On The Record: Art Brender

For this episode of On The Record, we speak with Art Brender, the Tarrant County Democratic Party Chair.

How did you get started in politics? Did you come to it in your youth or later on?

The earliest was a wet/dry election in Oak Cliff when I was 8 years old. My dad was one of the few wet voters on the block. I was 21 in 1968, when the war in Vietnam was raging, and I supported Senator Gene McCarthy. My first vote was for Hubert Humphrey who lost to Richard Nixon. After college and a tour in the Navy, I became a Democratic precinct chair, in 1974, and a Democratic national alternate delegate in 1988. I have run for public office three times, and I have been elected as the Democratic County Chair for six terms, since 1996.

What would you say are the primary issues concerning Tarrant County?

Many of same issues we have seen throughout the country. The state and federal government have failed us across the board — tax cuts for the rich, no regulation of big business, complete lack of oversight of student loans, home mortgages and the botched occupation of Iraq. America, the home of the brave and land of the free, has become a world bully, even advocating torture.

I am proposing a $9.00 minimum wage in the State of Texas. It currently costs a family of four over $45,000.00 a year to stay off of welfare. We also need a state assisted universal health insurance as other states are doing. Texas has a larger percentage of working families without health insurance than any other state. If we are going to attract jobs and keep our local government from going broke providing healthcare through county emergency rooms, we need the State to assist employers in providing health insurance.

I want, on a state level, to use the Second Amendment right of our State to keep and control a militia, to bring our state’s militia (The Texas National Guard) home from Iraq.

There should be no more property (tax) breaks for corporations from state or local government without requiring these corporations give priority to purchasing American-made goods. Our jobs are being sent overseas yet, Wal-Mart and other retailers who are given huge tax breaks by local governments.

In Texas, state and local governments can seize your body or your property wrongfully, but are immune from court suits when they do so wrongfully. This needs to end. Texans need to be compensated when the government makes a mistake, whether it is an eminent domain or by false probation or imprisonment.

Do you have any ambition for higher office? Do you have plans to run for any other party office, or possibly even public office?

Right now, I am considering a race for State Senate District 10, but have not decided to do so yet. I have spent almost 12 years as Democratic County Chair, and I hope to have a consensus in the Party as to our candidate for Senate District 10, rather than have an expensive primary.

Who are some of your political heroes?

Very early on it was John F. Kennedy. I was there in Dallas on November 22, 1963, when JFK was assassinated. I remember my parents thought Franklin D. Roosevelt was the best. It took me a while to realize how influential he really was. Senator Gene McCarthy opposed the Vietnam War early and I admired his courage in speaking out at that time. Lyndon B. Johnson deserves much more credit than he gets for passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which did more than any other single piece of legislation, for race and gender equality. Eliminating discrimination on the job as much as ending discrimination in the schools has brought us much closer together as Americans. The job is not finished but we have come a long way.

What one thing would you say a political organization never has enough of?

You could say two things: people and money. Both are needed to communicate. If you have enough volunteers, you can spread your message through them, which can make up for the lack of money. I am starting to see a renewed interest in young people becoming active in political life.

The Democrats have difficult issues to face because we represent working people. The mortgage crisis, jobs going overseas, high gas and utility rates, and lack of health insurance affect our Democrats far more than Republicans. The Republicans have all the political money they want, and they count on it, at times, to convince working people to vote for phony "social issues" which neither party can actually influence, but which distract voters from voting on issues that government can realistically affect.

What has been the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in politics?

Be true to your principles. Many people criticize politicians for changing their posture after they are elected. While compromise is necessary in politics, you cannot violate the principles which got you elected. People have to know what you believe in and where you stand. Democrats have always been tolerant and broad-minded, but practical in the way they want government to work for all citizens and not just for the rich and powerful. The Republicans, on the other hand, are so far to the right, that people are looking at them now and realizing that their "free market" philosophy helps only the very rich at the expense of the lower and middle classes.