What is a Super pac and why is he against it? Who is behind Talarico? Where are his parents from?

What a Super PAC actually is

A Super PAC, short for Super Political Action Committee, is a group that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money to support or oppose a candidate, as long as it doesn't hand the money directly to the campaign or officially coordinate with it. The key word is "independent." A campaign can only take capped donations from individuals, but a Super PAC can take $10 million from a single billionaire and blanket the airwaves with ads. The Supreme Court's 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC opened that door, and it has never been shut. Dark money groups, which don't have to reveal their donors at all, often feed money into Super PACs on top of that.

Why Talarico says he opposes them

Running on the premise that the true conflict in politics is not left versus right but a "top versus bottom" struggle between the ultrawealthy and everyday Texans, Talarico has sworn off corporate PAC donations, proposed measures to crack down on "billionaire tax loopholes," and advocated for outlawing Super PACs. He has said he will include banning Super PACs in an "anti-corruption" package if elected to the Senate. He has compared resisting the temptation of Super PAC money to Jesus refusing the Devil's offer in the wilderness.

The contradiction his critics point to

The tension is real. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman donated $10 million to Lone Star Rising, the Super PAC supporting Talarico, making up nearly 80% of that PAC's second-quarter fundraising total. Hoffman's total giving to Lone Star Rising reached $11.5 million, and the PAC had raised nearly $22 million by mid-summer. The cast of contributors bankrolling Lone Star Rising also features several other billionaires, many of them prolific Democratic donors, and dark money nonprofit groups that don't have to disclose their funders.

Lone Star Rising is chaired by Talarico's first chief of staff in the state legislature, and reporting found that the PAC began running ads that followed instructions laid out on a buried page of Talarico's own campaign website. Federal law allows Super PACs to spend unlimited amounts so long as they don't coordinate with campaigns; Talarico's team has insisted there was no coordination.

When asked about the support he receives from billionaire donors and Super PACs, Talarico has said he will not "unilaterally disarm while Republicans play by their own rules," and that he welcomes billionaire supporters who believe they should be taxed more and want their own political influence curtailed.

Where his parents are from

Talarico was born James Dell Collins in Round Rock, Texas. His mother, Tamara Causey, left his biological father, an abusive alcoholic named Steve Collins, when James Talarico was seven weeks old, and a few months later married Mark Talarico, who adopted James and gave him his surname. The Talarico surname and Italian heritage came through his adoptive father, whose family roots trace to Italy. Biologically, he identifies as an eighth-generation Texan through his mother's lineage, with ancestral ties to South Texas dating back to when the region was part of Mexico.

His grandfather was a Baptist preacher who ministered in South Texas communities including Corpus Christi and Laredo, and Talarico has said that grandfather taught him that Christianity comes down to two things: loving God and loving your neighbor. That faith runs straight through his politics.