U.S. Senate hopeful Royce West says he’s the Democrat who can beat Texas Sen. John Cornyn

One in a series of campaign trail dispatches about the major contenders for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

RIVERSIDE, Texas — U.S. Senate hopeful Royce West warns fellow Democrats not to nominate a “far left” candidate.

Instead, he says they should choose him, the “most qualified” person in the 12-person scrum seeking the chance next fall to try to unseat three-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

West regularly tells audiences he’s not in the race for ego gratification but out of a sense of duty. After all, he recently told audiences in Walker and Tarrant counties, someone needs to try to extinguish the dumpster fire that is Washington.

As a 26-year state senator, West insisted he has the skills, experience and wisdom that can help Congress fix health care and immigration, improve education, expand voter rights and pass gun control measures.

“It’s time to do it,” the Dallas lawyer-legislator told The 100 Ranchers, a group of African American farmers and ranchers, on a recent Saturday afternoon.

“And if I don’t do it and others don’t do it, then shame on me and my generation,” West said to a crowd at a horse and cattle operation in Riverside, near Lake Livingston in southeast Texas. “If you really want the change, I want to be a change agent for you.”

Free shot at higher office

West, 67, may be taking his last shot at the political big leagues.

He can make a stab at his party’s nomination against Cornyn without giving up his state Senate seat. It’s not on the ballot until 2022.

Seeking the U.S. Senate nomination in a Texas Democratic Party that increasingly skews young and very progressive is a balancing act for sure.

West has tried to sell himself as a reliable political pro who can get things done against tall odds, even amid partisan rancor and gridlock. But he also has reached out to young people, emphasizing his own evolution on issues.

Stressing he’s “always been there” for liberal causes such as voting rights and women’s rights, West noted to his Riverside audience that he’s lately become passionate about gay rights and the environment.

“When we look at issues concerning LGBTQ rights, now, I’ve evolved on that,” he said. A male rancher shouted “amen.” West continued, “Who am I to sit up and say who you can love, OK? You love who you want to love – and that’s a fact.”

West turned to global warming. In his maroon sweater, jeans and cowboy boots, he noted he overdressed.

“This is what, December? It feels like it’s about 80 degrees out here. … So we know that climate change is present,” he said, not elaborating.

‘Open to their positions’

In an interview, West said he’s not pandering to young people and progressive activists.

“It’s not like I’m going to change just to cater to certain people,” he said, though he stressed he’s seeking common ground with staunch liberals, and then will see “where I need to be more open to their positions.”

Ernest Collins, a retired Exxon executive and self-described independent who co-hosted the event, said, “We need leaders that lead and not just follow some ideology.”

At the cookout and an event attended by 150 lawyers at a Fort Worth music venue later in the day, West said he wants to fix problems with the Affordable Care Act, not “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

On guns, he vowed to press for universal background checks and bans on sales of assault-type weapons and high-capacity magazines. On education, he said charter schools have a place but now the problem is “oversaturation.”

West stressed that all of his 11 Democratic colleagues in the state Senate except one have endorsed him, and 47 of the House’s 67 Democrats. (Laredo Sen. Judith Zaffirini doesn’t endorse, a West spokesman explained.) West said he can woo independents and moderate Republicans — and welcomes the “synergy” he said will be created by record numbers of Democrats down ballot.

“A far left Democratic nominee will not be able to win in November,” he said.

An obvious vulnerability is money. As of Sept. 30, West raised about $550,000 – about one-fourth as much as rival Democrat MJ Hegar of Round Rock.

A 2017 law West authored may marginally improve his name recognition. It requires all driver-education courses and defensive driving classes to include training on motorists’ interactions with cops.

For the past year, a state-sponsored, 16-minute video called “Flashing Lights” has been part of the instruction. And for the first two minutes, West speaks directly to camera. It’s been seen by hundreds of thousands of high school students and motorists stopped for speeding.

West, though, said he had no thoughts of a 2020 U.S. Senate bid when he passed the bill.

No conflicts, he says

Recently the Texas Tribune and D Magazine ran stories about, respectively, West’s lucrative legal work on government bond issues and his call for transportation authorities to consider alternatives to a proposal to bring to street level an elevated, 1.4-mile segment of I-345 near downtown Dallas. Removing the freeway would clash with plans by his son, architect Roddrick West, to build soccer fields under I-345.

“He has a right to venture into different things if he wants to,” said the elder West, who said he’s only gotten involved to make sure traffic isn’t slowed down.

As for the Tribune story that described him as wealthy, with lots of local governments as clients, West said he developed a municipal bond practice in the late 1980s and doesn’t “commingle Senate work with public finance work.” It’s not a conflict of interest, he said. He discloses revenues for his entire law firm, West and Associates LLP, he said.

Founded in 1994, it has grown to 10 lawyers in Dallas, Fort Worth and Houston, including his daughter-in-law Bree West and state Rep. Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth, he noted.

West has been married twice and had seven children, one of whom is deceased.

Born in Annapolis, Md., he moved to Dallas as a sixth-grader. His stepfather had Dallas roots, West said. The family lived in housing projects.

Young Royce excelled in sports at Wilmer-Hutchins High, going on to play basketball at Paris Junior College and wide receiver on the football team at the University of Texas at Arlington. He was elected student body president at UT-Arlington.

He then earned a law degree at the University of Houston and spent four years working as a prosecutor in the Dallas County district attorney’s office.

At the Fort Worth event for Democratic judicial candidates, West greeted several women. “You can check my background,” he said.

Registered nurse Charmaine Bailey, 37, of North Richland Hills, told West she’s worried the criminal-justice system is unfair. He described his state Senate work to end racial profiling, with more use of body cameras and dashboard cameras, she recounted.

Bailey, who had never heard of West, said she was impressed.

“It makes me want to check him out,” she said.