I should not compare because I am sure that Ms. Salinas is her own person and is not modeling herself after anyone. But in the short time she has been in office, she has shown that she is not afraid to speak out and that she does not put her finger in the air to see which way the political winds are blowing. That is something that I have not seen here in Houston, ever, not even during the Raza Unida or MAYO days. The only person who showed such resoluteness was Maria Jimenez. Maria Jimenez could be up there, but times were different, and opportunities were very limited for all of us. We certainly did not have internet, and the possibility that a police officer would follow us and harass us was always there. There were no phones to take videos with.
I expect that Ms. Salinas will go far in politics if that is what she desires. She would make the perfect congressperson for the Latino community, one that the community has never had here in Houston. It is time for the Houston Latino Community to elect a person like Ms. Salinas. She does not let the mayor put her off and insists that he answer the question.
We need more people like Ms. Salinas who are willing to stand up for what is right. We can not be Jews in Nazi Germany; the same thing that happened is certainly possible today with the people in charge of our nation and in this state, Texas.
Thank you, Ms. Salinas:
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Democrats cannot continue to play nice; they can’t afford to take the high road while Republicans steal election after election by rigging the system. That is what was done after the Civil War to deny people who had been enslaved the same privileges that were given to white men.
In August 2025, when Texas Republicans began this fight by redistricting their state after a brutal contest that drove Democratic legislators to leave the state and take refuge in Illinois and Massachusetts to deny Republicans enough legislators to pass a redistricting law, the Washington Post Editorial Board wrote: “What’s happening in the Lone Star State is not a threat to democracy.” “Even if Texas’s move triggers an arms race, the trend will not put American democracy on life support,” it said, dismissing the concerns of those fighting the Republicans’ attempt to game the 2026 elections.
But with last night’s Democratic partisan gerrymander—one that, unlike the Texas gerrymander, went before the people for a vote—the Editorial Board changed its tune. It called this redistricting plan “a power grab by Democrats.” “They’re right that the [Republicans] started this fight by trying to pick up five House seats in Texas through gerrymandering, but they can spare us the false sanctimony about democratic norms going forward,” board members wrote. …
Then, on May 22, 1856, Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina beat Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts nearly to death on the Senate floor shortly after a speech in which Sumner had called out those who were forcing enslavement on Kansas and insulted a relative of Brooks. Southern lawmakers and newspapermen alike cheered the violence against an elected representative in the Capitol. Lawmakers refused to expel Brooks, and one newspaper editor wrote: “We trust other gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Brooks…. If need be, let us have a caning or cowhiding every day.”
But the attack on Sumner was a bridge too far for his colleague, Massachusetts representative Anson Burlingame. On June 21, he stood up in Congress to call out as inferior Brooks and the system of enslavement he defended. Burlingame was sick and tired of buying peace by letting southerners abuse the North. Enough, he said, was enough.
Enslavement was not a superior system, he said; it had dragged the nation backward. Slavery kept workers ignorant and godless while the northern system of freedom lifted workers up with schools and churches. Slavery feared innovation; freedom encouraged workers to try new ideas. Slavery kept the South mired in the past; freedom welcomed the modern world and pushed Americans into a new, thriving economy. And finally, when Sumner had spoken up against the tyranny of slavery, a southerner had clubbed him almost to death on the floor of the Senate.
Was ignorance, economic stagnation, and violence the true American system? For his part, Burlingame preferred to throw his lot with the North, which he said was superior to the South in its morality, education, economy, loyalty to the government, and fidelity to the Constitution. Northerners were willing to defend their system, he said, with guns if necessary.