11 Democrats disagree on who can defeat Sen. John Cornyn, but all agree marijuana should be legal

AUSTIN — Eleven Democrats seeking their party’s nomination to take on U.S. Sen. John Cornyn clashed Tuesday night over their experience, climate change and health care, but agreed marijuana should be legal.

Hoping to end a 32-year drought in U.S. Senate races, the Democrats cast their life experiences and mostly progressive views as the ticket to exciting Texans this fall.

In a debate that was televised in Austin for only 30 minutes, former congressional candidate MJ Hegar of Round Rock, a Purple Heart winner and former health care company executive, said Texans “are looking for a fresh face.”

As the debate continued for another hour, veteran state Sen. Royce West of Dallas, asked about his 27 years in the Legislature, compared himself to former President Lyndon B. Johnson.

He said he could help craft and pass landmark bills in Washington to improve life for struggling families.

Former gubernatorial candidate Chris Bell of Houston noted that he, like LBJ, once served in the U.S. House and had one unsuccessful statewide race under his belt.

Labor activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez of Austin, touting “the power of us,” noted she’s a “working mom” who can attract young and minority voters to the polls.

In a similar vein but with a more moderate pitch, former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards said the lesson of the 2018 midterms was that Democrats need to attract “persuadable voters, people of color and people under the age of 35.” She added, “I am that candidate.”

Houston-area community organizer Sema Hernandez, who collected 24% of the Senate Democratic primary vote against Beto O’Rourke two years ago, said repeatedly she was probably the only one on the stage to fight for social justice – and to have personally smoked marijuana.

“Hey, let’s do it. Let’s free the weed,” she said of marijuana legalization.

The debate was sponsored by KVUE-TV in Austin, the Texas Tribune and KUT-FM in Austin. It was only broadcast on television and radio in Austin, though sponsors and some other news outlets streamed it on their websites.

Cornyn campaign manager John Jackson quickly dismissed the Democratic field as underwhelming.

“In a race that’s been called ‘sleepy,’ ‘boring’ and a ‘six car pileup,’ it’s no wonder Texas Democrats are tuned out,” he said in a written statement. “With ‘Undecided’ as their leading candidate, we’ll be ready for whichever Bernie Sanders clone limps out of the primary on Memorial Day.”

On climate change and health care, the Democratic Senate hopefuls disagreed.

Tzintzún Ramirez and Hernandez endorsed the Green New Deal, a program for weaning the country off fossil fuels while providing jobs in renewable energy and new infrastructure it would require.

Tzintzún Ramirez compared the effort to mobilization of munitions and industry during World War II.

“With the same level of investment and support in the Green New Deal, we can win this fight, too,” she said.

As he did when the Democrats debated at the Texas AFL-CIO’s COPE convention earlier, Bell criticized the Green New Deal as a threat to too many Texas jobs in the petrochemical industry.

“We need to rejoin the Paris accords,” he said. “We need to transition to alternative forms of energy. And we need green infrastructure.” Speaking of Cornyn, Bell said, “Nothing sickens me more than that we have a senator who’s a climate denier.”

Hegar, West and Edwards also stopped short of endorsing the Green New Deal.

The three instead backed government support of solar, wind and geothermal and embrace of new technologies, ones Hegar said would “take us the way of Netflix instead of taking us the way of Blockbuster, by holding onto this old technology.”

West mentioned a need to retrain fossil-fuel industry workers and subsidize research and development of batteries and other ways to store energy.

Edwards spoke of building new infrastructure, “like high capacity transit options.”

Asked if they supported Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All bill, which would phase out private health insurance, seven of the Democrats said no.

But Tzintzún Ramirez, Hernandez, Houston attorney and small-business owner Annie “Mamá” Garcia, and Beaumont pastor and car dealer Michael Cooper endorsed Sanders’ legislation.

All 11 candidates supported marijuana legalization, and some, such as Tzintzún Ramirez, coupled that with a call for looking at erasing past convictions from people’s records.

Hegar ended with a taunt to Cornyn.

“Pack it up, buttercup because I’m coming for your seat,” she said.

Polls show most of the Texans likely to vote in the Democratic primary don’t know enough about the candidates to state who is their favorite.

As of Dec. 31, while Cornyn had $12.1 million in the bank, only Hegar has as much as $1 million in cash – and she barely cleared the seven-figure threshold.

However, VoteVets, a super PAC that closely tracks the wishes of the Washington-based Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, recently dropped $3.3 million on a pro-Hegar TV buy.

That helped her begin to break away from the pack – in a public poll, for the first time – in a poll conducted by the University of Texas and Texas Tribune between Jan. 31 and Feb. 9.

Also appearing were Flower Mound private equity principal Adrian Ocegueda, Baytown teacher Jack Daniel Foster Jr. and retired U.S. Army Reserve member Victor Hugo Harris of Harlingen.