Our Democracy in Crisis - State and Local Power (with David Pepper and Lina Hidalgo)

in the making. You know, I saw unnerving signs that there were those who wanted to undermine our institutions, destroy the rule of law, rig and take over our elections, and not make it possible for a lot of people to fully participate. I saw all of that as a first lady, as senator, a presidential candidate, a Secretary of State. And yet even with all of that, I am surprised

at how far these efforts have come. I may not hold public off us anymore, but I remain as committed as ever to doing everything I can to protect and preserve our democracy. And over the course of this season of You and Me Both, We're going to take a hard look from various advantage points about the state of our democracy. I'll be talking to experts and leaders and advocates who are doing incredible work on the front lines

today to kick us off. We're looking at how our democracy is doing at the state and local level, which sad to say, is not so great. Now, later, we're going to hear from a phenomenal young elected public servant out of Texas, Harris County Judge Lena Hidalgo. But first I'm talking to Ohio based political strategist David Pepper. David is someone I've known and admired for quite some time. Back in his home state of Ohio. He has served on the Cincinnati City Council and as chairman of the

Ohio Democratic Party. David's the author of a new book called Laboratories of Autocracy, and he explains in the book about all the ways that a state and its powers can impact on our lives. He's got an incredible grasp of what's happening not only in Ohio but more generally at the state level, and he's got a way of explaining it so that we can all understand. So that's why I'm so excited to have him on this podcast. The first question I had for David is what led

him to write this new book. What was he seeing in his state of Ohio and beyond across our country. I had no intention of writing a book at all last year, but by out April, my level of alarm about the state level attacks on democracy that most folks don't see or the media doesn't cover got so heightened that I started frantically writing this book to sound the alarm. And the subtitle is a wake up call from behind

the lines. And that's literally why I wrote it, was to say all those out there, you know, in different parts of the country, you have to pay attention to these state house attacks on democracy. They're relentless and they're effective, and if we don't do something about them in almost every way we think about politics, they will continue in downward spiral. And even since I've written and it's gotten worse.

So I appreciate the chance to talk about today. Well, the title of your book, Laboratories of Autocracy, is a play on the wonderful phrase from Supreme Court Justice brandis

his idea that states are the laboratories of democracy. In other words, you know, states could try different things, how best to provide health care or educate kids, all kinds of experimentation which then could be proven at the state level, and other states could follow, and even the national federal government could learn, and so the idea that you took what was viewed as a very positive description of what states could do laboratories of democracy, and turned it on

its head to be laboratories of autocracy, I think goes right to the heart of the problem. Most people, David don't know or realize how much power state legislatures, state governments have, right and in justice, Brandeis was right. You know, we've seen, whether it was the Affordable Care Act coming out of state ideas, whether it was the battle to

create marriage equality, that was state level momentum. I turned the title in its head because folks turned the role of states on their head over the last forty years. And you know this sound disrespectful. There are a lot of good state reps working very hard, But the broader point is that state houses basically have emerged as the Achilles heel of American governance because of a mismatch huge amounts of power. No one knows about it. That's not

good for democracy. The power is over almost every issue we care about, politics, economics, social policy, climate change. But then there's also the immense power over democracy itself. You know, they set the rules of the elections for the most part, although Congress cannons should do more to fight back on those they draw the district lines, as Donald Trump figured out too late, but it's the fact they control the

electoral college process in many ways. So huge power over the substance of things we all care about, and then the huge power over democracy itself. Almost no one knows. But here's the bad news. Certain insiders figured it out, as you pointed out, for years decades ago. And if certain insiders figured out a lot of money and the average person doesn't, it, things get ugly real quick. And

that's sort of what the book walks through. Well, I think it's such an important point, and I tried to sound the alarm starting in the nineties that there really was a well organized and extremely well funded effort to take over state houses, state elected offices, state judicial systems, local offices, and not just to wield power, but to wield power for purposes that sadly read down to the benefit of those on the right, corporate power, ideological power,

even in some cases religious power. And Donald Trump sort of lit an even bigger fire under it. And so now clearly it's on steroids. But let's start with Ohio, because that's where you've been living and working most of your adult life. I mean, one of the things I was surprised about when I was running for president in is how actively the Ohio government apparatus had purged voters.

Millions of Ohio voters who had voted in two thousand and eight and two thousand and twelve, mostly for Barack Obama, were wiped from the voting rules. And I did not know that until you know, I got into it. Yeah, there's a group of people who understand that their worldview would not survive in a robust democracy. Trick O on economics would not survive in a robust democracy. Too many people are left out, attacking Roe v. Wade NonStop, the crazy gun laws. None of that would survive in a

world of robust democracy. They know that. So while we're fighting over elections, they're fighting democracy itself because only by keeping it at bay can they get their worldview in place. Long term. They need suppressed democracy. So decades ago they understood that state houses are heart of democracy, and they could weaponize state houses to both you know, get their substant events done in undemocratic state houses as well as you state houses to divert democracy Therefore they could get

a worldview that's a minority view. They would not survive in a diverse majority, which we are today. And that's that's really what they've been doing in Ohio. We are the canary in the coal mine because, as you know, we weren't just blue and oh eight for Obama. Ted Strickland was the governor, our good friend. We had a democratic state house. And what they showed over the next decade, they were so furious that Obama turned Ohio blue and O eight, not just because it was about the presidency.

What happened when he went into eight that Obama coalition won us the state house. We had ten members out of eighteen of Congress Democrats did after O eight. So the Obama Coalition, more than just Obama was as massive threat. And as we saw beginning and ten, they went to town intentionally going after the coalition that they knew was a threat long term, that represented the majority that would

otherwise never let them accomplish their substantive goals. So they went after early vote because that was the way that Obama coalition voted disproportionately. They went after young voters. But the tool they used in Ohio that was so effective, like Georgia was purging. And by the way, just to be cleared to voters who may not know this, you can update your voting rules quite simply based on who's passed away and who's moved. The Post Office generates the

list of who's moved on a regular basis. Health departments generate lists of who's passed away. That's not hard to do. It's the twenty one century. In Ohio, they also were purging people who vote infrequently. That's the net that has caught up millions of voters, disproportionately Obama voters, your voters, Democratic voters, and as I walked through in the book and your campaign, herculean effort to find those purge voters

in sixteen months of it. But even with the resources and the capacity of your campaign, it's what everyone's focused on. We all worked hard, and we worked together. I was a chair then to get them all registered. We still

didn't come close to how many been purged. And by the way, that also meant we weren't using resources to talk to swing voters or registered voters because we were doing everything we could to get those unregistereds back on, so they end up forcing to burn everything at both ends, and it has a massive impact. It's a devastating case study that when they decide to target the electorate that's defeating them, it works. So why did they fail in twenty Well, one reason is this mechanism of voting drop

boxes that no one's ever cared about before. Drop boxes are an anchorage Alaska, there in some laxity of Utah, no one cared. But in twenty those drop boxes were disproportionately used by voters of color. So now what are they doing. They targeted the Obama coalition with early voted purging. Now it's drop boxes. And this is why I reject

the notion we'll just out organize all this. Of course, we need to organize as hard as we ever have, but the response to voter suppression enacted by law must also be government pushing back at the federal level to just say to your volunteers or future volunteers, just go organize. In some states that will work, But when it's close enough and the suppression is brutal enough, the greatest volunteer effort in the world is not going to be enough

to overcome the kind of suppression we're talking about. So the whole point of the book has to say, if we don't start engaging at the state level, ending jerrymandering when we can, but running in every district to at least hold them accountable, that lack of accountability is how everything else keeps going, and we're seeing that in painful ways in states like Ohio. Well, I know our listeners cannot see me nodding vigorously in agreement with you, David,

but it is heartbreaking to me on several counts. One that we have this well organized, well funded effort to upend democracy, to seize power, to promote what are truly unpopular, less than majority points of view, and that the other side is relentless. And I think it's important for people to understand who's behind this. Where did this really all come from? In your opinion, So it's a convergence of several things. You know, a lot of it was driven

by dollars. The Koch Brothers a worldview ideology of trickling on economics that they view any kind of stronger government as a threat too, because it's gonna pass regulations or enact tax policies that they view takes their dollars and and it goes beyond them, It goes to a broader population. They don't like the type of economics that you know, President Clinton led and Democrats always lead on, which is a middle class based economy. They knew that is taking

from them. That's a big part of it, and that's what's funding. You know, I won't I don't go through all the acronyms, but a like the American Legislative Exchange Counsel they haired his foundation. The people funding that are largely you know, people like the Koke Brothers, large corporations that view any government interference with their quote unquote economic

liberty as a threat. But we also need to acknowledge we have this very sad history of white backlash whenever there's a diverse majority that arises in our country and saying okay, we're gonna we're gonna run the show. It happened after the reconstruction. You know, huge numbers of registered black voters in the South, more black voters and write voters in states like Louisiana. They were electing black mayors and council members and state house speakers and even members

of Congress. Backlash was fierce, you know, allegations of voter fraud, violence, and that backlash led to a century of Jim Crow. We saw it, you know, after the Civil rights movement and the laws of the sixties, all of a sudden, the Southern strategy. We saw it after Obama. Winn Is Isabel Wilkerson writes, Obama winning when many ways was this shock to this world that doesn't want a diverse majority. He symbolized it that Obama coas civilized it what happens

two thousand eleven boom. They immediately pushed back. And obviously the prospect that large numbers of African American voters in Atlanta and Detroit, in Philadelphia elected Biden and Harris also triggers is fierce backlash. So there's economics, but there's also that very somber history. And again I wrote my book frantically for several reasons. One is I have a five and a seven year old, and I don't want them spending the rest of their lives fighting for democracy that

we lost. Number Two, when I look at the history, the lessons of what we have to do are so clear from that history that I want to write it down. I have people read it because I think if you see the similarities to what led to not a decade of Jim Crow but generations of Jim Crowe are so stark that if that doesn't wake you up, I don't know what will. We're taking a quick break. Stay with us.

You know, when you concentrate on Ohio, which you know is such an important state and every every way, but particularly in elections, as you know so well, you really bring it alive and shine a bright spotlight um on what's happening in your state. And I guess I would have to ask why are local politicians more invisible to

everyday voters than they once were? How much of that is due to the fact that we don't have local newspaper In most places, we have what are called, you know, news deserts where there are no reporters covering city hall anymore. It's a huge part of it. I always think about it this way, what are the things that make the Koch brothers happy, and let's figure out how to do the opposite, okay? And what do they love? They love

that no one covers state houses. They love that local papers are dying so that local state rep who everyone used to know, people don't even know what that person is doing. They love that. In Ohio, you know, a third of the races, the average margin of victory for a decade was or more so, no one even knew an election was happening. So the point is, yes, what you described is one of the key ways that there's no awareness. State house bureaus are dying. Ohio, by the way,

we have a very strong one. There's still a city hall reporter in Cincinnati, but a lot of cities, the state house people are the first to go. It's further away, it's a bigger expense they have to live up there. And then the local papers just disappearing, not bigger cities, but smaller. Like I said, that means that the coverage of the individual officeholder from you know, Mansfield or from Manchester, no coverage whatsoever. So that combination is bad. And I'll

just give a couple of other layers for this. You know. One other aspect that's often overlooked is that that a lot of the institutional knowledge of these papers is also getting hollowed out. When you and I, you know, would go to newspapers to get endorsements, you would have six or seven members of an editorial board. Many of those editorial boards are either gone or down to one person

just like you have. You know, these long term calumnists that understand state houses, that know what a jerrymandered or a crazy budget looks like, they're all gone. So not only is the coverage of the facts much less intense or hardly at all there, but the people can provide a less heated analysis and Twitter or k Able who could say right now which needs to be said, The current attempt at jerrymander Ohio is absurd. And don't take it from David Pepper, a Democrat, take it from us

at this paper. We've seen this for thirty years. This is the worst we've ever seen. All that institutional knowledge is also gone because they can't afford it. So if the state house business in in Columbus gets no attention and the elections essentially are predetermined, no one knows what's happening. And here's the worst part, there's a double whammy to this. We now have, because of jerrymandering, an entire generation of both officeholders and citizens who essentially don't think of their

state house politics as a democracy. They've never really had a choice over these things, and that's really damaging long

term I agree completely. Well, let's switch to the recommendations that you make, because you end the book which is so gripping and I highly recommend it to every one, but you end with a bunch of strategies to get our states back from being laboratories of autocracy to truly laboratories of democracy, and you reframe the whole discussion that we should be having at you know, national, state, local, even individual levels. So why don't you run through some

of those, David? Sure? So let me just the way I try and frame it is, you have one side that has believed that democracy is intact us and we generally focus on federal elections to get the substance outcomes we want right, and that generally means we go to swing states where we can get our federal majorities for president, senate outs. The other side is not battling that battle. They are in a very different battle. Their battle because

they know democracy is inconsistent with their worldview. Their battle is against democracy itself. They fight their battle everywhere every year, at all levels. And as my seven year old who plays soccer would would even observe, if one side is always on offense everywhere and you're playing in a few stage in a few years. Who's gonna win. They're gonna win. They are winning. Because of this, we have to change

our mindset. First and foremost, we gotta go to where the battle really is, which is where they're taking it democracy itself. That reframes everything, and I go through all the specific ways everyone can take part, but big picture, what does that mean? First you adjust your mindset. This is a long game battle. The best near term example Stacy Abrams. She knew Georgia was a long struggle for democracy. If she had simply given up every time Georgia was read,

we wouldn't have a blue Georgia. Even when she didn't quite win the eighteen governors election because of a very tainted process by the opponent. Even that day where she stood up and said I'm not going to be governor, she said, we made progress. She has a long game mindset. She knew every voter that voted in her record turnout, every registered voter, every door knock was progress. Two years later, it was right she was She knew that it was

a long game. So change the frame of everything, as are you billing toward the long game or aren't you measure your success. Accordingly, it also means get out of only thing about swing states. If your competee for democracy, no state should not have a democracy. It's guaranteed the Constitution that everyone have a republican form of government. Make that real. So we should reframe our political approach fighting

for democracy all over the country. And that also means at all levels state House, state, Supreme Court seats, sector of state. No longer let the Koke brothers be the only people focused on these things. Let me put it this way. We love to get excited about the most exciting candidates. You think the Koke Brothers care about who's exciting. No, if you are in a state rep spot and you win, they love you because you're gonna do what they say. Well,

I love when we've excited candidates. We all get excited. But when when it comes to putting our money into races or volunteering, if someone is running for an important seat that could affect democracy, and that could be school board two as we now know, help them out. Don't just wait for the greatest candidate you've ever seen. One other thing I would say in the battle for democracy, if all we do is focus on swing races in

certain states or any states. That's a short game mentality, because we are thinking, well, the only thing we're gonna measure ourselves on is if we win the five or six swing seats in that state next year. Long game, it's a disaster to leave thirty seats unchallenged in any state else. That's thirty places where they never hear our message, mainly in rural parts of these states. It's thirty places where the incumbent never feels accountability, never feels challenged. We

have to recruit to run everywhere. We need to celebrate someone running in a Jerrymander district as much as in a swing district. They are walking to a race they probably gonna lose. We should celebrate them for stepping up. And again, when you think about it as a long game, all of a sudden that makes per for sense. People running in Ohio and every district every two years. That's powerful. That's how you win the battle for democracy. That's the best thing for Tim Ryan is if they're none in

the House districts. It's the best thing for Stacy Abrams because they're carrying the message. There lifting turnout. If all you care about is this federal game, and you don't worry about democracy. You'll never support those non swing candidates,

you won't even recruit them. You know. I cannot help but underscore that by saying, it's been one of my real disappointments that democratic donors, democratic political consultants, democratic activists, democratic voters are so focused on the immediate, the flashy, who's the candidate of the moment, And we haven't had people on our side of the political divide invest in media.

The other side certainly has, as we know very well, they haven't invested in the kind of institutions that you mentioned, like ALEC that has helped to put really regressive legislative agendas through state legislatures across the country. They are so candidate focused, and it's mostly a very narrow group of candidates who attract their money and their attention. And it's almost the opposite of playing the long games. I could

not agree with you more. Well, before we wrap up, I have to ask you, how do we inspire young people to actually get in that arena and run for these offices and, as you rightly point out, run for every one of them. Yeah, I mean, I think we reframe it as the broader battle for democracy. We have to say, these young people, don't let the last ten years make you think that politics can't be about good

public service. You know, there's a reason why back in the day a John Glenn wanted to be in politics a noble pursuit. It's how you change the world for the good. It was patriotic. And we're seeing right now a whole army of people like Josh Mandel in Ohio

or Josh Holly running for the worst reasons. And so I think we have to find people and say, not long ago, this was where you went if you want to make a difference, and and then frame at all is a much broader battle for democracy than it currently is seen. And we have to all do this with funders and voices. We need to celebrate everyone who runs. That itself is a victory for democracy. They just gave people a choice that those rigging these elections didn't want

them to have. We need to come up with mechanisms to say to every one of these people who runs, we're not just gonna encourage you to run, We're gonna lift you. We gotta take the billions that are spent presidential races and smooth it out over four years over the entire country. So we asked someone to run, and we celebrate the patriotism and them running. We also back it up with support, so it's got to be frame

it better. But once you're in, we're still there. And if you lose, which many will lose in Drayman District, we don't walk away, but Democrats walk away from people who lose, and it's terrible. Some of my favorite, some of my favorite people in Ohio that I keep up with all the time, we're veterans or people who were the first in their family go to college, who ran an impossible districts. Because of their runs, they actually lifted other people to victory, to state House or somewhere else.

We need to say to them that victory is partly because of you, and we're gonna keep going with you because you did something that was really tough. In a long game, every election, even if you lose, if you do it right, is additive to the next election. More voters voted, more voters registered, and we have to surround all these candidates with that kind of thinking versus thanks for running. You're not in a swing district, so you don't get support, and after you lose. It's like you

never ran. That's a guaranteed long term failure. We have to change all that, and I think then will get a lot more people interested. I agree with that a percent. David Pepper, I am so happy to talk with you today, and I'm so grateful that you are out there in the arena every day with your speaking and your writing and your advocacy and everything you've been doing, not only in Ohio but around U the world. Thank you very much.

Just was an honor to speak with you. David Pepper's book is called Laboratories of Autocracy, and you can follow him on Twitter for regular updates from the front lines of this crucial battle for our country's future. Well, that conversation is the perfect setup for me to introduce you to someone whom I really like and admire. Her name is Lena Hidalgo. She lives in Texas, and in ten at the ripe age of twenty seven, she ran four

and was elected Harris County Judge. Now Harris County is where Houston is one of the biggest of all cities in our country, and Lena beat a three time incumbent, becoming the first woman and first Latina to hold that office.

Since then, she's demonstrated time and again that voters made the right choice in Lena was featured on the Forbes thirty Under thirty list for her achievements in setting fairer tax rates and implementing disaster relief initiatives, and in one she won a John F. Kennedy New Frontiers Award for all of her initiatives around COVID relief. I was so delighted to be speaking with her about her life and her service and what she's seeing on the ground in

the battleground state of Texas. I want to start on a really basic level, Lena, asking you what is a county judge? What does it do in Texas? I think people understand what a mayor is or even a governor, But county judge, especially for such a big county like Harris County, is a new term for some of our listeners. Absolutely, it's sort of a misnomer. You hear judge and you think you know a judicial role deciding on the outcomes

of court cases. That is not this rule. The county judge in Texas is the county executive, and so I am the county executive for Harris County, which is the third largest county in the country. It is larger than twenty six states about the population of Colorado. So we've got we've got four point seven million people home to Houston,

that's our largest city, and thirty three smaller cities. And I helped manage the budget about a five billion dollar budget, roads, bridges, flood control, libraries or jail, our justice system, um parks, you name it. But there's also a whole lot of good that can be done on top of that with that budget. So that's part of what I've been focused on. UM. But so it's it's me and and four commissioners. We

formed the board that controls the budget for this huge county. Well, I want to go back a little bit and learn more about you. You were born in Bogata, Columbia, uh in, which is to say, you are thirty years old and came to the United States with your family in two thousand five, and byen you were running for high office. Now give us a little bit of journey that you

made to get to where you are today. I will in Secretary, I'll spoil the ending, which is you have a lot to do with it, you know, So I was born in Columbia during the drug war, and it was kidnappings and ball blocked from our house. Of course, my parents wanted to keep us safe. My dad got a job in Peru and that was about the time that Fujimori was president. He was later indicted, convicted for corruption and other other charges. So then when we moved to Mexico as well, a period of a lot of

political upheaval, corruption, et cetera. By the time we moved to Texas, government was the last thing I wanted anything to do with. I was just cynical about it. Um and my parents sent me to public school, the one that was assigned to our area. And I was just horrified because before I had watched them sort of make such an effort to keep me in private schools in Latin America, I could tell that was like the one thing that if we sacrificed everything else, they wanted to

make sure I went to private school. Well, I show up to public school here and it was an incredible school, Tennis courts, film room, newspaper dissecting pigs, and biology class. And so I began to ask as an aside, obviously, not all public schools are are that fantastic? But look, just the possibility is something that I could not contemplate back then. So I began tast what is it that makes government work, that makes it accountable, makes it deliver?

And I studied that at Stanford. I went to work on on promoting good government free expression abroad, and um, I thought I'd work sort of outside the system, beating it into shape as an activist, as a civil rights attorney. And then the election happened. I was in the middle of grad school. I was at n y U and Harvard, at the Kennedy School, and your incredible strength, your incredible dignity power, and my seeing if someone like Donald Trump can win and can run, why can't I? And it

felt more dire than ever. So I'm one of thousands of women that you inspired to say, you know what, I'm going to see this through. I run unopposed secretary because people were so scared of the status quo here deep in the heart of Texas, and nobody thought we could win, and we won. And since then we have changed so much. And so what I want to I hope I can convey to day to folks is change has happened in Texas. Change can happen in Texas, and it is so happening that they're coming at us with

relentless attacks and cruelty. But it's because of our success and we are undaunted. I love that, you know, because that is exactly what I have watched from afar from the time that you got elected. Um. You were, by the way, a run for something candidate, a group that I have supported through my umbrella group. Onward together. What did you learn about yourself when you started running for county judge? In just the resiliency that that we all have.

You know, I can't tell you how many meetings I had where people looked at me and and I'm sitting here in front of you. I'd like to pretend them five too, but really I'm five one and three quarters and um, and so you know, people would just kind of look me up and down and said, you you know, you want to be the executive of this county? Had always been a man, of course, needless to say, yeah, there never been a woman, and never anyone Latina or Latino.

And the five member board there had only ever been one woman elected um for one of the commissioners seats. Now, these these county leadership seats are ones that don't normally switch hands in competitive elections. Historically it's been when he dies or is convicted of a crime, or retires and appoints a pal and so. Um. It was a lot of that's very cute, sort of bless her heart, you know. But there were groups like Run for Something and others who said, you know, we need to support this change,

and a lot of people were behind us. And I learned that that is how change is achieved. You can never be sure. You can do everything right and still lose. You can do everything wrong and still win. But for many people as beyond their wildest dreams that this could be done, and it was so worth it just just because of the policies we've implemented. Well, you've emphasized transparent, accountable government. Um, and you've made such a difference already.

You had the first ever open transition process, you had seven town hall meetings, you did a survey of your constituents. You've ensured that these commissioners meet where actual community members are attending. I mean, you've really adept the process and I think that's made a difference, don't you. Absolutely Before we got here, these billions of dollars, right, five billion dollars annually were distributed in meetings that lasted forty five

minutes every two weeks um. The budget process was whatever we gave them last year, plus two person for inflation. Most notably, and and many folks may not know this, it's very common in the states where laws against this don't exist, for local elected officials to fund their campaigns with contributions from the contractors that do business with their locality. So that's not just Harris County or just Texas as cities and county governments. So just imagine, right, we built

these roads, these bridges, these buildings. It's enormously expensive projects millions and sometimes billions, and then you see the cow First there was just an expose in the Houston Chronicle where seventy plus percent of the contributions come from these contractors. So it was so funny because you know, when I was running, I needed fundraising help, and groups like Run

for Something and others. Of course, the community helped us raise the funds we needed, but the sort of lead fundraisers in town, they wouldn't give me the time of day. Right when we won, I won't name names, but there was one in particular, you know, and and the and this person said, okay, I'll do the fundraising for you now. And I said, well, the thing is, I feel uncomfortable taking contributions from people who do business with Harris County or who want to do business with Harris County. And

then this person said, never mind. And I haven't talked to them since. And but you know what, we've shown that it can be done. And then you know, to your point about just the policy making, it's co governance. So as we said policy be at homelessness, be at disaster recovery, be at veterans, we invite community members to design the actual program to the decision making table. And sometimes it means we say look for X, Y Z. Reason that doesn't make a whole lot of sense right now,

it's not as important in the priority list. So it's an honest conversation. But I've found there are great ideas we would have never come up with. I love hearing that because I think you've figured out a way to get people involved at every stage of the process. But I also think that your success, both your success being elected and your success in governing, is one of the many reasons why the Texas state government is trying to restrict voters access to the polls, trying to make it

harder to vote. What are you seeing happening on that front. Well, they're scared, you know, they're scared, and we've made change and it's good change. The largest environmental investment in thirty years, reducing a homeless population by a thousand in the middle

of this pandemic, so and so forth. One of the things we did, and folks might remember this in the elections UM, it was Hair County that was in the news about twenty four hour voting and drive through voting, an incredible turn Now we're having friendly competition with Georgia because we said, well, we have half the population in Harris County of the state of Georgia, but we had just as much turn out that first day of early vote, I remember, and it's because we we put in seventeen

million dollars for the most accessible, obviously secure elections UM record turnout of both parties, and that made me very proud, and actually that it was a heavily Republican area which most used drive through voting. Since then, the election that we had before it was banned. So you know, fast forward to one when the state legislature met they meet every two years, they made it a point to continue the pandering that Donald Trump, of course had started about

the election. In practical terms, what that means is now in Texas, a partisan pole watcher can stand as close as they want to a voter as the voter is casting their vote, and the statute says as close as they need to see and hear, so they determine how close that is. Is this to intimidate voters? Is this to to say I'm watching you, I'm going to know who you voted for. There's even been recordings that were found from a far right Republican active is saying, you know,

we have to go. They identified the Hispanic and African American areas of town and said this is where we have to focus our poll watching. And I think you know, folks have just been told over and over and over again. You know, these are the same folks that storm the capital based on these lives. So it's the same fervor that is being spun into people here to say there's fraud, you gotta go. And the other thing that we've seen recently, there's more to this. At some point they tried to

ban voting before ten am on Sundays. Of course souls to the polls right. That didn't make it through, but they have tried with a straight face. The other thing that we are seeing now is they added sort of a web of technicalities to register and particularly request a mail in ballots. So we're having to flag around of mail ballot applications for rejection, and we're helping folks try to cure their ballots send the information they need, but

many counties don't have the resources or won't write more. Fundamentally, those secretary, the concern is every time you cry wolf, every time you call for a phony audit, every time you claim fraud, you're weakening the democratic principles behind our country. You're weakening faith in our democracy. One of my commissioners even he refused to certify the November election because there was a power outage. That's a very scary thing that we're pushing back against. We'll be right back, you know.

Beyond voting rights, it seems like Texas is becoming an incubator for a lot of regressive ideas. Um you've got obviously the new restrictive abortion law, but also laws that are being introduced to pull hundreds of books off the

shelves of school libraries. Uh, how do you think these kinds of um ideas get supported so that they are put into law, approved by a governor, And how do you fight back on that level where it's more diffuse than you know, in one county in your state, the banning of the books you're referring to something that is taking hold across Texas and other states as well, with this pandering around critical race theory, etcetera. And it is

very diffused. We saw school board candidates this past election November, several long serving it's nonpartisan, but generally they were Democrats. You sort of knew they were a school board trustees defeated by far right school board candidates who were supported by national groups very clearly, and they were you know, anti vax ers, and they were espousing this kind of you know, January six type mentality. And so there is a very organized effort to support that kind of candidate.

One of those folks who was just elected this past November, recently in a school board meeting very clearly intimated that more African American teachers leads to more dropouts, and we had a big movement with the n double A, CP and other national leaders to fight back against this. So what do you do? Number one is call out this kind of racism that is now It's always been under the surface, but is now more seems to be that many people feel emboldened to just say this kind of stuff.

Number Two, organized groups alike run for something. So many groups that support candidates at all levels. This past two years have made us realize your elections administrator, your your clerk, your sheriff, your county executive, those are crucial positions. You have got to make sure if you donate, if you volunteer, if you organize, that you focus on those races. That's absolutely crucial because the other side is doing that too.

And then the third piece I'll say is, you know, we can't feed into this divisiveness, right, So I always try to talk about sort of the far right. You know, I serve, but I serve everyone, Democrats and Republicans. I work on flood control projects everywhere. I work on vaccinations everywhere, making sure they're done in a way that is fair. And so we need to take a moment and understand, Okay, these folks are being told that their children will be

frightened and traumatized for life by learning this critical race theory. Okay, let's unpack that. So it's to say, look, we're not promoting that, we don't know. The goal is not to traumatize the children. So meet them where they're at, as opposed to saying, oh, that's a college course. You don't know what you're talking about, right, because folks are not coming from a bad place. Everyone's just in an echo chamber. I think that makes a great sense. And you mentioned vaccination.

You you ran a very highly regarded vaccination program in Harris County that seemed to get results, whereas in a lot of places there was much more confusion and divisiveness. Talk a little bit about how you set that up and how you and your team made it successful. So you know, we'll see what the listeners can remember from

when they first got their vaccine. But a lot of what we were hearing from around the nation and around here is it was sort of like the Hunger Games, right, Like you needed to um make sure that you knew which website and and get the latest intelligence on when to click register, and then you had to wait in line, and you know, lucky you if you had a pal who was a doctor UM. So we really wanted to to move past that and have something that was that was fair, that had equity built in. So we had

a randomized system. It was via phone, so you didn't need a computer. You could register all kinds of languages. Harris Counties is one of them, not the most diverse county UM in the country, and so many languages, and then folks were selected at random, with additional entries for the people who were older or had pre existing conditions or this kind of thing. But you know, with everything we do, we try to see even the funds we've given for landlords and for renters and UM just support

on all kinds of issues, most recently on crime. Where we focus our programs is where the data tells us, you know, this is where there's the most crime, This is where there's the most under investment. It's not about who has a buddy downtown or you know, what's the latest group that's freshest on your mind. And maybe that loses me some political alliances, but I don't think it necessarily does. People see the work and I think I'm

setting a tone. I know I am, and I hope that more folks come into government who are sort of don't feel compelled to adopt the icky nous of government. And what I've learned over this past three years have been in office is it's not naive to say, you know, I don't do it that way. Apply through this, you know, apply through this committee, and we'll see and and people get it and they stop kind of asking you for icky things and you can actually, you know, you can

do good stuff like that. I think that's a slogan for your next campaign. Get the icky out of politics, right right? Love it. Well. You know, sometimes we hear only the negative um about what's going on at the state level, one outrage after another. So if what advice would you give someone who, you know, maybe I might want to get involved, but it's only seeing the negative, seeing the ikey, they're not sure that it's for them.

How would you make the case that people like you, Lena, people with energy and a positive approach and good common sense, you know, should get involved in politics and government. One thing I think about a lot is we have ups and downs, and and the downs are heartbreaking many times, but the other side is not giving up, so we can't either. You know, I'm not going to pretend like

it's easy. I'll give you an example. We have funded criminal justice reform but also a lot of crime fighting initiatives, and we try to really smart things, so I don't want to contribute to mass incarceration two point out. But it's been record levels of funding and they still say I defunded the police. And you know, my detractors are

over here saying I'm releasing violent criminals. So there's people that really believe this, you know, and of course it's scary, something as scary as violence, so folks, you know, the vitriol and the nastiness of folks that really think I'm out there as part of some conspiracy to cause crime. Right, you know how this goes, and to be able to walk through that with your headheld high is important. And anyone who jumps into this they need to fully expect

that there's going to be something like this. But that's the reason to prevail is so this cynical bullshit frankly doesn't win, right, so that we can be civil and disagree on policy, but not this kind of stuff. You know, I did not think i'd have to deal with a pandemic and floods and fires in a winter storm. But I'll tell you it is so worth it. Giving early child education to kids, um, keeping somebody safe from domestic violence, keeping someone off the streets, my god, it's just setting

a community up for for competitiveness for a generation. So you know, it is so worth it. It It is not easy, but they're not giving up either, so let's keep going. Oh, a woman after my own heart. I love that, Lena, and you're a right. I mean, if you believe that things can be better, people can have access to a better life, that we can work together to achieve common goals, you can't give up in the face of relentless criticism

and negativity. And I know that's true about you. I am so happy to talk to you today, and I'm so proud, Secretary, that you're in this fight still so many of us. I just have to say it. As I face these attacks, you know, I think of you, and I hope that folks get a picture of me cheering them on as well, and we could have a big group here of wishing for positive change. Thank you for including me, Thank you, Thank you so much, Judge

Lena Hidalgo. To keep up with this rising star from the Lone Star State, you can follow Judge Lena Hidalgo on Twitter. And if my conversations with Lena and David have got you thinking about how you can help strengthen our democracy, you know there are so many ways to do your part. Run for something, whether it's for your school board, your city council, or some other local office, as Lena told us, and as she has demonstrated it's worth it. Or support local candidates with your time, your money,

or your big Instagram following. Show up at a local meeting, let your representatives know that they have to answer for their decisions. And make sure please that you and everyone you know is registered to vote, and that your registration is up to date. Don't get purged or dropped off the rolls. As David reminded us, we've got to get better at playing the long game so that together we can make our states once again vital laboratories of democracy. You and me both. Is brought to you by I

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