WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas — State Rep. James Talarico started Sunday morning with a stroll in downtown Taylor with Mayor Brandt Rydell.
The mayor gave Talarico a history lesson of the city.
"It pretty much burned down the entire town of Taylor," explained Rydell.
This was part of Rep. Talarico's Walk Across District 52, which updated voters on his progress in the Texas House.
"I'm literally walking from one end of my district to the other end, having three town halls along the way," he said.
The first Democrat to represent this seat since the mid 2000s, Talarico has been busy.
With his name attached to more than 105 bills this legislative session, it only made sense that the ones that mean most to the former middle school teacher are education-related.
"This is the session when we passed historic, transformative finance reform, which is going to infuse local schools like the ones here in Taylor with millions of new dollars from the state and also reduce recapture payments, fund full-day pre-K, provide dyslexia funding," Talarico said.
But the youngest lawmaker in the Texas Legislature - he turns 30 next month - still made time to visit with his constituents on Sunday.
His young age turned one voter's head, if only for a moment.
"He's a young guy; he's the youngest member of the Legislature. Is he really going to be effective?" asked Randall Craig.
Craig is a retired teacher and did not wonder that for long. Craig saw Talarico in action under the dome.
"I've been to the Legislature three times working on education and, my goodness, he's working across the aisle -- he's done an amazing job so I wanted to thank him," said Craig.
Taking unscreened questions from the crowd and from Facebook Live, it's clear the first-time lawmaker is taking his job seriously, telling KVUE he just wants to give back to the same district that gave him so much when he was growing up.
At one point, Senate candidate MJ Hegar joined Talarico on the walking tour. That part was closed to the press.
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