Here’s the official news out of Texas:
Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) has officially filed to challenge Sen. Ted Cruz(R-Texas) in 2018.
O’Rourke, who has served in Congress since 2013, announced in late March that he would take on Cruz next year. It’ll be an uphill battle for O'Rourke, since no Democrat has won a Senate election in Texas since 1988.
“Today’s filing is not only a chance to recommit ourselves to this critical race, but to recommit to running it in the right way: being present, accountable, candid, transparent and powering each step of the way by people not PACs,” O’Rourke said on Monday.
O’Rourke, who filed his candidacy for Senate alongside local and state Democratic leaders, detailed the last eight months since he announced his bid, which included holding 85 public events across Texas and visiting more than 155 counties.
He said he’ll spend most of December traveling around the state and will hit 30 counties ahead of the end-of-the-month holidays.
And this is going to be an issue now in this campaign:
Add the fight over net neutrality to a list of issues U.S. Senate candidate Beto O'Rourke is determined to debate U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz over.
O'Rourke, a Democrat from El Paso, spent Friday on social media slamming the Federal Communications Commission actions to potentially end net neutrality rules created during the Obama administration. He also used the issue to offer another contrast with Cruz, a Houston Republican who has supported ending the policy. O'Rourke's campaign also launched a fundraising email to supporters vowing to use the issue to help defeat Cruz in 2018.
"Ted Cruz's support of the repeal of net neutrality is one of the many reasons we've got to fight to unseat him in November of 2018," O'Rourke's campaign says in the email to supporters.
O'Rourke used Twitter to remind supporters that with friends, he was able to start a tech company in El Paso without having to "pay for play" with an internet service provider as he argues will happen with repeal of net neutrality regulations.
"If you don't want corporations deciding what you watch, news you read, music you hear, fight for #netneutrality," O'Rourke said on Twitter.
And it’s a good issue to un on against Senator Shitkicker:
"With this decision, the FCC is trying to undermine the power of people on the Internet, which will be bad for innovation and our democracy. One of the biggest supporters of repealing net neutrality is our opponent, Ted Cruz," the newsletter said. "In an op-ed this week, Ted Cruz called net neutrality a 'radical proposal that reclassified the internet as a regulated public utility.' But this couldn't be further from the truth. Net neutrality rules simply protect everyday Americans from giant corporate Internet providers, helping everyone -- even Ted Cruz -- get online."
O'Rourke cited Cruz's support of the repeal of net neutrality as one of the many reasons he decided to run in for the November 2018 election.
"The Obama-era regulations give federal bureaucrats new authority to regulate pricing and terms of service and eventually even collect billions in new taxes," said Cruz in his op-ed for rollcall.com. "Now is the time to end government micromanagement of the internet and let it thrive without federal, state, or local meddling."
Let’s make Cruz pay for siding with Big Telecom to destroy the free and open internet. Click here to donate and get involved with Beto’s campaign.