Alpine
The four democratic candidates for U.S. Congressional District 23 met with the residents of Alpine in a candidates’ forum held Saturday at Sul Ross State University.
The candidates, including Gretel Enck, Bruce Richardson, Santos Limon, and Katy Padilla Stout, will face off in the Democratic primary on March 3. The winner of the March 3 Democratic primary will go against the Republican nominee in the November 3 General Election. The seat is currently held by incumbent Tony Gonzales.
Enck spent 25 years working for the federal government in the National Park Service until she was forced into early retirement by cuts made by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
“I definitely don’t feel like I’m done serving my communities or my country, and I’m definitely not done standing up for my core values of courage, integrity, and service,” Enck said.
Enck said she is running for the “common good,” and “common ground.” Within common good, Enck included affordability and income equality.
“And that also means holding billionaires and large corporations accountable and making them pay their fair share,” Enck said.
She said she’s also running to “save our democracy,” from what she sees as a failing system of checks and balances. “This administration is violating our Constitution, undermining our national security, wrecking our economy, and we’re bombarded with more every week,” she said. “They’re killing our neighbors because the checks and balances are failing.”
Richardson grew up in Denton and has lived in Congressional District 23 for 10 years. He got to know the area and its residents through his work with the Census Bureau in 2020, “talking to people I didn’t know in places I didn’t know existed,” Richardson said.
Richardson said he is running for office because he remembers the Cold War and doesn’t like what he is seeing. “Listening to Donald Trump, it’s starting to sound familiar,” he said. “I’m fighting to defend our democracy and to restore affordability in the face of price gouging by corporations and other bad actors.”
Limon has lived in the district for more than 50 years. He is the grandson and great-grandson of men who helped build the Southern Pacific Railroad and is a civil engineer who now works on railway infrastructure around the world and in the energy sector.
Working on the Southern Pacific Railway from San Antonio to El Paso has given him the opportunity to meet the people and learn about the issues in the region, Limon said.
“They’re having water problems on the other side of the railroad tracks. They’re having all these difficulties,” Limon said.
Stout is from San Antonio. She spent almost 10 years as a public-school teacher before going to law school and beginning work representing children and families going through the foster care system, so the education system and caring for people are important issues for her.
“That’s something that’s really near and dear to my heart in regard to helping people who need help, helping the most vulnerable in our community. That’s something I’ve been doing for a long time, whether that’s been working in Title I schools or if it’s been working with my clients,” Stout said.
While her father was a rancher and attorney, he grew up as a migrant farm worker, Stout said. Her grandfather and great-grandfather were also migrant farm workers.
“It was through education that we were able to get to where we are. To be able to move up into the middle class and see that systematically being closed down for so many people and so many children is really heartbreaking,” Stout said.
The first questions moderator Reagan Stone posed to the candidates focused on immigration—“What types of programs should we as American citizens provide undocumented people so that they’re not illegally present or inhumanely detained? And what types of changes overall would you push for surrounding national immigration policy?”
Richardson said his perspective came from the 20 years he spent in China, much of it living and working there illegally. There was no path for legal residency there, Richardson said.
“When I see what’s happening here though, it is night and day. I cannot imagine ICE agents dressed for combat going after people in their homes. This is ridiculous,” Richardson said.
The focus should be on development of legal pathways for people coming into the United States, Richardson said. “We need a way to bring people in regardless of how they got here, and at least give them some sort of permanent residency where they can live and breathe and have their being and raise the families that they’ve already started here.”
Limon said his perspective comes from having more than 14 family members that work for the United States Border Patrol, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency and having lived in South Texas for so many years. He and the majority of his family members involved in those agencies do not agree with the tactics being used, he said.
“I’ve been condemning the acts up in Minnesota,” Limon said. “The atrocities that they’ve been doing up in Seattle, all over the country. This is not who we are. The Constitution protects everybody. It protects U.S. citizens, residents, and especially illegal immigrants as part of the Constitution.”
Stout condemned the randomness of the removals, actions against children and the limiting of people’s ability to protest.
“We’ve always been a country that’s been able to say what we want, where we want in public spaces, and I think all of that is being attacked. I think that it is very unfortunate that not only are we targeting adults, but now we’re targeting children,” Stout said.
She also fears that the situation is progressing quickly. “They may start with a certain demographic, but it will move to everyone as we are seeing really quickly. And so I think everyone in this room, especially all the candidates that are here, are really committed to changing that as quickly as possible,” Stout said.
Enck said that while the issue is complicated there are answers and actions that should be taken quickly, including approving legislation that has already been introduced and closing down U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Such legislation was introduced by Rep. Veronica Escobar and is very similar to what was in Congress in 2023, Enck said. “It’s a bipartisan compromise bill. It’s not perfect, but let’s enact that right now. It offers both increasing resources to Border Patrol to work on the border that we need and want, specifically cross-border trade and commerce. That is a huge economic driver in this district and for America,” she said. The bill also creates pathways to citizenship and increases resources to courts to deal with the backlog of cases, Enck added.
Enck said she has no problem calling for the abolishment of ICE. “There is immigration and customs enforcement work that needs to be done, but this agency has proven that it’s not what they’re about. So, get them out of there,” she said.
Stone then called on candidates to answer a question on the economy: “What would you do to stabilize economic policy from tariffs that are increasing our housing and food prices to workforce instability … How do you think, candidates, as potential members of Congress, you can best affect policy on the prices of stuff and services?”
Limon said he is against tariffs, which he believes will cause more problems. Instead, he would work to reform the tax system, which he believes can drive inflation and focus on farming.
“We have to invest in farmers,” Limon said. “We have to invest in ranchers. We have to invest. We have to be the U.S. that we once were, entrepreneurs, manufacturing. Seventy percent of our manufacturing is now south, south of the border, and they keep crossing the border affecting all of our union jobs here in America and affecting all of our high paying jobs in America.”
Stout said that as a mother, and through direct work with community nonprofit agencies, she has seen the impact that high prices are having on area residents and that tariffs and the instability that they bring are not the answer.
Instead, Stout said, she would work to bring about paid parental leave and affordable childcare.
“Universal healthcare, everybody is concerned about healthcare, whether it’s cuts to the ACA, subsidies, Medicaid, et cetera,” Stout said. “Let’s solve it. Let’s shore those up. Let’s restore what’s been lost, right? Let’s move forward toward Medicare for all. Again, people know how to do this. People in Washington are writing those bills, and I will get on board with that.”
Enck said she would work to rebuild agencies gutted by DOGE such as Housing and Urban Development, bring about universal pre-K, childcare and healthcare, shore up Social Security and support unions.
Richardson said he would start by repealing the Big Beautiful Bill, work to bring about Medicare for all. But along with this he would call for public hearings regarding price gouging.
“We have to fight that in any way we can in the courts and in public opinion on pricing. Much of our pricing has been driven by private equity moving into spaces where they were not 20 years ago, like housing and other things that everybody has to buy,” he said.
The candidates were then asked about their ideas regarding healthcare.
Healthcare is a right that should be extended to all, Stout said. “I fully believe that we should extend Medicare. Short of that, we need to have more federally funded access to healthcare, such as if we have rural hospitals or rural clinics, that would be helpful,” she said.
The issue is complicated, especially in rural areas, Enck said. “There’s so much involved in fixing this system, and that’s why I say I want to move to Medicare for all. Because with any luck, if everybody has care, everybody will use it,” she said.
Richardson said he supports Medicare for all and a woman’s right to choose. He also addressed the specific needs of rural Texas.
“West Texas, as we all know, we’re in a healthcare desert. Regardless of how much money you have. I will sponsor legislation to set up clinics where we have accessible healthcare.” Richardson said.
Limon said he would focus on funding healthcare infrastructure in West Texas because, even with insurance, there is no place to go.
“We need much better funding. We need to be more attractive to the doctors that don’t want to come down here. That’s one of the issues that’s been hurting us here, especially in Alpine, Texas,” Limon said.