The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Stacey Abrams

Episode Date: May 30, 2023

Stacey Abrams joins Andy Richter to discuss the path that led to her historic campaigns in Georgia, why she identifies as an introvert, pursuing the good fight, her love of fiction writing, and much more.

Hello everyone, you have tuned in to another episode of the three questions and today, usually I talk to silly clowns, but today I am talking to someone that changed history. I'm talking to Stacey Abrams. Well, let's get this out of the way. First of all, hello, and thank you for being here. Hello, thank you for having me. I always like to, just so publicists don't yell at me, I like to get the why you're here part out right away. And that's because you have

a new book. In addition to everything, this is what when I was reading about you, it's like, you need to calm down. You need to slow down. You do too much. You are very kind. But you have a new book out and it's a fiction. It's a book of fiction, A Rogue Justice. Indeed. It is the sequel to my first legal thriller called While Justice Sleeps. I wrote the first one back in 2010, but couldn't get it published because my main characters, one was a Supreme Court clerk and no one really cared about the Supreme Court. And the antagonist was a rogue president who was involved in international intrigue and

publishers thought that was too far-fetched in 2010. But in 2021, suddenly I was all corrupt and Avery got to make, she is making a return appearance in her next book, which is Rogue Justice out on May 23rd. Yeah. So when this airs, it'll be out so everyone can get it right now. Yeah. I think you may have caused Trump then. Did you somehow like just engineer it so that you could have this book published? While I enjoy success, I am not willing to sacrifice democracy in its pursuit. So no. Yes. Yes. I'm a Chicago Cubs fan and the year they, he was elected the year they won the world series. And somehow it felt like if this is the yin and yang of it, I would, I would have taken another year of no world series. Yeah. You know, I don't, that's all magical thinking anyway. I mean, you've been writing fiction since you were young, right? Like in college you started.

young, right? Like in college you started. Actually, so I wrote my first novel when I was 12 and novel is a very strong, no, no, no. Novel is a very strong word. It was a novel for a 12 year old. So it was more than the three pages you were usually told to write for. It was called Diary of Angst. And it was basically my queen musings about how unfair the world was. And then my next, my first full length novel was in law school. It was my romantic suspense novel based on my ex-boyfriend's dissertation. It's called Rogue, sorry, Rules of Engagement. And we had a bad breakup, although I read his dissertation. He was, he's a very smart guy, but he had no imagination. And so in the book, he languishes in prison for the rest of my natural life.

imagination. And so in the book, he languishes in prison for the rest of my natural life. I could, the best part is that at 12, what was it? Diary of angst? Yes. A diary of angst. Your poor parents. Like I could just tell that is the title chosen by a child that is a handful. I, well, I'm one of six, so they differentiated. I mean, it was their fault. Right, exactly. I guess it's, yeah. I mean, you know, when you have six, you can't really complain about any one particular's, you know, issues. It's sort of like you asked for it. Look, and they taught us to read and talk. So you set us up. Yeah.

Now, you said it. You're one of six. And you have a sister that's a district judge. Both of your parents became ministers. They went to divinity school in Atlanta and both became ministers. Are you from like achievers? Were you always like, was there a high priority put on achievement? Yes. All of us were very afraid of my parents. My mom was the only one of her seven siblings to finish high school. So both of my parents were from Jim Crow, Mississippi, and they grew up very much underestimated,

Jim Crow, Mississippi, and they grew up very much underestimated, under-resourced, under-served. And despite that, my mom became the only one of her seven siblings to finish high school, the first one in her family to do so. My dad was the first man in his family to go to college, and he did so despite being dyslexic and never being diagnosed. And so he memorized his way through school. And they told us- Wow, that's crazy. diagnosed. And so he memorized his way through school and they, they told us, it means extraordinary thing. He actually learned to read in earnest by reading to my youngest sister because my parents couldn't afford kindergarten for her or preschool for her. And so my dad had to take care of her because he had been injured on the job. And so my dad would read to her and they learned to read

together when he was in his thirties. And so my parents told us we had three jobs, go to church, go to school, take care of each other. And going to school was very serious. You didn't miss a day of class. I mean, you had to like be missing a limb or major organ, none of this like appendix stuff. Like it needed to be something that you could describe what it did

if you weren't going to go to school. And so we all, we grew up believing, not necessarily an achievement as a sort of abstract idea, but your job was to do your best. Your job was to serve and your job was to be the best person you could be. And so for each of us, I have an older sister. I'm number two. My oldest sister is a vice president of a college. I've got a brother who's a producer. Now, youngest sister is a computational biologist. We've got a brother who's a little lost, but even he is finishing his college degree. He's a few years behind where he intended to be. It's been about 20 years, but he is re-enrolled in college and trying to finish his college degree.

And so for all of us, achievement is being the best versions of ourselves. And my parents always believed we could do anything. That's amazing. I mean, and enviable in a way, but it just, I mean, well, and you can see, like you said, coming from Jim Crow, Mississippi, education does represent, you know, you know, aside from, I don't know, winning the lottery, it's a path towards success. Exactly. Were they as strict about that themselves? Is that something you think that they both just had within them or did they learn that kind of stick-to-itiveness from someone? So my dad's parents, my grandfather was drafted into both the Korean War and World War II. Wow.

But wasn't able to vote until 1968. And so he had a family to take care of. My grandmother was very much, she's smart and she's one of the smartest people I grew up around and she never could realize her dreams. Although one of her sisters, I think, did a couple of semesters in college, but they couldn't afford it. But they came from the space of believing that they should do more. And so yes, my grandparents and my dad's side, you went to school, That was your job. My mom's family was a bit more fractured.

My grandparents got divorced when my mom was young. They stayed with their father. And my grandfather was much older than my grandmother. And so when he passed away, my mom helped raise her siblings. And so there really wasn't the same architecture on her side of the family, but she had neighbors and friends and her church that really saw how bright she was. And it was teachers who said to her, you're just too smart to give up. And so I think for both of them, they had a native instinct to know they deserve more and could achieve more. And they met when they were 16.

And I think that became sort of mutually reinforcing. And they've always driven each other to success. And what I've always applauded them for is that my parents have never seen any, they've never seen the diminution of themselves when their spouse got better. Like when my mom is celebrated and we get awards, my dad was the loudest part of our cheering section and when my dad wanted to do something my mom was there to make sure he could make it happen even if it was far-fetched and i think it was both their upbringing but also just their instinct

to not only dream big but then to do what it took to make it so that the fact that they weren't resentful of each other's success is notable too because as ministers they are in show business yes so you usually the two people in show business they're like the most jealous couples i know and i and i also know from knowing people in the clergy like that's a performer there you don't become a minister if you're not a performer. Well, it gets even more just very quickly. My dad, so both of my parents had separate charges. They were Methodists and were from rural Mississippi. So they had separate churches. My mom had three and my dad had three. My mom consolidated her churches and my father,

we all realized my dad has a tendency to tell people they're going to hell for not doing enough good work, which doesn't go over really well in the Methodist church. And so there was sort of a mutual decision that he would step down from the pastorate and not in a bad way, but he really wanted to do outreach ministry. My dad ran the outreach ministry at my mom's church. And so although he he preached, because there are four Sundays every month, so he would preach too, but my mother was the pastor. And for men in particular in the South and in Christianity, having a woman as the head of the church could have been a very corrosive thing. And instead, I watched my dad really lean in know, lean in to be, make her as, help her be as

successful as she could be. That's pretty amazing. And you get that, I think that, you know, like whether, whether your children are male or female, that you, that comes through, you know, that you, that soaks in, you know, just the kind of respect that women, you know, they're just the true equality, you know, and all that comes with it, which is, you know, the good stuff. You know, it's like, all right, if we want equality, you go make money. All right. You do the dishes. Exactly. Yeah.

My dad's the first feminist we ever met. Yeah. Never would have called himself that but i mean were they taskmasters like was it was it hard at times or sort of you know did you feel did you feel like push too much ever there's nothing to kensian in our upbringing i mean we were poor so we we did that part of it but yeah yeah we were working the fingerless gloves exactly Exactly. Yeah. The big goose at Christmas. Sure. Exactly. Yeah. So we were working for it. My parents both had, on paper, good jobs.

My mom was a college librarian. My dad was a shipyard worker. They worked really hard. And they were strict. I mean, we didn't run them up. This was before they became pastors. We like to say that my parents became pastors in the know official job but they were preachy our whole lives but their expectations were really clear and again it was those very three those three things and

because there's six of us one of our jobs we were each assigned a sibling to be responsible for so it wasn't just edicts it was was also structure and expectation, but support. And I think, and not to say they were perfect people because, you know, I still harbor some resentments because I am a child of theirs, but. Yeah. And I like my parents. I respect them, but I like them because they tried hard and they made, we will all admit they made lots and lots of mistakes, but no, it wasn't the sort of,

you know, there were no hair shirts or we got spanked, but you know, we don't talk about that because it's post 1985. Right. Exactly. Anybody listening. It wasn't, it was very much, spanked but you know we don't talk about that because it's post 1985 right exactly anybody listening it wasn't it was very much part of southern culture and it's a part of i mean i got i'm not southern i'm not southern and i got spanked and i you know and i would you know i

fully intended when i had children like you know occasional swat on the butt because you think of it you know like a i always thought of it like you know, a mother dog gives a nip to her pup to, as a correction, as a correction. So I thought, yeah, you know, a swat on the butt. And my, with my son, I think I gave him a swat on the bottom twice and instantly realized, oh, this is, this is not, this is, does not do what it's supposed to do. This is just about me being impatient. This isn't, he's not learning anything other than to be frightened of me. I will tell you what my parents realized early on, spankings were usually we had put each other in danger. Like I remember the times we got in real trouble and it typically was not just we did

something bad, but we did something bad but we did something that was dangerous to more than two of us you know there was a critical massive problem but my parents better punishment for us was to threaten to take away our books yeah i mean we were such nerds that you could it wasn't like grounding us it was that they were going to take our books and they were going to, wow. Yeah. We were, I mean, when you say it out loud, I'm surprised we weren't bullied in school more. Can't you tell my loves.

Were you able to sort of pursue your own interests in your family? Like, you know, yeah, yeah, we are, we vary. So my oldest sister is an anthropologist i'm whatever i am leslie was always going to be a judge she wanted to be a lawyer from the time she was eight richard uh wanted rich was a social worker

for almost 20 years before he switched jobs uh walter is figuring it out. And Janine is an evolutionary biologist and a computational scientist. My parents, they didn't care. It wasn't what we did. It was that whatever we wanted to do, we just had to be good at it. Although I tease my mom that my fractured approach to my life is because she said to me, she's like, you don't want to be a jack of all trades and a master of none. What she meant was pick something and focus on it. What I heard was try everything. And so there was a communication gap there. Yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, live and learn. You figured it out eventually. Yeah. So when did, I mean, when did you sort of set on the, you know, kind of, well, you said it kind of like whatever you are. I mean, you're in politics, but you're an organizer, but you're also, you know, have been a legislator and tried to be, you know, ran for an executive office twice. When did you set on that path? Like, when did you really start to feel like that you were going to somehow get involved? I imagine just in politics, right?

I was always interested in justice. I grew up in a state, first in Mississippi, then in Georgia. I grew up in a place where access to justice was often determined by who was in charge. My parents were super voters. They voted in every election, but I cannot tell you a single time someone knocked on the door to ask my parents to vote because we lived in a neighborhood where we just weren't considered part of the electorate. And then when we, when I was in college, I worked to get people signed up to be registered to vote. Nobody cared. It was very lonely, you know, standing outside with a clipboard as kids are having fun. So running for office to me, wasn't the goal. It was how do, you know, standing outside with a clipboard as kids are having fun.

So running for office to me wasn't the goal. It was how do you get people to lift their voices, but also how do you solve the problems of inequity? How do you address those issues? And so I actually planned to be a really good bureaucrat. I went to policy school after college. I went to law school. I wanted to make politicians better at what they did, but realized that they weren't going to do what I said. So I ran for office myself.

Yeah. And you went to master's, you got a master's degree, yes? I did my master's in public affairs at the LBJ school, which is at the University of Texas. Oh, okay. So you were in Texas there for a while. Was that the only time you haven't lived in Atlanta since you were young? Because I know your folks moved back to Mississippi and you and your older sibling stayed in Atlanta. Yeah. So I was born in Wisconsin. I just remember being cold and cheese curds, but we moved by the time I was 20. What were they doing? How'd they end up in Wisconsin? by the time I was 40. What were they doing? How'd they end up in Wisconsin? So my mom was admitted to grad school there. My dad supported, he worked in the primate lab at the University of Wisconsin while my mom was doing her master's of library science. She finished the

year after my younger sister, Leslie, was born. So we moved back to Mississippi in 76. We lived in Mississippi 76 to 89. We moved to Georgia. I started college here. Mom and dad moved back to Mississippi in 93. And then I stayed, I went to Texas for grad school. I went to Yale for law school. Once again, in the cold, do not care for it. So I came back South as soon as I could. And I've been back in Georgia ever since. Why did you pick Atlanta over Mississippi again? By then, I was very much involved in the conversation of how do you solve these problems of inequity, of poverty, of access. And I went to college when Maynard Jackson was mayor. And then I worked on the mayor's race for his successor.

I worked on the mayor's race for his successor. I worked on Clinton's campaign and I saw what could happen when you were actively engaged in the politics, but especially at the local level. And for me, state and local politics were so important because you would hear about these things at the federal level, but they never made their way down to where we lived. And so I was very committed to that. Plus I needed to make

a living because I owed a lot of people, a lot of money. And I was, I was a tax attorney by training. There were not, there was not a big call for tax attorneys in Mississippi. There was, I could get a really good job that was going to pay me an absurd amount of money for someone who had never made any money. And the law firm was in Atlanta and it had the weather, it had the job, and I could dabble in politics to do my civic engagement work, do my organizing work. And I was in the cradle of the civil rights movement. So, and it was. Was there an aspect of it that there was more potential to move the needle in Georgia as opposed to Mississippi? Absolutely. I love my home state. I love Mississippi.

But Georgia was the place where I really came into my own in political, even though I wasn't thinking necessarily about being a candidate immediately. I had this vague idea that one day I would be mayor of Atlanta. I didn't know how that was going to happen. But that was something that was the highest job I'd ever seen a black person hold in politics. Yeah. And so that was, that was the visual, the visionary job. And so, I mean, I knew of Barbara Jordan and Shirley Chisholm, but that just seemed so remote. Yeah. Yeah. And I was always intrigued by the executive side. And so coming back to Georgia, it was that if you looked at, it was a city that had black leadership.

So people who looked like me, that wasn't true in Mississippi. And it was a place that let you enter and become a part of the body politic as soon as you got there. So when I moved back in 99, I immediately reached out to a woman who was running for mayor, Shirley Franklin. I worked with her briefly when I was in college. And I got to work on the campaign for the first black woman to become mayor of Atlanta. And that's not something I could have imagined had I gone all the way home to Mississippi. Right. Why tax law? I love puzzles. And oh, wow. It's an amazing. I mean, if you've ever seen the tax code, it is a puzzle. Nobody Right. Why tax law? So it's, you know, I can like, I mean, for me, it's always things, you know, like we're now in the middle of a writer's strike. And I have, you know, from the last time that SAG was going to strike, I have the concepts explained to me, the financial concepts.

And I grasp them and I really truly do grasp them. And then they are out of my head 10 minutes later. So tax law, I can't even imagine. I mean, you've got to really be a romantic to find something exciting in there. So there are two pieces for it. At one point, I thought I'd be a physicist, but it turns out I just like Star Trek a lot. And differential calculus just kicked my butt and I was done. But I love, I like math. I don't love it. I like the puzzle of the tax code.

And I also, it was one of those areas of practice where I could use my brain in a really interesting way, but it was also an area of the law where very few people who wanted to serve the public good ever studied. I mean, tax lawyers don't plan to ever go and do organizing. And I actually, during my third year of law school, lived in Mississippi and started a nonprofit helping people because I'm like, you'd never be able to afford me as a Yale educated tax attorney, but I'm going to give you my services because you need it more than most. And I was actually, I got my first client-ish when I was in law school helping an ex-communicated priest who was setting up, he was a wonderful man, but he was buying, taking over old hotels

to turn them into single resident occupancy housing for ex-offenders with AIDS. Wow. single resident occupancy housing for ex-offenders with AIDS. Wow. And they had, basically, he had a huge challenge because all of them were evading their taxes accidentally. He thought because it was a nonprofit, they didn't have to pay taxes, and he'd been in the church. So he didn't realize all of the things he needed to do. I was invited, I was asked to go and see him by a friend who said, well, you studied accounting. I'm like, no, I took an accounting class.

But once I met them, I came back and found the one law professor at Yale who did tax-exempt organization law. And he gave me a stack of books, and I read them and decided I was going to be a tax lawyer. And then I shaped my master's thesis around tax law issues. And that's what it became. Well, that's, it's interesting too, is because even most people that sort of set out with, you know, purpose-driven for public policy or for, you know, working for the public good that go to law school, usually it's, you know, some kind of, you know, civics law or criminal law. And you're right. I mean, are you somebody that tends to look for a niche that is unoccupied in order to put yourself?

I do. So one of my favorite phrases to use to describe my organizing theory is, no one expects a Spanish Inquisition. If you like Monty Python, who I'm- Yeah, yeah. I know what you mean. Yeah, no one expects a Spanish Inquisition. No you like Monty Python? Yeah. Yeah. I use that reference.

Yeah. No one expects the Spanish inquisition. No one thinks that if you're going to do civic engagement, that you're going to be a tax attorney. But what I tell people, we focus so much on appropriations, how we spend our money. But what tells you about a society is how they get their money. Who do you tax?

Who do you not tax? How do you tax? How do you punish those who make mistakes versus those who intentionally gain the system? And just going back to my novel, Avery Keene, my character, she's a law clerk, but the puzzles for her are similar.

For me, it's how do you dismantle this puzzle that is our tax code to figure out who we intend to be as a society? And then on a more granular level, how do you help people get their money back or not have to spend money they don't have? I mean, no, it's fascinating. I mean, because I would just hear tax law and it makes me want to take a nap. I know. You know, and I also figured like you probably, I bet you have so many friends and acquaintances that just want to pick your brain about a tax issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got two of them in my inbox right now.

Lucky, lucky you. you um now you mentioned you mentioned you touched on it a little bit that you know you were you were set out to help other people who would be legislating or executing um and then you realized you had to do it yourself um can you talk about like was there a moment at which you kind of thought was there one particular incident that you thought, well, darn it, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do this. Yeah. So in college, I, as I said, I had this list and I thought I'm going to be mayor of Atlanta. And part of it was in response to the Rodney King decision. I worked for the city of Atlanta in college. I got into a fight with mayor Jackson. He won the fight, but he gave me a job later on. So I worked for the city of Atlanta in college. I got into a fight with Maynard Jackson. He won the fight, but he gave me a job later on. So I worked for the office of youth services. So I did. What was the fight?

What was the, so after the Rodney King decision came down in 1992, the college I attended, Spelman college, the whole Atlanta university center was locked down and tear gassed by the mayor because there were protests and demonstrations, but I thought it was overreach. And I was invited to this simulcast back before, you know,

you understand what simulcast is. Yeah. It's not on the, no internet. So I'm there at this, uh, it was a PBS studio and Maynard Dax and the mayor says something about how we were ungrateful little

kids who were running amok. And I pointed out that I actually attended city council meetings and he didn't do enough for young people. And we had a game problem and poor young people and poor children. And he wasn't doing the job he was supposed to do. Maynard Jackson had been elected the first black man to be mayor of a major city. I was not equipped for that fight and he won. And so when he pushed back on me, it was with force and verve and it was very effective and I shut up and sat down. But then a year, about six months later, he called the college and offered me a job in the newly created office of youth services. And so that was my first moment being in the bureaucratic side. And so to your question,

I thought about wanting that job, but I'm an introvert who didn't like talking to people and just wanted stuff to get done. So I kind of let it sit that I wanted to run for office. But fast forward, when I was working for Mayor Franklin, it was the first time we had a Democratic mayor of a city and a Republican governor. And there were a few issues. The biggest one for me was that we passed a living wage law, the first in the state's history, the only one in the South. And I was the lawyer who wrote the legislation. We got that law through. We battled all the Fortune 500 companies in Georgia to get it through. And the very next year, the governor basically nullified it. The state legislature and the governor just said, no, Atlanta, you're not allowed to do this. And in fact, no city in the state will ever be allowed to do a living wage law. And we saw that happen again and again. And for me, that was infuriating that the experimentation that should happen at the local level to respond to the needs of the people was being nullified by this powerful figure that very few people paid attention to. And that was the moment I decided to run for the state legislature. I'm like, well,

I one day want that job. I want to be able to let cities do what they can to serve their people. I want to be the governor of the state. And therefore I ran for the state legislature as part of learning how to do the job. Yeah. And so, yeah. You say you're an introvert, which I mean, I, I believe you because I've talked to enough people on this podcast who are performers, who do absolutely outrageous things, and they say, I'm kind of shy by nature. I feel like I'm kind of shy by nature. use in order to overcome your natural introversion? Because you can't, you know, you can't go to your own fundraiser and be a wallflower. You would think you can't, but I have managed it on occasion.

Well, that's called charm and magnetism. So I'm not, so I think I'm not shy, but I am reserved and I do enjoy it. My idea of a perfect weekend is watching TV by myself. But what I realized is that the work that I need to do requires other people and you can't secretly run for office if you're not in North Korea. So I had to talk to people. And so it was always a cost benefit analysis. Yes, this is going to be painful, but what do i get out of it now my team knows that they have to be ready to explain to me why i've got to do this i i was dinged during my time in the legislature and and by others i'm not the best

at glad handing i can do retail politics really well but i don't do the socializing well one of my strategies is prayer when i would canvas i would knock on doors and just pray no one answered the door i'm like please god don't let them get home please let me at home and i'd mutter it beneath my breath and i think like the staff was with me thought i was like practicing i'm just like praying to god that no one's there so i could just leave the door hanger and they would answer the door and i'd talk to them i'd be engaging but i'm like man god just asked you just like, give me two houses where no one is there. That was part of it.

Well, was, and was that, did you ever get used to it? I mean, do you feel it's always, is it exhausting? Like, do you find after you go through those periods of glad handing that you're wiped out it is it's it's innervating but it's so important and i i never want to say it in a way that says i don't i i appreciate the engagement i love being able to hear people's stories and understand how i can help i welcome the opportunity to solve problems it's the social part of it that escapes me because that's the part that I don't necessarily always see the benefit of. The rest of it makes complete sense. So even when the guy opens the door,

annoyed that I've interrupted his Saturday morning cartoons, I'm going to do my best to engage him and answer questions and listen. But we both would have been happier if he'd been, you know, to Brian Camp, to the, well, I mean, to the national power structure in order to register, you know, to basically turn Georgia bluish. Is there a part of it that is like that you relish the fight and you like the fight? So my dad was arrested when he was 14 for registering black people to vote in Mississippi.

We tease him. My mom did the same thing on the other side of town. She just didn't get caught. Yeah. But they imbued in me this belief that if you want democracy, it is your job to fight for it, to work for it. I don't relish the fight with Republicans over democracy because we should be in this fight together. Yes. I relish the victory for people. And so, you know, there's this whole sermon drawing about me being, you know, not trusting the outcome.

My issue was I've never once tried to make myself something. You're not entitled to win elections. My fight was always, did every person who is eligible to be heard get to have their voice? And when you grow up in communities where people are denied their voice, yes, there is a passion about making sure that not only are their voices heard, but that you turn up the volume. And the elections that I've been able to support and the ways I've been able to widen the aperture. So more people get through and get heard that matters as someone who is on the partisan side. I'm glad that my guy wins. I'm glad that my, the woman I work for wins. Like I want,

I want my team to win, but I want everyone's team to be able to play. Yeah. I really want my team to win them. Yeah, I know. I'm just, yeah, I'm the same way. I'm play. Yeah. I really want my team to win them. Yeah, I know. I'm just, yeah, I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I mean,

I kind of feel like, I mean, I'm a little political on, on social media a little bit, you know, and I'm, I'm especially with guns and common sense gun control, but I,

you know, people are always like, I don't, I don't think that i'm not waiting for some leftist utopia i just want us all to calm down and fix the roads you know like you want lower taxes cool that's great but you know you got well you gotta have you haven't gotta you have to have some idea beyond you know lower, lower taxes for rich people. But, and I also think, you know, of all the sort of structures, spiritual, you know, sort of metaphysical structures I believe in, yin and yang, their balance is important, you

know, and I think that it's good when two opposing forces push against each other. They do, you know, quality control over ideas, you know? And so, yeah, I just, I'm not like anti-right or I'm, you know, I mean, now it's, it's nuts, you know, it's Republican parties, but just become crazy, but yeah, I'm with you. It's like to have some balance is nice. It's good. It's healthy. It works. I mean, look, I would tell my colleagues when I became minority leader, it was a Republican who came up to me. He used to be minority leader. And he said, this is a job that has neither carrot nor stick. If you're a minority leader,

you can't scare anyone and you can't help anyone. So you've got to figure out how to make yourself effective. And what I would tell my colleagues, and I would tell the other side, I would tell the speaker, look, my job is to collaborate where I can. So let's find ways to work together because most people do not care about your politics. They care about their lives. So what do you do to make their lives better? So collaborate is your first job. Your second job is to compete. I think my ideas are better than yours. And my job is to make sure you have to listen to that. And sometimes your ideas are better than mine. And so the competition is to how do we refine and sharpen each other's ideas so that we come up with

something that's good on the other side? Or if your ideas are amoral and horrific, how do I defeat you so that you never rise again? And then the third is that how do we hold each other side? Or if your ideas are amoral and horrific, how do I defeat you so that you never rise again? And then the third is that how do we hold each other accountable? Because accountability to your point of yin and yang is that no one's going to ever have primacy, but everyone should have access. And you're not into, I mean, the line, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. So what do we do to make certain there's accountability? And when that's your goal, I mean, I was surprised to find myself as polarizing as I am because I've had the same behavior and same beliefs for years. It's just I'd never won anything before. And so after 2020 and 2021, people were like, she's demonic. And I'm like,

no, I'm literally the same person you had co-sponsor your bill less than two years ago. Nothing's changed. But the dynamic to your point is we've got to get to a place where you can compromise your vision without compromising your values. And we've reached this place where a vision of a safe world where people, children aren't afraid to go to school because of school shootings. Yeah. That doesn't mean that you have to compromise your vision of access, but you might, you don't have to compromise your values, but you might have to decide that not

everybody should get a gun just because they can spell it. Yes. That's a good rule. That's a, that's a law right there, right? That one. Well, what do you, I mean, what do you see going forward? I know you, you just, you joined the faculty or I don't know if you just did, but you're, you're joining the factory, uh, faculty of Howard faculty, or I don't know if you just did, but you're joining the faculty of Howard University as a chair for race and black politics, I believe. Was that it? And that hasn't started yet though, right? It starts in the fall. Will that take all your time?

Will that be sort of your job now? No, so as my mother pointed out out the whole jack of all trades thing continues to be a problem so i have a production company that i started when of course you do you you have to you just got it these days because i write these books i so uh with all my books i've been able to turn a few of them they're in development which may mean that one day before I'm dead, they become shows. I applaud the lives that you all lead. I thought politics was slow, but my God. But it's been fantastic. So I have a production company and we've got a sort of slate of projects we're working on. I am the senior counsel for rewiring America, which is an entity that's just trying to make sure that all this, all these resources that are coming through around the

energy economy, get to average people, especially low to modern income people. So my job is to make sure folks have the freedom to electrify their lives and make their lives better. And yeah, you can talk about wifi or forever-Fi for everyone and everywhere, but you need electricity first, you know, and people should get, I mean, you don't, if you want your gas stove, you can have it. But if you want an induction stove, if you want to lower your heating bills, there's money for it. So my job is to tell you how to go get your money.

Again, extension of my tax law work. And then the job at Howard, it's a program that was created. It's called the Ron Walters Center on Race and Black Politics. And so I'll be the chair and I'm the first one. So I get to shape the program and really think about how do you create these intersectional conversations that go beyond what we typically think of as politics? Because it is about how do we engage one another? How do we think about democracy, both here and abroad? And so it's an opportunity for me to weave together a lot of the political thinking I've been doing,

but also the organizing work that I've thought of for years. And I'm always going to be involved in the public space. Democracy is imperiled. And just because we didn't have a redux of January 6th, it doesn't mean we are out of the woods and things are going to get worse before they get better. And so I'm going to keep speaking up and trying to defend democracy as much as I can. Is there anything that you feel you're leaving undone? So unlike the movie,

I don't think you have to do everything everywhere all at once. My mission is to do something somewhere as soon as I can. And sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. And so, and that's what I try to do I I mean I've got an Avery Keene you know the novel's coming out she's got a third book that's going to be written sometime in 24 and I look forward to writing incredible to me that you that you I have a hard time like making lunch and then, you know, getting the lawn mowed. Well, I, I, so I love writing. I love public policy. For me, it's all of a piece. I love solving problems and I like puzzles and storytelling is one way to

solve those puzzles. Politics is a way to solve those puzzles. Running a small business is a way to solve it. So I also have a, I do some small business work. Each of those pieces tackle part of the challenge for me. And my job is to figure out how do we put those pieces together in that moment for the problems that I can tackle. And to your, you've made a point earlier. I like to find niches where no one expects to see me.

Therefore, they're not looking for me, which means I get to get more done before they realize I'm there. Yeah, that's great. Well, do you have an overriding philosophy? Do you have, you know, because on this, we, you know, the final of the three questions is, what have you learned? And I mean, you've shared kind of a lot of, I mean, implicit lessons in this, but I mean, is there something like if you, I don't know if you embroider things, but if you're going to embroider a motto on something, what would it be? People ask if I'm optimistic or pessimistic and I'm neither. I'm determined. Yeah. And my very crass correlation is, you know, the glass isn't half full or half empty.

It's half full, but it's probably poisoned. And my job is to find the antidote. Well, that's a good mission statement. Young people, find out where the poison is. So, well, once again, Rogue Justice is out. And you've got, and well, just to sleep, you said you've got a show coming right we're in development right now with Netflix that's fantastic wow and Rogue Justice

is out and are you reading the audio book I do not I leave that to professionals and he is amazing you could double dip that's two checks you could be getting I read my nonfiction, but that only requires my voice.

I do not envy the artistry it takes to do all of the voices. There are a lot of folks in my books. Yeah, yeah. Well, Stacey, thank you so much for your time and thank you so much for your work and pushing to make the world a better place and then enviably writing novels

just in your spare time. Andy, this has been one of the most fun afternoons I've ever gotten to have. So thank you. Oh gosh, thanks. That's so great to hear. And, uh, and it was fun for me too, everybody. Uh, so you got to come back next week, uh, when I will be interviewing somebody who's probably not nearly doing as much to make the world a better place. I don't know. You know, maybe I'll get Greta Thunberg next week. We'll see. Well, thank you, Stacey Abrams.

And thank all of you out there for listening. And I'll be back next week. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Coco production. It is produced by Sean Dougherty and engineered by Rich Garcia. Additional engineering support by Eduardo Perez and Joanna Samuel. Executive produced by Nick Liao, Adam Sachs, and Jeff Ross. Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, with assistance from Maddy Ogden. Research by Alyssa Grahl.

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