* Rich interviewed Congressman Chuy Garcia this morning about his decision to not run for reelection…
Rich: When did you decide that you weren’t going to run again?
Garcia: Last week was one hell of a week for me. I filed on Monday, as you know, looking forward to another term, to win back the majority. I think we’ve got a shot. I know what it’s like to be in the majority, you can get stuff done. During the Biden years, we were able to do that. I got to Congress in the last two years of Trump’s first presidency and, of course, experienced the 35-day shutdown. I was sworn in during the shutdown. So a great point of reference, and I was looking for at least one more term to be able to do that, but life handed me quite a card, or a hand, I’m not much of a gambler, so I don’t know the terms.
On Monday, same day that Manny was out filing my petitions, I went to my cardiologist, and he told me that I’ve been a bad boy. While I take my medicine most of the time, I don’t go to physical therapy, I don’t exercise, and he said, ‘Why bother coming to see me if you’re going to f— around?’ He said, ‘I also recommend that as you clean up your act, you consider doing something else than being a member of Congress. Thank you for your great service,’ because he’s a pretty progressive Indian American fellow, but wanted me to cut the stuff out.
On Tuesday, as I was by the door saying goodbye to my lovely wife, she grabbed me and said, ‘I don’t want you to run for another term. And I told her, ‘Honey, I filed yesterday.’ She goes, ‘I know.’ I said, ‘We talked about this.’ She said, ‘I know.’ And then, you know, it got emotional.
Especially because my wife has been living with [multiple sclerosis] for 15 years. It’s a progressive, degenerative disease, and it starts to steal parts of you. It’s a debilitating disease. It affects everything in a person, and it’s been challenging. And two weeks ago, she had her six-month infusion, which usually gives her a great boost of energy and, you know, newfound abilities. It seems it didn’t have any effect. So we’re very concerned about that, because it’s probably a sign of her condition progressing, and that was real tough. And that’s when I flew to Washington, and I spent a couple of sleepless nights trying to figure out what to do.
And then on Friday, to cap off the week, we finalized, she and I, the adoption of an eight-year-old grandchild that lives with us, that we care for. So he’s now legally our son. He’s one of four.
You may recall that he became part of our family in an instant when my daughter died two and a half years ago and left four children, and they had all of a sudden ours, and you know, we’ve done our best. The kids are doing great. My son, by the way, in Minneapolis, adopted the nine-year-old—she’s 10 now, 10 years old. So both of them got adopted. I’ve got one grandchild who lives next door—our neighbors, guardian angels, are going to adopt him—and then the eldest, who’s in Indiana with an aunt. So, you know, we look out after them. And those were just really big factors in me deciding that I could not, in good conscience, do it again, and decided in Washington one of those nights that the only recourse we had was to look at an option. And that’s when I thought that we could try to get my chief, Patty Garcia, on the ballot.
My decision was based on love for my family, for my community, and for, you know, not just someone who talks about family values and fights for families, but being about it. My wife has been with me every step of the way. She was a precinct captain. At one time she went against all of the HTO big shots and kicked their asses. They would come to her precinct to try to intimidate and try to pull off stuff, and she set them straight. And at the end of the day, she showed them the tape, and they always got their ass handed to them.
So my wife, who, by the way, Saturday will have been married to me and tolerated me for 48 years, we’ve known each other for over 50 years, since we were kids. So this is very moving, and she’s been the rock, and I got to be there for her. I got to be there for my own health. And now I really get it, why I got to stay healthy. And then, of course, our grandchildren, because we’re all they got, and we’ve had to step up. My daughter was also adopted, the one that left us before. So it’s a very powerful force in our lives.
Rep. Garcia said petitions were printed on Friday night and circulated Saturday. His organization gathered 2,500 signatures over the weekend, he said. He said he was surprised the petition circulation didn’t spark any rumors.
* Rich asked about the criticism the announcement is receiving…
Rich: You obviously made the decision not to announce this early enough for other people to possibly go out there and pass petitions as well. Do you regret not doing that?
Garcia: I wish that the things that happened could have happened earlier, but this is my faith. This is how things unfolded, and I had to respond.
Rich: I will say there are some people out there who say you cheated them out of a choice.
Garcia: I respect their views. I can see why they would do that, but I think I followed the rules. I followed the filing calendar and of course, took time to reflect on making this choice, because it came as a shock to all of our supporters, it’s still shocking many of our allies. By weeks and my entire family, my two boys and my daughter in laws and some of my grandkids were begging me to come home, and I’m responding to that.
I also felt that somebody was going to file, because I’ve always been opposed. We didn’t know, for example, that the independent candidate, Hershey, had circulated. And, you know, we think we had pretty good intelligence, and I didn’t expect a Republican to run as well. So I was assuming that somebody would run, as they had in the past.
