The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Ashlee Matthews, Utah District 38, Kearns Democrat Candidate 2020

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

Ashlee Matthews, Utah District 38, Kearns Democrat Candidate 2020 Ashleeforutah.com

Hi folks, Chris Voss here from TheResistanceRadio.com. Hey, coming at you here with another different podcast we can take and share with you guys. This is going out on our Chris Voss Show podcast and The Resistance podcast, The Resistance Radio. You can take and subscribe to it at TheCBPN.com, ChrisVossPodcastNetwork.com. There's over nine podcasts over there. And if you're stuck in quarantine life or if you're just trying to avoid your coworkers that have COVID-19 at your office and you're hiding out, I don't know, in the bathroom or something, hey, you got something to listen to. Tune in and subscribe. So we've had some great featurettes that we're doing on the Resistance Radio.

We're interviewing a lot of different candidates that are running for office coming up in the new 2020 election cycle. At the end of this week, we've got a really good interesting interview with a governor candidate who hopefully will win. Of course, these are folks that are in the Democratic Party, the left folks that we want to have change and flip over some of these seats and stuff to go blue. We would definitely want to go blue. So today we have a super interesting gal on. Her name is Ashley Matthews. She's running to represent her neighbors and friends of the House District 38 in Utah,

which is largely, I believe, the city of Kearns. She feels she can bring a new set of eyes and ideas to tackle issues and bring real change to working families in Utah. She's had the opportunity to serve the public for the last nine years in a work with the Utah Department of Transportation. Her husband is also a union pipe fitter, and together they're raising their two small boys in a home that her husband grew up in, right in the neighborhood of Ochre Shadows. So she lives in the area, loves the area, and wants to make Kearns better. Thanks for coming on the show, Ashley.

It's wonderful to have you. No, thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the opportunity, and thank you for the excuse to brush my hair and put on something that's not pajamas. So I appreciate it. Yeah. We're all in that quarantine life sort of segment right now where, where we're, uh, you know, I, I had, I saw somebody on Twitter, uh, one of the, I think one of the congressmen for, uh, up in the house or Senate of the U S and he's like, I put on a suit to go on CNN or MSNBC or one of

these shows. And he's like, and they canceled the bit that they were going to do with me. He goes, I'm going to wear the suit all day because, oh my God, it feels nice to just wear a suit again. So I think, I think we're all kind of itching to get out there and at least see that sun. I think we're all going to have serious vitamin D. That's true. So your website is ashley4utah.com, and people can go there and check you out. They can donate there and support you in your cause. So you are coming in with this blue wave.

We saw a lot of this blue wave in 2018. We saw a lot of women run for Congress in office, both in a state level and a U.S. level. We saw women just going, hey, man, you know what? I give a damn about the future. I give a damn about my kids. I want to see something done better. And we saw that with the blue wave in 2018. And I'm hoping we're going to see just a crushing amount of this new generation, people that want to change, people that want to end the stagnation in both their local legislatures and their communities and also in the U.S.

And as they say, all politics is local. So this is where you begin. All right. So, Ashley, give us a rundown on your origin story. How'd you get started out in life and and uh get here well um i grew up in riverton utah um which is not at all like kern's um it is polar opposite wide open spaces there's no it's very different from where i when i grew up um because when i grew up it was all open fields and horses and you know people drove their four-wheeler to the grocery store because that's all we had.

But my family settled in there because they wanted a quiet life. When my dad came back from the Air Force, he joined the Mel Hamer Junior, and so they wanted to live somewhere. Since my mom was staying at home with us kids they they wanted you know peace and quiet and space and you know grow their own food and just kind of live in this little homesteading you know utopia I guess and so that's that's how I grew up um awesome sauce I think Riverton's probably changed a whole lot since then has it I remember it was in one street light thing like 20 30 years ago yeah it's insane yeah it's just insane but i remember when it was just a one light thing and

uh you know i mean that's the one thing the utah salt lake county has experienced is a lot of urban sprawl i mean i remember when you know i thinkarns, I think me and my dad actually built a lot of Kearns, actually. My dad would plaster foundations and do stucco work. And so I think we built a lot of Kearns, actually. Sandy, I know we pretty much built Sandy. But a lot of change. And so you grew up in Riverton, and then you've you've you're you've started to raise a family you have two young children uh what are the ages of your children if you don't mind me asking

oh my boys are three and four three and four so they're still at the cute stage they're all boys so they're all very much frogs and dirt and yeah that's pretty much how i was at four yep i can hear them outside right now and i can only imagine what they're up to. Yeah. I think at three and four, me and my brother, we were trying to see if we could dig to China. So we were doing that. So your husband is a union pipe fitter. That's pretty awesome.

Yeah. So, you know, I mean, you come from an era of labor with your father being in the military and then, of course, joining the union. And then your husband's in the union. So you have a real concept of what it's like to be a working family here in Utah, the things you have to do, the ends you have to meet, child care, and all that sort of good stuff. So what made you decide to run for office? Well, that, I mean, you actually answered your question for me. I feel like the working class family isn't represented completely at the legislature, particularly for my house district. You know, if you look at the demographics of my district, that's who we are.

We are working class, blue collar. You know, we get up, we go to work to put food on the table. We come home, we take care of our families, and then we get up and do it all over again. There's a lot of different things you've supported over the years. You've been a mentor to Big Brothers and Big Sisters of Utah, founding board member and director of events for the Single Parent Project, country coordinator, UA Local 140 Ladies Auxiliary. You've been a foster and a foster coordinator volunteer for the Cause for Paws Utah

and a foster for the Utah Animal Advocacy Foundation. So you've done a lot of great things. I mean, you've been very socially active, publicly active. And let me ask you, I mean, was it a little daunting this side to go for running for office? Was it, what kind of drove you to the point where you're just like you know what darn it i'm gonna run yeah no you're it it was very daunting it was something that i thought about and played around with for a while um the the gentleman who ran last election cycle my good friend edgar harwood he and he, he only lost by 118 votes in 2018.

So he, he had kind of geared up, he'd already laid the framework and he had the plan to run this year. But he took a job offer in Colorado. So he ended up moving his family, you know, to a different state. And so that kind of left the spot vacant. And, and, you know, I just figured if, if it's going to be anybody, why not me? I am a, you know, a perfect representation of the people in this district. We are, you know, in the trenches together,

we're making the same decisions and we're fighting the same battles and we're doing what we can do to keep a roof over our family's head and keep food on the table and um so i i just felt like you know like you said if it was going to be anybody why not me working class family working class family and this is the thing we saw in 2018 we saw this giant flip of voters saying you know what what, enough with the status quo. We want some new fresh people in there. We saw a huge influx of females who could come with their perspective. You know, we talked about this in the pre-show. I came from Las Vegas where, you know, I just I started promoting early on.

I doubt it was it was me that had this effect but we started promoting very on you know what i'm tired of looking at these pictures of legislators that are just all men they're always starting wars they're always just talking about trying to get themselves rich and uh and they seem to lose touch with what their kids needs are what their education needs are i mean certainly i've got if we can get back all the money we spent in iraq and uh trillions and trillions of dollars and put that into education and a lot of the infrastructure this country's uh taken and broken as well and in in in nevada i hope you're listening kerns and and ut Utah. In Nevada, we flipped the state to where it has the most women in the legislature for the state of Nevada than any other state in the nation.

We set like a record. And they are doing the most amazing things for children's education, health care. They're really killing it on health care because they understand. And I love women. They're empathetic. They care about their kids. I mean, you don't ever get between a mom and her kids. You don't get, you know, mother bear mom. And you know,

they, they care about their future. They look at their kids and they go, Hey, you know, what sort of government and, and stuff that we want they want to have 20 years down the line. So, so hopefully we can get you elected. You can offer a fresh set of eyes and ideas to the working class families and you understand the working class. You know, I, you're not, you're not the multimillionaire who's, you know, living with a suit and he's working with his multimillionaire buddies and they're all trying to figure out how to get rich off of being in the government stuff. You know, I'm just tired of seeing that in the thing.

So give us an idea on some of the other platforms you're thinking about, some of the things that are important to you. Sure. Well, there are, I mean, that question, the answer to that question is so broad. I mean, obviously, you know, clean air and education and, you know, infrastructure, all those things. Those are all big ideas that will make big change. But my grandma always told me that the only way to eat an elephant is by one bite at a time. So to me, you know, those are big things and they do need to change.

So I'm focused on, you know, the very smallest, most basic bite, bite size bite, I guess, for lack of a better term, to start kind of chipping away at these bigger issues. So for instance, after school programs and affordable daycare, that that is a solution for several different issues to me. One, I mean, first and foremost, is to be able to give parents that breathing room. You know, after you've paid $1,200 a month in childcare, there's not a lot left over if you want to, you know, take your kids to go do something fun. If you want to go to the movies or, you know,

if your car breaks down and you've got 400 bucks, you know, that you're going to have to pay to fix a belt or a fan or something like that. It's not as easy to do when the majority of your monthly bills are going towards your mortgage and your daycare. So that will definitely help. In Kearns, we have a tremendous amount of kids that are experimenting with underage drinking and vaping.

They did. We have this program is called the Evidence to Success that the Kearns Community Coalition is working on. They need a huge shout out for the work that they're doing because they're amazing. But they they have run the data and there's 25 percent of 10th graders in Kearns have reported that they've experimented with alcohol, which is, I mean, to give you an idea, it's about 10% is what the rest of the state shows for that same age group. And then 16% of 8th graders in Kearns had reported that they had been vaping in the last month, which is, I mean, eighth grade, I mean, I was definitely doing dumb things in eighth grade, but I mean, vaping or drinking wasn't really one of them. So, but just knowing because 49% of the homes in my district have two parents working outside the home, you know, that's a lot of latchkey kids.

Yeah, that's a lot of time that kids are, you know, not being supervised. And, you know, parents got to do what they got to do. So if we have a safe and a healthy place for kids to be, you know, in that kind of gap time between school gets out, mom and dad get home. I think we can eliminate a lot of that as well. Definitely. Most definitely.

I mean, what is the old saying? Idle hands are the devil's handiwork. I mean, I was lucky enough to grow up in an age where my mom still worked at home for most of our childhood. And yeah, I mean, she was there to make sure we didn't get in any trouble although we got into some trouble but you didn't get any that's that sort of trouble but you know we're always permanent right yeah nothing nothing permanent we were always out like building courts and i don't know sometimes vandalism i think or destroying we used to wander

on construction sites and we were never like vandalized we were never, like, vandalized. We were just always, like, we'd play in them. So, you know. But so there's a few other things that you're interested in. You're interested in the infrastructure for public transportation in Kearns. Absolutely. After school programs. You've worked with this Evidence to Success, Kearns Community Coalition. It's been addressing this thing.

Livable wages. Yeah. So I feel like right now with the pandemic and, you know, this astronomical, you know, amount of people that are being laid off or furloughed from their jobs, when we do kind of go back to our new normal, I think it's going to be important for us to not bring back just jobs, but quality jobs that pay families enough that, you know, they can pay their bills and keep food on the table. You know, making $8 an hour working at a grocery store isn't going to cut it anymore. And we've seen that the working class, they're the ones that

are keeping everything running right now. They're keeping food on the shelves class, they're, they're the ones that are keeping everything running right now. They're keeping food on the shelves and they're keeping, you know, gas in your car and they're, you know, coming by without fail every Wednesday or, you know, whatever to pick up your garbage and take it away. And that's, I feel like the best way to show appreciation for them. You know, you can post memes about it online, sure, or sign a petition, but I think fighting to get them higher paying wages is the best way to say, you know, thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for keeping everybody running healthy and alive and fed. And it definitely is. They're showing now that the states that have put in the $15 an hour or companies that have done the $15 an hour have actually made it so that they can have a better living

conditions. Everyone's happy. You know, you just have to realize and I, and hopefully we come out of this pandemic learning this, that taking care of our neighbors is, is important as taking care of ourselves. And we have to realize that what goes around comes around. You know, our neighbors is as important as taking care of ourselves. And we have to realize that what goes around comes around. You know, I come from a state of Nevada and Las Vegas.

And what's funny is a lot of people in Las Vegas live on tips. It's a huge, you know, tipping tourist town. And so people live on tips. But what's funny is the people that live on tips, when they go to places where they have to tip someone else, they don't pull some doctor-lawyer thing where they go, can you give me like a professional courtesy here and I don't have to tip you because we live on tips. No, they tip and they tip well because they understand the economy of what goes around comes around. And that's how consumer confidence works in major economies like the U.S. Once people start, you know, pulling their pockets back and once everyone can't afford to live, then we start to break down not only as an economy, but as a society.

Some of the other things in your platform is about domestic abuse and child abuse that you're concerned about with mental health care? Yep. Well, especially right now, you know, we're obviously things are easing up a little bit and people are starting to go back to work and be able to get out of the household. But I mean, domestic abuse is, has skyrocketed since people are you know women in particular are being locked inside but they're abusers um child abuse i'm sure since since kids don't currently have a safe place to go to you know schools out they don't have daycare um i'm sure once those kids are able to get out of the house and and get back to their safe you know consistent spaces i I'm sure there'll be a lot of reporting of child abuse happening during this time as well. And those are just part of the things that are going to build up

and add to this long-term trauma, you know, that this pandemic has caused on top of everything else, on top of the economic instability and on top of the, I mean, obviously the health issues, you know, people who are either personally recovering from COVID and have the long-term effects from that, or people who are, have lost, you know, a grandparent or a cousin to, to that kind of stuff. So it's, it's going to be interesting. And, and, uh, I think you nailed it on the head too. Uh, there's going to be depression. There's going to be a lot of mental health. Uh, I mean,

I've been lucky enough where I've been able to always work from home since about 2004. So I'm pretty used to this life. Um, when they're like, you have to stay at home. I'm like, so it's going to change. But, you know, I do miss going out to eating, you know, just kind of the freedom of doing whatever you want. Not have to, like washing groceries is a little annoying to me and wearing a mask. But, hey, I want my family to live. I want your family to live and everybody else. And we have to realize that we live in this society that's a community. And we have to support and look out for one another. And I think over the years, we've just

become this selfish society. And that's what's driven a lot of our political divisiveness and stuff. And with this, you know, you've seen the attacks of partisan against our health care. In fact, it's still under attack. They're still trying to take it away. In the middle of a pandemic, which just blows my mind. But, you know, we have to realize that, hey, maybe making sure the person next door has health care so they can get hospitalized means they don't affect me and my family. And this thing doesn't spread because this is a horrible experience we're going through with COVID-19. There's going to be something worse coming.

So we need to prepare. We need to get better. I think, if anything, what COVID-19 has shown us with the coronavirus is that there are serious holes financially in everything we do. I mean, we've wasted so much money on so many different things that didn't include health care, that didn't include infrastructure, and now we're finding out the hard way how important some of these things are. And there's been studies that have shown that if the wages are raised

in some of these different cities and stuff, a rising tide lifts all boats. You know, all the money goes around. in some of these different cities and stuff, rising tide lifts all boats. You know, all the money goes around. So this is really important. And what's really great, and I think this is what's really awesome about you, is you have this experience of growing up.

Your father was with the military. Then you joined the union. Your husband's in the union. You know, you understand what it's like trying to hold down a household, trying to raise a family, trying to live the American dream, quote unquote. And you've given a lot. You've spent a lot of time giving the stuff. One other thing that I wanted to ask you, this comes from our good friends over at the Utah Democratic Caucus for People with Disabilities. They wanted me to ask all the candidates that we're going to have on the show

about the numbers and funding for Utah with disabilities. That's an important thing to them. They have a huge coalition. And so they want legislators, of course, to be aware that disabilities is a big issue. So I'm curious what your standing is on that. Well, I would say that kind of ties into my thoughts about infrastructure, particularly in Kearns. Kearns being its own unincorporated

township, it is maintained predominantly by the county, which is fine. But Kearns also has, you know, a little bit of flexibility in the things that it can do. I don't want to meander too far off the path. But when Camp Kearns was built, I don't know if he knows, but it used to be a military base. That's why it was just this standalone city out in the middle of nowhere and that's why we have just this random airport over here that's right you guys do have that huh yeah yeah so that's why when when camp cranes was built it was just this desolate nothingness i said hey this is a great place to put a military base so they put in the roadways they put in in, you know, the water mains.

And, and just as a side note, so the water Kearns Improvement District, that's water is owned by the residents of Kearns, we aren't, it's not a statewide, or a countywide even utility, which is kind of interesting. But anyway, I digress. So I feel like when it comes to maintaining and updating and improving and even adding infrastructure, taking into account, you know, the people with disabilities is definitely something that needs to be put in at the very, very, very, very beginning of the planning stages. You know, I know a lot of our sidewalks and stuff are not necessarily accessible. If somebody is in a wheelchair,

there is a lot of parts of Kearns that don't even have sidewalks, which is something that, that needs, you know, definitely needs to be addressed in, in the short and the long term um so people with disabilities i have two sisters that's one of the reasons i'm up here writing the book as well i have two sisters who are in uh care centers and uh one was born with cerebral palsy and the other uh has ms and she's you know degraded to a point where she's suffering dementia and needs to have people help her. And a lot of times these people are thrown out, forgotten. We're seeing that a lot with our federal government right now, where they're just like, the elderly people in the old

folks homes, yeah, just let them burn. And sadly, in our country, Sweden, and many other countries, the coronavirus has raged through those. But even then, they need more funding. They need more protection. I know there are some recent laws in here. I believe it was one of the Utah disability law firms that were fighting just to get Utah to comply with what is now a 20-year law, which is the, let me see if I can remember the term for it. It's the disability law that was federally put in for people with disabilities and, you know, enacted all the handicap spaces and all different laws of ramps and things of that nature. And there was a lot of Utah and care centers that weren't upholding to that, especially with public transportation and things of that nature. And so this is a really important factor.

So they wanted me to bring it up. So you got a lot of good things you're, you're after to do for this, the, the, um, area that you're in, in, uh, let's see, it's a district 38 in the house district for the state of Utah. Um, now the incumbent you guys had there, I guess he started out as a Democrat. Yes, he actually was, um, put into his position when the, um position when the person holding that position ended up resigning because he had accepted a promotion at the police academy. So he wasn't able, or excuse me, the police department that he was working at. So he felt like he was no longer able to, you know to fulfill the obligations of being a legislator. So the Democratic Party selected the incumbent, his name is Eric Hutchings, you know, conversations he had, what kind of, you know, internal dialogue he had. But he, yeah, he ended up changing his affiliation to the parties. And he's been in the party for, he's been that, he's been in that position for 22 years.

So it's probably definitely time for some change. And I guess, I mean, how did the people of Kearns feel about that? I know that a lot of voters feel betrayed when people do that, where they're just like, uh, psych, I changed parties. Well, I mean, I keeping in mind that I was, you know, 12 when that happened. So I, I don't know if I have a very good thumb on the pulse for that, but I, I would assume, you know, if the voters selected a Democratic candidate to fill that position, I would assume that that is kind of the platform and the ideals that they wanted to see up there. So I'm sure it probably was kind of a punch to the gut. I definitely would be pissed off. Like if anybody I voted for was in a party, I'd be like, what?

What? No, that ain't happening yet. But this is the kind of change we're talking about. I'm sure he's a nice gentleman. He's been in office for 22 years. We want to see this ushering in of fresh blood, people that are working families, people that aren't suits. And I remember looking over his website and I saw a lot of suitage rich guy stuff. And I was like, you know,

this is what this is what needs to happen. We need to turn Utah blue. And so if you're not registered to vote, you need to get registered to vote. I was talking with you earlier and you said out of the thirty five thousand residents in the district, there's only 11,000 that are registered to vote. And you have a line that you sent me in the bio and outline that you had that I just loved. I tweeted this out. I just love the comment. And it was, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. Absolutely. and i always tell all those people go like i vote because i don't vote because it doesn't matter yeah it does matter because if you if you vote that every one of those politicians they sit down and they go who voted what do they want we better do what those guys want so we can get re-elected again and then they're like yeah but bob didn't vote and they're like screw bob bob isn't going to show up again so whatever Bob thinks I'm going with,

uh, who voted. Yeah, that's how it works. And we're the, the great thing about a lot of the platform that you have, the things you're interested in, uh,

you're, you're very family oriented. You're after school programs, you're after afterschool programs, you're after, um, infrastructure, uh, what's going on in transportation,

mental health care, domestic, child care, a living wage, getting a state-prevailing wage requirement for people. You even mentioned to me that there's not even a state-prevailing wage requirements for contractors bidding on state-funded jobs. That should at least be, I mean, if you're getting're getting a state funded job you need at least a minimum pay i mean come on i think even the federal government has that there they have rules and regulations and stuff they do they do and utah is one of only 18 states that does not require that wage so which i mean it's just like you said before raging you know rising waters raises all boats anyway across all the different things i mean it affects if if if people start skimping i mean this is basically how consumer confidence works when you see consumer confidence drops more people keep their money in their pockets it doesn't go into the economy it doesn't go spinning around

and then everybody starts doing it because they're like, Oh, I'm worried about my money. And then the economy, toilet paper. So a lot of these things that you're talking about and that are your platform that are important to you are going to become increasingly important. And so if you're someone who's in this district or in the state of Utah, I want you to think about something. We are moving into what will be a depression. I don't know if it'll be as great as the Great Depression. The Great Depression has some elements of it, but also had less unemployment. We're entering into a depression era economy. And we're going to find out how weak we are when it comes to childcare, daycare, economy with incomes and everything else, health care, etc., etc. And so a lot of things you've been talking about with daycare

costs as high as $1,200, we're going to be dealing with a lot of different things because parents can't put their kids into daycare right now. And even then, I don't think the daycares are going to be able to maintain their cost efficiency because they can't, you know, pack them in with this COVID-19. And we're going to be in this state of affairs for probably a year or two. Most economists, if you watch the Fed, the CEO of Bank of America said this economy is going to recover until the end of 2022. That's a long ways off. We're going to have a lot of people getting unemployed. We're going to have, like I said, more parents that are stressed and at their wits end because they're trying to balance a family.

One parent is going to have to stay at home. I talked about this on the Chris Voss show where we talked about economy and business and things like that, where employers are going to have to start changing up their business models and they're going to have to go, hey, you know, we have to understand that at least one person of a family who works for us is probably going to have to stay at home to educate the kids. Parents are now having to be teachers for heck's sakes. You know, as if it wasn't hard enough to be a parent, you're like, hey, guess what? You get to be a daycare person and a teacher too. Have fun with that.

And, oh, by the way, you need to go to work and make some money. And you're just like, what? And so this is going to tear off a scab of our economy, of our life, of our infrastructure, of everything. And there's going to be a lot of people laid off. There's going to be a lot of people out of work. And we're going to need people who can bring a fresh approach to the economy, who can bring a fresh approach to caring about the basics. Because I'm going to be honest with you, I have a lot of millionaire friends. We're all great at being like, Hey, we got our money.

We don't need to worry about it. We don't need to sweat as much. We got some room, you know, we got some room to move. But people that live paycheck to paycheck, people that are blue collar workers or white collar workers who are just trying to raise a family, achieve the American dream. They're just trying to raise a family, achieve the American dream. They're just trying to get by. And this is going to get really dark for a lot of people, and we're going to have to come together as a community. We're going to have to come together partisan-wise,

and we're going to have to care about each other's health care. We're going to have to care about each other's jobs and money. There's going to be programs that probably, I don't know about the Utah local government, but on the federal level, there's going to need to be more assistance given to people for jobs and income. I know a lot of countries and are offering livable wages to their people. They realize that this is an ugly thing we got to get through. And it's time for change. It's time for a party change in Utah.

I mean, you guys have had the same governor now for 40 years that has been GOP-based. It's time for Utah to go blue, and that's what I really believe. I mean, I definitely hope that I can contribute to that. I'd even be happy with purple, just for the record. I would be happy with purple. Purple's good. Yeah, but hopefully, I mean, I feel like a lot of the issues that I'm willing to fight for and that I've kind of made. I think it's good that you want a balance of stuff. I'm for all blue, but that's me, but I think it's good that you're willing to work with a

balance of stuff between the GOP and the Democrats because, and this is where we're going. I mean, we've been at these partisan odds for so long, but now we're going to find out that we're all in the same boat together, that we all need to help our neighbors, that we all need to get along. This has brought any humanity where fewer people are fighting over partisan issues and going wow i need to worry about my neighbor regardless of their party and part of that's a little bit of self-interest you're like i need to make sure my neighbor doesn't get the disease and i need to protect them and me and wear a mask um and it doesn't matter what party they're in i don't want to see my neighbors die my family's their die and of you know, this is going to come around to me if they get it as well.

So we all need to work together. And so I think this coming together with everybody and realizing that we all need to work together. And, you know, a lot of the goals that you have on your platform aren't partisan based. I mean, if anything, they're, they're blue collar, white collar, family American dream based, better wages, better healthcare, better support for children, families, et cetera, et cetera. All the stuff that you experienced, you have a firsthand knowledge in it. You know, you're just not living in some rich gated community on the Hill. And you're just like, I want to run for office.

You know, you have a very tactile experience of what it's like to be a working family household in the area of Kearns. And I think it's great that you've stepped up and said, hey, I want to make a difference here. And I think that I can and bring a fresh approach to. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. I, I very, very much appreciate that. I fully support it. So, uh, anything more we need to know about you and what you're doing, uh, on your run for, uh, the Utah district house 38 and Kearns. Um, well, we definitely are going to have to navigate,

like you mentioned before, kind of running a campaign during this COVID and we've had to kind of pivot our ground game. So we are definitely in need of volunteers. A lot of the canvassing that we're going to do, we're not going to be knocking on doors necessarily unless something profound changes. So we're going to be making a lot of phone calls. We're going to be sending a lot of letters, doing a lot of literature drops, just putting things on people's doorknobs and making it kind of contact free. So we're always

in need of volunteers. We're always in need of donations to help us to fund those issues so um if people are are interested in in helping at all with either of those things they can visit the website which is ashley4utah.com it's actually with two e's um they can find us on facebook which is just ashley for house district 38 um and then they're always welcome to email me as well just ashley4utah.gmail.com there you go she's accessible too you can actually reach out and talk to your your uh your person running for office as a candidate how about that apples and uh i think this is great you definitely want to get out the vote uh if you haven't got a chance register to vote people this this is this is probably the most consequential vote we will have in the

250 year history uh of this experiment that is still a very young experiment of a republic and uh there's a lot of things that are going to weigh in the balance in the next six months we're going to see a explosion of bankruptcy people losing their homes uh joblessness records. It's going to get really dark. And this is a really important time to realize voting and picking the people that are going to get you through this dark time is going to be really important. And it might be time for the status quo to go that kind of got us here or that didn't pay attention or didn't support the right programs to make this less worse than it has been or will be for that matter. I mean, there's some people saying COVID-19 could be here for quite some time if we don't find a thing.

And it's going to be at least here for a year or two. So one of the reasons I'm supportive of it is I want to see people in office that can make good decisions, that are going to make decisions that care about the working class, the middle America that needs to make a comeback. And they're going to need all the help they can get with what's going on with this depression that we're facing and the tightened economy and everything else. So change is good. Anyway, I want to thank Ashley for coming on the show with us today. I want to thank her for her championing to step up and go, I want to thank Ashley for coming on the show with us today. I want to thank her for her championing to step up and go, I want to change my community, change my life. This is a daunting thing. I mean, I I'm single. I don't have kids. I got two dogs,

but I would running for office. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is some work. You're doing that with the way you're raising a family, being a mom, raising kids, keeping a household down and everything else. So if you get a chance, help Ashley out. Go to her website, ashley2ease4utah.com, and support her. If you can't do that with funding-wise, help her canvas, help her do whatever you can do in this coronavirus era.

I don't know, maybe you go out with Massey and knock on people's door, and then you run back 20 feet and wait until you vote for Ashley. I don't know, it's going to be an interesting thing. But I think all of us, they're spending more time inside and kind of having to focus a little bit on our lives. It's a great time for introspection. It's a great time to read her website. And it's a great time to educate yourself on what you want the future to be, because that's really what we're laying forth here in the 2020 election.

So thanks to my audience for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys. Refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Go to thecvpn.com or chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. They both point to the same place. It's technology. It's cool. And you can subscribe to nine different podcasts there

we'll have this on the chris voss show.com of course our flagship and uh uh support your local politicians get registered to vote because as ashley said in her thing to me if you're uh let's see what was it if you're not on the menu you're not at the table you're on the menu there you go quoted right from her if you're not on the table you're on the menu don't be on the menu it's not a good place to be make your voice count because it's going to make all the bit of difference and if you have kids make their future count get registered to vote get out there i mean i always vote on absentee ballot because i'm i don't want to stay in those lines and I also want to be discouraged on voting day. I don't know what's going to happen with mail-in ballots this year or what Utah's stance is on that.

But I know where I come from in Las Vegas, you can easily request early on. You can get registered to vote online and you can request your absentee ballots. That way you don't go to the voting booth and see you're like, oh, there's like three miles there. It's not worth it. This is your American duty and it's your future. So definitely get out and do it. Check out all the candidates. We're going to have a bunch of the candidates from the Democratic Party of Utah on the Resistance Radio. So watch for them in the next coming weeks. We're going to try and be featuring them to see if, you know, we can't turn the state a little purple, as Ashley says. Thanks to my audience for tuning in and we'll see you

next time. Thank you, Chris. Thank you.