10 May 16 - 22, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents were going from MLS books into an online MLS system and that was catastrophic,” she said. “I’ve practiced through the greatest re- cession of our recent times. … It’s changed, and a big part of what rocks this industry is just change.” But she looks at this as an opportunity to get back to the basics. “I think technology has also made us a little lazy at times articu- lating our value proposition,” she said. “There was a way of doing real estate at the kitchen table even when I started in the business nearly 20 years ago that we’ve kind of gotten away from. So, I think it’s really forcing a lot of agents to get back to the ba- sics, and that’s a good thing.” Others may not have the same outlook, but she’s doing what she can to calm concerns. “In a room full of Realtors, what I’m tell- ing them is ‘Get back to business. Stop freak- ing out about what you can’t control and go out there and advocate for your clients and figure out the new tools you need to put in your toolbox.’” She added: “A true professional is going to weather this storm. Yes it’s going to cause friction. Yes, it’s going to cause extra layers in what we do. But it can also be the great equalizer of professionalism. … If we can fig- ure out that insane COVID market of real es- tate, I know realtors are going to be OK.” ▼ POLITICS TIK-TOK GOES THE CLOCK AS ELECTION NEARS, COLIN ALLRED PRACTICES BIPARTISANSHIP. BY EMMA RUBY “T he crisis at our border is just one facet of a broken, polarized immi- gration system. The crisis in our workforce is another,” reads an op-ed pub- lished recently in the Dallas Morning News. The opinion piece, which calls for the expansion of federal work permits to allow undocumented Texans to legally contribute to the state’s economy, was jointly penned by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred and Woody Hunt, a noted GOP donor from El Paso. It’s a part- nership that may sound unusual on the sur- face, but is consistent with the Democratic congressmen’s record that is being spot- lighted ahead of November’s election, in which he is challenging Republican Sen. Ted Cruz for his seat. Allred has previously voiced support for a moderate approach to the Southern bor- der. In January, he was one of three Texas Democrats to condemn President Joe Biden’s handling of the border, voting for a resolution that “denounced” the administra- tion’s open-border policies. He is a member of the Democrats for Border Security Task Force, which, in March, voiced support for a significant funding increase for the U.S. Bor- der Patrol. In April, he said he was “frus- trated” by the number of migrant crossings occuring daily in the Rio Grande Valley. When asked about Allred’s criticism over Biden’s handling of the border last week, an Allred campaign spokesperson pointed the Observer to the congressman’s history of bi- partisanship in the House, specifically citing some recent legislation. While support for stricter border poli- cies has generally been associated with the Republican party, Bethany Albertson, an as- sociate professor in the department of gov- ernment at The University of Texas at Austin, doesn’t believe Allred is pandering to Republican voters with his border ap- proach. Instead, she believes he is using the issue to “distinguish himself” as a politician able to speak to statewide concerns ahead of an election that is going to be “really tough.” “For Allred to pull this off, he’s going to need Trump-Allred voters, which is pretty difficult. If we just assume, like everyone is, that Trump is going to win the state, you’re going to need people to turn out for Allred who either vote for Trump or who leave the top of the ticket blank,” Albertson said. “There’s not a lot of voters who do that, so it’s a really heavy lift for Allred.” Matt Angle is the founder and director of the Lone Star Project, a political research and communications firm that promotes Democratic leaders. After over 20 years in politics, Allred stands out to Angle, even when compared to popular Texas Demo- crats like Wendy Davis or Beto O’Rourke, because Angle “can’t find a naysayer.” While some polls are showing Cruz with as much as a 13-point lead over Allred, Angle said he thinks “Cruz is in a cold sweat panic.” “I think there are going to be a lot of peo- ple who skip the Presidential race. They can’t bring themselves to vote for Biden but they don’t accept Trump, but they will vote for Colin [Allred] over Cruz,” Angle said. A spokesperson for the Ted Cruz cam- paign rebuffed Allred being labeled a bipar- tisan politician. His “record speaks for itself,” a statement made to the Observer said, citing Allred’s professional relationship with the former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, and his labeling of the border wall as “racist.” (The later comment has in- spired a six-figure Allred attack ad, paid for by a pro-Ted Cruz PAC.) “(Allred’s) recent rhetoric doesn’t change who he is: A radical leftist who is out of step with Texas,” the Cruz campaign said. Allred generally posts to the social media app TikTok once or twice a day. Some videos show the congressmen speaking in news in- terviews or sitting down to address the cam- era directly. Some videos are well-timed for current memes and trends going viral on the platform. Other clips attack Cruz. But despite Allred’s finesse with the app, he voted in favor of the bipartisan bill that will require TikTok’s parent company Byte- Dance to divest from the app in order to re- main operating in the U.S. The vote passed 360-58 in March, after supporters of the bill voiced national security concerns due to the company’s relationship with China. Allred’s vote has drawn some criticism because of his continued affinity for the app, but Albertson said the vote was so over- whelmingly in favor of the bill she would have been “more surprised if he voted against it.” “This was a bill that had bipartisan sup- port. Biden said he was going to vote for it, it had foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel tied up in it,” Albertson said. “It is weird to say [the app is] a national security risk while us- ing it, but on the flip side, he’s got to appeal to younger voters. The Biden campaign is having difficulty with younger voters, and from that perspective, reaching young peo- ple on social media platforms where they are makes sense.” Allred, who sits on the House Foreign Af- fairs Committee, said the app must be free of “harmful and malicious influence of the Chinese Communist Party” in a statement after the bill was signed. A report released by the Office of the Director of National In- telligence shortly before the divestment vote found evidence of the Chinese government using the app to promote pro-China narra- tives, and warned of the potential for outside governments to use the app to influence the November election. “The threat from our foreign adversaries is very real. When you have such an influen- tial app controlled by the Communist Chi- nese party it’s a problem for us. It’s a national security problem for us,” Allred told FOX4 reporter Steven Dial after the vote. “We’ve done this in other areas of our economy, where when there’s a foreign ownership of a key piece of our economy we force them to divest. That’s exactly what we are doing here, so it’s not without precedent.” Alicia Claytor U.S Rep. Colin Allred faces a “heavy lift” in his quest to defeat incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz. Unfair Park from p8
