O’Rourke and Vallejo encourage South Texans to exercise their voting rights
With an audience of over 300, Beto O’Rourke and Michelle Vallejo spoke Tuesday about the importance of voter participation in the upcoming elections and its impact on shaping the community’s future.
The Round Up For Democracy event, held at University Draft House in McAllen, featured O’Rourke, a former Democratic U.S. representative, as the keynote speaker, alongside special guest Michelle Vallejo, Democratic nominee for Texas’ 15th Congressional District.
Vallejo is challenging Republican U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz.
“Today is a reminder of the strength, the love, the energy that we have for our home here in South Texas,” Vallejo said during the event. “I am so proud to be representing Texas’ 15th as … the youngest candidate who is running in a competitive congressional seat … that will not only change the face of leadership for South Texas, not just change the future for our state of Texas, but change the future and the course of our entire country.”
She said educators and senior citizens face a lot of challenges in Texas.
“Our teachers, our educators, are amazing and they’ve got a target on their back by, literally, the state of Texas,” Vallejo said. “Ya basta con eso. We are going to defend our senior citizens who have to work every single day to pay into Social Security. It is a shame that Republicans, like MAGA Monica De La Cruz, want to privatize [Social Security] and gavel them away. That’s not acceptable, and we are not going to stand for it.”
Affordable health care is one of Vallejo’s top priorities.
“Something that is so personal to me, and so personal to all of us in this room, is access to affordable quality health care right here in South Texas and making sure that women are treated with dignity and respect so that they can make their own health-care decisions no matter what,” she said. “It is wrong that Monica De La Cruz wants to tell you what to do with your body, with your family [and] with your future.”
Vallejo thanked the attendees for their support.
“I have not once felt alone in this fight for South Texas,” Vallejo said. “It is a hard thing to do, to put your name out there, to travel all the way up and down the district, to get to know people, to understand the challenges that we are all experiencing. But, I know that I’m doing this with each and every one of you.”
She encourages the community to go out and vote.
“Make sure that you are registered to vote, even if you voted in the primary,” Vallejo said. “Right now, there are voter-intimidation tactics coming from the highest levels in our state leadership. I don’t even want to say it’s leadership because there’s a lack of leadership, and it’s because they’re scared, because they’re absolutely terrified of us.”
O’Rourke said “smart political people” have told him not to go to South Texas because “the [Rio Grande] Valley doesn’t vote.”
“I probably would not vote either if no one bothered to show up for me, listen to what was on my mind here, my dreams and aspirations, the challenges in front of me and work with me to make sure that we can realize those dreams and overcome those obstacles,” he said.
O’Rourke spoke about the impact of the Texas abortion ban.
“Remember what was on the ballot in 2022,” he said. “It wasn’t just Beto and Abbott. It was … the most obscene abortion ban in America. … In the 16 months after that Texas abortion ban was signed into law by Greg Abbott, made possible by Donald Trump, 26,000 women and girls in the state of Texas were forced to carry the child of their rapist to term. This has become the epicenter of a maternal mortality crisis.”
O’Rourke said the May 24, 2022, shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde was also on the ballot.
“On the ballot [were] 19 beautiful kids and their two teachers slaughtered in their classroom,” he said. “… Nothing, nothing has changed in this state to make it any less likely that any other child met the same thing, a fate so awful and hideous that their parents can only identify their bodies by the shoes that they were wearing because they were so badly disfigured.”
Mission resident Angelica Almaguer attended the event and said she could not believe O’Rourke and Vallejo visited the Valley because not a lot of politicians do.
Almaguer said the top issues she sees in the state are abortion rights, health care and education.
