詹姆斯·塔拉里科2020年对支持“ defund警察”团体的表态

What James Talarico told a pro-defund the police group in 2020

2026-10-05T10:00:45.153Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/10/05/politics/kfile-talarico-defund-police

In late summer 2020, as protests over the murder of George Floyd spread across the country, Texas Democratic state Rep. James Talarico told a group of young progressive activists that it was “rich” that “defund the police” was considered taboo when Texas had spent decades defunding public schools and health services.

“As an educator, it’s always rich to me that ‘defund the police’ is considered off-limits in our political debate, when defunding health services, defunding public education has been the stated policy of our state government for decades now,” Talarico told activists with Texas Rising, a progressive advocacy group that at the time was explicitly calling for police departments to be defunded and for greater investment in community-based alternatives.

Talarico, who was responding to a question on how to talk to unfamiliar audiences about the idea of investing in communities instead of policing, acknowledged that the “defund” slogan itself was getting a hostile reaction in his swing district, which he noted had not elected a Democrat since he was a child.

“You know, a hashtag like defund the police is getting people all riled up in my community,” Talarico said. But when people are asked whether armed police officers should respond to minor traffic accidents or mental-health crises, Talarico said, “Most people kind of understand that that’s not what we should be using police officers for.”

The previously unreported remarks offer a window into how Talarico approached the fraught “defund the police” debate at the height of the 2020 protests: avoiding endorsing the politically thorny slogan while also arguing that voters could be persuaded to support some of the changes being advocated by activists if they were described in more concrete terms.

Now running for the US Senate, Talarico’s campaign calls it a “flat-out lie” that he ever supported defunding the police and points to his votes for state appropriations bills that increased funding for law enforcement. And in a statement to CNN, Talarico’s campaign reiterated his opposition to defunding police.

“James did not call for and does not support defunding the police, and he strongly supports Texas law enforcement and first responders,” spokesperson JT Ennis said. “That’s why James has voted to send billions of dollars to local law enforcement, in addition to advocating for better-funded mental health resources so that cops don’t have to respond to mental health emergencies that could be handled by a counselor.”

Talarico’s campaign told CNN that his Texas Rising comments were meant to criticize Republicans who attack the phrase “defund the police” while supporting cuts to other public priorities. The campaign said his later comments argued against the phrase itself and instead proposed specific policies that it said did not involve defunding the police.

Talarico’s public record and rhetoric on policing is more nuanced than that categorical denial suggests.

From 2019 through at least 2022, Talarico repeatedly backed arguments and policies associated with the broader movement to rethink policing, including limiting police power, investing more heavily in social services and community-based alternatives, and one time explicitly arguing for spending less on policing and prisons. He also proposed sending “highly trained crisis interventionists” to some emergencies.

Many of those comments came at the height of the “defund the police” movement, when the phrase had no single accepted meaning.

While some activists tied it to abolishing or dramatically reducing traditional policing, others used the slogan to describe redirecting police funding toward mental healthcare, housing, education and other social services. The slogan quickly took on a political life of its own, becoming fodder for Republican attacks against a supposed far-left agenda item supported by Democrats.

In 2020, then-Sen. Kamala Harris, before she was tapped as Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick, praised the movement for forcing a debate over whether large police budgets reflected the right priorities. Others in 2020, such as Abdul El-Sayed, now the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, made a similar case for redirecting police spending toward public services and explicitly embraced the “defund the police” slogan.

Talarico often made arguments that overlapped with Harris’ interpretation, even as he stopped short of explicitly embracing the phrase itself.

In his 2020 call with pro-defund activists, Talarico praised protesters in the Black Lives Matter movement for pushing elected officials to rethink the role of government and policing.

“We always expect protesters to be nonviolent,” he said on his Texas Rising call. “What happens if we expect our government to be nonviolent? What does that question open up in terms of possibility?” He said “the voices in the street, particularly Black and brown voices” were pushing those in power to “expand our moral imagination” and live up to the country’s “stated ideals.”

Now, as his Senate campaign seeks to appeal to a broader electorate, Talarico has moderated his image and said many of his 2020 comments “missed the mark.” He has walked back his support for youth transgender rights and other progressive causes as he faces scandal-plagued Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in a tight race that could help determine which party controls the Senate next year.

Talarico had questioned greater reliance on police even before Floyd’s death.

In 2019, he criticized efforts to increase police presence in schools without comparable investments in mental health professionals, arguing that more officers could contribute to what he called a “culture of violence.”

His rhetoric became more sweeping in the weeks after Floyd’s murder in May 2020.

In a May Facebook exchange, Talarico said he and other lawmakers would “continue to push anti-racist legislation that limits police power,” while promoting healthcare, education and economic justice in communities of color.

In another exchange on the same post, Democratic state Rep. Shawn Thierry called for police to “put down the weapons & kneel alongside Black citizens” and asked when they would be “brought to heel” over what she described as brutality, killings and abuses of police power. Talarico liked the comment and replied, “I couldn’t agree more,” adding that he was committed to work with Thierry “to make the imagery you described a reality.”

That next month, after the release of footage surrounding the death of Javier Ambler II during a 2019 arrest in Williamson County, Texas, Talarico called for replacing the existing policing system.

“Our system of policing is deeply broken,” he said. “We must replace it with something new and something better.”

Talarico’s campaign told CNN, “This quote is taken out of context. It refers to reality TV shows on policing.” Talarico’s campaign also said his Facebook comments were referring to legislation like what later became Javier Ambler’s Law, a bipartisan law sponsored by Talarico that barred Texas law enforcement agencies from contracting with reality television shows.

Asked directly about defunding the police by the local publication Honest Austin in September 2020, Talarico reiterated the same argument his campaign said had been taken out of context, saying, “Our system of policing is deeply broken. We must replace it with something new and something better,” before questioning whether armed officers were needed for every emergency.

“What if we stopped bringing a gun to every emergency?” Talarico said. “What if we called a three-digit number to summon highly trained crisis interventionists to address a problem in our neighborhood? What if we made rehabilitation, reconciliation, and restoration our operating principles?”

“We need to invest in community-based solutions that cure the societal ills that we ask the police to treat: poverty, homelessness, substance abuse, mental health disorders,” Talarico continued. “We must empower our communities, not police them. Only then will we have true public safety.”

Talarico’s campaign told CNN he was arguing for better funding for mental health resources so police don’t have to respond to mental health emergencies that could be handled by a counselor.

The debate was also playing out in real time in Austin, where city leaders approved a budget in August 2020 that cut roughly $150 million from the police department.

Talarico praised Austin’s local leaders during the same period and criticized Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s efforts to punish cities that reduced police funding. He also praised efforts to end what he called the “over-policing” of communities of color, saying police violence against people of color has its roots in slavery and Jim Crow.

Talarico’s campaign told CNN he was “discussing the hypocrisy of the state government trying to tell local governments how to run their municipalities when conservatives are supposed to believe in small government.”

Talarico’s campaign also contributed $2,500 in June 2020 to the Austin Justice Coalition, which was advocating cuts to Austin’s police budget and redirecting money toward social services and to “defund” the police department.

The donation became an issue in his reelection campaign after Republicans accused him of helping to defund police. Talarico dismissed the attack as “fearmongering” and defended the contribution, describing the Austin Justice Coalition as “a well-respected civil rights organization in our community that champions educational equity, economic opportunity, and police reform.”

In 2021, Talarico campaigned against Austin’s Proposition A, which would have required the city to maintain at least two police officers for every 1,000 residents and would have forced the hiring of hundreds of additional officers. Talarico urged voters to defeat the measure, arguing instead that “true public safety” required investment in communities. Austin voters ultimately rejected the proposal by wide margin.

And in 2022, Talarico connected reduced spending on policing and prisons with greater spending on social programs.

“If we took just half of what we spent on wars, prisons, and policing, and spent it on education, healthcare, and jobs, we could make prisons obsolete,” Talarico said at a graduation ceremony for incarcerated students. “Research tells us that expanding Medicaid reduces crime, increasing SNAP benefits reduces crime, education reduces crime, clean air and clean water reduces crime. A less violent government leads to a less violent society.”