James Talarico

It was a stupid basis for a friendship, but it was a basis.

And from there, he started to like come back to where I sat on the floor.

And like when things were slow, he would just come kind of sit and shoot the shit.

And he would say like, he would reveal some of the interesting non-orthodox views that he has about politics, which then gave me an opening to kind of express some of my dissatisfactions with this political system in both parties and the way it forces us into tribes, all that stuff.

Anyway, all those conversations really created an actual friendship.

And I consider James an actual friend.

And then what got interesting is how we took that friendship into public policy.

Because I think it was two sessions ago, James had a bill that all the Democrats hated, including me, I hated the bill too.

It was a bill to allow homeschool kids to participate in UIL.

I know you have.

What is UIL?

Yeah, I was going to say.

That is basically school sports in Texas.

It's like the sports league.

And as you know, sports are very important.

Why did you not like that?

Well, my concern was that the public education system is not a buffet table, right, where you can just come and say, I want to do the sports, but I don't want to participate in the actual school or the academics, the life of the school.

I didn't want it to become this fragmented thing that everyone could just pick apart and just do the fun stuff.

That was my first reaction.

James sat down with me, which right there, a Republican coming to a Democrat and actually having a private conversation about a bill, that doesn't happen enough, and it should.