Former Representative Colin Allred (D-TX) is back and ready to tackle the mountain of challenges facing his state and his country.
Texas is experiencing a wave of political strife, from a struck down gerrymandered map to the affordability crisis sweeping the country. Of course, there is also President Trump blatantly weaponizing the Justice Department against his political opponents. “It’s covered like its a normal thing!” Allred exclaims to Jen, “We should not cover it that way…do not act like this is normal prosecution.”
Watch the full interview to hear about Rep. Allred’s current Senate campaign, rebuilding trust in our institutions, and how he found himself shucking oysters on a weekday.
Colin Allred is an American politician who served as the U.S. representative for Texas’s 32nd congressional district from 2019 to 2025. He is also a civil rights lawyer, and played in the NFL as a linebacker for five seasons. Now, Colin is running for U.S. Senate in Texas.
Jen Rubin
Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of the Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us former Texas Congressman Colin Allred, who is now a candidate for Senate. Welcome, Colin, good to see you.
Colin Allred
Yeah, Jen, thank you so much for having me, and again, congratulations on this. You guys are doing great.
Jen Rubin
Oh, thank you. It’s a lot of fun. And you are, having also a, a busy time. You have some competition in the primary. How’s it going? What are you hearing from the voters out there?
Colin Allred
Yeah, no, it’s… listen, I’m really enjoying this election, and what I wanted to do was go to… working people as much as possible, instead of asking them to come to me. Yeah, I thought about my mom, who’s, you know, raised me on her own, and who was a teacher during the day. She would tutor in the evening, and then she’d watch me at night, and she really could not go to political events like we often have. Like, you know, I do a lot of town halls, and I enjoy doing those. But having 3 hours in the evening is not something that most working families have. So I’ve been trying to go to folks wherever they are, and so I’ve been, you know, shucking oysters in Corpus Christi the other day, and working at a Kroger in Houston, at a grocery store, and a construction site, you know, in San Antonio, you know, barbershops in Dallas, at high school football games, and, you know, it’s reminded me of something that I always knew, but that I think it was a good timely reminder, which is that our politics are in a terrible place, and what you see and you read is really just awful. And for me, as someone who served in the Obama administration, served in Congress, it’s so upsetting, right? But our people are not in a terrible place. We are still a decent, you know, country with decent people who are working hard, who are doing what they can for their families, doing all the right things. The problem is, they see folks who are openly corrupt on TV, and on their phones, who are, you know, just getting by, and while they’re working harder and harder for less, and I think that’s what we have to speak to, and have to try to address.
Jen Rubin
Absolutely. Obviously, the Epstein files have been in the news, Mike, and the president finally capitulated and agreed to release them. We’ll see whether he releases all of them or not. This strikes me, as you said, as part of a problem of corruption, of misusing the Justice Department and the judicial system. You’re a lawyer by trade, what do you make of his use of the Justice Department, some of these prosecutions of political enemies, and now he’s threatening to execute the Democrats who told members of the Arden Services they have an obligation to refuse legal Orders? What do you make of all that?
Colin Allred
Well, you know, I spent some time at DOJ, and I have friends who, you know, have worked, you know, throughout DOJ, and I think, you know, to me, this is one of the most damaging things that this president has done, is to turn this, you know, department that had some things that we need to work on, that we certainly need to fix some aspects of our criminal justice system that, you know, as an African American, we can talk about. But that fundamentally, they use this now as a tool for retribution. And if you believe that the entire Epstein files are gonna be released by this administration after all this time pushing back, then I’ve got some beachfront property in Arizona, you know, to sell you, right? Like, you know, this is not their MO. I don’t expect them to do that, but what I do expect them to make good on is what we’ve seen, you know, with James Comey, with Tisha Jane. you know, threatened against Senator Adam Schiff, threatened against basically anyone that he can, which is, you know, Eric Swalwell, a friend of mine, to try and use the official power of the state to go after his political enemies in a way that we’ve never seen. And John, I think we should just be honest about it and just say this is unprecedented, and sometimes I’ll see a headline come across on, you know, my phone saying, you know. you know, Comey indictment, you know, X, Y, and Z, and it’s covered like it’s a normal thing.
Jen Rubin
Yes.
Colin Allred
And I know you feel this strongly, that we should not cover it that way, right? The headline shouldn’t just act like this is a normal prosecution being done according to our normal procedures, because it’s not. It should say, you know, highly questionable investigate… politically motivated investigation of former Trump official. You know, it’s like, that’s to me what it should be saying, to try and make sure people understand how crazy this is, and how dangerous it is. And we, you know, and one thing I do want to say, though, is that for Democrats, we cannot just talk about, you know, restoring things like DOJ to where they were. To me, whether it’s DOJ, the Department of Education, the State Department, all these agencies that have been gutted and destroyed or are gone, we can’t just say we’re gonna build it back like it was. To me, we have to make sure that we put forward a new idea on how we can restore confidence, you know, in these agencies, but also take advantage of this kind of forest fire effect, to have new growth, and to address some things that should have been done all along the way. And so, that to me, is what I think our goal has to be, is hold the line now, tell the truth now, make sure people know that, but then plan for dramatic reform and change afterwards.
Jen Rubin
You know, people really, look at both parties in some respects. Obviously, the Republicans are the main offenders, but they look at things like the provision that was stuck into the end of the shutdown bill that says that a bunch of senators are going to get a chance to make millions of dollars. What do you think about that? What would you have done had you been in the Senate and saw.
Colin Allred
or something.
Jen Rubin
Something like that.
Colin Allred
Well, and that makes, you know, my disagreement and my feeling of betrayal by the senators who crossed over, in this case, even deeper, because I do think, you know, were you aware of this provision? Did you see this and you decided to vote for this anyway? And I have some folks in that group who I really respect, and I want to be clear about that. But to me. The biggest divide I see in the party, Jen, is not between progressives and moderates, or even by age. To me, it’s folks who recognize the moment that we’re in now, and the fight that it’s gonna take, and those who don’t. And part of that is standing up to corruption. I mean, this is the most openly flagrantly corrupt administration and time, in my opinion, in American history. We have, you know, the President of the United States has been given a jet, right? We have a ballroom that is basically a conduit you know, for influence, where the richest and biggest corporations in the world can say, okay, we’re gonna knock down the East Wing, and we’ll just give money for influence to build some ridiculous ballroom where the president can be feted like a king. That’s not… you know, to me, we have to stand up to that, because for ordinary working people, and this is what I mean when I’m talking to folks, you know, at, you know, here in Texas. They see all this happening. But what we can’t be is that, okay, everybody’s corrupt. We have to say, here’s what we’re gonna do to root this out. to throw open the doors and bring sunlight in. And we’re not just gonna stop with the corruption you’ve seen, we’re gonna go after the corruption that’s been ongoing that we have oftentimes been a part of, like stock trading by members of Congress, like allowing, you know, some of the campaign finance shenanigans that we see going on that Democrats engage in, too. To me, we have to go much farther and say, we recognize that corruption is undermining the entire faith in this system. And we’re gonna go after all of it.
Jen Rubin
Do you think the Senate needs new leadership?
Colin Allred
Well, I’ve always felt like the leadership will be responsive to the members, and that’s why… part of why I’m running for the Senate, is that I think that we need to bring in new members who understand what’s happening now, and who will be a part of this fight, but then also just are a part of what’s happening now, and what has to happen going forward. I think that that’s the… what I… what I see, and what I saw with, you know, in the house. The leadership will then be responsible to that, whoever it might be, right? But what I am going to require from anyone who is Senate Leader when I’m in the Senate is somebody who will be part of that fight. That’ll be my, you know, precondition, and also who will help me serve, you know, my constituents. So, to me, it’s not… I think the solution’s gonna come from the ground up, not from the top down.
Jen Rubin
Fair enough. Texas, went through a re-redistricting fight. The brave Democrats in the state legislature pro quorum, they… up and left, and now a court has struck down that, re-redistricting plan. We don’t know whether it’s gonna stay out or not. What are you seeing on the ground in Texas in terms of whether or not those new state and rather those new, congressional lines stick or not. Are people angry? Are the Latino voters that you talked to looking to perhaps come back to the Democratic Party? What do you need to do to bring them back?
Colin Allred
Yeah, I was just in Corpus talking to some folks about this. In fact, talking with, you know. folks who understood that the city of Corpus Christi had previously had one member of Congress, which allowed them to have basically a unified voice when they were seeking federal funding. That city had been split into two different districts, and so they felt, and without me saying anything, they were saying, this is going to reduce our influence and our ability to get what we need from the federal government because of this ridiculous gerrymandering that they’re doing. And so, the outcomes of gerrymandering, as you know, Jen, there are so many negative ones, but one of them is that it divides up communities and reduces their cohesiveness in terms of getting what they need. And I think, you know, we should take a moment to just celebrate, I think, that a Trump appointee wrote an incredibly strong and straightforward opinion that I think is very difficult to overturn, given the thoroughness of it, and the fact that it was a Trump appointee and an Obama appointee who came together to write this, you know, complete rejection, saying that the state of Texas racially gerrymandered. And as a voting rights attorney reading it, it was music to my ears, and I thought that it was very powerful. And so I want to say we should celebrate that, recognize that the Supreme Court may step in and still stay that ruling, and so we don’t know what the legal outcome will be yet. But on the ground, this had already triggered so much anger. And we had historic districts like Barbara Jordan’s district in Houston, the 18th District, that had been melded with another district to reduce black voting power in Houston. And, you know, Barbara Jordan, Mickey Leland, Sheila Jackson Lee, that district had… was basically gone. We had, you know, real advancements that have been made that have been lost. And to your point, we had, I think, many Latino communities where, the… I think Republicans were thinking that they were gonna do, you know, well in those communities, and I think they were not heading… gonna do well at all. What I’ve seen, is that they have raised folks’ costs, and they have attacked these communities in a way that is gonna generate a real backlash. And so I think that, you know. wherever this ends up going, I don’t think it’s gonna go the way the Republicans thought it was going to.
Jen Rubin
Fair enough. Healthcare costs. The shutdown ended, but the problem remains the ACA subsidies are going to expire at the year end. Republicans say, oh, no, no, we’ve got a plan for you, we’re going to give you a health spending account, so you can put some of your own money away. But that doesn’t really match up if you have some serious, health issues. What’s your view on what the House and Senate need to do, and if you were there, what would be the solution you’d be pushing for?
Colin Allred
Yeah, and I, you know, voted on the expansion of those ACA credits that are expiring. And listen, this is real people, and I think… we… there are 4 million Texans who are on the Affordable Care Act Exchange, and, you know, I talk to people wherever I go about, you know, what’s going on in their lives, and there was a coffee shop owner who I was… I was working in this coffee shop in San Antonio, and he and his wife own it, his wife does the baking, he does the coffee, it’s a really trendy, hip place. You would never know, unless you talk to them, that they have a daughter with epilepsy. And they’re on the Affordable Care Act exchanges as small business owners. And, you know, one of their daughter’s treatments, just one, cost them $26,000. I mean, it’s an incredibly, incredibly expensive condition, and as a father of two little boys, like, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them, and anyone would. But he was counting on us in Washington, those folks in Washington, to keep their costs from skyrocketing. Because they already have incredibly high costs. And I’ve seen this whole HSA kind of boondoggle from the Republicans before. It never makes any sense, and it never covers the expensive conditions, to your point. And the more straightforward thing to do here, which I think would have bipartisan support, or at least I think it did previously, was just to extend these credits And then let’s then continue to find ways to lower healthcare costs and try to expand coverage. But I have no faith at all in this Republican Congress to do that. This is the same president who was, you know, one John McCain thumbs down away from, you know, repealing the ACA in his first term, right? And many of the same members in this Congress and the Senate voted to repeal it, you know, dozens of times. I don’t see them coming in to fix it. And that’s part of why I think it was, you know, such a failure to not have that be part of the negotiation for the budget. Now, we’re going to be able to go back in in January and again, have to have that debate, but as you know, those letters have already been sent out to folks in the individual markets. They’ve already gotten the notices that their costs are going up, because, just because it’s going up at the end of the year, you know, open enrollment is right now. Right? So, I mean, we have to understand what families are going through, that in the midst of an affordability crisis, their healthcare costs are now just gonna skyrocket. That’s a huge problem.
Jen Rubin
Last question for you. MBS was in the White House. The president was making excuses for the horrific murder of a journalist. Khashoggi, and, saying things just happened. What was your reaction when that was going on, and what should be the reaction of, for example, the Senate when he says things like that?
Colin Allred
It was incredibly chilling to see an American president sitting next to, you know, a Gulf State, you know, Royal. Saying that the broadcast rights of the person questioning, of the ABC, of the reporter questioning, should be taken away. And that, you know, that we need to… that people needed to basically behave, and that they needed to not ask questions of the president, you know, like that. In the White House, in the People’s House, in the place where we have an amendment protecting the right to free press, and to freedom of speech, and the ability to ask questions like that. His job is to uphold that Constitution, not to undermine it in front of, you know, someone who has no interest in it. And, you know, listen, I’m… I was on the Foreign Affairs Committee, I understand our complicated relationship with the Saudis. That does not require us to whitewash what MBS did. The fact that they are a strategic ally in many other areas does not mean that we have to say that, you know, murdering a journalist who was a green card holder, and as you know, a colleague of yours. you know, is acceptable. Or even just to say that, you know, things happen and to pass it off and then act like we’re just in a purely transactional world. We’re the ones who are supposed to uphold those values around the world. We’re the ones who are supposed to be able to speak to our friends. our allies and our enemies, and to say, there are certain standards that have to be upheld, and that we have, you know, in our efforts, we’re going to be part of not only telling you that, but then showing it ourselves. And we haven’t always lived up to that, but that’s the role that we’ve played, you know, for 80 years. And, to me. that’s what I don’t think this president has understood… ever understood. I don’t think he’s ever understood our actual role in the world, or the role of the press, or the role of a free people in which we get to ask questions and say things that are maybe even offensive to you in that moment. I certainly, you know, have, as an elected official, had plenty of people who have their chance to say what they wanted to say to me, and that’s their right. Right? And so there was something incredibly upsetting about it, but I think it also, from… from what I’ve seen, there’s been some people who’ve been… who’ve stopped and said, wait a second, that… this is… this is really wrong. And so, in some ways, we may need to have a revival, you know, of some of these American traditions in response to something that’s been so against all of those.
Jen Rubin
Well, Colin, I think many of us were fairly shocked, and perhaps we shouldn’t be shocked, but we’re still horrified. Thanks so much for joining us, Colin. Continued good luck out on the trail, and happy Thanksgiving.
Colin Allred
Alright, same to you, Jen. Appreciate you.
