U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) took the stage at Sewell Park on Saturday to remind an audience of young, Democratic hopefuls that their vote matters.
Sanders joined congressional candidate Greg Casar, Texas Rep. Erin Zwiener (D-Driftwood), College Democrats of Texas State President Adriana Montoya, Texas State student leaders Elizabeth Mendoza and Aliya Seay, and Monarch Center for Immigrants Coordinator Michelle Sotolongo for the San Marcos Get Out the Vote and March to the Polls Rally on Saturday.
As part of his Get Out the Vote message, Sanders emphasized the importance of voting in the midterm election.
“If any of your friends, as I’m sure they will say, why are you involved in politics, why do you come to a rally, who is this Greg Casar ... Tell them they should have been here, and tell them they will be making a very, very big mistake if they don’t vote on Election Day,” he said.
Sanders said to be critical of the opposing party is “not good enough.”
“Where do we want to go as a nation? What kind of nation do we want to become?” Sanders said. “Despite all of the political divisions in this country, it turns out that whether you’re a Democrat, Republican, or Independent, you have a pretty clear sense of economic issues, of where you want to go.”
Sanders’ first elected office was as mayor of Burlington, VT in 1981. Since his tenure as mayor, he served on the House of Representatives from 1991 to 2007 and the Senate from 2007 until today, making him the longest-serving independent member of Congress in American history, according to sanders.senate.gov.
Sanders also serves on multiple Senate committees, including Environment and Public Works, Energy and Natural Resources, Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.
Greg Casar, the Democratic nominee for Texas Congressional District 35, also spoke at the event.
Casar said he first understood the power of the working class “not as a city council member, not running for Congress, but as a young organizer.”
“The power rests with you all, not with the mega-corporations or the far right-wing politicians they pay off, because those right-wing politicians don’t represent us,” Casar said. “They don’t represent our state.”
He continued, “They don’t represent Democrats, Republicans, or Independents either. What they do is they represent [their] own greed and interest for power.”
Casar was a member of Austin City Council until he decided to run for Congress in 2022, according to his campaign website. As a city council member, Casar helped pass legislation mandating paid sick days for Austin, San Antonio, and Dallas workers. He also played an integral role in raising the minimum wage, clearing a decades-long backlog of sexual assault evidence kits, and ending arrests and fines for low-level marijuana possession.
Casar said Texas has a “long history of fighting and winning progressive change.”
“Take Emma Tenayuca for example, a 22 year old labor organizer who in the 1930s led one of the most important strikes in United States history, the Pecan Shellers’ Strike,” Casar said. “She led 15,000 Mexican American women to walk off the job demanding better wages.
“They were gassed. They were beaten. They were told to go back to work. They refused to go back to work...They didn’t give up until they pushed the President of the United States to sign this country’s first ever minimum wage into law.”
Casar said for this upcoming election and others to follow, “the barriers are high, but the stakes are so much higher.”
“And that’s why we can’t give up, because we can save millions of people’s jobs and homes and lives across the world,” Casar said.
Casar also recognized Sanders for his “lifetime commitment to the struggle for social and economic justice.”
“Before he was mayor, before he was [a] congressman, before he was a senator, Bernie Sanders was an organizer,” Casar said. “He marched in the Civil Rights Movement; he was dragged into a paddy wagon by the police for fighting for the right thing. Millions of us have been inspired by you. We stand on your shoulders.”
Following Casar and Sanders’ remarks, the event concluded with a march to the polling location at the LBJ Student Center.
Voter information
Greg Casar will go head-to-head with Republican congressional nominee Dan McQueen in the Nov. 8 General Election.
Early voting takes place from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday this week at the following San Marcos locations:
- Hays County Government Center Conference Room
- Broadway (Christus Trinity Clinic)
- LBJ Student Center at Texas State University
For voter registration, Mail In and Absentee voting instructions, or for general information on the Nov. 8 General Election in Hays County, visit https://hayscountytx.com/departments/elections/current-year-elections/.
