I've never been in the legislature. Oh, you know something. And tell me, what do you think? And I said, well, I know everybody's talking about this Dan Patrick guy. He's like, oh, don't worry about him. You know, there's always been 15 flame throwers on the right and 15 flame throwers on the left. He goes, hell, you beat one of them.

He says, just tell me, are you one of the 120 sons of guns in the middle? And I say, yes, sir, Mr. Speaker, I am. And he says, good, because the people of Texas need you. That's really what it's all about. You know, you have to get down here for the right reasons. And then once you get down here, you're gonna pick a team. And there are people right now that probably came in on one team, and

now they're going, you know what, I don't think I wanna go there. I think I better get right back in here in the middle. I got a really good committee. I got an appropriations for God's sakes. I have a huge opportunity to deliver for my district. I should take that opportunity. I hope that they do and they'll be well served for it. Chairman Romero, thanks for joining us today.

Brad, thank you for having me. You