In 2020, Texas Democrat U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico remarked to progressive activists that it was “rich” to consider the phrase “defund the police” as off-limits in political discussions, according to a CNN report released on Monday.
His comments were made during a call with Texas Rising, a progressive organization that was openly advocating for cuts to police funding at the time, amidst nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd, as stated by CNN.
Talarico, who was a state representative at the time, characterized the taboo surrounding the slogan as hypocritical, asserting that while police funding was off the table, the state government had been cutting funding in other critical areas for years:
As an educator, I find it quite absurd that “defund the police” is off-limits in our political discussions when we’ve been defunding health services and public education for decades.
The Texas Democrat acknowledged that the phrase was stirring up significant emotions in his district, but believed that voters recognized armed officers shouldn’t be the response to minor traffic incidents or mental health crises.
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His campaign described any claims that he supported defunding as a “flat-out lie,” emphasizing his support for local law enforcement through funding initiatives.
“James did not call for and does not support defunding the police, and he firmly stands behind Texas law enforcement and first responders,” stated spokesperson JT Ennis.
CNN noted that Talarico’s record from 2019 through at least 2022 is more intricate than the denial implies, with multiple instances of advocating for limits on police authority and funding for community-based alternatives.
In 2020, following the release of footage regarding the death of Javier Ambler II in Austin, Talarico declared the policing system to be “deeply broken” and suggested it needed to be replaced “with something new and something better.” His campaign later claimed this quote was “taken out of context,” linking it to reality TV shows about policing.
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In the same month, Talarico’s campaign contributed $2,500 to the Austin Justice Coalition, an organization pushing for reductions in the city’s police budget.
At a graduation event for incarcerated students in 2022, he associated reduced police and prison budgets with increased funding for social programs. “If we could divert just half of what we spend on wars, prisons, and policing toward education, healthcare, and jobs, we could render prisons obsolete,” he remarked.
The report arrives during a time when the Senate candidate has been softening his public persona, admitting that many of his statements from 2020 “missed the mark” while also vowing, in an undercover video last month, to advocate for transgender youth if elected. Talarico is in a tight race against Republican Ken Paxton (R-TX) according to polling data.
