Get Used to It: Ep. 103, "Voices of Our Lives: Carole Migden, Part II"

(typewriter clicking) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to Get Used To It. I'm your host, Sheila Kuehl and today we're very fortunate to have with us a highly ranked official in the state of California. No, not the new governor, not yet. (Carole and Sheila laughing) Someone in my opinion, even better, Carole Migden who when we last visited with her was an assembly member in the California state assembly, chair of the appropriations committee since then termed out and is now the chairwoman of the Board of Equalization, which is our tax oversight commission in the state of California. First woman ever elected to that board. Naturally the first woman ever to be chair. Welcome, Carole. - Thank you. Wonderful to be back. - It's so good to see you again. We really miss you in the legislature, but I'm really glad you are where you are. Well, let's go back a little bit in terms of sort of your last session of service in the assembly. What was it like to chair that appropriations committee? I mean, it's a very powerful position and puts you on the budget decision making committee. - [Carole] Yeah. - And everything. What did that feel like knowing that your time was gonna be over at the end of 2002? - Well, I thought it was a wonderful opportunity to learn and throughout my 20 years of public service on the board of supervisors in San Francisco, the state assembly and now, I always thought the smartest thing to learn was about money and to try to convince tax payers using their tax dollars wisely and now that very principle came into place as chair of the appropriations committee and I loved and like I like to say anybody who won $5 had to come to this guy and that's fun. - [Sheila] That was fun. Well, and you were the author of the bill, I mean among hundreds of others, that put domestic partnership registry in place in California. - [Carole] That's right and we provided that and I'm very proud of the new advances made and as you and I appreciate as legislature's former or future that there's a continuity to provide and I did, we did move the agenda forward with domestic partner of registry and a whole set of rights, including right to visitation and wrongful death suits and others and then we moved along, miss Goldberg did a heck of a job taking it even further. So from the lesbian and gay community standpoint, I think we're legislative up for now and we really have to implement and make sure we reach our community so they know about all the expanded benefits here in California. - Well, your decision to run for the Board of Equalization, I think, I wouldn't say people were confused. I think most people, not only across the country that don't live in California, but here in the state have no idea what the Board of Equalization does or is for. Could you just give us a couple? - [Carole] Yeah, we are a big state and we have a board that is independently elected and I represent 10 million people in California. - [Sheila] Wow. - So my district is from Del Norte to Santa Barbara. So we got a million votes election day and what we do is collect taxes and make sure there's fair property tax assessments and that revenue is generated and we hear cases. We serve like an appellate court for individual taxpayers who think they haven't been dealt with fairly with regard to their tax bill. But what we've used the occasion for was define ways to generate more revenue and I'm proud to say Sheila, that through the use of staff this year we've unearthed about a billion dollars in revenue, 600 million, the state took by canceling some obsolete tax credits and we have another 400 million we are gonna put into legislation. So not only were we the caretakers, we found ways to prop up property tax because a tax dollar equals service, you see. It's not just tax, it's the structure that'll pay for our services and making sure we're efficiently collecting it and we're not giving businesses, big businesses too cozy a deal. - Well, I know people in the community who have looked to you for leadership for, I won't say decades and decades but certainly decades. Really understand when you're a legislator, oh, you can bring a bill with equal rights, you can bring a bill with civil rights. But in terms of looking at what you're doing in the tax board, this is very important in terms of our having gay or lesbian people serving in every capacity. - [Carole] That's right. - It doesn't have to do necessarily only with the community. - [Carole] That's right. - But it was interesting because a couple of cases and issues have come to the Board of Equalization that affect the community. Could you describe a few of those for us? - Yes, because we are who we are, wherever roles we are in. So one of the things I wanted to do with this very low profile, but highly powerful job was also find a way to create equity for lesbian and gay, same sex couples and domestic partners and we found, we were able to implement two laws that are about to go into effect. Two rule changes. One would in fact have joint tenants, treated the same as married couples in that if a spouse is lost, a surviving spouse will not be reassessed at the time of loss. The state of California grants great concessions to married couples if there is a tragedy or a loss, and we don't think it's the appropriate time to reassess property. Dutifully registered joint tenant slash domestic partnerships will also be accorded that principle courtesy as well as financial relief. - [Sheila] And that becomes even more important because in California as I think, people have heard since we were one of the people to start these tax revolts. We enacted an initiative by popular election that basically freezes your property taxes. - [Carole] That's right. - But when your property is for any reason reassessed, because you're not under that freeze anymore, it could bump up amazingly. - [Carole] It's a lot of money. - Because the value of the property might have gone up and the freeze doesn't hold anymore. So in our community, when one of us would die, even if we're registered as domestic partners in California, it was not the case that the freeze would stay on the amount of assessment. All of a sudden your property taxes went up. - And at the worst time. - Right, and whereas you're saying with married couples, that is not the case. - That is not the case. - [Sheila] Cause they were exempted from this. - So we did this in fact, so all joint tenants, however, will enjoy privilege whether gay couples or friends. But we did create that structure that protects domestic partners. - [Sheila] That's great. - And moreover, it'll apply to wills and trusts and we extended it to not just home ownership, the same way of different estate planning mechanisms. So, you know what I feel like, I feel like this with you already being old cronies and we just chip away and we chip away, and this is what's in my field now and I'm on this position, here's the scope of things I can do. What I also liked about it is it reached a little bit more maybe of a middle class money, maybe more conservative, kind of older lesbian and gay couple. Sometimes we do great activism that doesn't necessarily touch them. This was something that I heard from folks I had not heard from before. So I felt like it enlarge that. - [Sheila] Start time in their lives too as you said. I mean, you don't know you, you registered as joint tenants. You think you're going to just automatically inherit your half of the property, but no one ever tells you. That all of a sudden your property tax's gonna shoot up. - [Carole] That's right and we're doing that and we've taken care of that. I think it has lent great depth to the community because the kinds of people responding Sheila are different and nothing wrong with typical grassroots activists, that's wonderful too. But I feel like I got a little bit more of the remote, less than active kind of community members a little older, a little more money but now they're turned on and tuned in. And I think that's really what we're about is making life better, making it equal, engaging people and letting them know how we're serving on their behalf. - Now you said, I think there were two rules that changed. - The second rule just had to do with trusts and wills. So the second rule was to say, we are gonna allow this very same treatment having to do with creating clearances for property assessment, and having to do with how wills transfer, how trusts transfer. - [Sheila] But again, I don't think people honestly realize the impact that so many of these commissions or boards have on their lives. As you said in California's the only place where we actually elect our tax board, but still when people are running for election and you must now represent more people than any gay or lesbian elected person in the country. - [Carole] I believe I do. - I mean 10 million people. That's virtually statewide in other states. - Yeah. In other words, that's about 24 maps. - But I remember that there was a case that came to the Board of Equalization, I believe before you were elected to it, that had to do with whether a lesbian could claim head of household on her filing and that had to come to the Board of Equalization. - That's exactly right and we are there it's a few hundred dollars too. You see, I deal with either it's 75 million a corporation owns cause it's escaped it's sales tax obligation or it's something small symbolic about who can be a head of household and be granted a couple of hundred dollars exemptions. So yes we do that. I also find it's sort of like healthcare. You don't wanna access it till you need it, and when you need it you're in dire strait. So emotionally a little bit unsettled and in a state of shock. So it is so especially important that we have these mechanisms in that you don't think you're gonna call upon until something happens in life that isn't sought after, but that there is some relief and benefit for knowing we're pre planning and looking ahead. - You know, Carole, we've heard a lot in the past several weeks about career politicians. Generally, we hear about them in the negative as though spending your life in this kind of work somehow doesn't equip you to continue spending your life in this kind of work and you know when you say to people, oh, but if you were on an airplane and it started to go down, you wouldn't just elect somebody to go land the plane, you'd want somebody that knew something. All of that aside, you've spent your life not as a career politician because you started out in nonprofit organizations, a community organizer, et cetera. But in public service, I say from that point through your election in San Francisco, through your election to the state legislature, this election, and perhaps as we'll talk in a few minutes into another area of service. Tell me, it might be too general a question but what do you think of this argument about whether people should be career politicians and that's a good thing to be or whether it's a bad thing to be. - You know really is insulting this career politician because the other definition would be lifelong public servant. - [Sheila] That's right. - And I have always viewed this and I know you do as well, look at you, a movie star or a smart lawyer and everything, but you wanted to do good for people. And I worked in nonprofits, drug rehabilitation therapy, have a master's degree in clinical psychology from the districts and I must state. And I learned early on in the different things that fascinated me, that I could help make a difference and promote change and had a little bit of the grit and the guts and perhaps the knowhow. And that's what excites me. I like doing what I do now. Surprisingly, everyone said, what's that like? I said, well, you learn a lot, a lot of relief. It's interesting thing and it's your knowledge base and the ability to lead. So I don't feel defensive. I think one, the principles of American life is you're supposed to get a job and keep it. I don't know why it's just somehow not apply to elected officials. Everyone else working hard to keep a job, do well, earn a gold watch, get a pension, take care of their family. I don't wanna serve at the expense of what's good for people and I hold that. I don't think so and you and I and others who are more accessible and approachable. I think if there's something to learn is that we should not be shadows and voices but present. Where people can talk and get a feel for us. I always feel that that's very reassuring whether it's our direct constituents or not. So I think full on that and it's okay to be a career. If you're not stale, if you're animated and engaged in doing the job that it is an asset, but we do know what the public meant by maybe throw some of the bums out. That message is sounded, that process that happened but people that are dedicated and using these skills are not going to make money. Well, we're not making money. - [Sheila] We're not making any money in this. - [Carole] We're not making money and we don't get a pension. I want the public to know we gotta put away for ourselves. It's not even like a normal job. We got stripped of pensions and I always, one other point I wanna make when I was growing up and we were little girls, we thought elected officials was something esteemed. We weren't roundly ridiculed and looked at as pufoons. And I hope to re-instill the luster to the service, the awe that it formally drew, the kind of appreciation the public felt, the occasional thank you for doing the work kind of thing we used to hear cause that's how I feel about that and my work and role and when I go to bed at night, I think I try to do good in the world. And I feel very much at peace or in harmony with myself for that reason. - Well, I think that it's very difficult to know what the voters really were saying. Everyone has their own guess, everyone becomes an instant pundit or whatever. But I saw an interesting op-ed in the New York times, right after the gubernatorial election in California, which referred to it, it was a sociologist that used the phrase rescue fantasy. And I thought it was very smart. I've been thinking and thinking about it because I know that people feel uneasy in their lives, economically are vulnerable and fragile and they know that their healthcare being connected to their job means that the job is even more important for them and their family, if they have any healthcare in their jobs. I'm not so sure about the public schools, they mostly want them to be good, but feel again, a little dis-ease about it and growing anger and anxiety. I think, this person said, leads you to think, well, they didn't do it for me and they didn't do it for me. I wanna be rescued and just suspending disbelief to ask for rescue. And I think people count on us in a way in kind of the same way, almost as an act of faith. - It is an act of faith and then we have and it's interesting to know, cause what we've witnessed here is a populous revolution, which also I think what we've experienced in elections often is a disaffection is an expression of non-participation which again, shows the cynicism, the alienation, while expressing a change for every reason I know you and I have to resonate to that, that the voters said, geez, we want a whole new approach here. And yes, a movie star personality that can kind of carry that off. But nevertheless, there was some kind of staleness or some kind of presentation that we'll learn from and keep renewing ourselves with so that we are rescuing them every day. So therefore they don't need to throw us overboard, but that we're conscious of the need to put out the life preservers and I think most of us are. I always say to the press of my constituents, you know we do 80 things a meeting. You talk about the one somebody voted didn't don't, you talk about the hard work and the meetings downstairs and the kind of time without the compensation and the extra material we take or we fly to meet people or we fly around the country to approach the community, be accessible at great wear and tear. It's hard to be a candidate in elected, take exact a toll. So I always wanna say, you need us, you like us, help us out and if all I'm asking you for is a check now, and then you lucky. (Sheila and Carole laughing) - Well, the other thing is, I find it interesting that people do tend to trust you more if they simply know where you stand. Even if they may not agree a hundred percent with your 50 stands. It's like, thank you for telling me where you stand at least you're being honest with me and maybe we can meet in the middle about this. And I'm sure you found the same thing. - Always or maybe I'll get you next time and I think that's true, I think that's true of me, I think that's true of you and I think it's well appreciated and it's not about polls. It's about feeling in heart and it's about pragmatism with policy and sometime figuring out how it all falls in. Domestic partners are a good example. When we started with the registry, I remember it was half of what we wanted. It included other people, but we kinda worked it through the system so that that's all kinda ancient history. It's five years later and we're on the boards in a very good way. - Well, speaking of that, you mentioned Jackie Goldberg's bill that expanded greatly the benefits and really the responsibilities that domestic partners in California are gonna take on starting in January, 2005. And I think Jackie put off the implementation a bit so that we could really educate the community because now they'll virtually have the responsibilities that married people have in terms of community property, child support, spousal support, responsibility for each other's debts. It's going to be a very, very big change for our community. - It's a totally different change than what is now, which is more open ended. And I also urge Jackie and others that we have 20,000 couples registered. We wanna inform them of the added burden, get consent for that, not create two tiers and see if we can re-enroll. So the year is good and also we have to be vigorous in making sure we have the notification at the highest level so that if we're changing the benefits folks are still in agreement with the provisions. - Well, I know that you were very supportive and of course this has been your idea from the beginning, but I wonder, do you think that's the right way for us to go? The way they went in Vermont, where they had to by court order, but here we chose to incorporate so many responsibilities in our community. It's kind of like, you be careful what you ask for because now you're gonna get it. - I'm a little bit in your camp. Cause of course this wasn't my bill, it was an extension. I'm a little bit afraid of it because a lot of the marriage institution does revolve around custody of children and primarily I think those drove the obligations. or the interconnectedness or the difficulty, the complexness. I wanna make sure that if there coupleless children that in most instances might represent lesbian and gay couples that they find they can get the balance in those provisions they need without being incredibly hamstrung by them. So where I would beg to differ is say, where's we wanna be like marriage. We aren't really all of us in the same way that we don't necessarily envision that as incorporating children and that's where the complication seems to me comes in more. - Well, it seems like we're gonna need a lot of education. I think I may try to do a show on it because the bill also says, if you're registered in another state that has a similar provision, we're not sure what that means. Then you would count as domestic partners in California. So I hear from people in other states, do you mean now I'm gonna be bound by community property or only if I move to California? So I think we've got a lot of questions to answer on that. - No, I'm glad we're waiting a year or two. Cause I do think there's a bit of untangling and you bring this up and it is true and this is where governor Davis deserve credit that he didn't get. I was just thinking of all the credit he didn't get. We are state when the furthest of any state in the nation that it wasn't directed by the judiciary. So really it was from the ground up of a legislator, signed in the law for governor who five years ago and then increasingly has done more for the community and has served as a model for the nation. - Protected our kids at school against discrimination, put it into the fair employment and housing act. I mean a number of very significant things. I don't think the community knows, really knows how much we're gonna miss the kind of support that we automatically had down there. - [Carole] That's right. - You know with Susan Kennedy being his cabinet secretary and when she left Diez Gali being his cabinet secretary. - Yeah and that he himself who is not revered and not always credited did a tremendous amount to move the progress of the community forward and frankly, I hope we were properly appreciative. - I hope we were too. I mean, one doesn't know and also it is of concern to me, although this isn't clear yet that the new governor's aid apparently had told the San Francisco Chronicle, he would not have signed the new bill, but no one can find him having said that directly. So the lesbian gay caucus has requested a meeting. We'll see what happens. We'll report on that from time to time. But what I hear Carole is that you are taking a very serious look at coming back into the legislature over on the Senate side. - I am and firstly, it's driven that I can't stand not seeing you weekly. (Sheila laughing) - I love that. - I loved working with you. No and it looks like this opportunity is opening and the continuation of the term limit restrictions and of course the seed I'm looking for is John Burton, president pro tempore, very powerful influential legislator Californian and I hope to succeed him in the third district, which includes Marin county, Sonoma county, San Francisco, a luscious gorgeous district and next week I'm gonna begin a signature gathering campaign. It seems as if most major other candidates have demurred we've been working at this for year and a half or so and I made linkages with the folks up and down the different counties that connect. So I hope so without much dissension to move forward in a pretty smooth candidacy and I would just dying to get back to be with you. - Now, why aren't you dying to get back into the legislature? - [Carole] Cause you are fun. - Oh, I know I'm fun. - Well, I liked it there. People that talked to me about local office, very flattering and I'm sure you appreciate that. - Well, you've done that of course. - And somebody said run for mayor this time or look at it you know what, I'm flattered by it. I said, geez, I arrived 20 years ago. I don't have a famous father. I don't have money. I didn't do anything. You think I could be a mayor? Great. You know, well, something worked, but I like that legislative arena and I think you and I and our team have achieved so much and it kinda keeps us focused on what's really important, which is I think legislation or corrections that impact many and especially my very vocal self-involved city. Sometimes you're not sure what you get done in a day. So I did enjoy the legislature. I certainly had a commanding opportunity at leadership there and enjoyed that and feel that I have a set of skills and an awareness that will lend itself to serve it in the upper house with you and perhaps assembly woman keyhole and we're gonna have all kind of high stepping girl senators. and we founded out boy. So, but you know what's fun for me is when I first got here in the legislature, I was after you and it was only the two of us and that both of us can look over this tenure and see, now there's a caucus and there members and there's really, we've mainstreamed it a little bit. - [Sheila] We did. - Yeah and that to me is something I feel terribly proud of, and of you and me going into a very conservative capital environment. People don't realize Sacramento, USA. It's like a foreign rural town. It's not a liberal. I think beguiled them and worked with them and opened up greater avenues of acceptance because really who we were as two people who were very willing to work and communicate with others and advance our views. - Well, and those were the two things. I mean, it was very interesting to me that the sort of the hard work aspect of it, despite themselves, people even on, not only the other side of the aisle, but the other side of the world from us politically had to appreciate the hard work and of course, when we regained the majority, they had to appreciate the fact that we were also making decisions about what they wanted and I think we're struck by your fairness. Tough but fair in the appropriations committee. I mean, people got, they had to justify themselves. But everybody got the same kind of scrutiny, the same kind of hearing, but Carole you're coming back, God willing and at your election, you're coming into an atmosphere that we have never been in before and that is, we have lost all the people who served a minute longer than I have. - [Carole] Yeah. I mean, cause I was the first one in that class still there. John Burton to be gone, John Baskin Salas to be gone, Didi Albert to be gone, Byron Shard to be gone, very difficult loss of really decades of experience and now we're totally gonna be into the term limit kind of thing. What do you think we have facing us? Having lost all that expertise? - We don't have that depth, but we have some smart, well versed, junior senator types that have to grow in to be more senior senator and when I did first come to the house, one saw the arch difference between the nature of Senate deliberations and the assembly being more the people's house. There's a blending and blurring of those lines now, clearly. - [Sheila] Because assembly members have gone into the Senate. - They've gone in and not necessarily with the lifelong preparation to make the Senate as august as it was or as different as the two bodies. They used to be seen as entirely different and I think that there's a rotation that maybe hasn't served to make sure we have the education and learnedness, but we are gonna have, perhaps it means that certain folks with talent will rise quicker and it will turn increasingly more to the institutional backers and staffers but yeah, there's a learning curve. But I remember when the energy crisis hit and I don't know how you felt. I took binders home to learn what a kilowatt was and where did it fit and what did the ISO and who grabs the electricity and what happened with stranded power. I studied like I had since grade school. So I could be a little bit half conversion to figure it out. So I mean, I look forward to that and I think those of us that really wanna learn and penetrate the policy so that we can make some intelligent decisions, cause it is eight years, it's not two. That I'm gonna prep up for it, frankly, to see that we can maximize the effectiveness and maybe 20 years from today, voters will say, we haven't been served well by this. - By this term limit thing. - Yeah. I don't think we can approach that now. So we just gotta do really good jobs now and five, 10 years from today, say doesn't really work well for you in the long term. - Well, you had a short term as I did in the assembly six years, that's the maximum of California. What do you feel you'd like to work on now coming back in the next eight years? And again, I'm knock on wood. I'm not taking anything for grant. - [Carole] No, of course not, I'm not taking anything. I wanna expand and refine, some of the programs we began. We began with a healthcare initiative. I know you were very involved. There's a bill sign, that'll guarantee health coverage for employees. I know the new governor is gonna have some say about that. We wanna make sure we're not dismissively in the office of healthcare management. One of the things you and I worked on together was kind of blanket, widespread HMO reform. So I think those are still very telling connected issues, healthcare jobs and making sure that fabric works. If we're talking about no taxes, that means we're cutting trauma centers. That's healthcare to me. So I feel like I wanna, let's not get tired. That's still on the forefront. One of the things about schools that's troubling, at least I find this in my city, San Francisco is anyone with $5 sends their kid to a private school. So it's that reinvestment in public schools so that the community college graduate can take the Silicon valley job and so I feel like I wanna go get re-entrenched and also I have a tendency to sometimes take the hard, less popular kind bills. The challenged often bills. - [Sheila] So I remember you had one about prisoners. - [Carole] Yeah, about media access. - Right. - [Carole] That's right. - Just letting them to talk to the press. - [Carole] Yes. Talk to the press. Did I have difficulty in that. - [Sheila] And wasn't there a handicap access thing too. About prisoners. - [Carole] That's right. - Couldn't even get in and out of their cells? - [Carole] Beautiful. - I haven't even studied up, but I mean who cares about prisoners? I think it's you and maybe there's one other person. - You and me and four people. And it was a federal requirement that they be handicap accessible and we still had a fight to get the right kind of rail bars and braille assistance and I think were educational healthcare programs in jails and frankly, as more and more communities are realizing three strikes is unaffordable, let alone unhumane, I think this idea of schooling and education and nonviolent offenders being scooted out of hard prison and therefore being job ready will become even more topical and even more of interest. - Not to mention the geriatric. - [Carole] Yeah, not to mention. - I mean we went through this notion of an audit of the budget. - [Carole] Yeah, we know it's silly. - I find it somewhat amusing because that's what our ledge analyst does every year. - [Carole] No question. - Talk about a fine tooth comb and we had 26 pages of proposed cuts of a $26 and $3.47 and the Republicans did the same thing and we were trying to convince them that when a prisoner is 72 years old and they're costing us $300,000 a year because of geriatric care, they don't need to be there anymore. We could save $350 million a year and no couldn't really convince people. - But maybe if we get this 55% budget approval in March and I think it's a key to a lot of these victories that polarize people and it's my hope that the public is fed up with budget quarreling and that if we can unblock it some way by not being as reliant on the extra three, four struggly votes, but really a 55% that I think and I hear is polling kind of well, well then you and I are gonna be able to convince a person or two that that's a better way to save money. And now it's all about generating money to pay for the programs that we exhaust. There's nothing fancy here and we're talking about prisoner reform is also because the fiscal dollar's attached. I also wanna form some of the election process. I went through that ballot 165 people. Some didn't have addresses, some had P.O boxes, seems to me you stand and run for governor you have to have an address, proof of residency, somewhere to find someone something. So I was gonna take a look, see without raising the shackles of our excitable secretary state, I was gonna go read through it and see if we can just spruce all that up again. Cause I still feel a little bit very put off and upset by the recall process, but even the physical documents and how it seemed to me on the fly. and just not as seriously thought of. - Although I wonder Carole, everybody was sort of charmed by the little biographies down here in the south of Los Angeles times every day was running maybe photographs, real portraits of some of the people who were running and it was interesting to me cause in the portraits they would hold almost like ancient paintings of Roman senators. They would hold sort of the things that were important to them. The guy with the hard hat, the woman with the accounting book, the two children, whatever. Very interesting portraits and I think after a while I started thinking, wow, I love these people. I mean, they kind of put their names out there, who knows why but it was a very interesting thing but the ballot was just unfathomable. - I love them in a Andrew why to blow and I love the initiative and the entitlement and the celebrity, but it was a great distraction and a little bit more of a mockery and I don't say this on the individual submitted, but the fact that it was an open ended, pay a couple of dollars, get on it, it ridiculed it somewhat and as I as an average voter endeavored to get through it, to find the names I wanted. I thought that, well, maybe we can just tighten this up a bit. - Well, I was thinking about smog check for SUVs myself. - [Carole] Well, an excellent idea. - I mean, it's an interesting thing to me that everybody's regular car has to go through this process and through this process and can't have these kinds of emissions or whatever. But an SUV or a Humvee or whatever it's like our trucks. No. - There's supposed to be different federal insurance rates that were being tampered. So we should pick up on them again, which is one it's either more expensive to drive and ensure period, which makes sense of course before cause if you topple on your head, and secondly too, as you say that, of course they should be the same standards. I think we should create this incentives or have people pay more for the privilege of polluting our air or blocking my rear view vision. (Carole and Sheila laughing) - Well, I feel the same way. My car's like. - I got a little car but I think that's legitimate and we should find ways whatever's in the state power in federally to discourage the widespread use of them as much as possible. - Now I was thinking about you and Chris the other day and you've been together a long time. How long? - [Carole] 18 Years. - 18 Years. - [Carole] A sweetheart. - And you must spend a lot of time away from her. I don't know. I mean, I know you have an office in Sacramento. Two and you have to be going around the state. Do you ever have any regrets that you went into such public work, such a 24, 7 kind of work? - I don't, because I'm turned down and exhilarated and I think the thing is too, she's a criminal defense lawyer does very well. She has exciting work and I think it helps us grow and get older and feel good about ourselves and we ever try to be relevant or understanding of new trends, new people, young people. So I have found once in a while, it's a little bit of uh oh, I won't be home for dinner or something, but mostly I think we have our careers. We're used to not always being together on the very same night, but most often, and it's held us in good stead and we got together way before she was a big shot lawyer or I was a half bigshot politician and so that's the nice part about it, that the other stuff we wish each other's well, and it might have been different if one of us didn't feel half successful at what we were doing, but the fact that we both feel good and part of things and feel like we're growing and growing older in a good way and that there's still plenty to do we feel. And actually she's a tremendous bolyst to me actually, Sheila. So I'm glad you mentioned her and I'm so terribly proud of her too. - Well, you always referred to her at least in our company as my Chrissy. - My Chrissy and she just close her eyes, she just gets embarrassed. - But she loves it. I otherwise, I mean, it's a long long-standing relationship. - That's right and I think that's terribly important and we just naturally get along and it hasn't required all that work kind of thing. We just have given each other a little bit of a wide birth have varied and full lives and value mostly hanging out and I would've said tapes, but now it's TiVo. I've gotten with it sweatpants, TiVo, let's sit back, watch a show. So that's a lot. - Well, and you've seen a lot of change in the way people feel about our families, not just, oh, well, it's okay if we have one of those at work and maybe we won't harass them anymore and maybe there are a few laws where the rubber hits the road has really been around our families. And I was very taken with the fact that we now have quite a number of men and one woman running in the democratic primary to be president of the United States, next year and without exception. They have been supportive of our families. I mean, you haven't heard tentativeness, am I wrong? - Yeah, no you're not wrong and even Bob Graham who dropped out being one of the rather conservative ones. No, I hope you take pride. I know I do in many others as deserving for moving the public consciousness forward about our families and I think, what I attributed to is these blessed young people that are growing up not racist, particularly because they're not growing up in segregated societies. At least not the Bay Area here in Southern California and there's a receptivity about alternate lifestyle. They may be rock conservative or fiscally Republican. They call themselves whatever they call themselves. They're not anti gay and they grow up and they're Chinese and they're Latino and they're white schools and their friends are mixed race kids or they're biracial kids. So I have found, and our future really depends on those kids just getting older because really the resistance to our culture is an aging population that is less and less active in the middle age, our peers, plus our kids think it's right to treat people fairly and I feel very buoyed by that. - Well, I think there's the additional thing of all of the people who have come out. I mean, for me, it wasn't a big risk except with my parents because I didn't know how they would respond and praise to them, they were very loving and they knew all along, they just waited they wait outside your closet door for you to open, you know? Exactly. They always knew you like girls. I'm glad you finally told us. But other people who had much more of a risk. I mean this year it's the fifth anniversary of Matthew Shephard being murdered. I mean, we've seen people suffer for what they let be known. Still one after 12, after a hundred, after a million, it really adds up and I think the sort of familiarity of it where people had to decide anew. How they felt about a person that they'd known for a long time. That led the choir in their church or their teacher at school or someone they actually admired and liked. And now suddenly they get this new information. I think that's helped a lot. But of course there's still these areas of schism. I mean, look at the Episcopal church, which is going through this huge thing this week even, and will be probably all year about whether they're going to split up over the recognition of one man with a Bishop. - Which is healthy. I see cause it's part of the process and as resistance as the Catholics are, the Episcopalians have been kind of progressive and yeah, there's going to, and we know that there's a little bit sort of people support domestic partners, then when they see it as marriage, then they're not supporting. We know everything's topsy turvy in a struggle for a movement. But I say to you, we've advanced in ways that we cannot retract from, which is the stance to the Episcopal church, which is Canada allowing us to marry, which is our domestic partnership builds, rather the public coming out, the gay TV shows, the queer is us queers. I mean, it's just saturated consciousness in a way. Where I wanted to hit more cause I think we do well in some folks is I want more coming out in the fortune 500 companies. I wanna see a few out front, big business execs. I think there's still certain quarters where it's absolutely not permissible and we have to penetrate those ranks because we know they exist. - [Sheila] Yes, absolutely. - And let's keep encouraging our brethren onward. But yes, as the polls have always shown, the first poll we ever did, if you know someone gay and like them same way about feelings, about HIV and aids, that there's a connectiveness. So I think that served us well being out, starting from Harvey milk's first battle cry and that increasingly if we encourage our brothers and sisters and certain other kinds of professions like Dave Cope did with football or gay baseball players doing, I think those kinds of changes are really just terrifically significant. - Well I think the familiarity of it and also the people you already admire. You find out that, oh, they're gay, well, I have to reassess kind of because I already like them. - [Carole] Yeah. - It was interesting too in this last gubernatorial election, how strongly your area of the state felt against the recall. - [Carole] Yeah. - And it's also perceived that San Francisco area as a very gay and lesbian area. And I'm assuming that some of it had to do with that because it's been a very hard hit area economically. How do you assess the fact that so many people were against the recall in your town? - Yeah, I get so proud and we try not to brag too much and earn the consternation, the condemnation of everyone else, but I'm proud as a Bay Arean to see through all of the guises and it's not like the governor was tremendously popular in the Bay Area. That's why I'm so proud. They bulked against a process, they felt was wrong. Bay Area said this isn't a right thing to do. We may not be crazy about Ray Davis. We may be, we like some things, we not, it wasn't a sign of a personal allegiance as much as a position on a principle. So I think that, that I'm proud of that and that unsueable bolyst of support. And I think it is a sign of a informed and educated electorate. And I say that without special class things, but we got a lot of folks, good education value, settled down, takes a dollar to live up there as you know. - [Sheila] A dollar 50 now. - A dollar 50 now and well thought, well informed conversant and probably, one of the smallest population of Schwartz niger movie goers. In fairness, I've never seen one of our new governor's movies. - Well, you have many independent movie theaters there. You don't just have to go there. - We are seeing French movies, we are seeing French, French. But in any event. So that was expressed and it does revive at least the northerners cause as I've been going around in this post recall wrap up, people say, I say, it's not always partisan, it's regional. And so many things have to do with north and south. This was this instance, the Southern and it makes you think about splitting the state a little bit again. - Right. Well, not me. Of course. Because in LA it was 50 50, which was the best we've ever done on any of these things. ` - That's right. But I think it was clearly the vote of the south. That created the outcome and very strongly unusually so it's like, I felt like Bay Areans had to be grown up because they didn't, a seed to a temptation or something fantastic or half comical, as I say with no disrespect, they weren't enamored of the governor, so it didn't come from that kind of person life. They really did have to go through it and say, this is right thing to do. - Well, it was even more interesting to me because that was the place when people talk about the.com bubble. It's associated really with your town and with areas around your town, Silicon valley. You know and the areas in Northern California that really did well, really progressed and thrived and then when the bust came really were the people hardest hit, it seems to me the unemployment, sudden unemployment or underemployment of people who had been well employed and now they're receptionists, et. cetera. - [Carole] Very absolutely true. - But didn't blame that on the state government? - They didn't blame it because again it's that kind of grownup-ism. It's a kind of informed and educated and realized there was so much heavy leveraging in the industry or an anticipation and that we built a lot of the bust on popsicle sticks, about a lot of that and so I don't think there was that, it wasn't simplistic. In other words, they took a complicated set and found, and that's what makes me proud. You see 150 names on a ballot. You want everyone to take the proper mental steps to come to the appropriate conclusion and I think Bay Areans largely did that and I'm proud of that. - Now your Senate district would be beyond the San Francisco area, certainly. Have they been pretty supportive in terms of gay and lesbian people? - [Carole] Yes. - Or do you face any more consternation about your own sexual orientation in the newer part of your district that you haven't represented before? - Yeah, no. It includes all of Marin county and then Sonoma up to Petaluma, a little piece and Petaluma's an old California town and very progressive and Marin is a wealthy community, but one that is devoted to certain outstanding progressive principles and open space and environmental protection and fairness in schools and diversity, they've been very open minded. The difference for me is I'm used to San Franciscans are more rowdy (Sheila laughing) and Marinates are exceedingly reserved and polite. And you get up to speak at a dinner and there's silence in the room. - [Sheila] And you wonder what you doing wrong. - What did I do is my zipper down? is my pants? So they're just, and it's a little bit more suburban and we in city life, urban life behave differently, get our messages out, communicate. So I've been trying to sweep in to develop a certain district continuity, which is there and stylistically, you know me, I don't wanna be too overbearing overpowering because it's a subtle reserve, very steady, know what they want, but they are people that live in the most beautiful part of the state. They know it and they wanna protect it and basically cast a little bit of a scan side an outsider, but have been more than welcoming to me. - Well, I think you and I both feel pretty lucky that we ended up in California. There are other states that would probably not have been as welcoming to us. Although I do see gains for our community in various of the states. - [Carole] Yeah. We're moving. - We're moving. - We have real jobs. This is something else I wanna say. Texas legislature meets once every two weeks, once every two years for two weeks. - [Sheila] To redistrict. - To redistrict, if they do, and then they're in a motel in Utah. But the jobs that you and I hold and the job I hope to hold they're full-time legislative jobs that really have to do with law making and whereas we're getting more and more sisters and brothers joining elected families we also wanna seek that those are really substantive positions that are really helping a controlled policy in our future. - Well, one of the fears that I have is that the anger, I think of the people of California and I believe that people in other states have seen it against incumbents. And I frankly think president Bush, as an incumbent, is going to begin to feel that anger from people. There has been, most of the anger was directed at the chief executive, but there's been a lot of talk about the legislature and you bring up the fact that it's fortunate for us to be able to serve in a full-time legislature because we can develop a way of knowing what the heck we're doing in this very large economy. But I hear some rumblings from people saying, well, let's turn our eyes on the legislature next. Maybe what we need is a part-time legislature. What do you think of that? - We're not gonna let anywhere near there because we're already not compensated for retirement. So we'll take the other portion of our pay to protect our futures. It always polls badly. It's like use car salesmen and lawyers and what I mean, legislators, but I'm hoping we're breathing some fresh life. They certainly don't say that about you and they don't say that about me and this is not to be better than anyone, but I think there's some brands of leadership emerging. And as if we lend that visibility and I try to do by keeping in touch with constituents, making myself available to reassure them and reason with them and have them realize, gee, I'm in good hands. - Well, I think there's also sometimes an underlying agenda that kind of uses the anger of the people to achieve something that the people don't necessarily see as a good thing. I mean, a legislature is a very inconvenient thing. If you don't want any regulation. Because we're gonna say we wanna protect the environment. - [Carole] That's right. - We wanna protect working people, we wanna protect kids at school. That may be inconvenient to people that just wanna make money. - [Carole] That's a Republican concept. That's right. It's a Republican concept cause we know our Republican counterparts don't do bills. They think it's a success to not do regulation rather than do it so that's very much a model that's different. We Democrats, we got 85 bills we wanna do. We gotta be stamped down those guys they're just their voting nos. So it is conceptually different and I say, let's restore the lesser of the office. Let's keep it full time. Let's go back and ask for retirement pay. Let's say these are jobs that we're proud to hold and we're serving you and I don't feel defensive about that. And I don't think many of us ought to. - Well, Carole, it's always hard for me to believe that the time goes by so quickly. But we've gone through a whole hour without even a break. I'm so happy that you were here and so grateful that you have continued in public service from the assembly to the Board of Equalization and now in your campaign to come over to the California state Senate and I say to all of you, thank you for joining us and listening to me and Carole have a conversation really for your benefit, hopefully, although I sure loved it. And Carole Migden is in public office. She's been in public office. She's going to be in public office. So we're all happy to get used to it. (upbeat music)