Factually! with Adam Conover - Why Local Elections Really, Really Matter with Nithya Raman

Episode Date: September 30, 2020

While the national election hogs the spotlight, the low-turnout, little-covered local election in your city or county can have just as big an impact on your life. Nithya Raman, candidate for Los Angeles City Council joins Adam this week to explain why the best way to make a difference is to focus on the candidates right in your own backyard. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code factually for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code factually for $15 off your first order on Bokksu.com. I don't know the way. I don't know what to think. I don't know what to say. Yeah, but that's alright. Yeah, that's okay. I don't know anything. Hello, everyone. Welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. And hey, you might have deservedly so. The election is a huge deal. It seems like it's not just the policies, but it's actually the entire direction of the government or really us as a society that is on the line this year. The choice is so vast and so important, but it can feel so dispiriting to follow the national election because, you know, it's hard to feel like you have an impact. Like, you know, what difference is your little vote going to make? I mean, you could donate 10 bucks to one of the campaigns, but come on, isn't Trump or Biden just going to

wipe their ass with that and flush it down the toilet? It's tough. Well, look, first of all, I want to caution against that kind of cynicism. It absolutely is vital to participate in the election. Please do. God help you get out there and vote. Do whatever you can. Be a poll worker. Even better if you can do that. But I do have a different message for you here today, because what if I told you that you have the chance to vote on a completely different election that is arguably just as important, but that you have far more impact on. And it doesn't even take any extra work to do it. You can vote for it on the exact same day. And yet

this is an election that has almost never been covered. Yeah, it's for real. It's called, drum roll please, a local election. Local elections happen in every city and county in America, in your own town, where you live. There is one this year, and that election will have a huge impact on major issues in your community. And frankly, not just local issues, national issues as well. For instance, your local election will affect your local transportation system, which has a huge impact on climate change, because if we ever want to solve it, we need more people to get out of their cars and onto public transportation or take racist police violence. You know, we're currently having a national debate about this

issue. But the fact is, police departments are largely controlled by city councils and mayors. And you vote for those people locally. Or how about this? Mass incarceration, one of the great national sins of America, one of the biggest problems that we are facing. Well, one of the biggest drivers of mass incarceration are the decisions of your local district attorney. The local district attorney gets to decide who to charge, how much to charge them for. They decide plea bargains. So the rise in incarceration that we've seen over the last couple of decades, that's driven largely by district attorneys. And guess what? You might not even realize this. You actually vote for the district attorney. Mass incarceration is a problem that we can all solve just with our votes. But here's the problem. People, and I want to include myself in this

at many points in my life, people do not vote in their local elections. Only 15 to 27 percent of eligible voters vote in them. And the people who do vote don't look a lot like the overall voting population. They're on average whiter, older and richer than people who vote nationally. White people vote at rates 20 percent higher in local elections than non-white voters. Wealthy voters have 30 to 50 percent higher turnout locally than lower income voters do. And look, I'm not trying to beat you up about this. I'm not trying to say it's all your fault, because part of the reason that we don't vote in these races might be the fact that they're barely even covered in the media. So we don't even know anything about the people that we're voting for. Like if you're sitting there going, I don't even

know who my city council person or my district attorney is. Well, that might be because their name is almost never put in front of your goddamn face. The problem is that with a nationalization of politics and the decimation of local media across the country, there are just less and less media outlets that are willing to cover these critical local races. Like when's the last time you heard about the race for county comptroller? Who is the county comptroller? What is a comptroller? Even comptroll. Well, let me tell you something. They comptroll you. The fact that you don't know who your local politicians are doesn't stop them from having a massive influence over your life.

And it makes it easy for a company that, say, wants a shitty tax break or build a shitty building or just do something shitty in your town to do it without being held to account. The less you know about local politics and your local election, the more power you give to local assholes who want to fuck shit up without you noticing. So let's recap. These positions, mayor, city council person, county supervisor, county comptroller, local district attorney. They're incredibly powerful, but almost nobody votes for them. And almost nobody even knows who the candidates are because nobody covers them. What the heck do we do about that? Well, I would like to turn that problem

into an opportunity for you, because the good news is your vote and your efforts and your money can have way more influence in a local election for exactly those reasons. Again, 10 bucks to Biden or Trump isn't even ass wiping money. And those are some big old wet asses those two guys have. But donate 10 or say 100 bucks to a city council race. You could make an actual big difference to the finances of that election or spend a day knocking on doors for a candidate. You could have a huge impact because, hey, if you knock on 100 doors, well, that's a significant portion of the entire electorate. Because less votes are involved, each vote matters way, way more. And that means that you are uniquely empowered to make change in your local races. I mean, heck, if you get involved in a local

campaign, you could even have a good chance of meeting the goddamn candidate and telling them about what your problems are. You could say, hey, I need that pothole goddamn fixed. It destroyed my Miata or whatever. You probably don't have a Miata. If you're listening to this, I don't think you have a Miata. If you are, if you're sitting in your Miata listening to this podcast, please send me an email to factually at adamcodover.net and tell me if that's you. I'd love to hear about it. Let's get back on topic.

Okay. Now, look, here's one last big reason to vote in local elections. Some people don't vote in their national elections because they live in such a red or a blue state that they feel like their votes don't matter. Right. Oh, I live in my state. They're all going for Biden anyway. They're all going for Trump anyway. Why should I vote? Right. But locally, your vote can still have a huge impact.

And that's because at the level of local politics, politicians are barely even divided into Democrats and Republicans in the first place because their positions don't even come up on the platforms, right? The Republican Party doesn't have a position on whether or not you should put a new homeless shelter in your neighborhood, right? That's something that local politicians have their own positions on.

And I don't care where you live, there are meaningful distinctions between local politicians that you can have influence on. All you have to do is get to know them. All you have to do is learn who they are and get involved. Well, our guest today is someone who has dedicated her last couple of years to doing exactly that. And she's a wonderful example of what an incredible impact you can have on a city just by taking part in local politics. Her name is Nithya Raman, and she is running for city council here where I live in Los Angeles. I want to disclose she's actually running for a seat in the district that I live in

and I have volunteered for her campaign. And so this is this podcast is an example of exactly what I told you about where because I participated, I got to meet the candidate. Now, here's what's so cool about her. She is not a longtime politician. In fact, this is the first race she has ever run in. But she forced the incumbent, this dude who has been a city councilman for a couple of years now, she forced him into a runoff in the primary and now is going head to head with him in the general. So I feel so privileged right now in this heated election moment to be talking to someone who is living it, who is on the ground in an election that is happening today, trying to make change in her community. And we could talk about what that is like, how it feels and what inspired her

to run. So if you, by the way, have ever wondered, could I run for office? This interview, you will love it. So look, I'm going to stop setting up. Let's get right to the interview with Nithya Raman. Well, Nithya, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So you're running for Los Angeles City Council during what I have to say is the most intense presidential election in my life. I mean, we thought 2016 was off the chain, as they say.

This is something else. Yet you're running for the most local of all local seats. Yes, that's right. How do you, why? Why focus on a local race right now? Well, partly it's just for sanity. I think for a lot of people who are involved in this race and for me personally,

I actually think operating at the local level is very empowering. I feel like national events are in so many ways out of my control. I end up donating to candidates in other coasts, in other states. It feels really far from where I am and the issues that I see right around me. And for me to be able to say, oh, here's something that I know can change my immediate surroundings and can help so many people potentially. I mean, we have a city of four million people just the district i'm running in is 250 000 people you know that's enormous right and so to me to be able to say okay at least i

can focus on this one thing i can focus on improving things in this one place and i know it's going to impact these people that actually for me is a line to sanity at this time. And I want to say, I've got to say, just close up top. I have volunteered for your campaign. I do live in your district. But part of the appeal is that, Hey, you can have an effect on it. It's, you know, it's so hard to influence the national. Okay. There's so many dollars. There's so many people making phone calls, but you can make a phone call in your own neighborhood and, you know, your dollar goes further, your time goes further,

and the impact can be greater than you imagine. Yeah. I mean, I definitely think so. And the exciting thing for me, so we can't do this now because of the pandemic, but before COVID, we were knocking on doors for this race, right? And it was neighbors having conversations with neighbors about the future of the city that they live in and share together. And to me, that is so beautiful. I mean, when do you get a chance to do that? When do you get a chance to go out and say, is this working for you? If it's not, how can it work better for you? And that's really, you know, to me, that's a really potent vision of democracy and how it's supposed to work.

And it's something that I find really exciting. Well, let's talk a little bit about how powerful these offices really can be. And I really want to make clear, this is true across the country. We're talking about, insofar as we're talking about Los Angeles, these same patterns you can see across the country. We're talking about insofar as we're talking about Los Angeles, these same patterns you can see across the country. But like in terms of how this race might affect my life, you know, I understand the Supreme Court. What happens to the Supreme Court is going to affect my life. What happens with, you know, the California Senate will affect my life. But how does a city council race affect my life? You know, I think a lot of people don't think of their local city government as exclusively dealing with something like garbage pickup or the or, you know, the broken sidewalks that they want fixed or.

And that is part of it. That is an important part of what makes up your day-to-day life. But in a city like Los Angeles, and for many cities across America, your city council controls so much more of what makes up your life and actually shapes the way in which you have access to opportunities locally. So in LA, for example, our city council has their biggest power is really in their control over land use. So they set the rules that determine how things are built and not built here. They actually make decisions on particular buildings, lots of buildings, because that's the way our planning is set up here. And so everything that you see, all the buildings you see around you, the new high rises coming up, if you see kind of things changing in your neighborhood,

that's because of decisions your city council is making. In LA, our city controls the use of road space. So if you're trying to get around and you want to get out of your car, let's say, and you want to use a bus or you want to use a bicycle or you want to walk around and you feel like these options are not that good for you, that's because of decisions that your city council made about how that road space is allocated between these different options. And by the way, it's not just about your decision to get out of your car.

It's about how we are affecting climate change as a city because the more that we are able to get out of our car, the better we're able to address climate change. So it's not just a small decision. It's a big decision because you're making that decision. And 4 million people are making their driving decisions based on your powers in the city, you know? So that's incredibly powerful. There's, you know, there, I can go on and on, but there's so many ways in which the city is making decisions that I think are far more comprehensive than what we traditionally think of calling our

city representatives about, which is complaints about garbage being on the street. Now, first of all, thank you so much for making that connection to climate change. And I want to talk about that. But first, the point that you made about having control over land use and road use, is that the city council has to make a decision or does that the city council person actually has like unilateral control in their district? So they have control in two ways. So there's a set of rules that say, okay, this can be built here and this can't be built here. That's your zoning code. That's something your council helps to put together. So they determine the rules of the game, right? But in LA, the way we've set it up is that for a lot of buildings, your council person has direct say over whether something is built or not, because there are so many questions

around. They get a veto. They get a veto or they, in some cases they get a yes, or they can push projects through. So yes, they, they are really directly controlling a lot of that stuff, which is a really big source of power. Yeah. And it's one of those things where like, this is a position where until very recently, I didn't know the name of the person who held the position. Like I had never heard of them.

I didn't know the position existed. I didn't really understand how the city worked. And that's on me partially, but it's also like these are not extremely public politicians. They're not going out of their way a lot of the time to draw attention to the fact. So like, you know, I'm walking around going like, well, why the hell is this piece of shit, giant luxury building being built here when we need low cost housing or, you know, et cetera. Like I've got an opinion about that. Yeah. I don't know that there's a dude who was elected by like five by a couple thousand votes. Right. And this enormous district who has unilateral control over it, who like I

could vote for or not. I'm just not aware of that. And that makes me think of how many things that I'm unhappy with in the city are are are like that. Yeah. And I think that's been the really interesting part about running this race at this moment in Los Angeles, but also this moment in America, because I think a lot of people are becoming more aware about the powers of their local governments and how the decisions made by those local governments affect things that they are, for example, protesting on the streets about, you know, how their decisions about how much money to give the police or how much, you know, how much oversight to give the police directly have impacted their ability to stop police brutality. least brutality. And so I think those kinds of connections are things that people are making across America right now. But in LA, those challenges were particularly acute because we have had in Los Angeles, very little voter participation in these municipal elections. They happened in off years. There was not a lot of outreach from our elected representatives to

go out there and to encourage people to vote because very honestly it was easier just to get those few people who came in and make sure that they voted for you yeah and that's what that's what they focused on you know they wanted it to be a narrow group of voters and they knew how to appease those voters interests and that's just how it worked for a really really long time it's not you didn't know their name because it was on you. They didn't really want you to know their name. They weren't doing that work. And I feel like that's true in a lot of places,

although LA is uniquely weird because of how big our districts are. Yeah. So rather than go wide and say, I want to help out everyone who lives in my district, they would just try to make the 5,000 retirees who knew when the election was and liked showing up at their local school's gymnasium, like, and make those people happy rather than try to make it, you know, really try to like serve their communities. Yeah. And I think those people are also part of the community, so they should be serving them as well. You know, and I, you know, I think that that's really important.

What I think happened in Los Angeles and perhaps what happened in other cities as well that suffered from the same problem is that in their focus on serving just those residents who voted regularly, we ignored some of the bigger issues that now have become enormous challenges for Los Angeles. You know, we, so we were talking about the powers of Los Angeles before, right? In LA, we have a really powerful, you know, tool that the city has to address one of the biggest issues that faces LA, which is housing costs, right? When you think about Los Angeles, I feel like everyone is talking about homelessness and housing costs, right? Those are the two big things that you hear about all the time. Well, did you know that LA City Council controls rental increases in 80% of apartments in the city through the rent stabilization ordinance? I actually didn't know that. I'm not faking it. I didn't know that until you just said it. So that, I mean, that is to, when I learned that, that was astounding to me. So, you know,

we have this thing called a rent stabilization ordinance. We don't have rent control here, right? But rent stabilization means in buildings built before a particular year, the rents in those units can only go up by a prescribed amount every year, right? And the RSO sets, the board for that law sets that rate every year. So they have been, and it's a floor of 3%. We live in a city where rents have been increasing so fast, it's been completely out of scale with renter incomes. In fact, it hasn't, you know,

renter incomes have not kept pace at all. In some, by some calculations, renter income has actually gone down. But we've had this power all this time to say, hey, let's put a pause on rental increases in these hundreds of thousands of units that our city controls the rental increases in. We never did that. We never did that. Wow. Except until the pandemic increases in. We never did that. We never did that. Wow. Except until the pandemic. Yeah. And we talked about this in the primary. We said, look, we can put a rent freeze in these rent, you know, in these rent stabilized units. We can do that today. That's fully within the power of the city council to do. And then finally, and we were told by the way, during the primary

that this was, you know, this was out of the question, way too radical. What are you saying? And then the pandemic happened and people really started suffering and they did it. They put in a temporary red freeze to me. That's okay. That's great. I'm glad that they did that. But to me what it says is they had this power the whole time, you know, and they didn't use it to address what is one of the biggest challenges facing Los Angeles. What is one of the biggest challenges facing people's ability to use those powers to make the city work for everybody who lives in it. Often you see our state and local politicians like tweet or or say, oh, we need change on this issue about stuff like climate change. Right. Or police police brutality. Perfect example.

Gavin Newsom, the horrible fires we've had in California. Everyone in California is, you know, is aware now that climate change is a real issue. I haven't seen polling on it, but I must imagine that, you know, we're really reaching a political consensus about climate change in California because it is killing us with the air pollution and the fires. And so Gavin Newsom goes into the our governor goes into the fiery, you know, where the fire has been and says climate change is real. Anyone who doesn't accept it is wrong and we need change on this. We need national change on this issue. The same dude has been approving new natural gas wells. I later found out like on a on a record scale. Right. And which completely neglects the fact that it's like he's he's talking as though, OK, we need to get a new president in there who needs

to pass some laws. Yeah, sure. But what about what you can do, motherfucker? You know, you can do so much like and that extends the city as well. That like just to bring it back to what you said earlier, the you know, the amount of car travel that we have in Los Angeles is so massive. One of our biggest drivers of climate change emissions. If we want to actually stop climate change emissions, it's not just going to happen on the national level. It needs to happen on the local level because there's all these aspects that our road use is not controlled by the Senate or Congress. It's controlled by our local politicians. And so, yes, we need those big national changes as well. But we also need like every city in the country to reform its transportation systems, to have more public

transportation and more walking and less driving 100 miles a day to get to and from work. That's just the fact. And like these local politicians have power over that and they don't seem to acknowledge it or want us to know that they that they do and and so few of us are aware that they do yeah and i think people don't i think people don't understand how much change can happen if they just use those powers yeah right it and i think people undervalue how much change can happen at the city level. But to me, you know, over these last four years, as we've watched the Trump administration roll back regulation after regulation about emissions, you know, disempowering the EPA, for me, looking at the power of the city and state to take real climate action has been,

I think, for me, it has to be the focus of our work in many ways, because we don't know what's going to happen. Hopefully things will change in November. But I think that for us, it gives us such a clear path for action in California. And if we change LA, if we change California, if we change the habits of 4 million people, in LA County, it's 10 million people. You know, in the whole state of California, it's going to be just a massive shift in how we respond to these issues, and that's going to have national level impacts anyway. And so, you know, I think as somebody who votes on these issues at the national level, who votes with these values,

and when I pick my congressional candidates or when I pick where I'm going to be supporting races across the country, for me, the only logical step is to also say, well, at the local level, the candidates that I'm supporting and the ways in which I'm thinking about what the city can do really aligns with those values as well. Yeah. I want to talk about one other issue that is like national yet local, talking about police brutality and police violence. Like also here in L.A., I've noticed our our mayor loves to tweet whenever a

unarmed black person is killed in another state. He loves to say this is horrible and this needs to end, but it never has anything to say when it happens in the city that he's in charge of. And you don't need to comment on that specifically. But how what is the role of local officials in that issue? So in Los Angeles, what we've had, you know, again, as in many cities across California, this isn't a story that's unique to L.A. at all. We've had because there's been very little voter participation in local races. The influence of a body like the police union on local elections has been immense. And so as a result, the police union, which, you know, Laura Chick, who was the former LA controller, said, you know, the police

union in LA has two jobs. One is to increase the salaries for its members. And two is to reduce accountability to make sure that their members are protected from oversight. And that is the role of our union here locally, right? And so in this context where very few people participated locally, the police union took on greater and greater power. And as it took on greater and greater power, it also took up a greater and greater percentage of our budget. They also passed measures like Charter Amendment C, which took away accountability from police officers. And so I think we have this situation in Los Angeles where because we haven't been engaged as residents,

because we haven't been brought in, this one special interest group, this police union has taken on outsized power in our local elections. And if we want to address the issue of police brutality and police violence against people of colors, especially against Black Angelenos who are particularly targeted in police violence here in LA, you know, we have to chip away at the power of these unions. And I think the way we do that is

through civic engagement. The way we do that is by bringing people to the polls and showing people that we care about these issues and that we all vote on these issues. And I think that's a very real change that I hope will be a durable one in L.A. going forward. Well, while we're on that topic, how do you as someone who's running in the middle of a nationwide uprising about this issue, right, where the activists who are marching about this issue are, you know, putting forth their demands and their language for what they want and what they need, right? You're going before the voters. And I think you share the goal of, you know, really demanding change on this issue. How do you convert, you know, a slogan like defund the police, which is a clear slogan and,

you know, has has a lot to recommend it right in terms of it's just its focus on how much money we spend on the police versus other services. But that's a simple slogan. How do you convert that into a platform that you take to the voters? The way I've thought about it is to think about what the police are being asked to do in Los Angeles. And I always start with that first. So in Los Angeles, if you look at calls for service for the LAPD, 8% of those calls for service

are related to violence or violent incidents. Just 8%. Yeah. Yes, that's right. That was an LA Times analysis of millions of calls over the last few years. Wow. And it's actually higher than in other cities. Other cities where they've done similar analysis, that number has been at 4% or hovering around there.

Always less than 10%, right? Wow. you know, hovering around there, always less than 10%, right? And so what are the other things that we are now calling in police to do that we don't need armed response for, armed police response for? Say, what are these other calls for service? Let's look at them. There's a lot of calls about homeless encampments. There's lots of calls about traffic collisions. There's lots of calls about traffic stops. There's calls about noise complaints in other buildings or other houses. There's lots of calls about traffic stops. There's calls about noise complaints in other buildings or other houses. There's calls about mental health issues and mental health crises that people are having. There's calls about domestic violence, intimate partner violence.

And so in so many of these cases, we would be better served. the mission of achieving public safety for Angelenos would be better served by sending out unarmed, trained responders to address these calls for service that can not just respond to that call, but can potentially address the root cause of that call for service. So if you're sending out a trained mental health caseworker in response to a mental health crisis call, ideally you would be sending out someone who is anchored in a neighborhood, who already knows that individual potentially. If they are somebody who's been dealing with these issues for a while or has been experiencing homelessness, they may be even known to the individual that's going out there.

Now imagine how much more positive that interaction can be between your responder and the individual who's suffering a crisis. They can be de-escalating the situation, but because they may have a relationship of trust or because they're trained to respond to that, they may actually be able to get that person into treatment or get the support that they need far more effectively than someone coming in, you know, with a gun and potentially escalating the situation and potentially resulting in serious harm to the individual involved. So, you know, I think the way I think about these issues is not to think about, is really to think about how do we really fund public safety? How do we get to the goal of public safety?

And I think when you talk about it in that way, it really, it can be a very fruitful conversation with almost anybody. Yeah. I mean, it sounds like there's a way to think of it where it seems kind of abstract, but like this is, it's a real need, you know, in the homelessness engagement that I do, like, you know, one of the

encampments that we visit every week, there was a man there who was, he was fine for a little bit, but then as we visited him, he started to, you know, have, have struggled with mental illness very clearly until we could no longer engage with him. He was, he was enough out of his head that, you know, we, we could, he was not lucid, right? And we were like, God, we need to help this. He's a nice guy. We've been seeing him for a while and he's really struggling and we need to help him. And there was literally nobody to call in the city.

There's no mental health. I mean, there is a county mental health department, but we were told don't even try. Like they won't. It takes hours. It takes hours. You know, what I would do like in our neighborhood is to have, you know, homelessness is such a big issue here. And many people who are homeless, not all, but, you know, there are a number of people who are homeless who are person who has mental health issues, who is experiencing homelessness by name and is working with them on that journey to getting help. It takes multiple contacts with somebody before you can build the trust to get them into services. That's the reality of it. But it is not an impossible reality to overcome. What we have

created in Los Angeles is a system that does not support that kind of process. And we're wasting money. Like, let's build that system. Let's use the same money we're putting towards our current homelessness response and put it towards setting up these outreach workers for success. Let's put it towards setting up these individuals to be as, you know, as likely as possible for them to be able to get the help that they need, you know? And I think the amount of what some people call like service resistance or whatever will really disappear if we set the system up for success instead of what we're doing right now. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you about the personal aspect of running, what this is like for you as a citizen who decided to run.

But we got to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more Nithya Raman. OK, Nithya, we're back with you. Hello. Hi. Well, I want to talk about you running a little bit like because. Well, first of all, just tell me a little about your background and what brought you to running, because what I'm really curious about is, you know, a private citizen who has not chosen politics as a vocation. A private citizen who has not chosen politics as a vocation, right, realizes, oh, wait, this is a thing that I can do and that I should do.

And that how does that what does that journey look like? For me personally, the thing that's been exciting about this is like when cities work right, they are awesome. They are just like incredible places to be. They're places where you can come and, you know, make your dreams come true. Like I'm an immigrant to America. My family and I moved here when I was six years old, right? And so for me, like this version of a city that works right is so inspiring. That's the city I want to live in. And LA, more than any other city, really, I think, epitomizes that place of opportunity for so many people in America. Yeah. You know, and so I really want to get it right in LA. I want to make it work in LA. And that's like

deeply, deeply inspiring to me. And I think the thing is, it's good because it's inspiring to a lot of people. Yeah, it's certainly inspiring to me. But I think the thing is, it's good because it's inspiring to a lot of people. Yeah, it's certainly it's really inspiring to me. But I want to ask you more about I'm just so curious about the transition that you might have gone through for yourself personally. Like I know, you know, when I started doing my television show, right, when I started, I was a staff writer at a website, right? And I had the opportunity to, one of the series that I made for the website for College Humor on YouTube called Adam Ruins Everything, we had the opportunity to sell it as a TV show, right?

And I had to reconceive of myself. And I literally remember where I was when I started thinking, wait, hold on a second. I think I could do it. Like, I think I could create and host a TV show because before that I had always pictured myself as writing for other people. Right. I want to write on late night or something like that. That was my big dream was to like write for Jon Stewart. Right. And I was like, wait, could I be Jon Stewart? Like, do I have that? Yeah. Yeah. I

do know what I want to say. And and I do work well with other people. And I think I could. Yeah, I think I have the tools that I need. OK, I think I can do it. And then I had to change the way I behaved. Right. Like I changed my self-conception that changed the way I approached the issue. Right. Yeah. And I and I really felt like I fucking pictured coming out of a chrysalis, right, like a butterfly, like I'm like I'm metamorphosing into a different type of person. And it was this it was that was a very important moment for me. And so I'm curious, you did you have a moment where where you went from? Go ahead, please. No, I want to know what what about your behavior changed?

It was like like coming at it with a little bit more confidence. Right. And, and in a creative situation, I mean, I'm still very much a consensus maker in a writer's room. And I say, do we, does everyone else agree with this? Like, check me on this. Like I'm not a dictatorial person, but to come in and say, Hey, here's what I want to do. And I think this is going to be a good show. And to know that other people are going to take their cues from that. Right. It was, it was realizing, you know, and as an executive producer, it's realizing like, oh, the other people I work with who I've always taken my cues from, like my boss. You're right. Like, oh, wait, no, I I'm unequal with that person. And I am now going to have to be a boss. Right. And and reconceive in myself.

And what do I think being a good boss is? I'm a little uncomfortable with that. Right. I've always been, you know, kind of an anti boss person. And now I have to be one. It's like requires a bit of self reconception. Right. And so I wonder, did you have a moment where you're like, OK, I'm a private citizen and I'm upset, upset with politics. And how do we make change? But oh, wait, I could do it. Like, what did you have that? What did it feel like? wait, I could do it. Like, what is, did you have that? And what did it feel like? Yeah, and I think the weirdest thing about running for office is it's not just, I could do it. It's like, we need to see change and I am that change. That's kind of what this moment asks of you in some ways.

And that's really hard for me because I, like you, I think resist this idea of an individual, like an individual leader being the one that takes us from a good place to a, from a bad place to a good place, you know? I want to be part of a movement. I want to be part of an organization. That's what I've always done in my career is to build groups and build teams that effectively address challenges and get people excited to work on those teams. That's the thing that gets me up in the morning. That's the thing I love doing. So it was really hard for me because politics and the way it's structured forces you to put yourself at the center of that narrative in a way.

It requires leadership. And that's actually the similarity between my own example was I was to put a better point on it. I realized, oh, I could be a leader creatively. Right. And we're still going to do it together, but I'm going to be leading. And yeah, does that track for you? Yeah, for sure. And I think that the the missing the step that I had to take was I have an analysis of how this problem needs to be solved. And then the step the next step was, OK, I'm going to take was I have an analysis of how this problem needs to be solved. And then the step, the next step was, okay, I'm going to take that step to solve this problem. And the missing, you know, the, the analysis is that the people who are in power are people who are too, too indebted to the special interests that I think have,

have dominated LA politics and LA policymaking for years in ways that have been really detrimental for Angelenos. And so what we need is people in power who are not beholden to those interests, who came at this with a base of support that is external to our current very broken political system. And yeah, that was, it was really hard for me to say, okay, I'm going to now be that person to, who tries to, to build that external base and who tries to say, here's my analysis of what's wrong. Everyone join me in, in, in, in, in this analysis and like elect me. Cause I'm going to, I'm going to try and fix this. But I think it's also been an incredible privilege to be, you know, to be, and I'm sure you feel

the same way. It's like, it's, we're so lucky to be able to put that vision of what needs to change in the world or for, in your case, your vision of that creative output in, you make it happen. We make it happen into reality. And yeah, it's been, it's been tough. I will say though, it was a, it was a tough change for me to, to make that happen. We make it happen into reality. And yeah, it's been, it's been tough. I will say though, it was a, it was a tough change for me to, to make that step. Well, I'm very curious about, because what I'd love from this interview for folks listening, this is to realize,

Hey, these same dynamics exist in your city and you could be that person too. Right. Or maybe there's a person in your community who you could say, Hey, hint, hint, you should run. Right. And you can support like you can be a part of that movement as well. And so I'm really curious about the more I get involved in politics, the more I learn about it, the more I realize that, like, you you do need certain things in order to run right like if it it is how how do you what are the tools that you need in order to get because you've had some success right um you you force the incumbent into a runoff which is like historically difficult in la uh the incumbents have so much power they they've already got all the special interests like you say on their sides they've got the the various chambers of commerce and other groups that donate money and etc they've got all the special interests, like you say, on their sides. They've got the various chambers of commerce and other groups that donate money and et cetera. They've got all the fireman union sends out mailers and stuff like that because they're all saying, hey, this is the guy who helps me. I'm going to keep spending money on this guy. We're betting on the same horse. So you must need

something in order to wage a campaign. What are What are those things? Like, is it in terms of connections in the community or, you know, your own base of support? Like, does that make sense? Yeah. But I do think that the experience in Los Angeles is really different from other cities for this one. Yeah. Cause I don't think the challenge in LA is uniquely hard for challenging an incumbent in particular for running for office in LA in general, but particularly for challenging an incumbent in particular for running for office in LA in general, but particularly for challenging an incumbent because our districts are so enormous that in order for you to get the word out to all of these people, you either have to have money to be able to send out mail and to run digital ads or have a base of volunteers who are going to help you knock on

doors and get the word out. Ideally you have both. And that is what we've been able to put together over time here. But I think in other cities, districts are smaller. And so what I don't want to do is to tell people that this is too hard for you if you don't have a huge network already. I think a committed person in a city where the districts are more reasonably sized, which is most cities, to be very honest, LA is uniquely bad in that aspect. I think that if you can get out there and knock on doors and talk to people and have conversations about what you want to see differently done in your city, you can have an incredible amount of success in winning races and in getting

involved. And so that, I think if I were to talk to people outside of Los Angeles, that would really be the message that I would give to them is that this will take an incredible amount of time and commitment to making those, having those conversations and making that case. But it is not out of anybody's grasp, I think. And it is completely worth doing. It is so worth doing. That's so much better than the answer I was fishing for. Please go on.

Well, and then the other thing I wanted to say too is, you know, I think one of the hard things about, we were talking about the national versus the local, right? And a lot of things that happen at the national level are mediated through this digital world. and a lot of things that happen at the national level are mediated through this digital world. And so I feel like those conversations, in as much as they are conversations, are almost like conflicts that are never going to be overcome, right? There's just a black and white, you believe in one side, somebody else believes in another. And the more you are on in the digital space,

the more you're on Facebook, the more you get winnowed into your bubble and with people who agree with you and the further away you get from having conversations with people who may not. At the local level, when you're talking about solutions to issues, like how do we address poverty? How do we address homelessness?

How do we keep our streets cleaner? If you can have a conversation with somebody, I think you can really get to a place where you can convince someone that your policy is better, you know, and that's incredible. That's such a good moment. And you may start from very different places and you may not get to the same place, but you're way closer, you know, at the end of a conversation. And that happened all the time in the primary for me, particularly when we were doing that face-to-face work. And that was awesome. That is really, really exciting. And I think the more that we can do that, the better it is for

our cities, because guess what? The next steps, the next challenges that we're facing at the city level, all of them are so complicated and so hard. Right. Like there's no easy solutions. Guess what? Addressing climate change is going to require some hard work from everybody. And some sacrifices. Some sacrifices. That's right. So what does it mean to go out there and tell someone you need to make some sacrifices, but here's the broader good that we're going to get to. And let's do this together, you know? Yeah. And they may say, that's too much to ask for from me.

And you may say, okay, let's ask for a little less, but let's still get to the goal that we need to get to. And that's the work. That is the work of local government. And that's good, like really, really important work for right now. Yeah. Damn, that's cool. Well, one of the things that

strikes me as such a strange thing about these elections, like a strength and a difficulty is that we're so used to because of our partisan tribalism, just like knowing who our candidate, I just Democrat, Democrat, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Republican going down the ballot. Right. But then when you get to races like yours, well, it's a nonpartisan race. Right. And you I believe you're both Democrats to some degree, but you're not running as Democrats in this race. Right. And so partisan race. Yeah. And so people when they get to that line on the ballot, they kind of don't know what to do. Like, you know, there are people who I'm sure are just like, oh, yeah, I vote for the opponent. He's a he's a Democrat.

Like, actually, no. Well, he is. Yes. But weirdly, and this almost never happens in American politics in your experience, you can talk to people who have never experienced this before. This race doesn't have a Democrat Republican fight in it. And you have to come up with another way to distinguish yourself. And like the things that are distinguishing you as candidates aren't even part of the party platforms. Um, like, like how, like public transportation and, and all these things are not, they don't exist on that level. And, uh, I, so I, I think that would maybe give you,

well, my guess would be is that gives you an opportunity because you can have those conversations, but also it probably confuses people and makes it harder because I mean, hey, you're running for House representative. You just try to turn out more Democrats. Right. Right. So so how does that affect the race? Well, I think this is an issue that's coming up all the time because you're seeing in some of these cases where it's like blue seats or red seats that the bigger fight is coming in the primary. like blue seats or red seats, that the bigger fight is coming in the primary, right? So people are faced with this all the time. It's not just in Los Angeles or California where everybody's a Democrat that you're faced with trying to distinguish between what type of Democrat are you or which representative actually represents my values, you know? So I think this is a challenge that I think we are facing across the country

and i think some of the most interesting races over these last few months have been where uh people are challenging incumbents in a primary who've been there for a really long time and saying what you've done is not good enough and we need something different we need something more urgent a lot of that has been around climate change response. You know, we feel an urgency to act on these issues and you don't. A lot of that has been on racial justice issues, you know, poverty, on issues I think where, yeah, where there are real differences in policy. And I think for me, what has been really fruitful in thinking through this election has been to say, what is, you know, what's the difference between, like, I identify as a progressive, right? And what is the difference between a progressive and a more traditional Democrat, a corporate Democrat? And I think trying to articulate

those differences, like we don't take money from corporations. We don't take money except, you know, the only people we're raising money from are people, like individuals who live, ideally who live in the city. You know, some people are donating from outside of the city because they care about this race or they care about, you know, the things that we're discussing here. But to me, that's a really important distinction because I'm not, you know, I think when you start raising money from people who have a motive to profit from the city, when you have people who are donating to your campaign because they're hoping to get something out of it through policymaking,

you know, that's not, that's related to profit or that's related to personal gain in some way. I think that's when you start having a city government that's really broken. That to me is the biggest issue with LA so far. And so I think to really make that distinction and to say, what does it mean to run a campaign that's really built on people power? And to be differentiating myself in that way has been really a challenge, but it's also been an exciting one. Yeah. I mean, it seems like you can just, the existence of a candidacy like this sort of wakes people up to the way politics works more deeply. Like, like, again, the the two the national two party narrative and, you know, model that we use, like weirdly distorts our concept of how politics works. Like people have this, you know, California, blue state that creates the illusion that like

everybody agrees with, like, you know, Democratic Party values in the whole state. Right. But what I've come to realize looking more at the politics is it means no, actually, it just means that in California, conservatives are Democrats. Right. Because there is no functional Republican Party. So everyone gets put under one tent and it erases those distinctions in this weird way. So you've got a lot of people who, you know, will sort of pay lip service to one or two things the Democratic Party stands for. But then on every other issue, it's like, no, no, don't raise property taxes. Don't, you know, extend compassionate support to unhoused folks, et cetera, et cetera. And that happens without people noticing because they're a Democrat, because like our heuristic is still applying.

Because they're a Democrat, because like our heuristic is still applying. Right. And like it seems like just by having those conversations, you wake people up to the fact that like, no, no, there are going to be distinctions between these people. And that's what you need to vote on. Yeah. And I think what's really exciting is how much just a candidacy can bring that out into the open and how much it can change policymaking already. the open and how much it can change policymaking already. So one of the things that happened in our election was that right after the primary, the incumbent started adopting some of the policies and the policy issues that we were focusing on in the primary. Because you forced them into a runoff. Because we forced them into a runoff. And I think, but what happened was that because we talked about those issues and because we were successful in getting as many as the number of votes that we did, I think what my campaign did was to show that these ideas have real electoral resonance, which is a real form of power, right?

That means no candidate in LA can avoid talking about them and nobody can avoid talking about them in the ways that we have been talking about them. And I think that's incredibly powerful no matter what the outcome is on November 3rd, because that means we've changed something in LA already. And that, and I think the, I think there's, there's been some pushback that I've gotten in this race. Like, why are you running against a Democrat? You know, like, why are you trying to unseat a Democrat? And it's like, well, because I believe in a different vision of how the city interacts with residents, because I believe in in these specific policies and these specific policy changes. And to see that those policy changes become more powerful just because I run. That is cool. That's that's change. That's real measurable change in LA. And I think that can happen in any place where somebody steps up and runs. Now, there's a couple other races like yours in LA, like candidates who I think share your vision and are running grassroots campaigns

like this. I also know that I've seen others across the country like like Philadelphia, I know, has a really strong movement of, you know, door knocking folks who want to transform their city. Are there do you feel that there's a there's a trend happening here of people paying more attention to local politics in this way? Yeah, I for sure. I definitely think that there is a trend and I'm really excited to be a part of that trend. I think for a long time, a lot of people, you know, that it's a place where you should put your energy and that, that excited and energetic people are going to get involved at the local level. That to me is a sign of a really good change, you know, because we need good people there. We need values driven people there. We need people who are there, not because they want to be in politics for 40 years, not because they're using it as a jumping off point for their congressional careers, but because they really deeply care about their cities or their towns. And, you know, that will really signal, I think, a big change in how these places function.

places function. And why do you think that we've neglected it for so long that, you know, I mean, I've lived in cities my whole life, right? I mean, you know, I lived in New York for close to a decade. I didn't really, you know, I read the paper, but, you know, I didn't really have a sense of how the city council worked there. Yeah. And, you know, this race, even though it covers 250,000 people, like you say, and it's so powerful, it's barely covered in the paper. Like, you know, there's an article every couple months about this incredibly impactful, powerful position. Why do you think that is?

Well, you know, I actually think back to when I was growing up. And many years ago, I feel like none of us were that political overall. I think now there's an upsurge in political interest across the board. I feel like people are getting more engaged on these issues as a matter of necessity in some ways, right? And so to me, the focus on getting local is really like another extension of that,

is an understanding of the power structures that have prevented America from being what it can be, what it should be, and saying, oh, this is also a power structure that needs to be disrupted and unraveled and taken over by people who want something different, you know? And I think it just took a while for us to get there. Like, I feel like, you know, my husband and I have really different approaches to politics. He yearns for a time when he doesn't have to think about it every day. He just, you know what I mean? He just wants to not care. Like, not that he wants to not care. He just wants

to know that it's in safe hands and that someone is there shepherding us through the challenges of today. And he felt like, you know, maybe, maybe it was a little bit diluted in retrospect, but he felt like that for many years, he felt like he had that. And then suddenly he woke up and said, oh my gosh, no, we don't have this at all. And now I have to get deeply engaged. I have to get informed. I have to be active all the time. And I feel like that kind of awakening happened for so many people, especially when Trump got elected. Yeah. You know, and yeah. And so I think I think it's just a natural extension of that awakening that was significantly accelerated by these protests, by people really making those connections between local government and a lot of the injustice that they were seeing around them. I mean, our local government is what put, implemented a lot of the planning practices in Los Angeles that have kept LA so segregated.

And that's true for so many cities across America. Yeah. You know, it happened in our cities. It happened in our cities. It's crazy to think that. Yeah. Do you feel that it's you disagree with your husband that that politics is something that we should aspire to not pay attention to? Or do you think we can we can hope for that? Because, you know sometimes when i think about my own similar to this transition where you know i became realized oh i could lead this right i feel like as i've aged i have realized that other people uh it it's never felt like i've grown up it felt like everyone else got younger in my eyes i'm like oh everyone is no one knows anything and they're all fucking up and you know when i was 18 i thought oh the adults know what they're doing. And I grew up and realized they didn't. And like, OK, so why not me? Right. Why don't I get involved? Right. Because like I apparently

know better than the mayor. Like I've read studies that he apparently hasn't read about how to, you know, you know, end homelessness, et cetera, et cetera. So like, I guess I need to get involved in like tell people. And I don't know, do you, and that means you can never give up, right? That means you can never say, okay, let's it's in good hands because, uh, there's never going to be anyone's hands better than yours. Do you feel that way? Are you, or do you agree with your husband to let it be? to let it be. You know, for me, this is fun. So maybe that's the answer to how do you know that you should run if you find it fun. Yeah. If you like going to the committee meetings and organizing and knocking on doors and you're like, I can't wait to do that again tomorrow. Yeah. I mean, I don't like necessarily going

to committee meetings. I love talking to people. I love talking to people. I mean, I don't like necessarily going to committee meetings. I love talking to people. I love talking to people. I love explaining things to people. I love arguing with people. Not arguing, but, you know, kind of getting to a place where we are sharing and understanding. I love that. That really makes me super happy. So, yeah, I guess.

And I love the idea of community. I love having this whole big group of people who are sharing this vision for change in Los Angeles and who are working on it together. That is so, that, that makes me really happy. So I guess, oh, I don't know. My husband is usually right, but I think for me to me in some ways I feel like the fact that we let things get so bad in Los Angeles with regards to homelessness

is because not enough people were paying attention it wasn't happening in our neighborhood people were getting evicted all the time people were leaving LA people were becoming homeless. And we just, we were able to ignore it for a really long time until the number of people living on the streets grew so much that it was in every neighborhood across the city. And to me,

it's like, we shouldn't have to wait until things get so bad until we're faced with such incredible human suffering on such a massive scale before we choose to get involved and take action. So, you know, I hope that people stay engaged in the future and I hope that we can make it fun for people to stay engaged in the future. What's election night gonna look like for you? It's about a month away. Don't wanna give you a panic attack.

It's about a month and change away. Don't think you're gonna have a big party or election night party. No. So where do you think you're going to have a big party or election night party. No. So so where do you think you're going to spend it? And I want you to walk me through. What do you think your emotional reaction will be to you win and to you lose? I'm curious. It's a pretty close election. So I'm really interested in the human in the human part of it. Right. Like as a person who's running for the first time yeah how the fuck do you feel about this i think about it all the time and the most i think about this all the time the most the most concrete piece of this for me

is that i want uh you know i want to be past the election you know i want this there's just over i want it to be over like there's just anxiety infusing my days at all times, both related to this race and to the national race, right? And so I'm really looking forward to waking up on the morning of November 4th and seeing my kids and not having to leave them all day, you know, and just being able to go for a walk with them and do that stuff.

And I think I'll do that whether I win or whether I lose. So for me, that's the thing I like really hold on to is that moment of, let's just go for a walk today. Let's go to, let's go to the park. I don't know. Do you feel you'll have accomplished that even if you don't win the election, do you feel you'll have accomplished something? Oh yeah, for sure. And I think every person who has been involved in the campaign feels that way. You know, I think that we have changed, we've changed the way in which local politics happens, at least, you know, for the near future in Los Angeles. I think every, every city council person is looking at this race and watching what's happening here.

And I think thinking about how they can insulate themselves from challengers and what policies will they have to pass in order to do this. And that's cool. That means that the city is changing and that's great. Yeah, for sure. And just like the number of people who know about city council, who knew their city council member, who know about policies, who are calling into these meetings, like that is good. That's really good. I mean, again, just working on homelessness in LA, I've are calling into these meetings, like that is good. That's really good. I mean, again, just working on homelessness in L.A., I've been on neighborhood council meetings, which are our most local government level of government. And I've seen how our city councilman, who's the incumbent who you're running against, how his policies have changed because you are running in ways that tangibly affect the

lives of the folks living on the street that they there have been. I know that there have been encampments where they have not sent the police to go send all those people to jail. Now, those those encampments need a lot more help that they are not sending. Right. That's what we might hope to change. But I've seen that because these these politicians are nothing if not reactive. And when they see this happen, they're all watching you right now. And they're saying, oh, shit, what does this mean? Because because this lady is getting some traction. And even if she loses, that means something to us. And we're going to have to change a little bit at the very least.

Right. Yeah. And and yeah, we've already changed like we you know, I think they're not going to make sleeping in your car illegal again, because that's a big, that's a big change. That is something that's very concrete that came out of this, this race. That alone is something that is really important. And I hold that, you know, like whatever happens on November 3rd, I have to hold that,

hold that close because I think that that makes this, makes this year worth it. Well, look, you've given us plenty of time with a month before the election. We've taken a whole hour with you. So when you should be out there phoning voters, would you just give me your pitch for the folks listening at home who maybe want to get involved in your campaign after hearing about this? What do they do? Oh, they can phone bank for us. That's the most important thing. And you can sign up at Nithya for the city dot com. That's our website. And doing one shift of phone banking and talking to people about why you think, you know, this candidacy is important, why you think this race is important. That can be really, really meaningful for people. That's the most impactful thing that you can do for us right now.

And now for people who don't live in L. LA, but want to make change in their own communities, what should they do? I think they should join an organization. Join an organization that's working on a problem that you care about, analyze what's wrong. Why is that problem existing in your city? And then figure out whether you can be a part of the solution to that.

Whether that means running for office or not, it may not. But that's the key. Understand a problem and then you can become the solution to that problem. Nithya, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. This was such a pleasure. Well, thank you once again to Nithya for coming on the show. I hope you got as much out of that interview as I did. If you did, please leave us a rating or comment wherever you subscribe. It really, really does help us out a lot. I want to thank our producers, Dana Wickens and Sam Roudman, our engineers, Ryan Connor

and Brett Morris, Andrew WK for our theme song. I also want to thank Falcon Northwest, the incredible PC building company that made me the really cool gaming PC I'm recording this interview for you on right now. And you can also find me on Twitch streaming from that awesome PC at twitch.tv slash Adam Conover. And you can find me wherever else you get your social media at Adam Conover or at Adam Conover dot net. If you want to hear a new topic on the show or you just want to let me know what you've been thinking, send an email to factually at Adam Conover dot net. But please don't forget to leave us that rating, too. And until next week, we'll see you next week on the show.

Thank you so much for listening and stay curious. Heroes