Highlights from our interview with Representative Salman Bhojani, House District 92.
Q: Lone Star Standard
When did you become involved politically and how did your upbringing inform your politics?
A: Representative Salman Bhojani
That’s a great question. I’ve never thought about that because when you are persevering through multiple jobs and trying to make ends meet as a family, as the head of the household, you’re not really thinking about policy at that time. When I was in Pakistan, I didn’t think too much about politics because I was just ten years old. I did things kids ten years old do.
I got more politically involved in 2016, when the former President was elected. That is what made me realize that we don’t have a seat at the table. We don’t have rhetoric that is compassionate and we have a lot of hate and hatred against immigrants, against people.
That’s what made me more political. Otherwise, throughout my journey, I was not really involved politically in any way. It was more important to immigrate to this country, to do really well, provide for my family, put food on the table, get financially sound and stable before thinking about anything else.
Q: Lone Star Standard
What drives you to serve the community?
A: Representative Salman Bhojani
If anything, it comes from my faith and from my family. My mom always said: ‘leave this planet better than you found it. Give back to the community wherever you are able to.’ And that’s what my faith teaches me also. I have been a recipient of a lot of help when I came to America.
I worked minimum wage jobs. I was a stocker at Walmart where I stocked medicine and things on the shelf, at six bucks an hour, eight bucks an hour. I worked at the gas station mopping floors. It was a really tough time. When you’re working at six bucks an hour mopping floss, that’s not a really happy moment or a proud moment for anybody. But, I just had to do whatever it took to put food on the table to support my family. And, a lot of people helped me during that time. So, it’s always been on my mind that I need to pay it forward. I’ve lived the American dream from just a clerk or a Walmart stocker to an attorney and city council member. And so that’s what made me give back.
Another part of it was Representative Rafael Anchia. He is from Dallas. When I was at SMU Law School in the evening program. In the morning I would run my businesses, and in the evening I went to law school. And, in my third year I got an internship at a big law firm in Texas that has six hundred attorneys all over the world. And, I sat right next to Representative Anchia. He tells me that as an attorney one way to give back to your community is by serving on a board or commission in your city. So he’s the one that pointed me in that direction. So, I looked at different boards and commissions and saw the Parks Board. That’s why I moved here, let me serve on that. And that’s how I first got involved.
Q: Lone Star Standard
What was an important lesson you learned in your first session?
A: Representative Salman Bhojani
I think you are right about that. That’s one thing that I learned a lot during the session, that eighty percent to ninety percent of legislation that the Texas House of Representatives works on is bipartisan. I wouldn’t have assumed this going in because there’s always constant fighting between the parties. But it’s not that way in the Texas House. 80 to 90 percent is a pretty big number. We filed almost ten thousand bills in the House last session. Out of that, maybe one thousand, one hundred passed, but ninety percent of them were bipartisan.
So how I dealt with that is out of the twenty-five bills that I filed, each one of them had bipartisan joint authors. You can have 4 joint authors on any bills, so it is a limited amount. So I had two Democrat and two Republicans as joint-authors on all my bills to really hit home the point that this is not partisan. These bills are just something that is really good for the state of Texas. And that’s one of the reasons why I was able to pass a number of bills in the House as a freshman. That and I have really amazing collegial relationships with all my colleagues regardless of the party affiliation.
We have had a lot of good, meaningful conversations regardless of how the media portrays it. For us, I think we work well together. It’s not as partisan as Washington D.C., and let's keep it that way. We got a lot of good stuff done. All Democrats voted for Speaker Phelan. That would never happen in Washington. It allows us to work really well together. And I am really, really proud of and was honored to be named Chairman of a subcommittee on criminal jurisprudence, a committee on criminal procedure. That was a phenomenal feat for me because I don’t know about any freshmen that were named Chairman of a subcommittee.
Representative Salman Bhojani, Texas House District 92, immigrated to Texas as a teenager and worked several minimum wage jobs to help support his family. He went on to become a business owner, an attorney, a Euless city councilman, and one of the first Muslims and South Asians to be elected to the Texas State House.
This interview transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Listen to the full discussion here: https://texas-talks.simplecast.com/episodes/ep-10-salman-bhojani.
