Welcome to Texas Tech.

I'm Gilbert Garcia, metro columnist for the San Antonio Express-News.

On this show, we bring you in-depth one on one conversations with some of the most fascinating figures in Texas.

Politics, culture, sports and business.

Tonight's guest is Marisa Bono, a social justice advocate who has put together a remarkable resume in a short period of time.

Bono has a degree in political science from Rice University and a law degree and master's in public policy from the University of Michigan.

She handled Denmark's civil rights cases as a Southwest regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, served as chief of policy for San Antonio Mayor Ron Nierenberg, and was the chief strategic officer for Metropolitan Transit.

She is currently the CEO for Every Texan, a public policy advocacy group that is redefining itself and sure to make its voice heard during the state's upcoming legislative session.

Let's get started But he said, thank you so much for joining Texas, Doug.

Thanks for having me.

Now, you've been with every Texan.

You've been the CEO for a little more than 15 months now.

That's right.

And you joined probably in the late stages of the Texas Legislature's regular session in 20, 21.

And given how important know the work of the Legislature is to your organization, how tough was it for you coming in and taking over the organization when the legislature was was in the middle of their work?

Well, I think it was probably a tough time for any organizational leader working in that space because we were also in the throes of the pandemic right.

And that had its own implications for running a team and sort of moving towards our mission.

But every Texans, a 36 year old organization and and we have team members who have been on board for decades, really experts in this work who really know their stuff.

So I think having the benefit of such an incredible team really helped me transition well and also prepare for the road ahead.

We had four or five special session sort of back to back marathon sessions and special sessions after that.

So having the benefit of such an incredible established team and a supportive board really helped that transition.

And you were the chief strategic officer at the Metropolitan Transit at that time.

How tough was it that that decision?

You obviously had a great position, had just come off of a really big election where the voters approved sales tax funding increase that's going to kick in in a few years.

How tough was that decision for you?

It was actually very tough.

I started I love the team and we are just some incredible public servants there.

I started working with Rio when I was in the mayor's office.

Transportation was one of the mayor's top priorities at that time.

And so had able I'd been able to start forming those relationships while I was still with the mayor and the city.

And just the team there is just so passionate about increasing access to service for San Antonio riders.

You know, a majority of those riders are are working people are low income residents who really depend on that, really depend on that system.

And being with a team that really took that mission to heart and was just so passionate about getting that referendum over the line.

It was it was a short stint, but it was a very unique opportunity to work with the passionate team.

So it was actually a tough decision for me.

But, you know, I couldn't I couldn't turn down the move to every Texan.

The work that we're doing really, you know, there's an opportunity there to really change, change the face of the state, hopefully change some of the direction that we're moving and move our policymaking towards better supporting everyday working Texans, working families, And like I mentioned before, the opportunity to work with another terrific team.

And every Texan has a really fascinating history because it was started in 1985 by the Benedictines sisters of.

That's right.

And they were looking at what their patients were going through, the social inequities they were facing.

And so we've got to we want to do something about that.

Right.

And over the years it was known for many years as the Center for Public Policy Priorities and was.

No, it was a really valuable source, I know for for media people in Texas because there was so much policy research that came out of the organization.

And I think you described it at one talk as like a policy wonks with a heart.

That's right.

Yeah.

So but a couple of years ago, the organization decided to to rebrand itself and also to really change its approach.

And you came in shortly after that, that process began.

What do you think needed to change about the way the organization went about doing things?

Well, you know, research and data is and remains one of the core pillars of our work.

It's it's kind of a stalwart for us to think about ensuring that policy is is data based data driven.

And we take the responsibility of being truth tellers, but being accurate truth tellers to heart.

And that's just central to everything that we do.

But over time, we we kind of started to realize that we weren't gaining as much ground as we wanted to when it came to creating those opportunities for for better access to health care and education and food security in this state.

And in a lot of ways, we felt like we were moving backwards.

And so we realized we needed to think about how to expand our advocacy in in a way where we were creating deeper relationships with local communities.

And deeper relationships with organizations who were driving a lot of local change on the ground because Texas is a big state.

And you know, over time, there were there are sort of limitations to being in that ivory tower.

And in Austin, you don't necessarily have the firsthand perspective of what everyday Texans are experiencing across the state and what they really need to to thrive and have the opportunity to be successful in their communities.

Well, you're in the capital in Austin.

We're a little more than four months away from the next Texas legislative session.

And in anticipation of that, your organization, every Texan, has put together something new and sounds really ambitious, which is something you call the people's budget.

You talk a little bit about what this is and what your what your hopes are for what this will accomplish.

Well, you know, every year ahead of each session, we put together a legislative agenda where we kind of establish our policy priorities.

And that's something that all statewide organizations do.

But what we started thinking about was, you know, we're very issue based and being an organization that works on policies that are typically more progressive in Texas.

We're also an organization that typically plays a lot of defense.

And so what we what we started thinking about, I would say about ten months ago, is what instead of just being issue based, where you sort of build coalitions around specific bills or specific issues, and then you you you you're either defeated or you win on your issue and then the coalition falls away.

What would it look like to create a coalition around a platform of issues that every Texan can agree on, regardless of political party, party, regardless of gender, regardless of race or where you live in the state?

So things that we know are data tested and things that we know that Texans sort of universally believe in, like good public schools, access to affordable health care, access to food security, a fair system of taxation, and a budget that supports investments in our community, values And so the idea is putting together sort of a progressive policy platform with with a coalition of partners across the state.

So this is this is something that we're thinking about.

It's more of a long term objective.

We we'd like to have a launch before the next legislative session.

I don't think we're necessarily going to have a platform built out before a session.

But we we're thinking about this as sort of a foundational time period for this.

I to to really look at the revenue the states taking in and what.

Yes.

Can we shift some some of the funding from one place to another, that sort of thing?

We hear a lot of Texas leaders celebrating the Texas miracle, but there are so many Texans who haven't really been able to partake in in the value that they've created for our state.

And I think we've seen those discrepancies really play out during the course of the pandemic, where socioeconomic segregation, the the widening between the haves and the haves not have really been accelerated by the pandemic.

And so the idea is to to put together a list of sort of a collection of priorities that everyone can get around and then and explain how we can fund it.

Right.

Because we we have the resources.

The Texas comptroller just announced a month or two ago that we're going to have a $27 billion surplus this session, thanks in large part to our inflation our revenues driven in large part by our sales taxes.

We've we've got this unprecedented surplus.

We also have about $14 billion in our rainy day fund, our state reserves.

So there's a real opportunity to think about how to invest in our community and invest and policies that can really support everyday Texans, everyday working Texans.

And how does every Texan approach is when you when you're in a legislative session or as you're approaching it, I mean, you meet with individual lawmakers and try to make the case for some of these priorities.

I mean, what how do you how do you approach.

That We've always though traditionally we've always been backroom lawyers.

We have trusted relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle.

We there's a lot of that inside advocacy, inside lobbying, where we use existing relationships with either members or key caucuses to play defense or add amendments to try to to push our our values through.

But there's also that external game.

So we're very proud of the relationships that we have with other statewide organizations and local organizations to do this work at the state level.

So we would like to make this coalition based, not we it's not a one man show.

And on May 24th, 19 children and two teachers were killed in a mass shooting at Raab Elementary in Nevada.

And since that time, there have been many people urging Governor Greg Abbott to call a special session to deal with the issue of gun violence in Texas.

That's something he's chosen not to do.

What do you make of his refusal to address that issue this year?

You know, I mean, I think it's important not just to call out Governor Abbott, but to call out anyone who has influence in that space.

We have a number of elected leaders who make decisions in this state who just have not publicly made this a priority for our state.

And so I definitely buck stops with the governor, but would like to see more vocal support for gun reform and certainly an assault rifle ban.

But is that what stands out to you among the gun reformers?

I think for me, look, you know, Texas is Texas.

What plays in other states isn't necessarily going to play here.

But my concern is that decision making currently is based on personalities and politics and not necessarily priorities.

We live in a state where gun violence has been steadily increasing over the past five years.

Texans have been attacked, viciously attacked with assault weapons while they've been shopping while they've been in church, while they've been in school.

And I, I think, you know, the reaction we've seen up to this point just hasn't reflected the sense of urgency and prioritization that we should have for public safety in this state.

You know, and then in the meantime, on on the subject of of public safety, we our governor is sending billions of dollars each year to the border.

We haven't really seen the return on investment for for those billions of dollars.

A lot a lot of which has been siphoned off from other state agencies And then, you know, what's happening in the border isn't necessarily something that impacts folks who live in north Texas or west Texas or east Texas.

And every Texan deserves to be safe in their own community.

So I think, you know, I certainly feel a sense of personal frustration and as a mother that I believe that I and my son deserve to be safe.

I believe all Texans to be served deserve to be safe.

In their communities regardless of their political party or where they happen to live.

So you mentioned Governor Abbott's operation Lone Star, which which launched about a year and a half ago and in which he's deployed Texas National Guard personnel to the border to deal with border security.

I think the cost up to now has been about $4 billion.

And as you said, we're starting we've started to see in recent months particularly that money is being shifted from other departments to just keep this thing going.

Do you do you get the sense from your interactions with with lawmakers?

And I know it's it's there's a lot of criticism, certainly on the Democratic side, but you get the sense that that privately, maybe even on the Republican side, they're starting to be some feeling of like, you know, what's where does this end?

Like this this thing is costing so much.

And it just seems to there doesn't seem to be an end to it.

Yeah.

So I think I do.

So to answer your question shortly, yes, I have a lot of those conversations with Republican colleagues, including lawmakers, including their staff members, where there's sort of private frustration expressed.

But then that's always followed up by sort of a sense of resignation.

That is what it is.

We can't do things different publicly.

I think I think elected leaders in our state have stood a lot to gain from perpetuating this this politics of division where you will work to divide people based on immigration status, in some cases based on race.

There's there's been a lot to gain politically so instead of putting the needs of everyday Texans first, there is sort of a doubling down on these these programs that are wildly expensive, don't really have metrics to show progress or lack of progress and haven't really created any kind of return for Texans.

When you hear people talking about how we have a crisis on the border or we have open borders, which is a kind of common refrain or criticism that's directed at President Joe Biden, what do you make of that?

Well, we certainly don't have open borders.

We have a very complex immigration system that's now wildly outdated.

And so what that means is an incredible backlog in our immigration courts.

We have Border Patrol agents who and inspection agents who are incredibly overworked and under-resourced.

And the our need for comprehensive immigration reform has been packaged into a manufactured border crisis.

So I look, I don't I think we need to listen to folks who live in South Texas to folks who live in those communities.

There have been studies that have come out as recently as the the past couple of months.

I saw one from the Texas Civil Rights Project that showed that the the instances of racial profiling and ticketing and traffic offenses have been increasing in the Valley as a result of those a lot of those operations.

And so I think we need to think about how to balance concerns for what's happening at the border for the broader picture when it comes to public safety.

One of the things that Governor Abbott has said this year is that he's going to push in the next legislative session for a school voucher program.

This is has been a priority for Republicans for years.

But it's it's you know, it's been blocked or hasn't come to fruition.

The this would allow Texas parents to access taxpayer money to move their children into nonpublic schools.

And the argument in favor of vouchers is always that it gives parents, you know, more choice education.

And it is a big issue for every Texan.

What are your concerns about school vouchers and and the effect that it'll have on public education in this state?

Yeah, I, I, the so the problem is, one, it's very misleading to our communities because certainly the vouchers are not going to be equivalent to the cost of of private school.

Right.

So at the end of the day, the families that arguably using that argument would arguably need the vouchers most still aren't going to have access to schools because they're not going to be able to make up the gap in.

The rural communities.

Probably don't have those kinds of options anyway.

Exactly.

Folks in rural communities don't have don't have access to those schools.

And private schools are application based.

So they're not required to take any given student and they're not required to educate any given student they can hand.

They're not there's no supervision from the state when it comes to private schools.

And those systems of accountability are there to protect students and protect families.

So I think that that argument is very misleading to to Texan, Texan parents and families.

But that being said, I think it really puts a Band-Aid on the broader issue, which is that Texas has historically failed to adequately fund its public schools.

And this has been a really persistent feature of our of our public school system.

The state just refuses to to adequately fund its schools, even though it's required to do so by the by the the state constitution.

And I think the fallback is a lot of what we're seeing now.

We we just released a report with the Texas RFP documenting a massive teacher shortage in this state.

It's it's a real issue because if our students aren't prepared to go to college or career, we're going to we're going to be in a situation where we're wholly and equipped to support our workforce and our economy.

So it's the chickens are coming home to roost and it's it's time to get serious about this issue instead of putting putting Band-Aids and loose fix after lose faith.

Yeah, it's definitely I mean, teachers, the burdens they have and the challenges they're being given right now, it's it's it's a very tough environment.

That's right.

Yeah.

Everyone like to point to teachers as the heroes during the pandemic, but the the corresponding action to respect them as heroes and the leaders and the shape of our of our future adults hasn't really come to fruition.

Well, I'm from the Valley.

And you're parents are from the Valley.

I was in a group in Edinburg.

Your parents, Griffin and Mercedes.

You said they were high school sweethearts.

Yes.

And your mother's a longtime social worker.

Your father ultimately became city manager of San Antonio.

And so I wondered I my understanding is they were also the first members of their families to go to college.

That's right.

So I would think that education was something that they really emphasized.

And I wonder if if public service was something that was instilled in because it seemed like something that at a very young age you were interested in.

Yeah.

So my parents always you know, they had that they were the first in their families to go to college and also the first to go on and receive their masters.

So in a lot of ways, they sort of skipped a whole generation of of poverty.

Education was incredibly important and very much stressed in our home growing up.

But beyond that, they always measured success by what we were doing to help others, to help others come up behind us, to come up with us.

The that was something that was always emphasized in our household and something that they stressed through their example.

So I yeah, I think that stuff, I've always been very service driven, mission driven with my work.

That's very much because of them and also because of our our religious faith.

I was curious because because of your background with public transit, you know, about a decade ago we had this we had a rail project, streetcar project that looked like it was going to happen.

And it took a political opposition group against it eventually that, you know, the plug was pulled on that.

Looking at things now, is that obviously it's not going to.

Nothing like that is on the horizon.

Do you see that as something that could happen down the line?

Or are we just in a situation where maybe it doesn't make sense that there's maybe other options that are that offer more flexibility?

And how do you see rail now versus, you know, maybe ten years ago, everyone or many people were advocating.

I mean, the thing about rail is it's it's so expensive.

And, you know, federal funding hinges largely on who is in the White House.

And so if someone has a different philosophy about funding for public transportation, that's going to be reflected at the federal level and federal funding that's available to fund those types of expensive projects.

The technology also is rapidly evolves.

So a huge investment now could potentially be outdated.

I know you.

Said this just down the line.

I mean, it's it's very true.

And we've seen that play out in other parts of the country.

So I love this approach when it comes to focusing on advanced rapid transit, which is creating dedicated, dedicated lanes.

Right.

And so it's dedicated lanes sort of bus vehicle only.

There might be train like vehicles and maybe even coordinated lights so that they can move even more quickly on major thoroughfares Because that type of technology is adaptable, it's a lot less expensive and a lot more efficient for taxpayers.

And but generally speaking, I think you know, there's a lot more attention around the climate crisis right now.

There's a recognition that those climate issues disproportionately affect low income communities and communities of color.

So there's there's a lot of interest, a lot more now, I think, than previously about how to avoid cars as being the sole source of transportation and how to integrate some of these other methods.

So I'm thrilled.

You know, I'm thrilled.

Obviously, I'm biased, but I'm thrilled that that we're and city and county partners have really laid the foundation for that for our community.

In 2017 when Mayor Norberg was first elected to office he he brought you into the chief of policy in the mayor's office.

What did you learn from that experience.

I so I it was a great it was a sure I was there for his first term.

It was a short period of time.

Just I really learned how important it is to make sure that communities are who are most impacted are brought in at the decision making level.

The mayor was really good about that.

He you know, one of the first things he did when I came on board was to develop a housing policy task force where he had hundreds of San Antonio residents come in to help create a housing policy a comprehensive housing policy for our city.

But I just, you know, I, I, I really realized that entry into city government how important it is to bring in community members who are impacted by decisions that are being made at the front end as opposed to at the end.

And that's something that I've tried to bring in at every Texan and stress at every Texan.

We can't make our own decisions about what Texans need.

We need to make sure that we're bringing their voices in at the front end so that we are confident the recommendations that we're making to the legislature and the policy makers really reflect what Texans want and need.

Lisa, thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you.

That's all for this edition of Texas Talk.

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Until then, take care.