Former Mayor and Housing Secretary Julian Castro will start a new political action committee today, but not to promote his own political ambitions, but to do something Democrats admit they have failed to do over the past two decades of Republican ascendancy, to build a solid Democratic Party 'bench' of city and state leaders, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Analysts agree that while the Democrats have been focused on the 'shiny object' of the Presidency and, to a certain extent, the U.S. Senate, Republicans have been busy at the grass roots, elected Democrats to seats in state Legislatures, on city councils and county commissions, and on obscure agencies like the State Board of Education, recognizing that's where the leaders of the future come from, the Texas Tribune and other media outlets report.
Castro says that is also where the increasingly important business of political redistricting is done, and state lawmakers elected in 2018 will help draw boundaries for a wide variety of political districts following the 2020 Census. Many observers have credited Republican focus on elected members to State Legislators for the success the party has had in other races, because many states have Congressional, Judicial, and state Legislative boundaries drawn by Republicans to favor Republicans.
Republicans now control both chambers of the Legislature in 32 of the 49 states which have bicameral legislatures. As recently as 2010, that figure was 14.Castro's 'Opportunity First PAC' will help raise money to help especially young Democrats get and retain seats in state legislatures, city councils, and county commissions nationwide.
Diligence to lower level races is one reason why Republicans were able to present a slate of dynamic, attractive, and relatively young Presidential candidates like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz in 2016, while the people most frequently mentioned for the Democratic Party Presidential nomination in 2020 are people in their seventies, from Joe Biden to Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton.
Castro has stressed he is not running for any political office in 2018, but there is talk that the Opportunity First PAC could position him for a race for governor in 2022. One key Democratic Party talking point in Texas for more than a decade is the lack of voter participation among the young, large, and growing Latino population, and one thing Castro's PAC will do is to try to increase that participation.
PHOTO: HUD HANDOUT PHOTO