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On C-SPAN2. | |
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| Here on C-SPAN, we've been introducing you to new members of the 119th Congress. | ||
| They talk about their early lives, families, and what drove their interest in running for office. | ||
| Next, freshman representatives Addison McDowell, Julie Johnson, John Mannion, Julie Fedorzak, Kristen McDonald Rivet, and the delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands, Kimberlyn King Hines. | ||
| Republican Addison McDowell of North Carolina is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | ||
| He has Congress-related work experience, and this is his first time in elective office. | ||
| The representative talks here about his motivation for running for Congress following the death of his younger brother. | ||
| So in 2016, we lost my little brother Luke to a fentanyl fentanyl that here and shouldn't have been. | ||
| And so we lost my little brother. | ||
| He was 20 years old, and it was tragic. | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it was the hardest part was the shock. | ||
| The shock of like this was very unexpected, and it hurt that way. | ||
| 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. | ||
| 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. | ||
| And you can either stop and just feel bad for yourself or you can do something about it. | ||
| And I wanted to do something about it. | ||
| Did you decide right then you're going to run for Congress? | ||
| No, no. | ||
| I was in college. | ||
| And so I didn't really decide anything. | ||
| I just, I got to graduate college. | ||
| I mean, I think it's like four days later, I had a Spanish final in college. | ||
| So, I mean, I couldn't, I wasn't really thinking about anything, but it kind of morphed into that over the years. | ||
| And the Lord put me in places I needed to be and did things that he needed to do to prepare me for it. | ||
| And the stars kind of aligned for it to be the right time and for it to work out. | ||
| And so when the opportunity presented itself, that was the motivating driver for me of, okay, I'm going to do this. | ||
| This is exactly why I'm doing it. | ||
| What does your brother's death and how he died say about the country as a whole right now? | ||
| Well, I mean, there's literal poison that's coming into our country from, it's, you know, manufactured in China and then smuggled in through either our ports or up through the southern border. | ||
| And so there's a need to fix that. | ||
| And they did not do that in the last four years. | ||
| And so we have to do it right now. | ||
| You use the word drive. | ||
| So when you think of your brother's death, how does that drive you in terms of what you actually want to accomplish while you're here? | ||
| Yeah, well, so in my office, I put this here for a reason. | ||
| There's a picture of him right as I walk out the door to go vote. | ||
| So every time I leave my office, he's the last thing that I see. | ||
| And that motivates me to do what I need to do. | ||
| And his story is one that a lot of people feel. | ||
| And I'm carrying those families with me that have had to go through this. | ||
| And I think about them every single day when I look at his picture on the wall. | ||
| You are 30 years old now, correct? | ||
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Tell us more about your earlier years, growing up in North Carolina, what life was like, who helped shape you, that type of thing. | |
| Well, I mean, I was so, so blessed to have a mom and dad that love me so much. | ||
| My dad's a preacher, and so I was a preacher's kid for a lot of my youth and a lot of growing up. | ||
| And so I was lucky. | ||
| There was a lot of people in the churches that I grew up in that shaped me, specifically Sunday school teachers that are kind of with me through my entire childhood. | ||
| And one of them, a woman named Betty Wright, comes to mind. | ||
| She was just, she's the best. | ||
| And so give a shout out to Betty. | ||
| I'm sure we'll clip this to her. | ||
| But the football coaches, basketball coaches, teachers that I had, public school was very different back then than it was now. | ||
| They were teaching us history and how to read and write. | ||
| And, you know, so my public school teachers were very, very influential in shaping me and who I am, who I became. | ||
| And, you know, I think of my football coach, there's something that he said that kind of drives me and motivates me is, I mean, I think he stole it from Notre Dame, but you play like a champion today. | ||
| And that's, I try to start every day like that, where, you know, wake up and let's get moving and get to work. | ||
| Had you been thinking about politics growing up? | ||
| Were there political discussions in your family? | ||
| Yeah, so my grandfather was a World War II veteran, and he was very involved. | ||
| He's a Southern Democrat. | ||
| He was a delegate for President Carter. | ||
| When he ran for president, he ran for the state house a handful of times. | ||
| And that kind of passed that love of the process and government politics on to my mom. | ||
| And so she kind of passed it on to me. | ||
| And there were conversations that I don't think normal families had that my family would engage in this stuff. | ||
| That's an example. | ||
| So like we would talk about, I mean, any hot button issue, like, you know, global affairs, like any kind of, you know, a war that was going on, something like that, we would talk about that. | ||
| And, you know, it got me to like it. | ||
| And so, I mean, I majored in political science in college, and it got me to be able to learn and read and write about it. | ||
| But it wasn't what motivated me to run for office, but it got me to where I care about this stuff. | ||
| Were you always a Republican? | ||
| Yes, I was. | ||
| I mean, I was kind of coming up in the, I don't remember Bill Clinton's presidency, but I remember George Bush, and I remember 9-11, and that was kind of the first big event that shaped my mindset and mind frame. | ||
| And, you know, it kind of evolved into what the party's become. | ||
| And I'm a movement guy. | ||
| I'm a Trump Republican. | ||
| And, you know, President Trump was very, very kind to support us in our primary. | ||
| But always been a Republican, low taxes, get the government out of the way. | ||
| A simple concept. | ||
| You're not a complete stranger here on the Hill. | ||
| You have a little bit of political experience. | ||
| What kind of work did you do? | ||
| So I did a lot of campaign work. | ||
| I did some, it was kind of a multi-pronged thing. | ||
| I did campaign work and then also official office work for Senator Ted Budd, who was in when he was in the House. | ||
| And so he represented a very similar area to what I represent now. | ||
| And so got to know a lot of those people that outside of my home in Davidson County that I didn't know. | ||
| But yeah, did never work on the Hill, which so people are like, you know your way right? | ||
| No, I don't. | ||
| I don't know this. | ||
| I don't know the Capitol building as well as staffers that were actually working here. | ||
| Tell us about your family currently and what they think about all this. | ||
| Well, so my wife is just a saint for enduring this. | ||
| I don't know how she does it, but we have two daughters. | ||
| We have Mary Margaret, who is just under two years old, and then we have Eleanor, who was born three weeks before the election in November. | ||
| So she was born on October 10th. | ||
| Congratulations. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Yes, I've got my two girls, three girls at home. | ||
| And being a dad is so much better than any job I could have, including a congressman. | ||
| But they are just such a big reason why I am doing this because my kids, they're going to inherit this mess. | ||
| And I think about them a lot and the conversations we're having now regarding reconciliation and the budget and that sort of thing. | ||
| I think about my kids and what we're going to give to them someday. | ||
| One last question. | ||
| Back to you being the age of 30. | ||
| What does a young voice like that bring to a place like this? | ||
| Well, I mean, my life experiences are very unique, but I don't think it matters the age. | ||
| You know, I've been, I don't want to say shocked, but my colleagues from, you know, the Dean of the House, Representative Rogers, like, he treated me with the same respect he would have treated anybody. | ||
| Speaker Johnson treats me with respect just like anybody else. | ||
| I'm not the youngest Republican in the caucus. | ||
| There's one that is about three weeks to a month younger than me, but I don't think the age has come into it, but everybody has treated me like I'm one of them, which I am. | ||
| And so I appreciate that. | ||
| Democrat Julie Johnson of Texas is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | ||
| She's also the first openly LGBTQ member of Congress in Texas history. | ||
| Representative Johnson had a long career as a trial attorney and spent several years in the Texas House of Representatives. | ||
| She talks here about what her experience means for her new job in Washington. | ||
| Well, I wanted to take what the things I have been doing in the Texas level to the next level. | ||
| So for example, I focus a lot on health care in the Texas legislature, but state law health plans only govern 13% of state insured people. | ||
| So at the federal level, we can make a much bigger impact on some of the issues I care about. | ||
| We read an article that said you've successfully worked across the aisle in Texas to get at least 40 bills that you co-sponsored or authored passed. | ||
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How do you do that? | |
| You know, I think you have to just recognize that we're all people and put some partisanship aside and understand that we're all here to represent our districts, but really take the time to get to know people, figure out areas that you have in common, issues that you can work on together, and not be so pure that if you can't agree on 100% that I'm not going to work on anything. | ||
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You know, an example of that is I passed a bill overhauling the Texas Medical Board. | |
| It was a significant thing in response to some patient safety issues and the doctor death cases that came out of Texas. | ||
| And my Senate sponsor was the most conservative anti-LGBT person in the building. | ||
| And most people were stunned that we had a bill together. | ||
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But, you know, he was willing to work with me on the medical board, and I needed a Senate partner, and we got it passed. | |
| And so you just have to, you just can't, you have to have a long and a short memory. | ||
| So take that concept of working across the aisle in Texas, bringing it to Washington, a place where you know as well as anybody that compromise can be difficult. | ||
| Working together across the aisle can be really, really hard. | ||
| Yeah, well, you know, it's what I'm used to. | ||
| I mean, Congress is not any more partisan than the Texas legislature, I can absolutely guarantee you. | ||
| I mean, I've had three terms with a Republican trifecta, and I have it here. | ||
| And, you know, I've met a lot of my Republican colleagues here, and just like in Texas, and I find that most people want government to work. | ||
| They really do. | ||
| They want to be productive. | ||
| They want to work. | ||
| They recognize that they have a lot of Democrats in their districts, too, and they want to be reasonable. | ||
| Yeah, there's exceptions to that. | ||
| We certainly have extremists on both sides that don't want to really partner and aren't willing to collaborate. | ||
| But my experience in talking to a lot of the freshmen and a lot of other members, I've been reaching out with other members of the Texas delegation and others to say, hey, you know, we can work on this farm subsidy bill, or we can work on transportation, or we can work on this health care piece of legislation. | ||
| I mean, people in rural America, they need health care access just like people in urban America. | ||
| And these representatives want to deliver that. | ||
| And if I have some ideas that are good, then they're willing to talk to me. | ||
| In your first floor speech in the Congress in the House, you gave a bit of a profile. | ||
| Tell us more about yourself and your background and how you got here. | ||
| Well, I'm a longtime trial attorney. | ||
| I've been practicing law in Texas for 33 years, representing people in their times of need and when they've had a problem, usually against a corporation or an insurance company or something along those lines. | ||
| And then I'm married. | ||
| My wife's a gastrologist. | ||
| And so we have a split household on Republican, not Republican and Democrat, but lawyer and doctor, which I think in some contexts is more contentious. | ||
| I have two sons, Nicholas and Benjamin, and they're 22 and 24 and working their way up through life and just really excited to be here. | ||
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You are the first openly LGBTQ member representing Texas ever. | |
| What does that mean to you? | ||
| What do you think it means to others? | ||
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Well, it's a huge honor and it's something and a responsibility. | |
| You know, there are Texas has a significant LGBTQ population and it's demonstrative that you can win in hard states and we must win in hard states for our equality to ultimately be achieved. | ||
| And also just to put yourself out there. | ||
| Don't shut yourself down because you think you can't win. | ||
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You know, I did that to myself. | |
| I never thought I could win in Texas as an LGBTQ person. | ||
| But here I am. | ||
| I flipped a state House seat in 2018. | ||
| I'm the first Democrat to hold it in 40 years. | ||
| Now I'm a member of Congress and I just think it's awesome. | ||
| As a longtime litigator, how does that inform what you will do here and how you will do it? | ||
| Well, you know, being a lawyer really does prepare you well to be a member of the legislative branch in the state house or in the United States Congress. | ||
| You understand the language, you understand the bill process, the impact of statutes, how to read them, how to amend them. | ||
| And so I feel like I have a leg up on many of my colleagues that don't have that background. | ||
| And it's just really presents us well, I think. | ||
| One article I read suggested it's clear that you will stick your neck out to be an agent of change. | ||
| You are here not for stardom, but to work on policy. | ||
| Tell me more about the path ahead. | ||
| Well, I am a policy wonk. | ||
| You know, I'm here to move the needle. | ||
| I have plenty of other things I can be doing in my life other than this job. | ||
| And so this job is hard. | ||
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You know, the schedule's hard. | |
| The commute is hard. | ||
| It's not an easy task. | ||
| So if I'm going to be devoting this significant part of my life to this work, I want to be productive. | ||
| I want to move the needle in a positive way on issues that I care about for the people I represent. | ||
| And so I'm here to get it done and work hard to try to achieve those goals. | ||
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Delegate Kimberlyn King Hines is one of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | |
| The Republican represents the Northern Mariana Islands. | ||
| She's a lawyer with family members who've also held public office. | ||
| Delegate Hines has held many positions at home, including work for a lieutenant governor and on the Public Utilities Commission. | ||
| She talks here about her career and tells us more about the Northern Mariana Islands. | ||
| Well, first of all, hoffa dais and tiro. | ||
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unidentified
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That's our hello from the Marianas. | |
| So I'm pretty sure that most folks are very familiar with Guam and where Guam is. | ||
| Guam is a part of the Marianas Archipelago. | ||
| It just happens to be the southernmost island and the rest of the islands north of Guam is the northern Mariana Islands. | ||
| We have a lot in common. | ||
| We have the same Indigenous people. | ||
| We are Chamorros. | ||
| There's another Indigenous group called the Rifalawash who are primarily in the northern Marianas. | ||
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How many people live there? | |
| So we have approximately, I think, close to 50,000 people, but over the last couple of years, we've seen massive out-migration because of the economy. | ||
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How are the needs of the folks there similar and different to people on the mainland? | |
| So, you know, I think just in talking to other members, whether Republican or Democrat, right, everybody's just struggling with the cost of living and finding opportunities for employment. | ||
| That is a very big challenge for the CNMI, given the fact that, you know, our economy, our primary driver is the tourism industry. | ||
| And since the pandemic, we haven't seen the economy or the tourism industry recover. | ||
| And so most folks are either, you know, who live there are working for the government. | ||
| And given the fact that the tourism industry is seeing just a significant decline, as a matter of fact, I don't know if you know, but Jeju Air just recently crashed, right? | ||
| And so one of our primary tourism market is Korea right now. | ||
| And we're seeing those flights pull out, which will have a further devastating impact on the economy. | ||
| So, you know, if you're not working for the government, you're working for tourism-related industry. | ||
| And given the fact that the tourism industry is not where it nearly should be pre-pandemic, folks are just moving here to the mainland. | ||
| Tell us a little bit about yourself, where you were born, growing up, education. | ||
| So I was actually one of the very few people who can claim that I was born on the island of Tinian. | ||
| So there are four inhabited islands, Saipan, Tinian, Saipan being the capital island, Tinian, Rhoda, and Pogan. | ||
| I was born in Tinian. | ||
| My stepdad, who raised me, actually moved out from the mainland. | ||
| He was a Department of Justice attorney during the Trust Territory times. | ||
| And, you know, he was a firm believer in education. | ||
| And so, you know, both my parents were incredibly focused on ensuring that we had the opportunity to go away and go to school. | ||
| And so, you know, right after graduating the eighth grade, they shipped us out to the mainland so that we can get an education. | ||
| And the goal was always to come here, get educated, and return back home to be able to help the community. | ||
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What kind of professional experience did you have before public office? | |
| So before public office, I practiced law. | ||
| I did a lot of government policy work, did a lot of, you know, had a lot of policy conversations and work as it relates to military activities that are expanding in the Marianas. | ||
| Aside and separate from that, I practice family law. | ||
| And as you know, when you see a decline in the economy, family violence increases. | ||
| And there's an uptick on domestic violence, child abuse, and those types of related cases. | ||
| So that's what I was doing before. | ||
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When did the idea of actually running for office come to mind? | |
| You know, interestingly enough, I think it was always there. | ||
| My mother was actually one of the first of two congresswomen who served in the first CNMI legislature when we became when we became partners with the United States through the covenant. | ||
| And so, you know, I grew up watching my mom in public service and my dad as well. | ||
| And I think it wasn't necessarily wanting to become an elected official. | ||
| I was just raised to be community service driven, if that makes sense. | ||
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Remind us of the role of a delegate versus a representative here in Washington as you start your work. | |
| Well, so, you know, it's different in the sense that we do not have the ability to vote on the floor. | ||
| We can still participate in committees, we can vote in committees as a whole, but when it comes to final votes and full legislation, we really aren't able to vote. | ||
| How does that hinder you? | ||
| Well, you know, I think it's more of a conversation about, right, you know, many of our citizens are signing up in droves, joining the military. | ||
| There was this one graduating high school year when we saw more than two-thirds of our sons and daughters sign up and enlist, right? | ||
| And they get to go to war on behalf of, you know, our country. | ||
| And I think the symbolic nature of being able to vote, right, when it comes to issues like that is very important. | ||
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Talk to us about being 8,000 miles away. | |
| I believe that's the figure, about 8,000 miles away. | ||
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How is that going to work for you? | |
| What's your travel like? | ||
| What's it going to be like? | ||
| It's going to be crazy. | ||
| So when Congress is not in session, I get to fly back home to the district. | ||
| It takes about two days to get there because you lose a day going there. | ||
| But when you're heading this way, you leave and get here on the same day. | ||
| But you're traveling for 24 hours. | ||
| And so I was out here for the freshman orientation and the jet lag is just, it's real. | ||
| And I think the older I get, the worse the jet lag is. | ||
| But I'm pretty sure that with the consistent going back and forth, we'll develop a new normal and the body will adjust and I'll have to figure out how to be able to come back and hit the ground running. | ||
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And vice versa. | |
| And how do you set up an office here in Washington and at home with the time difference and different islands? | ||
| How does the setup work? | ||
| Oh man, so you know we're here now. | ||
| Folks back home are sleeping. | ||
| So by the time it's the end of the day here, the district office is just opening and so you're kind of working pretty much the whole day. | ||
| You start here in the morning and then the afternoon you go home and keep working and thank God for technology, right, where we can do Zoom and we can still do emails and correspond. | ||
| How about family, current family? | ||
| So my family just left this morning and I have to say I think that that is the hardest bit about this whole part, right, is the separation from the people that you love, my husband, my daughter, and knowing that you're out here all by yourself and you don't have that moral support when you come home at the end of the day. | ||
| But I signed up for this job because I'm deeply committed to advancing the lives of the people back home. | ||
| And we have a lot of challenges that have not been addressed. | ||
| We have an agreement with the United States that is memorialized in what is called the covenant. | ||
| And some of those agreements need some follow-through to be able to get us in a place where we're economically self-sustainable. | ||
| We are heading down the road where essentially everybody is going to be relying on food stamps and handouts. | ||
| And I don't think that that's the way to live. | ||
| I think everybody deserves the dignity of having the opportunity of being able to work, right? | ||
| And so that's why I'm here and that's why it's worth the sacrifice. | ||
| There's too many people back home right now who are having to choose between having health insurance or paying their utility bills because the cost of utilities is just too high. | ||
| We have so many people who are still living in tents because we haven't recovered from Typhoon U2 that happened back in 2018. | ||
| And so these are things that we need to address. | ||
| And I hope that with the new Republican majority that we can work swiftly to be able to begin addressing some of those issues. | ||
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unidentified
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Democrat John Mannion of New York is one of the more than 60 new members of the U.S. House. | |
| Before public service, he had a long career as a high school biology teacher. | ||
| Later, he served four years in the New York Senate. | ||
| And he talks here about his former students and his heritage as the grandson of Irish immigrants. | ||
| Well, listen, on my father's side of the family, which is where the Irish immigrants come from most recently, my grandfather left the island of Ireland to not fight for the British Army. | ||
| He came to the United States of America, avoiding conscription, and immediately signed up and fought in the U.S. Army in World War I, went back, married my grandmother, and then came to Syracuse, New York, where we built luxury automobiles at Franklin Automobile. | ||
| So that is where my father's side of the family comes from. | ||
| My mother's side goes way back, but also very Irish northern New York. | ||
| She's a proud native of Chattaga, New York. | ||
| They both passed away. | ||
| What a story. | ||
| What is it about the northern tier in New York, the Syracuse area? | ||
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What about it? | |
| I mean, listen, we survive difficult winters. | ||
| You know, it's gray a lot of the time, but we're a hardy people. | ||
| We have a sense of humor. | ||
| The area has a reputation for technology and innovation, and we continue that today. | ||
| Coming into my district's the largest private investment in the history of the country with Micron Technologies building semiconductor chips right in New York 22 in Clay, New York. | ||
| You had a long career as a teacher. | ||
| Tell us about that. | ||
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I loved it. | |
| I mean, it was a dream job. | ||
| It's the greatest profession. | ||
| It's so gratifying. | ||
| My wife is also a teacher, so I was a science teacher, an AP biology and chemistry teacher largely, but I taught every science. | ||
| And in my last eight years of teaching, I was also a teacher union president. | ||
| And it was that advocacy for public education, students, and teachers to push back against some top-down policy that I could see the negative impact of in the classroom that really got me more politically engaged, led to me running for a state senate position. | ||
| I ended up flipping a seat from Republican to Democrat that was held by the other side for 100 years in 2020 and then was re-elected in 2022. | ||
| And now I'm proud to serve a larger region of central New York and the Mohawk Valley here in D.C. Was there something specific you saw during that part of your career that sparked the interest? | ||
| Sure, there were two real things. | ||
| One, from a state policy side was a punitive 338 testing system that was tied to a teacher evaluation system that just didn't make sense and we're in the midst of a teacher shortage still because of sort of the negative stigma that came with not people not wanting to go into education as a result of that but it was the 2016 election for me that really got me to run first in 2018. | ||
| I watched juniors in high school that I had already taught for 20 years of that same age group watch a presidential election like I had never seen before. | ||
| I didn't want them to think it was normal. | ||
| So now as I represent the region and when I run for office I pride myself on bipartisanship, on being diplomatic, on being civil because we have to return to that and our kids are in the midst of a mental health crisis and when their leadership is in chaos or at odds with one another or engaged in juvenile behavior it's going to cause stress on everybody and I think it's a contributing factor to that crisis in this country. | ||
| You mentioned bipartisanship something Washington is not necessarily known for to a great length at least not these days. | ||
| What can make Congress work better? | ||
| Well you've got to find common ground. | ||
| You have to find common ground and you know my colleagues in the New York delegation on the Republican side and I we represent very similar communities. | ||
| So there's things like taxation like the state and local tax deduction cap that is in place is clearly targeted towards targeted towards states like New York. | ||
| You know we represent very large agricultural areas and I'm proud to have heard that I'm going to be a member of the Agriculture Committee and I did serve in that capacity in the New York State Senate. | ||
| So you find common ground and also as a former teacher I feel great responsibility in being a positive role model. | ||
| So in my previous work in the state legislature I was the only ever disabilities chair in the New York State Senate and lots of that legislation had bipartisan support, in fact unanimous bipartisan support in committee often and on the floor and that's when dealing with issues that we can all get behind that we understand that we have to come together to help to work for good legislation and funding for our most vulnerable. | ||
| So it's something like that and when a Republican member would come to me on a bill that might create a task force or have appointments to a task force and there were no minority members appointments, I would take that bill back. | ||
| I would go back to my leadership and say, you know, we've got to do the right thing and make sure that the entire state is represented and members of the minority party have appointments to this task force. | ||
| Back to that 30-year career as a teacher. | ||
| Have you heard from any of them about your political career? | ||
|
unidentified
|
One of the great blessings of this is that I have reconnected with so many of my former students. | |
| Many of them go and do political work for me, meaning they're at the doors, they're on the phones. | ||
| We have reconnected. | ||
| I have a former student that swears me in every time that I've gotten elected. | ||
| I have former students that have worked for me. | ||
| So it's really a blessing and something that was unexpected. | ||
| You know, I probably taught about 3,000 students over the course of my career in the classroom and it's that reconnection and seeing them as adults with their own families and their own careers is really, really special. | ||
| One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Julie Fidorchak of North Dakota. | ||
| The Republican studied journalism and worked as a columnist and in other media positions in her earlier career. | ||
| Later, she was appointed to the North Dakota Public Service Commission, where she served for more than a decade. | ||
| She talks here about growing up in a big family and the challenges of being an at-large member of the House who represents her entire state. | ||
| Well, obviously the biggest challenge is getting to all the parts of the district, which is the entire state, on a regular basis. | ||
| And also, you know, I'm a decent ways away from that state, so getting back and forth on the weekends is also a challenge as well. | ||
| Now, you come from a big North Dakota family. | ||
| Tell us about your early years and what kind of experiences you remember. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure, and that big family is a huge advantage to covering a big state because I have siblings living in pretty much all corners of the state. | |
| So everywhere I go, I have a free place to stay. | ||
| So that's a huge advantage. | ||
| But I really am a product of my state. | ||
| I was born in the western part of North Dakota. | ||
| My parents were children of the Great Depression. | ||
| They nearly starved to death out in the prairies of western North Dakota in the dirty 30s when there was literally no rain for a decade. | ||
| And as farmers, that's a tough thing to get through. | ||
| But they did, with their persistence, their families persisted and they got through that and got educated and resettled in that area after college. | ||
| My mom and dad back in Williston, North Dakota, which is in the far western part of the state, had their eight kids all in that part of the state and then started to raise them there. | ||
| Then when I was fairly young, I was about five, we moved all the way across the state to the eastern part of the state in Fargo. | ||
| And I spent my formative years there and lived there until I got into high school when we moved and planted right in the middle of the state. | ||
| And so I literally have covered all parts of the state just in growing up. | ||
| And, you know, being one of eight kids, you know, it's pretty tough to spoil that many kids. | ||
| We had a lot of expectations for us brought on by my parents who, again, were very conservative-minded folks, believed in hard work. | ||
| And so we worked our butts off as children. | ||
| And really, my mom wrote a book. | ||
| I helped her. | ||
| I edited it with her. | ||
| And it was called Growing Up Rich in a Poor Family. | ||
| And I feel the same way about my childhood growing up as the youngest of eight. | ||
| It was one of the greatest blessings that I have because I did. | ||
| I learned how to work really hard, get along with a lot of different people. | ||
| And those are two great qualities to bring to Congress. | ||
| It's quite a journey you just described. | ||
| Were politics part of the picture growing up? | ||
|
unidentified
|
They were, absolutely. | |
| My parents were both conservative at nature. | ||
| And my dad was a businessman. | ||
| And he recognized being a smart guy that politics and government and public policy would affect his business. | ||
| So he got involved as a young man in Republican politics. | ||
| And then really just it was part of the dinner conversation. | ||
| He didn't run for, he ran for the legislature once and lost. | ||
| So he didn't serve, but he certainly followed and was active, attended conventions, believed in it, and talked a lot about it around the house. | ||
| Were you always a Republican yourself? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Maybe in college, you know, they was the old saying, if you aren't a liberal in college, you don't have a heart. | |
| And if you're not a Republican after, you don't have a mind. | ||
| Well, I had a few years in college where I strayed a bit, but I got right back in line once I started working. | ||
| You actually started your career in journalism. | ||
| What were those experiences like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What did you do? | |
| And how did they wind up turning into a position in government? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, so I started, in my years in college, I did some internships with newspapers and radio stations, and that's when I came to realize I loved communications. | |
| I loved writing. | ||
| And so, but shortly after college, I had a job at the Ground Forks Herald and I got offered a different job, not in journalism, that paid more. | ||
| And so I left and I've never gone back, sadly, because I still think it's a fabulous career. | ||
| I've loved the communications field, however, and find that there's infinite possibilities in that. | ||
| And I did for a stint in, I had my own communications business for 10 years. | ||
| And during that time, I wrote a weekly column in our local newspaper. | ||
| It was bi-weekly or every other week, however, semi-weekly, I guess. | ||
| And so that was the closest I came to being kind of officially in the news business after I left shortly after getting the working world. | ||
| You're perhaps best known as a member of the Public Service Commission in North Dakota. | ||
| What is entailed in that position and what did you learn there that you're going to bring to Washington? | ||
| So I learned so much and it's going to be greatly beneficial to my work on the Energy and Commerce Committee. | ||
| But being a public service commissioner in North Dakota is an elected, statewide elected office, so I've been elected statewide three times, four now, since I got elected to Congress. | ||
| And we are utility regulators, and so our first business is regulating the investor-owned utilities for rates and service. | ||
| So you really roll up your sleeves and get to know all the ins and outs of what's involved in providing utility service, gas and electric, to people, to citizens in a reliable way, an affordable way, an environmentally conscious way. | ||
| So deal with all of those, deal a ton with energy markets. | ||
| The grid operators in North Dakota, those grid operators are MISO and the Southwest Power Pool. | ||
| And so I had spent a lot of time on that, a lot of time on FERC regulation and FERC involvement. | ||
| And that's not an area that a lot of people in Congress have a lot of expertise. | ||
| So that's an area that I will bring a lot of value to, I think. | ||
| And then also permitting, you know, so much talk about the need for permitting reform. | ||
| I've permitted in my time on the commission $15 billion with a B dollar's worth of energy infrastructure. | ||
| So I know what's entailed in permitting a wind farm, pipelines, gas and oil pipelines, power lines, electric transmission lines, gas processing facilities, wind farms. | ||
| So a lot of experience, like front lines experience in those sort of processes that I think will be really valuable as we work as Republicans to unleash American energy and really have the beneficial development of all our natural resources for the citizens of our country and the world, quite honestly. | ||
| You mentioned those incredible early experiences with your family. | ||
| Outside of family, other influences, events, or people that you can tell us about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, I'm married. | |
| My husband is a military veteran. | ||
| He was a Navy veteran. | ||
| We have three children. | ||
| And so those, they had a huge influence on me wanting to run for this office. | ||
| They encouraged me. | ||
| They're all out of the house. | ||
| So they're kind of coming of age and entering this world. | ||
| And when I looked at the environment that they would be coming into as young adults, I was concerned about some of the safety issues in our country, some of the policy issues that I think are not moving us in the right direction, the opportunities that they might face and have aren't as great as they could be, I think, in America because of our potential. | ||
| And then also the size of our debt that we're racking up here, the federal government is just unsustainable, quite honestly, and a big threat to all of us. | ||
| So those are sort of the influences that kind of drove me into running for this position and trying to make a difference. | ||
| And then I also, along my career, I had some early mentors. | ||
| I worked for the governor of our state, Ed Schaefer, back in the 90s. | ||
| And he was a businessman who came into politics and brought that business perspective and really talked about running government as business, as a business, making it accountable, being customer service oriented, really keeping it real and talking to citizens about the things that they care about. | ||
| So that was a huge influence on me and how I try to serve the citizens of my state, just recognizing what's important to them and being on the same level as them. | ||
| I actually work for them, not the opposite. | ||
| One of more than 60 new members of the U.S. House is Kristen McDonald Rivet. | ||
| The Michigan Democrat has experience in the education field. | ||
| She also served on the Bay City Commission in her home state and spent two years in the Michigan Senate. | ||
| As she begins her work in Congress, she talks here about advice she received from her predecessor, the retired Representative Dan Kildie. | ||
| So Dan is a leader that's very much like, you know, we're very alike. | ||
| So we tend not to get ruffled and we spend a lot of time in community. | ||
| So what Dan said to me is, be yourself, lead with your heart, stay connected to the community. | ||
| So that's what I'm going to do. | ||
| Very much like Dan, I just tell much better jokes. | ||
| You were in the state Senate for a couple of years before this opportunity came up. | ||
| Tell us about the moment when you decided to do this, to run, and did you think you could win from the beginning? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, oh, that's an interesting question. | |
| So actually, I am very new to elected partisan politics. | ||
| I've spent my entire career working in public policy, but had kind of never put my name on a sign. | ||
| And I just started running for the state Senate. | ||
| And frankly, when they came and asked me to do it, I said no a couple of times. | ||
| So my state Senate district had been redrawn. | ||
| And it was a Republican seat. | ||
| And they said, you know, we think that you can win it. | ||
| And we also, if we know that if you win this seat, we will have Democratic control of the Michigan Senate for the first time in 40 years. | ||
| So pretty compelling case. | ||
| We knew that there was a real danger at the time of Roebie Wade being overturned. | ||
| January 6th had just happened. | ||
| And it was just this moment for me of, can I stand up here and do something that really matters to my state and to my country. | ||
| So I ran for the state Senate. | ||
| It was a really hard race. | ||
| I didn't think I was going to win it, but I did. | ||
| Turned the Michigan Senate Blue for the first time in 40 years and started doing some amazing things. | ||
| So I'm getting to the end of my first year of my first term, and I'm here in Washington for a conference. | ||
| And my phone rings while I'm trying to, you know, get off the plane and get an Uber. | ||
| And so I sent it to voicemail because I was trying to get an Uber. | ||
| And I get a text message from Dan Keldy's chief of staff who says, Dan's trying to reach you. | ||
| You need to pick up the phone. | ||
| And when I talked to him, he said, Kristen, I'm retiring tomorrow. | ||
| And I think you ought to take a look at the seat because my state Senate seat is wholly inside this congressional seat. | ||
| And it's the hardest part. | ||
| So I took a look at it. | ||
| I spent a lot of time. | ||
| I went back and had that tough conversation with my husband about, you know, we just finished a really tough campaign. | ||
| But we knew it was going to be a hard seat to win. | ||
| And I felt like I would be competitive for it. | ||
| But did I think I was going to win? | ||
| No. | ||
| It was a really tough campaign. | ||
| You know, I know if you watch these things across the country, our campaign where people were up on TV starting in May. | ||
| So it was hard fought. | ||
| It was very, very close all the way through. | ||
| And we knew we were in a fight for our lives. | ||
| So I was really pleased on Election Day when we not only won, but we won by a pretty significant margin. | ||
| And now you're here. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's take a step back and talk about your life growing up in Michigan. | |
| Oh, yeah. | ||
| Family influences. | ||
| What shaped you in those early years? | ||
|
unidentified
|
So a couple of things. | |
| I grew up in a small agricultural town in Michigan, Portland. | ||
| 3,000 people, very small. | ||
| And my parents raised my two sisters and I to have this belief that hard work really means something in terms of your future success. | ||
| So dad always said, he's a construction worker. | ||
| If you get up every day and you work really hard, then that's going to mean that you're going to have a pretty stable life. | ||
| And then my mom always said, because I was raised Catholic, still am Catholic, and she said, every person's been given this gift from God to make the world a better place. | ||
| So find out what that is. | ||
| Everybody's is different and use it. | ||
| So went off to college and really wanted to give back, wanted to be able to figure out what my piece of that was going to be. | ||
| And it ended up being in public policy. | ||
| So I worked for a children's foundation. | ||
| I was a chief of staff at the State Department of Education. | ||
| Worked, ran several nonprofits. | ||
| But right before I went into the state senate, I worked for an economic public policy think tank. | ||
| And here's what's true in Michigan right now. | ||
| 50% of our, 60% of our jobs pay less than $50,000 a year. | ||
| And in my district, that number is 80%. | ||
| So when you start to think about what take-home pay looks like on $50,000 a year, and then think about eggs and milk and gas and all of those things, the reality is working really hard doesn't equal stability anymore. | ||
| So my route into politics and deciding that I was going to run for office and try to change some things goes all the way back to my dad working construction. | ||
| You know, the sun was up, dad was at work. | ||
| And what that hard work equaled in the 70s and 80s doesn't equal that anymore in Michigan. | ||
| So it all connects. | ||
| Tell us about that 8th district in Michigan and the folks back home. | ||
| So I have an incredible district. | ||
| We're right in the middle of Michigan. | ||
| I have the cities of Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, and Midland. | ||
| We're the home to the towns that were built by GM and the UAW, home to Dow Chemical, the Hemlock Semiconductor. | ||
| Incredibly beautiful place, lots of water, lots of beautiful farmland, but also some communities that just have had a couple of tough breaks. | ||
| Flint in particular, still recovering from the water crisis. | ||
| But mostly we have people who just get up every day and work really hard. | ||
| They want a fair shot. | ||
| Very, very down-to-earth. | ||
| And for the most part, want government to leave them alone and make sure that they can leave a pretty secure life. | ||
| More about your race for the house. | ||
| I did read that you invited Linda Carter. | ||
|
unidentified
|
People who may not know who she is, Linda Carter, Wonder Woman from the 1970s television. | |
| How did all that come about and what did she do for your campaign? | ||
| Okay, so now I'm just going to get giddy, right? | ||
| I was born in 1970 and my hero growing up was Wonder Woman, but the Linda Carter Wonder Woman. | ||
| I dressed up like her for Halloween three years in a row. | ||
| So fast forward, we're in the middle of this campaign and they say, okay, if you can have any surrogate in the country come in for you, who do you want? | ||
| And I know everybody else was saying things like, Michelle Obama, who's great, right? | ||
| I just said, Linda Carter, can you please get Linda Carter here? | ||
| And the last week before the campaign, she came in and she went all throughout my district. | ||
| She did a whole district tour with me. | ||
| And we got in front of these groups of people and everybody was just so excited to see her. | ||
| The governor came and we were all, but at the start of every single one, we started just talking about how important it is to, you know, in the world to protect the country. | ||
| And I said, okay, everybody in their Wonder Woman stands. | ||
| And everybody did this and all these little girls were doing this. | ||
| And it was the most memorable moment, not just of the campaign, but it was a big deal to me in my life trajectory. | ||
| What a story. | ||
| There's also a story we read about your husband, who's in state politics as well, correct? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He served in the state legislature and now he runs the Michigan State Lamb Bank Authority. | |
| He played a bit of a role in your campaign via a television ad. | ||
| Tell us that story. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So what was really important to me during the campaign and still important is that when I'm going to ask people to vote for me, I want them to know who I am. | |
| And who I am is a mom of six kids with an amazing husband. | ||
| And we've raised our kids in the district. | ||
| And we are the people who really could be standing next to you in a grocery store. | ||
| So the biggest accomplishment I had in the state legislature was authoring the largest tax cut for working families in Michigan's history. | ||
| And we wanted to tell people that, but we also wanted to introduce them to me. | ||
| So we did an ad where it's my husband and I getting ready in the morning and, you know, we're pouring coffee, getting ready, we go out the door, we get in the car. | ||
| But the whole point of the campaign was just, you know, he starts with saying, my wife loves talking about taxes. | ||
| And then it pans to me saying, I love talking about cutting taxes. | ||
| And really, he ends up being so annoyed that all I will do is talk about cutting taxes that he jumps out of a moving car and we show him rolling across the lawn when a neighbor's lawn as we're heading off to work. | ||
| So it was funny. | ||
| It was true to who we are as a couple. | ||
| We very much enjoy each other's company. | ||
| And it also got our message across that I think that tax breaks ought to go to people who are working hard and still struggling to get ends meet. | ||
| Lots of memorable moments from that campaign. | ||
| You said six kids. | ||
| Tell us about them. | ||
| Amazing. | ||
| My children are amazing. | ||
| They do all kinds of different things. | ||
| So our oldest is 31. | ||
| She's married. | ||
| She's a neuroimmunologist doing a postdoc at Duke. | ||
| I have three teachers in the family, one teaching special ed, one teaching physical education and coaching a whole bunch of middle school teens, which is God's work in and of itself. | ||
| And we've got one in law school. | ||
| I've got one that does wetland restoration in Minnesota. | ||
| And then I've got a 15-year-old who's a freshman in high school. | ||
| He's still sort of figuring things out. | ||
| But my kids are all generous and kind. | ||
| Sometimes knuckleheads, but for the most part, generous and kind. | ||
| And what do they think about all of this? | ||
| It's overwhelming. | ||
| You know, I think it didn't hit any of us till we were here last Friday when we were sworn in. | ||
| And then you really get an idea immediately. | ||
| It sort of hits you in the face of what a big deal this is, how important it is, how historic it is, and how serious it is. | ||
| Because the campaign puts you in a different mindset, but the swearing-in day was something entirely different. | ||
| And then the day after, we got a tour of the Library of Congress, and I think for the first time, a couple of my kids thought I was cool because they got to see some cool things. | ||
| But they are 100% supportive. | ||
| Always a little bit worried because this is hard, but really excited. | ||
| The U.S. House returns on Monday at noon Eastern, and later in the week, members are expected to consider the House Republicans' fiscal year 2025 budget resolution, which is their blueprint to pass President Trump's agenda to cut taxes, reduce wasteful spending, and secure the U.S. border. | ||
| The U.S. Senate also gabbles in on Monday. | ||
| They come in at 3 p.m. Eastern. | ||
| Senators will vote later in the week on the nominations of Daniel Driscoll to serve as Army Secretary and Jameson Greer, President Trump's nominee to serve as U.S. Trade Representative. | ||
| Watch live coverage of the U.S. House on C-SPAN, the Senate on C-SPAN 2. | ||
| And of course, all of our congressional coverage is available on our free video app, C-SPANNOW, and online at c-span.org. | ||
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