Showing up Everywhere: a Proud Progressive Candidate in West Texas
My name is Dan Epstein. I’m a lifelong progressive Democrat and a candidate for US Congress in the Texas 19th Congressional District. There’s no beating around the bush—in this West Texas district, a Democrat is automatically an underdog. No Democrat has held the seat in a generation, and in most races in recent memory, the party hasn’t even bothered to put up a candidate.
Take my experience here on election day 2016: I spent 15 hours on November 8 working the polls for the county on Texas Tech campus, where I teach political science, looking at a long ballot with no Democrat for Congress (even though it was an open seat!), no Democrat for state legislature, no Democrat for state senate. It had been a long, intense campaign for me, from before the primaries through the general, because I’d been a lot more than an observer.
In spring 2015, Bernie Sanders announced he was running for president. I was inspired by his personal integrity and commitment to fight income inequality, and all the injustice that stems from it. So inspired that I quit my tenure-track job as a professor.
I first volunteered full-time and soon was hired on for Bernie’s campaign--through months of working 15 hour days, seven days a week, I learned in the real-world about what I’d only studied in the classroom before. After the primaries, my wife and I moved to Texas. I picked up where I left off, by volunteering for Hillary registering voters at local grocery stores and in the halls of campus.
On November 8, as I worked the polls that long election day, I was full of hope: America was about to get its first woman president, who would cement the legacy of Barack Obama. But as poll workers, we weren’t allowed to access our phones or anything all day. So that night when I turned on the radio in my car was the first I learned of the results. I heard the returns coming in from Pennsylvania and I knew: America had not managed to elect a candidate who would confront the widening gap of economic inequality. Instead we got a selfish, corrupt billionaire who would do everything he could to enhance the super-rich minority’s stranglehold on our country’s resources and politics.
The next day, trying to pick myself up as all American progressives were, I heard President Obama’s speech. He said words I’ll never forget: “We have to show up everywhere.” I knew he was talking about West Texas, and I felt that he was speaking to me. Here’s a place where we as Democrats need to show up, and here I was with the background, experience, and spirit to do it. In this dry prairieland of deep spirituality, I heard my calling and was ready to answer.
Blazing a Bold Trail on a Progressive Frontier
This is a district that sorely needs a progressive voice and a real choice on the ballot, because West Texans have suffered as the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” has widened. A lot of our families have gotten a bum steer from the way our economic, health care, and education systems are set up. Elected Republicans have stacked the odds against the vast majority of their constituents.
No one is being targeted by the Republican agenda worse than children. 11% of kids in our district don’t have any health insurance at all, and Republicans want to cut the programs that insure almost half of the rest! Too many of our kids attend schools that are underfunded and crumbling. The overall poverty rate here in West Texas is about the same as in the whole state--17%, but for families with kids under 5, it’s 21.5%. And for kids growing up in a household with a single mom, 42% are growing up in poverty. We need to change this and give all our kids a fair shot at a good life in our country.
West Texas, like all America, needs an agenda that will re-balance the inequities created by years of policies that favor the rich, and have eroded our public schools, public health, and even our public spaces like parks, highways and sidewalks. We need universal health care, and we need back our Planned Parenthoods, because they uniquely provide the gold standard in women’s reproductive health. Children born to moms who can’t get the prenatal care they need suffer from disadvantage before they’re even born, and nothing could be further from the American dream or the values of West Texas. We need to fund education fully in all public schools and establish universal pre-k so all our kids are ready to succeed when they reach school age.
West Texas also needs a quick path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who don’t have all the right documentation papers. Kids in that position should be automatically granted a green card as soon as they successfully complete elementary, middle, or high school; they shouldn’t be at a disadvantage in applying for college, financial aid, or a job because of decisions made for them while they were kids.
These policies will take a lot of effort and resources, but these are things we’ve got in America— we are a nation of hard workers and believers. We're also a wealthy nation, and we shouldn't tolerate public services, infrastructure, and poverty on par with the world's developing countries. If we reform our tax laws to ensure that the wealthiest pay their fair share, eliminate carve-outs for the investor class, and make the payroll tax apply equally to high income-earners (instead of falling disproportionately on the middle class) we can achieve these ambitions.
The most important thing I learned in my year volunteering and working for political campaigns is that running for office requires a serious commitment. I went out on a limb to quit my job and start from scratch in politics because I believed so ardently in the progressive cause. Now I’m out on the front lines of that movement, as a candidate deep in West Texas. I’m here because I’m committed to walk the talk, and make inroads for justice in a place that many have given up on. It’s a big effort, and a lot of friends from all over are already helping me. I hope you’ll follow my blog and support my campaign!