Juarez had become a failed city. The mayor of Juarez lived in El Paso. Not only did he not live in his own city, he didn't live in his own country. You had all these kids out of school who didn't want to work because they saw their mothers toiling in jobs for hardly any cash.
We in El Paso and Juarez are literally one community. There's no separation; there's no DMZ; there's no buffer.
There were absolutely times in my life when I tried to get people to call me Robert.
There was something punk rock about Bobby Kennedy not going where the pollsters said or where consultants said. He was unmoored from what was safe or easy.
I'm the original co-sponsor of an assault weapons ban.
I don't know how old I was when I first started going to shows, maybe 14 or 15, but very quickly, I discovered Dischord Records in D.C. and loved all the music on that catalog. I was a big Rites of Spring fan, Minor Threat, of course.
In terms of immigration, we're seeing a lot of Democrats and Republicans use the really elastic term, 'Comprehensive Immigration Reform,' and they don't totally understand what that means. For us in El Paso, it's part of a larger discussion about the nature of the border.
Politics has become very corporate. There's a whole farm system for the teams. There's decisions made at the top. There's a lot of literal corporate involvement, PAC money involved in selecting and backing candidates.
I remember ordering records out of the Dischord catalog in the '80s, and there would be a handwritten note.
I was born in '72, and my dad was county judge of El Paso from '82 to '86. He was just as independent as he could be, and had an amazing joy in life and in being with people, which, from my perspective as a kid, was that he was always going to do the right thing, and damn the consequences - political or otherwise.
You have to tell the people that you want to serve what it is you believe and what you are going to do on their behalf.
I think for some, the very wealthiest among us, for corporations, taxes are too low.
The bottom line is that I'm very, very proud of my mom.
We toured the U.S. and Canada for two years, which was a lot of fun. It was very much a do-it-yourself, punk-rock ethic of booking your own shows, sometimes sleeping on the floor of the club you had played or meeting folks that would take you in, or sleeping on the side of the road or at rest stops in the car.
In the age of Trump, we need to be aware of emotional rhetoric and its power regardless of whether or not it's based in fact.
The border is safe; it's secure. El Paso is the safest city in America. Let's own that. Let's be proud of that. And then, I think, good policy can follow from that, better outcomes included.
I don't know that my colleagues in Congress really care about what happens here in El Paso and in Juarez. They care what happens in their home district.
We want to play a great a role as possible in making sure this country lives up to the expectations.
No one is born to be president of the United States of America.
I think that's the beauty of elections: You can't hide from who you are. The more honestly and directly you communicate to people why you're doing this, the way in which you want to serve them, I just think that the better, more informed decision that they can make.
