Welcome to Free Thoughts. I'm Aaron Powell. And I'm Trevor Burris. Joining us today are Jeff VanderSleis and Matt Weibull, directors of government affairs at the Cato Institute. Welcome to Free Thoughts. Thanks for having us. What does a director of government affairs do? The main thing is really trying to convey the message that all of Cato's experts produce, the great research and commentary and so forth that you all produce, that it's conveyed to folks in government in an effective way. That's probably the way in which we go about our jobs, which is, you know, being prompt and responsive to folks who reach out to us, but also being proactive, figuring out who exactly needs to hear a particular message that you guys have created. Yeah, so we're on Capitol Hill a lot, talking to members of Congress and their staffs about, you know, the newest scholarship that's coming from Cato. And we make sure the scholars here know what's happening on Capitol Hill. If there's a healthcare bill coming up, if there's some other issue coming up, we make sure that our men and women here know exactly what's going on so we can be relevant for the policy discussion. So I will dig into what all of that entails in the logistics of how Cato talks to the Hill. But first, how does, what's your background? Like how does someone end up in a role like this? So I worked for Congress for almost a decade total, but left as Deputy Chief for Representative Justin Amash from Michigan. So I was with him for seven and a half years. And there's a lot of time researching bills, learning the legislative process, the ins and outs of how that works. And over that decade of time, you build relationships on the Hill with staffers who, they may have been a staff assistant in 2010, and now they're a legislative director or a chief of staff now. So I think both Jeff and I spent a lot of time on the Hill, and we just know a lot of people. And of course, not everybody stays on the Hill for a long time. So we also know people who were on the Hill and left and are somewhere else in D.C. So the networking aspect is a huge part of it. And I think also, having worked on the Hill, I worked for a little over a decade for a member from California Congressman Dana Rohrbacher and worked my way up through his office and left when, after I was his chief of staff for several years, I'm sorry, his legislative director for several years, gave myself a promotion. But being on the Hill and being the recipient of information from organizations like the Cato Institute, you really understand was most effective, what was not quite effective. Matt and I probably have various stories of instances in which we reached out to one organization or individual or another and either got a response that wasn't helpful or was not timely. And so those are the types of things that I think are helpful and that we were able to learn on the Hill. This will be a very general question and we can sort of get down into it more. But for American people who think Congress is broken and it's full of bunch of corrupt people who are taking money and not listening to the smart people involved and they wonder what is making Congress acts. Like what causes, what drives Congress, would you say? In the main thing, if Congress is dealing with something, it can be broadened out, like so they're going to do a healthcare bill tomorrow. But what causes that to happen? Is it because the president wants their healthcare bill? Did he give an administration? Is it because leadership wants a healthcare bill? Is it because of news stories all of a sudden come out about a healthcare bill and then you have other things that are just not being discussed at all? No one's doing gun control right now. So what tends to drive Congress's institution overall? So it's partially a leadership driven process. Leadership has an agenda and we're going to do these things in July. We're going to do this when we come back in September. Right now it's no secret they're planning on messaging bills that they want to go into the August recess having passed. So you can go home, have town hall meetings and tell your constituents, hey, we just did this in June and July. We did this right before the break. What makes something a messaging bill? Something with a good title. It sounds good, but it doesn't really do anything. And they know this. I mean, they know that these bills are basically for that. This is not like oops, this doesn't do anything. It intentionally does not do anything. Or I would say a messaging bill is something that would do something, but has zero chance of ever being enacted into law. And so they know they put this forward.  Yes. So Obamacare is a perfect example. In the 112th, 13th and 14th Congresses, all of the Republicans voted to repeal it. Straight repeal. That vote hasn't come up in the 115th Congress. They voted for it back then because they knew it wouldn't go anywhere. Now they know that with Republicans in control of government that it could go somewhere and maybe they don't want it to. Or before they knew President Obama wouldn't sign something into law, so let's just go home and say, hey, we fought hard to repeal Obamacare, but the president's not going to sign it. But some of the other messaging bills are maybe the opioid bills where we're talking about the opioid epidemic. And so there will be a very short bill and give it a good title, opioid addiction awareness act, and it might be $2 million of grant funding. And so that doesn't really do anything, but the congressman can go home and say, hey, I had a bill passed. It has my name on it. Look how effective I am. And leadership can say, look, this is in the news, but we're responding. Now that would imply that in any given Congress, the first year, what is the difference between the first year and then the election year? Is the behavior, is it a very big break? We're like, well next year we have an election coming up, so 2017, but then 2018, and this happens every two years. So you get in Congress and you can propose a bunch of things, but then when do you start, when do they start changing modes in that way? Yeah, I think the biggest difference between an off year and an election year is just that an election year tends to be a truncated year, right? If you intend to get anything through the legislative process, it probably needs to happen before the August recess. So July 31st is kind of an informal cutoff. After that is kind of a dead zone. You might be able to pass an appropriations bill or more likely just a continuing resolution that continues government funding through the election and into the lame duck. And then sometimes you can see a flurry of activity again immediately after the election before the new Congress is sworn in. So I'm sure someone has done research to show exactly how many pieces of legislation are signed in to law in an odd-numbered year versus an even-numbered year, but I think the most obvious thing to folks on the hill is that you hit the ground running after an election. You have that entire year to try and push things through. Going into an election year, you have about seven months and then things kind of freeze. So in this process, when there's legislation that they want to pass, whether it's, I mean, messaging legislation or substantive legislation, where do organizations like Cato fit into that? At what point do we come into the process and how do they use the material that we create? I think from at every stage along the way, really, sometimes research produced by an organization like Cato can be a catalyst for legislative change or it can serve to inform members as they go about working on a particular issue that's been set in motion by another event, say, a White House agenda, a state of the union address or leadership initiative in the House or Senate. So I think really there are multiple ways and multiple points at which an organization like Cato can really be beneficial to members. We get folks who reach out to us saying, we're looking to propose an amendment to a larger piece of legislation. Have you guys written anything about issue X? And if we can send that along to them and they find it useful, that may help them in their thinking as they formulate an amendment to a larger piece of legislation. Yeah, I'll just echo that and say it definitely happens where at the very beginning of the process, people will contact Jeff or myself and say, what scholarship do you have on this? What do you guys think of this idea for legislation? And then also at the very end of the process, for example, in May we did a Capitol Hill briefing on the Farm Bill and that was with a couple other groups that we work with on occasion and it was, hey, the Farm Bill is coming up for a vote next week. Let's break down what's in it and let's talk about some of the crop subsidies and ways that you could amend it. And so that's obviously at the very, very end of the process, but you're trying to make sure staff are aware of what's in the bill. When a member or his or her office reaches out for research, so they've got a bill they want to work on and they want to know if we have research, are they looking for research to inform what they are going to do or are they looking for research to support what they already want to do? Sometimes both. It'll depend on the member. Some will ask for feedback and we'll just say, you know, what do you have that's in line with this because it's helpful for them when they try to get co-sponsors for a bill to say, hey, the Cato Institute supports these types of policies. This is a good limited government bill and look what Cato wrote about this sort of policy. In terms of we talked about what drives Congress and obviously there are 435 or I guess 36, if you include Eleanor Holmes Norton, answers to this, but what drives the members or can you kind of, I mean, it depends on the member, but do they kind of break, you ever break them down into classes like true warriors of ideology versus people who are just there for the title versus people who have one thing that they care about and they don't really care about anything else versus sort of wallflowers or something like that. Maybe that's the categorization that makes sense. I don't know. Yeah. No, I think it's a lot of things that drive members. They all come from disparate districts from far-flung areas of the country who are hoping likely to be re-elected to Congress. So they're certainly responsive to their constituents as a whole, but also constituencies within their congressional districts or Senate districts if it's a Senator, of course. So I think it's multiple things. I think a lot of them also have aspirations to move up in their respective chambers. So there is certainly an element of the job that involves pleasing leadership so that eventually they can become chairman of a committee or ranking member of a committee. There are a lot of other organizations, caucuses like there's an ongoing jockeying to see who will become the next leader of the Republican Study Committee, for instance. There are lots of different groups within Congress that I think members kind of align themselves with in the hopes of gaining more influence within their own, within that very organization. Yeah, I think it's hard to say this generally, but some members are driven by status. That's why you see these self-funded politicians who will dump $1 or $2 million of their own money into a congressional race just so they can get the title of Congressman. I mean, if you're already a millionaire, why do you need to go to Congress? The congressional salaries are relatively low compared to what they're probably making off the hill. One thing, you know, status does drive people and they want to be reelected, but there are definitely the true warriors out there who are fighting for liberty on an everyday basis. Or something else. Or something else. Yeah, maybe some of them are fighting for universal healthcare, but they have an issue that is near and dear to their heart and they spend a lot of time focusing on that one issue. I would say my observation, and this is a general statement again, that most members seem to have a conviction, a policy conviction, an idea of how the world should look or how the country should work look. I think that is a major driving force for members of Congress. I think there's a lot of cynicism about, oh, well, it's just about status or it's all just about ego or an eventual payday once they join the local lobbying firm or something like that. I am not quite that cynical and of course I think that's a motivating factor to some extent for some members, but I think most members while they're on the hill hope and intend to do something specific policy-wise.  Libertarians might overplay that hand. So let's assume they're all Jimmy Stewart and Mr. Smith goes to Washington and so he goes to Mr. Smith, new congressman, never been in Congress before, goes to Washington, you're going to clean up this town or do something. I'm going to have a specific agenda, let's say it's healthcare, they want to get in. So they come in and what is the biggest, you think, root awakening that some new bright-eyed bushy-tailed member of Congress comes in with Jimmy Stewart, I can't say Jimmy Stewart, style of thinking. In the first, I feel like in the first couple of months they might learn something that they didn't know before about how this town and that building actually works. What is that root awakening? You quickly learn that Washington is very much set in its ways. So I worked for a member who was a freshman at one time and within the first couple of months he had walked over to the opposite side of the aisle to talk to his colleagues and he came back over and an older member who had been around for a while said, what are you doing over there? That's the other side, we don't talk to the other side. And he says, my former boss says, these are my colleagues, if we're going to get something done, we have to work together. And this isn't to say that the sides don't talk to each other or the parties don't work together, but that was a way that was set where maybe you're not as friendly with the other side. And I think another thing that is sometimes a root awakening for some members is a lot of them are fairly accomplished in their whatever field they just came from. They were either a business owner or a doctor. Maybe they had their own law firm, something. And they got used to people doing what they told them to do. They said, I want this project completed within the next six months. And if that doesn't happen, you'll be in here explaining to me why that doesn't happen. Well, a member of Congress will not be all that successful if they say universal healthcare has to happen in six months. And staff, it's on your shoulders to make sure that happens or else you'll be back in here explaining to me why you weren't successful. And I think they very quickly realize that Congress is not a business. It can't run like a business. It won't. So acting like a business owner is not going... In a lot of those same ways is not going to result in success. And so I certainly saw that during my time on the Hill, I think. So move their goals down. Well, it's not... I don't know that it's necessarily that. If you're a business owner, you don't necessarily have an opposing force at your door pushing against everything that you're trying to accomplish. And if you're a member who's trying to achieve goal X, guess what? There's at least as many members opposed to the very thing you're trying to accomplish, right? So, yeah, maybe lower your goals or expectations, rather, not goals. What role do donors play in all of this?  And obviously, there are people that contribute to their campaign. But do campaign contributors have the ear of members of Congress? Are members of Congress reactive to their interests? I think donors definitely have the ear because they have the access. If you pay a lot of money to go to an event, you expect some face time with the member of Congress. And so that's much more influential maybe than just the average person writing a letter. When you're there with the member of Congress talking face to face, you have that issue in their mind. And that's different from saying, hey, boss, we got a thousand letters on healthcare today. So they definitely have an influence because you just have the face time that ordinary citizens necessarily wouldn't get. And even at a town hall meeting that's open forum, a public event, you have a few seconds to ask your question and then the member has to move on to the next question. So there's not the type of discussion that a donor might be able to have at a separate time. I generally seem to think that members formulate their position or their opinion first, and the money follows after. And there's money to fund whatever point of view a member eventually takes. So if you're going to, let's just say you take a pro-business view, again talking in general terms, take a pro-business view on a particular bill versus an environmental view on the bill. Whatever position you take, there will probably be someone, some organization that will notice and will follow up with checks. And mostly because they want to make sure that that individual gets reelected. And so I think it is probably true that members of Congress who receive a donation from an individual may be more willing to meet with that individual at a later time or might be more likely to run into them at an event or something like that. But I generally, if you're talking about the chicken egg kind of thing, I generally think that the positions come first and then the money follows from groups that are interested in seeing those members reelected. What's the difference between think tanks like Cato and what we do on the Hill and lobbyists? So lobbyists, they have a specific action that they want Congress to take. You need to pass this bill because it's good for my client. And here's how it will affect them. Cato talks about policy rather than specific legislative action. And we say, okay, here, take this bill. Let's talk about the policy behind it and say, you know, this is a good policy for limited government or this, you know, this increases the size and scope of government. Libertarians shouldn't agree with this. It's more of a philosophical argument that we're trying to make as opposed to you should do this because it's good for my client. They have a factory in your district and it's a thousand jobs and therefore, you know, you have to support it. When between lobbyists and think tanks, it has always struck me as interesting that if you take something like the farm bill or another one of these thousand page pieces of legislation that we tend to pass now and it's full of a bunch of things like Obamacare was full of various subsidies and changes to insurance underwriting and all this stuff that I can't imagine that a lot of people who are Hill staffers, given the amount of stuff in legislation that a given member doesn't have, you know, someone on staff who knows everything about section 702 of the SEC code or something that might have been changed in some recent piece of legislation. And there's a paper that came out about 10 years ago, I think political science journal article called lobbying is a legislative subsidy. And the argument there is that staff is too small to know what government is doing. So members of people who work for members of Congress and senators have to call someone who knows what is going on when you're dealing with regulating peanut growers in Southern Georgia, which there's tons of laws. Trust me, I know there are tons of laws that regulate peanut growers in Southern Georgia, but I don't think that there's a specialist on a match of staff who knows about Southern peanut growing regulations. So how does the staff of members of Congress and senators deal with that information problem there? And maybe Kato can figure in there too, but also maybe lobbyists do? I think certainly a lot of members of Congress take kind of a 30,000 foot view of, you know, a particular piece of legislation, right? So they might look at the farm bill and say what's the bottom line? Does this expand the size and scope of the federal government? If it does, given my underlying philosophy, I'm going to oppose it, right? I don't need to know about peanut farmers in Georgia or elsewhere to know that the overall policy is moving in the wrong direction, right? So I think that's one way that it can be dealt with, but I think it also really illustrates one of the main frustrations of a lot of members of Congress, which is that the House and Senate generally don't vote on small pieces of legislation one issue at a time, right? They couple this massive farm bill together, which is not just farm subsidies, right? It's also SNAP, and they vote on them together. Appropriations bills, they might get through one chamber, one bill at a time, but at the end of the day, when whatever is going to be signed into law, usually it's packaged together with several other bills, and it's passed as either what they call a minibus or a megabus, which is usually all of the appropriations bills or an omnibus. I've always thought that if, and I think a lot of other members would prefer to see this too, is that if you broke things down into smaller pieces, you could actually achieve much greater policy advancements, right? I think the art of legislating in large part is, has everything to do with building and maintaining coalitions, right? We're probably not any time soon going to see 218 libertarians in the House of Representatives or 51 libertarians in the Senate at the same time that there's a libertarian in the White House, right? But if you take an issue like one that I worked on, which was marijuana policy, we had a legislative success using a coalition of libertarian-minded Republicans, moderate Republicans, and a whole lot of Democrats who came together and said, yes, on medical marijuana, we should not be, you know, basically sending the DOJ to lock up people who are acting in compliance with their state laws, right? And so that's really a libertarian position. Does that mean that everybody who voted for this ascribes to all of the other, you know, tenets of libertarian philosophy? Certainly not. But if you vote on things, you know, in a piecemeal enough fashion, I think there's a chance to, you know, really tackle some of these bigger issues. And to address the underlying question about the knowledge that lobbyists have, yes, they know more generally about their specific issue than your average congressional staffer and certainly more than the member of Congress. And so this is an argument people make of why we shouldn't have terminal limits, because if you have terminal limits, you have a new member come in, you have new staff, they're constantly turning over, you have no expertise on the process of how the House or the Senate are supposed to work or on the issues. So the lobbyists come in, they say, hey, we already have a white paper for you on this issue. And this is why it's good or bad. So that's one thing that people will do when they argue against terminal limits is that we need the staff expertise and the members need to be around for a while to learn the process so it's not outsourced, so to speak, to lobbyists. How much does it matter on this question of the huge bills? They bring them all together and they say, okay, Republicans are going to vote on this. I don't know if they, if like Paul Ryan or the Speaker sends out an email that says, we've decided the party is going to vote on this or something. They'll go put their hands on the orb. Yeah, they'll go put their hands on the orb and say, yeah, Republicans, whatever.  If you're constantly come in and say, no, I'm not going to vote on that because there's three lines in this omnibus farm bill, but I'm here to protest the size of the scope of government. So you're sort of a gadfly in the entire process. And then would that hurt you in the Republican side of the cafeteria and Congress will no one sit with you and therefore no one will sponsor your bills and therefore no one will return your phone calls. Is that another dynamic that goes on in Congress? I think it is a dynamic. I heard fairly early on in my time on the Hill that someone from one of the party's leaderships early on expressed to a new member who said, it's okay if you vote against us, but don't ever surprise us. And so I think there are varying levels of what's acceptable. And so if you oppose a measure on the floor, that's not the same as first telling the whip, yeah, I'm with you and then voting against it for obvious reasons. But there's definitely, I think, a culture in which leadership generally respects where members are coming from. They understand that they have their reelection prospects in mind that a lot of members should be free to a certain extent to vote however they need. But the way in which you conduct yourself as you oppose measures that leadership brings to the floor I think matters quite a bit to the leadership. And I think the general rank and file membership wants you to be a team player because they want to say, we know how to govern. We can get things passed. That's why you should vote for our party. And when you're not a team player, there certainly can be consequences. It's one thing if leadership understands where you're coming from and they have that, but they have the numbers to pass something. It's something else when you're in committee, for example, and this happened with my boss, he and another member, my former boss, he and another member voted against the budget and the budget committee. And Republicans were supposed to be able to pass this easily out of committee. Well, it was a terrible budget in our minds. It didn't reach balance in 10 years. And even some of the worst budgets will somehow reach balance in 10 years because they estimate huge economic growth or whatever. But a couple weeks later, he and another member were kicked off the budget committee. So there are consequences to not being a team player where you'll lose a prime committee assignment or maybe you do have to sit on the other side of the cafeteria or maybe when it comes to a primary challenge, your colleagues don't support you. And maybe they don't actively help the challenger, but they don't step in to support maybe somebody in the same delegation or from the same region. So these bills that they're discussing committee or eventually voting on on the floor, who writes those? Who's writing the actual legislation that might become law? So technically, House Legislative Council writes the bill. So this is a group of lawyers that work for the house where a member or a staffer can go to these lawyers and say, hey, we have an idea for a bill. This is what we want it to accomplish. That's one way to do it. The other way to do it is to have a lawyer on staff or have your staffer review the law and try to write it or at least an outline for themselves, which I think is a better way of doing it, at least a start. So that way you're doing some work and you have some hand in the process. And another way is where lobbyists come in and they have the bill drafted for you. They know exactly what they want changed in law or maybe it's a trade association, not necessarily a lobbyist, but a special interest where they know what section of law is affecting them and they come to your door and they say, hey, we think you should do this and here's legislative text. Here's what it would look like because we have lawyers in our corporation or our trade association or a lobbying firm that know exactly what needs to be changed. So that would be, I mean, the question, a member of Congress, I again think about like the first week of someone just getting to the hill and because there's like an orientation. Isn't there for new members of Congress? There is a member orientation. I think it's two weeks after the election. The election because it's, you know, you don't necessarily know how to be a member of Congress because you won an election. You may have, you have no idea and all the rules here, but he says, I want to legalize marijuana. So he says, okay, Jeff, get on that. You're working for a new member. I want to write a bill to legalize marijuana. And if you look at the bill, there's all these bills always just floating around that already do that too, right?  So do you first go look and see if there's an existing bill or what would the process be with the new member in that situation? Yeah, the process would usually, you know, I think most folks at legislative council, the organization that Matt just referenced, would prefer that you do some of your research first, right? So your first step might be going to the congressional research service and asking them that very question. Has anybody attempted to do that?  And, you know, there are also a lot of attorneys at CRS who could say, you know, this is precisely the section of law that you want to amend. And here are some things that you should take into consideration when talking to legislative council, right?  And a lot of times it's a back and forth process, right? You get a draft back.  And, you know, they have a lot of blanks depending on what exactly you're trying to accomplish. And you can, you know, have discussions with other staff, sometimes with committee staff, if they might be inclined to help you with a piece of legislation. You know, you might take it back to CRS and say, you know, what specifically would be the policy implications of taking approach A versus approach B in this space and going from there, yeah. We see a lot of metrics in Congress. So we just, last week was it had the hearing with the FBI agent where members were holding up signs. And it's, a lot of it feels pretty over the top and some, and frequently looks kind of silly. Do members of Congress, how earnest are they in their theatrics? Like, are they play acting?  Do they not know? It's just, it's hard, it's sometimes it's hard when they're like, they're really getting into this to look at this and be like, this person is this person serious? I think a lot of it is for show. And that doesn't mean that there aren't members passionate about an issue who really would get fired up in a committee hearing. But what you see that you can say, wow, that's over the top. It happens on a regular basis, even if you don't think it's over at the top where, you know, the member could be arguing with a Republican, could be arguing with a Democrat. And then after the hearing, they can go laugh about it. And I'm not going to say that they would say, oh, yeah, this was a great show that we put on. But they, generally speaking, it's my impression that you want the media hit. You want to be on the news for a few minutes, because it looks like you're really passionate about something. And maybe you are. And it looks like you're doing your job. You're there. You're causing a fuss. You're asking this government agency why they spent money improperly or that sort of thing. But it does wear on you as a staffer because, you know, you see or it wore on me as a staffer, because I saw members who would always put on the show and it was just for the sake of the show. Well, getting that media hit is incredibly important. I always think it's amazing that, you know, I work here. I don't do what, I work in D.C., but I don't do what you guys do with government affairs. But I don't think, I mean, even if you're really informed about Congress, it would be hard to name more than 100 members of Congress off top of your head. How many can you guys name off the top of your head? We're going to start this right now. We got about 20 minutes left. I mean, even if people are really informed, like 100 would be a lot. And there's still 335 that you're missing who would love to be one of the names you remember. And one of the names you remember maybe come from getting a good histrionic media hit or thinking that Guam will capsize as Hank Johnson famously believed at one point. So it is interesting. How these committees you mentioned, they're not, they're just part of the tradition. They're not in the Constitution or anything, but they have these committees that Congress delegates certain responsibilities to. And then how do you become members of various committees? You get assigned committees when you get there, correct, if you're a member of Congress initially. Right, yeah. So leadership generally asks members what their committee preferences are. And what's the one no one wants to be on? What's like, is there like a real black small business or house administration which is very powerful in DC, but not outside of so few. So if you really make people mad, you'll find yourself transferred to house administration. Is everyone on the committee? Yes, I'm there have been instances in the past where again, because you're punished, members haven't had any committee assignments, but your office is now the broom closet. Yeah, okay. But otherwise, yes. But otherwise, yes. Yeah.  I think it's a combination of that, what your background is, what you have to add to a particular committee. I think there is probably some internal selections so that they don't stack, you know, let's say, you know, a particular committee with, you know, let's say the agriculture committee with too many people who are skeptical of agriculture subsidies, right? They may be reticent to, you know, do that. But otherwise, you know, it's kind of a play between leadership's preferences and the members' preferences. You know, there are certain committee assignments that play better back home than others, right? So if you represent a major military base, you know, you as a member may want to be on the Armed Services Committee, and leadership may also want to give you Armed Services Committee because that's going to both well for your election, reelection prospects, you know, your knowledge and, you know, ability to effect change on that committee and so forth. Yeah. Becoming like a chair or a ranking member of that, you have to put in your time for that, correct? And if you do become a chair of at least, especially a very prominent committee, that really helps with your fundraising and electoral prospects, correct? Absolutely.  You control what legislation your committee passes for the most part. There are times when leadership has asked committees, hey, we need you to bring this bill through the committee because we want it to go through the normal process. So please have a markup. But otherwise, you know, it's basically at the discretion of the chair what comes through the committee. And, you know, that's a position that you have to work up to.  But yeah, it takes time to get to the top of committee. What's the difference between a committee and a caucus? A committee is a formally recognized organization essentially within the house or the senate, right?  It's a formal entity that has a designated budget, designated staff, and so forth. A caucus is much more informal. Generally speaking, with the exception of the senate narcotics caucus or senate caucus on narcotics, whatever the name is, there, you know, that has essentially the same status as a committee. But what most people think of as caucuses, it's just a group of members who have a common interest that band together and say, we're going to try and elevate this particular policy issue and our standing as it relates to this issue through the formation of this caucus. Now, when did, so when did you get to DC Jeff originally? I came in 2006 originally to intern and then came back in 2007 to begin working full-time. And Matt? I started my internships in 2008 and then went full-time in 2010. So you guys have seen some interesting beginning of the Obama years, that first two years, 2008 to 2010, which was pretty contentious and a lot of, well, Rama manual, we have the votes FM kind of attitude. And now we have, of course, Trump and we have the latter half of the Obama years. Has anything significantly changed, I mean, in the way that Congress is behaving or have you seen much, do you put it to partisanship? If so, do you put it to the divided nation, to Obama people, how much Republicans hated Obama, to what Obama did to force Affordable Care Act through and the Tea Party movement, maybe or something else? There have been some changes with, I think, the most notable change that I've seen is when we had a Republican take the White House. Because like I said earlier, you could pass something in the House and say that you voted for it and campaign on it and you knew there was no danger or hope of the President actually signing it. People could rail against military action overseas because President Obama didn't have the authority to do it. But now that President Trump is doing it and he's a Republican, you hear crickets. So that's one of the biggest things I noticed is maybe a lack of consistency or the true partisan nature of DC where the letter after your name really determines whether you oppose something or support something. So that has become clear, unfortunately. But even from 2011 when Speaker Boehner took the speakership, the House process opened up more than it had been in the past. Members were allowed to offer amendments and that's been scaled back significantly over the years. But at first there was this desire to let members offer amendments and let the House vote on it. Let's not control the process and prevent people from taking tough votes. We should actually debate and vote on these things. In spirit, it was there. And I think February of 2010, whenever they did an appropriations bill, HR1, they did hundreds of amendments late into the night. And I think that was the most open of a process that I had seen and it's scaled back. But it's... I just have to clarify this. This is just House rules. They say that members can't offer amendments or something like this. But if this was... I think it's a constitutional scholar. If you're sitting on the floor of the House and we were in 1792 and James Madison wanted to stand up and said, I'd like to offer amendment and someone else tried to say, you're not allowed to offer an amendment. None of that is in the Constitution. I'd like to say a vote about whether or not we can amend this piece of legislation. And that's how it worked in the early 1790s. What does it mean to say you, Mr. Amash, cannot bring this amendment? Is it just the speaker using his power and the House rules? And is that where it comes from? Yeah. On the House side, it's the House Rules Committee, which makes those determinations on a case-by-case basis. So it's not a standing rule of the House that no amendments will be allowed. Each individual bill that comes forward, generally with the exception of bills considered under suspension of the rules, which we can set aside, only talk about those that are considered under House rule, those bills have a rule accompanying each piece of legislation that's considered on the House floor that, and the rule basically determines the nature of the debate. It outlines how long debate should last for, who will control time during general debate and what amendments are made in order, in what order those amendments should be made in order, and who will be recognized to offer those amendments. So as a Hill staffer, if your boss wants to offer an amendment, basically you submit those to the rules committee and then you plead to the rules committee to make that amendment in order and hope that the chairman and the members of the committee will make a decision in your favor, right? And the Constitution allows room for the House and the Senate to set their own rules. So there's that argument that they pass a rules package at the beginning of each Congress and then the House rules committee, which is established in the rules package, will then set the time and debate process for each bill. So there is flexibility there, though sometimes that flexibility can be annoying because your amendments don't get voted on and the process can be closed down. We've got a lot of movies and TV shows about Congress and government and Washington, many of them very popular. What do, what's the biggest thing that, you know, say you're watching House of Cards, you're sitting through episodes of the West Wing or whatever, that these shows get wrong about Congress? And what's the biggest thing they get right? I always say the, I always say that the VEEP is the biggest, the best documentary about DC ever in terms of the personalities involved. Well, what they get right is that it is very fast-paced and hectic. When you're in session, things are moving quickly and you could be focusing your time on one topic and then quickly on another topic and then some crisis is happening over here. I'm thinking more of the West Wing. There's a lot of walking and talking. And even, you know, when you're talking to your boss about how to vote on a bill, you might have two minutes to really fully brief the member and that's as you're walking to the floor and you're trying to dodge reporters and get into the House chamber and, but you have to have this conversation on the way because the schedules are just very hectic by nature. So that is one thing that they get right is that it is very, very busy, very hectic, long hours for sure. And maybe something they don't exactly have on point is that every day is not quite as exciting, obviously, as, you know, maybe an episode of the West Wing or of VEEP or House of Cards or something like that. Yeah. There are some, well, then they're out of session or they're, of course, yeah, a lot of different things. Is there, I mean, the thing that these, the thing that shows always show is like intrigue and backstabbing? Like, and so, I mean, I get that members disagree and all that, but is it as, is it as Game of Thrones intrigue laden as these shows make it out to be? Or is it, you mentioned that, I mean, they can go and have a drink together after having a big argument on the hill, but do you get those kinds of factions and infighting as much as we seem to think we do? I don't think it's functional enough to be that deliberate about it that you could be Game of Thrones style. I think I might still be there if it were, because... That's one reason why you left is that it wasn't functional. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Well, okay, on that point, is Congress broken, is in some way that a lot of people have said this as the approval rating of, you know, I think Eva Braun, I mean, it's below 10%, and it doesn't seem to be able to get stuff done. And now there's always political nostalgia where someone can say, back in my day, Congress got stuff done and, you know, passed Medicaid and Medicare and everything, but, you know, for long periods of time in history, Congress has been divided in different ways. But is there something different about now, or maybe it's just game as usual, that this is how governing works? I think this is how governing works. I don't think Congress is broken. The Framers set up the House and Senate differently, but they set up the legislative process to be slow and deliberate. The Senate was designed to give the states a voice and to be the less reactionary body. And it's proof, you know, when you see these mass shootings or, you know, incidents or anything in the news that the House is naturally the very reactionary body because of the two-year term limits. It's the body that's closest to the people, because they, by their nature, except for the states that have only one member, represent less people than what the Senate will do. So I think a slower legislative process is better. And I often think you're not getting anything done. Well, yeah, we need to get some things done, but let's make sure we do it the right way. And I don't think they're necessarily saying the same thing I'm saying, but I prefer a slower, more deliberative, let's not be so reactionary, let's not do the knee-jerk reaction and pass a bill, requiring some sort of adding, you know, this was the Fix Knicks Act where they added, you know, wanted to add thousands of names to the, you know, firearms database where, and we've seen this with the do not fly list, where people with the same name, you'd be put on the wrong list. And you weren't told why you're on the do not fly list, and it's very difficult to get off. So knee-jerk reactions, they might look good. Oh, Congress did something to solve this issue. When it comes to legislation, it has to be done very carefully. I also think that it's easy to beat up on Congress because it often does seem dysfunctional, right? Different people are saying different things. There doesn't seem to be any unified message, unlike, you know, the presidency, right? Generally speaking, they speak with one voice. Sometimes you get some dissenting voices, right? You know, the Supreme Court generally the same way, right? Or courts, you know, generally, you know, have an opinion. Of course, there might be, you know, dissents or concurring opinions and so forth, but there aren't just the sheer number of voices, right? And so, I mean, not only is it more difficult, actually more difficult to reach consensus in Congress, but you know, it also appears that way, right? It's obvious that, you know, folks are on different pages. I remember going home once and someone came up to me and said, you know, why can't the two sides just get together and agree, right? And he said, I'm a lawyer. And whenever I have a client who has an opposing point of view, I sit down with their lawyer and, or, you know, the two sides sit down together and we basically meet in the middle. And that's the solution, right? Well, you don't have just two sides in Congress. You have two sides plus this faction and, you know, also this faction and also this faction, you know, there could be as many as we discussed earlier, 435 in the House and, you know, 100 in the Senate and so forth. So, you know, it is very chaotic. It is very messy. But I don't know, you know, certainly there are issues, you know, with, you know, any number of areas, right? Some people talk about the budgetary process, you know, that needs to be reformed and so forth. But I don't think that means that the institution itself is broken. Thanks for listening. Free Thoughts is produced by Test Terrible. If you enjoyed today's show, please rate and review us on iTunes. And if you'd like to learn more about libertarianism, find us on the web at www.libertarianism.org.


Hi, I'm Luca. I come from Italy. I'm a student of International Management at Tilburg University. Recently, I take part in the Excultural Symposium in Nashville, Tennessee, and together with my team, I won the International Business Competition. Excultural is an international organization dedicated to improve international business education. Every semester, 4,000 students from about 50 countries work in global virtual teams and deal with business plans for international companies, so gaining first-hand experience in international business and collaboration. For the first time, I participated in Excultural last year, and I was one of the students selected to attend the Excultural Symposium this year. In Nashville, I met my teammates for the first time face-to-face, and we presented our business proposal to the client in Seattle, and it felt very special at Tilburg University to support me during the challenge since it is my first year studying in Tilburg, and also it really helped me really focus on the competition and give up my 100% best. I'd recommend Excultural to students who want to pursue an international career, but first of all, I recommend it to international business and management professors who can offer Excultural as part of their program, and so giving students the opportunity to apply what they learn in class, and this is also the way how I get to know Excultural.


Hello everyone, I am here with Paula Jean Swaringen running for the United States Senate in West, Virginia You all know her you all love her. She's back to give us an update about her campaign Paula. Welcome back to the program Thank you for coming on Thank you, Mike. It's always a pleasure to be on your show. You're great And thank you for always amplifying progressive voices. Well, thank you. Thank you for running and I had to bring you back because We're in a really different situation currently, you know, you ran against Joe Manchin And you got a large portion of the vote but didn't win and we were gutted but now you're back And you're the favorite You're running a very viable campaign and you can win this so talk about the dynamics and how you can actually defeat Shelly Kapita Moore Well, um, you know, well for first of all, let's talk about personal reasons and why i'm running against her She's out, you know, she's voted against equal pay for women three times She's a mother and a grandmother She's been in office for almost 20 years. Her dad was our former governor and she's basically a rubber stamp for, you know, like Mitch McConnell and She was elected to be the first united states senator first woman to be to represent west virginia and the us in it and She's really did nothing for us and she's a mother and she's a grandmother And she's turned her back on the children dying as starving in this state and it's time for her to face a mother and a grandmother and You know kick her out make sure that we do have a good voice in washington And have a good strong woman in washington because i think that maybe have been west virginia's intent to send her there But she's not taking care of women and children in this state and our state the population in west virginia is like 51 52 percent women And uh, you know, we are not divided by partisan politics when it comes to our children and women are ready to fight back Um, it's been really incredible and i want to thank everybody across the nation That has supported this campaign this time It really solidifies that you can have a people-funded campaign We have outraised everyone eight to one And we have an incredible staff have incredible campaign manager finance director comms director incredible people in field a lot of people have Signed up to volunteer to make phone calls and just in text during this pandemic And actually a lot of west virginians that don't live in the state anymore have donated to the campaign Just because they want to come back home Yeah, this is really incredible because you know, what I hear from congressional candidates who Have run multiple times is that the first time, you know, you run And it's difficult you kind of try to find your footing But the second time you build up a really well oiled machine you have connections You have you know, a lot of people that you know who become your staffers and now your campaign is incredible So the the eight to one fundraising that really is important because you are a campaign Everyone in my audience knows you're not taking any money from large multinational corporations. This is all people powered So that fact in and of itself is astonishing and now that your position to win It's it's incredible like it feels like we actually can affect change and for everyone who's feeling demoralized About the 2020 election since bernie sanders didn't win, you know, these congressional races This is our fight now. This is where we can affect change. It's not all over 2020 is still You know the election is months away and races like this Imagine if apology and swarming were to be elected to the u.s senate the things that you would accomplish I think you would be very effective because you know for you Something that you said before you went on it stood out with me and you've said this before this is a fight For survival.  So what do you think you would really push for immediately in terms of relief for americans We'll get to that but let's talk about our movement for a second and the importance That's one of the reasons too that i decided to run for united states and senate because We do need good strong people representatives in congress and the senate plays a large role in electing The supreme court so it's vitally important And one person can't go and go to congress and change everything So this is a movement it continues to grow no matter who our president is we have to have a good strong congress and Everybody, you know, don't give up hope. We have a whole slate of candidates with brand new congress I worked with them in 2018 and i'm incredibly proud of brand new congress And i fully believe in them because of the way they vet their candidates and they give Voters a chance of having real people representatives and that what how without having to go through the weeds and pick out who Actually has integrity. So, you know, don't forget brand new congress brand new congress.org because if I do go to congress it's not going to be just me it's going to have to take a whole slate of candidates and You know, it's it's going to take a bunch of us. We have to keep on pushing that needle too We're going to suffer losses and we have in our movement But we've also had some wins and even if we don't win we keep on pushing that needle with our incumbents We they know that we're holding them more accountable Even which I mentioned we've seen him make better decisions this year because we have pushed him so hard I've given credit for some of the things that he's done And you know, we we if we hold them accountable then they'll do better But if they don't do better then they need to know that we're going to come take their jobs As far as when I get there we still have a chance for a matter of care for all I still stand behind medicare for 100 percent the first thing I would do in congress is co-sponsor medicare for all And it's going to take all of us to push whoever our president is to make sure that it's implemented because Even the trump administration promised us universal health care I'm behind bernie's bill because it it's uh, it's comprehensive. It covers uh Dental and vision but also in that bill is just transition for people that work in insurance companies And that's important to me because even here in west virginia with the book, you know with the uh Lost in the market for the coal industry people are dying and starving So when we do advance and grow we have to make sure that we do have just transition Secondary to that, you know, it's important to me to make sure that we combat the addiction epidemic Not only in my statement in my country across the country And right now west virginia leads and drug overdose deaths And I want to send federal funding to long-term recovery systems We have seen uh with the people that are working to combat this crisis and the front lines of our communities and across the country that long-term recovery systems work We've been hearing from our counterparts that they are going to take care of the addiction epidemic and drug replacement therapy plays a small role In ending addiction because it takes that money from big part, you know It takes that money from big farm and puts it right back into big farm and it's it's not creating long-term solutions And it's been proven statistically that long-term recovery systems work And they need state and federal funding and they need support from medical providers and social workers I will fight for a living wage. I mean I'll fight for everything that I've always fought for um economic diversity For my state and state states like mine is very important to me The industrial revolution was built on the backs of west virginians their families and surrounding communities When you turn on your light switch, it's been taught, you know It's by the blood of Appalachians and the least that we can do is Invest in things like the reclaim act the green new deal and make sure that we put funding in states like ours So we can grow and diversify our economy When we look at diversification for our economy in west virginia If we legalize cannabis, which I am for legalization and decriminalization 100 percent We would see economic growth in our state within six to eight months If we grew hemp on mountaintop removal sites Not only would it clean that clean up the soil it create create topsoil And you know, we could tap into that agriculture We have a lot of hot spots for uh Geothermal and hydropower here in this state. We can invest in that A lot of people don't have comprehensive broadband across the state We've heard from our senators that they're going to give some relief and and make sure that we have comprehensive broadband But it doesn't happen. It seems like it's a political talking point If we have good roads, we have good schools. We have a good infrastructure We invest in clean water clean air And create a place where businesses will want to come and grow here Then you know then business what business will come here and we you know, there's all kinds of ideas We could have for the Appalachian region But we just need visionaries for our future instead of visionaries for our demise And make sure that we get dark money out of politics And we have true people servants as opposed to people that are serving corporations lobbyist official interest You know, there's so many things that we could be doing across the country even with this pandemic I'm really really frustrated to see states suffer like mine Because of population they're opening up west virginia and This is one of the poorest and sickest states in the nation We have high rates of lung disease heart disease Diabetes a large bulk of our population is the elderly And instead of sending relief efforts in the national guard out into the hills and hollers where people haven't seen daylight We don't know what's going on with them living in food deserts. They're talking about opening up our state So on a state level, we should be taking care of the people here and on a federal level We hear so much That well, we've got to open up the economy But we also in the last stimulus bill gave over to you know, trillions of dollars to corporations and wall street You know on only $1,200 and some of those people have not even received those stimulus checks and relief We can afford $2,000 a month until we figure this out Public health and safety should not come last and I know even specifically for my state How can we trust these people to take care of us when we were treated like collateral damage to begin with West virginia shouldn't be a test case or any state or any state in this country We need to lock down take care of people make sure that they have Personal protective equipment the tools that they need to take care of people make sure that people are fed They can pay their bills and they're not homeless until we do figure this out And this just really solidifies the failure in our government that we can't handle a pandemic like this Yeah, absolutely like all of the flaws that already existed Pre-covid-19 They just bubble up to the surface to where if you didn't see them before there's no way that you don't see them now And as you go through like your list of all these policy things you want to fight for Something just you know It stood out to me like why you're such a phenomenal candidate and why i'm so invested in this campaign And in you as a politician is because your idea of what you should do what you should fight for it doesn't change Based on the political context and what i mean by that is you know, there's the sense now that okay bernie lost Medicare for all is done. We can't get it. So, you know best case scenario you get to congress And maybe we get a public option. You're still saying no, I don't care. Who's president We're fighting for Medicare for all that's the right policy And that is so important because that is True political courage and that's one thing that I think is lacking with lawmakers You know the thing with politics is that you are expected to be Overly savvy and you're supposed to you know use your political capital wisely But that time is gone like we are at the end of the empire like the country is collapsing So there's no time for these silly little games and political theater. We just need relief We need the policies that will save lives and there's no debate like we know which policies are needed You just listed all of them. So there's no room for discussion. There's no time for that that time has come and gone Now we get those policies and we fight regardless. So I think that's just such an important thing For you to say that you know, it doesn't matter Who wins i'm still fighting for medicare for all that doesn't change, you know the calculus the trajectory It's not changing because we didn't get a burning president It doesn't change if you know trump is reelected What's right is right and we still fight for those policies. So that's why I just love your campaign so much And I feel so like attached to this campaign Because this is a fight for survival. This isn't about anything other than that Like we're trying to fight for people in west virginia in your case But also the species because I mean we're dealing with a pandemic where as we record this Almost a hundred thousand americans have died like I don't think that's right. We're going to really realize the scale Of you know the destruction and devastation until we we are like past this until we're out of this because right now so much is going on I think that psychologically a lot of people myself at least you just kind of like try to tune it out because it's it's so painful It's like this type of like coping mechanism in a way, but I want to talk about your race because This time with you running it's so important. You're you're you're doing a lot. You can win this thing And so there's a challenger that jumped in there's an establishment democrat Who isn't really doing that great, which kind of leaves the door open for you But another person who individuals perceived as progressive got a lot of coverage in indie media is richard ojeta Now you had announced that you were running and he decided to jump in the race Rather than endorsing you which doesn't make sense to me because if I Prioritize policies if I want medicare for all if I want a green new deal and I already see A well-established candidate running a great campaign in the race I don't jump in myself Because what's the point of that? I endorse that candidate. I campaign for that candidate So he could have been a phenomenal ally, but he chose to ran against you, which doesn't make sense to me What do you want to respond to the richard ojeta? situation because it seems as if he In this instance rather than endorsing you could siphon away votes from you From progressives who don't necessarily know that You are the real deal. You're the better candidate. I think objectively speaking if you're on the left So do you want to speak to that at all? I believe in democracy I believe that anybody can run for office if they want to However, when we strategically think about this movement, you know, we had we need to think about how to take You know, the the main goal was to get rid of shelly more capitol. You know, that's our bad guy, right? Or supposed to be But I think oftentimes people are in this for the wrong reasons They are more in it to get famous instead of actually staying on point and I think west virginians deserve consistency They don't need Somebody that's going to pull back from medicare for all or is going to be wishy-washy about coal They support it one day the next they don't and that's the worst lie Politician can tell is the coal industry is going to rebound. We had over 170 coal miners and 120,000 coal miners in the 1970s we a nationwide we have less than 50,000 And the rug has been pulled out from under west virginians and it's not You know, we just we should be making decisions just like you said for political expediency Not only west virginia, but everybody across the country needs consistency and they need integrity I'm not in this to be famous. I'm a country girl. I don't want to go to dc But I've cut my leg off for my kids in west virginians And that's why I even think about going is because we're underserved in this nation was built by the people For the people and of the people and who better to serve us than us We have been solving our problems in the front lines of our communities for decades Why our incumbents are serving corporations and lobbyists And I thought for my state for years and the reason I'm running for office too is because I'm tired of begging I'm tired of people in my state begging for something so basic as a clean glass of water and a job And we can have both In addition to that, you know, we don't need somebody lying to us and saying that they're not taking dark money when the fec says otherwise Uh, we you know, we don't need people that are 45 000 dollars in debt From their last race and we don't need somebody that's going to Win an election have west virginians work hard to get them into a seat and then they turn around Quit their seat four days later, you know four days later run for president and then quit their seat again You know, we just don't deserve that. We need consistency I can't tell you what my opponent is, you know thinking but we have proven that we're the most viable and uh, I just encourage everybody just to continue to vet your candidates and keep your eye on the prize Uh, because there's a lot of people that have tried to hijack the progressive progressive movement and we do have a lot of fake progressives You know, you can research where their money comes from you can look at their history and look at their videos You know, google is a great tool right now. So you can find out more about your candidates I can't tell you why he's doing it. You know, but The main goal for me is to make sure that we have true representation in washington And one thing that I want to add about that too Is west virginians are tired of not having a seat at the table When somebody goes into you know, an elected office They're just not there to to just be a voice But they should be a medium for the people that they're supposed to serve And so it's important to me when I do go to congress that all these people that I've worked with throughout the years that I've seen In the front lines of their communities battling addiction, you know making sure that our children are fed during crises make you know making sure that You know that You know we're combating poverty and all these things are going on in my state that they have a seat at the table They're going to you know, west virginians are going to help me and people across the country help me write legislation Um that I introduced because it's important to me that west virginians do have a voice Uh, I want to be a public servant and that's what we deserve And I know there's a lot of people that have went into congress and sellouts They're barking up the wrong tree. Like I said, I don't even want to be there I cut my leg off from my grandchildren and children and i'm doing this because we have to survive People actually are dying and starving every day This pandemic even solidifies it Essential workers need essential things like jobs and being able to pay their I mean, you know food and be able to pay their rent And i'm just tired of living like we do and i'm tired of begging people That are supposed to serve us and they've not done anything especially for west virginia They've been pissing on their backs and saying it's raining for years and we're tired of being abused Yeah, yeah, and um, I'm glad that you said that about um You know, you don't want to be in congress because that's Ideally the person who you want to represent you someone who doesn't want to be there someone Who isn't running because you know, you can become a celebrity or an influencer Um, and i'm also glad that you pointed out the fact that you know, this is democracy as left-wingers We support democracy because you know in my race in district one of oregon. I had a really great, uh Set of choices So there were two women running amanda sebe and haiti bryones and this was a real like Fantastic uh campaign between the both of them because you had amanda sebe Who was championing uh disability rights and medicare frault and then you had haiti bryones who was really pushing for ubi And between both of them you could you could tell that there was like this real sense that they have different competing priorities But in this instance in your race, it's not like, you know, richard ojeda chose to jump in because he he's really committed to one set of ideals We don't know where he stands on medicare frault. He supported a public option and then he said he supported medicare frault He voted for trump in 2016 and then he apparently was a bernie sanders supporter He is supposedly progressive But yet he's buddy buddy with joe mansion none of this makes any sense to me And so like if if he were to jump in the race because he says, you know what paula You're not talking about this issue. And I think that west virginians need to know about this I think that intellectually speaking You know, we should grant him that space that'd be fantastic, but this is clearly a ploy to gain attention You know, and now I'll tell you right now Do I want to challenge shelly more capitol who I think is absolute garbage?  This isn't about him This is about the people of west virginia But it is important for people to know that you have to look at the record Look at the platforms of people richard ojeda has no platform on his website. Whereas paula gene is Very committed to policy, you know, um, so you have to vet people and you know, when it comes to the progressive movement, there is this There is a leadership crisis, right because We're not necessarily going to have another bernie sanders run for president anytime soon So we're looking for that next progressive hero and some people say the right things and step up and so basically my my Overall point is that we have to be a lot more cautious and vet people a lot more Don't be overly skeptical, but just acknowledge that if you have a set of options really vet these candidates I think that if you have followed, you know, your campaign and your activism Pre-campaign, I mean, there's there's no question in my mind. You're committed to these ideals and you're going to go to congress Committed and fighting and even if you lose you're going to go down swinging, you know So that's why I think it's really important and I wanted to you know Make it known because a lot of progressives. I think we're for lack of a better word duped by richard ojeda Back in 2018 when he did run. I think an admittedly good campaign against carol miller, but times have changed and you know We need real leadership. I'm not looking for a celebrity. I'm not looking for someone who's going to make headlines and say the right things I want a fighter who's going to fight for the people and that's why I thought that this was important to bring up So thank you for addressing that I didn't want to put you on the spot And I will say that if richard ojeda is you know, actually committed to policy He could debate you but he doesn't want to do that Yeah, he's publicly denied it denied a debate and I think that's a disservice to voters and I think voters need to hear from all sides and it's it's not It shouldn't be about giving your opponent a microphone and You know, you being worried about you're going to raise their profile You know voters didn't need to hear policy from all their candidates so they can make informative decisions Here we are in our primaries june 9th and we've not had one debate For us in it and I really think that's a real disservice to west virginia voters and I really think it's a disservice that You know richard ojeda is refusing to give that to west virginians and I think that goes against their democracy Yeah, I mean if you're going to run for congress you have to be ready to debate because you're constantly debating like this isn't like Those idiotic debates that you see on youtube debate me bro Like these are two people who are running for the united states senate So they have to debate, you know, so this is important so much is on the line Like now is not the time to play games and you know to that point about you know So much being on the line and us fighting for our survival. I wanted to ask you because you You've always been fighting. Um, you've always been in the trenches You haven't stopped and so you know a presidential race not going our way isn't going to change that trajectory for you So I'm curious I don't want to ask you for words of encouragement But what do you say to people who currently feel like you know what I can't deal with electoral politics? So I'm going to check out How do you get people to still fight? After you know being faced with so much defeat because this is something that I'm asking myself lately like how do I keep? You know that that spark lit Um, and I don't know that there's a good answer I think that maybe when we're past this election past this pandemic Maybe the dust will settle and there'll be like a clear message of unity for the left and what we should do but like what is your Message to people at a time of defeat in terms of like what we should keep doing Well, I may be the wrong person to ask because I've got a fire in me that I can't put out I've been fighting for my state for years and when or lose any election I'm going to continue to fight for my state and you know, I'm a mother and a grandmother now and uh I do anything for my children and I can't stop But I know working within the movements throughout the years You know make sure that we're working together. Like I said, we're going to suffer some losses Identify grifters in our movement and make sure that there's a place for that But you know, it's it's passing the bullhorn to the people You know the people in front of the pain should be in front of the power Always and we always have to continue to unite We have to continue to stick together Self-care is important when you feel beat down Take a breath get back up and get back to fighting and organizing We have to stick together even you know when I've been fighting for water for my state for years It wasn't about just you know, the people in Payton City right now that are Dealing with the water crisis. It's still about the people in flint michigan that I worked with and people across the country You know when somebody out of state says we're having a rally. We're doing this We need help everybody should be busing and showing up and showing up together We don't need heroes We can't look at one person to save us If we want to save our country and we want a future for our children and grandchildren My hashtag unite our fight is just that I've been saying that for years. We have to stick together It's not about partisan politics. It's not about who's left. Who's right even if I'm you know as public servants Everybody don't have to agree on everything But the common goal should be in making sure that the people in this country have good Presentation and their needs are met and they're not begging for their basic human rights So just stick together and move forward even Bernie said it he wasn't looking to be a hero We heard him over and over and over run for office Local level to federal level, but even if you're not cut out to run for office There's always a place for somebody in this movement even if you're making copies for a rally There's always a place for somebody, you know, I remember one of my mentors Whenever he met somebody the first thing he said is you are somebody and remember that and you are important Don't give up. We are going to suffer losses, but we have to stick together and we have to keep going I'm glad that you said, you know that even if it's making copies because There really is and I know that this doesn't sound like much but like there's no contribution That's too small anything that you can do to push us forward in the correct direction I think that really does matter and it may feel like everything that we're doing currently Isn't going to amount to much, but trust me it will and I want to um Quote what jamie peck of majority reports said because she said something recently that resonated with me She said that the same underlying material conditions that led to you know The rise of Donald Trump that led to the creation of a bernie standards movement Those are still going to exist So it's not like all of a sudden things are going to get better and the movement will dissipate So long as there is a need for these types of policies to be enacted I think there's going to be a will to fight and keep that in mind because for me one of the biggest Worries that I had after burning had dropped out was that you know, where does the movement go? Can the movement be sustained? And I think the answer is yes I think that burning wasn't the creation of a new movement. I think it was the continuation of previous movements You know not just occupy but movements before that So it really it is important that people don't check out as easy as it may feel to do that You know as um As uh, yeah, don't check out it's time to check in harder Yeah, exactly and it seems like like to me it seems alluring to want to check out currently You know, I try to do self-care as much as I can but you know, we just have to fight harder And that's why we have to elect people like you to congress because There is a lot of people running for congress that are phenomenal that I truly believe will help transform the country But you have really struck a chord with people and I notice this with my audience as well Whenever you come on because you are not just sincere But you really speak to the very specific needs of people in west virginia and across the country And I think that that's lacking like whenever I hear from a politician. They have these vague, you know, um general Things that their constituents need but they're not like these aren't lived experiences These are talking points and it's important that we do elect real people So, uh, tell us what we can do to support your campaign because you're on the cusp of winning and if you win this primary Which is uh, we'll get the date from you, but if you win this primary We're in a position to defeat shelly more capito I think I've you alternated between shelly more capito and shelly capito more I always butcher her name, but that's not important because we're gonna forget. No, it's okay But which was my name too I didn't even pronounce it correctly But you know what it doesn't matter because she's gonna be going bye-bye very soon So tell us what we can do to support your campaign paula Well, uh, right now we need gene phone bankers, um, and we need people to syntax So if you want to reach out the field, uh, we early voting started today, which people were already Voting because they opened up the absentee ballot process to everyone and people are also mailing in their ballots And their primary was extended to june 9th So if if people can reach out to my field person, his name is andrew At paula gene calm He'll get you hooked up to do that and also, I mean, I know it's a trying time But our campaign is 100 people funded So if everybody can donate a dollar, then that's going to help us send those texts and help make phone calls and things that we need to do But most importantly, uh, what everybody can do for my campaign is not give up We still are in this together and, uh, please don't give up hope I mean, there's there's children and dying and starving across this country I feel like our generation has made this mess and it's it's it's it's up to us to fix it So our children don't inherit it. Basically the way that i'm trying to view this is you know Fighting shouldn't be a choice for us. It should just be automatic regardless of the outcome of elections or you know What state the country or world is in you fight. That's what the left does The left yeah labor, you know and the union's back in the rights of workers and start unionizing too I'm very pro union and we have to make sure that people across the country have the right to collective bargaining and Making sure that workers are paid a living wage and people are treated right in the workplace And people, you know, we don't have a large homeless population. We're taking care of our veterans when they come home I mean all those things. They're just basic human rights And we you know, we know we it's not that we don't have money in this country We have a moral problem and that moral problem goes into our budgeting And we're not spending money in ways that we should be and and you know what? Nobody should be treated like collateral damage. I know what it's like I know what it's like to bury my family members to industry and not get anything in return for it Which I shouldn't want anything in return. I just like to have my family members back So, you know, it's it's important and I just want to thank everybody across the country for everything that they're doing and you might for You know being in this movement and amplifying the voices of the voiceless and You know, because oftentimes candidates do not get the media that they deserve And you were you are still a great big part of this movement and thank you for all the hard work that you do Oh, that means so much. Thank you. Honestly. Thank you so much for running because this really is and we talked about this before When we did our panel discussion with quarry bush and amy velela. This is such a huge Self-sacrifice like you're giving up so much time a huge portion of your life So it takes a lot of dedication and willpower to run And so if there were nobody to run then this movement would be dead But the fact that there are so many great candidates I mean we have something to fight for it's not over. So thank you so much for running We will be watching your campaign very closely Thank you so much paula Thank you mike