Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Legislating at the State Level with Representative Jen Schultz

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

In this episode, Sharon talks to Minnesota State Legislator Jen Schultz. Jen is currently running for Congress, and is also an educator who has taught economics at the University of Minnesota Duluth for about twenty years. Rep Schultz talks about the ins and outs of working in state government: how budgets are set as well as how bills are written, introduced, prioritized, and voted on. She touches topics like model legislation, which is when a state reviews bills that have passed in other states and looks at ways to adapt it to their state, how state legislators work together across the aisle, and what they do when the session has wrapped for the season (there’s a lot of door knocking involved). Shifting gears, Sharon and Rep. Schultz talk about her current run for Congress, how she plans to bring her state expertise to the federal level, and the value women bring to political office. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Canon Canada. From street interviews to vlogging or filmmaking, great content gets even better when you're shooting with great gear. That's what Canon's Level Up sales event is all about. With awesome deals on their range of cameras and lenses, you can grab everything you need for that shot or scene you've been dreaming of for less.

Whether you're helping that special person take their content up a notch or adding that extra quality to your own shoots, Canon's got you covered. Shop the Level up sales event today at canon.ca. Hey friends, welcome as usual. Delighted to have you with me. And today I have Jen Schultz. Jen Schultz has been a Minnesota state legislator for many years, she's currently running for Congress. And the reason I wanted to chat with her is because so often we hear, oh, all politics are local. We should care more about local government. And I wanted to hear more about, first of all, what it's like to be

in state-level government and also why it matters. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I'm very excited to welcome Jen Schultz. Thank you so much for coming. Great to be here, Sharon. So Jen is currently a state legislator, and she is also currently running for Congress. legislator, and she is also currently running for Congress. So I'd love to start by having you give everybody a little bit of your background. So in my day job, I'm an academic. I'm a professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth, and I'm in the Department of Economics. So I have a PhD in economics, and my specialty is healthcare economics. So for the last 20 or so years, I've been working on healthcare reform and health policy. And I'm a mom. I have two boys in

the fifth and the seventh grade. My husband is also an academic. He's a criminologist. So he advises me a lot on policing and crime, which is great. I'm originally from Wisconsin, but have been in Minnesota for over 20 years. But I'm from a background where I have a really strong mother who raised me and my sister. She had us when she was putting herself through college and then got her master's degree in alcohol and drug abuse so she could become a counselor to help other families go through something that we experienced. Got very involved in the feminist movement in the early 70s, ran for office herself as a county clerk, didn't win, but got really close. But I've always been surrounded by strong people and knew that I was also raised to be strong and independent. And I put myself through college and grad school,

going to public institutions and chose economics because a college professor told me there weren't that many women in economics. And I thought, oh, that sounds like a challenge. So I pursued economics and knew it could be a very powerful force for good. And that's what I'm doing now as a state legislator. Are you still at this point in your career surprised at how little people know about economics? You know, it's, I think it can be a very difficult subject, at least for my college students to comprehend and understand. I just finished a book called The Economist's Hour.

I really highly recommend it, but it talks about how influential economists have been since really the 1950s in forming policy in the president's cabinet, for instance. So I highly recommend that book, but there's a range of ideology and economics and some is really good and can reinforce my values and some is used really to go against, I think, the values of at least Minnesotans. It is interesting to see such a range of beliefs all the way from we should have literally nothing but free market capitalism to some of the more like modern monetary theory sort of beliefs of like a deficit is a myth. The national debt is not even real, which actually sounds really great. It would

be like, that sounds good. I'm okay with that. But that is not the prevailing wisdom in economics. Yeah. The famous one is the Laffer curve. And this is what Reagan based his tax policy on, meaning that if we reduce taxes, it would be good for the economy and everyone would benefit. Now, that's been debunked many times by lots of economists, including Nobel laureates. I mean, the economics, it can be used for things like supporting the idea that if we increase the minimum wage, people would have more income in their pockets, they would spend more, it would make everything healthier, the economy healthier, because it's the low and middle income families that spend money. When you do a tax deduction to the very, very wealthy, that doesn't help as many

people. But economists are involved in everything from housing policy to transportation policy. So they're everywhere now. Well, I would love to hear what made you decide, you know what, I am enjoying this job as a professor of economics, but I really want to run for state legislature. Well, you know, that was never on my bucket list of things to do, but I was working with the current state legislator, Tom Huntley at the time, and he'd been in office for over 20 years. And he was the chair of health and human services. So that's why we work together on healthcare reform. I happened to be at a conference at Education Minnesota, and they were looking for someone to run for office. And at the time, my sons were four and six. So I thought, well, my husband's not going to encourage me to do this. We have two young kids at home. I have, you know, a really great job, but I asked him if I should run for office. And he said, definitely, yes, he would be perfect and was very supportive. And so

I just took the plunge, not really knowing what is involved and actually campaigning, but I just took the plunge and people were really supportive and put together a team. And without really putting a lot of thought into it, I just did it because one, I wanted to continue working on healthcare reform. And I thought that's things were happening at the state level, not the federal level. And thought I could make an impact with my experience and expertise in health economics. And then two, I was really involved with the university's budget problems and knew that higher education needed help at the state level. So I think a lot of people also don't realize that many state legislatures are part-time.

You don't just move to the state capitol and like, this is my career now. In fact, some states, the state legislature only meets every other year. Tell us about what the structure of being in the state legislature is like in Minnesota. So in Minnesota, it is part-time. They wanted regular people to run for office and represent their district. Most people are either retired or they have a flexible job or they own their own business. I mean, not everyone can do it, unfortunately. And I don't think it pays enough for someone to support their family as a quote full-time job, but you know, technically it's part-time, but realistically it is full-time.

We are working during session, but off session, we're meeting with our constituents, crafting legislation, attending events. So it's a, it's a lot. And I've been trying to teach all year, fitting that into teaching and doing my research and my advising load as well. So it can be a lot, but I've become very good at multitasking like so many other legislators. Do you teach remotely during the second semester of the school year? I do. I teach online. I teach two online courses. And one of the courses is health policy. I bring students to the Capitol with me, shadowing me for a few days at the Capitol and they love it. And I hope that it encourages them to go into state government as well. So you show up in January, the session begins. How does that work? How does all of that

behind the scenes work with who's introducing what, how does the session kick off? Give us all the details. Yeah. So we have something called a caucus and I'm a DFL or the democratic farm labor group in Minnesota. And we caucus with our members before session starts in January to try to understand what our priorities are for the upcoming session. So there's one year is what we call the budget year. And we put together a two-year biennium budget. And that happens in the odd years. In the even years, like this year, we have a typically shorter session. And we put together policy bills because we've already done the budget bills. But we caucus together. Usually

we have a long retreat and we figure out what our values are, what our priorities are, and what should be the first top 10 bills that will be introduced. And those will be our priority bills, either in a budget year or a policy year. And then really it's sort of a free for all. Everybody has an election certificate. So they start introducing bills that their constituents need or their district, their region. The number keeps going up every year. There's four to 5,000 bills introduced over a two-year biennium. It's intense. And that's put a lot of pressure on our non-partisan staff to process all those bills. But a lot of them are great ideas. And then we have these committee

structure and I chair health and human services. And we hear various bills that we think are good bills that are needed for the state. And we try to get the Senate to support those bills. So that's what we do most of session is take hearings, public testimony, and we vet these bills to see if they're going to make it across the finish line. Okay. People are also very curious about who is actually writing the bills because we have all seen schoolhouse rock where it's a man with a typewriter and it says school buses will stop at stepsides. And that is the bill. That's a great question. That's a great question. When I first got to the legislature, I was just amazed by our nonpartisan research staff. So we have incredible people working and they help us write bills when we have our own ideas

or we have constituents that need something. And that's what I mostly do that because of my expertise. I think I'm able to lead the charge on writing and crafting bills. Now, often, and this is unfortunate in some cases, lobbyists work with nonpartisan staff to write the bills or advocates help write the bills with the approval of members to work with our nonpartisan staff. I will also look at using model legislation from other states that they have introduced and have been successful. So we use legislation introduced or passed in other states. And now partisan staff will work with that to make, tailor it to conform to Minnesota laws. And then we have attorneys that are legislators and will often write bills themselves. That's pretty rare because we are so busy doing everything else. A lot of that bill writing happens where people are meeting with tables of people and advocate stakeholders to get input on language. And that bill evolves.

We're constantly changing and improving the language of bills. I want to go back to something you just said, because a lot of people don't know about model legislation. A lot of people don't realize that there are both like nonprofit groups, lobbying groups, special interest groups, and also just state legislatures who offer model pieces of legislation that states can adopt. Can you tell us more about that? So here's an example. I serve on the Great Lakes Commission as a commissioner and also vice chair of the Great Lakes Legislative Caucus. And we worked on developing model legislation to test for lead in our pipes, especially in schools, daycares, in residential areas. And we used that

legislation that Illinois had introduced to get that introduced in Minnesota. So we created model legislation that the state legislators could adopt in their states. This is just a logistics question. How do you get Illinois' bill and how do you know they did that? There's two associations. One is called CSG, Council of State Government, and the other one is NCSL, National Council of State Legislators. And both do tremendous work across the country and work with legislators in hundreds of different areas. It's often public. So if it was introduced in another state, it's online. And that's probably the most common resource. But if it's a bill that's still in development that's not public, yes, we'll reach

out to colleagues and other state legislators in other states to get their draft. That's super interesting. So how much of your day is spent arguing with people? Well, there's a lot that happens behind the scenes. So I'm known for working across the aisle. We don't just have Democrats and Republicans. We have what are called new Republicans that I guess would be would be considered more far right libertarians, constitutionalists. We also have independents. And so I've only been in divided government and Minnesota is proud that we can get a lot of budget bills and policy bills passed in divided government. We've been very successful my eight years in the state legislature. But I would say a lot of my work is having conversations with my colleagues on all sides of the aisle. So I don't think we argue a lot. Probably that comes out in the political

theater you see if you watch floor debates and if you watch committee hearings. There's a lot of political theater happening to make good talking points or short videos. A lot of that, unfortunately, is for reelection purposes and is a waste of our time, honestly. And so they can have some kind of clip to put on Instagram. That's right. Slash Facebook. That's correct. I'm speaking very broadly and overgeneralizing here, but many people, it seems like are looking for those kinds of moments that they can put on their website and put on their social media so that people who want to vote for them feel like, yeah, they're up there doing a great job. Like they're fighting for me. That's true. They want to,

they want to go viral and that helps with their fundraising, I would say more than anything, and which is really unfortunate. I know you've talked a lot about dark money in politics. We definitely, that has to be a priority to address because in my congressional race, I mean, you have to raise millions of dollars to even try to take on an incumbent. And there's so much what are called independent expenditures, groups outside your campaign that are spending money for you. And you're not supposed to know anything about what they're doing, but millions and millions of dollars are spent on commercial ad buys that we have no control over. So after the session wraps up and you go home, you still have to do all kinds of work during the summer,

during the fall, as you're gearing up, because there's like a lot of teachers, a lot of educators, there's just not enough time during the workday, the school year to get everything done. How closely do you stay in contact with other members of the state legislature? Yeah, we're often getting together for fundraisers for the caucus because the caucus has to raise money to maintain the majority so they don't lose the majority. But, you know, mostly we're communicating with our constituents now with each other. So people are door knocking. It's an election year, so that's already started. People will door knock their entire districts, learn about what the needs are from their constituents, and then start working on legislation or bills to introduce next year. So I think it's just a lot in the campaign year. It's a lot about campaigning, going to events, and listening to the people and what their needs are.

Hey, Torontonians. Recycling is more than a routine. It's a vital responsibility. By recycling to the people and what their needs are. into new products. Recycling right is important and impactful. Let's work together and make a difference because small actions lead to big change. For more tips on recycling, visit toronto.ca slash recycle right. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends and together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind-the-scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve!

It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests, and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there.

Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, I would love to hear about what made you decide to run for Congress. Why now? And how's it going? Yeah, why now? That is the question. Well, I decided after eight years of being a state legislator that I was going to step down and let someone else have their chance and continue to work on other things that were a priority for me. I announced I wasn't going to run again for a two-year term. And I've been trying to recruit a DFL to run against the incumbent who'd been there for four years. And this district had been DFL controlled for 70 of the last 76 years. So it was a strong blue district, but no one was doing it. And then people started asking

me if I was going to run. And I said, no, I you know, running for Congress is a big deal. It's a big deal. And I'm, I didn't feel like I was ready for it. And people kept asking. And so I just decided one day, like I sort of decided to run for state office. Okay, fine. Someone has to challenge this person. I'll do it. No one else is doing it. I'll do it. And I looked at the data from the 2018 midterm election for governor and thought, you know what, this is a totally winnable district if you work hard. And unfortunately, if you raise money, and with my experience, I thought I could do that. And I thought we could beat the incumbent. And I knew I could put together a strong team to do that. And so now I have a strong team of a lot of hard working women and other folks. We signed up thousands of volunteers already. People are super excited and motivated to flip this district.

And that's what we're going to do. But, you know, I want to do everything I've been doing at the state level, at the federal level. The district is very diverse and it's close to one of the largest congressional districts in the country. I was going to say that it is a massive congressional district that encompasses hundreds of miles. You know, like if you go all the way up to the Canadian border, all the way down to north of the Twin Cities, it's like over 200 miles, I want to say, or very close to 200 miles. It is very large. It's larger than many states in this country. And so it also has this bump out, which we call the Northwest angle that goes basically Canada. If you look at

a map of Minnesota, but basically it's the Northern half of the state. It's the original Minnesota territory, essentially. It has to be a very challenging district to run in because of the size and very challenging district to cover in terms of like trying to meet constituents because if you're you know like you're all the way up by Canada and one day and all the way back down to the Twin Cities another day that is a lot of time in the car it's a lot of very diverse needs and it is not, I don't think it would be a very super straightforward district to represent. Do you agree? I agree, but it's still, I would say bottom line is everyone still needs the same things and have this has similar values. So that's what I'm running on. Um, and now with the recent events, with another mass shooting in the schools,

my opponent takes hundreds of thousands of dollars from the NRA. I think that's not going to help him win reelection. And that's going to be a big talking point about addressing gun violence and gun safety. I think if we see a lot of women come out to vote and young people, it's going to really help, help our chances of winning in November. And I think they're extremely motivated for a midterm. What will you do if you win? Have you made those kinds of plans yet? Have you started looking down the road of like, okay, if I win January 23, I got to have somewhere to live. I got to figure out how I'm getting home. How often am

I going to go home? Like, have you started making those kinds of plans yet? I haven't, because I'm so focused on trying to win. So I'm not putting the cart before the horse. Definitely. But I know I'll just figure that out if I win. But I do know which committees I would be interested in serving on and what I would need to represent the tribal lands and what they are needing. And it's going to involve understanding and serving in the area of natural resources, transportation. I think that's what a lot of people in the district expect me champion of. Why do you think it's important for women to run for office? In my experience, for women to run for office? In my experience, women work really hard and they often have different experiences in their lives where they probably have had more challenges, but also

they understand how difficult it is to raise a family and work at the same time, have multiple jobs, understand the barriers. If there's not child care, they can't be more active in their community or work. They understand how difficult it is, for instance, when they have a new baby and they don't have paid leave. They maybe won't be able to nurse that child as long as they wanted to or at all. So I think they see all these challenges and want to fix things and want to solve those problems. So they're very, many of them are very motivated. They bring this unique experience in their lives to the table. And I see women that are able to work with other women and change

things. So they've really made a big impact in Minnesota and driving progressive legislation that is centered around helping working families forward. I think, and I think women are more empowered to run. People are looking for more women to run. Honestly, it's been great working with other strong women leaders and, you know, having them as role models for, for young girls. It's been great. Also, I feel like so many women are the default parent in their home. Even if they have a very supportive partner there, they tend to be the default parent,

especially when their children are very young. And so having mom in Congress or mom in the state legislature can be very disruptive to the lives of small children. And so I think sometimes women are intimidated by that or the logistics of it are too great. Or if you're a single mom, for example, it would be logistically be next to impossible to balance. I'm going to work here for a few months. I'm going to work over here for a few months, especially if you, even if you have school-aged children, you can't take them with you. The logistics of being in state and federal government as a woman with young children is very significant. I have to say, when I first ran for office, some of my biggest supporters, when I was

entertaining the idea, basically said, Jen, are you sure you have two small kids? Is this really, can you really, should you really do this? And I encourage young mothers to run every day. And so one of my close colleagues, she was pregnant and asking me if she should run for office. And I said, yes, you should, because we need women in the state legislature. You can do it. As long as you have, you need support.

You need family around. I have a very supportive husband that does everything. My family's not very close by. And we did it because we have friends and neighbors that can also be vital to help. And I just think it's really important. We've had legislators have babies. They bring them to the floor. We have a caucus room below the chamber. We made it very child-friendly so people could bring their kids to the Capitol when we're in session. We just try to make it easier for young moms and young dads to run for

office. What would it be like to have a daycare facility for state legislators? That has been discussed for a long time about space for a daycare very close by. We haven't figured out how to do that or fund that yet, but that is on the table. That has been a very common request. Child care is such a significant issue. And if a mother of a young child could run over on her lunch break to feed them before they take an afternoon nap or, you know, something along those lines where she doesn't feel like she's so far away, I could see how that might incentivize somebody to run where otherwise they might not have. Yeah, that's definitely, I think that's true for a lot of moms, not even outside

the legislature. Childcare has been a huge barrier, a big problem. Many have closed during the pandemic. Yeah, we need to make sure we're investing in those opportunities so women can work. What would you say to somebody who is considering running for state or local government, whether they're a man or a woman, if they're like, you know, county commissioner, city council, state legislature, school board, whatever office it is, what kind of advice would you offer them? The first thing they should do is contact their local elected person for the office they want to run for and find out what it's like. What is it like to serve? What does your life look like? What are the logistics? And I always encourage people to work on a campaign. Just work alongside individuals and you'll know what it's like to do the campaign piece as well, not only serving once you're elected, because you have to have for a lot of offices, even school board, you have to have a pretty thick skin, because people are going

to criticize you, you're not going to make everybody happy. And it's not for everyone. I'll just say that it's definitely not for everyone. But I think those are the first things I would offer advice on what what a person could do if they think that they're interested, have a conversation with people who are in that office. Why is it so important for people to be involved in state and local politics? Oh boy, people really need to engage more. I know it's been difficult. People are tired and there's been a lot of political division and lack of trust in elected officials. So I think it's hard for people to stay engaged when they don't want to hear all the negativity out there and finger pointing.

But it is so important to the strength of our democracy for people to stay engaged and to really push back on the big lies and disinformation on social media. I do fear that our democracy is being challenged to a big degree. And people who are not engaged or are silent are going to probably feel very guilty if we lose some of our freedoms and the things that make our democracy strong. So I think it's not just important to vote. I think people understand the importance of voting, but I think people need to understand what their electeds are doing.

How are they voting? Are they voting in my best interest or not? So to do that, you can't always trust what they're saying. You have to look what they're doing. You have to look at their actions. How are they voting on these certain bills? So you have to go out there and find that out. And sometimes that can be difficult

to find out how they're voting. You have to weigh through a lot of different things on the website, know where to go to find that voting record, know what the bill is. But I always encourage my students at least is to be knowledgeable. Knowledge is power and read newspapers, read a newspaper every day online. I tell them not to get their news from Facebook or social media, get their news from another source.

I encourage them. I'm devoted to Minnesota Public Radio. I get a lot of my news in the morning from NPR. Students love podcasts. So I always recommend a list of podcasts that they can listen to to get their news and information and really just stay informed because that is so powerful and that's how people will stay engaged. People do tend to think that participation in a democracy is just voting. And voting is extremely important, no doubt, showing up for elections, especially midterm elections, especially primary elections. They're extremely important. If you want better candidates, you have to show up for a primary election. You cannot just show up on general election day and be like, well, I hate all of you. If you want better candidates, you have to start working in the process earlier. But we the people doesn't just mean we the people show up and vote. A democracy requires citizen participation to be healthy. In order to be a healthy democracy, we need multiple viewpoints. We can't all just

have groupthink. That's authoritarianism, where one person sees its power, tells you what to think, and we all just go along with it. That's actually extremely dangerous. We have to participate if we want to maintain a healthy democracy. Yes, totally agree, Sharon. And you know, often people will go to the polling location and they don't know who they're voting for because they haven't done that work. People are working hard. They're working multiple jobs often. They just might not have time to do that. And we should make the day we vote a holiday. We should maybe open up voting to more than just one day and make it easier to vote. I've always been a champion of automatic voter registration. When you get your driver's license or renew your license, we just have to remove the barriers to voting, but we also have to do a better job of educating voters on how important it is and

who our elected officials are. And another fantastic reason to read local newspapers. Yes, reading the Wall Street Journal is fantastic, really will help you understand the economy at large, but the Wall Street Journal is not going to be telling you where the candidates stand for school board. Those are jobs that are often championed by local newspapers and local newspapers have been very hard hit in the last 10 to 15 years. Many have folded and people do not realize sometimes how important a service they are providing and how important it is to support them. Because when they exit a market, there is often not anybody that comes to fill their place. Yeah, that is a really good point, Sharon. We know in our

community, local papers have really taken a hit. They've laid off their journalists. They use a lot of AP Reuters articles. So there is a big void in some of our communities of not having a local paper. And then you don't have that local coverage. You don't have those journalists who know which topics are going to be of interest and they're not covering them. So it is really important to support by subscribing or donating. We've lost some local radio stations as well up here in Minnesota. And those are vital sources of information for people to stay connected. How do you recommend that people find out about who they're voting for? I hear that pretty frequently that people are like, where can I go to get information about who's running for my city

council? Yeah, I would say their local party unit. So the Democratic Party in their state will have a list of candidates to links with their website. So you can find out about the candidates for either, you know, on the Democratic side or the Republican side, that's probably going to be the easiest, best link. The Secretary of State filing, they have everyone who's filed for office and was linked to their website. So that would be a good source. I know our Star Tribune puts together a piece of all those who are running for office and there's their biography and they're linked to their website. So I think there's sources out there right now. The filing period in many states is still open. So people are still deciding

to file for office. Those are some good sources of information for candidates. The secretary of state, that's a great, that's a really great tip because sometimes, again, if people are not affiliated with a party, they may not be excited about going to one party's website. They may not be like, who are the Democrats? If they don't necessarily identify as that, but they want to be informed about all the options. What do you think voters should consider when they're choosing who to vote for? I hear from a lot of people who say that there isn't one person who represents all of my views. And I know people like you work hard to represent the best interests of as many of your constituents as possible. But what should voters consider, in your opinion, when they are heading to the polls, just sort of generally speaking? How should voters choose who to vote for?

Well, I think it's true that we are getting more polarized in this country, and that could be because of how we endorse and elect people. And I would say that I think you need to, if you can, meet the candidates. So show up at their campaign events, have conversations with them. There's not going to be one candidate that meets all the requirements for you, I'm sure. But if they meet most of them, I think it's okay to disagree on some issues with the candidate you're going to vote for. I really advise against voting for someone just on one issue. I think you want to know where they stand on multiple issues that are important to people. What's your experience? Do you have a track record of getting things done? And ask them, what are you know, what have you

championed? If you're an incumbent? What have you done in the past? If somebody comes down to somebody choosing between character or policies, which would you pick? Boy, I would say right now, I would say character is really important. I think you want someone that you can trust, someone that has integrity and someone that is honest. So even if as an elected, you know, you're not going to support something to be able to have the ability and to have the courage to tell them why you don't support something instead of lying, because we really need to build back

that trust. And it starts with honesty. And I think that character is really important. It says a lot about a person. Often you can move people on policy. You can educate people on policy. They might change their mind. You want to elect people that can be educated, that aren't too rigid, that can be open to changing their mind and things evolve. You can look at President Biden, you know, he's changed his position in his entire career because things happen in the world and things change and their perspective changes. So I think the foundation is character. Policy is a lot easier to adjust than who somebody fundamentally is. That's true. That is so true, Sharon. Yes. We need to repeat that. Also, the chances are that you, one person person be able to get all of your policy things done

anyway, or like none. And so then what do you have? What are you left with then? Somebody who doesn't really achieve that much because they have poor character. And additionally, somebody who just is not a great person to be getting with. I know because a lot of it, it's the foundation is you need to be able to work with other people. Building those relationships is key. Building those relationships with people from other parties. Amy Klobuchar is really good at building those relationships. You need that in your elected official.

You want that. You don't want to be rigid and ideological. You want to be a bridge builder. And that's how you get things done. And that's how you are effective as an elected official. So true. There are just a handful of legislators in Congress who are so out of control that nobody wants to work with them. Like I am not interested in attaching my name to anything that you are doing. Even if I might agree with it, I'm not going to put Schultz on the list of sponsors because you are here for

all the wrong reasons. You're here to just fundraise and make a name for yourself and say inflammatory things. When you act that way, it actually prevents you from getting anything done because nobody wants to work with you. Yep. That's a good point. I try to steer away from people who are only there because of their ambition, because they're doing it for, to seek a higher office or to be famous, or I just want to work with the people that are off in the corner, doing the hard work of legislating, getting things done, even though no one knows their name. Those are the type of people that are what we call workhorses and not show horses. And that those, those individuals make really good elected officials. They're there to do the people's work.

It's not for them. It's not about power. It's not about notoriety. It's not about being famous on TikTok. Where can people find out more about your campaign? If they're curious about you, what is a website they can go to? Yeah, go to jenschultzforcongress.com. So it's Schultz, S-C-H-U-L-T-Z, and then it's F-O-R for congress.com. And they can follow me on Twitter at Rep Jen Schultz. I'm on Facebook at Jen Schultz for congress.com. And they can follow me on Twitter at rep Jen Schultz. I'm on Facebook at Jen Schultz for Congress would love to have people visit my website volunteer for the campaign or contribute. You know, we rely on individual donations, we do not take corporate PAC money. We really want people to contribute individually. So I can represent the people and not corporate interests.

This is so interesting, so educational. I'm really grateful for your time. It's so interesting to hear more about behind the scenes of working in a state legislature and about congressional races. So I'm really appreciative. Thank you so much, Jen. Thanks, Sharon. We're so appreciative of you and we're glad you're in our community. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast

or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.