Can Republicans Win the Latino Vote? | District 19 Senate Candidate Speaks

🎙️ Can Republicans Win the Latino Vote? | District 19 Senate Candidate Speaks

Politics is more divided than ever—but what happens when two lifelong friends sit down for an honest conversation instead of an argument?

In this episode of Anything & Everything with Matt Reyna, Matt sits down with Texas Senate District 19 candidate Marcus to discuss why he entered politics, leaving the Democratic Party, property taxes, border security, immigration, economic development, and what he believes South Texas needs moving forward.

Whether you agree or disagree, this episode is about hearing perspectives, asking tough questions, and having conversations that many people avoid.

Topics We Cover

• Why Marcus decided to run for Texas Senate
 • Leaving the Democratic Party
 • The role of Republicans in South Texas
 • Property taxes and possible solutions
 • Economic growth on the South Side
 • Toyota, JCB, and future business development
 • Border security
 • Immigration and ICE
 • Sanctuary cities
 • Infrastructure and zoning
 • Why local politics matter more than most people realize

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So um during the college years, how you were saying that you wanted to be an attorney, it it just kind of didn't pan out that way. Or I g well, I guess family.

SPEAKER_01 0:09

After my brother passed away, family obligations got back into family business.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Gotcha. Yeah. And what business was that? That was plumbing. Gotcha. Um still still doing that business?

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Still plumbing and doing concrete now.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Yeah. Last time I had spoken with you, um, it was uh concrete. It was concrete, yeah. Gotcha. Gotcha. Um already. So it's a solid industry. Oh, okay. Uh I bet, man, you're doing pretty well with it.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

But um, so it went over his head, Xavier.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

What?

SPEAKER_01 0:36

It went over his head. I know it went over.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

I said it's a solid industry. Oh, it's a solid. Oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Okay, cool. Now, um, you know, running Republican or or whatnot, did you have any type of when when was it that you kind of felt that, yeah, I think this is what I want to do as far as this is the party that I want to be in involved with.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

So I was involved with the party about three to four years before I was even thinking about running. And so I would hang out with them, you know, and like I said, they would help you. They would they want to see you uh be successful.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Give me a give me a specific like example.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

So I'm in concrete. Um minding my own business. Yeah, finding my business. I'll go to mixers, you know. I start talking to general contractors and people that, you know, will are estimators for big GCs. And they're just, you know, showing you how, showing you the process, showing you how to bid with these big companies. And on the other side, it's like, I mean, you have nobody in that to help you and push you. They say, and they create these programs for us to go and to learn, but what's the point of just going and learning when they're not gonna guide you how to go get these jobs? Actually, you know, your brother just started a business. And if he goes to all these courses, yeah, how to open an LOC, how to get insurance, how to do that, how to do that. All right, you're good. Good luck, Xavier. Ah, these these guys actually help you. You know what, Xavier? I'm gonna put you in contact with this general contractor. I know they're they need somebody to do a make ready. You could go out there, pick up whatever you got to do. You know, they they guide you. These other sides, it's like, nah, good luck, you're on your own.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

And you never got that from the other side. No, gotcha. So you think that that's a direct reflection of the people or the party? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah, it's a people that are involved with the party. Uh, I remember being involved with the uh Democratic Party, and I and I told an elected official one day, I said, you know what, I think I want to run for office. And he looked straight at me with the death face. He goes, Yeah, but you don't have a college degree. I was like, Oh, okay. Well, you know why I don't have a college degree? I dropped out and, you know, started the family business. So in my eyes, it was like, really, that's all you look for? A college degree? So if you have a college degree, you're better than other people then. You know, you you have you have better opportunity. I said, No, I mean look look at the most successful people right now, Bill Gates and these people that don't have college degrees, and look what they made, starting their you know, their garage. So when you start seeing things like that, that's that's horrible because you know, in our in our community, we're blue-collar. You know that. If you look at the the numbers, I think only 28% of the people in our district have a college degree. You know, they're hardworking people at Toyota, at, you know, these manufacturing jobs. You know, they they have their own business, their mechanics, they're you know, so when they told me that, I'm like, you're supposed to be the party of the working, working man, and you you just want to look out because I don't have a college degree, I can't run for office. I was like, all right, bet. And you know us, you know, when someone tells you something you can't do, it's a challenge. We're gonna we're gonna step up to the plate and do something. So that's when I really, you know, and I and I respected this individual. I I really did. And you know, I saw throughout the years what they did and what so yeah, and the the party just attacks themselves, you know, like I got so much, but I'm not I'm not gonna go into details.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

But see, well, I took a lot, that's that's that's you know, especially um, you know, coming from a close friend, being so close to that. That's the thing that we kind of want to know. Not, I mean, not being not being cheese muscles or anything like that, but at the same time kind of know exactly how it kind of gets in there, what it entangles in all of that. You know what I'm saying? Because like I said, going back to the whole thing being jaded with politics, I think a lot of people think that there's a lot of people that are real shady on both sides, not just absolutely not not just not just one side or the other, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Um, I know that you're representing the the Republican Party. Um, and you know, obviously too, like you're gonna look at the um the stances or everything that they have more favorably on that side. Is there anything on the Republican Party that you wish was more polished up that you would like to kind of be involved in or what not?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Uh as a state party, I don't I don't see it. You know, I'm running for state. I know we have problems at the federal level and there's issues going on at the federal side. But like I said, if I wanted to worry about the federal side, I'd be running for Congress. Gotcha. I'm running for state politics, the state of Texas.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Okay, break that down to me.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

All right, you want to go? Let's go. Okay. So governor, then you have the state representatives, and you got state senators. So the position I'm running for, there's only 31 of these positions. And they answer to the state chamber, which is the lieutenant governor. Then you have the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott. Then the state representatives, there's 150 of them throughout the state of Texas. Okay. So that's our branch. And we kind of mimic, well not kind of, we do mimic like the United States. You have the president, you have U.S. congressmen, and then you have U.S. senators. It's the same concept at the state level. Gotcha. You know, and they we focus more on state stuff like Text Dot. Um, yeah, any state service that you see, the state of Texas, like uh you owe child support, you got, you know, things like that, the comp troler. You want to get an LC for your business, you go through the state, do that kind of stuff. Gotcha. So those services. You want to cut hair, you got to get a license, you go with TDLR. If you're a plumber, you got a plumber's license, you go to the plumber examiners. Real estate license. Real estate license, same thing.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

So everything, you know, and that's the point of not just being a voice to your community, but you're a voice to these business owners, business leaders, to have that voice to go and take it to Austin. And right now we don't have that. Yeah, we really don't have it right now at this seat. This person in this seat has pissed off everybody in Austin. So he has absolutely no voice, no movement in Austin. You know, he just sits there during session and he does not pass any bills. He can't bring, you know, the resources we need in our community. So I've traveled, you know, Eagle Pastel, Rio, Uvaldi, Seguin, all those elected officials that rely on the state reps and the state senators to go get money from Austin, they don't have that with this guy in office because he pissed off so many people. The governor doesn't like him, Lieutenant Governor doesn't like him, you know, you're not going to be able to get nothing done for your people.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

This is uh current our current current of District 19.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Gotcha. Um, so as far as uh well, you're you're kind of entering in it right now. I mean, why why you think that we need uh different leadership? What's I know the property taxes are like big on the docket. Yes. What what else? Like, what are our top five things that we're going for?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Uh well for the district, after traveling the district for the past you know, six months, my thing was let's listen. So I would go into these town halls with the mayors, county judges, and just listen. So depending where you're at, you know, if you're Eagle Pastel Real, they're border security is number one. Uh, then you go to like economic development, you go to issues from mental health, like in Uvaldi after the school shooting. You go, you go to Seguine, you know, they're one of their main topics. I was talking to the sheriff out there was there's so many uh CBD shops selling weed. Um, then I talked to the sheriff, I said, Well, sheriff, are you in favor or you're not? He goes, Well, I got a bunch of friends, former military. They got PTSD. It does wonders for them. Sure. So I thought this sheriff was gonna push back and say, Let's close up all these shops. He's like, No, we need them, but let's regulate them a little more.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

That's you know, what, like 21 and over, maybe?

SPEAKER_01 8:09

Uh you know, age limits and maybe not so many of them throughout. And the way we do with alcohol, like if there's ways to test them to make sure they're all on the same level. And you know, alcohol is a little different because you got, you know, you know, growing up, we uh, you know, after we turn 21, you have uh butt light or you have butt ice. One's gonna be a little stronger. You're like, yeah. Yeah, I'll be right back. You know, so you're things like that that we we we should be able to regulate it. But um I'll just be one person in that chamber of 30 with 30 more other people, but there's things that we could take, you know, and these like I say, we don't have a voice right now. So that's that's the main thing was just going around and listening to these different communities. But my top thing that I I really want to focus on, uh property tax. We gotta, you know, we gotta we gotta find a solution. And I know both sides are gonna say, oh, what's it's it's possible to do it this way, this way, but we at least we'll have a seat at the table.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

So for somebody like me, just just plain devil's advocate again. Yeah. And say, look, Marcus, property taxes ain't ever going away. No. No, no. You say what?

SPEAKER_01 9:12

They're not gonna go away. Okay. But we got that 65. Well, once you hit 65, they get frozen. Let's move it to 55. There's a lot more people are retiring at 55. You know, they put they put more years right after high school, they do their 20, 25 years, then they retire. So let's let's move it to 65. I think we're at what 145 right now? 145,000 is the mark. You know, let's let's jump it up to 200. That'll help the Southside community a lot. You know, because if you look at the Southside, our values are maybe about 250. I don't know, the median, you're the expert. Yeah, something like that. So, you know, we could move that number, help that community, help every other county. Because you do travel the county and they uh the district and every county talks about property tax.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

And obviously the savings of of your tax money, obviously, more money in your pocket, more just money in our in our economic.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah. They're gonna we're gonna spend it. You know, we and when you when you see a store that does more, what's gonna happen? They're gonna have to hire more employees. That's more jobs you're gonna create. You know, so it stays in the economy. There were studies that, yeah, the money stays in the economy, so it does better, you know. It's just like creating like Toyota, they want to invest another two billion dollars, two thousand more employees. Well, you know, that's two thousand homes that need to get built. Y'all are gonna be able to sell those homes. Oh man, it's growing. You know, and it is. We see Vida in the Southside, 410 in South Samora, selling half a million dollar homes. And they are selling. Oh, yeah. That's that's crazy. Would you have ever thought it? No way. Hell, you know, that's our never, you know, and now you see the University Health System building a hospital, you see JCB building a million square foot uh facility, which you know was thanks to John Lucon, which is a Republican, the first Republican to win State House District 118 in like a hundred years. So when that happens, and John Lukan is in Austin fighting to bring these companies to build in his district. Same thing with with me. Once we get elected, we're gonna be fighting business with businesses. Hey, come over here to the Southside, come to Eagle Pass, come to Del Rio, come to Uvalde. We have the workforce. You know, you need a fighter over there, and not just someone that's gonna go and say, hey, come move in over here. No, I'm gonna make sure CPS and SAOs, we have the infrastructure to handle these businesses. You can't just say, hey, go buy this land. Uh okay, is there water? Oh, I don't know. Is there electric? Well, I don't know. Is there uh natural gas? Oh, I don't know. You know, we we could do that research and we'll be able to work with CPS, saws and make sure the infrastructure is there to bring these big companies, you know, and which all of that stuff I I would assume it's regulated at the highest level or or whatnot.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, I I always think about that as far as kind of like city planning goes and stuff like that. Is it that you uh we were talking about that the other day, right? Excuse we were saying, is it even uh like where if you're gonna buy a lot of land or whatnot, right? 200 acres or whatever, how is it passed to where okay, you can build and develop there? It goes, it goes through uh the planning, the zoning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

So it may be farmland and it needs to be zone industrial. Uh depending on what that person wants to build. Then we look into that, we talk to the city. Hey, we want to do a warehouse that's gonna service JCB with extra parts. Okay, so it's gonna be like a storage facility. We're not gonna manufacture stuff, it's just be a storage. So depending on what's what's gonna go on that land, that's how they zone it. And then once you get into the zoning, then they switch it, which isn't really hard because out there you don't have neighborhoods that are gonna fight you on a lot of things. You know, when you when you start building in these dense population areas, you got homeowners, HOAs that are gonna fight you on whatever business you're gonna bring in. Down there, we're wide open. We're you know, we're able to work a lot easier with the zoning uh commission.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Um what would you say, man, there's been the biggest kind of um I guess not hurdle or setback, but what has been the biggest surprise um running that you kind of didn't anticipate coming? You know, um whether it be something personally or something, you know, like uh that you just kind of didn't anticipate or whatnot.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Um I think one of the biggest hurdles is because I mean, obviously, I'm brown, you're brown, your brother's brown. They automatically assume we're Democrats. Because in the South Side, when you're born, you're born a Catholic and you're born a Democrat. Why? Because our parents voted Democrat, our grandparents voted Democrat. So you have that little pushback, but once they listen to what the plan is, they're coming on board. You know, I had people say, My whole life I voted Democrat, but I I voted for you. Like, because I know you, I know you know you have the best intentions. So I think that was probably the biggest. Um, and then everything's going on on the federal level with Trump and all that, with the ICE, and let's just be honest, it's ice that's you know, it's because it's under the direction of the president. Um, we're getting pushback. And like I said, well, we're getting that pushback because we're not at the table. We, you know, we don't elect enough Latinos, Hispanics, whatever you want to call us, whatever, you know. We're not we're not at the table. We're we're electing other people to go, and they're not doing what they should be. You know, we're not in the president's ear saying this or that, but like I said, that's federal. State, uh, same thing with the governor. We spoke with the governor, the governor gave us his endorsement. We brought him to the South site, we brought him to the Pulga, you know, he had a get out the vote rally, which is exciting, being the first time ever running for office. But, you know, once we're elected, we're gonna have the governor where we could call him and say, hey, governor, you need to stop doing this. You know, it's hurting our people, it's hurting the economy. Because it, you know, all this ice is hurting our economy. You know, we have restaurants, we have home builders that, you know, don't have the workforce because they're scared to come out. You know, it's becoming a little easier now, but it was it was very scary. You know, you had, you know, on the south side, we have a lot of tacarillas.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

You know, those were empty. So I had takeria owners that are friends of mine that would say, hey, hey guy, I mean, what's going on? I'm like, well, you know, that's a problem. We're not at the table. We don't we're not electing the right people to to go to Congress and to you know fight for us.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Well, we'll dive into that a little bit, Mark. You're what are you saying? You're saying that as far okay, so ICE is obviously supposed to go after people that are here illegally.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Illegally. Illegally. You said the word.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

So therefore, if so you're okay, so if somebody's here and they're working illegally, then I guess the I guess the question is, well, what's what's the problem? No? Uh yeah. But I is you said make uh making it a problem for business owners here on this. Okay, cool. So what's your pushback to that?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

I don't know if I asked like a complicated question. No, no, no, and you're right, because we use the word illegal. So say I, Marcus, I go to Paris and I'm visiting. Sure. First thing I gotta do is I gotta get a visa. I gotta ask permission, right? I'm going to someone else's country. Gotta ask, even if I go to Mexico, Cancun, I gotta fill out a form saying, hey, I'm gonna be here, I'm a tourist. Then they approve it, then you're able to go to your resort. So if I go to Paris and I stay there and I just start working and making money, and then one day they stop me and say, Hey, what are you doing? Why are you working? You're here illegally. What are they gonna do to me? They're gonna let me stay there. No, they're gonna they're gonna throw me out, which they have every right to because I stayed there illegally, past that little visa that for for tourists. So it's it's the same thing here, and I see a lot of families and they come, they have kids, and you know, it's a touchy thing, but at the end of the day, they they are here illegally and they've been here 20 years. Why haven't you started the process to try to, you know, become a resident? That's a good point. You know, what's uh and I know friends that have been here their whole lives, they even go through high school, college, and they still don't get their citizenship. Like, why why why are we doing this? And we're doing it to ourselves, you know. We get comfortable because we live in San Antonio or Houston or Dallas, where it's a sanctuary city. Our police departments will not ask you, hey, do you have papers or not? That's why they stay in these populated towns, and that's why we're seeing it where they're focused on these dense populated towns and they're doing the ice raids and stuff, and now we're having pushback. Hey, well, that's not right. Well, why didn't they try to do it the right way? You know, true.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Do you believe that it's up to like it's uh it's to a point right now where you need boots on the ground doing that? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Well, if there's so so what happened through the Biden administration, now we're gonna go federal, but it's all right. With the Biden administration, you saw the caravan of people just coming across. Well, hey, guess what? It wasn't just Mexicans, it wasn't just our neighbors, which you know, love thy neighbor. There's people from South America, from Iraq, Iran, China, all these other countries that mix in. Because if you get somebody from Iran, they look like us too. And they're infiltrating and they're coming across. And what are they doing? They're creating sales, they're they're doing things, you know, to hurt us. So if and all we see is oh, this poor kid from El Salvador, yeah, but you're not seeing the Iranians that they're busting at the border, you're not seeing this, and all the ones that have already gone through. Now we're trying to track those and see where they're at because they're we don't we don't see it because we live in not Laliland, but we're just you know oblivious to what's going on. But with our national, you know, defense and our national, all that good CIA movies we see, you know, that stuff is real. There's people in here to harm us, to want us, you know. You see it when they attack ATT and our phones go down or things like that. So we gotta find those people. And there was a lot of those people that came in to those caravans, and we saw it at the border. We saw it in Eagle Pass. We saw it. I mean, so you know, they're I say love thy neighbor. If if they're Canadian or Mexicans, we should, you know, make it a little easier for them. Uh let's get them on a program, let's do it. But when they're coming 2,000 miles away, I mean, is it really that bad? And they say it is, but come in the right way. Sure. You know, they they could come in the right way, they could apply for it, pay their fees, and but they tend, oh, let's just go because we know they know we have open borders.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Do you think, bro? I this is what I think, right? Um, how let's say you got rid of everybody that was illegal right now, how crippling would that be to our economy?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Oh, big time. Yeah, big time.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, there's a big so in a sense, it's like I understand. I understand that there's um, you know, bad apples in every bunch. Oh, yeah. But at the same time, me as being in real estate, I've been in real estate for 12 years now. I see a frame going up, I see foundation being poured, I see, you know, and I'm I know who's doing that work. Oh yeah. And I know how much that work would be if this guy wasn't, you know, if he was went through all the proper documentation, all that stuff, right? Or or you know what I'm saying? If in other words, if they didn't hire neighbor, yeah, you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So that guy will be getting his fair share instead of making 12 bucks an hour, you know, maybe he'd be at 20 bucks an hour. That's a good point. That's a really good point. He'd be paying taxes, you know. So then it goes back to you know, home builders, and we know the big home builders because we're in the industry, then yeah, they're gonna sell that home a little more, but maybe that worker will be able to afford that same home he's building. It all yeah, it all move. I mean, yeah, it's gonna get more expensive, but now everybody's making more money, and it's gonna it's gonna be more money for our our economy because instead of that guy going and just hitting McDonald's, you know, he's gonna go to Olive Garden now. You know, he's gonna go and spend a little more money in the economy, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

And one of the things too, man, I mean, we know we know how it goes that you know, you work, you work here, and where's the money going sometimes? It's going back. It's going back. Absolutely. It's going to home. You know what I'm saying? Which I like I said, man, there's there's there's it's not like a one, a one fix-all remedy that we we have. But at the same time, I can kind of get everybody's point of view personally, you know what I'm saying? No, absolutely. You know, if I were, you know, from a uh from a third world country, of course I'd come over here and work for pennies on the dollar. You know what I'm saying? Because it's it's better. At the same time, too, of course I would like, you know, live six people to one house, you know what I'm saying? And and split the rent and all that stuff. Like, I don't blame people for for doing that and wanting to seek out a better life. But at the same time, too, that doesn't stop everybody else from doing their job and being like, hey man, you just can't walk in here or whatever without paying without without doing your due diligence. Yeah. In other words.