Dear John,
Hello from Galveston, Texas.
This morning I took a nice run from my hotel to the eastern end of the island at the old Fort San Jacinto. Cloudy and misty but the sun peeked through every now and then.
Looking out over the Inner Bar Channel, with the seagulls calling out to each other, and stray cats slinking around the rocks and seawall, I watched a massive container ship cruise into the bay on its way to Seabrook where it will unload and reload at the Bayport Container Terminal.
We visited Bayport yesterday, getting a chance to meet and listen to the longshoremen and women who literally keep our economy going. The ports along the Houston Ship Channel handle hundreds of millions of tons of cargo and the men and women who work them help make this region the leader in exports nationally. This is how so much of what we manufacture and produce in Texas reaches the rest of the world.
Bayport
Prior to that, I had a chance to meet with Houston entrepreneurs about how we can make it easier for people to start and grow their businesses and create more high-paying jobs in Texas. In Fort Bend, I met with health care professionals and small business owners about the high price we’ve paid over the course of this pandemic — and how we can be prepared for the next one.
Houston
I also talked with area educators about improving the quality of education at our schools so that more young Texans are ready to work the jobs and start the businesses that will allow us to really grow an economy that works for everyone. We talked about class size, special education, the bureaucracy of public schools, high stakes tests, student-to-counselor ratios as well as salary and working conditions — all factors in producing better outcomes in our classrooms.
Before I left Houston I had a chance to connect with some of Texas’ foremost innovators in climate technology at Greentown Labs. It made me confident that we can continue to be the energy capital of the world — building on a proud tradition of oil and gas and quickly expanding into renewable technologies like geothermal, hydrogen, battery storage, and others that will allow us to create more jobs and meet our obligations to each other and the future of this planet.
Houston
And those are just some of the meetings we’ve had in the Gulf Coast!
Over the last ten days, we’ve also met with military retirees and veterans in Harker Heights and Killeen; we’ve met with law enforcement in Rosenberg; we rallied with Opal Lee in Fort Worth; we listened to oil and gas leaders in Midland; and we spent time in communities where you might not expect to see a Democrat.
Harker Heights
In Stamford, for example, we met with the extraordinary mayor of this small town in Jones County and learned about his community’s many successes in the face of some pretty tough challenges. Half the county doesn’t have access to broadband. The water system needs a major overhaul. Two of the county’s hospitals have closed down. And a city that had more than 6,000 residents in 1960 now only has 3,000.
But Mayor Decker isn’t letting any of that deter him. He’s fiercely focused on the future of Stamford — on making the investments that will attract and retain young people in the community, on improving the quality of life for his constituents, and on making sure that we get past the culture war BS that dominates so much of our state’s politics today and get back to doing the big work in front of us. He’s looking for a partner in state government, and I told him that whether it’s expanding Medicaid, investing in Stamford’s infrastructure, or rolling out broadband to all of rural Texas, I will have his back.
Stamford
Last night we had a chance to meet with supporters and volunteers here in downtown Galveston. We talked about the unique opportunity we have to come together and get the job done for everyone — school teachers, longshoremen, veterans and law enforcement, small towns, big cities, business owners and employees, energy workers and environmentalists — all of us.
Galveston
But it will take all of us doing our part right now to make it possible. As I head off to Beaumont, Nacogdoches, Marshall, and Texarkana to continue meeting with our fellow Texans, I hope you’ll make a donation to keep us going and on the road.
I’m grateful to you and grateful to be doing this work with you!
Beto
