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Feb. 18, 2025 21:30-22:20 - CSPAN
49:50
New Members of Congress
Participants
Appearances
a
addison mcdowell
rep/r 00:37
b
brandon gill
rep/r 00:32
m
mark harris
rep/r 03:11
s
sarah mcbride
rep/d 00:55
|

Speaker Time Text
unidentified
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And now, meet new members of Congress as they talk about their early lives, previous careers, families, and what drove their interest in running for office.
Coming up next, conversations with Representatives Troy Downing of Montana, Shamari Figgers of Alabama, Mark Harris of North Carolina, Adam Gray of California, Nick Begich of Alaska, and Kelly Morrison of Minnesota.
One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Troy Downing of Montana.
The Republican has been a scientist, teacher, and businessman who also served as Montana State Auditor.
Congressman Downing tells a story of his career, including his enlistment in the Air Force after the attacks of September 11.
Well, you know, I came from pretty austere beginnings, you know, didn't have any family money or family connections.
You know, my mom worked in a grocery store, and somehow I was able to be successful as an American.
You know, went to school in New York, went to New York University, ended up getting hired there as a research scientist and taught there briefly in the information technology department.
And I left there to do a startup company.
Of course, my mom was like, what's a startup company?
And I successfully merged that with a nascent Yahoo Incorporated.
And that was a life changer.
I mean, God bless America.
You know, it was successful.
And then you fast forward, that was in the 90s, fast forward to 2001.
And I'd spent time in technology, obviously, time in education, and worked a lot on helping others do the same thing that I did, a lot of angel financing and mentoring of other startup companies.
And when September 11th happened, it really hit me in the chest.
I thought, this country's been good to me.
You know, what have I done to deserve it?
And I didn't have a good answer.
And I was actually moose hunting in Alaska when September 11th happened.
So I was one of the last people on the planet to find out about it.
I didn't see it on TV.
And got stuck there because the borders were closed.
I couldn't fly over Canada.
And as soon as I could get home, I walked into a recruiter's office.
I said, hey, I've got a pilot's license.
I used to, you know, was a researcher at NYU.
What can you do with me?
And the recruiter says, how old are you?
I go, 34.
He goes, good.
35 is a cutoff.
So ended up getting recruited into a, actually, it's interesting because first, yeah, I was non-prior military.
I had no idea what I was doing.
And so they sent me out to take the ASVAB, the vocational aptitude battery, and to say what you're good at.
And I come back with my test scores.
The recruiter rolled his eyes, said, Okay, well, you qualify for any job that I offer.
I said, Well, I want to do something meaningful.
He says, Well, have you ever thought about going into Intel?
I never thought about going into anything.
And so I just said, I want to do something meaningful.
And so I talked to him a little bit, and I said, You know, it sounds like I'm going to be sitting in a dark room staring at a computer.
I don't think I'm going to thrive there.
And so then he has this other guy, Chief Rhodes, comes in and talks to me.
And he says, I've got this horrible job, you know, my losing my hearing, my back hurts, my knees are blown out, but it's the best thing I could imagine doing with my life.
I said, Well, what do you do?
He says, Well, we take these 22,000-pound helicopters and we fly them in formation 50 feet off the deck in the middle of the night with night vision goggles on.
We go out in the desert, we find busted-up kids, and we bring them home.
And the hair stood up on the back of my neck, and I go, That's me.
And so I got sworn into a combat search and rescue squadron.
So I just turned 35 when I went to basic training.
I was too old for a commission.
So I went out to Lackland Air Force Base, 35-year-old.
I was grandpa, but graduated honor grad there, and then went off to Mission Qual at Kirtland Air Force Base and got a distinguished graduate there, and so ended up doing two tours to Afghanistan.
All those experiences, how did collectively they prepare you for a career in Congress?
Oh boy.
You know, going into that, like I said, I needed to feel like I deserved everything that this country has meant for me.
I mean, there's so much opportunity, and it's not lost on me.
And going into the military was interesting because I was non-prior.
I came out of technology and education, so I had no idea what that culture was like.
But let me tell you, the people that I deployed with are still some of my best friends, some of the best people that I've known, because they care.
They care about this country.
They're willing to sign at the dotted line and put themselves at risk, put their families at risk of losing a son, a father, a husband.
And one of the things that really, really made me smile is when I got sworn in last week, I had a bunch of guys from my former squadron come out for my swearing in, and it was like a little reunion of the Air Force CESAR guys, one guy that I went to the schoolhouse with in Kirtland, and a couple of guys that I served with and deployed with.
And I'll tell you, we did a capital tour here, and we brought in Commander Zinke, Congressman Zinke from the 1st District of Montana.
And so between me and him and a bunch of Air Force guys, we just had an awesome late-night tour of the Capitol.
It really made me smile.
How would you describe yourself in terms of your political thinking and what do you plan to bring to the conversation here?
Here's the thing: I consider myself a very conservative person.
And I think that a lot of the opportunities that I enjoyed are at risk of being squandered.
And I think that that American dream is getting farther and farther away from our kids.
And I worry about that.
You know, inflationary pressures, everything.
I worry about how a kid today starting out their lives, starting out their families, ever has a path, ever have a path to even buy their first home.
I mean, how do they do that?
And I think that we need some pretty serious fiscal constraint.
We need to stop printing money.
We need to start working on balancing budgets, or at least being very thoughtful about our appropriations and how we're spending money because the more you put into any system, Economics 101, more money you put in a system, the more expensive everything gets.
And I think the more expensive everything gets, the farther away that American dream goes.
So I do believe, I consider myself a very conservative person, but I also understand, you know, this is a team effort.
We need to actually get wins on the board.
We need to figure out how to get those wins working together, not against each other.
As we wrap up here, Congressman, you mentioned those grandkids.
Tell us more about your family and what they're thinking right now about your new career.
I think everybody is a little bit in shock.
So we have Heather, my wife, is here in D.C. with me, and we have four kids.
You know, they're in their early 20s to almost 30.
And I think they're very excited about this.
I mean, it's very, very different for all of us.
And they're all very different.
But as most families know, your kids are, you know, they can come from the same place and grow up in the same people.
They all end up very different.
They're all unique.
But everybody's excited about it.
My mom was out here for my swearing in, and she's obviously very excited about it.
And, you know, here's the deal.
We've got a lot of work in front of us.
You know, I've got some pretty strong feelings on where we need to get, but we need to work together, start getting wins on the board, and make sure that we continue to protect everything that makes America great and everything that gave me the opportunity, a poor kid from nowhere, to be sitting here and talking to you right now.
Democrat Shamari Figures of Alabama is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House.
He's an attorney who has worked as a federal court clerk and for the Obama White House.
He's also spent time on Capitol Hill as counsel for former Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
The congressman talks here about his career, including becoming the first representative for the newly redrawn 2nd District of Alabama.
Recently redrawn, recently redrawn, but includes a lot of the historic parts of the state that people are familiar with.
I come from Mobile, birthplace of Mardi Gras, hometown to five baseball hall of famers, including Hank Aaron and Satchel Page and Ozzie Smith as well.
But the district now extends up I-65 all the way up to Montgomery, which obviously is the birthplace and the heartbeat of the civil rights movement as we know it.
And then extends east all the way to the Georgia state line to areas like Phoenix City and Eufaula, Alabama.
And in between those points, you have a few other cities that people may have heard of.
Birthplace of John Lewis and Troy, Alabama, home of Harper Lee and Truman Capodia, Monroeville, Alabama, and Tuskegee, obviously home to the historic Tuskegee University, formerly the Tuskegee Institute, and obviously the Tuskegee Airmen.
So it is a very diverse community or diverse district rather, very large, but also very diverse.
But it shares a lot of the same issues across it.
I mean, we have two primary urban areas, at least urban for the purposes of Alabama, Mobile and Montgomery.
But between that, we have a lot of rural areas that have a lot of rural struggles and a lot of issues that are common and a lot of needs that are common in rural areas that we see across the country.
What does it mean for you to be the first congressman for that newly redrawn district?
Look, I think it's always significant to be the first of anything.
And, you know, we're certainly grateful and humbled and blessed to have the opportunity.
And for me personally, it means that we get a chance to get to work because we didn't get in this race to win an election.
We got in this race to be able to have the opportunity to come to Washington and try to seek and bring home those solutions to so many of the issues, especially in areas where people feel like they have not had the opportunity to have the type of seat at the table when it comes to federal representation.
Now, you are not a total newcomer to Washington.
You worked in the Obama administration and here on Capitol Hill.
What kind of work did you do?
So back in the Obama, well, I guess I started my federal service as a law clerk way back when.
And then after that, I ultimately came to D.C. where I was over in the White House in President Obama's administration as the domestic director of presidential personnel where we worked across my portfolio, which at the time included agencies of justice and education, HUD, labor, HHS, and a few others in terms of building out the teams that were implementing the president's policies throughout those teams.
I then went over to the Department of Justice and then came to the Hill.
And at the Hill, I was a Hill staffer over on the Senate side for Senator Sherry Brown out of Ohio.
And like every Hill staffer on the lead side, I had a very, very broad portfolio that included obviously judiciary-related issues, law enforcement, civil rights, but also jumped into a lot of Homeland Security issues and immigration matters and child welfare matters, small business matters.
So we had a lot we were handling then.
Tech telecom matters are also in my portfolio back then, but I had the opportunity to learn so much about government.
What did everything you learned, what did all that mean to you as you get started in this part of your career?
Yeah, I think it certainly informs you and gives you insight into the different levers of government that you can pull.
Being in Congress, you have access to all, well, I guess not really the judiciary unless you're in court, but certainly across the executive space, you have so much access to so many different things.
We're having that sort of inside knowledge of how agencies work, what the processes are there, what are the grant programs, who are the grant program decision makers, those sorts of answers, right?
How to navigate the hill, having relationships already with staff here on the House side as well as on the Senate side as well.
All of that helps.
All of that helps to be able to hit the ground running.
It helped us to be able to staff up with a very experienced staff very quickly here in D.C. and helps us to be able to go out and assign tasks and pursue our priorities in a manner that we think is very efficient.
Now you are the son of political figures in Alabama.
Tell us about your parents.
Yeah, so both of my parents, my mother and my father, have been in elective office throughout the entirety of my life.
There has literally not been a single day of my life where one or both of my parents were not an elected official.
Started with my father.
My father was elected to the state senate in Alabama back in 1978 and he served in that capacity until 1996 when he died suddenly.
He was elected as the first black president pro 10, first black leader of any party in the Senate, in the state house at the time.
And my mother was on the city council in Mobile at the time he passed and then she ran for that state Senate seat and has been in the state Senate since then.
And your father also did some very significant legal work involving a case involving the KKK decades ago.
Tell us about that.
Yeah, he did, I mean, he did a lot of work in civil rights in general.
So my father integrated University of Alabama's law school.
And then following that experience, he came back home and launched into a civil rights, among other things.
He was a labor lawyer as well and did other civil litigation.
But he spent a lot of time focusing on civil rights.
And one of the more noteworthy things he did in that civil rights space was bringing a lawsuit against the United Klans of America back in the mid-80s after they had lynched a young man in 1981 in Mobile.
That lawsuit ultimately resulted in the financial bankruptcy of the Klan, obviously not bankrupting their mission, but certainly putting a dent into their financial capacity to execute that mission.
And that was something, that's a case that has obviously loomed large over my life and something that my father was very well known for.
And several members around here who still know him for that case.
What did your parents teach you about public service?
That you have an obligation to make sure that you are giving back to the people who are responsible for you being you in the first place.
You know, every single day we have something to be thankful for, something to be grateful for.
There are people in places across this district, across the state of Alabama, obviously given its history, but across this country, people that you have an obligation to make sure that you're going to work every single day to make government work for them and make it work in the right way it's supposed to work.
I come from Alabama.
It's a state where it has a very long and storied and well-documented history in terms of the federal government having to step in and make that state do right by its people.
And with that, I think comes an obligation for younger generations to step up and be involved to make sure it can continue to do right.
And that's something that my parents really preach to us.
Tell us about the rest of your family back home.
Yeah, so it starts with my wife.
It starts with my wife, my wife, Khalisha, and we have three kids, three children, ages five, three, and one.
We had them on the House floor with us doing the swearing in, which was that task was tougher than winning this seat, wrangling the kids.
But look, my wife is wonderful.
She is the reason that we were able to do this and be successful in doing this and having the capacity to be able to hit the road and hit the campaign trail.
She's an enormous success in her own right, several degrees.
She hates when I say it, but my wife has four different degrees from three different Ivy League institutions, runs a very successful business, the daughter of immigrants, you know, that came to America and have really made a way for themselves.
You're only 39 years old, correct?
39, yes.
Longer term thoughts?
I don't have any longer-term thoughts career-wise beyond just getting to work here every single day to try to improve the lives of people that are in the district back home.
And, you know, we'll see what the future leads to.
But right now, look, we got elected to do a job here in Washington, D.C., and I look forward to doing it every single day.
One of the more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Republican Mark Harris of North Carolina.
It's his first time in elective office, and he comes to Washington with a long career as a pastor in his home state.
He talks here about how his faith and desire for public service come together in his new role.
Well, I've been a pastor for 35 years, and a long, long time it seems, but certainly have served churches, had the privilege, mostly in North Carolina.
I did serve five and a half years at a church in Augusta, Georgia, Curtis Baptist Church, but primarily have been involved in leading churches at First Baptist Church Charlotte and currently have been pastoring in a church in Trinity Baptist Church there in just north of Charlotte.
And so very excited for the opportunity to be here with you today.
When in life did you know you wanted to be a pastor?
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
Well, it was very fascinating because I had grown up, went to Appalachian State University, majored in political science, was headed to law school like many political science majors do, and actually was accepted at Campbell University School of Law and was getting ready to start there that fall.
unidentified
And I met my wife at Appalachian State.
We were planning to get married that summer of 1987.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
And fascinatingly, two weeks before my wedding and two months before I was to start law school, God called me to preach.
unidentified
And it was very clear in my heart what God was asking me to do, leading me to do.
And so instead of law school, I shifted course and went to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and started my seminary training from there.
When did you start thinking about politics?
Well, you know, I had an interest.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
At age 14, that's probably when I say I got my start because I worked in the Americans for Reagan office that Senator Jesse Helms had established in Winston-Salem, where I grew up.
In fact, in my office here, my congressional office over in Cannon, I actually have that Reagan poster that was hanging on the door where I would go in and out.
So I was always involved and again, thought that, you know, I would just always be involved, but never really had thought that much about running for office until later on after I was pastoring and became very involved in 2011, 2012, and the Marriage Amendment in North Carolina.
unidentified
What do you remember most about that experience in the Reagan years?
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
The Reagan years, well, I was very excited not only to make phone calls and send out mailers and all the things that we would do, put up signs, but I got the opportunity to come to the inauguration.
unidentified
And here I am years later, about to attend another inauguration.
But in 1981, I had the privilege of seeing Ronald Reagan actually inaugurated here as President of the United States.
And that's one of my fondest memories for sure.
Back to your work as a pastor and now Congress.
How do faith and service come together for you as you begin your career here?
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
Well, for me, one of the things I've often said in interviews and talking with folks that makes things a little unique for me is there's a lot of political footballs.
unidentified
There's a lot of issues that are on the table and people toss them back and forth.
They debate them back and forth.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
For me as a pastor, a lot of the things, as someone said, I think it was Mike Huckabee, probably the first one to say this, that when you do the pathology report on America and you see the situation for what it is, a pastor has that unique ability to put a name and a face with just about every issue.
So all the issues that we debate, the political issues that are out there, whether it's a family that's going through joblessness, whether it's a young girl that's found herself pregnant and not sure what she's going to do, counseling people and leading people, I've just had an opportunity to put a name in a face with many of the issues that oftentimes become political footballs.
unidentified
And that gives me a little bit of a unique perspective.
You've given of it a shot for Congress a few times over the years, not quite getting here.
What made you run again?
Well, you know, in 2018, we went through a very unique situation.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
And as a result of that, I got sick in the midst of all the stuff we were going through and decided to not run in the new election that the State Board of Elections had called.
unidentified
And Dan Bishop stepped in and ran that time.
I'd known Dan, and he was a great friend in the state Senate.
He ran for that seat, won that seat.
And so he's been serving faithfully.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
And when he called me back in summer of 23 to say, look, I believe God's leading me to run for Attorney General.
If you still have the stomach for this, he said, I think you'd make a great candidate.
unidentified
And my wife and I prayed about it.
We thought it through and felt like this was perhaps our time.
And indeed, it's turned out to be.
Tell us more about your family and what they think about you being here.
Well, they were all up here for swearing in.
We have a great family.
I have three children who are grown and married.
They gave us 10 grandchildren.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
I was one of the few guys that had the privilege of having six of my 10 grandchildren on the floor with me during swearing in.
unidentified
So that was exciting.
The four youngest ones weren't quite ready to do that, but they range in age from nine all the way down to two.
And so that was a great time.
And so we're very blessed.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
I've got a daughter who's a teacher, a son who is an attorney, and a youngest son who is a pastor as well.
unidentified
This place keeps people very busy.
Will you be able to continue your work as a pastor?
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
Well, I say I don't know what a great pastor I'll be as far as always being there, but I have a great staff that's helping carry on responsibilities.
unidentified
And so I am able to preach.
When I'm there on weekends, I will be able to continue to preach each Sunday.
And what kind of mark would you like to make here in Washington?
Well, I just feel like that we've got to restore the confidence of the American people that we're going to do what we say.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
And my big challenge I've said to my staff, I've said to everybody I've had an opportunity to talk to, when President Trump had the theme, promises made, promises kept, that just really rings true, not only with me, but with so many people across my district and across America.
unidentified
And what we're working on is to try the very issues that we ran on.
We're trying to do something about them.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
So when you see me giving a floor speech, it's probably going to be about something that happened on the border.
unidentified
It's going to probably be about protecting women or protecting girls and girl sports.
mark harris ▲ ● ▼
It's going to be speaking about those issues that we ran on that are very important and getting this economy moving again and dealing with the inflationary issues and getting us energy dominant once again.
So all of those are things that I want to make my mark and I want to just move the ball forward.
unidentified
Democrat Adam Gray of California is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House.
The Democrat spent 10 years in the California State Assembly before running for Congress.
In the 13th district of California, his race was the last to be called in the 2024 elections.
And he talks here about the month it took for him to find out that he flipped the seat from Republican to Democrat.
Well, it was full of work.
In California, we have a vote-by-mail system, and a lot of our ballots require signature verification, and the process of that signature verification goes on for up to a month after the election.
And voters need to be contacted, told that their vote hasn't been counted yet, and given the opportunity to go down to the county registrar's office and make sure that their vote is counted.
So that month was full of doing that work, right?
Calling voters, making sure, hey, do you know that your vote hasn't been counted?
You should make sure that you rectify that.
Now, you ran for that seat previously.
Tell us that story.
Yeah, I ran in 2022 after serving 10 years in the state legislature representing about two-thirds of this congressional district, my home county of Merced, as well as Stanislaus County to the north.
And we ran a tough race and ended up losing that race by a little over 500 votes.
And I was certainly a disappointment, but got back in it and won in 24 by 187 votes.
Did you know at the time you lost that you were going to run again?
I didn't.
No, in fact, I've been a what I call a radical centrist my entire political career.
And I say that because I don't play a moderate on TV or say things to get re-elected.
That's where my head and my heart are.
And oftentimes in a world where the parties have become hypercritical and partisan and sharp in that way, it doesn't encourage people like me who really are moderates, who believe that working together and common ground or values, it discourages you from wanting to run, right?
Because you're not only fighting the other party, you're fighting your own party half the time.
And so I had to spend some time thinking, but as I watched the Congress behave last two years, coming out as one of the most unproductive Congresses in U.S. history, and just hyper-partisanship and fighting and everybody blaming somebody else for not getting the work done, it encouraged me that Congress needs people like me that actually believe in working together and believe that we're all Americans and we have common goals and common interests.
Tell us about the younger days, the early years growing up in California.
What was that like?
What do you remember?
Well, I love California Central Valley.
That's where I grew up.
It's the largest agricultural valley in the world.
You know, people always think about California as Hollywood and Silicon Valley and all these different things and the beaches, right, and movie stars.
Well, we have the largest agricultural valley in the world.
We produce much of the fresh fruits and vegetables and specialty crops you have across the country.
I have the largest dairy district in the country.
And I grew up in the dairy industry.
My family sold dairy equipment, built dairy barns, that kind of thing.
And my grandparents all farmed.
And so farming and agriculture in my blood.
And I grew up with it.
And certainly proud to represent that valley and excited to get to work back here.
In fact, I just got appointed to the Agricultural Committee, so excited about doing that work.
What did you learn working in the agriculture business that can help inform you for your career here?
Well, I'll tell you, my dad used to say, do something even if it's wrong, but don't just stand there.
And there's a work ethic in agriculture that I think Congress could learn a lot from.
I mean, I think about what goes on back here.
Every, well, not every, but sometimes it feels like every politician you talk to back here has somebody to blame.
Oh, it's the other party's fault.
It's the other person's fault.
Well, I think about working for my dad at the store.
If I were to walk in and a job wasn't done that my dad had asked me to do, and my answer was, oh, it's Paul's fault, I can't imagine the look on his face.
And that's the problem with this town.
Everyone's telling you whose fault it is, and nobody's taking accountability to get something done.
At the end of the day, people want results.
They want communities that are safe, good education, good health care.
And we ought to be doing that work every day.
That's why I came to Washington.
It's what I intend to do.
You have a degree in political science.
Was there a specific moment in your life where you realized this could be a career for me, politics?
No, it really just happened.
I mean, I think if the specific moment when I was in high school and college, I think I wanted to play professional baseball.
But my fastball wasn't that good, and I'm not playing professional baseball.
But as I got involved in politics, coming from a rural community in California, I realized how a lot of rural communities get overlooked or ignored in California, and I think around the country, right?
And so the deeper I got involved, and my family was always involved in community service.
My mom would go down to the city council and give it to them if she thought they weren't doing things good for the community.
And so that was the environment I grew up in: is that you should speak up, you should work to make sure your community is a better place to live.
And that's how I got involved in politics.
And one thing led to another, and one job led to another.
And here I am standing in the United States Congress, one of the greatest honors I think anybody could have.
What are you known for from your work in the Assembly in California?
Well, I did a lot of work.
I probably think I'm most known for is that kind of radical central stuff.
I started the California Problem Solvers Caucus, which is a bipartisan group.
I was the chairman of the New Dems, you know, a moderate Democratic group.
And, you know, I really tried to work on bipartisan solutions to our problems in California.
The problems that really are most critical in my district are water, water, and water.
And you can imagine representing a bunch of farmers, access to affordable, clean water is just critical to the success of that industry.
And so I spent a lot of time in the state legislature.
I was the co-author of a bipartisan infrastructure act, bipartisan water bond.
We're actually seeing the first new reservoir in California in many, many years being built as a result of my work.
Another area I'm passionate about is health care and rural communities.
I worked for 10 years in the state legislature to start a medical school in my hometown at the University of California Merced.
That program is off and running now the last two years.
And my next goal is to bring a full-blown UC hospital to the valley, one of the poorest, most underrepresented areas in the state.
And I'm hopeful that my work here in Congress can move in that direction and help achieve that.
You mentioned bipartisanship, your centrist posturing.
I know it's early here, but how and where will we see you practice that mentality?
Well, I was just, I just got my first CNN appearance the other day and was on a show with Jake Tapper.
And they had four freshman congressmen.
And they asked me, you know, are you willing to or do you think there's opportunities to work with the new administration, the new president?
I said, of course there is.
I said, the new president's talked about border security.
He's talked about DACA and fixing DACA status for tens of thousands of Americans here and immigrants who have lived here their whole life and deserve a chance to contribute.
Those are areas of common ground that we can work together.
And I welcome a working relationship with anybody, whether it be President Trump or any of our colleagues here.
Now, I will say, one of my newly elected colleagues on that same panel said he was here to destroy the Democratic Party's agenda.
So that didn't sound like working together language to me, but I remain open-minded and I welcome even folks like that.
Let's sit down and find out what we have in common.
And finally, tell us a little bit more about your family these days and what they think about all this.
Well, they're tremendously excited and honored.
But I'll tell you, they still call me and say, hey, do the right thing.
What are you doing?
What are you working on?
You know, my parents drive a hard bargain and they want to see this place represent the people, including the people in the Central Valley of California.
So they keep me accountable and keep me humble.
And I'm blessed to have a wonderful family that's supportive of what I do and really active and involved in the community themselves as well.
Republican Nick Begich of Alaska is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House.
He represents the entire state of Alaska as its at-large congressman.
Mr. Begich is a businessman and talks here about coming from a prominent Alaska political family.
This began with my grandfather, also named Nick Begich.
He first ran for Congress in 1968 and was not successful in that race, ran again in 1970 and beat a gentleman named Frank Murkowski for the seat in 1970.
Served until 1972 when sadly he was on a plane flight, disappeared, was never found in 1972.
It was late in the election cycle and actually he ended up winning the race anyway.
There was a special election, of course, because the plane was not found, he was not found.
And winning that special election was Don Young, who became, as many people know, the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House history.
So moving forward from that, I have an uncle named Mark Begich.
Mark Begich was a United States Senator from Alaska, defeated Ted Stevens in 2008 and served one term in the United States Senate.
So I do come from a line of traditional Democrats, but I was actually raised on my mom's side of the family.
Mom's side of the family is conservative Republican, father's side of the family is Democrat, and of course I'm a Republican.
Talk about that evolution then.
Did you waver with that mixture in your I didn't.
I didn't.
I come from the business side, so I sort of grew up in a very entrepreneurial family.
We were very conservative, strong Christian roots.
And so that's how I was raised.
That set of policies, that way of thinking made a lot of sense to me growing up, and I've stuck with that throughout.
First time in elective office, correct?
That's correct.
What did you learn from all of those people, all those names you just mentioned?
Well, you know, I think what's interesting is you've got a great debate.
In fact, when the family would get together at Christmas or Thanksgiving and those times that I was there, it was always a vigorous debate, even among the Democrats on policy.
And that would sort of erupt over any opportunity that the family had to get together.
And you learn that you can really have a vigorous debate, and that's good.
That's okay.
That's important, in fact.
And I'm ready to engage in that great debate here in the halls of Congress, and I'm excited about the opportunity to do that.
Now, you do come from business.
You have an MBA.
That's right.
And you have some previous business experiences before you started running for elective office.
What were those experiences?
Yeah, so coming out of undergrad, my undergraduate degree is from Baylor University with a focus in entrepreneurship.
Actually, I worked for a little while in investor relations for a publicly traded company.
And interesting story, I actually asked my future father-in-law, girlfriend's dad at the time, if I could marry his daughter.
And he said, no, you're going to have to get a master's degree if you want to marry my daughter.
So I said, all right, very good.
Challenge accepted.
And I went to Indiana University to get an MBA.
From there, I went on to Ford Motor Company, worked in Dearborn, Michigan for a few years at Global Headquarters.
And another interesting side note, I spent about a year cross-functionally working in the car group.
And they initially told me that they were going to give me Mustang.
They gave me minivans instead.
But I had a great opportunity to work in U.S. manufacturing, decided that the Detroit area was probably not the best fit for my wife and I.
And we thought, let's go back to Alaska.
Went back to Alaska.
That was over 20 years ago now.
And that's our home.
So we have talked about your business career.
We have talked about your political family.
Did you always want to get in politics at some point in life?
You know, it was something that was around, sort of ever-present growing up, but it was not something that I really thought deeply about.
My view has been historically that most of the value that is created is created in the private sector.
And I wanted to be a value creator in the private sector.
And when I moved to Alaska, I started a software business.
I built it up to about 150 people across multiple countries.
And we focused on supporting early stage companies predominantly.
We were working mostly with startups from the PowerPoint deck stage forward.
And I think that that innovation cycle is so important to the United States.
It's such an important ingredient in the mix of what makes America exceptional.
And I want to make sure that those opportunities continue for new entrepreneurs, for new businesses, for the people that they're going to employ.
And as we see the regulatory environment continue to encroach on the ability for an entrepreneur to start a business, run a business, raise capital for that business, grow that business in a competitive environment, we've got to push back against that.
That's part of the reason that I wanted to run for this seat.
What part of the state do you live in and what's it like there?
So I live just north of Anchorage in a little town with no stoplights called Chugiak.
And it's a great place to live.
It's a great place to raise a family.
My wife and I have one son.
He's 12 years old.
And it's been a fantastic community.
It is, you know, it's near enough to Anchorage, so you've got sort of the conveniences of a large city, but it's small enough that you know your neighbors and you understand who's in your community.
We've really enjoyed it.
And I think that that's reflective of much of Alaska.
We are really a small community in a massive state.
And when folks understand that Alaska, which is nearly 20% of U.S. land mass and more than half the coastline, only has 730,000 people in it.
And 40% of those people live in Anchorage.
You've got to talk about, people talk about rural.
In my home state, rural means you don't have a road.
That's rural in Alaska.
I was going to ask you about the unique challenges of being an at-large representative and from Alaska.
What else should people know?
You know, Alaska has a role to play.
I think a lot of people look at Alaska and they see the TV shows, the reality, air quotes, reality TV shows that talk about Alaska.
That's a great exposure for our state, but our state is so much more than what you'd see on TV.
We have more estimated undiscovered natural gas, oil reserves, than any other state in the country.
We've got two-thirds of the critical minerals that we need on our critical minerals list in economic quantities in my home state.
We provide more than 60% of the nation's seafood.
We are a critical component to the resource economy.
And the things that President Trump has been speaking about for the last couple of years, drill, baby, drill, mining, these are industries that are critical to Alaska, yes, but critical to our nation as well.
And if we're going to restore domestic production, if we're going to move those supply chains back to U.S. shores, that begins in Alaska.
We love asking the farther away members this question.
How often will you be able to get home as a member of Congress?
As often as possible, as often as possible.
We have a very heavy workload coming up.
There's much work to be done now that we have the trifecta, right?
We've got the House, we've got the Senate, we've got the Office of the Presidency.
And so, look, there are show horses, there are workhorses.
I came here to work, but I'll be getting back home to Alaska as often as I can.
One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Democrat Kelly Morrison of Minnesota.
She's a physician, an OBGYN, who has also served in the Minnesota House and Senate.
The representative talks here about how her roles as a doctor and legislator come together in her work in Congress.
Being a physician is inherently about trying to help people make a positive difference in people's lives and listening.
You know, when I spend most of my day as a doctor sitting in a room alone with a patient and listening to what's on their mind, to what's bothering them, to what hurts, and then talking together to figure out a health plan to go forward.
Being a legislator is a lot like that.
You know, we door knock, we have town halls, we listen to our constituents, gather that information, and then come up with a plan, which sometimes is in the form of a bill or some kind of legislation.
So I come from a science-based background, so I like evidence and facts, and I try to pursue policy that is evidence-based in that same way.
You were born in Minneapolis.
About growing up in Minnesota and your early life experiences.
What do you remember most?
Yeah, well, I'm a sixth-generation Minnesotan, so I have really deep roots in our state.
I think all Minnesotans are proud of our lakes and rivers.
So I have a lot of childhood memories of swimming in lakes.
My family and I go up to the boundary waters every year.
We have a tradition of taking our three kids, my husband John and I, take our three kids up to the boundary waters, which is great to unplug and relax and just listen to the quiet and see the stars.
But as a kid, you know, we went up north a lot, again, to play in our lakes.
And I had a younger brother, and the four of us were a pretty tight family.
We moved a lot when I was a kid.
We lived actually in Mexico City, New Jersey, and Boston, but we'd always come back to Minnesota in between, and then eventually we both settled there too.
So I'm really proud of our state and its people, and just really honored to represent the third district in Congress.
When and how did politics come into the picture for you?
Well, you know, I was a practicing OBGYN, taking care of my patients and raising my three kids when the 2016 presidential campaign and election happened.
I'd never been directly involved in politics.
I felt like I'd always been adjacent to politics because women's health can get politicized.
But I was so concerned about the hyper-partisanship and the polarization that was happening in our country during that election and then in the aftermath.
So I'm a lifelong Democrat, but I grew up in a Republican family.
So this point where we are where your political affiliation sort of equates with your morality or your worth as a person, really disorienting to me personally.
I think it's incredibly dangerous for our country.
So I got involved in our local Senate district and learned that a pretty extreme anti-choice Republican was holding the state house office there.
So I did a lot of door knocking and listening to people.
And given that the president had run on appointing justices to the court that would overturn Roe versus Wade, I was really concerned about what that would mean for reproductive health care in our country.
And I knew we needed state protections.
So I decided to get off the sidelines and run for office.
And I approached that campaign like a community building exercise.
We door knocked the district almost four times, had tens, had thousands of conversations.
And I really think one conversation at a time, we broke through and beat a three-term Republican incumbent and wanted to see if they had never been held by a Democrat before.
My time in the legislature, I was there for six years, four years in the House, and then two years in the Senate.
I worked really hard to be a bridge builder, to turn down the volume, to do more listening than talking.
I passed more than 90 bills into law, many with bipartisan support or authors.
And then, of course, as the only OBGYN in the legislature, I helped lead the effort to protect access to reproductive health care in Minnesota, which was a needed protection in the wake of the Dobbs decision.
Talk to us more about that bridge building goal and that experience you had, because Washington right now is not known as a place where bridges are built between the parties.
How do you see yourself fitting into the political debate here?
Well, as I said, you know, I grew up in a Republican family.
My dad has theories about why I was a Democrat.
He has a lot of jokes about it, but he's one of my heroes.
He's one of the people I'm closest to, and he still would consider himself a Republican.
So we've had a lifetime of conversation about policy and politics.
I have the utmost respect for him, and he has respect for me too.
One of my proudest moments as a kid actually was listening to my dad talk to a friend of his, a Republican friend.
And he said, the friend was saying to him, Jack, what happened to Kelly?
You know, what are all these political views she has?
And he said, you know what?
We raised our kids to be independent thinkers and I'm really proud of her.
And that was a really powerful moment for me as a kid, and that's the ethic that I was raised with.
We talked about politics a lot.
We had rousing debates at the dinner table.
But at the end of the day, we loved and respected each other.
And sometimes we'd even learn something from each other.
I think we'd all acknowledge that, including me.
So we need to be reaching across the aisle at all times now more than ever in these hyper-polarized times.
We are, you know, door knocking is the antidote to this, I think.
You're reminded again and again that we have more in common than we don't.
Honestly, some of my favorite door knocks are with Died and the World Trump supporters who would probably never vote for me, but I promise you we can always find something in common.
Sometimes it's just our shared love of the Minnesota Vikings.
But if we can end that interaction, wishing each other well, sharing a laugh, I see that as a win and a little repair of our frayed social fabric.
I should ask, as a physician, this city, this country, of course, is healthcare is always under debate in some form or fashion.
As a physician, what are your thoughts on how the country can meet the challenges that rise ahead?
Oh boy, that is a big and important question.
I dug into it in the Minnesota legislature, particularly around the cost of prescription drugs.
I've seen patients struggle to afford the medications that they need.
So I passed a Drug Price Transparency Act and a Prescription Drug Affordability Board with bipartisan support in the Minnesota legislature.
I also worked on prior authorization reform to shorten time, turnaround times, and make sure that care is not delayed for patients.
We spend more money on health care than any of our peer nations, and we have the worst outcomes.
So we're not doing something right.
And I think we need to have a big picture conversation.
I've worked on the margins, you know, on drug price, on prior authorization, on expanding access to Medicaid in Minnesota, for example.
But we need to have a big, fulsome national conversation about where we want to go from here because we can't continue to do what we're doing now, getting the outcomes that we're getting.
And finally, you hold the seat vacated by Dean Phillips, who left to run for president in 2024.
You are friends?
We are, yeah.
Has he told you anything about the job?
What have you learned from him, if anything, about how to go forth?
He's told me a lot about the job, and he and I sort of had parallel political experiences because we both ran for office for the first time in 2018, I for the state legislature, he for Congress.
But he's been a big source of help and support to me.
He's walked me through how this place works, pointed out people that I should reach out to in particular.
And I think he really enjoyed his time here.
I think there were some frustrations, of course.
I think all members of Congress have some frustrations.
But he, like I am, is a really patriotic American, loves our country, and I think we both want good things for all Americans.
This week, tune in for C-SPAN's new Members of Congress series, where we talk to both Republicans and Democrats about their early lives, previous careers, families, and why they decided to run for office.
Watch new members of Congress all week, beginning at 9.30 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
Here's a preview.
brandon gill ▲ ● ▼
After graduating, I worked in finance for several years, first as an investment banker and then as an equity analyst at a hedge fund for several years.
So got to really see, experience the private sector, got to work long hours once again, but got to see a little bit of what the real world is like, how our global financial system works, and what is the plumbing of the global economy.
So I think it provided a really strong foundation, not only for what I'm doing now, but for a general understanding of how this world really works.
sarah mcbride ▲ ● ▼
The most formative experience in my own life was serving as the caregiver to the person who would become my husband, Andy, during his battle with cancer.
And for anyone who's been diagnosed with cancer, particularly if you've been diagnosed in your 20s as Andy was, you know it is like a punch in the gut unlike anything you've ever experienced.
unidentified
You never expect to hear that word at such a young age.
But from those first moments after his diagnosis, Andy and I knew how lucky we were.
sarah mcbride ▲ ● ▼
We knew how lucky Andy was to have health insurance that would allow him to get care that would hopefully save his life.
And we both knew how lucky we were to have flexibility with our jobs that allowed him to focus on the full-time job of trying to get better and me to focus on the full-time job of caring for him, of loving him, of marrying him.
And eventually when he found out that his cancer was terminal to walk him to his passing and I decided to run for office because I do not believe that in Delaware, our state of neighbors, or here in the United States in the wealthiest, most developed nation on earth at that time and that ability to get care should be a matter of luck.
unidentified
I believe it should be the law of the land.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
So in 2016, we lost my little brother Luke to a fentanyl overdose, fentanyl that was here and shouldn't have been.
unidentified
And so we lost my little brother.
He was 20 years old, and it was tragic.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
And I tell people it's like losing an arm and having to go through life without something that should be there that's not.
unidentified
So it drove me to do this and to run for Congress.
That's why I'm here.
Tell us more about how you felt when that happened.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, I mean, it was the hardest part was the shock.
unidentified
The shock of like, this was very unexpected, and it hurt that way.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
But having to see my mom and my dad and what that did to them, you know, losing a son or daughter is very different than losing a sibling.
unidentified
And as a father now, I understand that.
But, you know, it was shocking.
And then you just, you've got to figure out how to move forward.
addison mcdowell ▲ ● ▼
And you can either stop and just feel bad for yourself or you can do something about it.
unidentified
And I wanted to do something about it.
All this week, watch C-SPAN's new Members of Congress series, where we speak with both Republicans and Democrats about their early lives, previous careers, families, and why they decided to run for office.
On Wednesday at 9.30 p.m. Eastern, our interviews include Virginia Democratic Congressman Eugene Vintman, who was born in Ukraine, served as a U.S. Army officer, and played a role in the story of his brother, Alexander Vintman, who came to national attention in 2019 for his testimony before Congress on President Trump's relationship with Ukraine.
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