Texas House District 83 covers more than half of Lubbock County, including southern and northern neighborhoods in the city, as well as 10 other rural counties from Floyd to Mitchell County.
Malik Williams, a family law attorney in Lubbock, is a first-generation Texas Tech University graduate who worked as a staffer for the late Houston-area Democrat U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee.
Williams sat down with KTTZ's Brad Burt to discuss his campaign and the changes he wants to see in systems like education, affordability, and rural healthcare. Williams is running against incumbent Republican and House Speaker Dustin Burrows, who has held the seat since 2014.
KTTZ reached out to Burrows for an interview, but his office declined.
You can find KTTZ's interviews with other West Texas candidates on the ballot for the Nov. 3 midterm election here.
The following transcript has been edited for clarity:
Brad Burt: Sitting down with Malik Williams, the Democratic candidate for District 83 in the Texas House. Malik, thank you for joining us.
Malik Williams: Dude, no, thank you for having me. I cannot wait to have a great conversation with you today.
Brad Burt: This is your first time running for office in West Texas. For those who are unfamiliar, tell us a little bit about yourself and what motivated you to run for this position?
Malik Williams: Yeah, so a little bit about myself. I was born to a single mom in San Antonio, Texas. We grew up in poverty. Through a lot of hard work and just a little bit of luck, I managed to become the first in my family to graduate high school, college, law school. I am now a practicing family law attorney with Legal Aid, family legal services. If anyone in the city is dealing with domestic violence, please do not hesitate to come by and get some help because no one should be putting their hands on you.
And now, because we are seeing so many people in our communities – our friends, families, and neighbors struggle worse than I did while I was growing up – and the same people are still in office who created those conditions, I'm running for office because that shouldn't be happening. We should have a better Texas than what we currently have. People should not be struggling as much as they are right now, finding it hard to afford rent, gas, groceries, healthcare, medicine, having to cut back on either how much food you have in the house, or if you're going to drive somewhere, or how much of your medication that you're going to take. That should not be the conditions in this, the year of our lord, 2026. Absolutely not. We should be demanding more from our government to use our tax dollars to actually help us and create a thriving economy for everyone, and not just those at the very top. So I decided to get into office because regular everyday people, they need a representative, they need an advocate. And I already do that full time as a nine-to-five as an attorney, so why not as a representative of the people?
BB: When we first met, we talked about your campaign strategy that involved a lot of block walking and face-to-face interactions. What have you learned from people that you interacted with in the last few months, and has any of that changed how you're thinking about policy if you're elected?
MW: So we've been, what, campaigning for a little over 11 months now, and while block walking, which I think we're up to three times a week now, a few days before the election, the message has always been the same. I came into this campaign wanting to take care and ensure that the essential needs of people are being met. And so while block walking door-to-door, talking to – you name it – Republicans, Democrats, farmers, ranchers, over at the Wolford Farmers Market and the Mo's Midnight Market, speaking to teachers and professors, parents and students, everyone has these same issues. So no, my policy focus has not shifted. We still believe, like we did 11 months ago, like I have always believed my entire life growing up – everyone, regardless of where you are in life, you are deserving of shelter, healthcare, and food. Full stop and period.
BB: Something unique about your campaign has involved interacting with young people, reaching out to young people. What has that experience taught you going into this?
MW: I mean, it's just meet people where they are. A lot of the individuals that I've been speaking with, they've just been waiting for someone to approach them and ask them to get involved, or ask them what's wrong, or what they can do to help. And so going to skate parks, concerts, alt clubs, cafes, meeting people at their homes, at schools, at the grocery store as they're getting groceries, and we're just having conversations with people, that's all people have wanted: for their representatives to listen to them and their needs. And that's the essential purpose of politics. In the course of a healthy debate, we prioritize the needs of the people and how best to achieve those needs. If you're going to advocate on behalf of the needs of the people, you need to listen to the people, and hear what their needs are. And again, for the past 11 months, I've been hearing the same consistent message: we can't afford gas, groceries, food, housing, rent is too expensive. Our utilities are continuing to go up. We don't want data centers. We don't want Flock cameras. It's been these five consistent things: affordability and preserving people's rights.
BB: That's a great segue into the policy side of things. Affordability is a number one issue for voters this year…
MW: Absolutely.
BB: But it's really broad. Do you have a specific issue you'd like to focus on going in?
MW: Well, I think number one, a lot of individuals who have the luxury of owning a home, they want lower property taxes, and not just property tax relief. That's just a band-aid to this problem, but actual lower property taxes. So number one, let's finally legalize, regulate, and tax THC and cannabis. That was nearly a $10 billion industry here in the state of Texas before Republicans unilaterally decided to gut it, without having a conversation with the people of Texas. Tax that nearly $10 billion, that's a lot of revenue that we can use on property taxes. That's a significant, consistent stream of revenue that will allow property taxes to be lowered, or we can use that to fully fund education. Another thing that goes into – because we don't have a state income tax here – the revenue from cannabis we can use to fully fund education and give teachers a much-needed pay raise. There's so many things that we can do to make life more affordable for everyone, and our current representatives they're just not doing it.
Another example of that is healthcare here. Texas is the number one state for having the highest percentage of individuals without health insurance. Number one state for the highest cost of insurance. And number one state for the most rural hospital closures. A simple thing that we can implement to get more people insured and to lower the cost of insurance? Approve and accept the aid from the federal government to expand Medicaid. They will literally pay 90% of the bill; we just have to pay 10%. And our operating budget for this year is over $200 billion. For the past few fiscal cycles, we've been operating at a budgetary surplus – extra money – of billions. Our rainy day fund has nearly $30 billion inside of it. The money to make people's lives easier and more affordable, it's there, but the willpower from our elected officials, they're not willing to help us out. They would rather use that money to help the ultra rich add millions to their hordes of billions. And that money is not coming down to help us. They say trickle down economics was the key when Reagan was president. They still tell that lie to us today. That if we help those at the top, it's eventually going to come down to us. That has been a lie.
So I say give the money to the people and allow a bottom-top approach to take effect. Let people live a comfortable life, make things more affordable for people, and our society as a whole will be better. But unfortunately, I'm either a radical there in my thinking, or the current state of politics is worse than we thought, if they're not willing to help us at the bottom,
BB: Another topic that's going to be a big issue for voters is data centers, especially here in West Texas. That's going to be an issue going into the legislative session. What are your current plans on the approach to data centers?
MW: Well, one, no city government or locality should have approved these data centers – or heck, Flock cameras while we're at it – without their citizens' consent. Just like we saw here before Stephen Sanders started the petition to get rid of the data centers and Flock cameras. Our city council was more than willing to, either in the dead of night or without the people's consent, approve and let these data centers take effect here, build inside of city limits, and/or outside the city limits. And again, the people did not agree to that.
So one, having an open dialog with the people of different jurisdictions and localities on how they feel about data centers. Two, I'm not readily approving of data centers because look at the state of Texas right now, we are facing a severe water shortage. Our aquifer is dangerously low. And these data centers, they eat up a lot of water. So where's that going to come from? And again, I've been block walking and talking to people, running this campaign for the past 11 months. One of the biggest things that I have heard from ranchers and farmers and family farmers is that they don't have enough resources to grow their crops to continue feeding the people of Texas. If we don't have enough water for our food, we sure damn don't have enough water for these large data centers. And then third, these data centers once constructed they tap into our electrical grid, making the utility prices for us more expensive. And the utility cost increasing, it's not just the data centers that's doing it, but a lot of people – and again, these past 11 months, just talking to people – a lot of families have seen an increase in their utility bills, doubled, tripled, or quadrupled the amount of where it was a year or two years ago. So it might not be causality, but there's certainly a correlation there. And we need to study how these data centers are going to affect the people of Texas before we allow them to move forward.
And then, lastly, data centers for what? I don't believe any company has explained what they're storing right now, and a lot of people believe – and this is mainly anecdotal or me being chronically online – but a lot of people believe that these data centers are storing our personal information and just selling it off to the highest bidder.
BB: One of the things that, I don't want to say advocates, but others in the data center conversation have talked about is what they could bring to these communities. I mean, we've seen this in other communities, Childress and Turkey, the companies behind those data centers have offered to build some of the infrastructure to sort of account for the issues like water that they were dealing with. Some have seen power generation and other things. Is that responsibility of the state, or can we accept data centers if they're helping in these infrastructure shortages that we see?
MW: Show me the proof. I mean, not you, but to the executives and CEOs and the sellers of these data centers to localities, show me the proof that you're bringing in jobs. Because statistics and current reports show that you have temporary construction jobs and then done. And then a lot of these data centers, they run pretty seamlessly, but with a handful of staff. So you might need a lot of people to get it built, and then once it's built, people are out of a job again. So show me the proof that you're going to help these communities, or are these AI centers going to be more so like Olympic stadiums? They go in, they sell people on the hype, they build these massive infrastructures, and then they leave the people of those localities to foot the bill. They don't take care of the area once it's built, and the Olympics is no longer happening there. And we learn pattern recognition throughout history, and this to me seems just like another red flag,
BB: But does it show a gap? If these communities are struggling with water or power, does it show a gap in the infrastructure that the state should be accommodating for, or is companies like data center companies, is that something that we can rely on to fill that gap?
MW: I mean, good question, and I'm not an expert in it. But as the next representative for House District 83, I would want to speak with the experts in those areas, so we can come to a good decision and not just decide willy-nilly based off of nothing but empty promises. Like the governor of Texas, Hot Wheels Greg Abbott decided to do when he said Texas is going to be the number one state for data centers. Like Dustin Burrows, Speaker of the House, agreed to, again, allow these data centers to come in and be built without the consent of the people, without having an informed consent, informed decisions.
We need to hear how these data centers will affect the lives of the people in the communities where they might be potentially built, and not just say, ‘Yeah, let's go in and build them. Let's go ahead and collect that check.’ And then look at what's happening. They both did a 180. ‘No, no, no. We're not doing data centers anymore. I think we need to pause on it.’ We've been saying that from the very beginning. If you're going to be a leader, you need to lead. You need to bring in the experts if you don't know the answer to something and figure out what the answer is. Just like an attorney, when we get questions that we don't know the answer to, we don't say, ‘I don't know.’ We say ‘Give me a second to look that up,’ or ‘Let me do some research, and I'll find that answer for you.’ How are our elected officials currently in office right now, not doing that when it's coming to these big data centers that's risking our limited water and our limited resources?
BB: Another issue on the policy side that you've talked about is education. Now, public schools are struggling both financially and in terms of the scores that we're seeing from students. Voucher advocates have said that the system gives Texas parents an alternative. But you have described this as not equally accessible. Explain that.
MW: What we are seeing with the vouchers is a scam. It is the Texas voucher scam program. You said certain families are looking for an alternative. Which families? Families that can already afford private institutions. Because these vouchers do not pay for the full tuition. So most families, if they even get the voucher, they can't use it because if you couldn't afford to send your kids to private school without the voucher, you can't afford to send the kids to school with the voucher. So what we are basically seeing is that our elected officials, they are leaning on hardworking taxpayers to help rich kids attend rich schools. I say that because, again, a lot of these families they can't afford private institutions. That's one. Two, a lot of these private institutions, they don't have the same accountability systems and programs set up as public school. So if you as a parent have an issue with what your kids are reading in public school, you can say something about it. You can attend PTA meetings. There's systems set up to where your voice carries a lot of weight in regards to what your child learns and can read. In private institutions, they have unilateral power and authority to say, ‘Hey, we're not going to admit your kid. We're not going to give you a reason why, but we're not going to admit your kid. And yet, we're still going to take taxpayer money. Second, we might or might not teach your kid religious principles and theory, and just teach religion overall.’ Separation of church and state, you should not be receiving taxpayer money because of that. So yeah, these vouchers are a huge scam, and going towards these private institutions. Again, it's just a means for hardworking Texans to help these rich kids attend rich schools.
BB: You kind of touched on it before: rural healthcare is a big issue. What is your focus going into this?
MW: As I said before, expand Medicaid. So, allow the federal government to pay 90% of the bill, and Texas pays the other 10%. The money is there. We know the money is there. We have an operating budget of over $200 billion. That's not the issue. Then we need to expand other things people need covered, especially in rural areas. So, telehealth care, mental healthcare, elderly healthcare. Again, block walking for the past 11 months some of the most heartbreaking things that I have seen have been individuals in their 70s, 80s, or even 90s living at home alone, and they get so much joy because when we knock, we are the only people that they have had interactions with for the past week, two weeks, month, several months. And that breaks – when I saw them and we left, they invited us into their homes, it broke my heart that they have been living like that. And there needs to be a system in place. Our healthcare should be able to care for them as well. So again, there's a lot of things that we need to focus on for rural healthcare.
And let's say you don't live within city limits. A lot of these rural areas, they have to travel 10, 20, 30, 45 minutes just to get to the nearest hospital, and who has time for that? If you have a life-or-death situation, you're not going to have the time to travel all the way to your local hospital. So we need to set up incentives so we can have healthcare workers and some sort of auxiliary health unit set up in these rural towns so people's health can be looked after.
BB: All of these things, healthcare, education, these things cost money. Public education is probably the most significant weight. You talked about legalizing THC, taking tax money off of that. Is $10 billion from legalized THC going to cover these things, or are there other ways that we can account for the costs that come with trying to meet these needs?
MW: There are other ways that we can fully funding public education and getting these teachers that pay raise. One of which includes using the money we already have to go towards education. Again, our operating budget is over $200 billion, with a B, dollars. We have a rainy day fund of over $30 billion, with a B, dollars. For the past few fiscal cycles, we have been operating at a budgetary surplus, extra money of billions, with a B, dollars. The issue is not how do we fund these things; the issue is do we choose to help the people, help teachers, help the public – and again, public school has roughly 5 million students – or do we choose to give more tax breaks to the billionaires? Do we choose to give them 5-, 10-, 20-year tax-free contracts? Do we continue to not tax them on their stocks, bonds, cryptocurrency? Like we pass constitutional amendments that said we can't do any of that. In my heart and my philosophy, I believe that instead of giving billionaires and the ultra-rich a handout, we help those at the bottom. We help the working class. We help those who are struggling. A bottom-up approach.
BB: Speaking of billionaires, gubernatorial candidate Democrat Gina Hinojosa has talked about opening investigations into billionaires like Elon Musk, who has made sort of a home base out of Texas for a lot of what he's doing. Would you support investigating his money and the effect that it has had on Texas politics?
MW: Yes, absolutely. Oversight is one of the essential functions of the legislative branch, and unfortunately, our current officials have been corrupted by greed to look the other way when it comes to the actions of these billionaires and corporations. Our current officials have pushed for benefits towards billionaires and these corporations, and so yes, oversight is very much needed. And if it goes to hearings or further investigations, then that is what we need, because it makes no sense that one of the largest contributors to political campaigns is Elon Musk. It makes no sense that he is the world's and Texas's trillionaire, while people are suffering, while people cannot afford to their food, when we have unhoused homeless veterans who are starving on Ave Q, next to Walmart, but and yet one man is collecting is a trillionaire? Absolutely not. So, this isn't always true, but where there is smoke, there tends to be fire, and so I want to know the truth about the interactions with these individuals. I want to know whether or not anything nefarious or shady is happening. If not, then proceed. If so, then we need to step up as the arbiters of the law, protectors of the people. They entrusted their current representatives and, hopefully soon to be me, with their protection. So that's what we need to do.
BB: You'd come in with only a short time to prepare before the next legislative session if you're elected. Have you spoken to anyone with experience or thought about how you’d prepare going into that session?
MW: Yeah, the state party – well, one, there's a state party. Two, there are several group chats that I am in via Instagram, Signal, group messages, Group Me messages with current representatives, candidates for office, experts in a particular field. So while it's true that I would need to catch up in my understanding of how certain things operate and what we need to do in order to solve certain issues, I'm already taking those steps. I like to be a prepared individual. Something that my former law school professor used to say is, ‘Properly prepared people prevents piss poor performance.’ And so I'm going to prepare before I get into office. I am preparing right now by listening to the needs of the people, figuring out policy positions with my staff, with my team, with other people running for office like Kyle Rable, Riley Rodriquez, and figuring out how we are going to move forward.
BB: And bringing up those other Democratic candidates and the state party as a whole, I mean, we have seen a lot of campaigning here in West Texas from Democrats that we have not seen in a long time. What do you think that that says about this election season?
MW: I think it says that people are finally realizing that they can't just ignore West Texas. That West Texas, specifically Lubbock, will be a shifting point for whoever takes office. That there is power out here. That if however, Lubbock goes, the rest of Texas will follow. And Democrats already have the Texas Triangle, the major cities, and if they pick up one large rural area, then that is the ballpark for control of the state. And so I think people are realizing that you can't just tune out a certain group of people because they disagree with you or because you think they're not as active. We have a major political advantage here if we try.
And for the past 11 months, one of the biggest responses that I get from people, be that Republican or Democrat, be that any occupation where that people might be working, is that ‘I haven't seen any representative, Republican or Democrat, show up to my door and ask me what I'm thinking or to even listen to me.’ So people are surprised that we're even putting in the effort to listen to them and to create policy around what they tell us, but that's what we're doing. And this entire thing – crazy – was at least for me, orchestrated by Kyle Rable, our next representative for CD 19. He tapped me in. He found a group of individuals that he thought would be good advocates for the people. And look at us now. In fact, Democrats did something unique this election in that we contested every state position.
So there's a lot of energy here. There's a voting bloc here. There's a lot of political power here if we are able to organize it and mobilize it, and that was, and that is, what I have been doing these past 11 months running for office. That is what Kyle Rable has been doing for the more than one year he's been running for office. It's what Gina Hinojosa is doing. It's what James Talarico is doing. Heck, that's why he's coming to town next week. And I mean, you can also find me there speaking at that event as well, because we all know the truth in that Lubbock, just like Texas, it's not a red city, nor is Texas a red state. We are a non-voting city and a non-voting state. If we can engage and energize the people here, that is the ballpark.
BB: Speaking of engaging with people that you might disagree with, is there an issue that you would work across the aisle with someone for?
MW: I have heard several Republicans discussing ways to improve our public education system, and it goes back to education because the kids are the future of Texas, and we need the next generation to be armed and prepared with the knowledge of history so they can recognize the patterns and lead us forward. Several Republicans are wanting to advance our public school system. Unfortunately, the vocal minority and radicals have been allowing their radical ideology to spread throughout the discourse of politics right now. But there are those Republicans that exist that sees that teachers need a pay raise, that religion nor politics should be heavily prevalent in the classroom, that teachers should be allowed to freely teach and students should be allowed to freely learn. There are Republicans that understand that we need to implement more programs for students to thrive in the classroom, such as Upward Bound programs, such as the creative arts. Republicans understand that kids need a lot to thrive, especially in the classroom. But their voices are either being drowned out by the radical few in their party, or, and I don't want to be that cynical, but the truth of the matter could be that a lot of Republicans might not just have a spine to speak, to stand up to those around them in their own party.
And as the next representative for House District 83, I'm going to call a spade a spade. If Republicans want to help us get education across the finish line, then we'll work with them. But what I'm not going to do is hesitate or sell out the next generation like we've been doing. Again, I grew up a poor kid from the east side of San Antonio. Dustin Burrows has been in office since 2014. I was 16 years old at that time, still living in poverty. He could have taken several steps to make life better for those around me or those who are coming after me, like my nieces and nephews. Unfortunately, he has not. And so instead of selling out their futures, I'm going to work with anyone that wants to help progress Texas. We need to get back to these big, bold, generational changing ideas that gives people hope in our system again. A lot of people right now, they are depressed, and they are apathetic to what's happening around them because things are so hard right now. A lot of people they've lost faith in the American Dream. They've lost confidence and hope that our current elected officials will take care of us.
I'm in this race to bring back hope. I'm in this race for change, generational change. We used to have these big ideas like, ‘Heck, if you get hurt, you should be able to go tell the doctor and it not break the bank.’ What happened? Why are we now so limited in how much money we have, which we have tons of money to help people, but our current elected officials they don't want to do that because they are either self-interested, they are being bought out, or they just don't have the backbone required to actually stand up against their fellow Republicans or individuals who are funding their campaigns. So I'm ready for change here in Texas. I'm ready to work across the aisle, but what I'm not, again, what I'm not going to do is allow billionaires and corporations to sell out the next generation.
BB: Malik Williams, Democratic candidate for District 83. Thank you very much for sitting down with me.
MW: Hey, thank you so much. And to everyone out there, please do not forget to vote. Early voting is from October 19 to October 30. Election day is November 3. Talk to your friends, family, and neighbors, get out to vote. Vote early. Don't wait until November 3. You're going to be facing long lines. If Texas is going to be better for everyone, everyone has to show up for Texas.
BB: That’s wonderful. Thank you, Malik.
MW: Of course.