As the Nov. 5 election approaches, Green Party candidates hosted a meet and greet event on Sept. 30, offering a platform for voters to hear firsthand about their vision for Texas and the country.
Dr. Jill Stein, running for president; Eddie Espinoza, running for Texas Railroad commissioner; and Robin Lee Vargas, running for Texas Senate District 27, hosted the event at The Gremlin Beer Garden and Kitchen in McAllen.
The candidates hosted a similar event Tuesday at Cobbleheads Bar & Grill in Brownsville.
Stein is running against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, former Republican President Donald Trump and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver.
She told The Rider her journey as a medical doctor motivated her to run for president.
“I just basically saw people getting really sick with whole new categories of illness,” Stein said. “We had these new epidemics of asthma, cancers in children and developmental disabilities, diabetes, you name it. I thought to myself, ‘Hey, our genes didn’t change overnight. There are things in our environment, our food, desserts, our air quality, etc.’”
Through her journey to help communities, Stein realized, “You can’t fight city hall unless you challenge city hall.”
“I started off as a Green because I [saw] too much corruption in the Democrats,” she said. “I did not want to do that. … I basically saw that people are hungry for something that’s not part of the same old corrupt system.”
If elected, Stein said one thing she would do in office would be to stop the genocide.
“I grew up after the Holocaust, after the genocide,” she said. “… Our community was saying, ‘Is there life after genocide?’ And what we decided was we would not let genocide happen again. … So, I cannot sit by and watch a genocide be inflicted on innocent children and civilians. So, I’m fulfilling my obligation, you know, as a Jew who was not killed by genocide and [I] want to help make sure it’s not going to happen again.”
On Sept. 30, Stein visited the border wall in Pharr.
“What is this wall doing in the middle of nowhere, you know, blocking the movement of people, blocking the movement of wildlife [and] screwing up the environment,” she said. “It just felt like it was a scar on the landscape–this symbol of militarization that just doesn’t belong in our communities whatsoever.”
Stein said it is time to “tear down the wall.”
“What Donald Trump and, now, Kamala Harris are saying is that migrants are the source of community violence and instability,” she said. “No, it’s exactly the other way around. It’s migrants who bring stability, who are law-abiding, who bring prosperity to our community. We say it’s time to tear down the wall and let’s save the money from … the expensive wall.”
Since its start in 2021, Operation Lone Star has resulted in over 516,000 migrant apprehensions, over 45,000 criminal arrests and more than 39,000 felony charges, according to a July 19 news release from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office.
During the border mission, the Texas Department of Public Safety seized over 505 million lethal doses of fentanyl, the news release stated.
Espinoza said the Texas Railroad Commission oversees and regulates the oil and gas industry in the state.
“For the past 30 years, the Texas Republicans have held the commission,” he said. “And we are trying to get one seat so that we can … give regulatory powers to climate scientists, environmental groups and Texas citizens, because right now that commission is captured by the oil and gas industry.”
Republican incumbent Christi Craddick; engineer Katherine Culbert, a Democrat; Libertarian candidate Hawk Dunlap; and independent candidate Richard McKibbin are also running in the general election for Texas Railroad commissioner.
Espinoza told The Rider being a retired teacher inspired him to run for office.
“Right now, we are ruining the planet for younger generations,” he said. “We need to turn this ship around to give them a chance to live on a habitable planet because, right now, global warming is going to be an issue for all of us. And the little ones, when they grow up, they’re going to be dealing with the mess.”
One of Espinoza’s top priorities is to address the pressing issue of abandonment of oil and gas wells.
If elected, he wants to have open-door meetings for the community to hear about the decision-making process.
“We want to be very transparent,” Espinoza said. “As far as representing the Green Party, we are about transparency and no closed-door meetings and no corporate rule. … It’s time to invest in our citizens and invest in our civil infrastructure because … the [Rio Grande] Valley will be dealing with tropical storms, droughts and high temperatures.”
Besides Lee Vargas, Democratic incumbent Morgan LaMantia and Corpus Christi businessman Adam Hinojosa, a Republican, are running in the general election for Texas State Senate District 27.
Lee Vargas said hosting events helps to inform voters.
“We want to meet and greet our constituents and people that are not our constituents,” she said. “We still want them to be mindful and to learn that the options are here and they are here to stay. … These events are about getting people registered and getting the information out there.”
Shujoun Abdullah, a McAllen resident, attended the Green Party event to support Stein.
Abdullah said Harris and Trump are “reading the same script in a different way.”
“If you hear closely, you’ll find very similar ideas basically said by Kamala in a formal way and said by Trump in a nonformal way, but that’s basically it,” she said. “I see them both competing on who loves Israel more. And to me, that’s a deal breaker right now with everything that’s going on in the world.”
Abdullah encourages people to vote.
“I believe that every part of the United States, whether border or not, is important because we are part of this community,” she said. “This is our country. Whether you’re from the border, whether you’re from the middle or from anywhere in the United States, you have a right to vote for someone you believe will do better for the United States.”
