Democratic U.S. Senate nominee James Talarico said he was "honored" to receive an endorsement from a progressive group that once bailed out a man later accused of killing six people.
Fox News Digital reported that Talarico welcomed the Texas Organizing Project’s backing of his Senate campaign and praised the group’s long work in Black and Latino communities.
The same organization previously ran a charitable bail program that posted bond for Shane James. Authorities later accused James of a string of attacks in San Antonio and Austin that left six people dead, including his parents.
That record now sits beside a Texas Democrat who is asking voters to send him to Washington while his campaign insists he backs tough bail rules.
By September 2021, the Texas Organizing Project said its bail effort had distributed more than $1 million and secured the release of more than 675 defendants across Texas.
Records later showed TOP posted bond for Shane James while he faced three misdemeanor family-assault charges involving his parents and a sibling. His bond was reduced to a combined $300. He was released in March 2022.
The day after he walked free, James cut off a court-ordered GPS monitor. The court issued three warrants for his re-arrest. He remained free for 21 months.
Late in 2023, intense scrutiny followed when authorities accused him of killing six people. TOP said it had worked with the Bexar County public defender’s office after the bond reduction and that James had passed its screening based on the misdemeanor charges he then faced.
In a public statement, the group offered this defense:
"We acknowledge that our assessments cannot anticipate the future actions of individuals"
TOP also said it would conduct an internal review of the program.
A 2024 KSAT investigation found TOP had bonded defendants in at least 196 Bexar County cases after jail officials began specifically tracking the group’s activity in October 2022. Warrants for re-arrest later issued in 58 of those cases, nearly 30%.
One of those defendants was Benjamin Sanchez Jr., a convicted felon with two prior burglary convictions. TOP bonded him out 11 days after his arrest tied to the burglary of a San Antonio souvenir store. A warrant followed after pretrial violations that included new burglary arrests. He pleaded guilty to the newer cases and drew a six-year prison sentence.
TOP had framed its bail work as help for low-income defendants who would otherwise stay locked up because they could not pay. Critics saw a different pattern: people accused of crime returned to the community, then cycled back into new trouble.
When TOP endorsed Talarico’s Senate bid in May, the candidate did not keep his distance. He met with members before the endorsement, leadership said, and he spoke in warm terms about the group’s community infrastructure.
Talarico said:
"I am honored to earn this endorsement"
He added:
"That infrastructure is irreplaceable"
TOP is a progressive activist organization. In the 2021 Texas legislative session it opposed House Bill 20, a bail measure, and described efforts to restrict community bail funds as part of a "right-wing assault."
Talarico, then a state lawmaker, voted against a House version of that bill in May 2021, according to the Texas House Journal.
Asked about the 2021 vote and the endorsement, Talarico campaign spokesperson JT Ennis told Fox News Digital the candidate works to keep Texans safe and cited later positions on violent crime.
Ennis said:
"James will always work to keep Texans safe. That's why he voted to deny bail for violent criminals, supports prosecuting violent felons, and backed Governor Abbott's bill that was called the 'strongest bail reform package in Texas history,'"
The campaign said Talarico supported a 2025 measure tied to Gov. Greg Abbott’s bail package, including a constitutional amendment that would expand when courts may deny bail for defendants accused of certain serious violent crimes. It also argued the 2021 House version differed and carried broader provisions, and that critics warned moneyed defendants could still buy their way out.
Ennis then turned fire on Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton, Talarico’s opponent in the closely watched Senate race:
"The only candidate in this race endangering women and children is Ken Paxton, who cut an Epstein-style sweetheart deal that let a pedophile back on our streets after just 29 days in jail,"
That charge is a campaign claim. Paxton’s own record and any underlying case details were not laid out beyond the attack line in the reporting.
Talarico is running as a Democrat who roots progressive positions in faith language and now wants a promotion to the U.S. Senate. The Texas Organizing Project spent years building a bail apparatus that freed hundreds of defendants, including a man later accused of murdering six people after he cut off his monitor and ignored warrants for nearly two years.
The group’s own numbers in Bexar County showed warrants returning in nearly three of every ten tracked cases. Talarico still called its endorsement an honor and its network irreplaceable.
His campaign answers with later roll-call citations and a sharp swipe at Paxton. The timeline still shows a 2021 vote against a House bail bill that TOP cast as a right-wing attack on its model, followed by a warm embrace of the same organization years after Shane James’s release ended in a six-victim horror.
Texans living with the costs of weak pretrial decisions do not need another lecture about intentions. They need candidates who treat repeat risk as a public-safety problem first, not a cause to celebrate.
