The Daily Signal - A Democrat Explains Why She's Pro-Life

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

Earlier this year, Sen.-elect. Katrina Jackson spoke at the March for Life. Now the Louisiana politician joins the podcast to share why she is pro-life, and what she thinks about the left and pro-lifers. Plus, we talk to Ken Oliver of Texas Public Policy Foundation about a new border security initiative. The Daily Signal podcast is available on Ricochet,iTunes, Pippa, Google Play, or Stitcher. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts. If you like what you hear, please leave a review. You can also leave us a message at 202-608-6205 or write us at [e-mail]. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, October 15th. I'm Kate Trinko. Today, we're going to have a special values voters summit episode. First, we're going to feature an interview with Katrina Jackson, a Louisiana state senator who is a pro-life Democrat. Then we'll have an interview with Ken Oliver of the Texas Public Policy Foundation to talk about a new border security initiative. No headlines today because of the Daily Signal, we believe in Columbus Day. And yes, I do mean Columbus Day. So we were off Monday. when we'd normally record those headlines. Up first, my interview with Senator Jackson

about how she's a Democrat and pro-life. Hey, I'm joined today by Senator-elect, Katrina Jackson of Louisiana. Senator Jackson, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Okay, so first off, you've become very famous, I would say, for being pro-life. You spoke at the March for Life this year.

Tell me, why are you pro-life? Because God tells us to be. It was as simple as that for me, probably at 25 or 26 years. or 26 years old, I tell everyone that I was finally away from home in law school, well, it was about 23, 24, and joined the wonderful church, a home away from home, because I had a wonderful church at home, and just got more into the Word of God. And we were in midweek service one night and got to the Book of Proverbs and said God

hated the shedding of innocent blood and really breaking it down. It was the first time that scripture was addressed in the area of abortion and really broken down and was more innocent in a baby's life. And I said anything that God hates, I'm going to hate. And did you identify as pro-choice before that? I didn't identify as anything. It wasn't a real big issue in my hometown. It wasn't, it had not been discussed. Okay. And you are also a Democrat. Yes. And the Democratic Party is not known for being the most open to pro-lifers. So how is your experience been? Well, first in Louisiana, it is. I mean, not the part. I mean, not the part. party itself, but most of the elected officials in the state house and Senate that are Democrats

are pro-life. And we basically, in Louisiana, really, a lot of us based our politics on our family values, our Christian values, things that we would taught at home, things we were taught in church every Sunday. And so you would find a lot of us like our governor, John Bell Edwards, is pro-life. And so it's been a wonderful experience. Now you have pockets of Louisiana that, where people are not pro-demonists, you know, people are Democrats are not pro-life.

And sometimes that can be difficult in a sense of I've gone into New Orleans and other areas to do speeches and had to have security, you know, for six months until things kind of leveled out. But overall, even traveling around the country, I engage Democrats all the time. I'm a pro-life, pro-pran school, pro-Medicaid expansion Democrat. And so they said, well, how can you get it right on all these issues? And I said because I don't do party politics. At the end of the day, I'm a Christian before I'm anything.

I've been real clear on that. I said I didn't want to be identified as before I was black, before I was white, before I was Democrat or Republican. I wanted to be identified as a Christian. And so that's every day the goal I wake up with is to identify with God first. And so it's just been easy in that sense. Now, advocacy and breaking the mold nationally is a different animal in and of itself. But even there, people think that most of the elected officials that are Democrats would be antagonistic. I hadn't experienced a lot of antagonistic confusion amongst elected officials.

We have conversations about it. We talk about it. Sometimes you convert them. That's wonderful. And if you found, you know, I think there are a lot of people on the left who are pro-life and are very frustrated that there aren't more people like you out there. Do people approach you or do you know of people who say, like, They wish the Democratic Party and the left in general was more open on this issue, I guess, outside of Louisiana, where it sounds like they are. Well, no, the Democratic Party in Louisiana has adopted the pro-trust platform, the party itself, not most of the elected officials in the House and the Senate.

Yes, to answer your question, yes, even in the last presidential elections, people talk more about why wasn't there a Democrat who identified with being pro-life and what we call more of the Christian values. you're facing that right now during this time. The bottom line is this is that we have a Democrat for Life organization that's national. It's bringing us together like never before. You're seeing that arm of the Democratic Party, who is pro-life, coming forth. Conversations are being had regarding presidential elections and everything else on why do we not see Democrats on a ballot who share our values? And that is something that's being pushed more. Around the country, non-elected officials are those who are not even involved in Democrats,

for life, talk about it. I can sit in church and I can go to my local church and on program and one of the mothers of the church will tap me on the knee and say, you know what, baby, good for you that you didn't let politics exchange you. Good for you that you didn't let politics persuade you to go against God. And that happens every day. I get calls from people in my district in Louisiana outside of my district. I get emails, you know, and it starts with I am a Democrat.

I believe in helping people, but I also believe in following the will of God. And so, yeah, it's being talked about. And it's just not by elected officials or those who are involved in politics. It's been talked about a number of Democrats around this country. So when it comes to the African-American community, where are people on abortion? I mean, obviously, I'm sure there's a range of opinions. But how overall do you think the community thinks about abortion? Yeah, in my African-American community, we're essentially pro-life.

We may not say, hey, we're pro-life. But I tell people it's best to think is this. When we sit around the table on the Sunday evening, out to church, with three generations of family members, we've never discussed abortion. We've never discussed a woman having a right to abortion. In most families, what we discuss is how good church was, how good God has been us, how good family has been us. And in our culture, traditionally, someone was pregnant and couldn't take care of the baby,

hey, bring it to grandmother's house, bring it to Yonti's house. Someone is going to help you raise that child. And so although we may not have in a past voice that we were pro-life, all of our actions showed that we were pro-life, right? And so culturally, African-American community is pro-life. And I know it sometimes gets confusing because most of us are members of the Democratic Party. Well, you have to think the average African-American who's going about their life, middle class, we vote most of the time, but we're not so engaged in party politics if you look on a national stage. You have African-Americans, but those are those who have traditionally been brought up in politics.

but just in our communities, we don't really encourage abortion. We encourage abstinence. If you're going to engage in sex, you engage in safe sex. But I can say it on the radio. But it's just point blank. I mean, you don't see us talking about women's rights. You see that more in a political party when people actually get more politically involved. So culturally, no, I wasn't raised in a culture that pushed abortion.

And I think that's so beautiful. You mentioned about other family members helping because I think that's something as pro-lifers, we need to remember that, you know, you can't just prevent the abortion. You need to help the mother and the child. Now, you've talked in the past about, I believe, seeing yourself as a whole-life politician.

Yes. Could you expand on that? Whole-life means this. I don't ask a woman to choose life and then walk off and don't look at programs, implementing programs, that after she chooses life would help her. This is the thing I recognized in the pro-life movement, and no criticism toward anyone.

It's just a reality. Where I live, there were advocates for life. And then after they advocated for life and you chose life, they would send you to a pregnancy center that helped during your pregnancy and after the birth of the child. But there was no holistic approach there, which means when Medicaid expansion came up, I remember saying, this is a 300-some pay. This is a large bill. I was in the state legislature. and I said this is a very large bill, but reading through it and the staff at the state level dissecting it. And I remember saying, you know what, it may not be perfect, but it's the law, the land.

And I considered that part of my whole life stance, that three to 400,000 Louisianaans that were working 40 hours a week would have health care. And so for me, that was part of my pro-life stance. Now, that's not saying that Medicaid expansion was the only remedy that could have come for, I mean, the only remedy that could have come for, but it was the remedy at the time. And so that's part of our whole life stance. You'll hear Governor Edwards in Louisiana talk about that a lot. He signed it into law after three years of it being in place with not being in law in Louisiana on his first day by executive order. He considered that a part of his whole life stance. And the reason why he considered that a part of his whole life stance is because he knew that in order to ask someone to choose life,

see, you can be a mother can be on Medicaid while she's pregnant. the day she steps out of hospital from delivery, she's dropped from the roads. Medicaid expansion prevented that, although the baby would have stayed on the chip, which is the form of Medicaid. So we look at Whole Life Democrats that way, are, I believe, in programs that provide a hand-up and not a hand-out. And so I'm for some reform in our social programs, but not to the point that it doesn't give a mother or someone who chooses life a fighting chance

at having a life and their child having a good life. there is a pilot program that I authored and Governor Edwards signed until all last year that we're underway with that matrigulates a mother and our family because you know have fathers raising children all for benefits and get them trained right now in the state of Louisiana in most states have a woman has kids one child and she goes out to get a job and she's on some of the social programs the moment she starts working 40 hours a week it cuts out and so I've heard people say it's cheaper to stay on social programs, it's better living to stay on social programs than be cut off and not be able to afford things. And so that's the part of the whole life Democrat stance that we begin to do amend programs and change them to where they give a hand up and matriculates a person off of them instead of making a right now most women have a choice. You stay on the program where your child is able to eat or you go get a job at a low wage, that's not a livable wage, not making up money to take care. care of yourself and then all your programs are gone.

So when you give someone that choice, they don't come off with the programs. They stay on social programs. And so that's a part also of the whole life stance. It's making sure once a woman chooses life, once a father chooses life, because sometimes the mother's style, have it if you keep it, that once you choose life, that we give you a fighting chance at the American dream. And that doesn't mean giving someone a handout. And I know that's basically what some people think that the Democratic Party pushes.

No, a whole-life Democrat pushes the idea that once we ask you to choose life, we're going to give you a fighting chance at the American dream. And how do you think that pro-life conservatives and liberals or Democrats can work together? We do it every day in Louisiana. I do it around the country as I go and speak. We can work together by, number one, your pro-life. So you care about the life of that child. Where we can work together is really starting to change both our views on how we care about the world. the life of the mother after the birth of the child and how we care about that child's life

after its birth. I think right now we can work together on a pro-life issue all day long. That's considered pro-birth to me, okay? The birth, that's pro-birth. I think what we can work together more, I know what we can work together more is on our pro-life stance, what it means, because it's one thing to be pro-birth. It's another thing to be pro-life. And when we come together and really expand what it means to be pro-life, that's where you're

going to see us working together. That's where you're going to see the gap, I believe, closing. And that's where it needs to close. And what I mean, the gap between parties, the gap between races, the gap between communities on what being pro-life needs, and you eliminate the need for anyone to be advocating for abortion rights. I mean, you know you're going to have some. But when we work together to reform social programs,

and we work together to create avenues for families, low-income families, That's where I think we can work best together and eliminate and put a big hole in the advocate's reasons for being pro-choice. Okay, last question. How do you handle having the first name Katrina in Louisiana? I, well, you know, I look at a different way. And it was funny. When I first, before I ran for office, I was a staffer at the Capitol. I began to staff the Capitol about two months after Hurricane Katrina.

And so the New Orleans legislators were actually living in. in Baton Rouge. They couldn't go back. And so I met someone and it was a legislator and I said how my name is Katrina. She's like, stop playing. I said, no, seriously. I was like, my name's Katrina. And so she was like, can I call you Renee? I said, well, you could, but I'm so used to being called Katrina. But I look at it a different way. When, you know, when religious leaders looked at Katrina and what it stood for, it was a cleansing, not the storm, but the name and the connotations behind it. And so how do I handle it? Sometimes I laugh and I have laughter. that some people now that you know it's we're kind of not past what happened but

we're rebuilding and and getting our base again when I come into Argon sometimes they say you just like Hurricane Katrina you just storm in a room and so you handle it with laughter but you also handle with a seriousness of purpose that when you step in a room sometimes it gets attention and that may be your lead way into advocacy so well as a fellow Katrina as I mentioned to you I get my share of comments better but I never lived in Louisiana so I can't imagine what you're going through. But thank you so much for joining us, Senator Jackson. Thank you. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head?

If you want to understand what's happening at the court, subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a Heritage Foundation podcast, breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme Court. So I'm at Value Voters Summit and Ken Oliver, who is joining me is the Senior Director of Engagement and Right on Immigration at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Ken, thanks for joining me. Thank you for inviting me, Katrina. Wonderful to be with you. Okay, so you are part of a new border security coalition. Tell me about that. Right. The Texas Public Policy Foundation is clearly, you know, it's the leading public policy center in the state of Texas and the state that's most affected by the border crisis this year. This year was the worst.

And Texas has been affected and having to spend over a billion dollars on border security every two years as a state. And the border has been least secure there. We saw the asylum crisis really provoke action by the Texas Public Policy Foundation to get involved in this issue and call for a border security coalition teaming up with the Heritage Foundation. So we have a great group of organizations, conservative organizations across the country and leaders who are coming together in this border security coalition to say something so common sense, right, Katrina, that we need to begin with border security to really take control as a sovereign country of our borders. who comes in and stop the abuse of the asylum system, which has been driving so much of the crisis. So what is this coalition hoping to achieve? Well, we want to focus attention. We're going to be providing a study next week, Katrina, of border security statistics,

the federal government statistics of how many apprehensions, how many getaways, how many turnarounds, all these statistics that the government has every month and sometimes doesn't release as frequently as they should, actually, to determine how secure really. is the border and by sector because as I mentioned earlier, the Rio Grande Valley sector is the least secure. And that's where a lot of the construction of the border wall will be taking place over this next year. So you were part of the Right on Immigration Initiative. What is that? What can you tell me about that? Sure. Right on Immigration Initiative is the program of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which is taking on this area of immigration's impact at the state level.

And as Texas is so affected by immigration done wrong, we want to do immigration right. We're pro-immigrant legal immigration. We want to begin by securing the border, beginning with the state, which has almost two-thirds of the southern border, which is Texas. And then going from there to how do we do immigration right? And we clearly are on record as a public policy organization in favor of changing our current system toward a merit-based system, where we're aligned with our needs as an economy. It all begins with border security, but then step by step, as President Trump has indicated, he wants to move in that direction too.

The administration is going to be introducing legislation to change our system where we have more immigration tied to work and less tied to just family relations. So how are Texas and Americans and other border states affected by the immigration crisis? You mentioned that, of course, it matters to Texas Public Policy Foundation because being right there, it's having an impact, but what exactly is that impact? Right, we're all affected, and the impact has been, as we know, up until very recently, this summer that people were getting in by claiming with a child that they were seeking asylum. And they would, unfortunately, due to the Flores Agreement, the settlement under the Clinton, under the Obama administration, there was a settlement where eventually it was determined that you could not hold a family more than 20 days. and then after 20 days, they would be released if they had a credible asylum claim.

And unfortunately, about 80% of the claims were determined to be credible. And so people realized that bringing a kid was a ticket. So people from all over the world were coming in. We were hundreds of thousands every month this year, earlier this year, coming in. And so the system was just flooded, and people were, you know, we saw on the border of Texas, for example, Catholic Charities, for example, just unable to cope with the amount of people coming into their refuge areas. So it's all really been an abuse of the asylum system that the administration has taken steps to correct, but without Congress acting to close the loopholes that exist, we're not going to get a permanent fix.

I think it's really the impact is that we just have more and more people that are not supposed to be in the country, right, that are abusing the system and have been able to take advantage of the system in a way that is not right. So prior to this, you worked at MRC Latino, which is where I first met you. How does Spanish language media cover the situation of the border? And do you think that affects how American Hispanics perceive it or no? Yes, Spanish language media, beginning with Univision, right? Jorge Ramos has been in the anchor chair there over 30 years, and he's really an advocate

an activist anchor, right? And unfortunately, he and many others at those networks tend to say that if you support legal immigration but you're against illegal immigration, you're anti-immigrant. And it's so unfair and biased the use of the language that we've seen in the Spanish language media over and over again to characterize as anti-immigrant policies, which are very pro-immigrant. And it's actually to keep the U.S. a successful country that's attractive to immigrants, because if we allow our social safety net to be abused and broken by illegal immigration, then we won't have a country that's worth visiting or immigrating to. So Spanish language media has been a real challenge. I think many viewers are smart, and despite the activism, it's so obvious that many viewers realize, just like in. English language media that they're not being told the whole story.

Okay. Well, Ken Oliver, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you, Katrina. Wonderful. And that's our episode from the Value Voters Summit in Washington, D.C. We'll have more interviews this week from the summit, so stay tuned. We'll see you tomorrow for a regular show. The Daily Signal podcast is executive produced by Kate Trinko and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Lauren Evans and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.

Thank you.