Pete Gallegos Interview August 22, 2016

Morales: So Ive basically divided this into local, meaning the county,
state questions and some national questions. Locally, since Im also
the county commissioner, some of the things we worry about are
repairing some of the damage done by the oil industry to our roads,
our county roads. The state doesnt provide very many funds, as we
both know, and the county sure doesnt have the money to repair
roads. Do you know of anything in the works at the federal level to
provide funds, or what would you do at the federal level to help
counties out with this problem?
Gallegos: You know I was on the transportation committee, theres an
opportunity to do that in the transportation committee, to try to help
and the challenge is on how you would write it, but there are so many
smaller counties in Texas that have had this issuewhether youre
talking about Eagle Ford, and frankly because the country derives the
benefit of a lot of that tax revenue, I think that we need to be able to
put a lot of that tax revenue back into the hands of the people who
paid those taxes. You know what I would be interested in seeing would
be a kind of a grant program that would help those that have a hard
time trying to establish a program so that you could help those
counties do that. The truth is, that sometimes youre better off with a
county road than a state highway because the state highway has so
many limitations in terms of it has to be this wideit has to be this, it
has to be thatso a lot of times you dont necessarily need a state
highway, you dont necessarily want a state highway, but you do want
a road, you want it to be a safe road, you want it to be a working road,
and so to me, I would want to think about a grant program that you
could use, that would help people in these counties.
Morales: I think what were getting into is that the state, and you
being a former state representative knows thisthey push through all
of these mandates, that most of the time are unfunded
Gallegos: not most of the time, all of the time!
Morales: and thats where the problem isyou know
Gallegos: My frustration was always the school funding
Morales: I thought it was deemed unconstitutional, but yet
Gallegos: Well, no, the Supreme Court said it was finethe Texas
Supreme Court just said, essentially, the problem has been around so
long, they didnt want to deal with it anymorethey didnt want to tell

the school districts or the general public that you have to create a
more fair system. They just said you know, they just said
Morales: Its the best we can do
Gallegos: and they punted, and I think the analogy Ive always used
on public school financing, which drives me up the wall, is that
(unintelligible) and then give you money back, and expect you to be
happy because you got your money back. But in the meantime, there
are more kids, and the cost of educating a kid is higher, and that
money, you got it back but it doesnt go as far. The analogy Ive
always used was a football analogy, because Ive said, you know, when
your quarterback gets sacked, 10 yards behind the line of scrimmage,
so you lose 10 yards. And then on the next play, you gain 10 yards
thats not a first down.
Morales: thats trueyoure back to where you startedback to the
line of scrimmage.
Gallegos: Youre back to the line of scrimmageyou dont win games
by staying on the line of scrimmageyou win games by getting ahead,
and weve never as a state, certainly in the more modern era, weve
never really done that because they constantly cut funds. And to me,
the one area, you know the studies have shown, that every dollar
invested in education rotates at least five times in the economy, right?
Its the single, best, long-term investment in jobs and the economy,
and so why are you cutting the number one area?
Morales: It doesnt make sense does it? Then I asked, statewide, what
is your opinion by the courts to overturn voter ID laws in Texas and
several other states?
Gallegos: I didnt ever vote for voter IDthought it was a bad idea. If
there was any electoral fraud, it was in the mail ballots. In voter ID,
the law doesnt address the mail ballot system one way or the other
and so out of how many millions of vote that can have been cast,
therere less than a handful of documented instances where someone
has shown up and said, hey, Im Pete Gallego and youre not Pete
Gallego, I mean, its just such a rareI was in the state legislature
when that passed, and truly that was designed, I mean, as the state
gets more competitive and you want to hold on to your edge for a little
bit longerthat was one of those things that was designed to give
them an edgeits not to protect the integrity of the ballot box,
although that sounds good, the ballot box was fine, it was very safe.

Morales: That goes to my next question. There were several news

articles that came out recently about the overturning of these laws
that were initially a means of suppressing minority votes. What are
your thoughts on that?
Gallego: There is no question in my mind thats what it wasand its
not only minorities, but its also people in rural areas because Ill give
you an example(talking to mother) Lets say youre in your 90s, and
you decide youre not going to have a drivers license anymore. The
law would have mandated to have a current ID. Well, most people
have a drivers license, right? Well, if you cant get one, and then it
used to be that the Van Horn drivers license office here, wasnt open
every day
Morales: Its open on Thursdays
Gallego: And so if you show up here, if you live in Allamoore, right?
Its like Alpine. If you show up there, if you drive up from Presidio,
because Presidio doesnt have a drivers license office, right, and if you
drive up from Presidio to Alpinethats 85 miles, its a burden, in one
directionand so , for people who are elderly, for people who are
working, for peoplethey make it extremely difficult to be able to get
that voter IDso you knowtheyve sold it wellsafety, security kind
of a thing, but thats not really what it was about. This there were
only seven acceptable forms of IDfor example, if youre a college
student, its a government issued ID, right? Sul Ross student ID, right?
The law didnt recognize that as a valid form of ID.
Morales: But they recognized NRA membership
Gallego: youre right. You know, the gun license, if you have a gun
license, thats enough, and it doesnt even have your picture on it.
Morales: Which leads me to my next questionwhat are your views on
campus carry and open carryconcealed weapons
Gallego: I was never a big fan of the campus carry, because you know,
I went to UT, and we just celebrated, well, not celebrated, thats a
really horrible wordwe just observed the 50th anniversary of the
Whitman shootingand it seems to melook, when I was a
prosecutor, and youre at a scene, I went to different places, and even
frankly, later in the legislature when I visited the DPS troopers who
were at the Republic of Texas stakeout in Ft.Davis. Theres so many
people around, and if someone had come out of somewhere with a
gun, you wouldnt have known, are they a good guy or a bad guy. For
me, as the parent of an 11 year old, I teach about guns, I dont want

him to be afraid, but I want him to be comfortable with thembut I

also know that law enforcement has really tough decisions to make and
they have split seconds to make themand I really dont want to put
my kid in that line of fire. I was never a big fan of the campus carry.
The open carry stuff, law enforcement was initially very opposed to it
they were initially opposed to just concealed carry, but nothing really
happenedwell see what happens with the data over a period of time,
and you know, maybe nothing will happen. I was kind of endorsed two
years ago by the NRA, because Im not a reactionaryI actually like to
fix problems. I actually like to think about, how are we going to do this?
And part of the challenge, frankly is that the people who have done
some of the most horrible thingsthey have mental health issues, and
so part of the things that I would do is we need a mental health
initiative, because everyone talks about it, but nobody, the
government doesnt really fund it. We need to be able to ascertain,
you know, whos more pronewhy is this happening and figure out
what were going to do.
Morales: So what are your views on the gun show loopholes?
Gallego: Well, you know, I think that if someone who is mentally ill,
someone who is a terrorist can buy a gun at a gun showthat doesnt
make sense to me. So that what I want to know. several of the
sheriffs in the district have told me that when they pull somebody over
on the side of the road for speeding, that background check that they
get for speeding is really more significant than the check, the
background check that they do for the weapon purchaseand I hope
thats not right, but because I heard that from the sheriffs, and
actually, I just heard that recently, so Ive actually asked some people
because I take this really seriously, I think that we all have an
opportunityyou know, my dad slept with a gun under his bed every
nightthe World War 2 vet, who never gave his gun up. Its not that
Im afraid of it, I want to make sure that if terrorists come to Alpine,
well at least have a system in place that will help us track them down
before hand.
Morales: Mr. Hurd said that every person that purchases a weapon has
to go through a background checkIn my opinion or in my research,
thats what the loop hole is aboutthey dont really have to go through
background checks, so
Gallego: Well, I think the rules ought to be the sameif you buy a gun,
the rules ought to be the same. It makes sense to me. The question is
what are those rules, and what should those rules be. I understand
why people want an answer fastthat they dont want to wait days or
weeks for their bid to pass their background check, I think now with

technology, they do that very quicklya DPS trooper on the side of the
road can do that rather quickly, but I would like to knowfor me its
not an issue being afraid of guns, its an issue that we have mental
health awareness, and that we build a system in place so that we make
sure that, you know, if youre a high risk, how you would define that
Morales: So what do you think about congress not being able to pass a
kind of gun legislation for people on the no fly list?
Gallego: My frustration with the congress is that they cant agree on a
lot, because they wont even talk to each other, and it has to do
frankly, a lot of times, with the leadership. One of my biggest
criticisms of Mr. Hurd is that he does as hes toldhes not an
independent thinker. He votes 96, 97% with his party, even on local
issues, like the Amtrak that passes, that stops in Alpine, and Del Rio
and El Paso, and San Antoniohe voted to close it, he voted to close
our Amtrak service, because the Republicans were offering that
amendment, and the only reason it didnt pass was because there were
other Republicans on the line to join in with the Democrats to vote that
down, but he doesnt think about it he does what the party
leadershipFor me, I was recognized as the most bipartisan out of the
Freshman members of my class because I vote with the Democrats
about 75% of the time and I voted with the Republicans about 25% of
the time. If I thought that the Republicans had a good idea, then I
voted for it. There were several, you know there was the 30-hour
changing the requirements, the definition for fulltime for healthcare
under the Affordable Care Act. There were different amendments
where I thought the Republican line of thinking made sense to me, and
I joined inbut I never did 100%...who can? I dont agree with my
spouse 100%...and that is a real disappointment to me especially since
this is a 50-50 district, and Mr. Hurd is further to the right than Ted
Cruz. Hes further to the right than Louie Gomer, who I didnt know
you could get further to the right than Louie Gomer.
Morales: Since you brought up the issue of mental illness being one of
the problems weve had with many of the shootings weve had, are you
aware of any legislation thats passed Congress that addresses or gives
an increase in funding to address mental health issues?
Gallego: No. I mean, they havent on much. They werent even able
to agree on the most recent public health crisiszika, right? They
cant even agree on zika funding. I would have to think about it. When
Laura and I had been married for 15 years, before Nicolas was born,
and it wasnt for lack of tryingI mean, we werent able to do it. But
every time she got pregnant, I remember dont do this here, let me
get this for you, are you ok? You have to make it through your first

trimester. I just remember being and you know if I was the dad, and
I was freaking out, I can tell you that, and why would Congress let
families like that, hang there in that kind of suspense, and add poison
pills to ityou know, cutting the funds for health care, other kinds of
health care, womens health stuff. Doing totally, thoroughly and
completely unrelated stuff to zika that they knowyou know if you
want to solve a problem, theres a way to do it, right? But if you want
to sink it, theres a way to do that too. And what they do, is they do
stuff, deliberately knowing that its not going to pass, put stuff in there
that you cant support
Morales: And from what I hear today, zika is now in Texas?
Gallego? Well, you know, youve had a case of it in El Paso. Youve had
it in El Paso, youve already had deaths in, youve got a bunch of cases
in San Antonio, and youve got them along the border. I mean, this is
notI know a guy who was telling me that he and his wife were
essentially picking up and moving, cause she is pregnant and they
didnt want to risk it. And if you can do thatbut how many of us can
do that? And the government, I mean, I grant you that there are a lot
of things that they shouldnt be doing and we need to look at, but
public health is one of the things that it ought to do and it ought to do
well.
Morales: So youre saying that the budgets, not only for mental health
care and general health care have been cut?
Gallego: You dont see a very healthyIts one of those thingslike
my football analogy , right? I mean they give you some money back,
and you dont cover unintelligible.
Morales: I asked him (Mr. Hurd), I was looking up some things
yesterday, on the Affordable Care Act, and so the 50 times that
congress has voted to repeal the affordable care act
Gallego: I think theyre in the 60s now
Morales: I asked him what the Republicans were going to replace it
with. Do you have any ideas on what needs to be fixed?
Gallego: You know, there are probably about 5 or 6 things, with
respect to the affordable care act, that I would change, that need to
we need to create some incentives for more people to participate in
the exchanges, because thats an issuewe need to create an
incentiveone of the underpinnings, the actual expansion of Medicaid,
and as we both know, Texas didnt expand MedicaidDo you know, I
had a conversation the other day, it was a fairly elderly citizen in a

nutrition center in San Antonio, and literally, this lady was telling me
she was taking care of her grandkids, but that she couldnt really buy
them anythingshe had to choose, even for herself, between food and
medicine. You know that we cant, as a government, negotiate a bulk
price for prescription drugs when private industry can do that? If
youre WalMart, if youre Costco, if youre whoeverbut were
prohibited from negotiatingand for us, especially on the border, its
frustrating because youre not supposed to and youre not going to like
it, you go to a pharmacy in Juarez, then you can get the same thing on
the U.S. side, for much less. You can go to a pharmacy in Canada..
Morales: or online, which is illegal, but its still done.
Gallego: Yeah, so there is definitely, a lot of things, but the frustration
for me in Congress was that they werent interested in fixing it, and
look, it is basic social studies, that in order to pass a bill, it has to pass
the House, it has to pass the Senate, and then it has to be signed by
the President, and by the way, the Presidents last name isObama.
Do you really think hes going to sign a bill thats going to repeal
Obamacare? And in the meantime, I understand that you want to
repeal it, but youre going to have to wait till the next President to even
have a shot at that. So in the meantime, while were waiting for the
next President, can we at least keep the system that we have? That
was my frustration.
Morales: What are you going to tell the millions of people that are
insured? Does that leave them with what?
Gallego: I like the fact that there is no such a thing as pre-existing
conditions at all. For Latinos, in particular with diabetes in the family
theres a lot of diabetes in our community, right? Cancer runs in the
familiesand we dont have to worry aboutI love the fact that you
can keep your kid on your health insurance until they are 26. And
theyll say, well, well keep those. Youve had the Congress for
unintelligibleand you havent done any of these things. I dont think
any of this is rocket science. I think if you sit down and you really
make a good faith effort, I think people are passionate about the things
that they believe in guns is a great example. And people have to
know that. I was endorsed by the NRA last timeI dont want to take
anybodys guns, I just want to make sure that our kids are safe. And it
doesnt bug me that you would have to have child safety laws to own a
gun, but because I have a kid, and a very curious kid, and now hes
better Ive taken him shooting, and he knows the basics. On toy
guns, for example, we require a little orange patch that shows its a
toy, so that law enforcement wontso it seems to me that things like
that, we could do. I cant imagine anything worse, than those parents

that have accidently had an accidental shooting in the home and one
of their kids has been killed, and youve had a parent that was killed by
one of their kids. A lot of that is a gun safety issue you can fix with
technologyyou dont even have to have the debatea lot of these
thingsyou dont even have to have the debateyou can do it with
technology.
Morales: So we went into the mandate, and your opponents opinion is
that having a mandate, or that one of the problems with the Affordable
Care Act, is that you have the government picking your doctor, picking
all other aspects of healthcare that should be made by the patient.
Gallego: Those decisions arent made by the patient, theyre made
now Frankly, having just had the experience of wanting to take my
son to the physician, and the insurance company telling us no, they
werent going to pay for thathe wasnt, you know, in network, and
they wanted us to go somewhere else. I can tell you that I didnt feel
like I was choosing a physician. And frankly, Mr. Hurd has voted for a
lot of other mandates out there, he doesnt seem to have a problem
with anyhe voted for a lot of spending you know I wouldnt call him
a fiscal conservative. I can show you a headline in Politico , Congress
goes on a spending binge. But I think there are a lot of things worth
investing in. You know, I always took my health for granted. I was
young, I thought I was invincibleand then you become a parent, and
you really want your little kid to be okyou really want your kid to be
fineand all of a sudden you understand a lot more about what they
say if you have your health, you have everything. You understand the
sense of desperation when there is something wrong with your kid. At
the lastunintelligiblehe had a stomach ache and pretty soon he
was doubled over and we were on a mountain top in Ft. Davis and it
took me literally three hours, we were in four-wheel-drive, took me
three hours to get him down from the mountain, and you know he was
having an appendicitis attackan emergency appendectomy and as
parents were watching, Is he going to be ok? I dont wish those
things and I think if we can build a system that helps the parents, and
its going to have bumps along the way, but in the final analysis, to me
the goal is a family doctor for every familythats what I would say.
Morales: I told him (Hurd), Im also a nurse practitioner, and in primary
care we see a lot of people, and Ive never seen one time the
government called me and said you cant do this and you cant do that.
This is just a myth thats perpetuatedbut about that time he (Hurd)
had to leave, so at that point I asked him if he was supporting Trump,
and Mr. Hurd said that he has not endorsed Trump, but that Trump has
a strong national security plan. Are you aware of any security plans
that

Gallego: Did he really say that?

Morales: yes.
Gallego: He said that on tape:
Morales: yes
Gallego: Well if that national security plan includes giving nuclear
weapons to Japan and Korea, then I dont see how giving more
countries nuclear weapons is in any way helpful to the U.S. Mr.
Trumps national security plan involves abandoning our friends and
allies in NATO . I dont see that as a strong, national security plan. Mr.
Trumps national security plan involves what I would call a really
uncomfortable relationship for the general population, with Russia. Im
appalled at the things that hes said on a regular basis, and I just think
it shows a gross misunderstanding and if he says that Mr. Trump has a
strong one, hes wrong. I dont think theres anything about Mr.
Trumppeople would tell me they admire his ability to say what he
thinks. The challenge for me is that what he thinks and what he says
today is different from what he said yesterday and different from what
he says tomorrow, because he tailors his comments to his audience.
And so I never know what Donald Trump were talking about. I cant
standhe totally disrespected Veterans, not only with the stuff about
McCain, but just as importantly, the stuff with the Kahn family that lost
their son in combatits a Gold Star family. I dont think.when a
family has sacrificed their son for a country, they deserve better. And
then he turns around, and a veteran gives him a purple heart and he
says, you know Ive always wanted one of these, turns out, getting
mine was a lot easier. And youre thinking, I know people who have
purple hearts, and I can tell you, they didnt want them, right? Nobody
wants to be wounded in combat, and the idea that he so flippantly say,
I got mine a lot easier, And what I will tell you whats fascinating to
me about this campaign, two years ago after I lost, Mr. Hurd and his
friends did a very good job of nationalizing the campaign. There was
ebola in Dallas and one of the ads had President Obama playing pool
and they had photo-shopped me into the picture, and it was all about
Gallego-Obama, Gallego-Obama. And so what are the things that I
want to do differently, is that I wanted it to be a race about local
issues, I want to talk about infrastructure, I wanted to talk about local
stuff that mattered to local people. And whats amazing to me is that
now that local issue is Trump. Because if I talk to the VFW, where ever
it is, from San Antonio to El Paso, you know what they want to talk
about? They want to talk about Trump. Ive spoken to several womens
groupsyou know what they want to talk about? They want to talk
about Trump. The Latinos? You know what they want to talk about?

When I knock on their door, you know what they want to talk about?
They want to talk about Trump. Trump has made himself a local issue
in every community and Ive never seen that happen, wouldnt have
thought that, but hes clearly done that. And so its fascinating to me
now that two years ago, when he tried so hard to tie me to President
Obama, and now hes running so hard from Trump.
Morales: So are you endorsing Hillary?
Gallego: Oh, I endorsed her early on. I dont know her that well, I
know him better. I know President Clinton better. Four years ago,
President Clinton came to Texas to campaign for me, the year that I
won. Believe it or not, Ann Richards, she introduced me to Bill Clinton
when he was governor of Arkansas, and so for me, endorsing her was
easy. You know, people tell me that both candidates are flawed, and I
wont argue that, but one candidate scares me, the other candidate
doesnt.
Morales: And so as I was chasing him (Hurd) down the road, I asked
him what his thoughts were on the wall. So what are your thoughts on
the wall?
Gallego: Its one of the dumbest ideas Ive ever heardjust bad public
policy. For those of us who are from here and have grown up with the
relationships we were just talking about Ojinaga, and primos in
Chihuahua, and you know the commerce and the labor poolthe
relationship, the historic relationship on both sides, he was just waving
it all off. Has anybody asked him, excuse me, the landowners that run
cattle, how are they going to get their cattle to the water?
Morales: Thats as much time as I had for himwell, cause he had to
take off, so Im going to ask you the same thing that I asked himso
that s basically it. Thank you for your time