Bernie Sanders stirs up progressive support in Houston rally

Sanders rallied alongside Congressman Greg Casar, former congressman Beto O’Rourke and others for Medicare for All and campaign finance reform.HOUSTON (CN) — Senator Bernie Sanders brought his Fighting Oligarchy rally series to Houston on Tuesday to garner support for Democratic candidates in Texas, as part of a bid for a Democratic majority in Congress and progressive policies like Medicare for All.While the heated Senate race between Democratic state representative James Talarico and Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has grabbed headlines, Sanders reminded the audience the fight is much larger than one candidate, one majority flip or one election.“To my mind, at the top of the agenda when Democrats win the House and the Senate, is campaign finance reform,” Sanders said. “You want to disagree with me? You want to disagree with me? Go for it. But you cannot be allowed to spend tens of millions of dollars in that election.”Congressman Greg Casar, chair of the House Progressive Caucus, echoed Sanders’ appeal towards the big picture.“This election is not just about beating [Governor Greg] Abbott and Paxton and Trump,” Casar said. “It’s about winning Medicare for All. It’s about saying we don’t need money to bomb kids in Gaza, we need that money here for our schools here in Texas. This election is about loving who you wanna love, about restoring reproductive freedom for everybody here in our state and across our country.”“And here is something you don’t often times hear from the establishment but needs to be said. It is time to fix the rigged system that brought us this in the first place. It’s time to ban super-PACs, get corporate money out of politics, end gerrymandering once and for all, and make it illegal for politicians to trade stocks. They should be working for you, not enriching themselves,” he added.Cesar also emphasized the importance of workers’ power.“This must be a workers’ wave,” he said. “Because this election is not about political parties; it’s not about changing the color of the jerseys of the people in charge from red to blue. This is about fundamentally changing who has power in America.”Dr. Reverend Angela Ravin-Anderson, one of the leaders at the Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church, the long-established Black church in Houston’s Third Ward where the rally was hosted, said democracy requires the continued participation of individuals and the community.“Will we be spectators to history, or participants in shaping it? Will we simply invoke the legacy of those who fought for freedom, or will we have the courage to continue that work? My prayer and my challenge is that we choose to act, and that we demonstrate that we, the people, remain the most powerful force in this nation,” she said.Former congressman Beto O’Rourke, a longtime Democratic organizer and multi-time candidate for Texas governor, balanced the sense of optimism in the room with a very direct anger at President Donald Trump’s policies in the past two years.“It is pretty clear to me that we are winning and they are losing,” O’Rourke said.O’Rourke said Republican support is falling due to Trump’s policies, such as “these disastrous, stupid wars that we’re fighting in Iran, the genocide that we’re abetting in Gaza, the endless corruption in the halls of power from the very highest offices in the land, and these Gestapo tactics we see in our communities, breaking up families, kidnapping kids, killing Americans in broad daylight with impunity.”But the 54-year-old former congressman also pointed out how for the first time in his lifetime, every single major legislative office in Texas has a Democratic candidate on the ballot, from the 150 state House seats and 16 state Senate seats to the 38 U.S. House seats.“We have a fighter on every single front in this battle at the most important time, bar none, in American history, and it feels good," O’Rourke said.Healthcare affordability was also a common refrain of the rally.Sanders focused on his proposed bill for Medicare for All, which would transition Medicare eligibility age down over a four-year period and expand the program to cover dental, hearing and vision. He likewise highlighted artificial intelligence and his proposed bill to put a ten-year pause and further safeguards on AI development.Other speakers — including Vikki Goodwin, the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Texas against the incumbent Republican Dan Patrick, and freshman congressman and former Harris County attorney Christian Menefee — also pushed for healthcare affordability.“There’s two types of people in this world. There are folks who, when they see a fire, they jump into the home to save somebody. And then there are the folks who, when they see a winter storm, they jump on a plane to Cancun,” Menefee said, referring to Senator Ted Cruz’s infamous decision during a 2021 severe winter storm that threatened to cripple the Texas power grid.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads