Former El Paso Representative and Democrat Beto O’Rourke is in North Texas during a campaign swing throughout the state. He is making several stops over the next few days.
“I feel great. I mean to be here in Decatur and to see so many people who have come out,” Beto O’Rourke said.
Last night, O’Rourke made headlines, at an event in Mineral Wells, when a heckler apparently laughed as O’Rourke was talking about the mass shooting in Uvalde. O’Rourke responded by saying, “It may be funny to you, (obscenity), but it’s not funny to me."
NBC 5 asked him a day later if he would handle it the same way.
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“There is nothing more serious than what happened in Uvalde, nothing more serious than getting justice for those families and nothing more serious than making sure that we take action to prevent a school shooting like this from ever again taking place in Texas,” O’Rourke said.
An Abbott campaign spokesperson told us the person at the event has nothing to do with their campaign.
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The mass shooting, and school safety, were among the topics discussed during O’Rourke's stop today.
School security also came up during Governor Abbott’s appearance at an education roundtable in Dallas.
The Governor says that in the immediate aftermath of Uvalde, he called for increased security checks before the school year begins.
“Schools are stepping up and doing those school checks. We know that schools and administrators and teachers want to keep their children safe,” said Governor Abbott.
The roundtable, at the King’s Academy in Dallas, focused on the role of parents in education.
“What we are pointing out today, is the reality that must be recognized by everybody, and that is parents know far best about what school is best for them,” said Governor Abbott.
Education is one of the topics, you can expect to hear a lot about during this campaign, and you can also expect many visits to North Texas in the upcoming months.
O'Rourke brought his campaign on Thursday night to Fort Worth's Amon Carter Exhibit Hall, where he rallied hundreds of supporters with talk of legalizing abortion, changing marijuana laws, and supporting public education.
In an interview, O'Rourke blasted Abbott's plans for school vouchers.
"I don't want to see our public tax dollars taken from our public school classrooms away from our students and their teachers and sent to a private school," the former congressman from El Paso said.
