A Conversation with Texas State Senator Molly Cook

TFN was honored to sit down with Texas State Senator Molly Cook (she/her), the first out LGBTQIA+ member of the Texas Senate and currently its youngest serving member. 

Senator Cook is a sixth-generation Texan born and raised in the Houston area, a registered nurse, and a fierce political advocate. We discussed her background, the issue areas that are most important to her and her community, and advice for other young Texans considering running for office. Dive into our conversation below!

My path has been somewhat unconventional to elected office. People have used the word “eclectic” before. 

My first life was performance music — I started as a harp performance major at UT. But I realized you have to spend hours and hours a day alone in a practice room to do the kind of music career that I wanted, and that just was not right for me. I’m a very social and extroverted person. My pastor’s wife was the school nurse when I was in seventh grade, and I spent a lot of time in her office escaping the classes that I didn’t like, and that was what inspired me to become an ER nurse in the end. So I went that path. 

I was working nights on a medical/surgical floor, and then I moved to dayshift in the ER and just, kind of, felt my heart shrinking. I felt myself getting calloused and was really frustrated with how little I could do for people at the bedside. Sometimes you save people, you bring them back from the brink; sometimes you make a huge difference in somebody’s life. But there are so many upstream issues that you’re working against, and it contributes to burnout. When you feel like your back-breaking work for these patients is futile, it burns you out. 

I’ve always been interested in government, politics, and systems-level thinking, so I went to Johns Hopkins and got a master’s in public health there. I learned about community organizing and how it’s not just about changing what’s written in laws, but it’s also about engaging communities and fundamentally changing the way we live, understand each other, and work together. Then I moved back to Houston, because I love Houston so much, and things just took off from there. 

So to me, everything was very much one step leading into the next. And what’s exciting to me about still being a bedside nurse, and now taking community organizing and going inside the Capitol, is that I know about systems-level thinking, and I’ve got this understanding of how to relate to people, how to engage communities, and how to organize. And then I’ve also got this very intimate, close look at what people are dealing with: what makes them sick, what injures them, what helps people be healthy, what removes barriers to making healthy choices or living a healthy life — and the fact that the vast majority of barriers are out of people’s personal control. Now I get to bring that perspective into the Texas Capitol and try to contribute from a very useful place in a seat of power. So it all kind of fits together perfectly.

I love it. I think Houston is the best city in the world. My parents were born and raised in East Texas. My mom’s first job was at NASA, so they moved to the big city and ended up planting there and raising us there. I grew up in the suburbs, and a big awakening for me in public health school was realizing how the freeway system enabled suburbs to exist and how I benefited from these systems. That’s what inspired me to be a part of the transportation fight in Houston. Because once you know, you need to try to make things better. 

I like the heat. I like the people. It’s a very special place. Everything that happens in Houston has a really big impact on what happens to people in our state, in our country, and frankly, across the world. I’m proud to be a Houstonian, happy to live in Houston proper, and very excited to be representing a large swath of Harris County now.

Abortion is huge. I had a procedural abortion in 2014, and I wake up every single day and feel so lucky that it was legal and safe at that time. It is heartbreaking that it’s not now, and people are absolutely dying. And this intersects with every other issue: Making sure that people have access to health care that meets their needs, health care that affirms their gender, health care that puts them in control of their own bodies and uses science — not somebody else’s morals or religious beliefs — to determine how they get to live their life. So it’s a very basic, visceral issue that a lot of folks care about, that intersects with a lot of other things. And it is the top-polling democratic issue. It’s my personal story, and it’s my district’s number-one issue. I don’t know exactly how much positive change we can make in the next session, but I think it’s ripe for some really strong, long-term, statewide organizing to make sure that we get our rights back, and that they never go away again. 

Another top-of-mind issue for the district is public education. Our district is very pro-public education and very anti-voucher. We want to see public schools fully funded and teachers taken care of. I truly do believe that statewide organizing around protecting public education has the potential to flip this state, maybe before redistricting, because it’s so universal, and people care about it so much.

Medicaid expansion is huge, too, and people are very concerned with a host of environmental justice and climate justice issues. Then there’s the basic cost of living: insurance costs, housing costs, transportation costs, and the cost of going to work. We’ll have an opportunity to work on that from the state level for sure, although that’s sort of a multi-level fight. 

People are just really frustrated, I think, that out-of-state billionaires have an outsized influence over what happens inside the Capitol, and that the leadership of our state does not seem responsive to the people of our state. There’s a lot of concern over making sure folks have access to the ballot box, that they’re educated and encouraged and supported and turning out to vote, and making sure that we don’t end up with very few people having an outsized control and influence over what our daily lives look like.

Go for it. Go for it, go for it, go for it!

The number-one reason I am in the Texas Senate younger and with a more eclectic background than folks would expect is because of my experience organizing on the ground. If you just start showing up, you get to practice leadership skills and team building skills, you get to develop your writing skills and your comms skills, learn how to set up meetings with elected officials, how to… you know, totally still be scared, but not have your voice crack in the microphone when you give public comments. You can learn so much by just showing up and organizing. And you also build what will be your initial donor and volunteer base when it’s time for you to run. By the time I filed, I was still pretty unknown to the district, but I had quotes in the Houston Chronicle, people who were ready to volunteer, some initial fundraising… It made it a lot easier because I’d been a part of an organization in this community doing grassroots organizing work, and I built a reputation. If you’re wondering where to start, pick a volunteer organization and jump in. If you need to, start one, and if you can avoid starting one, jump in on one that already exists. Especially as a white person, show up for people and women of color who are already doing great work, support them, and learn with humility.

I also think showing up to give public comments is the best way to start meeting people. You’ll hear every other organization and individual that agrees or disagrees with you. You’ll hear what people are thinking and get a feel for the landscape by just showing up. So if you’re interested in an issue, just start showing up to committee hearings.

Be bold! My mantra for a long time was, “I’m just as smart as everybody else in there, and I’m a lot nicer.” And it’s true! You are! You’re smart, and you’re nice. And that’s really what we need is people who are willing to show up, and do this work, and just be kind. 

You also don’t have to run for office to have a huge impact. The Chief of Staff for my office is my best friend who I’ve been organizing with for years, and she’s not super interested in running for office. She’s really, really good at doing Chief of Staff things that I would not be quite as good at. Because elected office is the most public-facing thing, folks kind of think, “I want to make a difference, I gotta go do that.” But there’s a whole path to change-making that’s organizing, or working on a staff, or being part of a nonprofit organization. There are lots of options. So get out there, show up, just get started!

I love that question. Representation matters, and representation isn’t everything. Everybody’s experience is so fully unique, but we do end up in communities that have shared experiences, and it’s important to see those represented in your leadership and have diversity at every single decision-making table. I mean, it’s such a basic assumption of life on this planet that diversity makes it stronger, right? 

I’m excited to be able to bring a new perspective into that chamber. I think it’s really important if they’re going to sit there and legislate hateful things against the LGBTQIA+ community that they have to look me in the eye and know that I’ve loved a woman. And I’m not ashamed of that. I think it’s rad! It freed me up to be more fully myself and experience a more joyful and exciting life, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of. 

I feel the same about having had an abortion. I’m not ashamed of it. I’m happy about it. I had access to the health care that I needed, at the moment that I needed it, so that I could be in control of my life and make sure that if and when I do have kids they’ve got everything that they need.

I think being young is really important. I am not nostalgic for some bipartisan past. I don’t know it; I never saw it. So it’s a new dawn, and it’s a new day, and we’re here to fight for what we want and what we need — and I think bringing a new flavor, even just shaking things up a little bit in the Texas Senate itself will be valuable. There’s one other senator who’s in her 30s — we’ve brought the average age to just below 60! And ageism is a real thing, for the record. It’s not about age, it’s about diversity: You want young and old people, and you want people in the middle of their lives as well. 

I think it’s also really important to note that there’s so much diversity that I don’t bring to the table. I’m a white woman, and we’ve caused some of the worst pain in the world to people. Being really committed to cultural humility, really committed to organizing, really committed to a bottom-up approach that centers the most affected communities is going to be a value and a principle that runs through every single decision that we make. The way that we work from the seat is that the people who are the most affected need to be at the center of this conversation, and need to be centered in that policy. If you build transportation facilities with folks with movement and mobility disabilities in mind, you’re going to come up with something that every single person can use with ease. If you build policy to protect the transgender community, that is policy that will save lives in every single community. 

I’m excited! I’m excited to get to symbolize the resilience and hope of the LGBTQIA+ community in Houston Harris County. They attacked us, they attacked us, they attacked us — and now we’re sending two queer women organizers to the Capitol! Democratic nominee Lauren Ashley Simmons in House District 146 is incredible. We’re here. We’re a part of this conversation and we’re at this table no matter what.

The most important way that I take care of myself is just being deeply in community. For me, to prevent burnout, I have to love the work that I’m doing, and I have to do it in a team that I love.

And I’ll say: Every time I’ve ever been, like, “What am I doing? Am I on the right path? Does this make sense? Are we doing it right? I’m feeling overwhelmed,” if I go out and knock a door knocking list, all of those feelings float away, every single time. If you’re in your head, if things are really, really hard, walk out your front door and go talk to your neighbors. That has always been a huge relief and comfort to me, which I think bodes for long, healthy service, hopefully.

I have a lot of hope. I’ve got a lot of hope for Texas. 

Sometimes I’m choosing hope, and that’s just what the moment calls for. Sometimes that’s an option, but it’s not an option all the time for everyone. But if you can, wake up and choose to be hopeful. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but the beauty of having a lot of work to do is that there’s a lot that we can do that will move us along; there’s a lot of growth that can happen.

Choose hope, take action, join a group, and do some serious door-knocking and phone banking. Build it into your lifestyle, that you at least once a week spend time outreaching — either through a campaign or through an organization, drawing people in, making sure that they’re registered to vote and that they’re engaged on an issue that makes them feel as powerful as they are to shape the change that’s happening around them. Something that allows them to belong to something that’s bigger than all of us, which is, really I think, what all of us want: to feel like we belong and that we’re that we’re making a difference. So be hopeful.

We hope this chat with Senator Molly Cook inspired you to own your power and make a difference in your community! 

Before you go — are you registered to vote? Being an informed and engaged voter is one of the most important ways to affect change, both locally and statewide. Check your voter registration and make a plan to vote at our Elections Hub!

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