Talarico is now running for the U.S. Senate, although his campaign denies that he supports defunding law enforcement and points to his votes for billions of dollars in police funding. This follows other 2022 remarks where Talarico told incarcerated students that redirecting half of the nation's spending on wars, policing, and prisons into health care and education could make prisons obsolete. He also previously criticized Gov. Greg Abbott for proposing to cut revenue to cities that reduced police spending.
Wednesday, October 21, 2026
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James Talarico's Past Police Defunding Ties Surface in Senate Race
US Politics16 days ago
The Texas lawmaker donated $2,500 to the Austin Justice Coalition, a group advocating for reducing police budgets, in June 2020. James Talarico told activists from Texas Rising that it was "rich" to treat the "defund the police" slogan as off-limits in political debate while the state government had defunded public education and health services for decades. He described the current policing system as "deeply broken" and suggested using highly trained crisis interventionists for some emergencies.
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