Podcasts about state representatives

Full Hour | Today, Dom led off the Dom Giordano Program by revealing some great news out of Harrisburg, telling that the House Judiciary Committee organized to investigate DA Larry Krasner's role in the spike in Philadelphia's violence have voted to send impeachment to the House for a full vote, propelling forward the Republican push to remove Krasner from office and reinstall normalcy in the City. Also, Dom introduces his side topic of the day, telling of the success of Yellowstone and asking listeners for other great Western TV shows and movies. Then, Dom welcomes in State Representative Martina White fresh off the floor in Harrisburg after she and the rest of the House Judiciary Committee voted to pass a resolution sending an impeachment vote to the general House. Martina explains the reasoning behind the resolution, telling how Krasner has a large role in the spike in violence in Philadelphia and is responsible for implementing policies that have aided the downturn of the City, and why he needs to be held accountable. Then, Martina tells what happens next, and offers her prediction as to where things go from here. (Photo by Getty Images)

State Representative Senfronia Thompson was honored by the Houston Peace and Justice Center with their local Peacemaker Award. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/politicsdoneright/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/politicsdoneright/support

Full Hour | In today's second hour, Dom welcomes Liz Preate-Havey, Chair of Montgomery County's GOP, back onto the Dom Giordano Program for some deep analysis on local races that were overshadowed yesterday by the gubernatorial and senate races in Pennsylvania. Preate-Havey reveals the results of a close race for State Representatives and Senators out in Montgomery County, telling that local Democrats have started declaring victory even though some are winning by less than 10 total votes. Then, Giordano and Preate-Havey discuss the implications that Doug Mastriano and Dr. Mehmet Oz had on the lower ballot races, explaining the impact that Shapiro's gubernatorial victory held on Republican candidates. Then, Dom rounds out the remainder of the hour discussing the implications of the Republican loss in Pennsylvania, discussing what he expects from both Shapiro and Fetterman in their newly elected positions. Also, Giordano discusses the future of the Republican Party and why he believes Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to now be in the driving seat instead of former President Donald Trump. (Photo by Getty Images)

Dom welcomes Liz Preate-Havey, Chair of Montgomery County's GOP, back onto the Dom Giordano Program for some deep analysis on local races that were overshadowed yesterday by the gubernatorial and senate races in Pennsylvania. Preate-Havey reveals the results of a close race for State Representatives and Senators out in Montgomery County, telling that local Democrats have started declaring victory even though some are winning by less than 10 total votes. Then, Giordano and Preate-Havey discuss the implications that Doug Mastriano and Dr. Mehmet Oz had on the lower ballot races, explaining the impact that Shapiro's gubernatorial victory held on Republican candidates. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

If you're familiar with the UFC & Bruce Buffer, you know the reference in the title of today's show. Today is the day to make your voice heard. Millions of Americans are exercising their right to vote today in the 2022 Midterms. Republicans are predicted to win big. Whatever level of government is on the ballot...School board, County Council, State Representative, Congressman, or Governor, etc., it's important to show up.  We want to see people elected that will restore this country to its Constitutional boundaries. Polls & predictions don't matter unless we get out and vote. Join the Community!https://community.toddhuffshow.com/c/new-members-start-here/

If you're familiar with the UFC & Bruce Buffer, you know the reference in the title of today's show. Today is the day to make your voice heard. Millions of Americans are exercising their right to vote today in the 2022 Midterms. Republicans are predicted to win big. Whatever level of government is on the ballot...School board, County Council, State Representative, Congressman, or Governor, etc., it's important to show up.  We want to see people elected that will restore this country to its Constitutional boundaries. Polls & predictions don't matter unless we get out and vote.  Join the Community! https://community.toddhuffshow.com/c/new-members-start-here/

Jason Woolford is a US Marine Corp Vet and Candidate for State Representative District 48, Michigan. Elections around the corner. Crime. Inflation. 

11/07/22:  InForum columnist, Jim Shaw, and former State Representative, Al Carlson, talk about and debate term limits, recreational marijuana, local races, and federal races ahead of tomorrow's midterm election. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What You Need to Know is Let's identify the Red Menace! After the November 8th, 2022 elections and the huge red tsunami, let's identify the red menace! And that red menace is China. China is our real enemy and it's time to acknowledge this so we can change our foreign policies for the better!  Jim Robb, NumbersUSA Vice President of Operations, talks about his new book — Political Migrants: Hispanic Voters On The Move. Jim also wrote an article on Hispanic Americans' opinions on how to handle immigration are remarkably similar to those of their fellow citizens. Be sure to check out NumbersUSA.org. Rep. Annette Glenn, State Representative in the 98th Michigan House District, talks about her Senate campaign and why this race is so hot. Rep. Glenn explains that because of redistricting this race will change whether or not Republicans or Democrats take control of the state of Michigan. Check out AnnetteGlenn.com to see how you can help her campaign. What You Need to Do is 1. Check out The Andrea Kaye Show on election night. Ed will be joining her to discuss the election results. And 2. Keep an eye on last-minute endorsements. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Have you ever felt frustrated with what is happening around your town? Have you ever felt powerless to create change and have your voice heard?This coming Tuesday, November 8th, is the midterm election here in the US. For many, politics seems to be the one topic we all want to escape, yet we are surrounded by it. Perhaps like the majority, you are a reluctant spectator in the past. However, there is so much at stake lately that I could not open up a discussion on this topic. Over the course of the years, I have been fortunate enough to get a first-hand look at our governmental system.  During my career, I was asked to collaborate with Capital Hill Staffers to draft education policies and share a first-hand account of how these policies impacted our schools and students. I have had the opportunity to watch individuals from both sides of the aisle work together successfully to make a difference in the lives of the people they represent.If you believe politics are "dirty," "don't matter," or "why should I care?" This show is for you today.I think that, at times, our limited understanding and knowledge of a topic keeps us from taking action or, in some cases taking the right action that can benefit us. I know that we can often feel powerless and ineffective in creating change.  For this reason, I am sharing this interview with you today. This week's guest is Claire Campos-O'Neal, mother to two young boys, daughter of a first-generation Mexican-American, and co-host of Go Behind the Ballot Podcast. In November 2021, she put her name on the ballot and ran for office for the first time. She hoped to be the next State Representative for House District-51, which covers much of southeast Austin and Travis County.  What pushed her to throw her hat in the ring was the regret I was sure I would feel if I stood back on the sidelines.Before running for office, she worked as a real estate agent focusing on residential sales. While Claire didn't love the grind of working real estate transactions, she was always eager to learn more about the trajectory of her city, the demographic trends, and what makes a place desirable. After the race for HD-51, she took stock of that surreal experience and felt compelled to create a place for communal learning and growth. Claire and her co-host of the podcast Nichole Ab hope that ‘Go Behind the Ballot' is that home for the curious, the courageous, the compassionate, and the kind. There is so much at stake in this election. Perhaps our beliefs may not be fully aligned, but my goal is to inspire you to vote for your values, what matters, and what type of future you want. I also want you to do your own research, don't take information at face value from any candidate, party, or news organization.To find Non-partisan info on the issues and candidates, you can visit: https://www.vote411.org/ You can also find Claire here:@gobehindtheballot on FB, Insta, TikTok. Support the showThank you for listening to our podcast. Visit our website Join our Facebook GroupInstagram, TikTok We love reviews! Please leave us a review.Contact us if you want to Launch, restart, grow your podcast.

Vicky Hartzler, U.S. Representative for the 4th District of Missouri, reacts to President Biden's recent speech demanding that Americans vote for Democrats or face chaos. Joshua Arnold, staff writer at The Washington Stand, reports on an emerging trend of minors committing crimes due to disengaged parents. Robin Lundstrum, State Representative for Arkansas 87th District, refutes claims made by supporters of marijuana legalization in her state. Tom Cotton, U.S. Senator for Arkansas, shares about his new book: Only the Strong: Reversing the Left's Plot to Sabotage American Power. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

We sat down with Dr. Diana Gonzales Worthen who's currently running for Arkansas State Representative for District 9 in Springdale as a Democrat. This episode is available everywhere you listen to audio podcasts.

Elaine Price discusses her background and how she entered the political arena, first in Coeur d'Alene and then in the state of Idaho. She discusses the issues that her district faces. At the state level, Elaine's priorities are to rein in the executive's emergency powers, implement choice in Idaho's education system, cut spending in the executive branch, and reduce the tax burden for Idahoans. We then discuss the Idaho Republican Party and how it must unite to pass the agenda that the state needs.Sponsor:Derek at Consumer Credit Auditors can fix your credit score and help you save money with lower interest rates.  Call (208) 601-6069.  Visit consumercreditauditors.com for more information.

Shantel Krebs has devoted her entire career to serving her community and country. From being elected as a State Representative and then Secretary of State to CEO of Miss America, she works diligently to make this world a better place. Shantel shares the secret ingredient to her success, tips for media interviews and speaking to large audiences, and how many of her life experiences shaped the woman and leader she is today and impacted how and why she is where she is in her career. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The views expressed on Oversight Matters do not necessarily represent the views of Wayne State University or Wayne State Law School.

What You Need to Know is Rand Paul's wife is right! Senator Rand Paul was attacked a few years ago by his neighbor who was left-leaning. When Nancy Pelosi's husband was attacked, and right away, they started blaming MAGA supporters and Conservatives. Sen. Paul's wife recently came out standing up for her husband by saying that the violence comes from the left. Rep. Annette Glenn, State Representative in the 98th Michigan House District, talks about her Senate campaign and why this race is so hot. Rep. Glenn explains that because of redistricting this race will change whether or not Republicans or Democrats take control of the state of Michigan. Check out AnnetteGlenn.com to see how you can help her campaign. Kenny Xu is the President of Color Us United and author, talks about that On October 31st, the SCOTUS Will Hear Arguments in Harvard Anti-Asian Discrimination Case. Be sure to check out his book on this topic — An Inconvenient Minority: The Attack on Asian American Excellence and the Fight for Meritocracy. And visit his website ColorUsUnited.org What You Need to Do is Move, Don't Watch! Go and vote, and get ready for the November elections. See how you can help the most valuable with the elections this fall.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ben Bakers is a State Representative for the Missouri District 160. Recently his work on a 2019 Heartbeat Law has resurfaced because of the provision included in the law. The provision would ban all abortions in the state (excluding medical emergencies) if Roe V Wade was overturned. MO State Rep. Ben Baker joins us today and helps us answer the question, should Christians be concerned and involved with politics?

Descendants of accused witches in Connecticut are pushing for exoneration 375 years later, hoping our state will follow others in clearing their ancestors' names. This hour, we hear from Beth Caruso and Sarah Jack, two of the five founders of the Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project. Their goal is to "clear the names of those wrongfully accused of witchcraft in Connecticut through legislation and establishing a permanent memorial to the victims of the witch trials." We'll learn about a plan to propose exoneration legislation from Jane Garibay, State Representative for the 60th District, including Windsor. In 2017, the town voted to clear the names of Alice Young and Lydia Gilbert, both of whom were hanged in our state. But first, the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection is closing out Bat Week, highlighting "astonishing losses" to populations of cave bats in Connecticut and across North America. "White-nose syndrome has killed over 90% of northern long-eared, little brown, and tri-colored bats in North America in fewer than 10 years." A wildlife biologist joins us. GUESTS: Devaughn Fraser: Wildlife Biologist, DEEP Beth Caruso: Co-Founder, Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project; Author, One of Windsor: The Untold Story of America's First Witch Hanging Sarah Jack: Co-Founder, Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project; Co-Host, Thou Shalt Not Suffer: The Witch Trial Podcast Jane Garibay: 60th District State Representative Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This week, Crystal is joined by Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young! Looking at Washington's Secretary of State race between Democratic incumbent Steve Hobbs and nonpartisan challenger Julie Anderson, Derek talks about his views on Anderson, who's tenure as Pierce County's County Auditor has given him insight into her values and priorities. Anderson's been taking criticisms from some Democrats while others Dems have stood up to defend her and her record. Hobbs has been running on his experience in the role since assuming the position last year, and has stayed out of the mud-slinging in this race. He has his own previous reputation as a moderate Dem that is coloring some voters' opinions of him.  26th LD Representative Jesse Young's behavior and extreme political views have become the subject of news again as his race against State Senator Emily Randall for the State Senate seat continues. Young has a history of aggression against staffers, to the point that he has been banned from having legislative staff, has co-sponored legislation to limit abortion rights, and has supported local Republicans who have been involved in domestic terrorism.  In other troubling news out of this race, a PAC, Concerned Taxpayers of Washington State, sent a mailer that made a derogatory reference to Emily Randall's sexual identity. It's another disturbing example of anti-LGBTQIA rhetoric and sentiment  in mainstream political circles.  Derek recommends Pierce County listeners pay attention to the race between Robyn Denson and Paula Lonergan, who are running for Derek's seat on the City Council now that he's hit his term limit. He also points to the race between Councilmember Marty Campbell and challenger Nancy Slotnick. Finally, a Pierce County project to build a homeless housing project has hit a major road bump in the form of zoning conflicts. Derek provides insight into the specifics of the project, its goals, and what its future looks like after this setback. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Derek Young, on Twitter at @DerekMYoung. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources Don't forget to vote! Visit votewa.gov for voting resources.   Institute for a Democratic Future 2023 applications are live! The initial deadline is November 2nd, and the final deadline is November 13th.   Learn more about how to get involved in Seattle's budget season at this link.   Student debt relief sign-ups are live! Visit this link to enroll.   “Democrats split over nonpartisan secretary of state candidate” by Melissa Santos from Axios   Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Secretary of State candidate Julie Anderson   Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Secretary of State candidate Steve Hobbs   “New ad highlights Washington candidate's past behavior against staffers” by Shauna Sowersby from The News Tribune   Emily Randall's response to the homophobic mailer against her - watch on TikTok here   Sign up to volunteer for Emily Randall's campaign here on her website.    Hacks & Wonks' Interview with Robyn Denson.    “Pierce County prefers this site for a big homeless housing project. Why it might not work” by Shea Johnson from The News Tribune   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows where we review the news of the week with a co-host. Welcome back to the program, friend of the show, today's co-host: Pierce County Council Chair, Derek Young. Welcome. [00:00:52] Councilmember Derek Young: Thank you for having me. [00:00:53] Crystal Fincher: Excited to have you here again, especially - to get to focus on Pierce County and talk about Pierce County. There's a lot going on. I guess starting off - we're in election season, ballots are in people's hands - remember to get those ballots turned in. Vote by November 8th, but even better, just vote as soon as possible - get that in and done. There are some close and exciting races in Pierce County and with some Pierce County angles. I think we'll start off talking about the Secretary of State's race, which is a statewide race, but with current Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, who was a former State Senator and then after Kim Wyman moved to Washington [D.C.] and left the job, Steve Hobbs was appointed by Governor Inslee, and a challenger, Julie Anderson, who is a county auditor and now running for the statewide Secretary of State race. What have you seen in this race lately? [00:01:56] Councilmember Derek Young: I will say this. The race has not gone as I assumed it would, which would be more a debate between Anderson and Hobbs that was about the office and the ideas. And has now evolved into something where we have this strange situation where we have a lot of Pierce County Democrats, like myself, who are defending Julie from attacks from our State Party Chair. And that's been strange - I think it's particularly difficult for those of us that have been around and know Julie well to see the attacks turn into "she's some sort of secret MAGA Trump Republican that" - she's been around a long time and so with those of us that know her, that's a very strange experience to have. So rather than focusing on the office, we found ourselves in a defense mode trying to say - Hey, that's not the Julie that we know, support Steve all you want - that's all fine, I get it. He's running as a Democrat and she's running as a Nonpartisan, which makes things way more difficult. The race has turned into something - the election itself is almost a sideshow of the controversy that has developed around it. [00:03:30] Crystal Fincher: Some controversy, definitely. I wonder how visible it is to the general public. Certainly people - politicos, the hacks and wonks who are around - are very caught up in this just because it's a different dynamic than we normally have. This has been a partisan office. It's been the only statewide office that Republicans held recently. It was previously held by Republican Kim Wyman - has been a partisan office -when she left and this race came up, people generally assumed - okay, there's going to be a Democrat and a Republican. A Democrat, a Republican, and a Nonpartisan ended up running and Julie Anderson ended up edging out the Republican candidate in the primary, so this is a general election that a lot of people did not anticipate. And the dynamic between a Democrat and a Nonpartisan - and Julie has said that she prefers the term Nonpartisan instead of Independent - is certainly different than - a lot of people - hey, you're familiar with who a Democrat is, you're familiar with who a Republican is. And that has a lot to do with how you view those - that's a significant lens to view a candidate through, and most people see that as a significant driver of a decision and are more aligned with one party and/or tend to vote for the candidate of that party. In this situation with Julie Anderson being Nonpartisan, there has been a lot of questions. And from the Democratic Party and some opponents - have basically said, Hey, she's aligned with Republicans, she looks like she may be an undercover Republican. I should mention that Hacks & Wonks did interviews with both Steve Hobbs and with Julie Anderson. We actually talked very directly about this issue. Julie and Steve both offered their opinions and explanations on all of this, and so you can find those shows and we'll link those in the show notes. But it's that attack on Julie Anderson that has been controversial - that we saw an Axios article from Melissa Santos about this week, lots of online posting and opinions and takes about this, but hey, is it actually accurate that Julie Anderson is basically a closet Republican or has she worked well with all people, sincerely views herself as a Nonpartisan? Are her views consistent now after getting some Republican support than they were before? It appears that they are, and she has stood up afterwards and say - Hey, I still believe our elections are secure, and believe in how they've been, and for voter amendments and those kinds of things. But then other people are saying - hey, especially at a time when we have these battles between Republicans and Democrats, we can't risk having a Nonpartisan in there. We need to have a Democrat in this office. How do you weigh that decision and how do you think voters can view their decision in this race? [00:06:42] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, it's a fair question and I'll be honest - it would have been so much easier if she was running as a Democrat because you have the backing of the Party and all the resources that brings with it. Obviously, in this case, that wouldn't have been the way it went down because we have an incumbent who was appointed last year. But - what's the saying about Ginger Rogers and having to do all the things that Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels? That's the kind of obstacles that Julie, by choosing this, put in her way. I don't know how voters are going to react as a result. The one thing I do note is that she believes this in her bones. This is a genuine conviction that the position of auditor at the local level and Secretary of State at the state level should be Nonpartisan because you can't assume that everyone will look at election and have faith in it if they view the person administering it as aligned with one of the teams. I actually think I agree with that sentiment, particularly in these times, and I kind of understand where people are coming from when - at a time when so many Republicans are calling into question the veracity of our elections, can we have someone that's on the sidelines, so to speak, that isn't actively pushing back on that from the Democratic point of view? I tend to agree with Julie more in that the way you build trust and faith in the system is by having someone who is fulfilling a more ministerial role and calling balls and strikes not aligned with one of the parties. And I've seen how that works firsthand in Pierce County. One of my jobs as Chair of the Council is I sit on the Canvassing Board and so each election, there's a group of folks who are election observers from each party and independents that come in - and every time, these very partisan folks have nothing but praise for Julie and her team and the transparent and accountable system that she's built. This is also a woman who literally tried to get rid of her office. She proposed to me, and I agreed, that the role of auditor should be an appointed position because it is administrative and ministerial. Electing the position is actually not a great idea - similar for the offices of sheriff and assessor. So I had charter amendments to propose for each of those. But being Julie, she wrote an editorial saying - you should get rid of the job I just completed. And I just have nothing but admiration for someone who's not only learned the role, but determined that - if she designed the ideal world, this position would not even be elected. But if you're going to have an elected person in it, you should have someone that is not beholden to one of the parties. The last thing I'll just say is that prior to her time as auditor in the county, she was on the Tacoma City Council. While city council races are also nonpartisan, you get a sense for people's values. Julie Anderson is a very progressive person. And I think there's - so for those of us that are from Pierce County, this has been this just very strange experience to watch. And how that plays out in the rest of state, I just don't know. But I have to imagine that the tension drawn to it by the Party has probably actually been good for her to get that message out there. I don't know that the rest of the non-very-online, very-hooked-in crowd is paying that much attention to the race, so we'll see how it goes. [00:11:14] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, we'll see how it goes - this seems to be a race, I think I commented earlier, I know other people have - where this is not a race that seems to be attracting much attention. People are kind of looking at those party cues. Hey, if I'm a Democrat, I see a Democrat, I'm voting for the Democrat. And that seems to be how things are going with people who don't really pay attention to local party politics, all of the stories, the ins and outs of the campaigns to the degree that people who work in politics or policy or heavily involved in advocacy do. But for those who are, this has been one of the toughest decisions and have been some of the toughest conversations that people have had in a bit - because there is this tension. And I think another dimension of this is that we're talking about Senator Steve Hobbs, who has been known as a moderate and has certainly provoked a lot of emotion over the years. He has taken different stances than a lot of other people in the Party on transportation policy and different things. And so I think for people who have been involved in politics for a long time, they have this view of him in their head as a moderate. And that's a positive thing for some people - some people may feel that that's pragmatic. For others, they feel that that's obstruction. But for people who do have an impression of Steve Hobbs, whether positive or negative, I think that colors how they're coming into the opinions of this race and that conversation. And also just the recognition that that's a very small slice of people who are paying attention to that degree. So I don't know how much this makes it out into the world of people who take the time to vote and who care about it, but who don't really follow politics closely. It'll be interesting to see how this continues to play out and how the information continues to flow over the next two weeks. [00:13:19] Councilmember Derek Young: Steve has also - to his credit - is not behind a lot of the nastiness that has come up in this race. In fact, I have not heard anything bad about the way he's conducted himself in the office. And so my feelings - and they're personal feelings in the race, I think for a lot of others - it's actually less about Steve Hobbs and more about our feelings for Julie. I will also say, for those of us from South Sound, there's a little bit of folks from other parts of the state telling us what we should think about this. And so you have a little bit of good old-fashioned Tacoma getting its back up about one of our own. And I think there's some of that going on as well. So I just wanted to be clear that I think the candidates themselves are conducting an admirable race. [00:14:15] Crystal Fincher: I think that's fair. There's another race where I don't think one of the candidates is conducting an admirable race, and that's an extremely partisan race in your neck of the woods - in the 26th Legislative District - between Democrat Emily Randall and very extreme Republican Jesse Young. Now you have been down there and observing the ins and outs of Jesse Young, who's now running for State Senate, but was a State Representative, is a State Representative before this. Man, this man has issues - and this week there was a news story that that talked about his very problematic treatment and harassment of staff. What did he do? [00:15:02] Councilmember Derek Young: There's a pattern of abusive behavior to not only staff, but other legislators. For example, his Republican seatmate, Michelle Caldier - they're not supposed to be in the same room together without at least one other person because they got in an argument that was so loud that security had to show up. So this is someone from his own party and his seatmate in his district. And I will just say that it fits a pattern for him. And he would not be the first politician that has had difficulties with staff, but when he was found to have done these things and was instructed to go to some anger management counseling, he refused to do so. And so as a result, to this day, he's not allowed to have legislative staff. And some of the reports were pretty awful - calling a woman by a particularly vulgar name and screaming fits - and to the point where at one point the staffer referred to their weekly meetings as "the weekly beatings." So his behavior is obviously a problem and makes him particularly ineffective because how someone does the job of legislator without staff is kind of beyond me. All that said, it's not just his behavior that's problematic. He has rather extreme political positions. This was a man who was close allies with and stuck by Matt Shea - many of your listeners will remember as the radical Eastern Washington Republican who literally organized the militia takeover of the Malheur. [00:17:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah - he was involved in domestic terrorism. [00:17:04] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, he put tracking devices on sheriff vehicles to monitor people, he planned insurrection, runs a training camp for militia activities. And this is someone who - when he was under fire for these behaviors and Republicans were trying to figure out what to do - leadership in their caucus removed him immediately from the caucus. Well, maybe not immediately, but got to it pretty quickly. He stood by him the entire time and organized opposition to Minority Leader J.T. Wilcox's actions that removed him from the caucus and expedited his eventual departure from the Legislature. So, his positions on abortion are for criminalization. Just really strange out of the mainstream type of behavior, and I'll leave you with this one other more recent anecdote that I am more personally knowledgeable of. During the aftermath of George Floyd's death, some teenagers in Gig Harbor decided that they were going to organize protests and showed up at this one corner that's particularly - I don't know, for whatever reason, it's become our protest area - I think it's because it's got a lot of traffic. And so hundreds of kids and some adults showed up there to protest and demand reforms for law enforcement. And Jesse showed up with a group of men carrying long guns because they claimed that these were Antifa and they were going to burn the shopping mall next to it to the ground. He stuck by this ridiculous story for so long, he even claimed that the local police chief, who happens to be a friend, had covered up the story and that he witnessed the chief grabbing gas cans that were planted ahead of time to burn the strip mall down. When in reality, what the police chief had seen was a gas can that had fallen on the roadway from someone with a landscaping truck and he was just picking it up to get it out of the road. He continued to lie about this on conservative talk radio for weeks. And this is our police chief - he's a known, trusted person that's been on our force and lived in our community for decades. And Jesse's out there lying about him because he wanted to justify his appearance there with a group of men and long guns to a protest organized by teens. [00:19:54] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and that was a scary time. This was in 2020 - we were working with organizers on the ground, canvassers on the ground in the district at the time in another effort. And it was a really scary thing even detached from it - hearing, hey, there are reports with men driving around with guns, men arriving at this place with guns, some of these assault rifles, right? And just not knowing what's going to happen, hearing the extremist rhetoric, knowing the history of some of those - especially in the context of his palling around with domestic terrorists, Matt Shea - did not know what direction this was going to go in, but he clearly felt really entitled to do that and to intimidate everyone in that area, everyone in those neighborhoods. And that's just really fundamentally not okay. The treatment of staff is just really fundamentally not okay. And there are some people who sometimes view these things as partisan attacks. And Republicans certainly have their own record on what they've permitted within the ranks of their party. But I think in this state, especially among Democrats - we had a conversation, had many conversations about Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler - that treatment - so many people have called on him to resign and continue to, finding that's not acceptable. He's not going to find support when he - it would be really unwise to choose to run for re-election - but if he would, he's not going to find support there. There have been other people whose resignations have been called for in the wake of treatment like this. This is something that is not partisan. This is something that Democrats have been not hesitant to call out people in their own ranks. And this also applies to Republicans. He has not had a legislative assistant since, what was it, 2016? [00:21:59] Councilmember Derek Young: Something like that, yeah. [00:22:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, for quite some time. And as you said, how do you get any work done? The people in the 26th have had hobbled representation. And if people found any fault with what's happening, you kind of have to ask - how is Jesse Young able to show up and do his job? Other legislators have beyond full schedules - needing a legislative assistant to juggle all of that, juggle all their communications, schedule meetings, coordinate with their constituents. And so that's just not possible to do and to fully do your job. And to have the reason for that being that you can't be trusted to be around subordinates is really just an indictment on the fitness for office. And there's a clear choice in terms of the issue of abortion rights in this race. You have Emily Randall, who is a staunch supporter of personal freedom and privacy and reproductive choice. You have Jesse Young, who has taken really extreme stands on abortion - and hey, it shouldn't just be a ban, there should be criminal penalties involved in this - just really troubling. And the election conspiracy denial - he went to Arizona, with the denialists in Arizona, to a Cyber Ninja audit that they called it. And it was just really a gathering of these conspiracy theorists. Why are we entertaining a conversation of electing a guy who is doing this kind of stuff? This is just beyond me and really beyond the conversations of how do we even get to policy? How do we even get to what you're going to do in the job when you're doing things that prevent your ability to even do the job? How are we debating about issues when he can't adequately legislate? He can't adequately hear from, meet with, represent constituents. He can't adequately conduct himself in public and not intimidate people with guns - teenagers - with guns in public. We can't even get to the conversation of legislating. This guy is just fundamentally unfit. It's a challenge. And I imagine you're sitting there looking at this race and going - oh my goodness, I wish more people really knew who this guy was and what's at stake. [00:24:34] Councilmember Derek Young: It is hard because it is my community. We are the - 26th district for those that aren't familiar - it's basically the Kitsap Peninsula, so half of it's in Pierce County in the Key Peninsula and Gig Harbor area and then Kitsap going up to Bremerton. And it's a swing district. Even calling it a swing district might be generous to the Democratic side. They've been pretty successful here for the last decade or so. And things didn't change that much with redistricting. But yeah, even setting that aside, I get that at least half of our district prefers the Republican side and that's fine. But in this case, you have someone who is so clearly a great representative for us, or a senator for us, and is very effective - almost shockingly so. As a first-term Senator, Emily Randall really was a standout amongst that group in terms of being effective, being thoughtful, doing the hard work. I know within my association, because I've been for a number of years leading our legislative efforts, very often bringing her up as someone to champion things that we're working on because we know her as a worker and fair-minded and well-respected. And then you have the opposite of that challenging her and really just having some basic integrity challenges in addition to his volatility, so I don't get it. This shouldn't be close. I understand why some of the other races are the way they are - we actually had a surprise with Adison Richards doing exceptionally well in the primary of one of the House seats, against a fine candidate on the Republican side who I know pretty well - Spencer Hutchins, who was formerly on the Gig Harbor Council. So those are the races where I understand everyone's got a choice and it's harder to understand why the Senate race is this close. [00:27:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's worrisome, but this is definitely a race. We've talked before about - there's a lot of people in the Seattle area who listen to this race and a lot of the races that they're going to be considering are Democrat versus Democrat legislative races, some of them are uncontested at all. And so it presents an opportunity to say, okay, we know your seat is going to be in Democratic hands and certainly stay active and involved where you're at, but make a point to adopt a race somewhere externally, whether it's a district like the 26th Legislative District down in South Sound, whether it's the 47th Legislative District down in the Kent, Auburn, Covington area. Or up north in the 10th or 47th or 42nd districts. Pick one of these districts where we know that races there are consistently close and competitive, that it's always within a hair of which candidate wins, and help put the Democratic candidate in this situation, but help put the candidates that align with your values over the top. [00:28:19] Councilmember Derek Young: And do it - if for no other reason - to help out me personally. We're two guys from Gig Harbor named Young and working in politics, so lots of people confuse it. And I think in particular, my dad takes exception because people think his son is Jesse. [00:28:36] Crystal Fincher: Oh, yikes. Yikes and yikes. Yeah, I do not envy you as being another Young in politics there, but hopefully this is something that won't be an issue for you that much longer. So as if all of the other stuff wasn't enough, there was a mailer that arrived this week that was really troubling and obviously intentional. The background here is that Emily Randall is a queer woman - has been open about that, wonderful about that. And a mailer arrived and you talked about this, so I'll let you describe it. [00:29:22] Councilmember Derek Young: Basically - and I hadn't noticed the mailer, I don't know that I was the target audience - but Emily posted a video where she shared it because she received it. And the message says, Let's set the record straight. Now, that term is one we're all familiar with in political context and journalism and such. The problem was that they put a special emphasis - underlined and red-bolded the "straight" part. That is a winking notation of her sexual identity and a pretty ugly one, I think. It's a - we are in a divided district, so we know that there is some people who will be uncomfortable with LGBTQ rights and Emily's never hidden from it. But the IE that ran this - I think there's no question they knew exactly what they were doing, and it's really worthy of calling out. And I'm glad that Emily did herself, because she's her own best advocate and I think that's important. But I think it's also important for all of us to say - We know what you were doing. And this isn't some PAC that just popped up for a single purpose to hide identities. This is a - what is it - Concerned Taxpayers? I forget their exact name, but it's a mainstream PAC that's very active in a lot of races. Their major donors are Master Builders and Realtors. And so this is a group that should know better and did something - [00:31:17] Crystal Fincher: That does know better and decided not to do it. That is - this isn't a fringe group - this is a major mainstream regular supporter of the party, closely aligned interests of the party. They're allies of the party and they're consistently there for those interests. And it clearly was intentional. I mean, as - you have worked on political communications certainly, as have I. And I think sometimes political operatives do the thing where we know exactly what we do. And I'm saying, I do not do this and try very hard not to do this - but I've seen Republicans and I've sometimes seen Democrats do this - but rely on the public not realizing what our work actually is and how we actually do it, to just excuse it. And what you see in political communications, what you see on mail is very intentional. The words are poured over. There are several levels of approval, certainly on - if you're working with a good team, as you are anywhere, you want to make sure that you're conveying the message that you want to and that you are not conveying any message that you don't want to. So anything that can be borderline - I don't really want to say that - then you don't say, then you change something to make sure that it doesn't give that impression, that it doesn't say something - especially something that is harmful or offensive. And at a time when we have a very conservative Supreme Court who is tearing down rights, who has basically put the right of marriage equality on notice. And the Dobbs decision - it didn't just strike down Roe vs Wade - it also laid the path that a number of them want to take moving forward, which is striking down protections for contraception, privacy, marriage equality - type thing. So we know this is on deck. We've heard several Republicans in the state and across the country say that they believe that - just marriage between only a man and a woman should be legally valid, others should be illegal again - who want to roll back the rights that were won. And this was an ad targeted at a conservative audience. It is not a secret that when you have "straight" in big, bold, red letters that are then underlined - and that's the only word on the page that it's treated like that - you're sending a message. And it's unacceptable. And I am glad she called it out. And to your point, I'm very glad that everyone has the opportunity to say - No, this is unacceptable, and this is a preview of the type of harmful hate that is coming if we allow more of this. I mean, it just is another one of those - before we get into conversations about policy, we're dealing with some really fundamental human decency - really ability to adequately and peacefully participate in society and allow other people to participate in that same society to the same degree. It is just egregious, received news coverage for being egregious. And it's just what we're contending with. It is not at all rare to see these dirty hits come out during this time where ballots are out and mailers are flying. And I don't know what else they have planned, but if this is what they're doing early, I shudder to think what they think they can say when they feel that there isn't the type of penalty or time for scrutiny attached to it. So it's just - get involved in this race, get involved in this race. [00:35:27] Councilmember Derek Young: And I think it's worth saying that - it's not just gross from a political standpoint. Given the trajectory of rhetoric around LGBTQ rights and life in this country, it's dangerous in the literal sense. That's why, I think it's important to - often there's this, especially amongst Democrats, this tendency to worry about should we call attention to an attack or is that making something more visible to the public. And I think there are these cases where - whether it's around election validity, people's basic rights, and just decency - we have to have some ground truth, some shared reality that we all exist on that's beneath where the politics of the situation is going. Let's get back to the point where we can have these fierce debates over policy. But right now we have to have some common cause for just existing in the same society, I think. And saying that these things are out of bounds and there will be a price that you pay for doing it, I think is important. [00:37:02] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, I completely agree. And that hesitance to - should we bring it up, should we talk about it? Yeah, we have to, because the other side is. How many times in the past week have we heard hateful comments about the trans community, hateful anti-Semitic comments, hateful white supremacist comments. And I'm just thinking about this week, right? This is unfortunately creeping into mainstream society. These are not limited to rarely visited corners of the internet that hardly anyone visits. These are some of the biggest celebrities, some of the richest people, and some of the most powerful party members. These are - we're hearing this from elected officials now and party leadership. We have to take a stand and say this is unacceptable because the silence is enabling this. It is going to take an effort of everyone confronting this when they're seeing it and rejecting it - rejecting it in their communities and their conversations with friends - and yes, family - and on the ballot. I mean, rejecting it on the ballot is the easy part - that should be an automatic. We have more work to do to confront this in our everyday lives, in our societies, and the people who we interact with. So I again, just urge people to get involved and to call this stuff out whenever and wherever you see it. That is the most powerful thing that we can do, especially when it's with people you know - it makes a difference. Certainly encourage everyone listening - we'll put information in the show notes - do a phone bank, do a canvass session. If you absolutely can't do those things, donate, but sometimes we talk about money in these races and money certainly helps buy resources and the things to make those happen. But really the time that you can spend - to put in to talk to other voters in that district and to help educate those voters and tell them why you're supportive and why you're taking your time to do this - is really impactful to a lot of people and encourage people to get involved that way. So thank you for that. Are there any other races in Pierce County that you think people should be tuned into, thinking about, looking at? [00:39:34] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, we have a couple of council races that are - I think headed in the right direction - but important to keeping the council majority that we managed to get in Democratic hands. One being replacement for me, as I'm term limited and leaving office at the end of the year. And her name is Robyn Denson. Her opponent is a Republican named Paula Lonergan - for folks in Pierce County that name may sound familiar because her husband is the Assessor-Treasurer and used to be a Tacoma City Council member. But that race - things are going fairly well - she's running a pretty traditional Republican campaign. And Robyn is - in fact, you may - I believe you actually did have her on. [00:40:21] Crystal Fincher: Yep, we interviewed her. We'll also link that in the show notes. [00:40:24] Councilmember Derek Young: And she certainly fits the model of wonk. She's a former nonpartisan policy staff down in Olympia, specializing in housing in particular, which is obviously something that's super critical throughout our region, but especially right here in Pierce County. And is just a really thoughtful person. She's currently on the Gig Harbor City Council, and I think the world of her and really recruited her hard to run for my seat, to make sure we kept this in Democratic hands. Because until I ran, we hadn't won this seat really before, so it was important to me to find a suitable replacement. The other is Marty Campbell, who's an incumbent council member. His opponent, Nancy Slotnick, is a Republican. And while that race hasn't been as hot - I think it's flying a little bit under the radar - and Marty's district changed the most out of the council districts during redistricting. And so he's had to introduce himself to a large group of voters who may not be as familiar with him, and so that's presented some challenges, I think. And unfortunately, his partner also has some health issues at the moment that they've been public about - I'm not sharing any inside information - so he's juggling a lot right now trying to be my Vice Chair, which is a challenge even in itself. So we're hoping to push Marty over the line as well. [00:42:00] Crystal Fincher: All right. Sounds good. We will be paying attention to those and seeing how those turn out. In non-political news this week, there was some news in Pierce County about zoning restrictions getting in the way of a planned homeless housing project. This is something that is definitely needed, but it looks like it may have run into a snag. What's happening? [00:42:25] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah. So this was - I will say, even though it wasn't my fault - as someone in Pierce County government, it's embarrassing. So we have this concept that we are essentially stealing from Austin that - they have a wildly successful program called Community First! Village that's for folks that are unhoused and chronically unhoused. This is the population of homeless folks that have the most barriers - typically will have some disabilities or been homeless for a very long time, may have some behavioral health challenges, you name it - there's something in their way that's keeping them from becoming housed and so they're living on the streets. This model starts with the physical infrastructure - it's essentially micro homes or tiny houses, however you want to refer to it. Their units tend to be very nice by comparison to - sometimes when we talk about tiny houses, we think of some of the garden sheds basically that you see popping up in some communities. These - it looks more like a trailer park - is the way I would describe it. But the secret sauce in this is not just getting people housed - that's the big barrier. The second is that they deliver really intentional services to these folks that are all onsite. They even have volunteers that live onsite. And there's a strong effort to build community, which is something that I think is missed from a lot of permanent supportive housing models you see elsewhere. And I was skeptical at first, but when it clicked - I was talking with someone who has worked in homelessness for a long time. And he said, we typically buy an apartment complex or maybe a hotel and turn that into permanent supportive housing. But think about - because he knew I lived in an apartment - how many of your neighbors do you know? And embarrassingly, I know probably half my neighbors - I know their names and their families. But otherwise, once you get home, you're closing the door and you're not really interacting with them that much. This is the opposite - it's intended to help rebuild those social connections. There's onsite work that can be done. They actually do pay rent - it's heavily subsidized. But the idea is to rebuild those social skills. For some people, they will always live there, and that's fine. But for others, they can then take those steps to getting back to a life that maybe doesn't require as much support. So we're all very excited about this model, and we think it's going to be a hit. One of the first questions I had last year was - okay, we'll appropriate this money, but why don't you tell us if you can find any properties that are available that will have suitable zoning? Somehow that didn't happen. And so the site that they got under contract before approaching the council, it turned out that the zoning, because it's surrounded by wetlands, is Residential Resource, which doesn't allow for this much density. So we were set to approve and they wanted to close on the property by the end of the year - that's just not going to happen. What this looks like going forward, I don't know. But the trick here is that this is a new idea - not only for us, but really for the region. And as a result, we cannot fail. This has to work. Because if we're going to replicate it elsewhere in Pierce County and around the region, we have to get it right. If we fail, people will look at it and go - well, that didn't work - and that's not something we want to have happen. So like I said, it's embarrassing, but it is what it is and we have to figure out a solution. [00:46:46] Crystal Fincher: What's on deck for solutions? [00:46:48] Councilmember Derek Young: I don't know yet, because we just found out. And so the executive still believes that we can go through with this property and just do a rezone. I will say that just doing a rezone is never a simple thing, particularly when what you have planned for the site is now very public. The other possibility is start looking for other locations. The problem is that - this was always my concern - is that the sites that are affordable for a project like this are also going to be challenged. In this development environment, if it's zoned for density, it's going to be pretty valuable. The other challenge that we had with this site was that it doesn't have sewer adjacent to it. This is kind of on the outskirts of our urban growth area, so while there's urban development around it - and it's right off what was going to be the Cross-Base Highway - it still lacks some basic infrastructure. So all that's why we were getting it for a song and why other developers had looked at it for housing projects and couldn't make it work. But I think we're back to square one in terms of site selection, and we need to start looking around. But it's possible we'll have a proposal here that's fairly straightforward. The most annoying part about this is that we literally had - because this concept is so new - we didn't really have a use allowed for this in our zoning code. So we actually passed a bill two months ago to change zoning code in order to allow for this. We still somehow came up with a site that it doesn't work for. [00:48:37] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it's a challenge. And this is new, so I'm asking you questions - I understand you may not have the answer yet. This was reported in The News Tribune day before yesterday, I think, on October 26th. And there did seem to be a little bit of - I don't know if I'd call it tension - but difference in opinion on moving forward about the ease or feasibility of that zoning change option. The Pierce County Executive did make it seem like it's something that is definitely doable, even if it's not - hey, we'll take care of it next meeting - in the near future, certainly had the impression that it could be resolved with that. What challenges would prevent that from - from being able to pass a zoning change soon? [00:49:28] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, I'm unclear what he's referring to because there was a quote in the newspaper and I called him about this after seeing it that said that we think this may be a 15 or 30-day delay. I don't know what he's talking about. This would require not only a zoning map change, but we believe a comprehensive plan change. So for those that aren't aware of local land use policy, it's - a comp plan change - you're only allowed to touch your comp plan once per year. We've already started our process and so we couldn't add it to this. The next time you could do something is literally over a year from now because you can only make adjustments once per year. If it's just a zoning change, that's what's referred to as an Official Control under our planning rules. And so we have to notify the Department of Commerce with a 60-day comment period. That's just the minimum - maybe nothing comes up and they don't care - but it's still a 60-day period. And then after that, you need to be going to the Planning Commission. The Planning Commission has their own process. And then it finally comes to the council. Our charter requires at least three weeks just to run a bill and that's under ideal conditions. So yeah, I'm not sure what he's talking about there, but this is not a simple change by any means. All that said, I don't think there would necessarily be opposition coming from the council. We were certainly comfortable with the idea before finding the problem, so it's just a matter of the rules that we all have to follow. And what was kind of frustrating about it is hearing him trying to figure out ways around them when he vetoed an emergency ordinance that we passed for Safe Parking a few months ago. And one of the reasons he vetoed it, even though the emergency ordinance is temporary and involves no construction - if you decide you're not going to do it there, you can move the cars - so there's no permanent problem. And yet he used that as one of the objections to the emergency bill. And in this case, we're literally going to spend millions and millions of dollars building a permanent housing development. And we're going to skip the process? I don't see that working. So the council's of one mind on this - the sponsors all pulled their signatures so that we didn't have to - we didn't want to vote to turn it down, that just is a bad look. So everyone's on the same page on the council that this has to be done right. [00:52:27] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. Well, that little nugget sounds encouraging - that you decided to move forward with it, and so it is rules that have to be followed. So could it be potentially - no, this is not a three-week endeavor, but it may be a few months of diligent work and following through the steps and the ability to accommodate the necessary changes then. If it does take a few months or however long that that takes, does that impact the project? Does that impact the cost or anything with that? [00:53:01] Councilmember Derek Young: It will have some impact. It's hard to quantify because everything in the economy is so weird these days, so we will see. But so one thing we had to do, for example, is at the end of the year, our proviso expires, allowing the appropriation that we budgeted for - it's supposed to go back to other homeless services - because at the time we were pretty skeptical that this could work. I see no objection from my colleagues to changing that proviso so that we will stay committed to this. And again, we know we have a problem, like everyone. So we've got this innovative solution. It seems to work really well. The performance in Austin is exceptional compared to other programs. So, the more I've learned about it, the more eager I become. I just think in this instance, it's possible the executive and his staff were a little too eager and didn't do some kind of basic homework. [00:54:09] Crystal Fincher: Well, hopefully you will be there to help him finish that assignment. [00:54:15] Councilmember Derek Young: Unfortunately, I think my successor may need to finish this up for me, but - [00:54:22] Crystal Fincher: Yeah. So it doesn't look like there's a chance by the end of the year, I guess. I guess that looks unlikely. But hopefully the newly composed council is as dedicated to this as the other one was. And with bipartisan support - this was not something that was necessarily squeaked through. [00:54:39] Councilmember Derek Young: No, in fact - it's noteworthy that this was really coming from the Republicans. This was their conception. And so I think that's really good - because to have bipartisan comity on an issue like homelessness is not - it's not common. So I think it's important for us to try to stick together on an issue like this. [00:55:07] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, and to your point - to get going with a model that could be an example for other cities to follow - I think that's a very important thing. And especially for local government - one of the things that I really like about local government and policy - is that everyone has to live in these conditions, everyone has to see. There's more pressure to get away from rhetoric and to actually do something that's addressing the issues that people are seeing with their own eyes and that you're seeing with your own eyes. So there is more of, I think, a motivation to act, especially outside of - sometimes big city politics can get super politicized, but other entities don't always get bogged down by the spectacle of it all. And you're working towards some solution and there's - Hey, there's evidence that this model is working elsewhere, let's give it a go. We certainly need to figure out something that works, other things haven't like they've needed to. So sometimes challenges happen, and sounds like there's cause for optimism that this can be worked through, even if it's with the newly composed council and hopefully we get this up and running. If you work through all this - who knows if it alters the timeline - what was the original timeline for this being built and operational? [00:56:43] Councilmember Derek Young: Yeah, I think the schedule was construction next year and have the first units available at the beginning of 2024, if I'm not mistaken. I may have that a little bit wrong, but by the time you do site development - depending on the season, it can get tough. But that was the hope - is that it would be - the first phase of the project would be fairly soon. And that it is a phased project. So eventually would house 257 units, give or take. Obviously, there may be some site development challenges. And the hope is that everyone sees that this works and then we'll want to throw money at this as an - because that's what's happened in Harris County, Texas, where Austin is. They essentially have the private sector throwing money at them to do more. And they've got a couple thousand of these units that are housing people, and their success rate in terms of rehousing folks in traditional housing is in the 60% - I mean, that's just unheard of in this space. [00:57:59] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I hope - I hope that we still see this coming online in 2024. Seems like that could be doable, but we'll stay tuned and keep people updated on what's happening. And with that, we thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks on this friday, October 28th, 2022. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. Our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Production Coordinator is Bryce Cannatelli. Our insightful co-host today is Pierce County Council Chair Derek Young. You can find Derek on Twitter - and he's a good Twitter follow - @DerekMYoung. That's D-E-R-E-K-M Young. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can find me on Twitter @finchfrii - it's two I's at the end. You can catch Hacks & Wonks wherever you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of all of our shows and our Friday almost-live show to your feed. If you like us, please leave a review wherever you can. And you can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at OfficialHacksandWonks.com and in our episode notes. Thanks for tuning in and we will talk to you next time.

Don Bettencourt (R-Sunapee) is here as we talk about his bid for NH State House.  We learn how Don and his wife put everything on the line to start a business, teaching their sons hard work, being in the "blue group" in gym class as a youngster & how that honesty helped mold him today, where he stands on abortion in NH, thoughts on energy, how he moved to New Hampshire by accident, and more.

Crooked Diamond Cigar at: https://crookeddiamondcigar.com/ Check us out on Instagram: @RealLarryLawton and @ThatBenz YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/LarryLawtonJewelThief Buy Larry's Book Gangster Redemption:https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/Books-c60128258 Merch: https://teespring.com/stores/larrylawton TikTok - https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJSMNDLY/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/larrylawtonjewelthief/ Official Discord Server: https://discord.gg/jj9h9dktMD Cameo: https://www.cameo.com/larrylawton?qid=1616534953 Larry Lawton Consulting:https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/Consulting-c60114317 Video Help for Young People: https://www.realitycheckprogram.com/store/

Illinois State Representative Tony McCombie on WSDR by Regional Media

Ben Rodgers visits with Kelly Keisling, State Representative for Tennessee's 38th District. Kelly talks about where the line begins for District 38 and what that covers, what the current salary of a state house or state senate member is, and how long Kelly has been the chairman of the State Government Committee. Listen to the latest Local Matters Podcast… Presented by Office Mart. Visit them at 215 S Jefferson Ave in Cookeville to see what they can do for your office

On this episode, we unpack our town hall for state representative candidates from the Cape Fear region. We put questions from our newsroom — and the public — to eight candidates in four races, pushing them on tough topics like abortion, gun control, inflation, and more.

Mandie Landry currently represents District 91 in the Louisiana House of Representatives and is running for Senate District 5. She and host Mary Jacobs talk about managing her own social media accounts and her unapologetic platform advocating for women. If you want to learn more about Mandie as a person and her platforms tune in to this episode!

To learn more about Joe and his campaign, please visit joeforidaho.com.-Joe Alfieri's background in politics in Kootenai County-Challenges of fast growth in Joe's district-Growth of the administrative state/bureaucracy in Idaho-Election integrity - what should be done to secure elections in Idaho-Taxes - how obtain a better tax structure that lowers taxes on Idahoans-State of the Idaho Republican Party and its priorities-Joe's pledge of the transparency to the communitySponsors:For your computer repair and computer network needs, call Joe with F1 for Help at (208) 687-0183.  Visit www.f1forhelp.net for more information.Do you have something so say?  Interested in learning more about publishing on the Idaho Speaks Network?  Our nation was built on ideas and your idea could be the next political advancement for Idaho.  Call Ed at (208) 209-7170 or email hello@idahospeaks.com to start the conversation.

Marc is joined in studio by Justin Sparks, St. Louis County Police Officer, to discuss the issues with enforcing more gun laws and his announcement that he will be running for State Representative. 

In this hour, Marc discusses how the St. Louis school shooter's family did everything right when it came to trying to prevent this disturbed man from hurting himself and others, before he's joined by Scott Dieckhaus, Former Missouri Senator, to talk about the upcoming midterms and understanding everything involved with Amendment 3. He's joined in studio by Justin Sparks, St. Louis County Police Officer, and they discuss the school shooting from earlier this week, issues with enforcing more gun laws and his announcement that he will be running for State Representative.  

This week on Minnesota Native News, Emma Needham talks with new and returning Native Candidates from Mid Term races across the state.  In the 2020 election, native voters came out to the polls nationwide at rates never seen before. According to the Associated Press, Native voters swung the elections in both Arizona and next door in Wisconsin. Now, the 2022 Midterm elections are in just under 2 weeks, and it's apparent that this time, Native people have turned out to the polls in a different way: On the ballot.  ICT, formerly Indian Country Today, tracks the number of native candidates running for offices at the state level. Right now, Oklahoma has the most, with a stunning 18 candidates for house or senate seats and one in the governor's race. Montana comes in second in the nation with 12 Native candidates, while Hawaii and Alaska both boast 10. Here in Minnesota, there are 7 candidates for house or senate seats in six districts, plus the incumbent lieutenant Governor, Peggy Flanagan. Of those 8 Candidates in Minnesota, seven different Native Nations are represented.  Alicia Kozlowski is running for State Representative in MN House District 8B in Duluth. Kozlowski is Ojibwe from Grand Portage and Fond Du Lac and is also a third-generation Mexican American. They said that their decision to run for office came not only from values in their upbringing among strong Ojibwe and Mexican women, but also from a sense of deep responsibility to their community.  “When I was making the decision to run or not it, it actually was in response to my community members, both within the tribal nations. But here in Duluth, across neighborhoods, across race, and gender and age, and ability of people saying 'please run for office.' Like, we need you to meet this moment so that we can all meet this movement,” said Alicia. Alicia Kozlowski is a unique candidate to northern Minnesota. They said that they are running for office to amplify Minnesota voices.  “We have never had anybody like me represent this district, as a Native, as a Latino, as a non-binary, as a member of the LGBTQ community, but then even more, so to be able to bring that to the capitol where we haven't had non-binary representation.” They said, “I'm running for office, not just for myself. In fact, I'm a very reluctant candidate to run for office, I'm running because I want to what I say is CO govern with our people…I'm not here to be anybody's voice or anybody's power, because you already have a voice and you have power. I'm here to help create that space and to amplify and to uplift all of our people.” In Minnesota, we have Native candidates running for office at the state level, but we also have Native candidates in local races, including the city council race in Bemidji and candidates for school board both in Minneapolis and in Brainerd. Charles Black Lance is White Earth Anishinaabe and Lakota from Rosebud Nation. He's currently the vice chair of the Brainerd School Board for ISD 181 where he's running for another four-year term. Black Lance says that the teachings he received from his father helped guide him in his position.  “My dad always told me, my brother and my sister are very young age was that leadership wasn't necessarily something that you aspire for, but more of a burden or something that is, was placed upon you as a responsibility. And, and I took that to heart,” He said, “fought hard and worked hard and diligently to not have power. but to have or wield influence, to be heard, and to have that voice. And I think it's really important for all indigenous people to move in that direction.” In addition to Peggy Flanagan, other Native candidates in the Minnesota race are running for reelection in the house and senate. Senator Mary Kunesh served two, two-year terms in the MN House and one two-year term in the Senate. Senator Kunesh is now up for re-election for a four-year term in Senate District 39 following redistricting. She told me why she ran for office all those years ago.  "I knew that if we wanted to make good change in Indian country in Minnesota, we needed natives there to move the ball to start talking about the issue to start, you know, really championing the issues.” said Mary Senator Kunesh is the first woman of native descent elected into the Minnesota Senate and currently the only Native person serving there. She says that there's much work to be done to build diversity in the Minnesota legislature, but she is glad to see more Indigenous candidates running for office.  “We just don't have that kind of diversity in our state Senate. And that means we are not representing the growing diversity of our communities. We do want to see legislators that look like us, that sound like us, that understand the unique circumstances. And I'm really thrilled by the number of candidates and the caliber of these candidates, because it can only bode well for Minnesota when they are elected,” she said. For Minnesota Native News, I'm Emma Needham

Emily Busch is the Democratic candidate running for State Representative in Michigan's 66th district, but she's also mom to a survivor of the Oxford High School shooting. Today, we speak with Emily about the day of the shooting, the growing discord among Oxford families, and her pathway to politics. We hear how Emily's campaign navigates divisive politics in a community still finding a way through its grief and anger. GUEST: Emily Busch, Oxford resident and Democratic candidate for 66th House district ___ Looking for more conversations from Stateside? Right this way. If you like what you hear on the pod, consider supporting our work. Music in this episode by Blue Dot Sessions.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Joining the show today, Wavey Lester, the candidate running for Illinois State Senate in the 57th District, and Kevin Schmidt who is running for State Representative in Illinois'114th district. They cover a multitude of issues including being a black conservative and political lies. 

In this hour, congressional candidates join the the show, Wavy Lester for Illinois State Senate in the 57th District and State Representative candidate for Illinois 114th district, Kevin Schmidt. We play a classic game of X's and O's. You wont want to miss this. 

Tune in for an interview with Shae Sortwell, a homeschool graduate, homeschool father, and Wisconsin State Representative. Referenced in Today's Episode: http://votesortwell.com (Shae Sortwell's Campaign Website) Connect with Tina & Jenny at:  https://www.homeschoolloft.com/ (The Website) https://www.facebook.com/thehomeschoolloft (Facebook) Email If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive rating and review!

Educators on the Ballot - Season 3, Episode 6Decisions made in Columbus have an enormous impact on what happens in our classrooms every day. That's why it's so important to elect state leaders who understand the issues facing our public schools. On this episode, we hear from three educators-turned-OEA-member-recommended-candidates who fully understand those issues about how their classroom experience will guide their work in the next General Assembly.MORE | OEA Members can learn more about the OEA Member-recommended candidates on the ballot in their community by visiting Ohioballot.com. You can also learn more about the OEA Fund and its screening and endorsement process here. SUBSCRIBE | Click here to subscribe to Education Matters on Apple Podcasts or click here to subscribe on Google podcasts so you don't miss a thing. And don't forget you can listen to all of the previous episodes anytime on your favorite podcast platform, or by clicking here. Featured Education Matters guests:  Sophia Rodriguez, D-Ohio House District 84 candidate Sophia Rodriguez for State Representative (electsophia.com) Sophia Rodriguez is a high school Spanish teacher in Coldwater School and co-manager of her family restaurant of 41 years in Celina. She has served on the Mercer County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Ohio Education Association Board of Directors, National Education Association Board of Directors, President of the Western Ohio Education Association, President of the Coldwater Teachers' Organization, Chair of the Ohio Education Association Hispanic Caucus, President of Celina City Council, and as an educational adjunct at the Wright State University Lake Campus.  Sean Brennan, D-Ohio House District 14 candidate https://brennanforohio.com/ Sean Brennan has been a middle and high school teacher in Brecksville-Broadview Heights Schools for nearly three decades. He has served on Parma City Council since 2004, first as Ward 2 Councilman, then as President, beginning in 2011. Brennan's other leadership roles include serving as the Parma Public Housing Authority Board President (2011-present), City of Parma Scholarship Foundation Founder and Board Member, Parma Charitable Fund Founder and Board Member, and Big Creek Connects Advisory Board Member. Brennan, who is member of the Brecksville-Broadview Heights Education Association as well as an honorary member of the Parma Education Association, was an Ohio Teacher of the Year nominee, a Northeast Ohio Education Association (NEOEA) Positive Image Award winner, and was named the 2022 Cleveland American Middle Eastern Organization (C.A.M.E.O.) Teacher of the Year. Brennan has finished 110 marathons and multiple other races, including the Cleveland, Boston, Chicago, and New York Marathons. Rep. Joe Miller, D-Ohio House District 53 candidate Currently represents Ohio House District 56 https://www.joemillerforohio.com/ State Representative Joe Miller is a proud resident of Lorain County. Before entering the General Assembly, Joe Miller worked in both the public and private sectors. After a short time teaching and coaching in Texas, he returned to Ohio and joined a design build firm and became an Associate Director of Planning. It was this and time spent as a general manager in a print production office that gave him valuable insight into the challenges that face businesses here in Ohio.September 11th inspired Joe to return to the classroom where he has taught courses at both the high school and college level. In addition to being an active USGTF Professional Golf Instructor and OHSAA Basketball Official, he enjoys volunteering in his community and church. Joe and his wife Kelly, who is a fellow educator, currently reside in Amherst with their two sons, Joseph and Jordan and bulldog, Heisman. Joe Miller is a passionate advocate for quality education, jobs for hardworking Ohioans, opportunities for green energy expansion, and assistance to our veterans. Connect with OEA: Email educationmatters@ohea.org with your feedback or ideas for future Education Matters topics Like OEA on Facebook Follow OEA on Twitter Follow OEA on Instagram Get the latest news and statements from OEA here Learn more about where OEA stands on the issues  Keep up to date on the legislation affecting Ohio public schools and educators with OEA's Legislative Watch About us: The Ohio Education Association represents about 120,000 teachers, faculty members and support professionals who work in Ohio's schools, colleges, and universities to help improve public education and the lives of Ohio's children. OEA members provide professional services to benefit students, schools, and the public in virtually every position needed to run Ohio's schools. Education Matters host Katie Olmsted serves as Media Relations Consultant for the Ohio Education Association. She joined OEA in May, 2020, after a ten-year career as a television reporter, anchor, and producer. Katie comes from a family of educators and is passionate about telling educators' stories and advocating for Ohio's students. She lives in Central Ohio with her husband and two young children. This episode was recorded on September 29, October 4, and October 7, 2022.

Hope Damon (D-Croydon), candidate for NH State Representative, is here as we talk about what got her involved in local government, the Croydon School vote this past year, being politically active, where she stands on several issues, what towns she is running in and more.

0:00 - John Anthony fills in for Dan Proft   13:36 - Amy & John's first reaction to last night's gubernatorial debate   48:01 - Vincent W. Romano, conservative candidate for State Representative in IL's 16th District, says the progresssive, far left is not your dad's democrat party and that's why he's receiving support from democrats in his district. For more on Vincent's run for IL's 16th district visit romanoforrep.com   01:01:20 - Republican candidate for Illinois governor, Darren Bailey: There is no aspect of Illinois anyone can say is better than it was four years ago. For more on Darren's run for governor visit  baileyforillinois.com   01:23:35 - Noted economist Stephen Moore: If you care about lower gas prices and fixing the economy more than abortion you need to vote republican. Steve has a very timely book out   Govzilla: How the Relentless Growth of Government Is Devouring Our Economy—And Our Freedom   01:36:19 - Tyrone F. Muhammad, founder of Ex-Cons for Community and Social Change, on doing his part as he and the ECCSC are conduction safety patrols on the CTA. For more on the ECCSC visit eccsc.org   01:52:34 - Senior Editor for HotAir, Ed Morrissey, takes a look at the tight senate races in GA, AZ and PA. Check out Ed's latest at HotAir.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Managing imposter syndrome as a leader can be tough, especially when you have others relying on you. As a leadership development specialist, my guest today Dr. Damary Bonilla Rodriguez, shares with us what she's learned from her journey of coaching and inspiring hundreds of leaders in the Latinx community across various professions.Topics we cover in today's episode include:How and why she's stepping into the world of entrepreneurship Why you shouldn't be afraid of others overtaking your job as a leaderOvercoming imposter syndrome as a leader How she's leveraged her leadership journey to help others More about Dr. Damary Bonilla RodriguezDr. Damary M. Bonilla-Rodriguez is a national leading authority on leadership development, especially as it pertains to diversity and inclusion. She delivers keynote addresses and presentations drawing upon her experience from roles in the non-profit, private, and government sectors, as well as her doctoral research. Her research about Latina leadership in the United States has served as the foundation for events, conference sessions, publications, and content development - to address the urgency of leadership development for a fast- growing population and create a pipeline of diverse leaders. Dr. Bonilla-Rodriguez holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish and Social Work from the College of New Rochelle where she received the College President's Medal, graduated with Departmental Honors, and was awarded the Sigma Delta Pi Spanish Award.She also holds a Master of Science degree in Organizational Communications and a Specialized Certification in Corporate Communications, both from the College of New Rochelle. Personal endeavors of overcoming statistics and accessing higher education, led her to earn a Doctorate in Education focusing on Executive Leadership from St. John Fisher College. To change the political and leadership landscape for Latinos, Dr. Bonilla-Rodriguez ran for State Representative in the 189 th District of Pennsylvania in the 2016 election cycle where she became the 1st Hispanic to make a State ballot in Pike and Monroe Counties. In November 2019, she became the 1 st Hispanic elected as School Board Director in the East Stroudsburg Area School District where she Chairs the Education committee. Passionate about supporting professional organizations, she is a Board Member of the Brodhead Watershed Association, Colonial IU 20 where she serves as Vice President, Prospanica NY where she serves as Vice President of Professional Development, Latina VIDA, Latinas on the Plaza and an Advisory Board member for several organizations including: The Board of Hispanic Caucus Chairs, Monroe County Children and Youth where she Chairs the Education committee, SciGirls, and the Alliance for Positive Youth Development. In addition, she was appointed by Governor Tom Wolf to represent the Poconos Region on statewide commissions on Redistricting Reform and Latino affairs (GACLA) where she Chairs the statewide Education committee. Dr. Bonilla-Rodriguez was recognized as a 2014 Coors Light Lideres finalist and the recipient of numerous awards including a proclamation from the NYS Assembly, the Proud to Be Latina Soy Poderosa award, and the SISGI Beyond Good Ideas Excellence in Nonprofit Leadership award. Her published written accomplishments include the books Ethics, Gender, and Leadership in the Workplace and Today's Inspired Latina (Volume II), as well as contributing to the Huffington Post and being featured by several media outlets including NBC Latino, Chief Writing Wolf, and the Empowered Latinas series.While she is proud of her many accomplishments, she highlights her greatest as being the mother of twelve-year-old twin boys, Caleb and Joshua. She resides in Pennsylvania with her boys and husband Robert. Her favorite quote is: “If I have seen further, it is by standi

On this midweek show, Crystal chats with Chipalo Street about his campaign for State Representative in the 37th Legislative District - why he decided to run, how he would approach legislating and his thoughts on addressing issues such as housing affordability and zoning, data privacy, public safety, homelessness, and climate change. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Follow us on Twitter at @HacksWonks. Find the host, Crystal Fincher, on Twitter at @finchfrii and find Chipalo Street at @ElectChipalo.   Resources Campaign Website - Chipalo Street   South Seattle Emerald's 37th LD Representative Position 2 Debate (October 4, 2022) - Moderated by Crystal Fincher   Transcript [00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, I'm excited to welcome Chipalo Street, who is running for 37th Legislative District State Representative. Welcome to the program, Chipalo. [00:00:49] Chipalo Street: Thank you for having me. [00:00:50] Crystal Fincher: Excellent - so what made you decide to run for office and what are you bringing to this race? [00:00:57] Chipalo Street: Yeah - the two second answer is I came to this race through a program called Institute for a Democratic Future. But I think - as I look back on even how I got to IDF, which is the shorthand term for Institute for a Democratic Future - [00:01:12] Crystal Fincher: Which we are well aware of - and I am on the board of, as are you, full disclosure. [00:01:18] Chipalo Street: Yes, it goes back to how I have tried to give back to different communities throughout my life. And so - I grew up in D.C. and was very lucky to have a family that valued education - going to college was not a question for me. I actually got to go to my grandmother's college graduation because she had to drop out to have my dad and his family, but education was so important to her that she then got a job at Akron University and took night classes slowly to graduate, even though her kids had already gone to college and graduated. So when - I think I was in junior high school, going to my grandmother's graduation - whether I was going to go to college or not was not an option for me. But I didn't really understand why I wanted to go to college or what I would do with that degree. And so my parents had made sure to get me into the best public schools in D.C. And I was thankful for that because by the time I got to high school, I was in a school - the only public school in D.C. - that had a computer science department. And that's where I really learned that I loved computers, loved programming. And then that sort of motivated me, and I knew what my purpose was for in college. Went to Brown University and realized that there weren't a ton of people in engineering that looked like myself. We had a lot of folks in pre-med that had created a group that would support each other through the pre-med process, but we didn't have that at Brown University. And so I co-founded our chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers so that we had that support group to help folks go through engineering. After I left Brown, I came out to Seattle and again, realized there weren't many people that looked like myself in computer science. And so I worked with a woman named Trish who founded Technology Access Foundation - and myself and three other Microsofties created a computer science curriculum down at TAF and taught that for six years to a school in South Seattle. And that sort of pattern is - finding ways where I can use my time to give back to the community, but also leverage it. I think there's a 100% place for direct service, and I am so grateful for folks who do direct service. But for myself, I've always tried to figure out - hey, if I put an hour in here, how do I get five hours out? If I put two hours in here, how do I get 10 hours out? And so starting our chapter of National Society of Black Engineers, creating curriculum and teaching that at TAF - I thought would create a legacy that lived on past me. Again, then start looking around - hey, these state laws and policies really impact and shape our society - how can I help get involved in that? And so I went to United Way of King County - served on their Public Policy Impact Council. And while we did advocate for laws and policies, it was frustrating because that's a very - we had to advocate for very middle-of-the-road policies because we didn't want to alienate our more conservative donor base, and so that felt like my time was not best used. At that same time, I was going through this program Institute for a Democratic Future - they were really pushing for progressive policies and training a next generation of Democratic leaders. And so - I loved that program and then started serving on the board after that point. So I've been on the board for maybe six or seven years - and that has been a very fulfilling experience because I love the work that they did, but one of the things I did not see was as much equity and inclusion. So I've been trying to push for more board members of color, and also more fellows of color, and also geographic diversity - because we are a statewide program and so having folks east of the mountain is really important. And that's a long way of saying that's how I've gotten actually to this opportunity because through that board service - when this opportunity came up - some of the board members approached me and said, Hey, you match the district really well, you should consider running. I was like, Oh no, you got the wrong guy - I love my full-time job - I don't think I'm ready to take on that type of extra work, my ego couldn't take the loss if I was to lose. And so we talked about all my bad reasons not to run. Senator Nguyen - he serves in the Senate, he works at Microsoft - he's able to do it. So talk to him, talk to your boss, see if they're both supportive of that - they were, that conversation went well. And I was like, Oh well, you just retired from being a pro-soccer referee, you have some extra time - so what about that? I was like, Yeah, I know - the work is an excuse, I always do a good job of what I do - I will put my all into it. It will be fine. But my poor little ego couldn't take a loss. And they're like - Look, ego-based decisions aren't how you should be making your decisions. And even just running would help the community - you'd learn it better, you'd expand your network. And we think you'll win because you have great experience. It's - Man, I'm not really excited to do this - it's changing my plans for all of my summer and fall. So since then, I've just been knocking on doors, fundraising, attending candidate forums, talking about the different experiences that I think I can bring to this district. And we could go into that, we could go somewhere else - all these things are great. And I know that was a long-winded way of answering your question. [00:06:22] Crystal Fincher: And so I'm wondering what are you running to accomplish? [00:06:25] Chipalo Street: Yeah, for sure. So there are things that - there's some really major issues that are affecting everyone, and then specifically the 37th. So for example - housing. I think housing prices are going up across the country, but it is impacting the 37th District in specific ways. So we're a historic district - we have been generally a district - we were the most diverse district in the country for quite some time. However, as those housing prices are rising, folks are getting displaced, neighborhoods are getting gentrified, and it is having unique impacts on our district. So fixing housing, I think, is super important. And the way I think about that is - three buckets of solutions. One is how do you stop harm now? How do you get more units on the market in the long term? And then how do you tide ourselves to the point where those units are on the market? So stopping harm now looks like anti-displacement measures - so we can't stop people from moving to the 37th. However, we can make sure that the folks who live here have an opportunity to take part in the evolution of that community. So seniors who are on fixed incomes - making sure they have tax breaks so that as the property values rise, they can afford the taxes. That generational homes that have been passed down through families - those families can afford the taxes and aren't forced to sell. And then we also need increased renter protections. There's some pretty crazy things that landlords can do from the types of fees they charge, to who they provide housing to, and who they discriminate against based on prior felonies or involvement with the criminal justice system. Or even just lifting the statewide ban on rent control so that municipalities have different tools in their tool belt to address housing affordability. So that would stop harm right now. Investment in low-income housing through the Housing Trust Fund will get more units on the market and that's something the State has to do. There's also - we need to figure out something around workforce housing. We underpay our teachers, but even two teachers living together can't afford housing in the area. And then we also need to invest in mass transit so that we can increase density. Mass transit gets us towards a greener climate future, which is a whole 'nother set of issues that we can talk about. But also increasing density around that transit allows more units to get on the market. And those are three things that are going to take a while to come to fruition. And so we also need means to tide ourselves there. So increasing temporary rental support, I think, is important so that a short-term hardship doesn't snowball and turn into someone losing their house - makes it harder for them to work, makes it harder for their kids to go to school. And then making sure that we have a robust voucher program so that working people can live in existing market rate units without spending their full paycheck. So housing is super important - it's the number one issue I hear at doors. Then there's things around criminal justice reform. Climate justice is really important in that, again, if we don't have a habitable world to live in, it doesn't really matter. But the 37th itself gets disproportionately impacted by our environment - like we have planes flying over Beacon Hill, one of our large borders is created by I-5 - and so we have air pollution, noise pollution that impacts our district on top of all of the other things like climate change and global warming and stuff like that. And then there's some unique experiences that I bring that I think are necessary for our society. For example, I work at Microsoft. I think it's really important that we have people who understand technology in the Legislature. And we could snicker about that - six months ago, where you'd see federal hearings where you have senators saying, Why didn't my tweet go to my inbox? And it's just, Oh, God - no, you should really understand this. But with the Roe decision, we're getting tangible examples of how our data can be used against people. So I think it's really important that we don't have our data used to go after folks who are seeking abortions, but it also applies to our providers as well, right? Telehealth is a thing - providers can work across state lines. And if they're working in a state that has banned abortion, what does that mean for their ability to be sued, to be subpoenaed, to possibly lose their license? So making sure that we can protect everyone involved in the abortion ecosystem through our data and technology legislation, I think, is really important. It's given us a tangible reason why this is so important to us today. So that's a quick way of saying there's many issues - I would love to support on all of them, and then bring unique experience and to solve things and apply them to things like data privacy. [00:11:13] Crystal Fincher: So now you mentioned housing, you mentioned a number of things, lifting the ban on rent control and rental assistance. There is a bill that has been attempting to make its way through the Legislature, the middle housing bill, to address the housing shortage - up-zoning in single-family zoned areas, which would impact several neighborhoods around the City, including those in the 37th district. Do you support that bill? Would you be a yes vote on that bill? [00:11:39] Chipalo Street: Yeah, you're talking about Jessica Bateman's bill - the missing middle one. Yeah, I think that's a great bill. What's interesting with any of these conversations is understanding how it will impact the existing communities and my impression is that that will not have a disproportionate negative impact on the 37th - because Seattle has already done some pretty progressive zoning reforms in terms of land use, in terms of ADUs and detached - with DDUs, or ADUs and DDUs - but what's really important about that bill is that it enforces it statewide, right? So that we can't just allow Seattle to increase density. And then when Seattle increases density, it really gets pushed into a neighborhood in Seattle because certain enclaves within Seattle say, Oh, no density in my backyard - let's push it down into - usually communities like Black and Brown communities. And so doing it at a statewide level makes sure that we're all in density together. And understanding what those impacts are, I think, is really important. And luckily, I don't think it would increase displacement given the existing zoning laws of Seattle, but that is the one area that I would want to dig into that bill and make sure that we aren't, again, increasing displacement within the 37th. But at a statewide level, it's 100% necessary. [00:13:00] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, definitely at the statewide level. And some would argue that within the City, as you - I think - alluded to, that there are disproportionate impacts of development and the 37th Legislative District is being more negatively impacted to date than others are. And the 37th having accepted more density already, already having a lot of development and redevelopment that has resulted in the way that it's done in displacement. And so how do you balance looking at that within the district and the need to build more housing in the city overall, but to do so equitably throughout the city - and other districts that have a much higher percentage of areas zoned for single-family and that are basically exempted under current zoning laws from additional development and not having to deal with some of the impacts of that the 37th is? How do you manage wanting more density, but making sure it is equitable throughout the city and doesn't displace more people in the 37th? [00:14:04] Chipalo Street: Yeah, I think this is an example where the devil's in the details. So here's my understanding, and I would love to make sure that my understanding is correct as I move into the Legislature. But one of the things that has been so harmful to the 37th is upzoning. And so let's separate upzoning from, say, increased density on single-family lots - whereas upzoning is, Hey, here is a small area that we can build extremely tall buildings on. Generally, I believe they've been called urban villages - I think there are four or five areas within the city that were zoned for urban villages. Compared to - okay, any single-family lot can be built up to four units - you can put a very small garden apartment there or a set of townhomes on there. So Jessica Bateman's bill is the latter, the any single-family home can be built up to four or six units, whereas serious upzoning for urban villages is large apartment buildings. And the difference there is - our current tax code taxes property based on highest and best use. And so the tax on the highest and best use for something that's zoned for an apartment building is different than zoned for a single-family house, even if single-family house includes a small fourplex. And that's where a lot of people have been displaced because the CD contained one of those urban villages. And so everyone who was within that urban village - their property value skyrocketed and they had to figure out a way to pay the taxes. And so - why I'm hopeful that Jessica Bateman's bill won't exacerbate that is that Seattle already has allowed ADUs and DDUs on single-family lots. And so I don't think that should make the tax rate jump as much as upzoning did for these urban villages. And so I don't think we should necessarily be having urban villages in the 37th - additional ones - unless that comes with a way to allow existing homeowners to afford the taxes. And so understanding the difference between urban villages and additional density on single-family lots, I think, is important. And that's how I would start to think about that equity, because to your point - those urban villages aren't equally distributed around the city. [00:16:27] Crystal Fincher: And also, relying on just urban villages to increase density does not seem like it would get enough housing stock on the market to eventually make a difference. So it seems like allowing single-family, currently single-family zoned areas citywide, would be more of an equitable solution - not just areas that are disproportionately in the 37th district - might help to, if people with higher property values can have a higher and best use, and not just people clustered in the 37th or other already very dense areas, then that helps to spread out the development and where more dense development can happen. But appreciate hearing your thoughts on that. I'm also curious - we had a legislative session this past session where there were rollbacks of a number of public safety policies that had been previously passed. Do you agree with those rollbacks? What was your evaluation of the session and those rollbacks? [00:17:33] Chipalo Street: The thing I do agree with is some of the processes that went into it - I was very happy to see Representative Johnson do ride-alongs with police to understand how the new legislation impacted their ability to provide public safety. I personally have a hard time believing that I would have voted to roll them back. [00:17:52] Crystal Fincher: Well, I guess that is the question. Would you have voted to roll them back? [00:17:56] Chipalo Street: I don't think so. I would - that said, I did not do those ride-alongs, I did not, I have not sat there and listened to debriefs on exactly how the minutiae of these policies are implemented or did it impact the police's ability to provide public safety. But what I will say is - the reason I say I have a hard time believing I would roll them back is because I think those types of policies would have saved me from the situation I went through. So when I was at Brown, myself and my best friend were walking around campus, which was a public campus, so anyone could be there. We were actually walking from campus onto a public street. And Brown police asked us for our IDs. And it was like, Hey, I'm on a public street. I didn't do anything. Why do I need to show you my ID? I kept on walking. My friend actually stopped, showed him his ID, and told the police who I was. So they knew who I was, I hadn't done anything wrong. So it should have ended there. It didn't. They called out an APB for me - Providence police picked it up. And they beat me so badly that I ended up in the hospital before they took me to jail. And so I believe that the regulations that were implemented and rolled back would have prevented the police from even having that interaction. And so that is something that's near and dear to my heart. And one of the reasons why I say I think it does provide trust with the police to make sure that there are - when we are having interactions with them, that it is for a valid reason and it's not based on a hunch, it's not based on a best guess by a police officer. But that said, I also do realize that the legislation that we passed has unintended consequences. And so working with the police department to understand what those were - I am open to the option that I could have voted to roll them back, but without some very, very strong reasons to do so, I don't think I would have. [00:19:54] Crystal Fincher: Okay. So looking at the issue of homelessness, which is related to housing affordability - but also because it has been so criminalized, also related to public safety. In your capacity as a legislator, what would you do to reduce the amount of people living without homes? [00:20:15] Chipalo Street: This is one of those issues where understanding different populations of our unhoused people, and then making sure that we are targeting money at solutions that are needed by each of those populations is really important. Whereas just sometimes we throw money at issue and say, Hey, we upped homeless funding by 10%, but we didn't see a drop in 10% - what's happening? It's probably because we didn't really understand where that money was going or fund the right programs. And when we look at our different populations - the supports that someone needs who has addiction issues is different than the support that, say, a family who just got evicted needs, right? Cash assistance to the family will probably go a lot farther than cash assistance to someone who has an addiction issue. Or someone having mental health issues needs different support than say, an LGBTQ teen that got kicked out of the house, right? They all need different support. They all need shelter, but the shelters that they need are probably different - I don't think teens need the same shelter as someone going through mental health crises either. Or families shouldn't be staying with folks with addiction issues and may choose not to have shelter if they are all housed together. So really understanding the different populations of our homeless brothers and sisters, and then making sure that the money that we're providing actually is going towards services that address the root cause of their issues, I think, is important. And then making sure that these are sort of buckets that pour into each other. If we start with a Housing First solution, then that can start to stabilize people. Once they either get clean or can address some of their mental health issues, then they can move into a different type of shelter with other folks. And making sure that we have a sort of pipeline that can bring them back into being productive members of our society, I think, is really important. [00:22:07] Crystal Fincher: So as we look at that, there's obviously lots of different kinds of programs, as you just talked about, that could be helpful in stabilizing people and taking a Housing First model. Right now, there seems to be a lot of competition between money and resources being allocated towards criminalization that could be used, and would otherwise be used for things like providing housing first and allowing people to be stabilized. So in terms of where your votes would be to appropriate money, would you appropriate or vote for anything that advanced criminalization before providing housing? [00:22:46] Chipalo Street: No, to your point - in some ways, we are going to provide housing in one way or the other. Either we provide it in a humane way, or we provide it through the criminal justice system, which doesn't address any of these issues and is super expensive. And so I think that making sure that - as we look at housing and criminal justice reform in a more comprehensive way - towards what are the things that get us the outcomes that we want. Even if they haven't been necessarily labeled as housing or criminal justice in the past, I think, would be really - Republicans do great jobs at labeling things, and I think Democrats do a horrible job at it. But there's so many ways that we could think of expanding criminal justice or "criminal justice" or "homeless housing" or funding for homeless and homelessness and housing that would get us to these better outcomes. And wouldn't then end up paying on the backside in the form of increasing people in jails - the number of people in jails - and the very, very large cost that goes along with that. So I think solving those root problems is the first thing that we should be doing, and then we'll see the savings in other systems. And just understanding how we're appropriating that money is really important. [00:23:59] Crystal Fincher: Okay, so you would not vote for any appropriation of money that would go towards criminalization or penalization of homelessness. [00:24:06] Chipalo Street: I don't think so - what are some examples of some of these? We can easily talk about bills, but no, that does not make sense. I would rather prevent that so that it's not even a question about - are these people criminals or just trying to live and get by? [00:24:24] Crystal Fincher: So you also mentioned environmental justice. Obviously we are facing significant challenges in both the mitigation of climate change, the impacts that are disproportionately felt in the 37th Legislative District. As you evaluate the Climate Commitment Act, do you think it goes far enough? And if not, what additional steps or what other things should we be doing right now to meet our climate goals and mitigate the harm being committed right now? [00:24:52] Chipalo Street: Climate, for me, is something like racial justice and economic justice. I think we should use a climate lens for all the bills that we pass because there is no one or two things that we can do to solve climate - that ship has sailed a long time ago and it's like a all-hands-on-deck mission. And it's critical that we understand how to get ourselves out of this. There are certain things I love to see - like in the HEAL Act, there is additional money for collecting data so that we understand what harm has been done so that we can target again the money in better ways to undo that harm and move towards a greener climate future. I was glad to see that we passed our carbon tax - making sure that gets implemented and stood up, I think, will be one step towards moving the business community towards a greener future. We need to invest in mass transit like we had mentioned before so that we have places where we can increase density and people can access that, but also because it's towards a greener climate future. I personally am a proponent of trying to get out of cars as much as possible. I've tried to bike to work twice a week and that sort of exposed the patchwork of dangerous roads but really nice bike trails. And making sure that any transit network is well connected, I think, is really important. Even roads - people wouldn't use roads if we had dead-end roads to nowhere, so why are we surprised that people don't use bike trails or other types of mass transit when they don't connect? We have a monorail that goes from downtown to a stadium a few blocks away. What are we doing? Why are we surprised no one uses it? We have streetcars that finally are starting to connect to stuff but for quite some time the different lines didn't connect to anything else - so they were set up for failure in the first place. So making sure that all of our transit infrastructure is designed in a way that people will use it is really important. And again that sort of overlays on the 37th again - when we're talking about getting people out of cars and increasing bike safety and pedestrian safety. We have two of the most dangerous roads in the city in MLK Way and Rainier Ave. And so making sure that those areas are safer is paramount. We have 10 or 11 schools around there so that's protecting our children. I think it's another place where we could gain common ground with business community because there's studies that show that businesses that are in walkable and bikeable areas get more foot traffic which leads to more sales. And especially for businesses that are small businesses - like restaurants and things like that that are especially common in immigrant, refugee, and BIPOC communities - creating a great business environment for folks to create these legacies is really, really important. And something that you see in the 37th and which is why people are moving here because we have great culture. We have a diversity of food, a diversity of people, a diversity of shops and small businesses. So I think that's another area where we can marry climate, business, safety for our kids - all in one go. [00:28:06] Crystal Fincher: Well and this is another area where there are tensions in different areas of funding. Absolutely - I agree with the urgent need for more transit, better transit that better serves more people, that is more accessible for more people. But it is competing for funding currently with highway expansion. And obviously we need to maintain the roadways that we have, but there are still projects being planned and even - there was just coverage of one in South Park the other day that may jeopardize healing the division and the cleaving of that community basically with a highway. And so, highway expansion projects which lots of people talk about - well, we need to address traffic. Unfortunately, it has been shown that expanding highways does not reduce traffic. In fact, it does increase it. So would you vote for any package that does expand highways, I guess, first off? [00:29:11] Chipalo Street: No, with the exception of instances where it helps freight mobility - we need - freight mobility helps union jobs, and so making sure that if there's something that helps the Port, I think that's really important. I think keeping our highways intact as people get displaced outside of the urban cores - that just adds to folks' commute, unkept highways adds to car maintenance and things like that. So no I don't believe in highway expansion. We should be funding transit and to your point, there's competing funds within transit like as we do light rail expansion. Again affects the 37th - we're talking about light rail expansion through the CID. How are we going to do that? Are we going to do a deep bore tunnel or are we going to do that at grade? Doing deep bore is, I think, 30% more expensive - however, it doesn't disrupt the CID, a community that has been disrupted multiple times with the streetcar going through it, with I-5 going through it - just continually disrupted. But it costs more and so the question always is - at what expense are we going to do this? And so something like that, I think we should go deep bore - we should make sure that this community that continually bears the brunt of expansion and transit-related issues can not be disrupted yet again even though it will cost a little bit more. So that's one thing - I think another issue, or many issues, that vie for funding - that comes back down to our most regressive tax code in the country, despite how progressive and liberal Washington State, we claim we are - we have the most regressive tax code. We force our tax burden onto people through sales tax. We force our tax burden onto homeowners through property tax. We force our tax burden onto small businesses through the B&O tax and then let larger corporations get away with not paying much through tax loopholes. And so that's another area that I would love to improve is - closing our tax loopholes so that corporations pay their fair share, but also implementing - ideally an income tax - that is not either super popular or necessarily doable through constitutional issues, but I do think income tax is the best way to balance our tax code because a income tax is predictable, it can be withheld, it has been done before. But given all of the barriers to it, we'll probably have to try something like a billionaire tax so that every individual and business does pay their fair share to fund the services that are important for our state. [00:31:52] Crystal Fincher: So now in terms of transit - just one more question there - Sound Transit and the plans that they have, plans around the state for increasing transit - a number of them are suffering from delays and setbacks which obviously is a challenge towards adoption. If people are not getting what they're paying for or already being taxed for, it creates more opposition to transit, frankly. Would you support making legislative investments to accelerate light rail transit implementation, bus rapid transit connectivity? [00:32:29] Chipalo Street: Interesting - I assume you would do that as part of one of the big transportation packages? Yes, it seems reasonable. I am not 100% clear about how all these things are funded - that's one of the things I'm really interested, when I and if I get into the Legislature, of understanding where money is coming from and where it's going to. One of my lifelong models is follow the money and you'll get answers. And so really understanding all those funding mechanisms is important. It does seem like something that would be valuable. However, I could imagine the pushback that we may get outside of the Puget Sound region for folks wondering why their perceived taxes are going to light rail within the Puget Sound region, even though when you look on net, my impression is that tax dollars actually flow out of the Puget Sound region to the rest of the state than vice versa - but sometimes perception is reality and that may end up being a harder sell for a large number of legislators outside of Seattle, King County, Pierce County. [00:33:35] Crystal Fincher: I guess that opens up a philosophical question in how you see your role and what your approach is. Do you generally see yourself as - Hey, you're operating based off of data, we know that these things would be helpful - you talked about more transit is beneficial, we need to invest more, we need to have more. And so if there's opposition elsewhere, do you view your role as compromising with what other people think, or maybe addressing - just anticipating - what their challenges may be and stripping down your proposal to something that may be palatable to your colleagues in other parts of the state? Or do you see your role as being more of a spearhead, I guess - would be there and saying, This is right, this is what we need to do. I need to figure out how to build the coalition, how to bring my colleagues along - and maybe not everybody is coming, but can I build a coalition to pass it? Are you starting from - we need transformative change and I need to push for that, or we need change and we need to get what we can given challenges that other colleagues may have from it? Lots of people see pros and cons with either approach - what is your approach? [00:34:56] Chipalo Street: I don't know if this is a cop-out - hopefully it's like a And - quite frankly - I think there are certain issues where I could be that spearhead, where I hopefully can help influence and it may end up taking a longer time to get to where we want to go without compromise. Whereas there are other issues that I think are - I want to say better-suited for data - one of the things I do pride myself on is bringing a data-oriented solution to things. I think we need to elect more scientists because we are trained to use data in decisions. But there, I think, incremental compromise is a lot easier. And I'll give you examples - so we talked about the police reforms. There, I see myself on the tip of the spear there - I've gone through this, I know people who've gone through that, it affects my community specifically. I want - we need a productive relationship with the police force, but that doesn't mean that I can't push for exactly what we need to do - racial justice - we had parole rolled back in 1984. Why can't we bring back the option of parole? Why aren't we doing a better job of training people as they come out of the correctional system so that they have a chance to be members of our society - productive members of our society? Why are we discriminating against them and not allowing them to get housing easily? I think those are things that we can be the tip of the spear and push for and fight for hard, whereas other things we can do more incremental change and work based on data. And I think if you have both of those - when we're compromising and working based on data, we are also building relationships with the folks that may completely disagree with us on the issues that we are tip of a spear. And that gives us a better opportunity - if we have a relationship with them - to start to change their hearts and minds on those issues. So I really think it's - it can - I hopefully think it can be a And - judiciously choosing what issues we fight for and want to get to what is just and right right now versus slow incremental change, I think, is important based on who's being impacted and what the harm is being done. [00:37:16] Crystal Fincher: And I guess that leads into another question just based off of what you talked about earlier - as you were considering running - Hey, my ego may not be able to take it. This is hard and rough. And campaigns are rough and it's a very brave thing to stand up and run, but sometimes I think it's - you're so stuck in this that it's easy to miss that governing is tougher. [00:37:45] Chipalo Street: For sure. [00:37:46] Crystal Fincher: And the pressures get magnified and you talk about hits to the ego - you got special interest groups looking over your shoulder and are in your ear and saying good and bad things about you publicly. As you're going through legislation, you have pressure from within the caucus to vote the way that the caucus wants you to vote. You have pressure from the community, you have pressure from your donors and businesses. And so as you think about even the consideration of - I don't know if my ego could take losing - and you win, so you don't have to deal with that in the campaign - how do you deal with the pressures of governing? And how do you navigate the different pressures from people who were part of your winning coalition and the community and those in the Legislature versus what your community needs? [00:38:46] Chipalo Street: Yeah, yeah - I think it's a good point where the ego consideration is a point in time of did you win the election. And then how you deal with the wear and tear on your heart is very different as you govern because there are so many things - the power to change our society lies in the Legislature and the policies that shape our state. And not getting to where we want to go in Day One and seeing the effect of that on people in the community, I think, is going to be very hard. And the folks in the community want change immediately - rightfully so - and talking about how we are getting there and maybe we won't get there immediately on every issue is going to be hard. And so I think for me, it's number one - understanding where I come from, understanding that I am part of these communities that I am trying to help serve. And then also understanding the wins that we get and seeing the progress that we make so that it is not just a futile effort of - hey, we are advocating for what's right, but not actually making any change - I think is really important and quite frankly one of the things that scares me is how much compromise is good? The legislative process is built around - to be slow - and you have to compromise, but at some point you can compromise out of any progress at all and you can start to compromise out of your morals and things like that. And so really understanding where you come from, what you're trying to change, what progress you have made - so that you understand that you are making progress towards your goal - and who's being impacted, I think, is what will get me through it because I - when I look at professional experiences - people in general tend to focus on the negative and what we can do better. But when you take a step back and say, Okay, let me look at everything that has gone right and has gone well - that adds wind to your sails - and so making sure that we have that comprehensive view of what has gone well, as well as where do we need to go - I think will make that journey give you stamina to continue that journey and continue fighting. And if you get to the point where you don't care anymore and it's just - okay, we have one more session, then I think that's the time when you need to get out - you need to have that fire and it should be wearing in some degree, because if it's not wearing then you probably don't care enough, quite frankly. [00:41:25] Crystal Fincher: Yeah, it makes sense. So now as you talk to voters and people are trying to make a decision between you and your opponent Emijah Smith, what do you tell them in terms of the advantage that you offer as a candidate, what sets you apart, and how their life will be different if you are elected to be their State Representative? [00:41:46] Chipalo Street: Yeah, the thing I say is - we are lucky, we're in the 37th, we're a very Democratic district so we're only going to elect a Democrat. So I just start with being thankful for that baseline because it's more than can be said in many districts. However, once you get to that point then it really becomes who's going to be the most effective legislator and I think there's some specific examples - I have experience that the other candidate doesn't with tech - and we talked about earlier how it wasn't quite clear how - it was clear that technology was impacting us, but it wasn't really clear exactly how it impacted our daily lives. With Roe, I think it's really important that we have people in the Legislature making sure that folks who are either providing or accessing abortion care are not persecuted because of that, or prosecuted because of that. I am the only candidate who's been a member of a union - I stood with that union during a work stoppage, so that provides evidence that I will strongly support all of our other working brothers and sisters as they're trying to improve compensation, benefits, working conditions. I have lived experience with our criminal justice system unfortunately, and so that really - it is near and dear to my heart - Emijah is a Black woman - she has sons, so she also understands it as well. That is no takeaway from her lived experience as well, but that is something that is core to how I've come up in my worldview. And then I say these next things in half-jest, but part of the job of a legislator is establishing trusted relationships with your other legislators so you can move them towards your point of view. And that's especially important in the Democratic caucus as our majority is likely going to be narrowed - everyone in the Democratic caucus doesn't vote the way we want them to and so our ability to move their points of view really impacts how what type of legislation we can move through Olympia. And that's exactly what my job at Microsoft is - I advise our executives on emerging technology. I don't control their headcount - I don't control how many people they have to work on stuff - and I can't tell them where to put their people, so the only way I can get them to try and do the things that I would like them to do is by establishing trusting relationships with them and then moving them towards my point of view. That's exactly what you have to do in Olympia and it - that's also what I did as a professional soccer referee in some ways - there's one thing that 22 players on that field can agree on is - is that you suck and so my effectivity as a referee increases drastically if I can quickly establish relationships with these 22 sometimes prima donnas at the pro level and get them to understand that - hey, I am trying to ref this game fairly and objectively and that is what you want. So we are in this together and being able to admit my own mistakes helps build those relationships with them because if I can't be objective about my own performance, how am I going to be objective about their performance? But my relationship with those 22 players on the field really does have an impact as to how I can officiate that game and get it to - get them to play in a manner where it is safe, where it is enjoyable for the crowd, and really just and also abides by the laws of the game. So these - this relationship building is something that I do daily and I think will be very important in Olympia as well. [00:45:21] Crystal Fincher: Thank you so much for joining us today, Chipalo - much appreciated. [00:45:24] Chipalo Street: Thank you for having me. [00:45:25] Crystal Fincher: Thank you all for listening to Hacks & Wonks. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler, our assistant producer is Shannon Cheng, and our Post-Production Assistant is Bryce Cannatelli. You can find Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks and you can follow me @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live shows and our midweek show delivered right to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in - talk to you next time.

10/18/22: Joel is briefly joined by Melissa Sobolik, the CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, to talk about the Backpack Program and food insecurity. Joel also takes your calls and texts regarding the topic, after a State Representative talked poorly about the issue, See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Candidates running for State Representative, First Barnstable District: Tracy Post and Chris Flanagan, debate the issues.

Welcome to Episode 2 of the two part Dale Kooyenga series.  In this episode we will hear more about Kooyenga's experiences navigating the wartime action in Iraq, his perception of Iraq today and his arrival back home from Iraq where he would enjoy a political career as a State Representative and Senator for Wisconsin. Lt Col. Kooyenga also discusses his company "Hero Cards" which is meant to celebrate greatness by drawing attention to those who have died defending our nation in all wars.

Pennsylvania State Representative Amen Brown joins the show to discuss last night's shooting which resulted in three police officers being injured while serving a warrant. Rep. Brown also addresses Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott dismissing charges against a former Philadelphia Police Officer, citing the District Attorney's Office for a series of procedural and prosecutorial errors. Rep. Brown, a Democrat, implores DA Larry Krasner to resign, explaining “he is not fit to do the job.”