Austin City Council Member Gregorio “Greg” Casar announced his plans to run to represent Texas's 35th Congressional District.
Casar said he’s the natural fit for the district.
“I believe that working families from Bexar to Comal to Hays to Travis County deserve a progressive leader who will fight for and deliver on reproductive rights, Medicare for all, good jobs and a better Texas," Casar told the Austin Monitor.
He’s the youngest person ever elected to the Austin City Council. He has accomplished a lot since assuming office in 2015. He garnered 11,629 votes during the general election for Austin City Council District 4, beating Louis Herrin III and Ramesses II Setepenre.
“The communities I’ve been organizing in have been in East Austin and San Marcos and San Antonio,” Casar told the Texas Observer. “So those are the neighborhoods and the parts of the state where I feel like I’ve built the most relationships and done the most organizing work. So that’s really what I’m looking at.”
One accomplishment Casar has under his belt is keeping Planned Parenthood open after finding a loophole in Republican state law targeting a lease agreement between the city and a Planned Parenthood health center, the Rewire News reported. The Austin City Council set aside $150,000 of public funding to help women better access abortion, the Texas Tribune Reported. The money is meant for expenses like travel, lodging and childcare, not for the procedure.
“Statewide leaders have directly attacked our constituents’ ability to access abortion care every legislative session,” Casar told Rewire News. “As leaders who care about abortion access, it’s important to fight back and push back; otherwise these statewide anti-abortion extremists will continue to pass barrier after barrier.”
The 32-year-old Casar is running for Texas’s 35th Congressional District, which starts from East Austin and goes further south along I-35 to San Antonio. Casar is among the names confirmed for a Democratic primary slated for next March.
The district is currently represented by Democrat Lloyd Doggett, who announced last month his intentions to run for a newly created Austin-area district.
Casar will continue to serve on the city council until his successor is sworn in for his seat next year.