Editor’s Note: The Interview took place in person on 1/6/22.
Garrit: Can you introduce yourself?
George: I’m George Lavender. I live in Texarkana, Texas. I have lived in Texarkana, Texas for 43 years. Before that, I lived in Texarkana, Arkansas for about 22 years. That’s where I grew up, and East Texas is my home. I love it and want to keep it great. It’s just really a good place to live and raise kids and all that. So anyway, I’m a businessman. I’ve been in a lot of different businesses. I have been in the manufacturing business, the restaurant business, and the real estate business. So, I have a lot of different experience in various businesses which gives me a broad idea of how things should be working. I graduated from the University of Arkansas with a BSBA in management way back in the dark ages. I have been married for 43 years. I have three children and eight grandchildren. Life is good. But I originally ran for office because I was mad about different things that they had passed and felt like Texans were being shortchanged. One of the things that I was mad about was the Robin Hood Bill where they take money away from schools and give it to other schools; even though it’s totally unconstitutional, they continue to use that system even today. So, I wanted to try to fix that. When I originally ran, voter ID was not implemented, and my state representative refused to support it. So, I was happy that we were able to get that passed. Now, the reason I’m running again is because our current state representative is one of the main…one of the main issues up here is water. Water is a big deal. We have an abundance of water, and there are people from outside of our area, mainly the Dallas metroplex, that want to take our water. They want to build a new reservoir—Marvin Nichols—that will be spread out over a couple of different counties—Red River, Morris, and maybe a little of Hopkins where Mount Pleasant is. They want to build a reservoir, and it will be on the Sulfur River, which would control the flow of water into our lake: Wright Patman. So, in essence, they would control our water. I think that we should control our water, and so I’m opposed to it. It’s one of the reasons I’m running because our current state representative is working with Dallas to take our water away. So, that is a really bad thing for our area. One of the other reasons I’m running is because property taxes are out of control in Texas, and I’ve been screaming from the rooftops about that at least since the 90’s. When I was a state representative in 2011 and 2013, I actually wrote, as far as I know, the only bill, the first bill to totally eliminate property taxes, and it was a revenue-neutral bill. So, that would mean that all the people that currently get money from property taxes wouldn’t lose money in this deal. They wouldn’t gain any, but they wouldn’t lose any. So, as Texas grows there would be more money like there is now, but the property tax burden would be eliminated— which would make us a fantastic place to live because we don’t have income tax and we wouldn’t have property tax at all. We’d have a sales tax, and it would raise the sales tax but very minimally. So, it was a great deal, and it needs to be done. I want to get that done. What I’ve been saying since the 90’s is that I don’t think it’s right that we have to rent our property from the state. If you don’t pay your property taxes, then the government takes your property. So, that means they own it, and you don’t. So, that’s an important deal, and I think we can get it done. We might have to take it a piece at a time. I tried to do it all in one bite when I was there last time, but I think, maybe, doing residential first and then moving on to industrial and commercial would be the way to do it. I think we’d get it done.
Garrit: So, you’re running in this race against Representative Gary VanDeaver, and this isn’t the first time you’ve gone up against him? So, do you think you’ll beat him this time?
George: Well, yes. I think I can. It’s not going to be easy. I’m doing everything I can. He will have a lot more money than me this time— he had more money than me last time too. The difference this time is we have three people in the race. There’s me, Representative VanDeaver, and there’s Ray Null from Lamar County. I think the goal— I’d love to win outright— is to get into a runoff. If you can get an incumbent into a runoff, they never win. It shows that they don’t have the support. So, whether it’s me or Ray Null, I think we got a good shot at this thing. So, we’ll see how it goes. But yeah, I think we do have a shot. I’ve got great people helping me, and it’s always humbling when people give up their time and their money to help you do something that we all believe in.
Garrit: What has been the reaction to your campaign?
George: It’s been great. I’ve been surprised in some instances of people that support me this time that didn’t support me last time. I think when Representative VanDeaver was a school administrator—he wasn’t a teacher—they ran their campaign through the schools. They convinced teachers that he was going to come in and do all these wonderful things for them. He’s been there eight years now— at the end of his term— and he hasn’t done anything for schools. He hasn’t done anything for teachers. He really hasn’t done anything for retired teachers. All of those groups supported him last time, and I don’t think that’s going to be the case this time— that’s his base. He’s not a conservative. He’s never been a conservative. Although his voting record has become more conservative in the last session because I think he realizes that he’s lost a lot of his base, and he’s trying to make people think he’s an actual conservative. He never has been, but most people know that. I don’t talk to anybody that doesn’t know that he’s at the very best a RINO. One of his largest backers is a big Democrat who has been on the Democratic National Committee and has held fundraisers for Democrat presidents. That’s one of his biggest backers. So, I think he would have run as a Democrat if he thought he could win in this, but he couldn’t. So again, I think that his teacher and school coalition, he’ll still have some of it, has cracked to a great extent and hopefully, we can get the message out and get the teachers to support us this time. I mean, I support public education. All of my kids went to public schools in Texarkana. I went to public schools, my wife did, and a lot of my friends are public school teachers— they’re great people. I support public schools, but I honestly think I did more for them than he has done. So, we’ll see how that goes. But that can make a huge difference in this race.
Garrit: You brought up VanDeaver using the public-school teachers to win. I saw that with my former State Representative Chris Paddie. That’s exactly what he did. He got the school teachers and school administrators on his side. So, how do you convince school teachers to be on your side this time?
George: Well, let’s start with retired school teachers. One of the things that retired school teachers have asked for, for years, is a cost-of-living increase. They want a cost-of-living increase that goes on every year. They are locked out of Social Security because of some stupid law Kay Bailey Hutchison agreed to. So, Texas school teachers can’t get Social Security and Teachers Retirement like they can in most other states. So, even if they work in the private sector, they still can’t get Social Security—which I have never really quite understood why you would pay into something and not be able to get anything out of it. That makes no sense to me. But that’s the deal that they made. So, they want, basically, what Social Security has—which is a cost-of-living increase, depending on inflation and other factors. Right now, we’re in historic inflation times. What the Biden administration has done to our money is crazy. I think the official inflation rate may be 6% or 8%—which is still terrible. But if you count everything, it is probably 20% or 25%. So, I think teachers deserve a cost-of-living increase. I think that’s something that will make a difference to them. As far as active teachers, I think it’s just making them think about the fact that VanDeaver has not done anything for them. That’s what we got to do. Honestly, if we split the teachers, we win. I think we can do that. The people that I’ve talked to so far realize that he’s done nothing for them.
Garrit: You brought up how some people who didn’t support you last time are supporting you this time. How do you think the political climate has changed since the last time that you ran?
George: I think that everything that has gone on nationally plays into what people’s perceptions are locally. People are watching the news, they’re seeing the craziness that’s going on in DC, and they don’t want that here. They want to keep that out. They understand that states matter. They understand that having a legislature that supports their values is very important. I don’t know that anybody really understood that back in 2011 and 2012, but I think they do now. I’ll say that when I was a state representative, I would say “we need to push back on what the federal is doing”, and virtually everyone in the Republican Caucus would go, “you’re right, we need to do that, but we’re not going to because we can’t.” We’ve seen now that we can. I think that’s to [VanDeaver’s] detriment because he’s not going to push back. I think that’s good for me because I think people know that I will push back. I did it when I was there, and I’ll do it again.
Garrit: Going back to the issue of schools. Are you supportive of school choice?
George: I am supportive of school choice, but I think there should be some conditions.
Garrit: Do you have any specific restrictions or requirements of school choice?
George: I think that charter schools need to still have state regulations on them. I don’t think they should be out there doing their own thing, necessarily, as a private school would do. I think a charter school still needs state supervision. That’s basically what I’m saying. We don’t need to just throw money at them and let them do their thing.
Garrit: You also brought up water rights. What can you do as a state rep to protect our water rights?
George: Well, you have to push back. When I was a state representative, we essentially fought Dallas. I was kind of naive when I got elected. I was of the understanding that Dallas needed water. We have a lot of excess water that we run down the river every year. So, I went to the Dallas water companies like North Texas Dallas and Tarrant County water distribution—they’re the ones that supply the water to the metroplex—and I said, “look, we want to work with you. We know you need water. We have a lot of excess water that we can sell, if you would be willing to do that. Plus, we can get you water from Arkansas. So, you don’t have to build the reservoir and destroy our timber industry and people’s lives.” What I found out was that they don’t want to buy the water—they want to own it. That’s the crux of the problem, because we could work this out amicably if they would be willing to buy from us. Which would give us hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure and bring in new industry and jobs. So, as a state representative, I think that’s a conversation we need to restart. I think that we put up a lot of roadblocks to Dallas to the metroplex when I was a state representative. Our current state representative is not going to do that, and he hasn’t done that.
Garrit: What lessons have you learned from the time that you last served to now?
George: I think that when I originally ran, one of the reasons I ran was because I was upset with the way things were going. I felt that if I was on the inside, if I was an elected official, I could help change things where I couldn’t from the outside. I think that’s true. There are things you can do. You can write and kill bills. I think what I’ve learned during this time is that you have to have a representative that has your values. You really need somebody that’s a conservative and believes in free markets and limited government. If you don’t, then it’s very difficult to get them to vote the right way and to do the things that you need. We have to have good representation. I think that’s the main thing.
Garrit: If you do go down there, are you optimistic that you will actually be able to pass conservative legislation?
George: Yeah, I am. When I was there, we had 100 Republicans and 50 Democrats. So, we passed a lot of conservative legislation. But what the problem was that out of those 100 Republicans only about 33 of us were actually conservatives. The other ones were Republicans just because that’s what they were. They didn’t have core conservative values. There was a lot of stuff that they wanted to do that was just insane and not conservative at all. It’s a long process, but if you can get conservative legislation to the floor, then almost every Republican will vote for it. They might not believe in it, but they’ll vote for it if they want to get reelected. So, the key to getting conservative legislation passed is to get it to the floor, and I think we can do that.
Garrit: Would you support Dade Phelan for Speaker of the House?
George: No. When we have a Republican majority, the Speaker should be elected in the Republican caucus. I blame him for the reason we had four sessions to get stuff done. He was not getting the conservative legislation to the floor. I think a prime example of that is where you had to use your biological gender in sports—boys couldn’t say that they feel like a girl today and play on a girls’ sports team, because that’s not fair. That bill finally passed I think in the fourth special session. That should have passed the first 10 days of the first session. We shouldn’t have to wait that long.
Garrit: What do you think about Democrats chairing committees?
George: I have a real problem with that. Committee chairs make a huge difference. The speaker assigns bills to certain committees. For instance, I wrote the open carry bill, and I carried it both sessions I was there, and the Speaker didn’t want it to pass. So, he would assign it to committees where the chairman would not let it get a floor vote. You have to have Chairmen that will let your legislation through. So, you can’t have somebody that’s not a conservative chairing, especially, an important committee like Transportation, Ways and Means, or any of those things. Honestly, I don’t think Democrats should chair committees if they’re not in the majority. They need to win an election if they want to earn that power. Otherwise, they should not be a chair.
Garrit: Are there any committees that you would like to serve on?
George: Well, I was on Transportation and Public Safety. I liked the Transportation Committee because it gave me the ability to help this area. I think I would also like to be on one of the major committees like Ways and Means which is kind of a catch-all for important things in the state. That would be a good committee to be on. If you’re on that committee or if you’re the chair, that’s a big deal. Now, if Dade Phelan is Speaker again, and I don’t vote for him, I will not be a chairman. I would have been a chairman if I’d gone back for a third term—which would have been great because we could have gotten a lot more stuff done. But I can’t vote for him. So, I won’t be a chair if he’s Speaker again.
Garrit: What do you think are some of the big issues facing this district?
George: Well, I think the water issue is one of the big ones. I mean, water is also economic activity. I think we came in second for a steel mill. They were looking for where to locate and we were in the running. We ended up number two, and the number one spot went to Bossier City. The reason it went there is that the Red River is navigable to Bossier, but it doesn’t come to Texarkana. So, they were able to ship their stuff cheaper. But the reason we were number two is because of our availability of water. Water is just so important in so many ways. I think property taxes are big, but I think jobs and industry are also huge. I mean, none of my kids live here, because they can’t make the living that they want to make here. I don’t like that, and I want kids that grew up here to be able to stay here and have great jobs. So, I think water is number one, but jobs and industry are number two.
Garrit: How do we bring jobs to this area?
George: We have 1400 people a day moving to Texas, and we don’t get our share. One of the reasons we don’t is because we don’t have any of the industry. The industry is going to Austin and the Metroplex. I think Austin’s got the new Tesla deal. They’ve got several big new industries down there. I think what we have to do is we have to have everybody in the communities united to talk to the economic development people, which are under the governor’s purview, and say look, “you’ve got to start sending some people up here. You [need] to start sending some industry to our area.” I think they’ll do it because I talked to them about it, and we got some stuff for Lamar County. It’s not just me—don’t put a crown on me. We need to do that for every county. Cass County, Bowie County, Red River County, Lamar County, and Morris County all need industry. We need industry, and I think we can attract it. There’s money right now around in this area that’s trying to get it in, and they need a state representative to help do that.
Garrit: You also brought up property taxes. Of course, if we talk about property taxes then you have to bring up funding for schools. How do you think we could go about that?
George: Well, school funding is interesting, because it is the largest portion of the state budget. I think when I was there, 53% of the state budget went to schools. So, the difficulty that you have is out of your pie, if you’re already spending 53% on education and you’re spending a third of it on health and human services, you’re almost 90% with just schools and health and human services. Then you got public safety at about 5%. So, there’s not a whole lot of extra money there to throw into it. I think the way you do that is you grow the economy, and Texas has done a fantastic job of that. We also need to grow the economy locally. Now, if we can eliminate property taxes, then I think we can get a more equitable share of the money than what we get now. So, I think that’s the way you do it. You got to grow the economy because that’s the only way we’re really going to get more money for schools.
Garrit: What are your thoughts on the heartbeat bill?
George: It is a great bill. Senator Bryan Hughes wrote that and got it passed. I think it’s a great deal. In my first session in 2011, I wrote a bill to eliminate abortion in Texas. I didn’t get it passed, but I think the way that Senator Hughes went about it was great. I think he came up with a way to do it that’s constitutional. It drives me crazy when I see these people talking about the “constitutional right for abortion.” There is no constitutional right to abortion. You can’t find it anywhere in the Constitution. It is not there. Roe vs. Wade is not a law. It was a court ruling. In order to make a law, some legislature has to pass it and either a governor or president has to sign it. Roe vs. Wade was not law and is not constitutional.
Garrit: What do you think about gender modification on children?
George: I think it’s child abuse. I mean, that bill did not pass. That bill did not pass to take doctor’s licenses away from them if they did the gender modification. Honestly, in Texas, how does that bill not pass? How does that bill not pass on the first day? That’s all due to the Speaker. It passed the Senate, and it did not pass the House. He would never let it go to the floor.
Garrit: This also brings up the topic of a fourth special session. Some have called for a fourth special session to address vaccine mandates. Do you support that?
George: Absolutely! Our current state representative does not. We shouldn’t have to go to a fourth special session to do it, because it should have already been done. We need to address vaccine mandates. Vaccine mandates are bad, and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen. The other thing that needs to be addressed is the governor’s ability to basically, unilaterally, make rules in an “emergency.” Governor Abbott was making all of these rules and disregarded totally what the legislature had to say. I don’t think that’s how it’s supposed to be. So, that needs to be addressed too.
Garrit: What are your thoughts on the governor’s race?
George: I think there are some good people running for that seat. I think that Abbott’s going to win. I think he’s got the money and the name recognition. At one point, I thought he would get beat back before he did some conservative things during the session. When he was locking stuff down and everything he would have lost in the Republican primary, but he has recovered from that. I like Don Huffines, Allen West, and Chad [Prather]. I think there are some really solid people running for governor. But I don’t think any of them can overcome the name recognition and the money that Governor Abbott has.
Garrit: How will you take on the establishment?
George: I guess the same way I did before. I didn’t pull any punches with the establishment. I was constantly fighting back against things that they did. It’s tough, because, as I said, most of the Republicans down there are establishment Republicans, and that makes it difficult to change things. I’m a fighter, and I will definitely fight against what we have now.
Garrit: Why should the voters of HD1 vote for you over VanDeaver or Ray Null?
George: I think Ray is a nice guy. I think he’s a conservative, and he would probably be a good state representative. I have nothing bad to say about him. I don’t know him that well, but everything I know about him, he’s an ex-military guy, he seems to be a good guy, and would probably be a good representative. Representative VanDeaver, however, is not a good representative. He does not listen to people. He does not return people’s phone calls. He ignores his constituents and has done that the whole time he’s been in office. I’ve been amazed at how many people come up to me all the time and say, “I needed some help from him, and he just ignored me.” ”I called him, and he wouldn’t call me back.” “I saw him at the grocery store and wanted to ask him a question, and he wouldn’t even look at me.” I hear that all the time. I’ve heard that the whole time. I have so many people call and ask, “can you help me with this?” I try to help them, but it’s more difficult when you’re not in and you don’t have the resources of the office. Honestly, I’m just a regular citizen. Once you’re out of office, you’re persona non grata in a lot of ways. We need a representative that’s going to listen to the constituents and actually respond to their concerns. We don’t have that now.
Garrit: Do you have any final thoughts as we end the interview?
George: Not really. I appreciate you doing this, and I appreciate what you’re doing. I think it’s great. So, keep it up!
Editor’s Note: Check out George Lavender’s website at georgelavender.org.
