Weeks out from the primary election, Texas Republicans are attacking Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico for a new campaign ad touting his work in passing a statewide cap on out-of-pocket insulin copays, accusing the Austin lawmaker of overstating his role.

“When I picked up my first insulin prescription, it cost me $684. I couldn’t afford that — most Texans can’t either,” Talarico, who has Type I diabetes, says in the 30-second ad, which is running on TV statewide and in major media markets through election day on March 3. “So when I got to the Texas House, I took on Big Pharma and capped insulin at $25 a month.”

The ad drew backlash last week from Republicans including Texas GOP Chair Abraham George, who demanded Talarico “stop misleading Texas voters by falsely claiming credit for Republican-led legislation.” Several GOP elected officials piled on to amplify the attack.

“Let’s set the record straight about how the price of insulin was lowered for Texans,” state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, R-Brenham and chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, posted on social media. “The truth is that you did not author the bill that passed in 2021.”

In her post, Kolkhorst noted she was the author of Senate Bill 827, the 2021 legislation that set a $25 cap on out-of-pocket costs for a 30-day supply of insulin for those on state-regulated health plans. She also credited former Rep. Eddie Lucio III, D-Brownsville, and Rep. Tom Oliverson, R-Cypress and then-chair of the House Insurance Committee, for the bill’s passage in the lower chamber.

In a statement, Talarico spokesperson JT Ennis said Talarico was “the first legislator to introduce a bill to cap monthly insulin prices in Texas, personally went desk to desk to build bipartisan support for the effort, and his viral diabetes story drew the national attention needed to get it passed.”

“Any victory this big can’t be achieved alone, and James has praised his colleagues for their work — but any assertion that he wasn’t instrumental to passing this bill is a flat-out lie,” Ennis said.

The Republican attacks on Talarico are coming at a notable point in the 2026 midterm cycle, just weeks before the primary election where voters will pick the parties’ nominees. Some of his supporters interpreted the early heat from the right — coming as the Democratic nomination remains up for grabs between Talarico and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas — as a sign that the GOP feels threatened by his candidacy.

“You can tell they’re scared of [Talarico] because they’re bringing up lines of attacks they never would against other colleagues,” André Treiber, a member of the Democratic National Committee and former Democratic staffer in the Texas House, posted on social media. “EVERYONE says ‘my bill passed’ even when it’s the companion, omnibus, or whatever that made it to the Governor’s desk, and no one nitpicks that.”

Last week, incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called Talarico “dangerous,” predicting he would defeat Crockett in the Democratic primary. Cornyn is facing a primary challenge from Attorney General Ken Paxton and U.S. Rep. Wesley Hunt of Houston.

Talarico is listed on SB 827 and its House companion, House Bill 82, as a co-lead alongside Kolkhorst, Lucio and others. Before SB 827 was introduced, Talarico filed a similar bill to cap out-of-pocket insulin copays at $50: HB 40, a notably low bill number signifying its high priority level in the GOP-controlled chamber.

A supermajority of the Texas House — 104 lawmakers, including numerous Republicans — signed onto Talarico’s bill. Kolkhorst introduced SB 827 on Feb. 26, 2021, more than three months after Talarico filed his original bill, which ultimately languished in committee as Kolkhorst’s measure became the vehicle for the insulin cap. During an April 6, 2021 press conference on HB 40, Talarico unveiled the bill alongside former Rep. Four Price, R-Amarillo, and noted that Kolkhorst was slated to be there but was, at the time, laying out a separate bill in committee.

The legislative effort in Texas was sandwiched between two key changes at the federal level. In July 2020, before the Legislature passed SB 827, President Donald Trump issued an executive order allowing some Medicare Part D prescription drug plans to establish a $35 cap on monthly insulin costs. Kolkhorst insisted it was the White House’s initiative that drove what was “ultimately a Republican-led policy change” in Austin.

Then, in August 2022, after the Texas Legislature passed its bill, then-President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which included a provision that mandated all Medicare drug programs cap out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month.

Instrumental or ceremonial?

Early in the 2021 session, as the push to cap insulin costs was still taking shape, Talarico and Kolkhorst met and discussed the idea, according to a screenshot of text messages at the time reviewed by The Texas Tribune.

“I just wanted to thank you for meeting with me yesterday,” Talarico wrote in a Feb. 5, 2021 message to Kolkhorst. “I can’t wait to work with you on this insulin issue.”

“Representative, what a pleasure it was to meet you and so happy to work with you,” Kolkhorst replied.

On May 19, 2021, Talarico texted Kolkhorst with an update, referring to the House Calendars Committee, the panel that sets the daily floor agenda and of which Talarico was a member: “We’re working on getting 827 through Calendars. I’m hopeful that it will be on the House floor next week!”

In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Kolkhorst said she began working on her proposal after Trump issued his executive order, and that she received the first draft of SB 827 from the Texas Legislative Council — the state agency that drafts bills for lawmakers — in November 2020, the same month Talarico filed his insulin proposal. She credited Lucio for working with her to reduce the cap from $50, as her bill had initially proposed, to $25.

“While Rep. Talarico has long claimed this was his bill, it was not,” Kolkhorst said. “Just as musicians sample another artist’s work, campaign ads can as well, so long as they’re not claiming actual authorship. The 2021 session saw five other members file bills similar to SB 827 regarding insulin. Other than Rep. Talarico, none of them have ever claimed to have passed my bill as their own.”

Oliverson, who now serves as chair of the Texas House Republican Caucus, said he recalled Talarico’s role in SB 827’s passage as “more ceremonial.” He argued Kolkhorst deserved most of the credit given her influence as the Republican chair of the Senate committee that advanced the bill.

“I don’t think anybody would argue that James Talarico didn’t spend a fair amount of political capital and time in ’21 advocating for price caps on insulin,” Oliverson said. “But it was not his bill that passed. His bill died in committee.”

Talarico’s allies in the Legislature quickly pushed back, arguing that he played an instrumental role in SB 827’s passage by bringing widespread attention to the issue and working to convince Republicans to support it.

“He used his personal story to build massive public support for it,” U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson, a Dallas Democrat who previously served in the Texas House, said on social media Friday in response to Kolkhorst. “Then you made him — the guy with diabetes — take second billing because you wanted your name at the top.”

In April 2021, Talarico shared the near-death experience that led to his diabetes diagnosis three years prior. His social media post has generated 307,000 likes and 48,000 reposts. News reports at the time described his personal story as “drawing attention” to the legislative effort.

A health care lobbyist who worked on SB 827, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of future retribution, recalled there was a fight between lawmakers over who would carry the proposal, but said, “There is no question Representative Talarico was an absolute leader on the bill.”

While laying out SB 827 on the House floor in May 2021, Lucio thanked Oliverson, Talarico and Price for their work on the bill. On the Senate floor, Kolkhorst mentioned that Lucio had been working on the issue for years.

In highlighting the bill’s passage at the time, Talarico thanked Kolkhorst, Lucio and Price for “helping us get this bill passed.” He previously called HB 40 a “bipartisan, bicameral effort,” and credited Kolkhorst, Lucio, Price and Rep. Senfronia Thompson, D-Houston, for supporting the measure.

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