James Talarico

speaker

4,239 appearances 18 recordings 14 series first heard Jul 2025 last heard 3 Jun

James Talarico’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 16 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 8.

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I taught sixth grade language arts at Rhodes Middle School.

Shout out to Rhodes and the Wildcats.

The west side of San Antonio is a beautiful, historic neighborhood.

It's also one of the poorest zip codes in the whole state of Texas.

And so I saw firsthand how decisions made in the halls of power, whether it's the halls of the state capitol or the halls of our national capitol,

hurt students like the ones that I taught, hurt communities like the West Side.

And that's really what pushed me into policy and politics.

I first ran for the State House in 2018.

I was a Democrat running

in a Trump district in a county that was so red it hadn't voted for a Democrat since Jimmy Carter for president.

And so I had to build a big coalition.

I had to bring a lot of people together across all these lines to win that seat.

We ended up flipping that district on election night, shocking the political world in Texas.

And now I'm in my fourth term in the state house where I've built those big coalitions to pass major policy that helps people in our state.

I've had to go toe to toe with some of the mega donors that control Texas politics.

I've had to speak truth to power.

And I've had to work across the aisle to pass bills that actually lower people's costs and help people get ahead in this economy.

I think all of those fights that I've been involved with and leading at the state capitol are now even more urgent

at our nation's capital, the fight against corruption, the fight to lower costs, the fight to make government work for regular people.

And I think I've developed a skill set in the trenches of the Texas legislature, which is not an easy place to work, certainly as a Democrat.

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