Moving Forward: Young Blood Republican For Texas With Jacorion Randle

 

In many ways, local politics impacts people much more than federal politics does. In recognition of that fact, Texas District 22 hopeful, Jacorion Randle has a list of things on his mind in his bid to move the state forward as he runs for election to the Texas House of Representatives. A firm Republican and staunch Trump supporter, Jacorion recognizes the president’s legacy in the state, particularly in the oil and gas industry. Still in his twenties, he is generations younger than his opponent, the Democrat incumbent, Joe Deshotel. In this conversation with Jason Byrd, he enumerates the things Texas has to do in order to move forward – things that he vows to take on should he succeed in his candidacy.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Moving Forward: Young Blood Republican For Texas With Jacorion Randle

Welcome to the show. I appreciate you being here.

Jason, I’m glad for the invitation.

We’re trying to have a little fun at least a little for people locally to get to know you, Jacorion Randle. We met years or so ago. He seemed like a nice young man. You’re out here in the community trying to try to make it a better place. I can respect that. I wanted to have you on and we’ve been putting this off a little bit. Everything has been a little crazy here as it has been everywhere.

With that COVID-19, of course.

We finally got it on the books and we’re here. We’re rocking, good to go, and we’ll see what happens. Not everything is going so smoothly. We were joking about that before we got on. For instance, a lot of things are getting canceled. It’s safe here. It’s just me and you. Everybody else has gone.

It’s been taking a toll on businesses and people’s livelihoods to Coronavirus. It’s been quite a little crazy months.

I can say, at least from the legal standpoint for my business, I’m in primarily litigation and the backstop to all litigation is jury trial. Very few overall cases get trapped. Depending on the type of case, it may be more likely but 5% or less go to the trial. It’s having that trial that allows it not to go. It’s that leverage of if we can’t resolve this, this is where we’re going to go. Under the Texas Supreme Court’s orders right now, that’ll be nothing else changes and no civil jury trials in the State of Texas which is big deal. In the past, I’ve experienced some of that, but it’s been shorter periods of time. It’s been 30 days in Jefferson County and 30 days in Fort Bend County as a result of a hurricane.

It’s understandable, of course.

Yes, but this has been no jury, civil jury, trials in the country, not just the state. What effect that has, I don’t know. Another effect it had for us is some initial slow down. Things are working, no leverage point of the jury trial. That’s a bit frustrating, but we fight through it. We’re resilient here. Whether I want to be resilient or not, I’ve got to be. You’d agree that we got be resilient.

You have to be resilient. I read a story that Madison’s have to close again their restaurant and their bar. They don’t know if they’re going to go out of business or not. There are a lot of businesses who has that same fear. Business owners have that same fear. They’re not these big corporations, these are small mom-and-pop shops. It’s a family-owned restaurant and stores who has been closed, these bars and restaurants by Greg Abbott. It’s a matter of time if they’re going to have to fire all their employees or go out of business. It’s a destruction of their livelihoods. I wish we approached it better. I don’t want to say the wrong word, but with an intellectual outlook on the whole situation especially when it comes to balancing the public health with an economic standpoint of it.

That’s some of the ballots that at least the governor professed that he tried to strike. I know a lot of people have knocked him for shutting down effectively for 30 days and then open it back up too fast. I don’t know the right answer. What do you think about that?

I don’t believe that the Coronavirus spike has to do with us opening back up way too early. I don’t know that you could say if it was way too early. Is there a candidate that have affected the Coronavirus cases? Of course, but do I believe that it has the full impact of the Coronavirus as what we are seeing now in the State of Texas? No. Before, we had to spike in the Coronavirus cases in the State of Texas, we’ve seen massive protests. We see about 60,000 people in Houston and in Dallas. They had protesting all over the state, which I’m all for peaceful protest. That’s their first amendment. Were there any safety precautions and protesting? No. You didn’t see that many people wearing masks, gloves, or social distancing.

A lot of pictures I saw and a lot of people with masks but I wasn’t out there looking for pictures of people in protests.

The whole thing to it is that they had to practice their first amendment right which I respect and I love, especially because it was for a good cause. George Floyd was killed by a police officer and he had his knee on the guy’s neck for almost nine minutes. To me, I believe that’s the most ridiculous thing that any human being can do to another human being. It was terrible in my opinion. I do grant that the spike in the Coronavirus is due to the massive protest that was seen in Houston, Dallas, other places around Texas, and the United States. I could be right or wrong on this, but it also has to do with the increase in testing in the United States. We test more people in the United States than in any other country. The stats I read last time was 17 per 1,000 people that would test. Japan is right behind us with 12 to 15.

You think we test more than any country in gross volume or you mean by per capita? What I’ve read is that we were high per capita, but not on the highest testing and I understand that. If we test more people, we’re going to reflect higher numbers. What about situations in which a test is not transmitting the Coronavirus? The test is recognizing that it’s transmission and its infection on a person. If we could test 330 million people a year ago, how many would have tested positive for Coronavirus? Testing doesn’t cause the virus. I don’t know the numbers. I don’t have a producer here, so I’m not going to argue about the numbers. All I do know is there has been an increase. I’ve tried to talk to people and it becomes politicized, which I find particularly unfortunate. I don’t think something like health and well-being, especially as something new necessarily needs to be political.

 

It’s damn sure has gone there because there are reasonable approaches that we can take to it. We don’t live in an agrarian society anymore, very little of our country does. Even 120 years ago say 1900, it’s a bit different story. You and I may have little cattle. We’re all definitely going to have a garden in other ways to provide food. There are times where we could stay in our own land, property, home, and very little would change. We may not go into town once or two months but we can make it and we’re okay. That’s not the society in which we live in now, rightly or wrongly. I don’t know that it’s possible to have that type of society based on the demographics of the country and in the technological advances, and what things we got to do to make a living to pay bills. I’m not mad, but it’s one of these things. That’s part of the inherent problem. We had a shutdown, but we didn’t have a shutdown. We had some people shutdown. You can’t shut down the grocery store. They didn’t hardware stores. You can go through a laundry list of things.

It didn’t shut down restaurants 100%. If they scaled the business operations of restaurants back 50%, no dining in and still have some restaurants who aren’t allowing dine-ins. Not in Jefferson County, but if you go to Houston, I want a load of seafood but I cannot dine-in. I had to get my food to go. I love that place and I’d rather eat it while being there. We have seen the business operations of restaurants scaled back by 50%.

It’s probably bigger than that. I don’t think you can take out even when you can’t dine-in. Any of the restaurant owners I’ve talked to have approach anywhere near a level of 50% of their past business, they don’t make money off of takeout. They don’t make money off the food. They make money off of you being there. You buy the alcohol, tip in the servers, buy desserts, appetizers, things that you aren’t going to do when you take-out.

I believe that it’s all correct. Talking to restaurant owners, I know a few around the area. I wouldn’t say all restaurants because you have the fast-food restaurants which I’m sure they weren’t hurt as bad, especially Chick-fil-A. Everybody loves Chick-fil-A and they’re going to go there regardless if there’s dine-in or not.

I’ve noticed Whataburger stays busy too.

I go to Whataburger twice a week. I don’t want to go to an early grave or anything like that, but Whataburger is very Texan and I love it. We have some restaurants who haven’t been as much as impacted by the Coronavirus as others like Saltgrass or Madison’s. Some said they had an increase in the profits and revenue.

Who said that?

Mostly pizza places. They don’t have any dine-in.

The pizza delivery place has been busier, but other than if you’re a pizza delivery.

These fast food restaurants weren’t hit as hard as restaurants who solely focus on dine-in customers.

It’s a loose term restaurant. Papa John’s on the corner, you can’t go into unless you’re carrying it out is a lot different than a full-service restaurant. They’re built for delivery. When everybody is sitting at home, they’re going to benefit. It makes sense. It’s no fault of theirs. To characterize it at some, I get what you’re saying though, but that’s accurate. You mentioned talking about the spread. You think that a lot of it’s related to protests across the state and the nation. We’re sitting in Texas. We’ll talk about you are a candidate for a Texas House position. My talk with you is talking about Texas. What would you say in areas that didn’t have large protests, but has still seen spikes? What’s that attributable to you?

Jefferson County, for example. We’ve seen a spike in Beaumont and Port Arthur. We didn’t have massive protests like Houston did but we still see spikes in Coronavirus cases. The trigger to that is, I wouldn’t say 100% of that comes from protesting across Texas or the United States. I’m going to make that clear. The spike Coronavirus, where did it become from exactly? That’s a great question. We should ask a health official about that or somebody in the CDC because I’m sure they have all this data and statistics.

It is consistent with what they’ve been saying. It’s transferrable. I’m using the wrong term disease though, it’s a communicable disease that can be transferred easily. The crazy thing about it seems that some people get sick and some people all the way up to the spectrum that you don’t even notice.

I know two people who had it. One was sick and had to go to the hospital. The other one had no symptoms at all and was fine 100%. I don’t know the science behind the Coronavirus.

That’s the problem. I don’t think anybody fully does.

It’s new. I don’t know where it came from. We can say it came from China. Thanks, Trump. He keeps saying that. That’s all we know of where it came from. We don’t know if it was manmade. We don’t know if it was a nature made. I would love to get those answers and spread out the true facts about the Coronavirus, but it’s the simple fact that none of us know anything about it.

Speaking of Trump, what are your thoughts on the President?

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In terms of what?

In general terms. Are you a fan or you’re not a fan?

Him as President, I’m a fan. I believe I’m a fan of any president until they do not work in the best interest of the country. He has done a lot for the country, especially in his first three years in office. He’s in his fourth now. He has done a lot in his last four years in office. In November 2020, who I’m voting for? I might have to vote to re-elect Trump because his alternative is Joe Biden and Jo Jorgensen. Nobody knows who Jo Jorgensen is and Joe Biden, I mean, the guy. That’s all I can say about Joe Biden.

You’re running for a State House seat in this area and a Republican. I would expect that you’d have to support for Trump, but I wanted to hear some of the reasons why he was your guy, if that’s fair enough.

I’m not going to like this and I tell a lot of people this when I talk to them about President Trump and one has done economic-wise especially for this area alone, for Jefferson County. He has unleashed the energy sector right here in Jefferson County, creating a lot of jobs. We haven’t seen nothing like this in years. He unleashed the energy sector creating hundreds of jobs in our own County. Jefferson County was at its lowest unemployment before the Coronavirus. I believe that’s at 12%.

We tend to lead the state of unemployment, don’t we?

That’s correct.

The last time I checked it, our area tends to be at 12% to 15% consistently for the last several years which is unfortunate. I’m not an economist. I haven’t dove into it. Honestly, I don’t follow the oil and gas industry or frankly politics close enough and sometimes you’ll say stuff and I may know what they’re talking about, so bear with me. I’m not familiar with how specifically, as you say, unleashed oil and gas here in this area to create hundreds of jobs. What specifically are you referring to? Is this some policy or some specific action.

Almost all of his policy. He talked about it during his campaign what he’s going to do with the oil and gas industry.

He talked about a lot of crazy shit too at the same time in his campaign. I’m asking specifically how that has affected your potential constituents here because that’d be important to know. I don’t follow his policies. I don’t follow him much because I can’t stand the decorum. As far as policy-wise, there’s a lot of things I can agree with him on. It’s how it gets there that I can’t be part of being in the room. I try to educate myself as to what specifically policy-wise in 3.5 years has he done that affected the oil and gas industry here? I don’t know.

If you look at Jefferson County itself and how much oil we produce and provide to the entire United States especially in United States military, I’m going to say it’s a high percentage. I don’t know the exact number, because I know it changed over time and had to change over time. That’s economics for you. Trump has made us an energy-independent nation again. I hate to say again. Obama did start some of it, I believe. If you look back and study Obama, I believe he has created some deals with Saudi Arabia and Russia who are big oil producers and have bunches of oil here. He started a little bit of it but Trump escalate it and sped it up. We started producing more and more oil and gas in the country.

He lifted tons of regulations that handled the production of oil and gas in our country. We all know that regulations can hinder some production and it has an impact economically speaking. It has an impact on the country itself. With him reducing and cutting some of the red tape from the oil and gas industry, we can produce more. He got rid of those barriers in the oil and gas industry. I do believe that has helped us become an energy-independent nation. It has helped Jefferson County itself as well as Orange County. There’s a plant that’s going to be built in Bridge City, I believe. It’s going to cost billions of dollars. It’s going to create thousands of jobs. That’s all we need for Southeast Texas. We have the Motiva Enterprise, Valero, and Exxon Mobil that’s planning to expand. You’re going to see billions of dollars come into the Jefferson County, Orange County, in Southeast Texas in general.

I wasn’t going to sound like a lawyer. These are great talking points and it may be true or not. I don’t know what specific policies removed what specific regulations or red tape. That’s all I was trying to get at.

I had that information but I stopped studying.

You’re going to be peppered by me on these questions.

 

It’s not that. I stopped studying on the effect of the oil and gas industry during the Coronavirus because I wanted to focus and dive into criminal justice, education, and the Coronavirus itself, which there wasn’t a lot of information on Coronavirus. I did stray away a little bit from the energy sector itself so I can get you those facts.

2020 has been a strange year for me and everybody we know. It feels like the hits keep on coming.

What’s next? We’ll have an alien invasion.

We hear Kanye wants to be a president. My advice to him was you need to go register to vote before trying to be the president. The last article I saw that’s talking about it is he’s not even registered to vote. I don’t dislike the guy. I don’t know the guy but some of his music I like. I told a friend years ago on his debut album with this song where he says, “Wait until I get my money right.” That’s what he was referring to once he gets some money right. He’s running for president. That’s what he’s alluding to. To the average Joe, I said, he wanted to be on the ballot. The requirements and hoops he’d have to jump through to even get on the ballot is impossible for him.

He missed some filing dates in some states. I don’t know any of the other state election laws themselves. I know Texas, but I’m sure he missed some filing dates in a lot of key states.

That has to be the problem is, “I’m going to run for president. I go down here to the office of presidential elections form.”

It’s not that easy. He’s in for a rude awakening. He has to see the state election laws.

It’s 50 states, different counties. State-to-state is different, and it’s all controlled by parties to a large degree which perpetuates a two-party system to a large degree because they control the flood gates of opening and closing. Who gets in and who doesn’t? That’s why we do have a two-party system. People within parties who have varying degrees of beliefs along different ideological spectrums, but still in a party.

If he wanted to get in politics and refer it to any public office, he should wait until the midterms in 2022 to run for the US Congress, House or Senate. He’s still going to lose.

He needs to go register to vote first, vote in the election and then come talk to me.

Speak coherently on policy.

Learn how to go pull the lab, go press the button, or however they do it in his state where he lives. I don’t even know where the man lives. Maybe in New York.

I was going to say California, but that’s all celebrities out there.

I don’t know. Either one or the other but go vote first.

That’s all he has to do.

Vote first then talk to us about running for something, but you’d never voted. Speaking of, you’re well put together and I called you a young man, but you’re a young guy. You’re a young guy running for office. Will this be your first presidential election to vote in?

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This is my second. 2016 was my first presidential election year. I regret the decision I made in 2016 who I voted for president. It’s one of the biggest regrets of my life because I didn’t follow my gut when I voted. I followed public persuasion. Over time, I’ve grown from public persuasion, started to follow my own heart, to focus on my values, what I stand for and my morals, and not what the public stands for as a collective. I only care about what I stand for as an individual. In 2016, I regret that I voted for Hillary Clinton. She would have been a terrible president. She wasn’t as great as Secretary of State either.

She didn’t make it so it doesn’t matter.

I want to read those 33,000 emails that she destroyed.

I don’t think you ever will. You were eighteen so you’re young. Fast forward from eighteen, you’re almost 22 then.

I’ll be 22 in September 2020.

You’re 18 to 22 and now, you’re a Republican. What’s the change? Is it the soul searching?

I’ve always been a Conservative at heart. I’ve never called myself a Democrat or Republican back then, middle school or high school. I would tell people, “I believe what I believe. I’m an independent who leans right.” That’s true as of now as well. I can’t say I’m leaning right so I’m very Conservative. What I tell people when they ask me why I’m a Republican, I give them a very short answer. It’s because I can serve the public in any elected office without losing my religion, high moral ground when it comes to my standards, values, and being rooted into the word of God. That’s what I tell people because as Democrats, you can see they are destroying religious and liberty. You see in California, they banned singing in church.

You’re not running for office in California. Let’s talk about right here. Right here is where you run for office. You told me you voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and now you’re telling me you’re a Trump man. I get and sees part of this medium and form that we can sit here. You and I can talk. We’ve had the conversation before. I come in here wide open, whatever. Let’s talk and I know you’re running for this. This is the way for us to put a little bit out so people get to know you one way or the other. Like it or don’t like it, somewhere in between, whatever. It gives me a chance to talk and keep me engaged.

I get caught in these things where we start speaking in these short little sound bites because that’s what we’re fed. We’re fed that all the time. “I get this in California and that in California and this in New York.” It’s really cute, but I don’t live there. I’m not going to live there. Most politics is local. Frankly, who’s president as far as my day-to-day life, then how much fact. Who’s the governor of California, it doesn’t matter to me. It’s not directly. Who’s my state rep is going to matter. How I will live in your district? It’s going to matter who’s there. It’s going to matter who’s my state senator. It’s going to matter who’s my mayor. I’m not saying the other spots don’t matter.

Local politics affects more than federal politics ever will. That’s the way the United States was created. Back to what we were talking about earlier about in 2016, how I voted for Hillary Clinton and now I’m a Trump man. I can say that in the past in high school, I can always say that I was always a Trump guy. My guts said to vote for Trump in 2016. If you ask any of my high school friends back then or any teachers, they can say, “He was a Trump man.” I supported him. I wouldn’t say I liked the way he spoke or his Twitter fingers because I can’t stand his Twitter. I was used to Obama for eight years. Obama was elected in my fifth grade year. From fifth-grade all the way to my senior in high school, I had the Obama experience. I was like, “That’s how a president should speak.” If you look at other videos of presidents and how they spoke, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, even both Bushes, they all spoke with an eloquent tone.

The younger one didn’t but go ahead.

I can say I was always a Trump guy. In 2016, when it came right down to election, I followed public persuasion and went with Hillary Clinton because the polls says 99%. Me, I hate losing. I’m like, “I vote for 99%.” We’ve come to find out, we should not even be looking at polls because they said Trump was even going to get 1% of the vote. He had over 300-something electoral votes. I’m not sure what his exact electoral vote was, but he lost the popular vote still.

He lost the popular vote and the key is Electoral College. He did win there but it’s a misnomer to say, “I had this many Electoral College votes and that’s a landslide victory unless it’s absolutely overwhelming.” It’s showing you on a state-by-state. There’s a map of states that you’ve got to put together to get 258, I believe it is Electoral College votes. I couldn’t remember if it was 250 or 270. There’s a map he has to get to that base level but he did lose the popular vote. He did carry your state.

He did carry Jefferson County by 500 votes.

It was 452. You didn’t even win here in your state and you said he wanted to be on the winning team. You were watching national. The national stuff let you get pushed.

 

It wasn’t until after the 2016 election, I realized that my local government affects me more. It wasn’t until after the 2016 elections that polls don’t matter. The people that’s in my city council and that’s representing me in the state legislature or running my state matters and not the President of the United States. They have some effect but it’s very minor when it comes to federal government versus local governments. The federal government doesn’t have much pull over our local politics. I can say that I have grown in my thinking and everybody does this. Life is a learning experience. I learned from the 2016 election and I continue to learn every day. When I announced my candidacy for office, I learned so much about Southeast Texas, Jefferson County, Beaumont, and Port Arthur about the needs of each individual citizen of Beaumont or Port Arthur. I’ve talked to and met so many wonderful people. I learned from them, what affected them, and how we can solve that here in the state.

You’re obviously young and not an experienced politician by age. There’s no way you possibly could be. What makes you want to run for this spot? Why now?

“Why now?” which is a very good question all politicians think. We ask this question, “Why do you still want to be in office after 40 years later?” The reason why I ran for this seat, and I give the same answer each and every time. It was because if you look at my campaign motto, it says, “Moving forward.” I believe that we can move this district and we can move the State of Texas forward. Instead of staying stagnant or declining, our criminal justice system can move forward from the terrible broken system that it is now when it comes to education. That can move forward, our education system. There’s a lot that can be done with the education systems or fix it up. When it comes to workforce development, I’ve talked to many business owners right here in Jefferson County. They say we don’t have a huge workforce to pick from and that some that can be tailored to many things like criminal justice or education. That can be tailored to many other things. I looked at the issue of flood mitigation. My church flooded in Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Rita.

My house was flooded and that’s the first time a hurricane has flooded my house. I’m like, “What’s going on here. Is there something that we can do from flooding mitigation standpoint?” The state doesn’t have much control when it comes to flooding mitigation. They support the jail law and the county judge and the flood control districts. That’s what the state would do. I wouldn’t want to have the state takeover managing flood mitigation. I will not want them to take it over 100% and say, “Hold on, county judges, we can do it.” There are many issues that I want to focus on because I experienced it in my generation. It’s going to affect my generation, my younger brother’s generation, and my younger niece’s generation. From what’s happening, it’s going to affect us 20 to 40 years from now.

You have a little brother at Westbrook High School, right?

That’s correct. He got promoted to eleventh grade.

I’ve got a daughter who’s going to be a twelfth grader there.

My brother is in a band.

I have to ask her if she knows him. I’ve got a boy who will be a freshman there so we’ll see. You’ve mentioned criminal justice a couple of times as something that’s important to you. What are you specifically looking at in the criminal justice realm? Will you seek problems? Were you looking for reform? What specific you are talking about? I’ve got a feeling you’ve got some ideas when you say the word criminal justice. What do you mean by that?

When it comes to criminal justice reform, if you look at the statistics in the State of Texas, our incarceration rate is higher than the United States average. It stands at 891 per 100,000 population. I got that from the website. Why is our incarceration rate high? It comes to pre-trial detention and also probation. There is a lot of stuff we have to look at when it comes to criminal justice and reforming our criminal justice system. It starts with reducing the prison population in the State of Texas. One way to do that is to revamp pre-trial detention. I’m sure you can guide me on pre-trial detention.

I’ve never handled criminal cases in my life. It’s all civil litigation. I could act like a normal talk but I might be lying to you.

We also have to focus on reducing the prison population itself. I talked to some friends and others, there’s more I want to get to on the top of criminal justice reform. Why are we filling our county jails with people who are on probation? We are filling our county jails and our state jails with nonviolent people for petty crimes like not being able to pay their traffic ticket or being late to a court hearing if you’re on probation. To throw these people in jail and they’re nonviolent, they want to get back into society. To reduce that, we have to change the way we sentence them and not offer jail time when it comes to it, but offer community service.

I’m a big believer in community service. It builds character. It establishes an awesome network in the accountability team. Community service will help an individual out more than throwing them in prison. If you caught a person with marijuana, you throw them in jail. That’s not going to do nothing for them. It’s going to piss them off. I know that but it’s not going to rehabilitate them. Community service will help rehabilitate them, help build that network, get them back into the community, and back into the society itself.

I’ve heard some of these concepts before, primarily in the context I’ve heard it has been with the proponents of marijuana legalization. I said there’s a number of people, hundreds, if not thousands or tens of thousands of people in our state and across the nation in our jails that are nonviolent possession of marijuana, relatively small amounts in jails. Those people shouldn’t be in jail and use that to not argue for the reforms, but also the legalization of marijuana or at least at small amounts. Is that something you would be for as well as part of your criminal justice realms?

I’ll look at the science more to marijuana, but I’m not ruling out legalization at all. Trust me on that. We should start with the decriminalizing it at first and setting up rehabilitation programs like community service or other rehabilitation programs that help people get off this addictive track of marijuana and back into the life of a person living in society. As a fellow citizen and resident, I’m not throwing the legalization of marijuana off the table because that could have been an option that is worth looking at. We should look at decriminalization first, getting rid of the felony, possession of marijuana, or a nonviolent of course. We can all most likely turn into a civil consequence like pay a fine, if not too much between $100 and $1,000. I’m not going to give us an exact number on that. I’m going on the fly with that number but I want to focus on decriminalization of marijuana first over rehabilitation program before you even go to the legalization of it, but that is still on the table. That could be another way to help.

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You mentioned education. What type of reforms or changes were you referencing when you talked about education?

When it comes to education. I graduated out of BASD. I was in high school and graduated in 2017. I can say that I have a Bachelor’s and playing UNO because that’s almost what I did in public education. It’s not the teachers or principals, it’s the system itself. It’s not as competitive as a charter school or private school. When it comes to education, I always throw out the term school choice because I am a big believer in school choice. I believe that parents should decide where their child goes to school and not be hindered by where they live or their income. They should be able to go to any charter school, any private school or any religious school since we can give vouchers to religious schools thanks to the Supreme Court.

I always throw the term school choice because I’m a big believer in school choice, homeschooling, charter schools, and the voucher system. Creating a competition between schools will go a long way. We live in a capitalist society in Northside. Our society runs on the competition. For example, law firms, fast food restaurants, iPhone and Android phones have to compete. Everything gets better. The quality of education will get better if they have to compete with schools. There’s a whole lot of things logistics that go with it and give the freedom to choose in their child’s education.

In this election that’s coming up in November 2020, you’re running against an incumbent. Joe Deshotel is a Democrat and you’re running as a Republican. I want to say, if my memory serves me right, that Joe was first elected to that position in 1998. He’s been in that position your entire life and has held numerous chairmanships. I don’t remember which committees. I know business and industry wants and some other committees. Some would argue that Jacorion is a nice young man but you simply don’t have the experience in relation to the incumbent you’re running against. How would you respond to that and why do you have the experience, if you did?

We have to look at what they want when it comes to experience. Do they want somebody who has an established network, politicians that they work alongside because I do have that. I’ve been building relationships with people in the legislature like Dade Phelan, James White, Raymond. They’re people that matter. Network-wise or relational, I have that experience. I’ve talked to Senator Creighton on criminal justice reform. I’ve talked to Randy Weber, our Congressman. Even our Senator John Cornyn, I do have a relationship. When it comes to that, if you’re talking about experience on a relational standpoint, I have that.

We’re talking more of life experience. I’m 43 years old. I’m a much different man than I was at 22. People at my age and particularly those even older are going to say, “You don’t know what you don’t know yet.” It’s not because you’re not intelligent, capable, or any of these things. How are you prepared to perform in this position with limited experience? You can’t have that much experience. You were in high school three years ago. There’s only so much experience you can have. How can you overcome that gap and the experience? Not just political experience, life experience, everything.

To gain life experience happens over the years. That’s true, but you can also gain it by talking to other people and putting yourself in their shoes. It’s not literally, but figuratively putting yourself in their shoes. Talking to people that live on the West Side of Proctor or Northern Beaumont, for example. They have the life experience and I want to embody their experience and use it to represent them effectively and efficiently in the state house. Do I have life experience compared to a 65-year-old? Most likely not. Do I have some life experience? Of course, I do know what it’s like being poor. I do know what it’s like not to be able to eat, to feed yourself, or to even clothe yourself. I know what it’s like to struggle to put gas in your car or food in your pantry. I know what it’s like to struggle as a human being. I’m sure everybody had to struggle in their lifetime.

We can all relate to some struggle. I do have that experience when it comes to struggling and how to overcome that struggle. I do want to embody everybody’s life experience, that matters. That starts with listening to the people. I hate the term politician. If people call me a politician, I say, “I’m not. I’m a statesman.” I believe that every politician should embody the constituents in which they represent. That’s exactly what I want to do. It’s not realistic to sit down with each and every 100 or 10,000 people that you’re going to represent, but to sit down with the majority of them or community leaders, listen to their experience. It’s how we can help in the state legislature to resolve those experiences, situations, issues that they’re in or they have faced, but nothing has been done about it. That is where I would most likely gain my experience.

You can’t make yourself 40 or 50 overnight. What a lot of people don’t realize is our State House of Representatives, although they have quite a bit of responsibility, it’s not a paid full-time job. They meet for 140 days every other year. There are non-session years, committee hearings, interim, study work, other work, and office work done. It’s not considered by the state at least as a full-time job. What do you do in the interim for work? What kind of stuff that keep you going and engaged?

I’m not a lawyer like Joe Deshotel. I’m more of an entrepreneur right now. Me and my brother has an online store which has amazing and tremendous sales. We sell authentic shoes. We’re great at that.

Is it custom shoes or authentic and old shoes?

Not as old shoes, but as in real high-quality product shoes, you can say. We do that and I’m getting into real estate. The real estate market and Beaumont and Proctor is very high. We’re looking to start investing in real estate and fixing up the community on the private end of things.

What’s the name of your store? Is this web-based?

It’s called a Raww Dripp, RawwDripp.com.

At least get you a plug for your business. Somebody go in and you might sell some shoes. It might be worth your time coming in for that.

 

My phone goes off at all of hours of the day with somebody who has purchased a $500 pair of shoes or $1,000 pair of shoes. People would be spending money on our website.

When did you all get that idea? When did you start doing that?

We’re started in December 2019. Sales have been great since then. It’s ever-increasing even during Coronavirus, people still bought shoes.

It’s not real money if you spend it on the internet.

It was a stimulus check.

I’ve enjoyed talking to you. You’re welcome to come back anytime. To close up, where do people go to find out more info about you? Do you have any website or somewhere to find more about you to let them know when it’s time to vote, and how to contact you if they got questions?

You can find me on Facebook at Jacorion for Texas, or you can search Jacorion Randle. I’m great at answer in my messages. You can follow me on Instagram, @JacorionRandleTX and you can message me there. That’s for the young folks who has Instagram. You can find me on my website at www.Jacorion4Texas.com. If you need to contact me directly, shoot me a message on Facebook. I’m very open to give them my phone number to people. I have people that can literally call me at 3:00 in the morning. We sit there and talk for hours.

You’re a better man than me. I’ll answer if my mama calls a 3:00. That’s about it. I’ve enjoyed it. We’ll have to do it again and get together soon. I appreciate you coming by.

Thanks for the invitation.

Thanks, everybody.

Important Links:

• Jacorion Randle
• RawwDripp.com
• Jacorion for Texas – Facebook
• Jacorion Randle – Facebook
• @JacorionRandleTX – Instagram
• www.Jacorion4Texas.com

About Jacorion Randle