Matt Peiken: Did you already have aspirations of running or being an elected official when you were appointed?
Caleb Rudow: I've been an organizer really since 2016. And that's what I saw in my place in the party as somebody, you know, a foot soldier, somebody who's out there talking to folks out there, building coalitions out there doing the outreach. And I never thought about, being an elected official, but when Susan Fisher seats opened up and she stepped down, I realized that I'm pretty well suited for this and I'm going to, I understand the democratic party politics as an organizer, as somebody who knows how to run campaigns. And I went to grad school for policy at the university of Texas at Austin. The LBJ school of public affairs and, maybe most importantly, I really care about this community and, I've lived and served and worked around the world, but I came back to North Carolina to work in politics.
I thought that was going to be as an organizer and as somebody who's getting out the vote, but I think if you're really trying to pay attention to the world and what's going on around you and what you can do to help. When Susan Fisher stepped down, I just had to have some reflection and say, this is my time to step up and do something that I've never done before, but we really need somebody good to do.
Matt Peiken: Now were you born in Asheville?
Caleb Rudow: Born in Fairview grew up out there, proud product of Asheville City Public Schools, go Cougars. I went to Isaac Dixon, Asheville Middle and Asheville High. And I grew up here, I felt called to a life of kind of service and work around the world.
So I was, I went to UNC Chapel Hill, then I went to the Peace Corps in Zambia. I was in international development data expert and worked around the world in Honduras and Uganda.
Matt Peiken: Did you think you were going to be coming back to Asheville, let alone even North Carolina, once you were doing that international work, did you already have it in your mind all along you would end up back here?
Caleb Rudow: This is, This is my 2016 election story, I was in grad school at LBJ school of public affairs and everybody was in the lobby and we're like, we're going to make herstory, it was that whole scene and everybody felt like this was a slam dunk and admittedly I didn't do enough work on that election.
I felt like it was fine. I was busy with grad school.
Matt Peiken: What do you mean you didn't do enough work on that election?
Caleb Rudow: I couldn't have made a difference, I couldn't have fixed it. But I think you have that feeling that like when you're done with an election or something important, did you do your part?
And I just, and I didn't. And I feel like a lot of people felt that way, that Trump was on the ballot and they felt like everything is going to be fine. And I think that election for me was a big wake up call that we need to do more work. To make our democracy stronger, to make sure, people's voices are heard to make sure that kind of meanness just doesn't get back into our government.
And I was finishing up my master's and I was gonna continue working internationally, but I pivoted and I, since then I've been spending part of my time as an organizer with swing left with the better or campaign with lots of different campaigns and splitting my time and my more my paying job, which is in data and data research.
Matt Peiken: Yeah, and, you know, you were raised here or in this area, you spent your early life steeped in liberal causes, progressive causes, and I'm wondering, now that you're in office, have Some of the things that were important to you beforehand, have they shifted now that you're in elected office?
By the way, you were appointed you weren't elected initially, and then you were elected.
Caleb Rudow: Exactly right. Appointed, then elected. You know, I think when you're in office, politics is the art of the possible, which I think is really true and important to think about when you're in there.
And I often think, what is mine to do? What is the thing that only I can do in this space? I'm one of two Spanish speakers in the general assembly. What, which is crazy and they're no Latinos in the general assembly.
Matt Peiken: I didn't know that. There's there are only two Spanish speakers?
That's crazy.
Caleb Rudow: Yeah. Yeah. And then I ended up spending a lot of time on Latino issues. It's really sad. And that's true for the general assembly as a whole. It's a much older, it's a much whiter it's a much more male dominated place. And that's really not good for our politics in a bunch of ways.
I mentioned Latino issues because, that's something that I can speak to. I lived in Costa Rica and Honduras, I've done a lot of work in that community and, domestically I ended up spending a fair amount of time on housing because I think that's really an issue that, young people face and affordable housing has been an issue that young people face.
We don't have as many organizers in the General Assembly and I think organizers look at politics from a different direction. So When the abortion ban came through North Carolina, I looked both what can we do in the state house, but what can we do outside?
And so we helped organize protests around the state. We helped build coalitions of folks working on that and worked along with partners who, you know, Planned Parenthood and Pro Choice NC and folks that were doing really excellent work. But I think organizers have a different lens and everybody, when they're in the General Assembly, has to think if you're just trying to do what everyone else is doing, your voice is going to get lost.
But if you really try to focus on, what are the things That you in particular are well suited to, then that's really the question you have to figure out there. We also did a bunch of bipartisan work one of my prouder metrics of things that I've did in the General Assembly was we held you know five Bipartisan happy hours with folks across the aisle with Democrats and Republicans, we did a depolarization discussion. We tried to find ways that you know, my goal is both what can I do in the short term?
But what can I do to try to build a better political system in the long term?
Matt Peiken: You're getting to something I wanted to ask you about, you stepped into a situation where obviously Democrats are in the minority in the house and Almost like it like a super minority in a sense. It's one thing to be an organizer around a specific cause. It's another to have to represent an entire district on a range of issues when you don't hold the strings of power. What advice were you given by people like Julie Mayfield and others who've been around a while? And what route, what lane did you carve for yourself when you don't have power?
Caleb Rudow: It's a, it's such a great question. One, all of this is based on relationships and, if you watch videos of me on the house floor, I'm always stepping across the aisle to talk to folks and ask about them and check in on them and you'd be surprised what you can get done when you build those kinds of relationships and we don't get to do everything that we want. We got through two bills this year. It puts me in one of the top numbers for Democrats in the house because
Matt Peiken: Wait a second, having two bills puts you at the top, right? Yeah. That just tells you how much of a closed door there is. 100%. What were these two bills? And I think we on the outside looking in think there's such polarization. Tell me where there isn't as much polarization and where you've been able to make a difference.
Caleb Rudow: So one is Doc Watson Day, which we're trying to get put on the official calendar, which will be March 21st. So this is one of the more fun bills.
Matt Peiken: Wait, there are two bills and one is Doc Watson Day?
Caleb Rudow: It's not I'm not fixing poverty right now, but Doc Watson Day, and we got an unclaimed property bill through, which is something that I've been working on. It's a kind of system. Are you familiar with unclaimed property office? No. Oh, okay. This is I'll tell you and tell your listeners, this is one of my pet projects and it links in with the work that we do in office.
The unclaimed property office is a it is a kind of a, it's like a lost and found that the government runs basically. So if a business owes you money and they can't get ahold of you after a certain number of years, so let's say you move and you have a deposit from Duke energy or something, they have to turn that money over to the treasury department.
And so the Treasury Department holds it. And so there's about a billion dollars for North Carolinians in the unclaimed property office. And, it's about one in seven North Carolinians have money there. So it was a bill to try to streamline the ability of folks to collect their money through the unclaimed property office.
And I mentioned that because those two bills are like a signal of what you can get done. Some of that is stuff that we can all agree on. Some of it is things that are so technical that folks that are outside of the political realm. And, we also, I worked on with Senator Mayfield on another bill that was around health care acquisitions that we almost got heard in a committee, you said health care acquisitions.
Yeah. Yeah. So this is one of the preserving competition health care act that we got a few, Republicans to sign on to. And I think we have some chance of nudging that through in the short session.
Matt Peiken: So how do you frame your sense of what does representation mean when you're limited in terms of what kind of causes you can further in your position?
Caleb Rudow: Absolutely. So, my goal Is to serve the people and help them however I can. And what that means sometimes is trying to push through bills as many as we can get through that are helpful. And then some of that is trying to make sure that people get the most outta the bills that are already in place.
And so, unclaimed property is a great example 'cause what we do in my office is a kind of really aggressive constituent service outreach program. Unclaimed property office, we'll do phone banking to try to get folks their money through there. We did a phone banking session where you get everybody to sit down and you can look up your unclaimed property online.
And then when you find somebody who's a friend or a family member, you can call them and say, Hey, have you got money here? Here's the link. We're working with Caleb Rudow's office. This is one of his goals. We've done that too, with the childcare tax credit and tax care outreach. We've done that with the inflation reduction act. And so one way of framing that is like. Look, if my goal is to help people, if I can just make sure people know about the benefits that are already out there to help them that they haven't signed up for, then, it's not a new bill, but gosh, if we could just get everybody the earned income tax credit and the childcare tax credit who deserves it, that would lift a lot of people out of poverty and would really improve the lives of people. So that's why we went door to door around tax season with Pisgah Legal and On Track Financial to talk to people about these programs. And we have some really great success stories .With the unclaimed property office, we found an older couple $4000 that they used to weatherize their house.
We found Asheville Pizza and Brewing Company, we found them $500 uh you they're small stories but we've literally delivered, hundreds of thousands of dollars back to folks in the community through this kind of outreach.
Matt Peiken: What I like about your approach to this is that you're framing this not on what you can't accomplish. Your vantage point in office seems to be, okay, There's probably things I can't accomplish. I'm not going to focus on those things. I'm not going to worry about that so much. I'm going to see what areas I can make a difference in. Was that your approach from the very get go, or did you have to find your way to that position through some disappointments?
Caleb Rudow: I've always tried to find the way that you can do good for people and do good politics at the same time. And that's the best thing you could possibly do when you're a public servant. We need to help energize the vote and make sure people feel good about the office because that's how we win elections.
Also, the core of this job is helping people. And the core of this job is trying to make people's lives better. And we've always tried to build our campaigns on that. And that's been the goal from the beginning. And that's my organizer perspective, which is, I think people are frustrated that They hear from the Democratic Party sometimes in October, November. They don't hear from them in May. They don't hear from them the year before, and we do year round canvassing, and I've done this since I got in office, which is just, I'll pick a neighborhood and I knock on everybody's door in that neighborhood, Democrat, Republican, Independent, everybody, and just say, Hey you know, if you didn't vote for me, I'm your rep. If you did vote for me, I'm your rep, regardless. And we try to focus that on listening, making sure you hear from people. And we focus it on that kind of outreach, which is, making sure that people know about the things that the government does to help them. We had six interns out there this summer knocking on doors.
One about the Inflation Reduction Act, about child tax credit, about affordable housing. And it's trying to Take the Democratic Party machinery and re engineer it so that it is designed to just do the communication about what the government is doing that is helping people and doing good for people.
Matt Peiken: Do you think that your colleagues, your Democratic colleagues, for the most part are following along that same sort of playbook? Or do you think that's lacking? You Have an organizer's background and sounds like the door knocking and your approach to your position is a very grassroots person to person sort of constituency relationship building What would be your assessment of the democratic party as a whole in north carolina from your colleagues and what they're doing? And why Democrats in general, gerrymandering notwithstanding, Democrats are struggling at the electoral booth, what's happening, what isn't happening?
Caleb Rudow: I do think we can do much better in our kind of grassroots outreach. One of the challenges with our political system is that we are often more focused on the things that are easier to measure.
And the party is always how much money do we raise? And they sometimes treat money as being the biggest metric for, are we going to win or not? And I think it's too simplistic of a model to really use for really winning elections, because I believe that focusing on conversations and outreach is as important as fundraising and in many ways more important. And elections do cost money. There's no way around it and we do have to fundraise, but I do think the party is too focused on the money aspect of it and not as focused on the real grassroots piece of it. They're moving towards more of that grassroots effort. I just think it takes a while to rebuild that machinery and really focus on that kind of outreach.
Matt Peiken: One of the things that I'm a little dismayed by from my vantage, there isn't enough conversations about values, about what elected officials are where they stand in a values standpoint and how that plays out in policy, because I can't help but believe Democrats would find more success if they did a better job of casting these elections as a vote on values and am I naive about that?
Caleb Rudow: It's a great question. I think one of the things that I always try to do is when I talk to folks, I don't start with, what's your, what are your policy thoughts? You try to start with trying to get at people's story. How'd you get here? Where'd you come from?
What's your background? And I think that kind of more of a narrative approach, one, it gives you a better understanding of where people come from and it gives you a better understanding, I think, of their values and what they build their life off of. Because I do think if you start there, there's more ability to meet in the middle somewhere.
If you start with a very particular policy point and say, are you for or against this it gets to be, it's more polarizing than do you value having a good public education system, and do we start there and then we can build solutions out from the problem, which I think is easier.
Matt Peiken: I'm glad you brought up public education. This is one area that I feel it's a no brainer. Far more people send their kids to public school than to private school. Far more. And the very notion of vouchers, this voucher system, which does not pay for people who don't have means to send their children to private school.
It just puts money in the pockets of people who don't necessarily need it. I don't know how Democrats can't just hammer that issue and win at the polls. I don't get it. Why is that issue, in and of itself, not a winner for Democratic
candidates?
Caleb Rudow: It's a great point. And especially, as much as GOP and folks talk about rural issues, public schools, a lot of these counties don't have a private school nearby. So some of these rural counties just don't benefit from this at all. And I think, you can talk about Medicaid expansion and how long it took to get that passed when that was in, in their best interest to to get it expanded. Cause it's, rural folks and it's increased access and it's a hospital shutting down without that support.
A part of the messaging problem is I think there's a huge echo chamber and we need to make sure that we get out of that to talk to those folks. And I think we have a lot of circular messaging or inner messaging and inner signaling, and not enough getting out there and talking to those folks. And we've really tried to build that into my state house campaign. We're trying to build that into my congressional campaign.
Matt Peiken: When you're talking about getting out of the echo chamber, you're going to have to do that. You've declared a candidacy for NC 11, it's the U.S. House seat that's now held by Chuck Edwards. You just very recently gained elected office not all that long ago. Tell me, when did you even have the inkling that you should be the person to step forward to hold this seat, to run for this seat?
Caleb Rudow: I think this story is similar to the story I told about 2016, and it's similar to stories I tell about being in the General Assembly. The big question is always, what is mine to do and what is the thing that I really need to step up to do? And when Trump got elected, I decided I'm going to stay and work in domestic politics and become an organizer because I believe we've got more work to do to heal our democracy and to and to get more Democrats elected. And with this election coming up, I'm frankly worried about what's going to happen in 2024. And I think not enough Democrats are worried about, the possibility of Trump getting reelected.
Matt Peiken: Are you kidding? Are you kidding that people aren't worried about that?
I, it's all I keep hearing about is gnashing of teeth and hand wringing without a whole lot of this is how Democrats can win. I don't hear a lot of like forward thinking. I just hear a lot of worrying.
Caleb Rudow: Okay. So if you get outside of some of these echo chambers and I'm not saying you're an echo chamber, but if you step outside, I've got, I'm going to adopt that name, nickname.
I am the echo chamber. I'm the echo chamber.
You know. I think a lot of folks are not worried. And a lot of folks are just trying to get by day and don't see the threat that Trump poses. And this is why I do this kind of direct outreach to people, because I think the democratic party has a big problem that we're constantly talking to the same people and we don't, we're not strategic about how we get outside of our own groups.
Matt Peiken: But you could probably say that about Republicans. I think even more so, I think, republican office holders or those who seek office, I think even more so hold tight to their circles And i'll give you an example, chuck edwards is in office. I've made several requests to interview him and One time I got a response that their decline and every other time no response Including letting them know I was going to be interviewing you, in part because you're running for that seat and I wanted to offer him a chance to be on the program and no response.
Caleb Rudow: Absolutely. The thing is the GOP doesn't have to. Like the Democrats are a big tent party and we've got to find ways that we bridge gaps and we bring new people in. The GOP is not. When you look at the General Assembly, I used to sit in front of the only Muslim in the General Assembly, it was a Jew and a Muslim right next to each other.
And I used to sit next to Alison Dahl, who's an out pink haired lesbian. And that's how she describes herself. She's my mentor. She's amazing. And on the Democratic Party side, this really amazing diversity of people. And then if you look on the other side of the aisle, you don't see that.
And I think Democrats we're a big tent party and we need to spend more time restoring, maintaining the tent and bringing more people into the tent where the Republicans don't have to do that.
Matt Peiken: Republicans don't want to do that. It seems that a basic tenet is to limit the number of people who can vote and putting up obstacles to people to vote.
Democrats try in general to lower obstacles to voting for all people. And so it's your, that big tent is born out that way. You were mentioning a little bit ago when I asked you, why are you running? You've talked about 2024 with Trump. You didn't mention Chuck Edwards. You talk about the dangers with Trump potentially being reelected, where does that fit into why you're running for this seat is are you running to be simply a U. S. House vote against Trump or is there something in Chuck Edwards record or the way he's conducting his position that is because you two seem to come from very different vantage points.
You're an organizer. You've done a lot of volunteering internationally. He comes from a quote, pro business, a business background and seems to be much more narrower in scope. Tell me why you're running against him.
Caleb Rudow: Yeah, that's a great question. I tried to provide that bigger framing of, look, 2024 is going to be a really important election for a lot of reasons.
I think this is the most flippable congressional seat in North Carolina after gerrymandering. And so we've got a real shot at winning this. Number two, we need to help to get out the vote for Democrats up and down the ballot this election. And there are a lot of votes in Western North Carolina. Biden is going to invest a lot in North Carolina this next year and us getting out the votes, our votes for Josh Stein, their votes for Jeff Jackson. And, the NC 11 district can have a huge impact in that. And then lastly, I think as an organizer this is such a great opportunity to get out there and talk to more folks about what Democrats have done this year. You think about Medicaid expansion? You can talk about public schools, too, because I really think that issue plays well everywhere.
And one of the big metrics for me in office is how do I get done with this and feel like I leverage the office to help our country and decrease polarization and increase people's faith in government. Because that, that for me is one of the huge metrics that we don't talk about enough as being under threat.
And after January 6th and after, just the kind of nastiness and meanness in politics, if we can run a good solid race and we can run an office well that helps people, I can do my part to decrease polarization. And then lastly, I think jumping back to Chuck Edwards we really need somebody who's going to be in office who's going to represent the people and not corporate interests.
And I think this is a big difference between me and Chuck Edwards. It's a big difference between the Democrats and the GOP is that you look at what happened two years ago with the child care tax credit, we've made historic investments in cutting poverty and historic investments in infrastructure and American manufacturing.
And, the Democrats have a lot to brag on and to push right now. And I think it's a great opportunity to hold Chuck Edwards accountable. And it is again, the most flippable district in North Carolina. So we've got a really good shot at winning it.
Matt Peiken: You say it's the most flippable district yet he won pretty handily in the last election previous to him, Madison Cawthorn, how he was elected. And you look at the issues that chuck Edwards puts out publicly that he stands behind, things he fights for. One of the things he talks a lot about is crime.
And he points to Asheville, he throws out these grenades occasionally about the homelessness here, the drug addiction here. And how crime is rampant. You represent Asheville, the core of Asheville, I could see where He might say, look, Caleb represents where crime is rampant and they can't hold police officers. I could see him attacking that. How would you respond to that kind of line of attack?
Caleb Rudow: Chuck Edwards also represents Asheville. And this is the frustration with me that, we had that conversation around the crime roundtable and some of his inflammatory comments. And Chuck Edwards, instead of, doing what a congressional representative should do, which is let's talk about solutions and let's talk about how do we actually fix this?
Cause I do think a lot of the solutions for this stuff are bipartisan. One of the challenges with Asheville is we've got great public services and great social services and great services for helping folks who are dealing with opioid addiction. And, because of that, we've got some unique challenge with the folks who are drawn here.
And instead of, leading with, how do we lead with evidence and how do we lead with Things that'll actually solve the problem, you lead with, how do you score a few cheap political points? And you were at that the crime round table. Yeah,
I produced an episode, based on that summit You know If you sat there and you didn't have your kind of Democrat and Republican hat on a lot of folks said things that were similar, everybody wanted to support law enforcement. I wanted to support law enforcement. Everybody wanted to try to help with retention. Also even, law enforcement officers there talked about, look, we really need to treat the opioid crisis seriously and find ways that we help folks who are dealing with those challenges.
And that is not going to be just, locking everybody up in jail who is dealing with an addiction crisis. And so I came through with that summit feeling better about the world and about us, having the potential to work on things together.
The big challenge there is, we have to start with, how are we going to convene and come together to solve a problem? Not how are we going to use a problem to score political points?
Matt Peiken: But I can see where politicians on either side of the aisle think look, The public, they have a short attention span, they're thinking about lots of different things and they don't have time to get into the, I'm not going to bother them with the nuances of a topic and that when you say cheap political points, yes, that's true, but it's easier and quicker to deliver those things and it's easy for audiences to know, oh, this is where this person stands versus this is where that person stands.
You come from a vantage of experience on the ground with different constituencies, it takes a lot of time and face to face conversation to really get into the ears of people with where you're coming from. Whereas, somebody just says soft on crime.
Done. You can be branded that way in a sentence. How do you counter that?
Caleb Rudow: You've got to play both games, you do have to play the political game. People are hungry for people to sit down and talk to them and explain things to them and not just go immediately to throwing stones.
And you're not going to get everybody that way because I think there are a number of people who want that. And we talked about this at the crime summit, I think there was this, let's blame the media for how much the media is traumatizing everybody. And you're like like we all click on those links.
That are like, that are inflammatory or that are the kind of negative news about what's going on. So we are a part of that. And one of the things I've tried to do in my office is really focus on how we try to have a longer term view about some of these challenges and the longer term view means we need to invest in more young people and talking to more young people.
And we need to invest in more conversations and more outreach and. And, I believe Jeff Jackson is a good example of this.
Matt Peiken: Explain who Jeff Jackson is.
Caleb Rudow: Jeff Jackson is a congressman and he's running for attorney general. And he does these amazing TikTok videos talking about what it means to be in office and talking about how he's voting and why he's voting that way.
And, he was on the daily show last week and he's gone viral many times for these kinds of explainers. A lot of people are hungry for somebody to be an adult in the room and somebody to sit down and talk to them and listen to them. And, Jeff Jackson is a friend and he's a great guy and I think, He's proof of concept that, that stuff works.
Matt Peiken: It's probably easier for you to represent Asheville exclusively as a state rep than it would be to represent the district at large in the U. S. Congress. What are some things you're going to have to approach and address when you're dealing in The exurbs and further beyond Asheville that you don't have to address and deal with and hear from now from constituents.
What are some of the topics and issues you're going to have to get at and really be penetrative as a candidate to make a difference outside of Asheville?
Caleb Rudow: First and foremost, this is about getting out there and showing up and talking to folks and listening to folks. And I think this is one of the things that Democrats need to do more of.
But I also think about health care access. We're all struggling with that challenge across Western North Carolina and, at different levels.
Folks in Asheville have their own challenges with HCA and with Mission. Folks farther away don't have a hospital anywhere near them. Health care is going to be a big uniting factor. Also I think reproductive rights are going to be something that I think we've seen real big surprises with across the country, in Kansas and Ohio, that you can talk to folks about.
We frame the Democratic Party as a party of rights. We value freedom and that, that is something that I think is an Appalachian value.
Matt Peiken: You just mentioned the word freedom. I Think that people on the right and Republicans in general have co opted that word. When you hear the word freedom, we on the left define that word wholly differently than people on the right do. So I would think part of your challenge, it would be wrestling the word away and reclaiming it for what freedom, what at least people who are progressives would hold that to mean.
Caleb Rudow: Absolutely. And the right has done this with a lot of things. The American flag.
Matt Peiken: I was just going to say that. Yeah. You can't hold, you can't post an American flag without people now thinking of you as a rightist.
Caleb Rudow: It's the American flag. And I also think it's religion too. There are so many opportunities to go out there and be like, look, I'm religious. Let's talk about guns. Like a lot of folks in the general assembly and Democrats in Western North Carolina own guns. They don't want to take everybody's guns away. So if you can try to going to talk to folks and breaking down those kinds of stereotypes and taking back a lot of the things like patriotism. I'm patriotic. I love my country. I wouldn't be spending so much time as a public servant making $14,000 a year if I didn't have a deep belief in this country and its people and in the promise of America.
Matt Peiken: So what are your next steps? How are you both working your position as a state legislator and how are you starting to beat the campaign trail? What's ahead for you?
Caleb Rudow: We've already gotten off, off to a busy start. For example, tonight after this, I'm doing the moth storytelling hour. And, then I have a Josh Stein event and that's just a snapshot of, I think what, our campaign is about, which is showing up in places where politicians don't typically show up.
I've always tried to do more arts events and other focused events, because those are the folks we need to bring into the And I can show up at a Josh Stein event and any other Democratic Party event, but we won't reach the people we need to if that's all we do.
And showing up at churches across Western North Carolina, houses of worship, showing up at picnics, and really trying to get outside of Buncombe. And that's showing up and listening and Building out our kind of organizing network and building out our ground game.
Matt Peiken: I wanted to ask you, I should have asked you earlier in the conversation, what do you think of the determination that legislators should control their own public records?
And that a public records request does not have to be listened to or fulfilled if the legislator deems that is not a public record? What do you make of that? I think that's a winnable, maybe that topic doesn't matter much to people, but that to me shows the difference between the two parties.
Am I wrong in that?
Caleb Rudow: A hundred percent. And the way that was put into the budget is scary, cause what happened in this, the budget is supposed to be a document that is about money and it's about where we spend money. A bunch of policy gets crammed in there every year by the Republican party that is not related.
And and the challenge with that is if you have a bill, the bill has your name on it. And it says, I, Caleb Ruddow want to do X, Y, or Z. And, and so there's no bill that has these people's names on it of who decided to do this. So when Speaker Moore got asked this and they were like, who put this in there?
And he's I don't know. And that is so disturbing that, if you're going to make a policy like that, stand by it, tell us why.
Matt Peiken: And I find it indefensible, who is it? State Senator Warren, I guess it is. Am I right on that? Warren Daniel. Warren Daniel, who said these requests are cumbersome and they take up too much time.
Who's requesting reams of documents from people, from legislators. Is it really taking that much time, or is that just a smokescreen for legislators to say, we don't want to have to answer to the people?
Caleb Rudow: It does take time, but it's also a smokescreen. I think that Republicans are worried about, All those, the records requests around gerrymandering are the reason why I had a court case to stop it last cycle and those emails are the property of the people of North Carolina, and they should be able to have access to them because we're public servants.
Matt Peiken: I don't see how that's even constitutionally legal that the state can do that. Wouldn't, couldn't that be appealed by anybody, a nonprofit group or somebody else who a fair records request act that I don't see how that's constitutionally defensible to shield those records from public scrutiny.
Caleb Rudow: Yeah. I think this is the challenge of a lot of bills that were passed this year. They're going to be really good for lawyers and there's going to be a lot of lawsuits around them. And, the way that the General Assembly this year has made laws has been not transparent. And it's been basically Republican Party sits behind closed doors and, Representatives do, and they make the bills and then at the last minute, they show them to the public and they show them to us.
And we have 24 to 48 hours to look at them and vote on them. And my big issue is look like if you want to do those things and you believe in them, do in public, talk to folks about them, tell us why, and be able to hold up and deal with the scrutiny that people are going to give you. And I think when people lose faith in this process, they do it because of some of those kinds of moves, that nobody had the chance to look at the bill before it was passed.
This is the abortion ban and all, and the budget, was the same thing. And if you are proud of these laws and you think they're right, Do them in public, tell people about them, and let's have a conversation about them before we, vote on them.
Matt Peiken: Is there anything we haven't talked about that or talked about enough that you want to expound upon or introduce?
Caleb Rudow: I was in a David Bowie cover band once.
Matt Peiken: You were David Bowie?
Caleb Rudow: I was Bowie. Yeah.
Matt Peiken: Wow. Did you wear the wig and everything?
Caleb Rudow: Yes. We did have some wigs. There was a lot of different dress up. Yeah, it was a blast. It was after college and it was great.
Matt Peiken: Now that you're in elected office, do you ever see yourself going back to not being in elected office? It's hard for you to say now because you just named your candidacy for an elected office, but what's your ultimate end game? What's your mission statement?
Caleb Rudow: Wow, what a good question. I've been a public servant my whole life in a lot of different ways and that was why I went to the Peace Corps, that's why I decided to become an organizer, I work with Big Brothers Big Sisters, I've always tried to find what I can do that's good for my community and that's what my folks taught me growing up and that's been My life's goal and running for NC 11 district is a big piece of that.
And, I believe we can win this district, even though it's going to be a really hard race. But I think what I've always tried to do is be aware, show up, listen, think about what is mine to do in this world. And something has always come up. And so I believe, whatever happens next, if you're intentional about what you're doing in your life and you're intentional about what your goals and your values are, you'll end up in the right place.