It's good to finally see someone from my generational cohort (younger Gen Xers) running for President, and Julian Castro has a pretty good track record as he enters the 2020 contest.
Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio and housing secretary in the Obama administration, on Saturday joined the increasingly crowded field of candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
As Castro, 44, stood in the working-class neighborhood where he grew up, he promised to expand prekindergarten programs, make the first two years of college more affordable, expand Medicare to all Americans, overhaul the criminal justice system and immigration laws, increase the minimum wage and make housing more affordable. If elected, he would be the nation’s first Latino president.
“I’m running for president because it’s time for new leadership. Because it’s time for new energy. And it’s time for a new commitment to make sure that the opportunities that I’ve had are available for every American,” Castro told hundreds of supporters packed into San Antonio’s Plaza Guadalupe.
The announcement was intended to introduce Castro to an audience beyond San Antonio. He arrived at the plaza on the No. 68 city bus, the same one he and his twin brother, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Tex.), rode to school as children. He pointedly noted that “no front-runners” are born in the neighborhood. He told the crowd about the most influential women in his life: his single mother, Rosie Castro, a political activist, and his grandmother, Victoria Castro, who as a 7-year-old orphan immigrated to the United States from Mexico in 1922. He announced his decision in both English and Spanish.
Before Castro took the stage, a mariachi band played and a diverse body of supporters endorsed him. Castro’s announcement was not a surprise. He launched an exploratory committee on Dec. 12 and, the next night, Joaquin Castro confirmed his brother would run for president. Before taking the stage Saturday, Castro tweeted with the hashtag #Julian2020.
Castro grew up on the west side of San Antonio, studied at Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and was elected to the San Antonio City Council when he was just 26. He ran for mayor of San Antonio twice, losing the first time in 2005 and then winning in 2009.
During his announcement speech, Castro spoke at length about how he expanded prekindergarten programs in the city as mayor — an initiative financed by an increase in the sales tax. If elected president, Castro said, he would like to expand access to free prekindergarten to “all children whose parents want it.”
The Brothers Castro, Julian and Joaquin, have been into Texas politics for a while now. Both of them are whip-smart and have great voting records. Expanding Medicare to everyone should be the plan for every Democrat, and I'm glad to see Castro's platform is solid.
When he was Obama's HUD Secretary and a contender for Hillary's Veep, Castro made the right moves in 2016.
Targeted by progressive activists hoping to kill his chances of being Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Julián Castro is set this week to announce changes to a hot-button Housing and Urban Development program to sell bad mortgages on its books.
The changes, which HUD officials will brief stakeholders and activists on during a conference call on Monday, could be made public as early as Tuesday — depending on when department lawyers give the green light to publishing them in the Federal Register.
But they won’t take effect before the next auction of HUD mortgages, scheduled for May 18.
Castro’s actions could potentially defuse an issue that activists have been using to question his progressive credentials — and he’ll be doing it at the moment the running mate search has begun to get serious at Clinton campaign headquarters.
Among the changes, according to people with knowledge of what’s coming: The Federal Housing Authority will put out a new plan requiring investors to offer principal reduction for all occupied loans, start a new requirement that all loan modifications be fixed for at least five years and limit any subsequent increase to 1 percent per year, and create a “walk-away prohibition” to block any purchaser of single-family mortgages from abandoning lower-value properties in the hopes of preventing neighborhood blight.
And of course, all of those positive changes to prevent banks from profiting off of HUD properties were wrecked by Ben Carson and Trump a year later. I said then we'd be seeing more of Castro in the future, and the future is now.
I'm glad to see him in the race. For all the shouting about Beto in Texas, it's Julian Castro who has the credentials. I feel a lot more excited about him than say, Tulsi Gabbard.
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