The End of an Era: A Reflection with Beto O’Rourke

Words and Photos By Tanya Flores

Described as one of El Paso’s youngest and most forward-looking thinkers, Beto O’Rourke has played a pivotal role in local politics since 2005. As the City Representative of District 8, O’Rourke made waves with each new debate and even became our municipality’s go-to guy on a major national and international issue: the legalization of marijuana.

From the 10th floor of El Paso City Hall, we have a birds-eye view of southern downtown El Paso, the stark brown peaks of the Juarez Mountains, and the maze-like streets of Ciudad Juarez. Looking down we can also see where I-10 splits two worlds apart yet it’s quiet and peaceful up here.

Beto O’Rourke invited us in for a one-on-one chat on what prompted him to run for City Council, how he dealt with the veto of his “open debate for legalization” resolution, and to give us his take on how El Paso is dealing with being less than half-a-mile away from a violent drug war.

The Stanton Magazine: Thank-you for sitting with us, can you give us a short story on why you originally ran for City Council?

Beto O’Rourke: I first ran for office about six years ago in 2005. I won a two-year term that year and in 2007 I won again, this time for a four-year term. Growing up, my dad (former El Paso County Judge, Pat O’Rourke) was in politics and I’ve been around politics my whole life. I was always very much aware of what was going on in the city, but not only that, I believe my parents developed a strong passion for El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and southern New Mexico within us.

I grew up almost with an obsession with El Paso. I think more than anything else I wanted to be a part of what was happening in the community and I wanted to have a leadership position. At the time, I wasn’t really running against anything or for any specific project or issue, I was just really excited about El Paso. I am very interested in two policy areas here: transportation–how you get around in this city, and land development–the kinds of neighborhoods you end up developing and re-developing here. I think those are some of the issues I became very interested in, but the nature of this job is that you have react to a lot of things and prepare yourself for what is coming forward and try to make the best decisions you can.

TSM: For a while, you and other city council members were at the forefront of opening a debate on the legalization of marijuana and other narcotics, when that resolution was vetoed by the mayor and didn’t pass, how did that make you feel?

O’Rourke: First off, I think it’s important to say that given the fact that we truly think of ourselves as one community, Juarez and El Paso, I think what we were trying to do when we started talking about the drug war was to try to think about ways to try to solve the problem that our community is facing, which is that fact that thousands of our fellow citizens are dying every year. That is where this (open debate resolution) came out of and some people wanted to dismiss it as “Mexico and their corrupt society, they don’t value life like we do,” but I think a lot of people know that isn’t the case, there is nothing unique about Mexico that makes people want to kill each other. There are circumstances and inputs to the problem that they’re dealing with that are unique, and so thinking about that and realizing that is one of the inputs. We [City Council] said back in January of 2009, “why don’t we talk about everything we can do to end this problem including making drugs legal.” It wasn’t that we should make them legal but let’s at least talk about it, and I have since reached the conclusion that we definitely should at least make marijuana legal. What was interesting was that as I proposed it, the motion passed unanimously in City Council, and the mayor ended up vetoing it, so we were going to override that veto until we received pressure from the congressman to change our position that some of us, and it was enough of us, conceded and lost our ability to override the veto.

That was the long way of explaining it.

While I was disappointed that it didn’t ultimately pass, I was very impressed with the fact that, at least initially, it was unanimously approved by the City Council and what was somewhat surprising to me, was that a majority of El Pasoans that I spoke with were very positive and supportive. They may have not agreed with legalizing marijuana and drugs, however they told me, “I really appreciate that you brought this up and you’re talking about it and you’re not just wanting to do more of the same.”

By and large, people were supportive, including those who said “yes, it’s very clear that we need to make marijuana legal.” I found out that when we as public servants treat our constituents as adults and have grown-up conversations about issues that are difficult like this one, they respond very well. They may not agree, but I think they appreciate the fact that you respect their intelligence enough to be able to talk with them at this level versus “drugs are bad, cartels are bad and were going to keep with this plan that hasn’t worked in 40 years.”

TSM: How do you modify the mentality for change?

O’Rourke: When someone will say to me “I don’t want my doctor operating on me while he’s high,” or “I don’t want my airplane pilot flying me while he’s stoned,” I’ll say “yes, me too, I also don’t want those people doing those jobs while drunk or under the influence.” So, it comes back to the same idea where we should treat people like responsible adults who are accountable for their actions, and not try to regulate or legislate what people can or cannot do. When you start to do that, you start to push people into the underground or criminal world that otherwise would not be in, which is very similar to the world that existed let’s say in Chicago in the 1920’s and 1930’s under prohibition. I think educating people and allowing people the comfort to be able to speak about it is a good way. When someone from El Paso City Council or a leading businessman sits in a crowd of his peers and talks about it intelligently, people will feel comfortable in admitting that “hey, I agree this isn’t going anywhere.” So my goal is to certainly continue doing this in El Paso, but what I really think is more important is that we have this conversation nationally. That was what we were trying to do, and in some degree, we succeeded.

TSM: Will you be writing a book soon?

O’Rourke: Maybe, I’m working on it with a colleague on City Council, Susie Byrd. What we wanted to do, along with others on Council, is address the fact that we’ve been answering questions off-and-on for the last couple of years dealing with these major issues in Juarez and we thought, “What if we could write this out in a book and show our argument for why our current policies lead to the kind of brutality that we see in Juarez and in the U.S? Here’s our suggestion for how you change those policies followed up with the research and the logic.” We’ve been working on the book for a few months and hopefully it’s useful and helpful for our argument.

TSM: Any future endeavors after your career on City Council?

O’Rourke: Some part of me has thought about running for Congress, in part because I’m very interested in U.S. relationships with Mexico and what it means for cities like El Paso and Juarez. At the same time, I’m not so certain that now is the right time. It’s something that I have to make sure is OK with my wife and my family.  For now, I’m just going back to work. I want to be involved civically, whether it’d be speaking on issues that I think are important or helping people that are running for office, or maybe even running for office again myself someday. In some way, I definitely want to be involved in public life in El Paso.

City Representative for District 8 Beto O’Rourke’s current term will end June 1, 2011.