Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke. I'm your host, Coleen Witt, and today we have a very special guest. Our first time ever in the history of Eating Wild Broke, we have an actual elected official in House, Congressman Tony cardon Us is with us, and I'm like nervous, I'm excited. First time ever have I ever had the privilege of sitting down with an elected in an intimate settling, let alone eating a broke dish classic?
So are you a little nervous about getting into the scene or at all?
Just as long as the peanut butter doesn't get stuck in my mouth so I can't talk anymore. But other than that, we're good.
Just a little backstory for all our listeners. I did have like Welch's jelly, like a cute little jar of peanut butter. I had some really nice bread because I didn't want to take them all the way back to total brokeness. And I loved that your staff, Gabriella came in and she was like, Tony was very adamant about these particular ingredients. So go ahead, introduce the dish and tell us a little bit of why it was so important to you to actually have the real eating while broke dish.
Thank you Coleen. First of all, love this show, glad to be here. The reason why I wanted my staff to get a big tub of peanut butter, the biggest one they could get, is because I'm the youngest of eleven. My parents came from Mexico and we always ate Mexican food every single day, and my mom was a homemaker. But when mom was in in the kitchen cooking and we were hungrier, wold have you? We had to go to the fridge. He was left over what have you? But this right here is what we turned to. Like
after school, we're hungry, can't wait till dinner? Is some cheap bread, the most non nutritious bread on the planet, white bread. There was a place called Weber's in San Fernando, and being with eleven kids my parents, it was like on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, they would sell the day old bread for ten cents a loaf, and they had bunches of it. So, for example, my mom would go with a buck a dollar and buy like ten loaves of bread. But that only lasts about a week. Yes, you got it.
So we would buy Weber's Bread back then. I don't even know if they're still, you know, in business, but Wonder was the second choice, and then Skippy was. Luckily for us we got to have a name brand peanut butter. I don't know why, because most everything in the house was the cheapest we could find. That's what my cereal,
all invitation cereals. When the government was given the powdered milk and the government cheese, you never thought you would get tired of real cheese, but yeah, we got tired of it because they used to give it in big old blocks. But anyway, so here we are. But this is the one that is my favorite. This is something that my daughter made and it's a marmalade, a lemon marmalade. And my daughter cooks, and my mother's no longer with us.
She was a homemaker. She cooked from scratch every day, and she actually would make a lot of things from scratch. She would in frascat you say it in Spanish. She would jar things, pickle this, and pickle that, and jar this. So she actually used to make some jelly once in a while. If we had all the ingredients, she'd get inspired. I'm gonna make some jelly strawberry. What have you? So?
Were any of your peanut butter and jelly sandwiches just peanut butter and bread?
Oh yeah, Oh yeah, yeah, I was.
I was nervous when Gabriella brought the big peanut butter and the wonderbread. I was like, oh my gosh, we're not gonna have jelly today. And then I was happy to see the jar of marmalade. I've never had this soul, not the peanut butter. I've never had the marmalade. So let's go ahead and start doing peanut butter and jelly, the og classic.
All right, let's start with some bread.
So I'm just curious, out of those eleven eleven of you guys, how many of you guys were boys?
It was almost even, even as you can get. It was six girls, five boys. I'm the youngest. All the girls got all the brains and looks in the family, and us boys we had to kind of like deal with what we got. But no, I say that because I love my sisters. I love my brothers. But my
sister used to help me with my math homework. I became an engineer, but back in those days, my sisters were born in the forties and fifties, so by the time they were graduating from high school, it was the sixties and society and even my parents went along with it, were convincing them that they should just get married and get a husband who'll take care of you. My sisters could have all gone and got PhDs and things of
that nature. So it really pains me to know that the person who helped me with my math helped me when I was struggling and I became an engineer, she didn't become an engineer and things like that. So so.
Your sisters essentially ended up well they.
No, look, they have a wonderful life. They have beautiful children, you know them and their husbands would go to work and they everybody's was able to own a home on first generation. My generation is first generation college on both sides of my family. My mother and father are from Demastiane Halley School, Mexico, which is this little dirt town. When they were little boys and girls, there were no formal schools like we have here in the United States.
So when they got married, my father being twenty my mother being eighteen, they looked around and said, well, nothing's changed. If we want the next generation to have opportunities, we got to get out of here. So they came to California and then stayed here. You know, had us eleven kids until they passed away. So this is what we made for ourselves. My mom made a stack of homide tortillas every single day, a big pot of beans every single day, made some fresh rice and something else. That
was the traditional food in our household. It was a third dish. And then rice and beans and tortillas. That was a staple every day.
Wow. And then was it like meat was the luxury.
Of yes, exactly, that was the third dish. It was either some chicken or some oh need it some kind? Yeah. Well, the thing is, let me clarify. We never lacked for what we needed in our home. Our mother and father, my mom stayed at home. That was the deal. They got married, high tailed it over here to California, and my mother and father made a deal that my mom
wouldn't work outside the home. She would stay home and be a homemaker, and my dad would work work, work, and my dad, his average week was a six day work week. And so my mom was an amazing cook, thank god. But she made large quantities of everything every day. But what we're eating here is what we used to make for ourselves as kids.
Eleven kids, though, is like I don't even think even if she sort of even like, even if we were in today's times, if she wanted to go to work, eleven kids, is you need one parent to stay right?
Oh my god? Today a big family is you know, three four kids? Yeah, and that's more than a handful. And you know, I constantly speak respectfully of my parents because I remember growing up there were some people that when we're in the supermarket, you know, there's three or four trailing my mom and we're sitting at the checking stand,
and I could understand English. My mom and dad understood very very little English, and I could hear the words of disrespect that they spoke of my mom, like, you know, talking in English to the other checker, like, oh, can you believe how many kids it would have? You, you know, they probably can't even afford them, and stuff like that. But that's not true. We never lacked for food. My parents bought a home in nineteen fifty five and raised the so all in that home until they passed away.
So yeah, I'm very very protective of the image that people have Immigrants come to this country and they have a bunch of kids, and those kids are a bunch of good for nothings or a bunch of troublemakers. Nah uh. Not one of us eleven kids growing up in Pacoima, not the you know, it's a low income community, a lot of beautiful families. They're not one of us ever ended up in a gang. Not one of us ever ended up, you know, in the backseat of a police car. So you know, to my parents, you know, and.
One of you guys ended up, Yeah, changing a lot for the community.
Yeah, yeah, well apparently yes, I say this one once in a while. I speak truthfully about if you asked my brothers and sisters when they were you know, when I was like eight, ten years old, and you asked them right down on a piece of paper, where do you think Tony's gonna end up? They probably would have said some not mean things, but accurate things like I don't know, he's a big trouble maker. You know he's had I had the hottest temper of all my brothers
and sisters. I was the one you could light me as like a match. I was the one that would bawl my fist up before I would think about what I'm gonna say. So God is good because they gave me ten older brothers and sisters to help keep me in line, and I needed every single one of them. They gave me two parents who were as strict as can be. So had I not had the upbringing that I was given and afforded by two amazing parents who were strict, ten brothers and sisters were like, Oh, you
can't do that. I can't let you do that.
Who knows everybody was checking? Oh yeah, I just to go back to the checkout line. I remember growing up poor and like our parents had food stamps, and I remember feeling shame like as a kid, like, oh my God, just like, let me duck out the back door. I don't even want to be affiliated with my poor parents, Like I don't want kids to know how poor we are.
When people were talking about your parents and you understood it, I'm just genuinely curious, did you do you feel a level of shame or did you are you mature enough to understand like you don't know what you're talking about.
I felt hurt that the market that we went to, all the time that my parents paid for everything that they But I felt as a little boy, I felt confused and hurt. Why are they saying that about my mom? Right? And and hurt because I'm like, my parents are good people, right and and I thought the checkers were good people too. I didn't hate them, they just confused the hell out of me. And but there's examples all over the place about how I was treated, being that I'm from Pacoima,
by teachers, counselors, some police officers, et cetera. And I'm not saying all teachers, all counselors, all police officers, but there's bad apples in every bunch, and the idea the people that are supposed to be there for the children of a community would speak ill of them or tell them, Oh, you're not going to amount to anything. Just wait, I'm gonna catch you doing something wrong. I'm gonna put you
in jail. I'm like, I was never that kid anyway, but the fact that I was in that neighborhood, they just labeled us all the same. So and that's one of the reasons why I decided to run for office. I never thought I would run for office ever. Growing up. I'm an engineer. I to my engineering degree.
You liked math?
Well, I like math?
Who likes math?
I liked it enough to see like I could be good at this, right, So I pursued an engineering injur Gee. I got it. I was working for Hewlett Packard for a bit and then I decided, I'm not feeling it.
Now when you were at the time when you got an engineering degree, were there a lot of people that look like you?
Oh, no way, especially Latina women or women of color. I went to UC Santa Barbara on the campus as a whold. I think back then there was about fifteen thousand students walking around the campus. On any given day, you could probably count only a few hundred black students and a few hundred Latino students. This is California, Yeah right, there was a lot of black and brown people in California. But nope, it was a very good school and they
didn't let that many of us in. But those of us who got in we did fine.
Now, even in those environments, did you feel like you didn't belong? Did you feel a little imposter syndrome.
Or imposter syndrome? Trust me, imposter syndrome unfortunately will never leave any one of us. One. I still get it sometimes, but now I snap out of it, like in a heartbeat. I snap out of it, like, oh hell no, no, no, no, I be long here. I earned being here. For example, when I went to UC Santa Barbara. You know you're a freshman, you're getting there. There's a brad ad and bushytail. You go around meeting people say hey, how you doing. I'm Tony, I'm Gloria or whatever, and you say, what
are you studying? While I'm studying English? And then as soon as I would say I'm studying engineering, they would say two things. One they will man, that's hard. And then they would say, oh, you got in under affirmative action. Now hold on a second, affirmative action is necessary in a society that denies good people equal opportunities.
Well, I've never heard someone say it's so eloquently like that.
Well, the thing is what bothered me was that I got in on regular admissions. And yeah, some of my buddies who did graduate got in on an affirmative action, who otherwise wouldn't have been able to get that degree, that beautiful, amazing university. But I got in under regular admissions. So how dare somebody assume that I am substandard, like that I needed to get in because I was under the bar. No, I earned my place and I got my degree, and that that carries with me my entire life.
But imposter syndrome, oh hell yeah, oh yeah. I talked to students all the time, I talk to interns all the time, and I tell them, like, you know what, I was a very very insecure little boy. How many of you are willing to admit that you have some insecurities. Some raise their hand, and I'm proud of them for doing that, because everybody has in securities. President of the United States has insecurities, right.
Wow, it's crazy because you never think that. But yeah, I mean, I mean yeah, because we're human beings, right exactly exactly.
So I let them know and I and I raised my hand too, and they're looking at me, like, why is raising it? I said, I'm raising my hand because I have insecurities too, I said, I how about imposture syndrome? And then some of them will raise their hand and some won't, And I say, and I raise my hand too, and I say, but I have this much imposter syndrome. But when I was young, like you, I had this much.
Yeah, that's me my whole life. Every day, I got a lot of it.
I got extra Yeah. But but the thing is, what what I'm trying to get at is one of the reasons why people develop imposture syndrome is you have a cop who sees you on the street and pulls you over, and you're you're getting max I didn't doing things. I didn't do anything wrong. The ruin in your day. They're putting your face down on the ground or up against the wall in front of all your neighborhood. So their parents could be like, Oh, that's so and So's kid
must have done something wrong. You know what I'm saying. So that's that's that's bad. That that never leaves someone's heart, It never leaves their mind being treated like that by people that are You're supposed to have mutual respect for teachers who told me, I, you know you're too dumb using a word like dumb to a child. Yes, yes, again. Let me say most of my teachers were amazing, and some of them were like phenomenal. Thank God for them.
Without those two three teachers who really invested me, I wouldn't be where I'm at. I wouldn't be successful at almost anything that I tried to do. But because of them, they helped me, they loved me. So the thing is, when I see that happening, I go back to what's my first nature as a person. I get pissed.
Yeah, I was gonna say, where's that temper at?
Oh well the temper I turned it into something positive. See, I'm a congressman now, I was, I was a council member, I was a California state legislator. I've been doing this for twenty eight years. So what gets to me is when I see injustice. That's the thing that really pisses me off. And the thing that I've been doing the most since I've been elected for twenty eight years is juvenile justice, criminal sentencing reform, things of that nature for
the last twenty years. And when I started doing it in the nineteen nineties, oh man, I got criticized by liberal Democrats. Wow, would be like, oh, that's a great idea, Tony, but I can't help you with that. And I'm thinking to myself, how can you not help You're a progressive, right, Yeah? No. But the thing the reason why I did it is because I saw in the next and the next generation that if we didn't change things, they were going to be treated just like me. Wow, and not of sheer stubbornness.
Did I move past that ridiculousness and still moved forward?
Yeah? Did anyone say, can you table it for the next time?
God, Yes, there's always manyana, there's oh no, not right now now, it's not the time.
And then how did you respond to that? Was there ever a moment where you were like, fine, I guess I'll push it back.
No, no, again, I'm more stubborn than smart. I'm more stubborn than anything else. Anytime somebody would tell me something like that, I would be like, no, but I'm here right now. I'm gonna do it with it without your help. But I would bring people along because I would do the work. Like I said, I'm an engineer. What engineers are taught to do is that there's a problem, there are solutions. Your job is to find a good one,
not the solution. Because there's solutions to everything, right in a bunch of them, find a real good one and make fix the problem. And so it's really weird. People asked me, I was just talking to a couple of interns just yesterday in my DC office to Latina as one after Latina and another Latina. They had requested to sit down with me. So I made some time and I'm talking to them, and I'm trying to let them know that whatever happened to them, whatever injustices came their way,
that doesn't define them. They can be whatever they want to be. And the thing is, we have a very flawed country, and the bottom line is this, but it's an amazing place where somebody like me can go from a mother and father who came and throughout their life never learned much English, but made it here in the United States, provided for their children and their youngest. They
raised eleven of us. You know, most of us went off to college and got all kinds of degrees and stuff, but they're youngest got to be a United States Congressman. I literally it's a coincidence that we're doing this today. I was literally at the White House yesterday in the Oval Office. Wow, when President Biden was signing something that a few Congressional members from the House of Representatis where I'm a member. But the first Latino United States Center
to represent California is Alex Badilla. He's the one that made it happen. He's an engineer like me.
But that wasn't your and that wasn't your first visit to the White House, obviously.
No, I've been to the White House many times.
Did your parents ever get to witness any any of it? I'm just any of it.
Yeah. My mother was. My father passed away in nineteen ninety three. I got elected in nineteen ninety six, and my mother was still alive, and so she got to see me sworn in. And literally the room in Sacramento when I became a state assemblyman and you all stand up and get sworn in, and there's a balcony. My mother was on the balcony. I could see her up there looking down at me and us, and she got to see it, and I could see it in her eyes. Again,
she didn't speak much English. It would have you none of us had ever gotten involved in politics. I was the first one, first person of color in the entire San Fernando Valley history to go to Sacramento and get elected like that. And I could see it in her eyes when she's looking down at us, looking down at me, she's wow, this is big, right. She didn't know exactly what it was, but this is big, and so the thing is it's again imposter syndrome was part of me
that day. Right here, I am going like, whoa, Well, it's literally gold leaved room. Yeah, and they're getting sworn in and and but it's gotten littler and littler and littler, but it's still there.
So take me back. So you're eating peebee and jays at home with your siblings, and your siblings and your family obviously recognize you have Oh I'll make a own mess of this. No one judged me place. Your siblings have caught on that you have a little bit of a temper, but they're taming it. What's going on, Like, when do you start getting inching closer to becoming an elected official?
Oh? That didn't happen until way, way later in life. I went off to college, was working at it for a company in Santa Barbara, wasn't feeling it. Came back home to live at home with my parents and.
Were getting paid well.
At that I was getting paid well. I had a company car, I had an expense account. I had what you call flex hours. That means if I wanted to sit on the beach and get my work done. They didn't bother me about that.
And this was before COVID, so you were definitely living a good life way back in.
This is the nineteen eighties, So I'm living a good life. It's about as a cush job as I could get. When you graduated back in the eighties, you wanted to work for one or two companies, one of two IBM or Heallip Packard. And I got to work for Healet Packard.
Wow.
So I was like I was, I was cush job, one of the best jobs.
For an engineer, and you give it up.
I gave it up because I wasn't feeling it. I literally sat there one day at my desk, totally comfortable getting my work done, and I thought, I can grow old here. I'm going to be doing the same thing for the next thirty forty years. No, and I can't tell you what what else went through my mind other than I got up out of my chair. I talked to my manager Bob, and I said, I'm giving my two weeks notice and he said, Tony, is everything okay? Is there anything I can do? And I said, it's perfect,
that's the problem. And he looked at me like I was nuts. He's like, I said, that's the problem about.
And then when you go home to tell your parents, I'm just curious what their immediate reaction.
Well, my mom's immediate reaction was, Mimi, ho's home, right, nothing, my mom.
Let's cook. Yeah, when you're the baby, right.
Whenever you walk into the house, mom always says, you look hungry. I don't know how they can tell you look hungry anyway, So my mom, I give her a big hug. I got my duffel bag and all that stuff in the car, and she goes me, oh, you're you're you're here, you know? I said, yeah, yeah, you know. I'm not working in Santa Barbara anymore. And the first thing she says is in Spanish. She says, oh, so you got a job in La And I said, no,
I don't have a job. And then she looks at me like or Mexican we always want work, one, two, three jobs. What do you mean you don't have a job, I said, Mom, I got money in the bank. I'm fine. I'm going to figure something out. I said, but I don't. I don't think I'm going to be doing engineering anymore. And again she's looking at me like, you got a degree, Edison Keneto, You're you're an engineer, like, and I'm like, mom,
everything's fine, and because then she's looking like something happened right. No, everything's fine, mom. I'm going to find a job that I like. So she's like okay, but oh, my dad, my dad just looked at me like, boll you better get busy other otherwise I'm gonna put you to work with My father. With my father, he he didn't like. He didn't like his kids be lying around like we we not that we had video games back then to speak of. But no, we couldn't sit around and play
video games all day. Oh heck no, It's like we got work to do. Go outside. When I grew up, my father started off as a farm worker in the Central Valley and then they had I think four kids there and then they moved to LA and then were in some other part of LA. They moved to Pacoma when they bought the house in nineteen fifty five. Wow, And I was born in sixty three. So my father when he came to LA became a union construction worker. That was the good times because it was benefits and
good pay. But when I was growing up, being the youngest, I used to go to work with my dad when he went from being a construction worker to being a self and played gardener, hit his little route. You know what I'm saying. He would go from one house to another, doing the yard, picking up his little checks at the end of the month, and feeding the family. So I knew my father is a gardener. So there was always something to do. But cut down somebody's tree. Oh yeah,
Oh no, it was work. I hated it. I hated that work. But as I got older, I appreciated the work ethic. I appreciated the mindset of don't just sit around, get something done. And so as a congressman, that serves me very well.
Okay, so life was grooming you to the position that you got. So you're in the house. How long were you down for?
I got to tell the story this way because I think everything happens for a reason. My brother doesn't play golf. His friend, Michael Green doesn't play golf. And one day, shortly after I got here, my brother says, hey, let's go play golf with Michael Green. Like I picked up a club once in a while, I never I didn't
play golf, like you know, let's go. So we went to some local golf course and we're playing golf three people who never play golf, and Michael Green strikes up a conversation with Michael Green went to high school with my brother. My brother's five years older than me. He says, what are you doing? You know I'm back home. Told him what I just told you, and he goes, what are you gonna do? I said, I'm not I'm not sure yet. I'll figure something out. He goes, well, i'm
selling life insurance with a company. You should try that. I think you'd be good at it. And I'm like, my sales okay, I'll try it. So went over there with him. He introduced me to one of the managers and she goes, yeah, you're hired. Let's do this. So I sold life insurance for about a year. But I did so well that I bought a house.
In our Yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't even think like an engineer would be I hate to sound like that, but you wouldn't think an engineer would be really good.
I'm not insulted. I'm not insulted because a lot of engineers they say, you got IQ but you ain't got EQ right, But I get it. And that's one of the honestly, that's one of the reasons why I left engineering, because we're talking about nerds who are no longer fifteen years old. They're twenty five, thirty five, forty fifty years old, and they're telling nerd jokes and everybody's laughing. I'm like, this ain't me right, And so that was one of
the reasons why I left engineering. It's just a little bit too rigid, you know, not well.
And then you grow up with a large family, so your EQ is probably it would almost have to be higher because you have all these different personality the streets.
You know, I grew up on the schools I went to. You know, it was a very very minority community, very blue collar. You had to have street sense if you were going to make it through Pacoima. And so yeah, you know, luckily I got some EQ along the way. And so I'm selling life insurance and I make enough money to buy a house. I'm buying a house, and I'm watching the two realtors and again, everything happens for
a reason. When does somebody buy a house where the listing agent she's never sold a home before and this is her first one. And the buyer's agent, my agent, had never sold the home before, and he was doing my job and they were fumbling and bumbling their way through, and I was like, these people don't even know what they're doing. But the deal got closed, so I thought it can't be too hard and its sales. So I got my real estate license. Oh wow, fell in love with it.
I would have never seen that plot twist coming.
No, I just fell in love with it. Said, oh, this is easy, I can do this. And then I started working for another company, really good company to work for, and then ended up in the top three salespeople there, so I was good at it. And then so again, bought another house, etc. Met my wife, Norma, you know, got married a few years later. So that was my track. I thought I was going to be a real estate broker for the rest of my life.
And how old are you at the time we're going to are we going to take a bite?
Yeah, listen your show, so you tell me I can eat?
Then all these this is lemon marmalae. It's good, it's very lemony.
Mm hmm.
That's that's real official.
Oh yeah, I told you if you like lemon.
And I slathered that, so okay, now I get the difference between lemon and orange.
Yeah, exactly. I told you it's lemon.
He warned me. You were like, hey, just so you know, it's lemon. Okay, this is official.
If you like lemon meringue, it's for you.
I like lemon meringue, but I don't think I could quite prepare myself for that lemon.
Exactly.
It's really good though. Shout outs to your daughter.
Yeah, thank you, she's a she's a pastry chef. And and oh is she Yeah, my wife Norma, she's she right brain, left brain stuff. My three youngest are very are artists, incredibly talented artists. They get that from my wife, Norma and our oldest Vanessa. She started her own business, very very organized and stuff like that. So we have one that's very organized, very business oriented, and the other three they just want to create, create, create, And this
is been. This is Alina's uh, this is her outlet, this is this is her art. She loves to be in the kitchen.
Well, she's good at it. I'm going to finish this whole sandwich. It's really good. I think just the first bite. You know, if you're eating grape jelly all your life, first fight, will you? But I could honestly see me eating all marmalade. Mamar. That's really good. Really all right? Sorry, go on, huge story.
So we were talking about, you know, uh, the transition going from engineering, how did I end up in politics? So I thought I was gonna be a real estate broker all my life, ended up leaving that company, starting my own company with a couple of buddies of mine. And we're now now off to the races, making more money. You're selling real estate, selling real estate right here in the northest valley in the hood where we all grew up. And so things were good, and then all of a sudden,
the Chicano activists who had met me. I was on a not for profit board with his wife, Leticia, and James say hey to He calls me one day, hey Tony, let's talk. Yeah. Sure, sat down with him, and then he says, you need to run for the State Assembly. The first words out of my mouth were people like me don't run for office. What I meant is people like me, like like I didn't have those role models
coming up. It was all white people represented us in Congress and at the highest levels, to the city council everything.
And how old were you at the time.
I was in my early thirties. My wife, Norman and I she was pregnant with Andres, our third child, and later on we had Alena. We have four, We raised four children. And so I was like, dude, no, not me, I'm not a politician. And then so he kept bugging me for about six months, and then one day he told me, he goes you don't give a fuck about your community, and he lit me up. I got pissed and I lit him up up and I told him, you know what, you that's bullshit, I said, I care.
I put a I opened up a business two blocks away from my high school on purpose so I can hire kids from my high school to teach them how to work in a in a you know, in an environment where we have to get dressed up and be professional like that. And then I said, you know, every time any one of my old schools or some nearby not for profit wants a little bit help, I help. I find a way to help. And I was just ratling off.
Things and you were, and that he knew you from sitting on a board too, yes, which I think is also interesting because why why what board were you sitting on and what it was.
It was called Escuela de la Hinte and it was a little not for profit board. It was a preschool in Paquoima, and you know it was struggling. You know, like in the hood they do beautiful work, but they don't have the contacts to get the big money. So you know, they were struggling. And I was on the board and we were all doing our part to make sure that they kept going. And uh so I just let him up and I just started rattling off all
the things I do from my neighborhood. And then when I was done, he goes, that's why you need to run. I'm like, damn. He got exactly, exactly exactly shut he put James, He pushed my bad out, he pushed baths and uh and that's how I got involved in politics.
I you know, after six months of him bugging me, I went home to my wife, Norma, she grew up in Pacoma two and I told her, hey, James said, we've never had somebody from the neighborhood represent us, blah blah, blah, and then she goes, yeah, if you want to go ahead, and we didn't know any better and then I literally told my wife if I get elected, I'm going to do it for two years.
Twenty eight years later. So how much of being a politician, Like how much impact did it have on your family? Like what were the pros and the cons in that move? Well, and especially for Norma too, well the.
Pro yeah, well Norma became basically a single mom with that decision. Because my job, my first job as an elected official, I used to fly back and forth to Sacramento, leave Monday morning, come back Thursday afternoon. And then when you're still when you're in the district, you got district events to go. Do they want you to go to this dinner or go to this ribbon cutting and all that stuff. So it's really like a seventy hour week job.
But before we back up one step, when you're running for that position, is it hard? Like what is that?
Like?
Yeah, it's hard, Like you still have to have a day job and do this at night. Like can you explain that I.
Had my real estate company which afforded me the flexibility to go do this interview or what have you or go. You know, just I didn't work for somebody else and work for myself. So it gave me that flexibility. And hats off to Al Sabedra, my business partner at the time. He said, Tony, you go do this. I'll take care of the business. And I'm like, no, that's not cool, dude. You know, I can't be getting the income when you're
doing all the work. He looked at me. He says, he's from the neighborhood too, he says, Tony, he says, we need to get you elected. He said, don't worry about this. I got this, and he did. And so the business kept going and I spend more and more
time doing the campaign full time. But this is the thing, the reason why we were able to finally break that barrier, which was my purpose to be the first person of color in the entire San Fernando history, to San Fernando Valley history, to go to high office in this case the State Assembly, was because we needed somebody who looked like the people we represent. It was eighty percent minority.
It was seventy percent Latino, about eight ten percent African American, you know, another three percent Asian, mostly Filipinos, etc. But we'd never had a person of color.
Yeah.
So, and I grew up there, and so I hired somebody who grew up there as well. He grew up two blocks away from me. He was ten years younger than me, went to MIT to get his engineering degree, graduated from San Fernando High School like I did, ten years after me. But we serendipitously met right around the time that James was bugging me about running for office, and then when I decided to run, I had told Dlex, Hey, remember I told you if I run for office, will
you run my campaign? He said yeah, and I said, well, I'm going to run, will you run my camp? Pain? His exact words were, this is typical Alex Bidia because I said I would, didn't I and Boom so well after the races.
I love how everybody talks to each other.
Yeah, we we.
You were like real minorities, like I love it. I love it, says a real people are.
And the thing is sometimes we went into a media and people couldn't hold back the laughter. They're like, Okay, wait a minute, You've never run for in your life. I'm like, yeah, and you've never run a campaign? In your life. This is Alex Badia and he's like, yeah, and we're going to win. And they're like they would laugh in our face, not to be punks. They just couldn't hold it back. They're like this, this is ridiculous. Yeah, but we won. It was several people on the ballot.
It was a it can ended up being a three person race. Alex ran a campaign where I won, and the second and third place person their combined vote was still less than what we got.
Wow.
And the Alla Times had wrote an article a few weeks before the election was over that I was going to come in third place, but our secret weapon was this. I was the only candidate who spoke Spanish, and I was the only candidate from the neighborhood. And I was the only candidate who had four hundred volunteers and half of them couldn't speak English, but they were from the neighborhood. Wow. So we won.
Wow. And what was your takeaway that day? Can you take me back to that moment?
Oh? Oh, that moment was I remember standing there next to Norma when this guy named Leo Brionis did the the other part of my campaign. He would print the mail right and he came up to me. They were looking at the computers, and he goes, you're trending, you're gonna win, and he grabbed He was a full back in college, like a big football player, and he grabbed me and he gave me a hug. Literally, he's like six foot two or something. He gave me a hug, and then my feet came up off the ground and
he was squeezing me so hard. I got leo. I can't breathe. So he finally let me set me down. And then that's when it set in. And I'm looking at Alex and I'm looking at James and everybody, and they're all going like it's it. It's over. I mean, it was an official, official whatever. It was like, it's done. And then I remember Norma sitting standing next to me and she gave me a hug. It was surreal. It was kind of like unbelievable, but it was beautiful because
we put our heart and soul into it. We spoke to voters who everybody stopped talking to them. We went to people's house they were talking.
To them at all. Because I think about it, they weren't even speaking Spanish exactly.
Well, even if they showed up speaking English. They never even knocked on their door, They never even sent them a piece of mail. We literally went and talked to every single human being who was registered to vote in that district. We made an attempt and or we talked to them, We sent them information, We told them we we do care about what your needs are, right, and and so we won, and we raised one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Jim Valerie. The other two candidates they
raised and spent three hundred and fifty thousand each. So between seven hundred thousand dollars and our one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, we bested their combined vote.
How did you not in those moments get intimidated saying, like to yourself, like do you really think we could do this?
Like?
Were there ever moments where you were like, I mean I'm going up against yeah, I mean you're talking about double trip way more budget.
I I My purpose was once I once I talked to Norma and she said, yeah, go ahead. I knew that from what my father and mother had taught us. If you say you're gonna do something, you do it. If you're gonna if you're gonna do something, you give it your best, and also, don't you ever quit. So as soon as I called James and said I'm in what do I do next? I knew that I was going to put my heart and soul into it, everything I had into it. Alex Badia was the same way.
He grew up the same way like me. His parents are grants Famaico, just like mine, and so we just put our heart and soul into the work. But the thing is that moment, my sister Nanni was my for free because we couldn't afford to pay somebody to collect the checks and stuff like that. For free. She was my treasurer. But Victor said, Vantez was a certified public accountant for my business because I owned a business at the time, and I had told Victor one day I'm
going to run prophet. Say hey, have you ever done the books for a campaign? He goes, yeah, I did one once. And I go, well, how much he charged? And he goes, well, normally I charge, you know, like one hundred and fifty bucks an hour or something like that. I'm like, I can't afford you, because I don't worry about it. I'll charge you a few hundred bucks a month and I'll do this for you. So luckily, you know,
he did it at a cut rate. But Nanni would pick up the checks, and she picked up the checks one day and she ended up talking to Victor and she stumbled on a story that Victor told her and then she calls me crying. But right before she called me, I believe everything happens for a reason. You never leave the candidate by themselves. You pick them up at their house or you meet them at the campaign and then you're in the car with somebody the whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, No.
You don't want the candidates to be ambushed by somebody, you know, you don't want them to be, you know, end up by themselves or somebody's like, oh I don't like you. Whatever. You always just got to make sure that they're you know, they're they're protected. But for some reason, that day, I ended up by myself and I walked into the campaign and I looked around. There's nobody there. It was very late at night. And then I look
over on Alex Badia's desk. He was my campaign manager, and there's the La Times article that he told me not to read because the La Times wrote an article saying that I was going to come in third place, that I didn't stand a chance.
And Alex told you not to read it.
He told me, don't read it. There's an article. He didn't tell me about it. He said, there was an article came out in Ala Times. Don't worry about it. It's dumb. We're going to win, you know, just nor Let's keep moving forward. But if Alex would have been with me, he would have said, he would have grabbed the newspaper, said you ain't reading this. You know what
I'm saying. But I was by myself. So I go over to his desk and I read the article and it's front page and another page and another page, big old, long article talking about all the logical reasons why I don't stand a chance. Jim or Valley are gonna win. Tony Gottanasis doesn't stand a chance. And then all of a sudden, I started feeling like, what the hell was I thinking? Because it had never been done before. So the phone rings and I answered my sister Nanny, and
she's crying. She goes, Tony, I got to tell you something. I gotta tell you something, said and I was already. I just read the article and I said, now, you don't worry about it, tell me tomorrow. She goes, no, I got to tell you right now. So she comes over to the office and she's crying and she says, Victor, my accountant, Victor just told me a story about our dad. I'm like what, And I'm thinking to myself, why is
she crying? What's this all about? And then she goes, Victor told me that he just was telling his dad that he was doing the campaign stuff for a guy named Tony God than Us, and that, by the way, he knows my family because he went to school with my brother Jose and he he had gone to my
father's funeral in nineteen ninety three. This is nineteen ninety six now, and that for some weird reason, he told his father that I'm the son of a man named Dreskadanas and he had gone to my dad's funeral Underscota Nas a few years earlier. And his dad looked at him and said, son, if that was the under Scottadanas, I knew I would have liked to go to his funeral.
He said, why, Dad, He says, before you were born, I was working in the fields in Central Valley in California and Stockton, and my job was to burn down the field. I had a torch and I had a water pump connected to the levee, and I would burn it and control it, burn it and control it. And then the levee stopped pushing out water and the fire got out of control, and I was sitting there screaming for help and Spanish, so go so goro right, help,
And he was screaming for help. And then he said to his son that he lay down and he was saying his last prayer because he thought it was going to die. And a man driving a tractor came through the fire, grabbed him and pulled him out. Wow. And I started crying because as a little boy, my dad someday, for some reason only God knows why, he told me a story about how he became the tractor driver on a ranch in Stockton, way before I was born. And he said that there was a guy who didn't speak Spanish,
only spoke English. He gathered all the workers in the field and he pointed to the tractor and he said, whatever he said, he's pointing the tractor. He's pointing in the field and nobody could understand what he's saying. And my dad said he looked around and he's like, I think this guy wants somebody to drive that tractor and plow that field. And then so my dad looked around. He raised his hand and the man says, you come here, everybody,
get back to work. My dad didn't understand him. It's just just got there from Mexico, right, And so my dad goes over to him. And then my dad's listening to him, and the guy's gesturing, and my Dad's like, okay, he wants me to till this field. My dad had never driven in a tractor in his life. Remember this is like nineteen forty eight, nineteen forty nine, you know what I'm saying. This is like cars weren't a big
thing and tractors were kind of new. Yeah, And so my dad looks at him and he's I remember my dad telling me. I waited for the man to get out of sight, and then I started figuring out how to drive the tractor. And then once I figured it out, they had me driving the tractor. So I knew that was my dad who saved him. Yeah, But my father never told any one of his children that story.
Wow.
So the next day I go to my mom. She's still alive. I go to my mom's house and she was sewing like she always does. She used to make beautiful wedding dresses and stuff and working from home. And then I said, I gave her a kiss, and I said, Mom, did my dad save somebody's life when driving a tractor back in the day without blinking? And I she keeps so and she goes yeah. And then finally I stopped her and I go, Mom, wait a minute, how come he never told us? And She's like, because he was
just doing what he was supposed to do. From that day forward, I had a new commitment in my campaign. For the first time, I said to myself, this is my neighborhood, this is my country, and I have a right to run, and I'm in a run.
I was gonna add one of the questions I wanted to ask you, but I think you kind of answered it here, was after the election, did you feel like, oh my gosh, what have I gotten myself? Insert? Because everyone, even with the firm commitment in hand, you still sees.
Because I didn't study government growing up. I was an engineer. I was all about numbers and stuff like that, and calculations and all that, and I'm like, I'm going to go up there and make laws. I knew that that's what they did, but I never aspired to do it. I never studied it.
Wow, So now that you are in this position, what's coming at you? What did you not foresee coming at you?
Well, what I didn't foresee is that I would get some mentors, and thank god I did. I ended up serendipitously rooming with the first day that I got there. On swearing in day, we pick our speaker, and Cruz Bustamante became the first Latino speaker in over one hundred and some years in the legislature in California. And a good friend of his and somebody who supported me for running for office, was a guy named State Senator Richard Bolonko.
And I didn't have a place to say. He said, oh, you can sleep on our couch, right, So I slept on their couch for a few weeks, and then every night they would come home and they would say, you know, they would talk to each other because they're both seasoned veterans and politics and stuff, and they would ask me questions. It would kind of make fun of me, really but teach me at the same time. Right, they say, hey, Tony, you know what happened in committee? They I said, oh,
I don't know. We voted on this. Why do you think the vote went down the way it did? And then they go, I'm like, I don't know what you're asking you? What are you getting at? So they taught me every night, every night, every night, something that a craft that I wasn't I wasn't aware of, I wasn't prepared that well for. But they brought me up to speed very quickly. They you know, taught me the through like the School of hard Knocks, just like how to
read between the lines. And again there goes that EQ right, read between the lines, Read between the lines, Listen to what that person said when that person said this, that's why they said that They're district is like this. So this their district has that kind of industry in it. That's why they're you know, that's why they're they're questioning like that. So they brought me up to speed. So that was that was the best most surprising thing about it.
I had two amazing mentors who also believed in something that I immediately gravitated to I wanted to elect as many Latinos as humanly possible to the legislature, to any office. Is if I found a good Latinoo was running for office or Latina, I was like, how can I help you? And I've been doing that ever since for the last twenty and.
Now there's like, we just had an event with you and there was so many Latino.
Yeah. I was the first from San Fernando High School. Now we have We've had at least like seven go to the La City Council, to the state legislature. I became the first Latino to go to Washington and be a Congress member of Congress, and then Alex followed me later on and he's now the first United States Senator Latino to represent California and Congress. So I realized immediately that once I got elected, my purpose was to be
the first. And I realized I said, no, no, my job is to make sure I'm not the last.
Yeah. Now, just I'm gonna play just curious from an ignorant standpoint, imagine that I really don't. I don't. My dad's definitely plays a lot in the political circuit. But I tried to stay away, and from an ignorant standpoint, it's more like I'm down here. Can they really hear me? What advice would you give to someone that's more so like myself that's like, you know, like do I really have to vote? Cause, like I mean, I got all these problems down here.
Well, you just stumbled on the reason why I told my wife I'll only do it for a couple of years, and now I've been doing it for twenty eight years. One of my main motivations and the reason why I kept running for office and helping other people run for office, is to make sure that there are more and more people who look like people who don't think that government is there for you, Like have you ever thought, well, I'll just call my congressman, or I'll call my.
Mayor never have I ever? But lately they've been releasing a lot more like movies on like Netflix. I think I just saw one with like Shirley. It was called Shirley about this African American lady. But I think since Barack has been in office and some of those things which at the time when Barack Obama was running, I don't want to admit whether I voted or not. But again it goes back to ignorance. You know.
Well, the thing is, I was an occasional voter most of my life until James told me you got to run for office. And when I said I'm gonna run for office, I vote every single time now, and I and I bugged my children to vote every single time. Every time I talk to my brothers and sisters, say whether you like the candidates or not, you got to you gotta vote. You gotta vote, you gotta make your
voice count. But the main reason why I kept running for office is because I think of my parents Limited English. They paid taxes for decades, and they really, in their heart didn't believe that government was here for them, that an actual elected official would actually pick up the phone and say how can I help you? Because the country they came from, you either wealthy and or connected, and the government worked for you, but not for the regular people.
And I detest that. I detest that, and that's one of the reasons why I kept running for office and making sure that I help other good people get elected to office. I've helped people become mayor of Los Angeles. I help people in their gubernatorial campaigns. I've helped people in the United States Senate campaigns all around the country.
I made it my mission when I got to Washington to grow the Hispanic Caucus and the Black Caucus, and the LGBTQ Caucus, and the Asian Caucus and the Women's Caucus. And I'm very proud to say now that I'm leaving Congress after me being their twelve years, we have more LGBTQ, more women, more black, more brown, more Asians. It looks more like America than it ever has before. And I put my heart and soul in inspiring my colleagues and the Hispanic Caucus colleagues to say, we are not there yet.
We have more to do, We need to grow, We need to keep coming the country to find good people of color, good people who have backgrounds where they've been disrespected and they can represent people and understand them when they're being disrespected by their government or by their community
or by the system. And that's been a real big part of why I kept running for office, to make sure that when people call an elected officials office, there's a greater chance that that person's going to say Estabian Senora Nusupra Kupe in Spanish or in Korean or whatever language, assuring them that we're here for you.
Why is it that you are leaving, Well, you're not running.
Up for real. Yes, because when somebody runs for office and they have a partner and or a family, there's always that wonder how much longer, how much longer from the family, from your loved ones, because they're the ones who suffer through this awkward, weird life where you're not there that much. You're missing birthdays, you're missing anniversaries, you're missing special days. You're even missing funerals for some of your closest not your children, your wife, right, but like
my cousin's funeral or my thes funeral. I miss some of those things because I was stuck in Sacramento, or I was stuck in Washington, And you have to decide do I leave and not represent the people on these votes because nobody can vote for you. You're there, you vote, you represent. If you're not there, your representation is zero. You didn't participate that day. So they suffer quite a bit.
And in my case, my wife and children have been incredibly respectful of my choosing to be in this crazy career of being an elected official and They never asked me to leave. They never told me I want you to quit now, this is too much for it was.
There was never like a moment where you had like an off day where you're like, man, is.
This Oh No. There are days where I was like I fought for this job and I've got a day like this, But I usually snap out of it as quickly as I can, knowing that there's more work to be done. And that's just the moment that doesn't define the career. And so when I turned sixty last.
Year, Oh you are good.
Thank you. When I turned sixty last year, that was a that was a defining moment for me in my heart. And I told my wife, I think this might be my last term. I think, And she marks my words because if I would have said it is, she would have said, okay, right.
Held accountable. Right, there was the last.
Day I think it might be. And she even though we'd had those conversations how much long, how much longer, she still looked at me like are you for real? Like really? And I go.
She carried a lot of weight too, because she's a single mom. Yeah, I just became a single mom. I have one. She had four yeah.
And God blessed my children because sometimes my children will confide in me and on occasion and say, you know, I didn't think you were there for me, And that hurts that, that hurts hearing that. But I love the fact that they're brave enough to say it, because and then I have an opportunity to say, well, I'm not going to let that happen again. And so when I turned sixty, I thought, well, you know, I've been there for it's going on eleven years, and two years becomes
two more and two more and two more. Could I could look back and say, shoot, now twenty right? And I thought, you know what, I got to get back to taking care of my family because I been giving my heart and soul to taking care of the community. No regrets. I love it. I'm blessed, honored to do that.
In your community really loves you, like really loves you. Yeah, you can feel it. Yeah, yeah, if if I just was a fly on the wall, man, it is very evident that there's a lot of love there.
Yeah.
And my dad he saw you and he was like, do you know, no one ever does this in politics, no one ever, No one ever does this, Like at the top of your game, like look at look at everything he's done, Like no one ever does this. Do you know how how crazy this is? Like no one's ever done it. My dad was just so impressed, Like this never happens. This never happens, That's all he kept saying.
Yeah, I've been blessed that at every office I've held for the last twenty eight years, even among my colleagues. And I'm not bragging, I just say it truthfully. My colleagues have come to me and said, you need to run for leadership within us, like we want, we want you to run so we can elect you to the leadership position, even within our own caucus, within our own you know, elected officials, because you've got something, we need you to step it up and take it to the
next level for the group, for all of us. And so I've been very blessed with that. And there's another thing, talk about imposter syndrome. I was elected three times to the state Assembly, elected three times to the Ali City Council. I get to Washington after sixteen years of that, I'm in my first term and I'm sitting in my office and for the first time in my life, and I said to myself in my mind, and then I forced myself to say it out loud. I am a leader.
It breaks my heart to admit that. Because there I am, the community believed me to be a leader, and they elected me over and over and over again amongst my colleagues, amongst elected leaders. They pushed me and elected me to different leadership positions. Everywhere I went. I was a leader and a leader among leaders. But I never ever internalized in my heart and said to myself that I'm a leader.
And the reason why I share that with you is because I want young people when they see this, or even people who are older and still haven't reckoned with their demons and the garbage that they're fed. You're not good enough because of where you grew up, or because you have an accent, or because your parents don't speak English, or the neighborhood or what have you. I want people to understand that that garbage stays with you. As much as you try to clean it out, clean it out,
it stays with you somehow, somewhat syndrome monster. That's exactly what Imposter's syndrome is about. So much so that the community had elected me over and over and over without question that I am quote, I can you can actually say that I'm a leader? Am I the best leader? No, that's not the point. Am I a leader or not? Yes, But for the first time in my life, I said
to myself, I am a leader. And then when I said it to myself and it echoed in my mind, I actually I was sitting in my office by myself in Washington to see that beautiful, beautiful place, and I said to myself, I am a leader. I am a leader. And I broke down crying because I knew that I was releasing garbage up paid there was pushed out to be was that was just people, whether they were well meaning or just ignorant or mean, you shouldn't do that.
It was like it was like an invisible weight that was constantly with resolutely.
And the thing is all we can do, or the best thing that we can do is just try to clean that out as much as we can. But those residi there's always some residuals there. It's like if you get a piece of charcoal and it drops on this this white cloth, no matter how much you clean it, you're gonna still see a little bit of that. So
but the thing is, But that's fine. But people people need to realize that they need to love themselves, respect themselves, and realize that there are a lot of ugly people out there who don't love you, who don't respect you. I mentioned earlier that there were some good teachers. Missus Telefair she loved me. She was just a first year teacher, and I could tell that she cared about me. She goes, you know what, Tony, you're good in math. We need to test you as gifted. You know, on the rich
side of town, every kid gets tested for gifted. But on the poor side of town, people don't know this.
Wow.
The only way a child gets tested for gifted is that somebody has to ask that that child be tested, whether to see if they're gifted or not to take the gifted aptitude test. And at my set of town, my parents would have never done that, right, so she did. And then the fact that I tested that I was gifted in math gave me that extra confidence at least in math, I'm good at this. You get what I'm saying.
And then look how much it played a role absolutely when you go into when you go from not knowing the difference between the poor and the rich or the minorities and the whites, Like when you find out the difference in how these two lifestyles are handled, like you know, finding out that every rich kid gets tested for gifted and in the minorities.
It's once and other happens. Since, how does.
That make you feel? And what about that did you personally like end up like changing? Because I know you did a lot of great things when it came to youth, those youth, but like, oh, there's how much time do we have just a snapshot?
Yeah, when I got the Sacramento immeditatey, I started to say we need to clean up our act and making sure that kids in the poor neighborhoods don't get the hand me down books and they can actually get books that are that are of the day. And so I changed. I was the first legislator to change the lottery in California to require that some of that money go to books and classroom materials because I know, when there's not enough money, the poor communities, the poor schools, they don't get anything.
And how much did that break your heart to see that? Like, because you got to think, like all of our kids they come with these blank canvases. It shouldn't be the impact of your parents' economic either downfall on the way they get treated or the the color of their skin. I mean, I feel like now we're like everyone's kind of a blending pool.
But obviously yeah, but but you know, racism still exists, Classism still exists. Assumptions about people what neighborhood they grew up still exists. And those are the things that I try to make sure that I make a difference on to make sure that we have more equity, that it's more fair when it comes to healthcare, It's one of the things I do the most in Washington making sure that we have There's a new term called disparities of health.
That's code for, hey, if you're poor, white, black, or brown, you're probably not going to get treated the same way by the doctors or the hospitals. Then if you're rich and you're or you're wealthy, you're going to get treated better. And that the outcomes are could be death for somebody. Right, somebody comes in, Oh, my stomach's killing me. They don't do a cat scan, they don't do an X ray, and they just send them home with a couple of pills. And the next day they're dead. But they wouldn't do
that to a rich person because they're afraid to get sued. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. And so these are the kinds of things that I've actually advanced policy to make sure that we put into law that people can't do that, and also put more money into the programs that poor people need to make sure that there is truly more access where they can actually have better machines on their side of town, etc. So these are some of the
things that I've been doing. The thing that I've done the most though, is on juvenile justice.
That was about to be my next but let's talk about that.
Well. When I got to Sacramento after getting elected, I was sitting there again by myself in my office one day early on my first year. I was there and I said, okay, hot shot, you said if you would like me, brown guy like me. The first one things are I'm going to be different. I'm not going to be like all the rest. And then I thought to myself, Okay,
what's that look like. Yeah, speaking Spanish, that's one of them, right, And then I started thinking about all my buddies that I grew up in my little neighborhood, and I was the only one to graduate and go off to college out of all my little buddies. I wasn't the smartest, I wasn't the best looking, I wasn't the most talented. But I was lucky because in my case, I had a two parent household. In my case, my parents are strict. In my case, had an older brothers and sisters who
already went to college. So I followed a path, right. The path was easier for me, but my friends, I started thinking about, well, why is so and so. Why does he always work out with me in his backyard but we never go inside his house? And I started thinking about and realizing that image. Oh my god, his dad's an alcoholic and he's mean, so he would stay away from his dad, you know what I'm saying. And then you know, he didn't go off to college. He's
smarter than me. And then my other friend down the street from him, he didn't go out to college. He didn't have any role models. And then I started thinking about, Damn, that's the majority of the people in my community. So what's what is one of the things that I can do as a state legislator that can actually help break
that cycle. And I realized, you know what juvenile justice because the neighborhoods like mine down near every kid walking the streets the cops, not every cop, most of the cops thinking, oh, there goes another another kid from the hood, probably up to no good, and little by little, they just get sucked into the system.
Yeah, and they even regard to get Yeah, especially when they start really young.
Yes, exactly.
Like I had friends that went to school when they were real young, not school, prison when they were young, say fourteen fifteen, and they ended up spending their whole lives in prison. They would get out and they kind of go right back to the cycle. Yeah, it just became that was their new norm.
It's basically the pipeline to prison.
Yeah.
You know, but we should have a school pipeline. We should have an education pipeline. So that's what I started working on in nineteen ninety six. It was not popular to do that, but I pushed through that and I got the most comprehensive funding bill in the history of the United States done in California for the state of California, one hundred and twenty one million dollars, the most we had ever done before was ten or fifteen million dollars a year. Gosh, this is a state of at that time,
like eight million people, lots of young people. And then I got it up one hundred and twenty one million dollars in one move, in one bill. It didn't take me one two, three four years. I got it done. I wrote it with good people, and I put it in the right place, and I pushed it through Governor Gray Davis actually vetoed it the first time. I got it to his desk.
Wow.
And then I went ahead and through the help of Johnny Burton, we went ahead and let the governor know that you know, he's gonna get sued if he doesn't figure out how to sign that bill. The next time we send it to him, and we did and he signed it.
You're like, I'm going to get it done. Yeah, I'm going to get it done.
No, because the thing is, it didn't matter that he was a democratic governor. It didn't matter that that you know what he wanted. I knew what needed to be done. It wasn't even about what I wanted. I knew what needed to be done, and it had never been done before in California and California was supposedly a progressive state.
Yeah, but that's a huge feat that was like, that's a huge, huge accomplishment. So now I guess it's not to close out. Is there anything you would like to tell our listeners that that they wouldn't otherwise know about you? Or politics? Or politics? I feel like your secret to success. I feel like a part of the golden nugget that I'm taking away from you is somehow you've mastered a way to come bat imposter syndrome. I definitely feel like you.
I at that there was a pivotal moment where you identified your purpose and you stuck to that, and I like that your aggression side, I feel like it's a relatable, but I liked how you were able to channel it to do great things. You know.
Yeah, when I was a little boys to ballop my fist when I got mad. Now as an adult, now, as an elected official, I don't balloup my fist. I go back to my office and I might cuss her or what have you, because it pisses me off that that person doesn't get it. But I immediately get together with my team and say, we're going to solve this problem.
We're going to get it done, and then I turn that energy into positive energy and making sure that we're constantly thinking about how can we positively change this because getting mad in gonna do it. Just being mad isn't going to do it. How do we put that into action. But one of the things I'd like to let people know is that please don't assume that all elected officials don't care about you. Get well, some don't, some don't.
We got some, especially Republicans that I work with, who run for president every four years, and trust me, I wouldn't invite them over for dinner. I don't have time for them because they're just not good people. But there are a lot of good ones on both sides of the Republicans and Democrats. So please don't assume that you
shouldn't call them that they don't care. Find out if they do, challenge them to show that they care about you, constituent, and whatever language you speak, and make sure that you participate in democracy. One of the reasons why poorer communities get disrespected by too many politicians is because, for example, congressional seats in California are all about one hundred just
over seven hundred thousand people human beings each. But if you look at a seat on the west side of town, they might have of the seven hundred thousand people, they might have about three hundred thousand registered voters. And like in my district, I might have like two hundred thousand registered voters. But wait a minute, we got the same
number of people. Yeah, right, But in my district, I might have maybe three hundred and twenty thousand eligible American citizens over the age of eighteen who could register to vote. And then another district I just described, they have about three hundred and twenty eligible adults who can vote, but three hundred thousand registered to vote, and my side of town one hundred and twenty thousand don't bother to register. And then we take it down and chop it down
even further. On my side of town, when election time comes around, of the two hundred thousand who are registered to vote, only one hundred thousand decide to vote. But on the other side of town, we're three hundred thousand registered to vote, two hundred and fifty thousand turn not
to vote. All of a sudden, the governors and the mayors and all that stuff, they're going like man there's a lot more people paying attention to who they're voting for on that side of town, and the ain't that many people are paying attention to who their mayor is, or who their governor is on that side of town, or president of the United States. And so sometimes they're like, well, I'm going to spend my time paying attention to people. I'm gonna paying attention to people.
Over there, so we that's why we have to vote.
That's why we have to vote. If you want respect, you don't have to yell, you don't have to go around screaming or anything like that. The loudest thing you could do for elected officials and people who want to be your representative is vote. That's the best way to get their attention. And you don't even have to speak English to vote. As long as your United States citizen, they'll even let you vote in another language.
Wow, I will say this, just being completely transparent some of the reasons why I know I've been hesitant to vote in the past. Oh God, just going to buy me in. But is sometimes I feel, especially come from marketing advertising background, I'm always like, what if I vote for somebody, and you know, I'm like, I like this one agenda that they have, but they may have another agenda that I don't like, and I make the decision
based off this one thing that I like. I vote, but I mess it up for everyone because I wasn't reading the fine print. Is that, Like, how do.
You that that is a recipe? If you think like that, that's a recipe for more often than not not voting than voting. Yeah, let me put it this way. My wife and I next week will be married thirty two years, and I can guarantee you she doesn't like everything about me, but that commitment has lasted thirty two years. I mean, I love everything about her. What's there not to love about? Norma? But I'm not perfect, But yet there's a commitment to
that relationship. If you care about your community, the best way that you can show your love and care for the community is a lot of things, but one of the things is is don't worry about being the perfect voter. Be more concerned with letting people believe that that community doesn't care enough, And therefore you're encouraging selfish elected officials
or candidates to not care about your community either. So the best thing you can do is participate is participate, don't worry about being perfect.
I mean, I mean, it makes a lot of sense when you paint the whole.
Who on this planet after the age of thirty or forty or fifty has only ever ever dated one person in their life because they were waiting for that perfect, perfect person.
It doesn't exist, doesn't exist, right, So the thing.
Is, why are you going to put that standard on you participating on voting for people to represent your community. How many roads get fixed in your community depends on elected officials. Whether or not they help out that hospital or put one in your community depends far too often unelected.
That's why when you go over to Beverly Hills, I hate to say this, but like you never see like a liquor store or like a McDonald's over there, because they're always voting and participating, and then you come to our neighborhoods and we're not really participating. I did not know that that alone, not participating had such a.
Huge impact down to how many liquor stores you have in your community. Your darn right.
I know there's a school also in Panorama City where the liquor store. I think the principles were going up against the liquor store because they were selling alcohol too close to the school and the kids were walking in with it. But okay, okay, I am definitely encouraging. I hope everyone else out there is encouraged to participate and be the voice of your community and the voice of who you are as an individual in your family. That matters.
It does.
That's one thing I definitely learned. I'm so glad that you came down here. I was super, super, super nervous. I was like, man, he has no idea what he's walking into. I pray for him. I hope it's not too uncomfortable. But I'm thankful that you were really passionate about this interview and really brought it home. So I appreciate it.
Thanks for inviting me, and I learned a lot today and I really appreciate you.
You learned oh yeah, oh yeah, like this is how that silent voter thinks. Okay, thank you guy for tuning in to another episode of Eating while Broke. You can keep up with Congressmantoni hardness. I'm pretty sure at Rep. Cardness on every social media and everything.
Okay, peace out, guys.
Secret ingredient After my conversation with Congressmantoni Cardness. One thing's for sure. This man is seasoned through and through with an adamant portion of his secret ingredient purpose.
See most politicians, they get all wrapped up in the white bread of the political game, the backroom deals, the partisan gridlock, the ego trips. But not Tony Cardness.
This man didn't just stumble into politics by accident.
Nah. He saw the injustice, the disrespect his people were facing, and he said enough is enough.
That fire in his heart, that unshakable drive to lift up his community, that's the purpose that powers his.
Every move, and you better believe it's opened some major doors for him. When others are content to pump fake and flex on empty rhetoric, Cardiness is out there moving mountains. He's passing landmark legislation, mentoring the next generation of leaders, and making damn sure everyone, no matter there's zip code, economic background, or skin color, gets a seat at the table. So take notes, fam when purpose is your secret ingredient,
ain't no obstacle too big, no opponent too tough. You just put your head down, channel that energy and get to work reshape in the system itself.
That's the card in this way, and if you ask me, it's a recipe we.
All need to be following.
I'm calling wet and you just got a taste of eating wild broke, So stay hungry, y'all.
Peace out
For more Eating while Broke from iHeartRadio and The Black Effect, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.