 Climate change is an existential threat. We have been told by scientists that if we don't take dramatic action within the next ten years, it will be too late. With our warming oceans, with our polluted air, it's there in so many ways, so even if we can't see it, we have to pay attention to it. My family's been here 150 years. Our pecan orchard was big enough for the whole family to live on. It was the first, and for a good while it was the biggest. All of our family could work here, make a living. We prided ourselves in growing the most amount of pecans. It was just really boundless. The coal plant came in in 77. We started having things happen with our trees. Glimms dying, then whole trees were dying. We couldn't solve it out. I was always having headaches. The MRIs showed that I had the third largest tumor in the United States, in Moscow. My family doctor, he said that my tumor came from emissions from the power plant. Then the picture turned to the coal plant causing our problem. I started investigating the Texas Health Department. These emissions caused the trees to die and put us out of business. My purpose in life, it just blew apart. I miss everything that we've lost, but I can't bring it back. You just don't see a lot of people running for any type of office do the type of work that Mike does. Where he can change some of these rules and regulations that we have. I'm dependent on Mike to do that for me. The Fayette Coal Plant is literally killing the future for dozens of counties here in Texas. People like Harvey are suffering because of climate change, even if we don't see it, it's happening around the world. It's important to all of us to fight because this is our only planet. We don't get a second chance. And I believe organizing is the way we make political change. My campaign is about showing up in every county in this congressional district to let folks know that we're going to fight for them. I've been fighting for the people for 21 years as a public school teacher, as a union organizer, a civil rights lawyer, fighting for voting rights. If we say we need health care, if we need housing, we need clean air, we need clean water. It's important for all of us to stand up and fight back because our corrupt political system won't change unless we force it to. We need to show folks that we're going to fight for them and make sure they can elect the representatives they deserve. Hello, everyone. I'm here with Mike Siegel. He is a former public school teacher and current civil rights attorney. He's been endorsed by Brand New Congress, Our Revolution, The Sunrise Movement, and he's running in Texas's 10th congressional district. And he's here to tell us about his campaign. Mike, thank you for coming on the program. Right on. Thank you so much, Mike. I'm excited to be here with you. Yeah. And these types of candidates such as yourself, who I talk to are from Texas, you're incredible because you're running in an area of the country that is perceived to be relatively conservative. So we see a lot of milk toast candidates, a lot of neoliberals emerge out of these types of areas in hopes that they can win over, you know, these types of purple districts and whatnot. So tell us a little bit about your race and the dynamics there and why you think you can win by running on a very bold progressive platform. Right on. And yeah, you're right. There's that conventional view that to win a district like this, you have to be a former Republican military veteran, you know, supporting a public option or something like that. And I don't think that's true at all. So I come to this, you know, I'm a long time, as you say, public school teacher, civil rights lawyer. Before I ran for Congress, I was a city attorney for the city of Austin. And my biggest political involvement here in Texas was to be the lead lawyer suing the state of Texas to stop a hateful anti-immigrant law in 2017. Show me your papers law called Texas Senate Bill 4. And really that fight prefigured some of the dynamics in Texas. You know, that was a fight when basically Trump selected and the Texas Republicans say we're going to deputize police officers as immigration agents. And Austin and the county we're in Travis County was the first place to really step up and fight back. And ultimately we organized the biggest cities in Texas to sue the state to stop this law. And I was the lead lawyer for the city of Austin. And that was a moment when I realized that, you know, Texas really isn't a red state. We like to say it's a non-voting state. But the idea that these Texas cities are full of progressives who are ready to organize on behalf of undocumented families really gave me a lot of courage. And so last cycle I did run for this seat in the Texas 10th took on Michael McCall, an eight-time Republican incumbent who is one of the wealthiest members of Congress. He's worth over $300 billion. He married into the Clear Channel fortune. His wife, Linda Mays, is the heiress to that fortune. And he basically won a gerrymandered seat in 2004, you know, after they re-drew the Texas map and spent millions to win his first Republican primary and basically put his feet up. There are Democrats sitting in the field of candidate against him in that first race. And he was winning elections by 20 and 30 percent. Fast forward to 2016, he won by 19 percent. And so I'm thinking about running in late 2017. And basically at that point, my idea was, well, at least we can organize and, you know, mobilize some of these volunteers, whether it's the individual activists, the Latino organizers, knock a whole bunch of doors and see what's really possible. And I started out with a 19-point disadvantage, but mobilized over a thousand volunteers, brought together unions, environmental groups, youths, progressives. And we got that raised down to 4 percent by November 2018 and basically turned what was supposed to be a safe Republican seat into what it now, in 2020, is a national battleground race. And so I'm running again to finish the job. Unfortunately, I don't have the support of the mainstream Democratic establishment, at least the DC establishment, because I don't fit with their theory. You know, I can't raise $500,000 in two months by calling my friends. I don't hire DC consultants who want to basically build a campaign that's all about ads and mailpieces. You know, I'm an organizer. When I was in the Teachers Union, I was a representative at my school site. As a civil rights lawyer, I was a movement lawyer as part of major civil rights cases. And so I can do that and I can help build a movement, but I'm not going to be their kind of corporate PAC-type candidate. And so really what I've been having to do is fight on two fronts. One, kind of hold off the Democratic establishment that would rather replace me as a Democratic nominee. And there's two people running against me in the primary, but also build the kind of coalition to beat McCall in November. And so, yeah, so we're approaching March 3rd, which is our election in the primary. Yeah, that's going to be a very, very huge day. And I just want to say, like, we've been talking about Texas turning blue now for what, more than a decade, just generally speaking. And we're not really really like seeing that as a possibility now that there are progressives running in Texas. Like we have Donna Iman. I just had her on the show. We have Seema Hernandez running for the Senate. And the Democratic Party has ignored these types of candidates, candidates such as yourself. And that really is just the biggest missed opportunity ever because you can't win if you don't compete. And so for them to kind of just throw their hands up and kind of like give up and not even try to win, it really it shows that the state of the National Democratic Party at least is incredibly just it feels hopeless. So I'm curious. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, you're able to beat McCall. If you're elected, like there's going to be no question, you'll be marginalized in the House of Representatives. You know, there's going to be a lot of pressure on you to conform. So how do you beat back against that knowing that you have Democratic Party leadership who may hold committee assignments over your head? Like how do you beat the machine because you're already fighting it now? So if you're in power, like how do you actually affect change? Right. That's the big question. I mean, I think there's multiple layers to the strategy, right? I mean, first is to unite with like-minded folks. I think the progressive caucus, although, you know, all hundred members or so, they're not all really true progressives. There's a lot of folks there with good hearts and a solid voting record. And so, you know, to be an adjunct to the squad or what have you and to join those folks and to fight. For Medicare for All in a Green New Deal and work within the system. But at the same time, I have to continue to build the base outside of DC and outside of my official capacity. And so the way I'm going to beat McCall, for example, in November is basically by uniting the progressive constituencies at the two ends of this district. The Texas 10th basically goes from northwest of Austin, crosses seven rural counties and then ends up in these Houston suburbs. So in the general election, I can draw upon progressives at both ends of the district and, you know, get unions and other folks to hit doors at both ends. And that's how we're going to beat McCall. But to keep power afterwards, especially given that they're going to redistrict Texas in 2021 and they might redraw this district in a way that benefits a more conservative Democrat, for example, who already holds office. I'm going to have to keep people engaged. And so to me, you know, you can't just run a movement campaign. You also have to be a movement representative. That's job security if you can do that. Yeah. And I like how a lot of the candidates, such as yourself, you talk about organizing, but bringing that organizer mentality into the House of Representatives. And that's what we're kind of seeing with Bernie Sanders. You know, he wants to be the organizer in chief. We're seeing this really successfully replicated in Seattle with Shama Sawant. So it really is important. And I'm so glad to see grassroots candidates adopt this type of mentality because this really is the ticket like there's no other way that you can win if you don't mobilize voters and get out the base. And I'm glad that there are people finally running for Congress who acknowledge that Democrats lose if Democrats stay home and don't turn out. And that's so important. So I wanted to ask you, because you're running in Texas as a progressive and you are unapologetically like immigrant rights and whatnot. So how do you respond? Because I don't know what it's like in Texas. Like I'm assuming there's a lot of like build the wall, Trump people there. So what is your response to them when canvassing? Like what do you tell team members to say when they're knocking on doors? Because I think this is something that we can learn from candidates like you who are in this unique situation. Well, big picture, you know, I've knocked on some of those doors. You know, I've met old timers who tell me, you know, I'm not racist, but and then they proceed to tell me racist things, you know. And by the way, my wife is Nigerian from the north of Nigeria. My kids are mixed race. And so you can basically see it on my campaign card, what kind of family I have. But big picture, you know, we don't have to reach those people to win races like this. And there's this myth that you have to, you know, somehow turn or change the mind of some sort of mythical swing voter, white working class voter to win races like this. And that's certainly not true in Texas 10. And luckily I have basically a record in 2018 that I can point to, you know, an underfunded campaign that made up 15 points on one of the wealthiest members of Congress. But also in this district, when Beto Roark took on Ted Cruz, he actually beat Ted Cruz in this district by a fraction of a percentage point running on a progressive platform. I mean, Beto's Senate race was actually more progressive in some ways than his presidential campaign. He was actively talking about a Green New Deal Medicare for All, for example. And so I can basically point to that and Beto is like completely noncontroversial for just about every Texas Democrat. Hey, he beat Cruz in this district. If I just have a little more resources, a little more belief in my viability, we can win too. Yeah, that's really encouraging. And I like that you said that like you don't have to win by like changing the minds of people who are not going to jump on board. And I think that that's one thing that is a little bit discouraging to see with national Democrats like there's always the sense to roll over and die the minute you face any sort of pushback whatsoever. And you know, there's like America is a fairly progressive country. Like we don't see that and media budgets won't tell you that because people self-identify as conservative. But when you look at the issues, people are very progressive. Like they want Medicare for All. Everybody wants healthcare. Nobody likes their private insurance. Like we want to make ends meet. We want a minimum living wage. So I mean, it's just it's this is all common sense, I feel like. And it's so refreshing to see people just finally say, yes, this is my strategy. So one thing that I wanted to ask, let's say you're able to win. There is a lot that we have to do just as a movement. What do you think you would focus on within that first year or so? Because you can't focus on everything. So you've got to kind of narrow that focus. So let's say, hypothetically speaking, best case scenario, Bernie's in the White House, Democrats take back the House and the Senate or they keep the House and they take back the Senate. What would you individually want to push for? What would be like at the front of your agenda? Sure. So big issues for me have been healthcare, the climate and voting rights. You know, I made national news in 2018 as a candidate because I had a staffer arrested at Prairie View and M University basically fighting for the right to vote of students at that historically black college. And you know, that's a big issue for me. Healthcare obviously is a national issue. But one issue where I think I can make a big difference is climate change. This district basically unites environmentalists in Austin, a coal plant in the rural county in the middle of this district in Fett County, and then these Houston area fossil fuel workers and oil and gas industry workers who have a more conservative view. But this coal plant is polluting the water underneath dozens of Texas counties. Houston has had five, five hundred year flood events in the last five years. I mean, it sounds absurd, but you know, five, one and five hundred year events in five years. And so there's this amazing opportunity to talk about environmental issues and climate change in the heart of oil and gas country. And so I actually, there was a national article about my campaign a couple of weeks ago, Kate Aronoff wrote for the New Republic about my campaign because I went to the Texas AFL-CIO convention. And I thought this was going to be an easy endorsement. I'm a two-time union member myself as a teacher and city worker. My campaign is unionized, one of the rare congressional campaigns to be unionized. I come from a union family and had the Austin Labor Council support. But it turned out when I got to the convention that some of these oil and gas workers, the steel workers, you know, the seafarers, pipe fitters had concerns about my campaign. And we're willing to support an anti-union opponent of mine in the Democratic primary because I said the words Green New Deal. Like those three words scared the shit out of these folks. And ultimately, I basically spent three days caucusing with every union in the state of Texas. And by the end of it, I was able to win over enough of these folks, including the refinery workers, the ship operators, that I'm going to take strong action on climate change. But I'm not going to take action until labor is at the bargaining table with us, until they're comfortable with the just transition. And that's critical, right? If the Green New Deal is going to be a national jobs program putting millions of Americans to work, building a renewable economy, we need unions right there with us. There's no way we can pass it without them. And so that accomplishment of winning the trust of Houston fossil fuel workers for a campaign that's fighting for a Green New Deal gave me a lot of hope. And what I'd like to do in Congress is basically bring the voice of those folks to the bargaining table in D.C. You know, of the workers who will be most affected by this transition and make sure their voices are heard. I also have an opportunity to really focus on this coal plant, the environmental calamity. I mean, it's poisoning people. It's causing cancer. It's causing asthma, lead poisoning in children. It's killing livestock and orchards, you know, agriculture. But no one's paid attention to it because in Texas, the Environmental Commission is controlled by the Republican Party. They turn their, you know, blind eye. They don't look at fracking this going on. And so I think if I could get on the right committee, you know, a science and technology committee and hold hearings to basically shine a light on this coal plant and then push for a just transition to a more renewable industry, that would be a big accomplishment. Yeah. And I feel like that's something that you, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican, Democrat, independent, like everybody wants breathable air, clean, drinkable water. This is not a partisan issue. So I mean, I feel like that is how you can win over some of the people who are more reluctant, who aren't on board with, you know, social and even economic issues with regard to, you know, progressivism and whatnot. But I wanted to ask you because you talk about your connections to unions and whatnot. And the Democratic Party, they kind of moved away from labor and unions. But we see a lot of Democrats, more centrist Democrats. I just saw a tweet from Pete Buttigieg a couple of days ago where he talked about how we can't have Medicare for all because unions don't want Medicare for all. You know, that's, that's something that they provide. I'm paraphrasing, of course. So how do you respond to that? Like this attempt to pit workers against everyone else and say, no, you know, you can't have Medicare for all because unions fought for it. Like how do you respond just individually to that? Yeah, I've heard the same thing. You know, when I work with the machinists, for example, they've got some good healthcare programs they've bargained for. I mean, I think the simplest answer is you will have wonderful healthcare. We're going to improve and expand on Medicare. And at the same time, you're going to get higher wages because you don't have to bargain for healthcare. And that, you know, that's like the take home. You know, what I've realized in this conversation about the Green New Deal and also Medicare for all is that there really isn't much trust in government. And that's a huge problem for us as progressives because we're advocating for New Deal-style programs. But for the last 40 years, the right wing has been attacking the government and saying, you know, the free market is going to take care of you. And so we really need to build trust. And so for some of these programs, we're going to have to do bite-size improvements. I think the Green New Deal is an example of, well, we're going to have to take on industry by industry. You know, Andy Levin and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez are pushing an electric vehicle bill right now. I mean, we're just going to have to do step-by-step to show how each of these programs can benefit people's lives. Now, that's not to say I agree with this idea of a two-step to the public option and then to Medicare for all. I think we'll miss a huge opportunity in that. But we have to recognize that we do need to build a lot of trust in the government before folks will really be on board with us. Yeah, I agree with that because I mean, we see a lot of things get broken oftentimes by private companies. But still, you know, these types of Republicans, they will water down some type of social safety net and then point to that as an example is why, you know, government doesn't work. So they break it and then use that as evidence why big government is bad. So I totally agree with that such a great point and you being attentive to that. I think that's really important because building trust really is important because if we do have all of these ideas that, you know, involve expanding the size of government and shrinking the size of the private sector in certain areas. Yeah, that that is that's really important. And I feel like you have that background like you're uniquely positioned to do that because you're you're from Texas like nationally you'd have that credibility you're representing a, you know, a historically red state. So yeah, I think that your campaign is so dynamic. It's so interesting and I'm really encouraged by the fact that we see progressives running everywhere, including in red states. So of course, shout out to all the progressives that are running in these areas that the Democratic Party doesn't even want to try to compete and I think it's possible. So anyone who's watching, they're going to be convinced because you're a phenomenal candidate. So tell us what we can do to help you if we live in Texas or outside of the state. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that, Mike. Well, big picture, you know, the election here in Texas like California is March 3rd. So we're in the stretch run here. My campaign has the most dynamic field program out there. We've already knocked over 30,000 doors. We've identified a full 20% of the votes we need to win on March 3rd, which is a great number to have. But to the extent anyone's willing to chip in $5 or $10 of course every bit makes a difference. Basically, we can contact 10 voters with $10. Another thing that folks can do is we're going to be having national phone banks every Wednesday night. And so if folks go to my website and sign up as a volunteer, you can join the phone bank brigade. And if you're not able to get engaged before March 3rd, there's time after that to write postcards and to help out. But if anyone is close by, I mean, the most effective way to win support is that one-to-one voter contact. And that's the beauty of the Bernie Sanders campaign. And my campaign, you know, my opponents have money, like they're buying TV ads, they're sending all these mailers. And they're part of this paradigm that's essentially cynical about voter behavior. It's like, let's just flood everybody for three weeks with ads and mail and try to manipulate them into voting a certain way. And my campaign, we've taken the long view, you know, we've been fighting on local and social justice issues year round. And to me, that's the kind of support and the base we need to build. But to the extent anyone's willing to come knock doors with us, meet voters face-to-face, either in the cities or in the rural areas, we'd love to have them. Yeah, absolutely. And let me just add to that. Like this election is taking place on Super Tuesday, so everyone's heads, you know, they're everywhere we have elections taking place across the country. So we have to make sure that we really focus on these types of races, like Mike's race, because it's crucial that we get not just a Bernie Sanders presidency, but a House of Representatives that has a lot of progressives that will actually vote for Medicare for all, vote for a great new deal, because our job is going to be very difficult if we have the White House, but not, you know, a very friendly Congress to progressives. So like every little bit of helps, certainly if you're in that 10th district, get out there, knock on some doors, because this is a down payment for a better future, and it's going to be a tough fight, but this is only the start. So, you know, buckle up. It's going to be a long ride, but I think that you can do it. Like you've already proven, Mike, that you can run a stellar campaign. And yeah, I look forward to it. We'll be rooting for you. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, this, you know, this district, the Texas 10th is on everyone's list of the top 10 or 15 races Democrats can pick up in 2020. And so the idea that I might be one of a small handful of progressives in one of these so-called swing districts, I hope we'll have some national attention in the fall. And so I'd love to stay in contact with you. I really appreciate everything you're doing to, you know, share the word. Yeah, well, absolutely. Thank you so much. We'll be in touch. Take care. Fantastic. Thank you, Mike. You too.