{"id":9,"date":"2025-09-07T19:35:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T19:35:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jamtalaricotxp.wpenginepowered.com\/?page_id=9"},"modified":"2025-12-11T13:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T18:41:16","slug":"meet-james-talarico","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/meet-james-talarico\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet James Talarico"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>James is an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian. As a state representative, he\u2019s led the fight against the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over Texas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, he\u2019s running for U.S. Senate to take his fight against corruption to Washington and win power back for working people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-black-color has-alpha-channel-opacity has-black-background-color has-background is-style-default\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Before I was a politician, I was a public school teacher. I taught sixth grade Language Arts at Rhodes Middle School on the westside of San Antonio.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The westside is a beautiful, historic Mexican-American neighborhood. It\u2019s also one of the poorest zip codes in Texas. Every day, my students struggled heroically to overcome poverty and systems designed to hold them back.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"819\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-education-819x1024.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-208\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-education-819x1024.webp 819w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-education-240x300.webp 240w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-education-768x960.webp 768w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-education.webp 872w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 819px) 100vw, 819px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Growing up, I saw that same fight in my mother \u2014 a preacher\u2019s daughter from Laredo who left home at 19 and met my birth father, whose drinking problem sometimes led to violence.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One night he became abusive again, but that night my mother\u2019s love rose to meet it. She packed all our stuff into her little Ford Escort and took me to the hotel where she worked. The manager let us stay in one of the rooms until we found a small apartment of our own in East Austin.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"872\" height=\"637\" src=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-mother.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-209\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-mother.webp 872w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-mother-300x219.webp 300w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-texas-mother-768x561.webp 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 872px) 100vw, 872px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Like my students, my mom was a fighter. And she passed that fighting spirit along to me.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I first ran for the Texas House in 2018 to fight for my constituents \u2014 people like my mom and my students. It was a district no one thought we could win, but together we flipped a district Donald Trump had won just two years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a legislator, I\u2019ve passed major legislation to fund our neighborhood schools, expand job opportunities for young adults, and lower the cost of child care, housing, and prescription drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery has-nested-images columns-default is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\">\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"571\" height=\"571\" data-id=\"210\" src=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-1.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-210\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-1.webp 571w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-1-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-1-150x150.webp 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 571px) 100vw, 571px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"269\" height=\"269\" data-id=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-2.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-211\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-2.webp 269w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-2-150x150.webp 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 269px) 100vw, 269px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"531\" height=\"531\" data-id=\"213\" src=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-3.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-213\" srcset=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-3.webp 531w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-3-300x300.webp 300w, https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/james-talarico-bio-3-150x150.webp 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 531px) 100vw, 531px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019ve led the fight against the billionaire mega-donors that have rigged the system against working Texas families. And I\u2019m the only member of the Texas Legislature who has never taken corporate PAC money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, as those same billionaire mega-donors take over the federal government, we need more fighters in Washington who will take power back for working people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s what my mom showed me on the eastside of Austin. That\u2019s what my students showed me on the westside of San Antonio. And together, that is what Texans will show the country in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:72px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-content-justification-center is-layout-flex wp-container-core-buttons-is-layout-16018d1d wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-button\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/why-im-running\/\">Why I&#8217;m Running<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>James is an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian. As a state representative, he\u2019s led the fight against the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over Texas. Now, he\u2019s running for U.S. Senate to take his fight against corruption to Washington and win power back for working people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":206,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-9","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Meet James Talarico - Talarico for Texas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jamestalarico.com\/meet-james-talarico\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meet James Talarico - Talarico for Texas\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"James is an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian. 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