relationship with him from before, from the oil and gas industry. One of the things he told me was, “The difference between the good legislators and the bad ones is the good ones get back up quicker.” He said, “There’s too much talent, there’s too many personalities, there’s too much at play for one person to win all the time. But the good ones get up quicker and get back in the fight.”

So I said, “That’s what I’m going to do.” Then I looked around. That’s what I saw all the effective people doing. I saw TMF get slaughtered, numerous times, and an hour later be back up there with as much passion and fight in him. And it didn’t matter what you did to him, he got right back up. And I think I did that too.  

TM: Where does this passion to be a mover and a shaker and not a follower come from?

JS: I guess I’m naturally against the grain to begin with. I think it started back with dropping out of high school and saying, “I don’t need your piece of paper. I’m going to go make money myself.” I’ve always kind of had that attitude.

But if you would have asked me before the session, “Does Jonathan become this leader of the tea party group?” I would have said no. I didn’t really seek to do that, but then you get here and there’s nobody doing it. Where was the conservative leadership? We did not get it from the senior members of the house. We didn’t really get it from the senate either, if you ask me. So it’s kind of like, “Well, y’all aren’t going to fight on this? Fine. I’ll do it.”

I think there’s people who have better skills and are more qualified—and I’ve had this conversation with numerous people who have been here for a while. It’s like, “I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m in a room, I’m blindfolded, but I got this bat, and if nobody else is going to show me where to start swinging, then I’m just going to start swinging in a circle. And learn by default.”

TM: Did that backfire on you amongst your colleagues?

JS: It did at first. I remember on the PUC Sunset bill, I voted against the whole thing because we didn’t pass the cease-and-desist amendment. I think there were five of us who voted against it. Well, I went straight to Facebook and said, “Proud to be one of five people who voted against it based on principle,” and explained it. I came back the next day to a bunch of people who were like, “You’re throwing us under the bus. You’re trying to be the hero. Dah-dah-dah-dah.” And it’s like, “Look, I’m not, but this is what my people, I feel, want, and this is what I was sent here to do. And if it’s at your expense, then I’m sorry, but you need to make that decision, whether you need to get on board or not.”

And there was some backlash, but I wasn’t the only one with that attitude. There was kind of an inner fight in the tea party caucus. This group over here who said, “Let’s try and work with them and maybe compromise on some stuff and see where we can get.” And then the other group who said, “We’re going to stand on  principle and force them.” My whole plan this entire session was stall, stall, stall, stall, stall. We’re not going to get the budget or anything else the way we want it in this regular session so let’s take it as far as we can to give ourselves a chance. Maybe Governor Perry will bail us out and maybe the people will stop this from happening. If you look at it from that standpoint, that’s exactly what we did.

TM: How do you think this attention will play into your role in the next session?

JS: I think it plays huge because this one is different than your main Tea Party party-line issue. I think people are finally starting to realize maybe there’s some depth here. This isn’t just a crazy guy who’s throwing red meat to get re-elected or doing it for a show. This is a lot deeper than that, and I think it’s caused people—maybe like yourself—to say, “What else is going on here?”

That’s one of the reasons the Tea Party mantle frustrates me. You get categorized as this person who just wants to say, “No, no, no, no, no,” and fight everything. I’m here to talk about solutions. I really think that I’ve got conservative, limited-government solutions to the problem.

TM: You said people didn’t expect this from you. Does your district expect this from you? How do you make this case to other Republicans?

JS: The things we were worried about, when we first started my race, were my age, my GED, and my support for Ron Paul. We couldn’t run from it. I had made donations to him and whatnot. That was our concern. So we just met every single one of those head-on. If you go to my website, it will say he’s got his GED. We owned it. I went around and talked about liberty as much as I possibly could in the Republican primary. That was the biggest complaint. Yeah, I think they did expect it. Some of them might have been a little fearful of what that might have meant. Any of my hardcore supporters or donors, they knew exactly where I was coming from.

There’s a retired police officer who’s running against me in the primary, from what we’ve been told. [But] I’m pro-cop. I’m OK with them going through emails. I just believe there’s a process and you got to go get a warrant. I believe in our justice system, and I believe there is a proper process to this that needs to be respected.