First democratic primary debate between U.S. Senate candidates held in Georgetown
The two highest profile Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate — Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico — participated in a debate Saturday, January 24, in Georgetown.
The first debate of the race, it was held at the Sheraton Austin Georgetown Hotel & Conference Center during labor group Texas AFL-CIO’s weekend conference. Ms. Crockett is currently a U.S. Representative for Texas’ 30th District, which encompasses parts of Dallas and Tarrant Counties. Mr. Talarico currently represents District 50 – northeast Austin, and parts of Pflugerville and Round Rock – in the Texas House of Representatives.
The debate was moderated by KXAN anchor Daniel Marin and Dallas Morning News journalist Gromer Jeffers. The candidates took on questions about local and national topics of interest, including data centers, immigration, expanding the Supreme Court and U.S. foreign policy.
In recent years, Williamson County cities have approved multiple new projects that will bring data centers — which can be used to house Artificial Intelligence hardware and digital information — to the region.
Part of the growing tech industry — with companies like Samsung, Apple, Mesones Data Center and Waypoint Business Solutions increasing their Williamson County footprints in the coming years — these projects are consuming more of the region's land, water and electric resources than ever before.
“We’re dealing with the fact that there's a winter storm right here in the state of Texas [this weekend],” Ms. Crockett said. “We don't know if our grid is going to hold up, and we’re talking about these data centers that are actually pulling on us even more. We have to work at every single level of government, with our state and our city and our county levels, because we're going to need some zoning put into place.”
If elected to the Senate, Mr. Talarico said he would fight to make sure AI companies that are building data centers pay for their own energy and the cost isn’t shifted onto consumers.
“I’ll make sure that we work on sustainable water infrastructure, because Texas is running out of water, and these data centers are exacerbating that problem,” he said. “We should tax these companies. We should tax these technologies to pay for that kind of infrastructure.”
Mr. Jeffers brought up the topic of illegal immigration, and how many constituents in Texas support deporting undocumented immigrants. Federal operations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have also taken place in Williamson County in recent months. He asked the candidates about their feelings toward ICE and immigration.
Both candidates expressed concerns with recent ICE actions across the country.
Mr. Talarico spoke about his mother being from Laredo, and said that Texas’ shared border with Mexico allows Texans to understand immigration issues first hand.
“Our Southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front and a lock on the door,” he said. “We can welcome immigrants who want to live the American dream. We can build a pathway to citizenship for those neighbors who have been here making us richer and stronger, and we can keep out people who mean to do us harm.”
Ms. Crockett said ICE’s appropriate role is in it’s name — immigration and customs enforcement. ICE should not be used to antagonize U.S. citizens or to target people who are documented immigrants.
“That is not what they are supposed to do, but that is what they are doing,” Ms. Crockett said. “All we want ICE to do is to do what ICE was created to do, and unfortunately, that's not what they are doing.”
This debate was held to provide members of Texas AFL-CIO labor group with information on candidate policy stances so the organization could determine who to support in the primary in March. The group’s decision will be announced at a later date.
Those who missed the debate can find information on it and where to watch a playback of it at https://tinyurl.com/w3zuf9yy.