Background

Gregorio Casar was born to affluent Mexican immigrant parents on May 4, 1989 in Houston, Texas, where his father was employed as a surgeon and pulmonologist.

In 2011 Casar earned a B.A. degree in Political Science and Social Thought from the University of Virginia, where he was a campus organizer with Students & Workers United for a Living Wage, an activist group that called for the university to increase the pay of its employees.

After graduating from the university, Casar took a job as a policy director for the Workers Defense Project, a self-described “member-based organization fighting for better working conditions for low-wage, immigrant workers in Texas.”

In 2015, Casar began a seven-year stint as a member of the City Council in Austin, Texas. In that position, he worked to promote things like expanded affordable housing, paid sick leave for all workers, living wage increases, tenant organizing campaigns, illegal-aliens’ rights, and a “ban the box” initiative for people with criminal records.

Contempt for President Trump

On November 9, 2016 – the day after Donald Trump was elected to his first term as U.S. President – City Council member Casar released a statement articulating his contempt for Trump — particularly Trump’s strong stance against illegal immigration. Said Casar:

“Lots of people, including Donald Trump, are calling for healing and unity today. I won’t call for healing. I’m calling for resistance.

“There is no healing today for the families who fear they will be arrested, deported, and torn apart by Trump. The proliferation of nuclear weapons, the acceleration of the destruction of our planet, the damage to our economy and our jobs, and all of the other horrible things Trump stands for, are not healing.

“Those who believed in civil rights did not call for healing in George Wallace’s Alabama. Where there were calls for unity, they were calls for unity in resistance. We protested, we sang, we marched, we prayed, and we picketed until we won change.

“In Austin and across our country, we must do the same. We’re going to fight back. We’re going to fight back against any and all of Trump’s policies and politics of fear and hate and division in our city. We’re going to take care of one another. We’re not going to stand by and let Donald Trump harm any of our families – any of them….

“I was asked by the Statesman yesterday if I would shake Donald Trump’s hand if he was in Austin. I told them ‘Hell no.’ Frankly, I would not be allowed into the room with Donald Trump, because I would be out in the streets protesting with you. I will be a part of your civil disobedience. I will go to jail with you. No nos moverán.” (Spanish for They will not move us)

Endorsing “The People’s Charter”

In 2020, Casar endorsed “The People’s Charter,” a document released by the Working Families Party shortly before that year’s November elections. Following are some key excerpts in which the Charter laid out its objectives, agendas, and worldview:

• “Repair historic harms and end systemic racism.”
• “Shift resources away from policing, jails and detention centers, endless wars and agencies that separate families. Shift resources into schools, housing, healthcare and jobs, to enable all people – especially Black and brown people, immigrants, and Indigenous people – to thrive.”
• “Respect the sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples and Tribal Nations.”
• “Invest $1 trillion per year for the next ten years to put 15 million people to work immediately — upgrading our broken infrastructure, modernizing and retrofitting millions of homes and buildings, caring for children, seniors and the disabled, protecting and restoring forests and wetlands, creating opportunities for family farmers and rural communities, and revitalizing American manufacturing.”
• “Raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour everywhere.”
• “Make health care free and universal.”
• “Guarantee universal child care, paid family and medical leave and paid sick days, and income support for parents taking care of kids full time.”
• “Provide safe, affordable housing for all. “
• “Guarantee home- and community-based services for everyone, including mental health care.”
• “Cancel student debt, an unfair burden on working and middle-class young adults.”
• “Tax the giant corporations who don’t pay their share, and the wealth of the billionaires.”
• “Create public banks to make needed investments whenever private markets fail to.”
• “Instead of subsidizing and bailing out oil and gas companies, buy them out, to further our transition away from fossil fuels and towards regenerative energy sources, and create green jobs in the process.”
• “Prioritize investments in the poor and working-class communities, especially communities of color, which have historically suffered most from pollution.”

Member of Congress

Casar resigned his Austin City Council seat in November 2021, to launch his 2022 campaign for Texas’ 35th Congressional District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Casar’s candidacy was endorsed by political luminaries like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and by such organizations as the Democratic Socialists of America, the Working Families Party, J Street PAC, Our Revolution, Justice Democrats, Brand New Congress, and the Progressive Democrats of America. Casar defeated Republican Dan McQueen, the former mayor of Corpus Christi, by a margin of 72.6% to 27.4% in the November 2022 general election.

Casar continues to serve in the U.S. House, where he is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. He also belongs to the Austin chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Casar’s Positions on Key Issues

Following is an overview of Casar’s positions on a wide array of key political and social issues.

Abortion

Asserting that “it’s more important than ever before that we make Roe v. Wade the law of the land,” Casar in 2023 was a self-described “proud co-sponsor” of the Women’s Health Protection Act, which stipulated that: “Before fetal viability, governments may not restrict providers from using particular abortion procedures or drugs, offering abortion services via telemedicine, or immediately providing abortion services if delaying risks the patient’s health…. After fetal viability, governments may not restrict providers from performing abortions when necessary to protect a patient’s life and health…. Additionally, states may authorize post-viability abortions in circumstances beyond those that the bill considers necessary. Further, the bill recognizes an individual’s right to interstate travel, including for abortion services.”

In 2023 as well, Casar was a co-sponsor of the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act, which: “requires federal health care programs … to provide coverage for abortion services”; “repeals certain provisions of [Obamacare] that permit states to prohibit coverage of abortion services in plans offered through a health insurance exchange in the state”; and “is not subject to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, which generally prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a generally applicable law.”

Casar also co-sponsored the Protecting Access to Medication Abortion Act of 2023, which sought to require the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “to ensure that patients may receive mifepristone through prescriptions issued via telehealth and filled by mail.”

Moreover, Casar co-sponsored the Abortion is Healthcare Everywhere Act of 2023, which authorized “using certain foreign assistance funds to provide comprehensive reproductive health care services in developing countries.”

China

On January 10, 2022, the House of Representatives voted in favor of creating a “Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party,” in an effort to counter China’s growing international influence. The bill passed by a margin of 365 to 65. The “NO” votes were cast by Casar and 64 of his fellow Democrats.

Criminal Justice Reform

As an Austin City Council member, Casar passed Texas’ first Fair Chance Hiring policy, which required big employers not to include questions about arrests or convictions on their job applications – on the rationale that such questions would have a disproportionately negative effect on the employment prospects of nonwhite applicants.

Casar supports the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was passed by the House of Representatives in 2021, but has since failed to pass in the Senate. As NBC News explains, this legislation would:

• “end certain police techniques, including chokeholds and carotid holds”
• “invest in community programs designed to improve policing and promote equitable new policies”
• “ban no-knock warrants in federal drug cases and … encourage local and state agencies to comply by tying bans to federal funding”
• “end ‘qualified immunity,’ which protects law enforcement officers from most civil lawsuits”
• “make it easier to prosecute police officers accused of misconduct by lowering the legal standard from willfulness to recklessness”
• “prohibit racial, religious and discriminatory profiling by law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels and mandate training against such discriminatory profiling”
• “create a national police misconduct registry to prevent police officers who are fired or pushed out for bad performance from being hired by other agencies”
• “address police militarization by limiting how much military-grade equipment is awarded to state and local law enforcement agencies”
• “enhance ‘pattern and practice’ investigations of police departments by granting the Justice Department subpoena power and establishing grant programs for state attorneys general to conduct their own probes”

Casar was a co-sponsor of the Federal Death Penalty Abolition Act of 2023, which sought to “prohibit[t] the imposition of a death penalty sentence for a violation of federal law”; “eliminat[e] statutory authority for the death penalty as a sentencing option for federal offenses”; and require anyone “who was sentenced to death before enactment of this bill to be resentenced.”

Casar is in favor of legalizing marijuana, expunging people’s records of past marijuana-related arrests and convictions, and increasing funding for mental health and substance-use services.

Casar has likened leftwing supporters of the Defund-the-Police movement to the civil-rights icon Martin Luther King Jr.: “MLK was not popular when he did his activist work,” Casar told the Texas Tribune on April 12, 2022. “And his goal was not to get more Democrats elected. His goal was to transform American society, both short term and long term. Same thing—really important for the biggest protest movement, probably in American history, or at least the biggest one in my lifetime since the civil rights movement, to stand up and say, ‘We need change to have a more just society,’ especially for black folks and folks of color.”

Discrimination

Casar is a supporter of the Equality Act, which:

• “expands Title II and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit public accommodations and federally funded programs, respectively, from discriminating based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity”;
• “expands Title IV (desegregation of public schools) and Title VII (employment discrimination) to specifically include sexual orientation and gender identity”;
• “expands the Fair Housing Act (discrimination in public and private housing) to include sexual orientation and gender identity”; and
• “prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity by creditors and with respect to jury selection.”

He also supported the 2023 Trans Bill of Rights, which aimed to “guarante[e] certain rights for transgender and nonbinary people with respect to public services and accommodations, employment, housing, health care, and other specified areas.”

Filibuster

When Democrats controlled the U.S. Senate in 2023, Casar was in favor of “ending” what he called “the Jim Crow-era filibuster” rule – i.e., the requirement that any proposed legislation must garner 60 Senate votes as a prerequisite to ending unlimited debate and bringing the bill to a simple majority vote. Such a move would have enabled the Democrats to pass all manner of radical measures, even with the razor-thin majority that they held. By Casar’s telling, “our democracy” could then “work for everyday people, not just the powerful and rich.”

Gun Violence

Aiming to make the sale or ownership of all “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines” illegal, Casar was a proud co-sponsor of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2023, which sought to “mak[e] it a crime to knowingly import, sell, manufacture, transfer, or possess a semiautomatic assault weapon (SAW) or large capacity ammunition feeding device (LCAFD).”

Casar also supported the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2023, which “prohibits a firearm transfer between private parties unless a licensed gun dealer, manufacturer, or importer first takes possession of the firearm to conduct a background check.”

And he is in favor of repealing the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 federal law that shields firearm and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, and sellers from most civil lawsuits related to the unlawful use of their products.

Health Care

Casar supports Medicare for All – i.e., a single-payer, government-run, national health insurance program that would provide universal, comprehensive coverage, free at the point of service.

Immigrant Rights

Casar believes that “all families,” including those with illegal-alien members, “deserve to live dignified lives free from fear of being separated, deported, or discriminated against.”

In 2023 Casar was a co-leader of the New Way Forward Act, which:

• stipulates that “the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may not enter into or extend any contract with any for-profit entity to own or operate a detention facility”;
• bars DHS officers from “interrogat[ing] an individual as to immigration status based on factors such as the individual’s race, religion, or spoken language”;
• “removes mandatory detention requirements for certain individuals, such as asylum seekers with a credible fear of persecution”;
• “repeals criminal penalties for improper entry or reentry into the United States”;
• “removes certain crime-related grounds of inadmissibility and deportability”; and
• prohibits state or local officers “from performing certain immigration enforcement functions.”

Casar also supports the American Dream and Promise Act, which was introduced in June 2023 to create a pathway to citizenship for DACA [Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals] recipients. This Act stipulated that:

• “The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the Department of Justice (DOJ) shall provide conditional permanent resident status for 10 years to a qualifying individual who entered the United States as a minor and (1) is deportable or inadmissible, (2) has deferred enforced departure (DED) status or temporary protected status (TPS), or (3) is the child of certain classes of nonimmigrants.”
• “DHS shall remove the conditions placed on permanent resident status granted under this bill if the alien applies and meets certain requirements, such as completing certain programs at an educational institution, serving in the military, or being employed.”
• “DHS may not use information from applications filed under this bill or for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status for immigration enforcement purposes.”
• “This bill also repeals a restriction that bars a state from providing higher education benefits to undocumented individuals unless those benefits are available to all U.S. nationals without regard to residency in the state.”

Casar supports the American Families United Act — a bill that, if passed, would authorize immigration judges and officials to weigh the impact that family separation would have on a U.S. citizen if their illegal-alien spouse or child were to be denied a visa or be deported.

Casar is also a backer of the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act of 2023, which “provides for various requirements and procedures related to immigration-related detention, including (1) prohibiting DHS from detaining children, (2) imposing a presumption that a detained individual should be released, and (3) establishing that individuals in custody shall be subject to the least restrictive conditions.” The bill also “abolishes mandatory detention for asylum seekers.”

And Casar supports the New Deal for New Americans Act of 2023, which:

• “establishes the National Office of New Americans to (1) welcome and support immigrants, (2) promote and support immigrant integration, and (3) promote the pursuit of U.S. citizenship among immigrants”;
• “establishes grant programs for eligible entities that provide (1) legal services for immigrants, (2) English language education that focuses on integrating students into society, and (3) workforce development training that supports the economic integration of immigrants”;
• “requires the Department of Homeland Security to … waive or reduce certain immigration-related fees for low-income individuals”;
• “waives the English proficiency requirement for the naturalization of certain lawful permanent residents”;
• “repeals the public charge ground for deportation”;
• “requires states to provide for automatic voter registration to qualifying new citizens unless that individual declines”; and
• “sets a floor of 125,000 to the maximum number of refugees who may be admitted into the United States each year.”

Iran

On June 21-22, 2025, the Trump administration carried out “Operation Midnight Hammer,” a series of precision airstrikes targeting three major Iranian nuclear weaponry sites—Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan. The attacks utilized more than 125 U.S. aircraft, including seven B‑2 bombers carrying 14 Bunker-Buster bombs (GBU‑57/MOP), as well as Tomahawk missiles and precision-guided munitions. After the strikes had been completed, President Trump issued a statement wherein he said: “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”

Characterizing Trump’s airstrikes as “illegal,” Casar said: “Congress should immediately pass a War Powers Resolution to block Trump from carrying out an unconstitutional war. My entire adult life, politicians have promised that new wars in the Middle East would be quick and easy. Then they sent other people’s children to fight and die endlessly. Enough.”

Israel & the Jews

In a December 2021 interview, Casar stated that his own views on Israel aligned with those of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, who has articulated the key elements of his perspective as follows:

• “Israel has done nothing in recent years to give hope for a peaceful settlement — maintaining the blockade of Gaza, deepening the daily humiliations of occupation in the West Bank, and largely ignoring the horrendous living conditions facing Palestinians.”
• “[W]e must demand an immediate end to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing, which is causing an enormous number of civilian casualties and is in violation of international law.”
• “If long-suffering Palestinians are ever going to have a chance at self-determination and a decent standard of living, there must be no long-term Israeli re-occupation and blockade of Gaza.”
• “Israel must … commit to end the killings of Palestinians in the West Bank and freeze settlements there as a first step toward permanently ending the occupation.”
• “[I]f Palestinians are to have any hope for a decent future, there must be a commitment to broad peace talks to advance a two-state solution.”
• “The United States must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship and that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law and our own sense of decency.”

In that same December 2021 interview, Casar said: “I believe that the [Israeli] occupation needs to end as soon as possible and of course should have ended a long time ago, and I stand in solidarity with those [Palestinian] people who have had their rights trampled upon and want to see liberation of all folks there, and for people to have self-determination and autonomy.” “U.S. aid should not go toward doing things that are illegal or wrong,” he added.

In a January 9, 2022 letter to a Texas rabbi named Alan Freedman, Casar drew a moral equivalence between the Israelis and Palestinians. While expressing his support for American military assistance to the Jewish state and his opposition to the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement, the congressman added: “I also believe in the right of the Palestinian people to live in peace, security, and democracy” by way of a “two state solution.” “To achieve such a solution,” he explained, “we cannot ignore the economic and power imbalance faced by the poorest Palestinians. The humanitarian crisis in Gaza and indefinite occupation in the West Bank are untenable for Israelis, Palestinians, and our collective conscience.” The “plight” and “suffering” of Palestinians, Casar elaborated, was rooted in the “poverty and injustice” to which Israel had long been subjecting them.

At daybreak on October 7, 2023, the Islamic terror group Hamas carried out a massive, multi-front, surprise attack against Israel, firing thousands of rockets from Gaza into the Jewish state, while dozens of Hamas fighters simultaneously infiltrated the Israeli border in a number of locations by air, land and sea. The attack, which killed more than 1,200 people and injured at least 4,500 others, prompted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to launch an invasion of the Gaza Strip with the explicit aim of destroying Hamas and its leadership once and for all. On October 13, Casar again demonstrated his devotion to the doctrine of moral equivalence when he wrote on Facebook: “Hamas must be stopped, Israeli and American hostages must be returned, AND Palestinians must be protected. Mass death of civilians in Gaza is unacceptable. We must urge Israel and all nations to protect innocent life. We cannot respond to Hamas’ war crimes with war crimes.”

On October 17, 2023, Casar joined fellow House Democrats Pramila Jayapal, Barbara Lee, James McGovern, Joaquin Castro, Veronica Escobar, and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia in releasing a statement calling for an immediate ceasefire in Israel and Gaza:

“We remain outraged by the horrific terror attacks carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians. We are also deeply alarmed by the rising civilian death toll in both Israel and Gaza, including nearly 1,400 Israelis and 3,000 Palestinians. This is a moment that calls for moral and strategic clarity. That is why we believe that the United States must help achieve an immediate ceasefire, or at minimum, a temporary cessation of all hostilities that stops the threats to civilians in Israel and Gaza.

“Let us be clear: our call for a ceasefire should not be mistaken as a lack of support for the protection of the people of Israel. To the contrary, it is because of our dedication to the safety of both Israelis and Palestinians that we seek a path forward without further escalating the toll of civilian dead and injured.

“A cessation of hostilities will allow for the negotiation of the immediate and safe return of all hostages, including Americans, and the delivery of essential humanitarian aid under international auspices. Hamas can and must be stopped and the security of Israel must be guaranteed without the killing of thousands more Palestinian and Israeli civilians. There is a different path. In this devastating time, the United States must lead the way forward.”

On October 20, 2023, Casar signed on to a “Ceasefire Now Resolution” exhorting the Biden White House to push for a cessation of hostilities in Gaza. Other signatories included Representatives Cori Bush, Rashida Tlaib, Andre Carson, Summer Lee, Delia Ramirez, Jamaal Bowman, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, Jonathan Jackson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Nydia Velazquez, Pramila Jayapal, and Maxwell Frost.

In the weeks and months that followed, Casar continued to denounce Israel’s military efforts to degrade and destroy Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and to misrepresent those efforts as “indiscriminate” and excessive. Some examples:

• “[So] many people are dying and being killed in Gaza…. [T]he idea of continued and indefinite war, and continued and indefinite occupation, is something that doesn’t actually provide real safety to us…. We can see that it’s not targeted operations to stop Hamas.” (November 12, 2023)
• “The killing of so many innocent people in Gaza and across the Middle East is horrific, and unacceptable, and terrifying, and we know it has to stop.” (April 17, 2024)
• “We cannot have continued indiscriminate killing of innocent Palestinians.” (April 29, 2024)

On April 20, 2024, Casar voted against H.R. 8034, the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, which earmarked U.S. funds for a variety of Israeli missile-defense systems such as the Iron Dome, David’s Sling, and the Iron Beam. Casar and fellow Squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were among 19 Democrats who released a statement asserting that the expenditures advocated by the bill “could result in more killings of civilians in Rafah [Hamas’ last remaining stronghold in Gaza] and elsewhere,” and claiming that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared willing to “expand this conflict” while “inflicting extraordinary suffering on the people of Gaza” – simply in order “to preserve his power.”

Also in April 2024, Casar, according to a report in the Hawaii Tribune Herald, “went to the University of Texas to show solidarity with [student] demonstrators” who were protesting Israel’s continuing military initiatives against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and he “link[ed] their activism to that of students who [had] opposed the Vietnam and Iraq wars” in decades past.

Racial Justice

Casar supported the Resolution Urging the Establishment of a United States Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation, which: (a) “affirms, more than 400 years after the arrival of the first slave ship, that the United States owes a debt of remembrance to those who lived through slavery or other historical injustices against people of color, as well as to their descendants”; and (b) “urges the establishment of a U.S. Commission on Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation.”

Socialism

In January 2023, Casar was one of 86 Democrats who voted against a Republican House Resolution titled “Denouncing the horrors of socialism,” whose text read, in part, as follows:

“Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;

“Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;

“Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro; […]

“Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual, to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed: Now, therefore, be it

“Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.”

Supreme Court

Casar advocates “expanding” the U.S. Supreme Court – i.e., increasing the number of Justices from 9 to perhaps 13 or 15 — with all the additions being activists who could be counted upon to rule in favor of Democrat agenda items.

Voting Rights

In 2023 Casar was a proud co-sponsor of the Freedom to Vote Act, which aimed to: (a) permit “automatic and same-day registration” of voters; (b) expand vote-by-mail and early voting; (c) make it more difficult to purge the names of ineligible voters from voter rolls; and (d) allow convicted felons to vote in federal elections if they had completed their criminal sentences.

Casar’s “Thirst Strike”

On the morning of July 25, 2023, Casar stood in front of the U.S Capitol building in Washington to announce that within the ensuing few minutes, he would be initiating a “thirst strike” to protest a new Texas law — House Bill 2127 — that, by his telling, prohibited construction workers from taking water breaks when they needed to. Addressing members of the press, the congressman said: “This month, in the hottest month in Texas history, and in many of our cities on July 4th it was the hottest day in recorded world history, supposed leaders entrusted by us to do about right by us, like [Republican] Governor Greg Abbott, stripped workers’ right to a water break. He does that because it is Big corporate interest’s top priority, and so it is his priority…. I know there’s people out there working in 110 degrees today, and my sense is it’s my job to come out here and do my job, which is to advocate for change…. Greg Abbott’s law outlawing water breaks, his law which says that workers cannot have water, is an atrocity.”

During the course of his thirst strike that day, Casar was periodically joined on the steps of the Capitol by other Democrat lawmakers as well as labor union members and political activists. Many of them held up posters bearing slogans like: “Working shouldn’t be a death sentence,” “Water breaks = basic rights,” and “People over profit.”

But in fact, Casar’s characterization of HB 2127 was a completely fabricated lie. The law did not even mention the issue of water breaks. Nor did it prevent employers from instituting whatever water-break policies they might wish to have. Rather, the sponsors and supporters of the statute were merely attempting to address the fact that different localities across Texas often had their own unique policies and regulations regarding matters like labor practices, agriculture, natural resources, and finance. Many employers — particularly those whose business activities sometimes entailed the crossing of city and county lines — had been lodging complaints about an ever-increasing number of local rules that conflicted with rules in other locales. As the Texas Tribune put it: “The bill’s backers argue it’s needed to combat what they call a growing patchwork of local regulations that make it difficult for business owners to operate and harm the state’s economy.” State Rep. Dustin Burrows explained further: “We want those small-business owners creating new jobs and providing for their families, not trying to navigate a byzantine array of local regulations that twist and turn every time” they cross city limits.

To eliminate the aforementioned inconsistencies, HB 2127 barred cities and counties from passing any new regulations — or continuing to enforce any old ones — that in any way went further than state law. Toward that end, the bill eliminated a host of local mandates about which Texas state law was silent. Among those local mandates were regulations in the cities of Austin and Dallas that had explicitly required regular water breaks for construction workers — requirements that were not part of, and therefore went beyond, state law. But of course this did not mean that water breaks would no longer be permitted, or that employers would now, for some reason, suddenly be inclined to inflict needless suffering upon their thirsty construction workers. Conservative podcaster Matt Walsh summed up how Casar and his fellow Democrats had concocted the absurd notion that HB 2127 amounted to “an atrocity” that maliciously “outlawed” water breaks for exhausted, dehydrated laborers: “Democrats simply went looking for the most outrageous possible hypothetical consequence of this action by Abbott [who signed the bill into law], and they came up with this idea that it might mean that construction workers can’t drink water. But of course this law by no means prevents anyone from taking a water break…. There is no evidence that any construction worker in the state, anywhere, will now be forced to go without water. This is completely made up.”

Casar’s thirst strike lasted for less than 9 hours. When it was over, he used social media to post a photo of himself being attended to by three people who checked his pulse and placed an ice pack on his neck.