James Talarico

I like the work that I'm doing.

I do think I'm making an impact.

A lot of the bills that I've passed are actually helping people, helping students like the ones I taught.

But it is a bruising business to be in.

Well, because it's terrible.

There are great things about it.

I really don't want, I don't, I am not a victim here.

I have a great, this is a, no one was given this job away.

I had to work to get this job, right?

I had to raise money.

I didn't knock on thousands of doors.

And I do.

I mean, the fact that I went from serving 150 students at Rhodes Middle School in room 112 to now serving 5.5 million Texas public school students as part of the public education committee in the Texas House.

So like that's, you know, I passed a bill to allow incarcerated minors to get a high school diploma while they're in prison.

And then I got invited out to speak at their first graduation ceremony in the prison.

And I saw these kids who made...

horrific mistakes, but I saw them with their parents with a cap and gown and suddenly their whole conception about who they were changed in an instant because of a bill that I passed.

There's all kinds of terrible stuff in this, the corruption, the partisanship, the polarization, the tribalism, it's all terrible.

But then like you give a kid an opportunity to earn a diploma,

And you're just like, I can hang it up.