James is an eighth-generation Texan, former middle school teacher, and Presbyterian seminarian. As a state representative, he has led the fight against the billionaire mega-donors and puppet politicians who have taken over Texas. Now, he’s running for the U.S. Senate to take that fight to Washington and win power back for working people.
Before entering politics, James taught sixth-grade Language Arts at Rhodes Middle School on the west side of San Antonio — a beautiful, historic Mexican-American neighborhood that’s also one of the poorest zip codes in Texas. Every day, his students struggled heroically to overcome poverty and systems designed to hold them back.
James learned that same resilience from his mother — a preacher’s daughter from Laredo who left home at 19 and married his birth father, whose drinking sometimes led to violence. One night, when the abuse became too much, she packed their belongings into her little Ford Escort and took James to the hotel where she worked. The manager let them stay in a room until they found a small apartment in East Austin. Her courage and strength shaped the values James carries with him today.
In 2018, James ran for the Texas House to fight for families like his mother’s and for students like his own. It was a race no one thought he could win — but together, they flipped a district Donald Trump had carried just two years earlier. As a legislator, James has passed major legislation to fund neighborhood schools, expand job opportunities for young adults, and lower the cost of child care, housing, and prescription drugs.
He has stood up to the billionaire donors who rig the system against working families — and remains the only member of the Texas Legislature who has never taken corporate PAC money. Now, as those same interests tighten their grip on Washington, James is running for Senate to bring that same fight to the national stage — to take power back for working people. It’s the fight he learned from his mom in East Austin, from his students on the west side of San Antonio, and from the communities across Texas that refuse to back down.