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SAN ANTONIO Progressives in Austin think theyve found Texas next great Democratic leader: Greg Casar, a 32-year-old city councilman running in the Lone Star States 35th Congressional District.

Supporters and critics alike identify Casar as a key figure in Austins leftward shift in recent years. His backers say he has the energy and promise to be a politician in the mold of Beto ORourke or Julin Castro.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) rallied for Casar in San Antonio on Feb. 12, saying he has a proven, visionary track record and comes from organizing.

He is from this, she told the crowd. He is not new to this. He is true to this.

But before Casar becomes a household name, hell have to get through his primary.

Unhappiness with the very same local policies that have given Casar a major boost provides an opening to his most competitive rival, state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D), a mainstream progressive with a decidedly more cautious style.

Rodriguez has blasted Casar for his support of a 2019 law decriminalizing outdoor homeless encampments in the city of Austin, and for efforts to reduce Austins police department funding a year later.

In both cases, Casars agenda was overtaken by outside political forces that reflected a broader backlash to left-wing social policies in Democratic cities.

Texas March 1 primary, which will lead to a runoff if no candidate gets an outright majority, is a chance for progressives to demonstrate that Casars brand of activist lawmaking can still carry the day at the ballot box.

Some Wind At His Back

If Ocasio-Cortez a former bartender who first ran with little cash and even less experience in elected office reflected a less seasoned iteration of the current wave of progressive primary challengers, Casars relative strength speaks to how the new movement of left-wing gate-crashers has matured over time.

With internal polling that showed him with a 25-point lead in December and a consistent fundraising edge, Casar, a practiced local lawmaker, has managed to obtain an air of inevitability that was once the exclusive domain of establishment Democrats in races of this kind. His odds of victory have helped him rack up endorsements from the likes of U.S. Reps. Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvia Garcia both Texas Democrats, but neither a tribune of the far left and taken some of the air out of moderate insiders efforts to stop him.

He definitely seems to have some wind at his back right now, said Ed Espinoza, executive director of Progress Texas, a liberal group that is neutral in the race.

What perhaps distinguishes Casar most from some of his less experienced ideological allies is that he avoids potential rhetorical traps with the agility of a ballet dancer.

Would Casar call on Spotify to expel controversial podcast host Joe Rogan, an Austin resident? Casar wouldnt say. Instead, he praised Neil Young and other artists for exiting the platform in protest, and then pivoted to a brief soliloquy on how Austin doesnt align with values of vaccine misinformation or racial injustice.

Would Casar be a member of the Squad if elected? Essentially, yes, but Casar joked that it wasnt up to him. I dont know if you get a membership card, or if thats bestowed upon you by others, he said.

It was very quickly clear that [Casar] was just a rock star.

- Brad Lander, New York City comptroller

Would Casar have joined Ocasio-Cortez in voting against the bipartisan infrastructure bill? He couldnt say for certain, noting that it was hard to predict that assurances of a vote on Build Back Better legislation would not come to fruition. With 20/20 hindsight, it looks like she made the right call, he offered.

Does Casar support imposing tougher conditions on U.S. aid to Israel? He referred HuffPost to a letter he sent last month to a prominent Austin rabbi. In the letter, Casar wrote that he supports restricting [U.S.] aid from being used in a manner that violates basic rights, but also that updates should not be imposed in a discriminatory manner against any people or nation. How that would apply to Israel is unclear.

Casars decision to distance himself from the far lefts more radical positions on U.S.-Israel policy, including the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, reflects the activist-lawmakers canny political instincts.

The move cost him the endorsement of his longtime allies in the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America. But it likely also spared him from a multimillion-dollar assault by groups like Democratic Majority for Israel, which has not endorsed any candidate in Casars race.

He certainly does know how to manage tradeoffs, but he picks good spots, Espinoza said.

Casars political education began in earnest in 2014, when he was elected to the Austin City Council. At age 24, he was the youngest person ever elected to the local governing body.

Previously, Casar was policy director of the Workers Defense Project, a nonprofit that advocates for Austins immigrant construction workers. With the backing of major labor unions, Casar promised that on the council he would continue pushing for higher standards for Austins most vulnerable workers and take the fight to unscrupulous contractors.

Sure enough, gains for workers are among Casars lasting policy achievements on the city council. He played a role in the city extending its living wage law to employees of subcontractors, increasing city employee pay to $15 an hour, and adopting a paid sick leave requirement for all private-sector employees (albeit one that the Texas Supreme Court prevented from taking effect in June 2020).

That work put him on the radar of national progressive leaders like New York City Comptroller Brad Lander (D). A city councilman when Casar was elected, Lander began coordinating closely with him as part of Local Progress, a forum for left-leaning local elected officials.

At the same time, the citys business community did not initially see him as an enemy. The Austin Young Chamber of Commerce, a business group, honored Casar as an inspiring leader in 2015.

It was very quickly clear that he was just a rock star, Lander recalled during a trip to Texas in support of progressive candidates in mid-February.

Eddie Rodriguez for Congress

You Have To Make Progress

Just a few years ago, Eddie Rodriguez would likely have been one of the more progressive Democrats in the House. Among other stances, he supports Medicare for All, refuses corporate PAC donations, and is passionate about expanding affordable housing.

Asked why he is running for Congress after 19 years representing Austin in the state legislature, Rodriguez, a real estate title insurance executive raised in the Rio Grande Valley, said he wants to help working families get ahead and beat back Republican attacks on voting and abortion rights.

My parents instilled in me the American dream if you work hard, you can do better than we did, he said, noting that he was the first person in his family to obtain a college degree. That dreams faded away for a lot of people, especially working folks.

Rodriguez, who boasts endorsements of his own from members of Texas congressional delegation, has cast some votes as a state lawmaker that have given progressive critics an opening in the current primary. Along with virtually all of his colleagues, Rodriguez voted in 2007 to continue state tax breaks for oil and gas companies. And as noted in a new direct-mail item funded by the Working Families Party, which is backing Casar, Rodriguez has been a frequent recipient of donations from the fossil fuel industry during his tenure in the state House.

The Sierra Club nonetheless consistently gives Rodriguez top marks for his overall voting record. The environmental group gave Rodriguez an 86% score on its legislative scorecard in the 2021 session.

The pressures of a race in which he must occupy the clear moderate lane have also prompted Rodriguez to embrace his centrist side. While he is a member of the progressive caucus in Texas state legislature, Rodriguez would not commit to joining the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the business-friendly New Democrat Coalition has endorsed him.

But as is the case with so many mainstream liberals of an older vintage and the newer cohort of leftists, Rodriguezs differences with Casar are often tactical in nature.

Rodriguez, 50, prefers behind-the-scenes politicking and incremental wins to movement-driven organizing and aim-for-the-skies policy ideas. He recalls with pride how he prevailed on the legislatures reigning Republicans to expand Texas free school breakfast program for poor students, and shepherded state-level legislation that gave Austin greater flexibility to address its affordable housing crisis.

You cant just make the perfect the enemy of the good.

- Texas state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez (D), congressional candidate

To be called a progressive, you have to make progress, Rodriguez said. You cant just make the perfect the enemy of the good.

Rodriguezs overall critique of Casar that his all-or-nothing approach to policymaking has undermined meaningful reform comes into sharper relief in two specific cases.

Casar was a key player in the Austin City Councils June 2019 decision to end the citys prohibition on camping in undesignated areas. The goal of the legislation was to stop criminalizing Austins growing population of homeless people and get them the help they needed.

But following the move, homeless encampments began popping up in greater numbers in Austins parks, thoroughfares and other public spaces, sparking a massive political backlash. A local Republican Party official spearheaded a ballot initiative to reinstate the camping ban. And despite the citys Democratic slant, 57% of Austins voters approved the referendum in May.

Rodriguez was one of the Democrats who voted for the reinstatement, telling HuffPost that there are better solutions. Rodriguez made Casars support for lifting the ban on homeless camping the subject of a direct-mail attack that also blamed Casar for fail[ing] to build affordable housing.

But Casar contends that the chaotic scenes of homeless encampments on the citys streets created political will to build supportive housing that had not existed previously.

It is worth it if a couple years from now, we could look back and say, There was a lot of political pain, but at the end of the day, we pulled thousands of real human beings out of real pain and out of the streets and into homes, he said.

Rodriguez has also seized on Casars role in championing cuts to Austins police department budget. In August 2020, Casar touted the city councils decision to reduce the police department budget by about one-third and spend it instead on things like an emergency mental health hotline. We did it! he declared on Twitter.

Critics blame some of the funding cuts for a shortage of personnel amid a historic rise in homicides in the city.

In June, the Texas state legislature passed a bill that would effectively confiscate funding from large cities that reduce law-enforcement funding. The following month, Austin responded by restoring most of the 2020 funding cuts.

Casar still defends the funding cut, characterizing it as a shift in resources that freed up money for the emergency hotline and much-needed shelters for families fleeing domestic violence.

We were told time and time again, Dont make things better, because the legislature will come and make things worse, he said. And instead, what we decided to do was go and try to make as many things better as we could.

Matthew Busch/The Washington Post/Getty Images

The National Narrative Cuts Both Ways

Lurking behind some of the criticism lobbed at Casar is a sense that left-wing Democrats like him have made it harder for the party as a whole to compete in Texas. Thats especially true, these critics contend, at a time when Democrats are at pains to thwart Republican advances among Latino voters in South Texas.

I am concerned that well have long-term damage to the Democratic Party in Texas if the party keeps nominating candidates like Casar, said Rebecca Viagrn, a former San Antonio city councilwoman running against Casar and Rodriguez.

Viagrn is the only major female candidate on the primary ballot in Texas 35th District, a status often described as an advantage in a Democratic primary. With less than $65,000 in cash on hand as of Feb. 9, however, she is very much a long shot for the Austin-centric seat.

But she speaks for a contingent of mainstream Democrats who are struggling to distinguish themselves to voters from a new generation of young democratic socialists who punch above their weight in the media and popular culture.

We need to have more people who can be progressive, but also talk to my neighbor down the street, whos a Vietnam veteran who agrees that we need to increase the minimum wage, and women should have their own rights, but doesnt believe that we should defund the police or have homeless encampments everywhere in the city, Viagrn said.

In Texas 35th, there may be enough voters who fit the profile Viagrn described to hand her, or Rodriguez, a surprise win or at least necessitate a runoff. Its unclear how accurate polling will be if the current pattern of anemic turnout holds.

At an early voting site in East Austin, Maxine Jackson, a church secretary, could not recall the name of the person she voted for, but she knew it definitely wasnt Casar.

Greg is giving me the impression that he wants to let them stay homeless under the tents, she said.

Why then does polling suggest that Casar is the unrivaled front-runner? Money talks, said Gonzalo Barrientos, a trailblazing former state lawmaker who is backing Rodriguez. Casar is probably getting a lot of money from New York and California from socialist Democrats.

We need to have more people who can be progressive, but also talk to my neighbor down the street.

- Former San Antonio city Councilwoman Rebecca Viagrn, now a congressional candidate

Another answer might be that Rodriguez has failed to sell donors on a path to victory. After receiving just one-third of the vote in a contentious state Senate primary in July 2020, Rodriguez dropped out rather than stand for the runoff. (Rodriguez promised to HuffPost that if he qualifies this time, he will proceed to the runoff.)

And in addition to Casars divorce with the Austin DSA, hes taken other steps to inoculate himself from the ire of the local pro-Israel community, which might ordinarily have stepped in more heavily on Rodriguezs behalf. The Saturday after the hostage crisis at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, Casar joined ORourke now a gubernatorial candidate and other elected officials at sabbath services at a synagogue in Austin as a show of solidarity.

In some ways though, Rodriguez, Viagrn and Democrats sympathetic to them are victims of their own success in painting individual elections as referendums on the direction of the party.

When moderate and mainstream liberal Democrats crowed about election results in New York City, Cleveland, Seattle, Minneapolis and Buffalo in 2021 declaring their critiques of the activist left had been vindicated leftists protested that there were confounding factors that complicated the takeaways from each of those races. They also singled out Austin as a bright spot, since the citys voters rejected a ballot initiative in November that would have required the city to hire hundreds more police officers.

The message of police accountability and oversight resonates, Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution, told HuffPost in November. Thats clear.

Now, as a left-wing candidate is poised to prevail in a contested primary, the Democrats touting previous primary wins lack the credibility or the tools to push back on the progressive narrative.

Progressives, however, are eager to temper expectations.

Asked whether a win for Casar would show that left-wing positions on policing and homelessness are not as much of a liability as previously thought, Lander, the NYC comptroller, would not answer directly.

Gregs win would show that there can be more AOCs, he said.

Read the original:
Why Texas Progressive Greg Casar Gives Hope To The Embattled Left - HuffPost