Interests of a 6-Year-Old Child

A six-year-old's actual interests are safety (especially at school), well-funded public schools, healthcare when sick, stable non-deported parents, clean air and water, freedom from being a prop in culture wars, and a livable future. Cornyn earns substantially more six-year-old credit than Paxton does: BSCA literally directed $13B to school mental-health funding plus the Cornyn-Murphy domestic-violence and under-21 background-check provisions targeting firearms (the leading cause of death for U.S. children), and Fix NICS strengthened the federal background-check database after Sutherland Springs. He earns one point for school choice (which gives some specific six-year-olds a different option) and one point for his opposition to abortion (read as protective of future six-year-olds). He loses ground on healthcare (ACA repeal votes), on the climate framework, and on family-deportation risk for classmates' parents. Talarico was a public school teacher with 45 kids in one classroom, and his platform reads like a parent's wishlist — universal Pre-K, capped class sizes, $25 insulin caps, paid family leave, universal childcare, Narcan on every Texas school campus (already 5 lives saved), Medicare buy-in to keep the family solvent if a parent gets cancer, and gun-safety measures aimed at the leading cause of child death.