Opinion | Former Obama Voter Is a Republican Winner Alongside the Rio Grande

Republican Mayra Flores gained a particular election Tuesday night time to signify a Rio Grande Valley congressional district, flipping the longtime Democratic stronghold and shortly making her the primary congresswoman born in Mexico…

Flores celebrated her win at an Election Night time watch social gathering in San Benito. She is the primary GOP candidate elected to signify this space of the Rio Grande Valley since 1870.

Tuesday’s win will give Flores only a few months in Congress as she completes the rest of U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela’s time period. Vela, a Brownsville Democrat, stepped down from the seat in March to take a job at a lobbying agency, prompting the particular election.

As if the morale of Home Democrats wasn’t low sufficient already, one in every of their former colleagues didn’t even wait till the tip of his time period to maneuver downtown. Maybe he was pondering there could be an excessive amount of competitors from different former Democratic Home members if he waited till December to start out on the lookout for work on Okay Road.

As for Tuesday’s winner, loads of media folks are including the asterisk that Rep.-elect Flores must run once more in November for a brand new full time period and, because of redistricting, will probably be a way more Democratic seat.

However this second continues to be historic and continues to be extra proof of the continuing motion of Hispanic voters in south Texas and elsewhere towards the GOP. Ms. Flores voted for

Barack Obama

in 2008 earlier than discovering a dwelling within the Republican Celebration.

Ms. Harris provides in a separate story printed within the San Antonio Categorical-Information:

Flores, 36, was born in Burgos, Tamaulipas, Mexico. She immigrated to america when she was 6 years previous and have become a citizen at 14. She began working at 13, choosing cotton together with her mother and father within the Panhandle city of Memphis, to pay for her personal college provides and garments.

Now the mom of 4 younger kids and the spouse of a Border Patrol agent, she usually begins her pitch to voters the identical means: Soy el sueño americano. I’m the American dream.

As such, immigration is a deeply private situation. She helps heightened border safety, immigration reform and a authorized path to citizenship.

“If we actually care about immigrants and kids, we wouldn’t need them to cross that harmful river,” Flores mentioned in March. “We wouldn’t need them to return throughout harmful felony organizations. When you actually care about them, we’re going to have to assist them are available by means of the door.”

Right here’s hoping that in a lawful course of that door will likely be opened vast to let in loads of folks trying to stay the dream like Ms. Flores. Talking of immigrants to the U.S., Texas resident Elon Musk tweets:

I voted for Mayra Flores – first time I ever voted Republican.

Large crimson wave in 2022.

“Incomes Elon Musk’s vote was simply the icing on the cake and I can’t wait to work along with his workforce! The American Dream is price combating for,” the winner tweets as we speak by way of her marketing campaign Twitter account.

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The President and the Producers
“Biden tells oil refiners: Produce extra fuel, fewer earnings,” is the headline on an Related Press story as we speak. Excessive earnings usually entice competitors. However good luck looking for the mandatory authorities approvals to compete on this market. How lengthy has it been since anybody constructed a big U.S. refinery? The web site of the U.S. Power Data Administration notes:

The latest refinery in america is the

Targa Sources Corp

oration’s 35,000 barrels per calendar day (b/cd) condensate splitter in Channelview, Texas, which started working in 2019…

Nevertheless, the latest refinery with important downstream unit capability is

Marathon’s

facility in Garyville, Louisiana. That facility got here on-line in 1977 with an preliminary atmospheric distillation unit capability of 200,000 b/cd, and as of January 1, 2021, it had a capability of 578,000 b/cd.

1977! Over the a long time, politicians have ensured that refinery homeowners spend closely on environmental measures, and a few pols have gone to nice lengths to lift consciousness of the difficulty.

“Biden takes his protest to Sunoco,” was the 2002 headline on a Wilmington Information Journal story a couple of senator from Delaware who stood on the sidewalk outdoors a Pennsylvania refinery and demanded pollution-control upgrades.

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Value: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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Comply with James Freeman on Twitter.

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(Teresa Vozzo helps compile Better of the Internet.)