Get Used to It: Ep. 152, "Voices of Our Lives: John A. Pérez"

(upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to Get Used to It. I'm Sheila Kuehl. And as I hope, you know, because of course you watch the show every minute of your life. I'm your happy hostess on the show. And it's my great, great pleasure to have a guest today on the show who is part of a series that we do, an occasional series of one-on-ones getting to know a very important person in our LGBT Community. I think we've called it "stories of our lives" or who knows what the series is called, but the guest is called John Perez. And John Perez is the first gay person of color ever elected to the California State Legislature. And you're thinking, oh, that must have happened at least 50 years ago. No, it just happened last year. But, John has distinguished himself already in his service in the legislature. He represents the 45th State Assembly District. And before that he was a labor organizer. I think a renowned labor leader and certainly one of the most effective workers I've ever seen. John, welcome. - Thank you. - Did you like that buildup? - That's, you know that's pretty good. Can we go around together and you can introduce me that way everywhere. - I think I did a couple of times actually, when I think I gave you an award that was named after me as a matter fact. - And I gave you an award that same night, it was the Mutual Admiration Society night - Right. - It's looking a little incestuous, but we're very proud of you, very proud of your - Thank you. - Community. And I think it would be great for the viewers to know a little bit about you. So let's kind of start at the beginning. Where did you grow up? - I grew up just North of Downtown LA on the East side of town, two different communities, El Sereno and Highland Park. Working class neighborhoods, just North of the City Center. - And what did your folks do? - My father was a sheet metal worker by day, a cook by night, but when I was very young, he was in a pretty serious industrial accident was disabled really all my life. - Oh. - My mother had worked in a carpet factory and was able to take advantage of a Worker Retraining Program. They trained her to be a receptionist at a community clinic - A Worker Retraining Program? - CETA program, a federally funded - Oh federal program. - Federally funded program. And so, you know, she went to be trained to be a receptionist. And then over the years she kept proving herself. By the time she retired, she was running the community based non-profit that she went to work at. - Sounds like you come from very talented family. Siblings? - Three sisters and a brother all older to me. I was a late accident in my parents marriage. - Well, I'm glad the accident happened since we've been friends for years and your work now, especially now is very, very important. - Thank you. - So what was it like growing up in LA around that time? - You know, it was a great place to grow up, the neighborhood, because it was a working class neighborhood, it was a very diverse neighborhood. It was the entry point from immigrants from all over the world. So you had Chinese immigrants and Korean immigrants and people fling Iran during the cultural revolution there and all come into the same neighborhood. So it was a really vibrant place in which to grow up. And I just had a really tight knit family. Didn't know we were poor until we were well enough on our way to growing up, but it didn't matter so much. - I understand. I grew up over by the Coliseum and it seemed like, wow, we've got everything we need, you know, and life was even cheaper when I was a kid. - That's true. So you stayed, you did middle school, high school, everything in the same area? - Everything in the same area. I lived in that same neighborhood until I went away to college. And then, you know, came back after college and really haven't strayed very far from there. - And what were you interested in when you were in high school? - Well, you know, all the typical stuff that a high schooler would be interested in, plus politics. I learned at an early age that government could either make people's lives a lot better or a lot worse. And it was some personal examples, things that my parents dealt with that drove that home. I remember being 12 or 13 years old, and my mother's funding for her non-profit was in jeopardy because of changes in federal funding. And my father's disability benefits were in jeopardy because of changes that Ronald Reagan was trying to make in social security and SSI Payments. So, there was a real clear sense that government could either make things better or worse, but it was also a time when LA was over a third Latino and there wasn't a single Latino on the LA City Council. - Hmm. - There hadn't been from 1962 to 1985. In a city like the city of Los Angeles. So there was this sense that having representative democracy really does make a difference that you needed to have people that had an understanding for what people were dealing with. Not unlike the struggles in the LGBT Community in terms of trying to find representation in public office as well. - But not everybody works in campaigns. Not everybody thinks of politics as something useful, not even everybody thinks about the connection between the government and them. I understand what you say about your dad - Yeah. - And benefits, and your mom and retraining. Did you have friends who were also active or? - You know, there were some family friends that were active. There were other members of the family who were active, but there was this sense that you had to be engaged, that you shouldn't complain unless you tried to do something to make a difference yourself. - Uh, uh. And so I remember being young and going with my mother to rallies and protests about different issues and just being civically engaged. And I remember my father telling me stories of, you know, volunteering in the JFK Campaign in 1960. As an immigrant who had come over in 1951, feeling this inspiration to be involved in electing JFK President. So I grew up in a house that valued that, and because of what was going on, it just seemed very organic. And so, as a teenager, you saw this massive change in the level of representation of the East side of LA. And so there was this constant set of campaigns that were really inspiring to me. - And union was your dad in a union? - My dad was in a union. He was in the Sheet Metal Workers Union - Uh, uh. - When he worked construction. - So you saw that, of course, probably you were very young to kinda. - Yeah - What that was about. - I have no memories of my father prior to his disability. So I only know in retrospect the stories of that, but my mother, when she was working at the clinic, tried to unionize it at one point. So, you know, those stories were things that I remember very clearly. - And, when did you first have a sense about your sexuality? - You know, if you look at it now, you can say, you can point back - To say when I was 18. - Exactly. Actually probably younger than that, but, you know, very real sense, you know, probably about 14, 15 years old, understanding that you were different, but not fully understanding what it meant. - Hm mm. - And so I would probably say from about 14 or 15, struggling with what these feelings and what these ideas meant. - Was it kind of scary? - Probably not any more scary than for anybody else, but I think it's a very personal path that we all go through to figure out our identity. So yeah, parts of it were scary. Parts of it were just weird and parts of it were just wonderful. So it ran the gamut. - And did you go on to college? - I did, I went to Berkeley - Ah ha. - Fell in love with Berkeley and probably one of the greatest experiences of my life was the four and a half years there. - Why is that? - You know, I intended to go to UCLA. That's what I always thought I would do when I was. - Well that's brew. And I have to say that, so I would've asked you, but it's okay. - Yeah. - Berkeley is, as we say, a very good school. - That's right. That's right. The mothership. But you know, even in high school, I worked weekends working at the UCLA football games. So I was a UCLA guy. But I had a counselor in high school who would do every other year, a trip to Northern California to take these students up, to expose them to the different campuses. And I went to a variety of the Northern California schools to see which I liked, but fully with the intention of coming back and going to UCLA. When I got to Berkeley, there was a concert going on in one part of campus. There was a demonstration going on in another part of the campus and animal rights activists had taken over one of the science labs. And I kind of fell in love. There was this energy and having growing up on the East side, graffiti, wasn't a new concept to me, but having all the graffiti, being political was a new concept to me. So there was a vibe at the Berkeley Campus that was just really exciting and just drew me in. And so by the end of that day, I knew that Berkeley was the place I wanted to go. And when I got the word that I was accepted, there was no other place I wanted to be. - So what was your college life like? - It was great, I mean, this was the late 1980s up to 91. And it was a dynamic place. There were huge efforts. We had just been through the tail end of the Anti-Apartheid Movement. You know, the University of California had divested all it's funds from South Africa. There was a move to increase faculty diversity. There was a move to do cross-cultural education while I was there, there was the move to formalize the gay lesbian studies center. I mean, there was great activities. So you had these wonderful professors in this dynamic learning environment in the classroom. But then you had this wonderful experience of activism and energy and involvement that went alongside with it. That just was something unlike anything I had ever imagined. - I've heard students say, maybe not at that period, maybe before, that it was particularly difficult, and this is the same with women of color who are straight. Because there are dynamic movements going on, but often they don't intersect - Right. - Often they're not even in coalition. - Hm mm. - So how was your activism sort of expressed? - Yeah well - At Berkeley And did you feel that sort of tug when you were together? - We definitely had coalition politics at Berkeley. So you had different groups working together. You had student of color organizations working with environmental groups. You had them working with LGBT groups. So we had this clear sense of coalition politics. But there was this sense that there wasn't an overlap between the communities that you were a part of one or the other. And so there was a coalition in that sense and what there wasn't was this sense of where the overlap was, where you could have women of color, where you could have gay people of color, where you had multiple levels of identity, and not just a singular identity and you know, running the largest Latino organization on campus. I remember holding a meeting of the Latino groups and the gay groups and trying to hash out where that overlap existed. That was actually how I came out on campus. - Really? - Was in the middle of an argument at that meeting. - Wow. That must have been a surprise to both of 'em Yeah. - He's ours now. No, he's ours. Is he ours? - Yeah, exactly. Exactly. - So did you find that tough, or? Because you seem to really incorporate it so well now, and maybe, I mean, you're a real grown up and so that can also make a difference, but. - You know, the process of coming out for everyone is, you know, is very personal and as you fully well know, it never ends. - Right. - So there were moments of it that were tough, but there were moments of it that were just absolutely wonderful. - Well, I always thought the best thing about coming out were the surprises about the people who were totally with you and you weren't even sure. - Right. - Because you really don't know one by one, especially if you're young - Hmm mm. You know, who is going to abandon you, who's going to throw you out. Who's going to, but the people who show up and say, either, we don't care, which is, you know, - Not bad. - Not a bad, or we're really proud of you. You're, you know, you're courageous, we're with you, whatever. Those are always the good surprises. - Yeah, yeah. And there were some wonderful surprises. There were unfortunately, some bad surprises too. I mean, I had a very good friend at the time who I didn't talk to for three years after that meeting. Because he felt that it was a horrible thing. And he felt that our friendship was based on misunderstanding. But now we're great friends again. He's made a greater pathway than I have. - Maybe he's a grown up too. - Yeah, exactly. - So what'd you do after college? - I came back to LA to run some campaigns. I worked on a congressional campaign and a judicial campaign and a legislative campaign all at the same time. And then the riots happened in LA after the trial of the officers to beat, Rodney King. - Hm mm. - And I went to work for LA's mayor at the time, Tom Bradley on a special project to go into communities that had been affected by the riots to try to do some rebuilding of the communities and to try to build a level of communication back and forth so that we wouldn't experience those kinds of activities again, as we went into the next set of trials. And so I did that for a while, but all through the campaign work through that work, I had made several friends in the labor movement and decided to go organize workers in the construction industry. And so that was the beginning of my 15 years in the labor movement. First organizing construction workers, then nurses and social workers. And then most of my time in the grocery industry and meat cutting industry. - Well, I wanna get obviously into the labor thing, but I wanna ask about, because Tom Bradley has become a kind of, a sort of a legendary mayor for the city. And I'm not certain that everyone knew going in that he was gonna be, you know, such a mayor. He was defeated the first time by a very racist campaign, especially in the San Fernando - That's right. - Valley part of the city. And then won, you know, the next time. But I'm interested now because leadership is on everybody's mind or the lack of leadership and we'll talk about what it's like up in Sacramento. But in terms of Tom Bradley, was there something about him that helped kind of bring the city together or, you know? - Absolutely, but you have to understand, I didn't have perspective at the time about Tom Bradley because Bradley was elected mayor when I was in kindergarten or first grade. - Uh, uh. - And so my whole life. - Right. Tom Bradley was the only mayor we ever knew. - Uh, uh. - But in retrospect, looking at his campaign the first time, and then looking at his first successful campaign. It was this brilliant example of coalition politics happening in the city of LA. Having people from across the city come up and say that there was a different way to do business. And so for years, he had this coalition that was not just an electoral coalition, but a governing coalition. And this thought that you can make the city really work for everybody. So it was an amazing experience to be able to work for him. In retrospect, now having him out of office for as many years as we have. It really is, it's historic. It's historic what he was able to turn around in the city. How he was able to bring people together in a city that's as large as it is. And I think he really sets the bar high for other mayors. - So here you are now starting to work in the labor movement. I don't even know what that is like. What does a person do when they work in labor organizations? I mean, what's your day like? - You know, it's all over the map. Labor is a little bit religion, a little bit business, a little bit everything. So your day is all over the map. I got started because there were a group of construction workers in residential construction that were getting paid less than minimum wage. They were being paid peace work rate. They were getting paid third world wages. And nobody wanted to stand up for them. And a couple of unions stood up and said, look, we're gonna help you try to fight to create a better life for yourself, but because of weird sets of labor laws, they had to do it by allowing those workers to do it on their own. So I was there to just kind of help them build the support network they needed, help them build organization, just help tie them together. Help explain to them that each of them had a certain strength and a certain quality to themselves, but adding them together, it was more than an additive notion. It was really a geometric expansion of what they could do. And that started me off. But then I started studying different organizing models and quite frankly, teaching organizing to unions mainly in the construction industry, mainly in the Southwest, but other places as well. And then I'd get thrown into negotiations. So I had to learn different models of negotiations as well. So it was a really, really expansive set of opportunities. And then I started putting together the political operations for the union, helping them figure out how to leverage their collective strength, to express itself in politics, to help elect people that would stand up and fight with them. - So, but this was an historic thing for the union. I mean, before this time, they would obviously contribute to campaigns. - Hm mm. - Think about what would be - Hm mm. advantageous to them. And you were helping sort of figure out how to point that. - Yeah, and it was also a time that the labor movement generally, but in California in particular changed the way that it did politics, moved away from being a model of, well, we'll write a cheque to people that are friendly to a model that was more engaging of it's membership, getting it's members to actually evaluate candidates based on the merits, where they are on the issues, what they're willing to fight for. And instead of just writing cheques, getting people engaged in their own communities to try to make a difference in the elections there. And not only to get people elected, but then to hold 'em accountable. - So were you out in this work? - I was, I was. - What was that like? - It was interesting because especially in the construction industry, you wouldn't expect it to be a welcoming place. - No - But, I found the labor movement to be incredibly egalitarian. - Ah. - And so if you were able to do what you needed to get done, if you were able to put together the organization that needed to happen, if you were able to fight for the workers you were supposed to be representing, then you know, everything was good. You know, we talk about the reality that right now, in over 30 states, you can be fired for being gay, in over 37 states you can be fired for being transgendered. In none of those states, can you be fired if you've got a union contract, because there's a baseline evaluation that you judged based on your ability to deliver the work. Now that's not to say that there are never problems, but in a broad sense on incredibly egalitarian experience. - Well, there was a labor leader and of course you'll remember who it is, but I won't at the moment. When we were having the fight just recently about - Hm mm. - The marriage ban that was about to be put into the state - Right. - Constitution in California, who did a presentation to his members about why it was important, even though people didn't see it. - There were a lot of 'em - To really be against this ban. - Yeah. There were a lot 'em, even if you go back. If you go back to 2000, when Prop 22, the first marriage ban was on the ballot. I remember being at the State Federation Labor Convention, talking about all the initiatives as we would. And it getting to the question about the ban on marriage, and we're talking eight years ago. - Right. - Actually nine years ago. And there wasn't a whole lot of debate. There was this general understanding that everybody deserved a certain level of equity and that it was wrong to enshrine discrimination. So nine years ago, when we were a lot further behind on the discussions about marriage equality, the labor movement in California was there to say no. In 2008, when we were there again, there wasn't a whole lot of debate. It was a voice vote on the floor of the convention of the state AFL-CIO to say that it's wrong for us to use our constitution as a way to divide people and discriminate against people. So that's one of the things that makes me so proud of my 15 years in the labor movement. - Well, you know, it's interesting too, because I don't know whether the movement has really changed because of the, sort of the influx of you know, different kinds of workers, more people are out. Of course, there are a lot more people of color in some of the unions. Actually all the unions now. - Right. - And women, it makes a difference. We always said, if you can just get a person in there in sort of an equal setting, let them prove themselves. And you know, then after a while it becomes regular. - Right. - So you went from the construction industry you said, you worked for the nurses? - Very briefly, Organized RNs. - They're pretty cool. - Yeah. Yeah. Very brief, did one organizing campaign for RNs. And then really spent the most of the time representing workers in the grocery, drug and meat industries. Took a little time off to run the AFL-CIO's political program for all the unions in California, but came back to the grocery industry. It's the union that's home. - Well, that's the one I've seen you in most. - Yeah. - And what kind of workers do they represent? - Grocery stores, drug stores, meat packing plants, pharmacists, because they exist in both those places. It's the largest private sector union in North America. The United Food and Commercial Workers Union. And they represent workers in a variety of industries. - Well, I think we all remember when the grocery stores, you know, it was a strike and we were, some of us bringing coffee to people on the line and everybody went to, in Santa Monica, people went to shop at an alternative market. I don't think they've come back since. You know. - They haven't come back in the same numbers. That was 141 day fight to protect access to middle class jobs with access to health insurance. And at the end of that, it took a long time for people to come back to the stores that they were in. Most of them have come back, but it took years to get them back because they had a relationship with these workers. - Right. - And they didn't like the fact that they were being treated in a way that didn't seem right to them. - It was a very successful campaign. - It was, it was a very difficult campaign, but, it was ultimately very successful. In historic, it's the longest strike of it's kind in the country. There were some illegal activities on behalf of the companies where they colluded to lock people out, illegally resulted in the largest strike related settlement ever. 70 million settlement to the workers that were wronged by not being allowed to go back to work. It was a historic fight. - Speaking of an historic fight. Let's talk about your campaign. - Yep. I think you probably may have thought about running for office before the rest of us thought about it for you. But I'm not sure because you know, a lot of people were looking at you John. - Right. and thinking, you know, it's important that he's Latino. It's important that he's gay. But what's more important is he's got these values that really ought to be in the assembly. And, you know, have a lot of fans over on our side of town. But tell me what it was like. Tell me about the thinking about doing it and what might have been your pluses and minuses - Sure. - In your own head. - You know, first of all, I had thought about it a couple of times, but there are things that make running for office in California, difficult as you well know, the notion of term limits. So you have this very limited moment of time that you could actually be involved. And so you can't have the same long term approach to it. And quite frankly, the fact that it's such an expensive process to go through. And so, I struggled with the notion and there was a seat that was looking like it was gonna come available. And so, I sat down with a group of friends to look at it and we did what you do in a campaign. You figure out what it takes to win. And. - And I said, the number of the assembly district wrong. - Yeah, it's 46, not 45. - I'm really sorry, I just realized it. - Yeah. - Of course, it's a 46. - Yeah. - Just for those of you who care. Of course, I know you all care, 46. I got it wrong. There it is. - It's okay, people get the numbers wrong all the time. So, you know, we sat down and teased out what it would take to win. And it became very clear that it was a very doable challenge to run. And so I jumped in the campaign in February for a June election. - That's kind of late, yeah. - Very late. I mean, people tend to run a year, year and a half out. And so I jumped in, in February for a June election and had to do a sprint to get the labor endorsement, environmental endorsements, democratic party endorsements, and then ultimately raised about a million bucks, which is not an easy task. - No. - But, you know, part of the thing that was also a struggle was the notion that I was running in what's the poorest district in the state of California. A very ethnically diverse, actually not so ethnically diverse, 80 plus percent Latino district - Uh, uh. - But diverse in other ways, district. And there was a notion in some quarters that one, you couldn't elect the gay person at a district like that, that it wouldn't be an accepting district. - Hm mm. - And that made, you know, part of the campaign, challenging, as you know, when you ran, you don't, you know, you wanna be out, you wanna be very upfront with people about who you are and what you're about. But you don't wanna be defined by any one issue. And - Right. I mean, I was fortunate, People Magazine, which has followed me around since I was on television. Every time I make a life change, they do an article. So, they wrote an article about me that was headlined "Zelda", who was my character's name on television. "Zelda leaps out of the closet and into an assembly race in California". And I thought, well, good. Now I don't have to write lesbian on every single - Exactly. - Mail I send out. - Exactly. - But it isn't easy because you don't wanna have people think you're hiding it. And yet it is not the most important thing in a district. - In any district. - In any district. I mean, mine's not a gay district either. - Right. Right. So, you know, I have the same thing. I actually had the LA Times in the first article where they said that I was running, you know, "openly gay, Latino runs for assembly" and, you know, the Lupino, the Spanish Language Newspaper, the same thing. So the moment I declared that I was looking at the race, it was out there. So I didn't have to, you know, go on and say, Hi, I'm John I'm gay. - I think it's very fortunate. - Right - You know? So it was just out there. So you could just have the conversations, but it was scary to people, it was scary to campaign professionals. - Hm mm. - I remember we did a poll, as you have to do, and people being afraid of how voters would respond - Hm mm. - To the fact that I was gay, how they would respond to the fact that I was in favor of marriage equality - People that were doing campaigns were afraid. - Yeah. - The polls themselves. - Campaign professionals were afraid. The polls ended up turning out exactly as expected that people weren't necessarily in agreement with us - Yeah. - On every issue, but okay. And then what? They wanted to know what else you were about what else you were gonna do. And then they evaluate you in toto. And so, it was a positive experience. It was a... - The campaign was a positive experience. - The campaign was a very positive experience. - Because I think a lot of people, that's the first barrier that they feel, they're not sure they can overcome. - Yeah. - They think you have to have a lot of rich friends. - Hm mm. Now, it didn't hurt that the, you know, labor unions knew you. - Yeah. - But that's not really what it's about. It's very much in a way like a union - Hm mm. - Where 20 dollars here and 20 dollars there, if there are enough of 'em - Right. - You know? - Can add up. - That's how you raise a million bucks. - Yeah, yeah. A thousand dollars here, a thousand dollars there helped too. - Just in case you get a letter from John, he'd rather have a thousand than 50. - But that's right. - But, I'll take whatever you can give. But, at the same time, there were some negative experiences out there. There were legislators who said, this isn't a seat that should elect a gay person. And that, there were even some who've been great on gay issues. And who've been supportive of me generally, who said, you know, you belong in the legislature. You'd be a great legislator. But this is the wrong district for you. You've gotta go move to a district. That's gonna be more embracing of a gay candidate. The East side of LA is not the place. And there were those in the gay community, who said, hmm, we don't really care about doing a race over there in that side of town. And so those experiences were less happy than some of the other ones, but on the whole, it was a wonderful experience. - Well, let's talk about being there. - Yeah. - Because I have to say after 14 years in the legislature, this is my first year out. And my doctor's extremely happy because my blood pressure's gone down many points. And generally I don't feel under slept anymore. - Right. - I mean, not to date this show particularly, but just last night you were on the floor of the assembly till midnight. And it's certainly not the first time this year. - No. - No. - It's many times, unfortunately, this year. So now you're elected. You get sworn in. You just were sworn in right, in January? - December. - In December, right. Karen Bass is the speaker of the assembly who incidentally told me in the airport the other day you are a superstar. She just could not - Very nice of her - Stop singing your praises more. I'm sure it was nice to her, but I also think she meant it. So what was it like you, you step onto the floor of the assembly. It's December - Hm mm. - And family and friends are there. You're getting sworn in a lot of people you don't know. What was it like? What did you expect that eventually happened? And what did you expect that eventually was different? - You know, there were a couple of things. One, I knew I was coming into office at a time of incredible economic turmoil. And so I knew we'd struggle with that, but I never fully imagined how devastating the economic situation would be. I don't think anybody was fully prepared for the enormity of that challenge. And the other thing is, I had been an advocate for years. I dealt with legislators for years, helped get some elected helped move legislation, helped support other people's legislation. There were some dynamics in terms of how legislators deal with each other that I think is hard for anybody to understand if they haven't been there. There are republican members of legislature, who I agree with on very little, but who I have tremendous relationships with. And it's an odd thing that you develop this friendship about a two or a 5% overlap in interest. And then there are other people who you agree with on just about everything except for how to treat each other. - Hm mm. - And that's been a dynamic, that's been an interesting process that I wasn't fully prepared for. I also wasn't prepared for how amazing the experience is to be able to engage in so many different issues that really do make a difference in people's lives, whether or not they can appreciate it. Right. - Right. - So right now we're struggling with issues on what we're gonna do about the future of water in the state of California. I mean, we're a Chaparral, we're struggling to have enough water to sustain ourselves and nobody's talking about it, but here we're struggling with these very, very real issues about water. And we talk about, you know, conservation and conveyance and all these things. But what doesn't get talked about in the big story is water quality for some of the poorest people in the state. - Right. - So I have a city, the city of Maywood, where if you open the tap, you are as likely to get water that's brown, as you are to get water, that's clear. Actually, you're more likely - Hm mm. to get water that's brown than water that's clear. And nobody's done anything about it. I mean, you have people really living in some parts of the wealthiest state in the country. The wealthiest country in the world, in third world conditions, because nobody's figured out how to move things. So the amazing opportunity to try to move things forward in that area at the same time that you're struggling with the enormity, that challenges of fiscal crisis make it a very difficult job as you know, but a very rewarding one at a personal psychic level. - Well, it was always hard for me because people thought if all they were reading in the paper was about the budget that every single assembly member and State Senator was engaged every day, 24/7 in figuring out the budget. - Right. - And really the frustrating aspect of it is you're not - Right. - I mean, we might be on a budget subcommittee, but those have almost gone out the window. - Hm mm. - With this constant amendment of the budget having to be done. Generally, we only did the budget once a year. - Once a year. - And we would struggle with it all the way we would adopt it as quickly as we could, and sometimes not quickly enough, but then it was a budget - Right. - Until the next year, this has been very, very different, but the issues that you're talking about, and it's certainly, even if you look at water - Right. - I mean, there's the aspect of what's in the water - Hm mm. - This whole new, trying to set a standard for hexavalent chromium in the water. - Right. Things I can't even say. Other kinds of pharmaceuticals coming outta your tap - That's right. - Things that are completely under the radar. And that's just that, that's just one committee - Right. - That you might sit on. - Right. - Which I do actually. - You know? - And then it's labor committee and that's all the working issues. Plus the Workers Comp - Yeah. issues. - No - The health. Committee, you know, I mean so many different things. - I think what people don't understand is you can have two or three committees going on at the same time. I have two committees that meet at the exact same time and you're running back and forth between committees. And then God help you. If you've got another bill to present in somebody else's committee. And so you're getting spun out of control and needing to time your ability to be in the room for the important fights in each of the different areas. And it's a constant juggling act, but they're huge, huge issues. They get little press, people understand what happens at the city level to some degree, 'cause it's close to them. They understand what happens to the federal level at some degree because there's national coverage of it. But at the state level, you're far enough away, both physically and in terms of the types of issues that you deal with, that it doesn't get the attention that it really deserves. So there you are struggling with issues that make a huge in difference in people's lives, but nobody's watching, nobody's talking about it. - Well and not only that, but the press core has been decimated. Well, it's been more than decimated because that word actually means losing one and tenth - One and tenth, right. - And this has been more like halfamated - Right. - So half the press core is gone. So you don't get the stories anymore. - Right. - It's interesting that legislators have been hiring former reporters to do investigative work in order to be able to solve some of these problems. - Sure. - The other thing that people don't understand about Sacramento is that unlike Congress, where you could be putting a bill in and putting a bill in and putting a bill in, it could never get a hearing. That's completely up to the speaker. - Right. - In California, every bill gets a hearing, that's the law here. And so people make fun of how many bills there are. But not when it's their bill. - Their bill. - Or something they care about. And I don't mean just the legislators. I mean, somebody saying, you know, I want the water to be clean. Well, that's a very important bill. Maybe you don't want your kids pajamas to catch fire. - Sure. - That's a very important bill. Maybe you don't want pesticides in the field killing the farm workers. That's a very important bill. But when you add them up, people go, oh, they're, you know, they're dealing with a thousand bills. - Or even we had a recent experience. There was a bill dealing with cow tail docking. - Right. - The process by which you chop off the tail. - That's the one that Mayor Arnold made fun of. - Of a dairy cow - The governor made huge fun of it. And you would think that, that sounds like a funny thing to take up. But the dairy industry is a huge industry in California. You have to look no farther than the commercials for you know, it's, you know, the cheese, the cheese is the reason that you come to California, Sorry to anybody who's watching in Wisconsin. But, how you take care of the livestock in agriculture is a huge issue. And it's easy to make fun of. But California, you know, is a huge agricultural state that people often lose sight of, because we only think of our cities. - Oh, but, the governor, you know, I mean he knows nothing about agriculture - Right. - He lives in Pacific Palisades, which is in my district and it's a very, very fine place to live. - Hm mm. - But it's easy to make fun of things that you don't understand - Sure. - About someone else's life or interests. You talk about water. The whole issue of how water gets from Northern California to Southern California. And of course everyone thinking, oh, we're taking so much water from the North, but the truth is most of the water from the North still stops in agriculture. - That's right. - And some of it gets through to us, but we're not using any more water in LA than we used 25 years ago. - That's right. We've done an amazing job in LA of conservation grown our population hugely, but stayed at the same level of water. And even though so much, the water is going to agriculture, there is still a huge unmet need because the weird set of why water rights that exist. So some parts of the valley are getting enough water or just barely not enough. And others are being completely devastated and what that does to the economy? - Right. - What that does to people's quality of life. The fact that we have communities in this state that are having rates of unemployment of 40 and 50% and no infrastructure to support it. These are huge, huge issues. And as we struggle with the big macro issues, we need to make sure that we're addressing them as they relate to people in different stations of life, in different parts of the state. - Now, John, the epitome of membership for the LGBT legislative caucus was six people. - Yep. - And I think when Jackie Goldberg left, then it was five people. - Hm mm. - And now I believe it's four? - It's down to four and if I hadn't run, it would be down to three. So from that perspective, and four is the cutoff for membership. So if I hadn't decided to run at the last minute - Right. - Right three would be two - We would have too little for a caucus - Too little for a caucus. - Right. - I think that when you got elected in 1994. - It was historic and we all understood how historic it was. And then, when there was that expansion for the next couple of years, people embraced that as being important, but people forget that people get termed out. - Right. - So they don't expect that Sheila's gone. They don't expect that Jackie's gone, that Carol's gone. They don't expect that we've lost people . - John Laird's gone. - That John Laird's gone. - Right. - And so, there's this notion that you're still there. And so there's not the same urgency to make sure that we keep getting members of our community elected much like the struggle that I remember as a kid, having a population 30% Latino, 33% Latino in the city of LA and struggling, not having a Latino on the city council. We're facing similar challenges. There are 120 legislators. There are only four of us who are gay or lesbian, actually only one that's lesbian, three that are gay. And so you know, we're not getting a fair share of representation. And it's not an issue that our community is focused on. And so we understand what a difference it makes when you get the first one elected. But we start forgetting it after a while, once we've. - Well. But the other thing is we kind of use up our, the people who have some experience to some extent. Hm mm. I mean, that's also what term limits does - Right. - Supposing you had been the one person on your city council? - Right. - Who was gay. And often there are not a whole lot, if even one on a city council that's gay and let's say, you might then look qualified for the State Assembly. So you run six years later, you're out. Where did that next person come from? - Come from? - Usually gay people don't take the place except in San Francisco, maybe Hm mm. - Of a gay person who's termed out. So it seems like the pipeline is getting to be a much more important tool. - It's a much more important tool. And I'll only speak to California. I would assume that it applies in other places as well. - It does. - The difference is, if you actually look at who amongst us have gotten elected, every single one of us has been engaged in a variety of issues, not just LGBT issues. And so we bring, when you look at the limited numbers of openly gay lesbian members who served in the California legislature. They bring a whole lot of other issues to the table too, which is how you build that electoral coalition to get there in the first place. And so our struggle is making sure that members of our community who care about our issues are engaged in broader coalition politics as well, working on other people's issues so that we can continue to grow our representation. - So how do you see the attitude? I know it'd be very different in the democratic and in the republican caucuses - Hmm. - In the legislature, but how do you see the attitude about gay people today in the legislature? - Well, it is very different. I mean, I chair the democratic caucus. I've chaired the democratic caucus from the day I got sworn into office. - You were a freshman and you made caucus chair? - First day in office. - Well no wonder Karen calls you a superstar, you've seen that head of time. - So, you know, in the democratic caucus, it's a very warm and embracing place. Virtually every member's been there on every tough issue of importance to the LGBT caucus sometimes easily, sometimes throw a little bit of struggle - Right. - But they get there. And, there's this notion that we all need to work together. Unfortunately, in the republican caucus, the same doesn't exist. There has yet to be an openly gay republican in the - You don't vote out of them right? - California legislature. You can't get a vote on them for anything - Not one vote? - No, I have a pretty good track record of having republican votes on most of my bills. The couple of bills that I have that are gay specific, haven't been able to get a single vote. I serve on the select committee on domestic violence. I had two domestic violence bills this year. One of which dealt with whether certain felonies should be considered domestic violence felonies. Able to get a lot of bipartisan support on it. Another bill took the funds that were available for same gender, domestic violence, counseling, and expanded competition. Didn't increase a fee, didn't charge a tax. All it did was increase competition. Since you got the most up to date, dynamic services provided to victims of domestic violence. I couldn't get a single republican vote to do that just because it was gay specific - Hm mm. - Even republican members of the domestic violence subcommittee or select committee voted no. The most I could do is go to them and say, really? Do you wanna vote no on this and get them to go neutral and not have expressed any vote. And from a point of view of trying to pass a bill neutrals - It's the same thing. - Just as bad as a no - Right. - Because you need 41 affirmative votes to get it out. But it does send a different message at least to decrease the number of people who go on record as saying, no, I've said that, you know, when you got elected, people are homophobic and now they're homo stupid. But I actually think I was wrong. I think they're actually homophobic in the truest sense. They're afraid of dealing with issues in the republican caucus that impact gay people. And the most frustrating thing for me is when some of my very well meaning republican colleagues come up to me and tell me how sympathetic they are to an issue. - Oh yeah. I'm really with you, but I can't. - But they can't vote for it. And that is - But what about the Blue Dog Democrats? Do you still have some issues with them? - Actually the Blue Dog Democrats in California have been great. - I'm so glad to hear. - That they have been great. - Cause that was a struggle from the very beginning. I mean, I couldn't even get a bill out of committee to begin with. You know, a bill that helped gay kids or actually all kids in school against discrimination on the basis that someone even thought they might be gay. - I have a picture in my office of a then assembly member, Dick Floyd, taking to the floor, speaking about that bill and he's holding Tinky Winky up. - Right. - Because that's when Jerry Falwell said the Tinky Winky was gay. - Right. And here you had this gruff kind of no nonsense guy standing. - Totally. - Up supporting your bill. - Looked like he just had to get into his biker gear. - Yeah. - Any minute. - And, I still, I have a picture of him at my office because it was so significant when he did that. And because that bill that you presented then, was such an important bill and people ask me questions about why do I have that picture? And it gives me an opportunity to talk about that bill and really how far we've come from when you were first elected 14 years ago. - Well it got beyond that with Dick Floyd, because, do you see, are there two women sort of sitting behind him in the picture perhaps it's a different picuire? - No, it's a different angle. So with Joe, - But he introduced - Congressman Joe Bacca was sitting behind him in that picture. - He introduced his lesbian daughter. - Yeah. - And her partner. - Yeah. - And that was also a very interesting thing that I found about being there. - Yeah. - And it's really the same with you, John. And that is, it kind of gave people a reason when these bills would come up and we would have long, very unusually, long, quiet, respectful presentations and debates on the floor. And people in the democratic caucus who were the only ones that would stand up in favor, had the opportunity to say, my brother died of Aids. I haven't talked about him much in public, but my daughter's a lesbian. You know, my mother's a lesbian, whatever. And, I would look around the floor at my colleagues whom that I've served with for three years and think, I didn't know that. - Yeah. You know, I mean, there's so many connections. - There really are. And we saw it play out in a couple of bills this year. I introduced a resolution, Tom Amano, my colleague from San Francisco joined me in it. Reestablishing gay pride in the State Capital. It had gone away for the last three years. 'Cause the last time it was brought up on the floor. Republicans stood up and left the room and thought it was important to bring it back. Other communities do celebrations on the floor. So we brought it back and we thought it was important to also honor people. And so we honored eight individuals that really ran the gamut of the community. They looked like what the LGBT Community looks like in the broadest strokes. And we went around to colleagues to ask them to escort the honorees up the center aisle and the number of people who were just so excited of our straight colleagues who were so excited to take part in celebrating that with us and escorting these people up the aisle. And I've gotta tell you, there were a handful of our republican colleagues who stayed there for the whole ceremony this time. Wanted to show their respect for our honorees, wanted to show their respect for their colleagues. And that was a really great experience. - Well, I certainly have to say I'm sure things can change. - Yeah. - Because from that initial struggle, which is now only 15 years ago, when I couldn't even get the votes to get a bill out of committee Yeah. - To two years later, got it out of committee into the floor, but couldn't get more than 35 votes, which was still not bad, but you need 41, To, 2 years later when Antonio was speaker and we stayed practically half the night trying to get the last, you know, vote. Couldn't quite get there. And our next speaker, Bob Hertzberg, I don't know what he gave Dennis Cardoza, but Dennis Cardoza voted with us, 41st vote. - That's right. - Who's now in Congress. It was such a struggle. And so many, well we saw in the Prop Eight Campaign that schools are still one of those places where people will go to say, you know, this is still bad for your kids. Yeah, they use kids in schools as a boogeyman. We're seeing it play out now, as we talk about recognizing Harvey Milk - Right. - Trying to use schools again as a boogeyman. And it's sad because, while we've made a lot of progress. There are still some out there who just fear monger and create division around us. In a way that is so destructive. When you look at the number of young kids who struggle with their identity and do harm to themselves and sometimes commit suicide because they feel so estranged. The fact that we haven't made more progress is frustrating. The fact that you have elected officials who say that on the merits, they'd like to be with you, but they don't have the courage of their convictions to be there. Because they're more afraid of themselves than they are concerned about the people that get hurt by not being there. It's frustrating, but we are making progress and I'm hopeful that we're gonna continue to make progress. - Well, I was thinking when you said that there were some republican members with whom you had almost nothing in common and yet you had a really good relationship. Whereas sometimes our democratic colleagues, we have everything in common, but you said, I think you don't like the way they treat people. One of the things that I found was, if there was a man or a woman with integrity about their points of view, not just the blah, blah, Carl Rove kind of stuff, but they really thought about what they thought was good for the economy, they had a theory about it. They really believed in it. And, you know, we could have a conversation - Right. - That integrity is such an important thing, rather than the members who won't even tell you how they're gonna vote on your bill all the way up to the committee meeting and then leave the committee in order not to have to even be on the record. You know, I can see how you'd have a lot more in common with people - Hm mm. Who just tell you where they are. - Right. - People used to say that all the time about bigots, at least I know where they are, you know? - Right. - But I'm not suggesting that those folks are bigots. I'm saying there are people for, with whom I have substantive policy disagreements that are really sincere well meaning good public officials. I think they're wrong. A lot of stuff. - I didn't mean to indicate your colleagues - Yeah. - Were bigots either - Yeah. - But what I meant was in the old days - Yeah. - Where we would say, at least I know where that guy stands, you know? - Right, right. - So, John here you are, you have, not even a year under your belt. You know, five years to go in the assembly. What would you like to be your legacy? If we can establish a legacy in such a short amount of time. I mean, what is it that you'd like to see? Let's not start with the huge thing, like, you know, a budget that actually pays for healthy families. - Right. - But I mean for you personally. - Look, the single most important issue for me is fixing the water problem in this small city that I represent because it's the clearest example of the disconnect between our obligations as a government and how we provide services to people. In previous elections, we've had national candidates talking about the two Americas. - Hm mm. - My district is probably one of the greatest examples of the two Americas. I represent Downtown LA. I've got some of the great economic engines of Southern California. I've got the industrial core of the city and the county, but then I've got skid row - Hm mm. - And I've got people living in the most devastating levels of poverty that you can imagine where I have working class communities like the city of Maywood, where sometimes people are living in third world conditions because we haven't made government fully act on it's obligation to provide for people. So, you know, just hoping to move the ball forward in that way. But if I don't do something to measurably fix water for those people that I represent, then I will have not succeeded as a legislator. So that's kind of the first measure. It's not a big legacy issue, but I. - It actually is. - Yeah, but that's what we ought be doing. - Right. - We ought be making things work. And so part of it is we have to fight a lot. In the Capital, but how we get past, the fighting to figure out the structural changes that we need to make. So, you know, you talk about a budget. How do we get there? We get there by eliminating this horrible system that requires a two-thirds vote for budget. We're one of three states in the country that requires that, us, Arkansas and Rhode Island, our challenges are very different than theirs, we're the only state that has that requirement and gives the governor a line-item-veto. It makes governing really difficult. And then you have what we're struggling with today. The governor going even beyond that line-item-veto, he has to make illegal retroactive cuts in violation of the constitution, in violation of the law and using the authority, he's trying to acquire for himself to hurt the most vulnerable people. So after we signed devastating cuts, he went further retroactively, illegally made 487 million dollars worth of additional cuts, targeted people with Aids, targeted victims of domestic violence, targeted African American kids who were part of a program to decrease the mortality rate. Black kids die at three times the rate of White kids in California. And it was pennies, pennies that we were investing in trying to turn that around. And he took that away. He has gone after the most vulnerable people 'cause they're the easiest ones to pick on. And so I've been engaged in fighting in building a group of folks to fight that so that we can restore those cuts because it's bad enough what we've had to do to get the votes. And it's bad enough what we've had to do because the horrible nature of our economy. But to allow somebody to break the law and break the constitution to punish the people that are most vulnerable is just devastating. - Well, I mean, and there are other stories about the ways in which he's balanced some priorities, the budget cuts that were enacted in February. - Hm mm. I actually know quite a bit about the conversations in which people were engaged to come at those compromises. And one of the ones that he insisted on was a change in the way corporations are taxed in California, that really only benefited about eight or nine major corporations - Right. - 'Cause it had to do with the difference between whether you are taxed on what you sell in California or who you employ. - Right. - And you know, whether you have bricks and mortar in California and gave every corporation the ability to choose how they wanted to be taxed, choose themselves and to change it each year, depending on which would be beneficial. - Right. And when our staff from our tax committees were called down into the governor's horseshoe to negotiate that, they were not drafting it with the governor's people. They were drafting it with NBC Universals Attorneys because they were one of the corporations that benefited. When you add up the money that those eight corporations are not paying in taxes because of that change. It adds up to the cuts that the governor made. - Well, - Which he didn't need to do. I mean, why did the corporations need that? - There were other things that he did that added up to that amount of money too, so you can count over and over again. The number of times he cost us that money. He refused to take some cuts that we made on a bipartisan basis in the assembly by unanimous vote, that went away at midnight. If we didn't, you know, get 'em done - And cost us another. - We got. - Several - Well by his - Hundred million dollars because of it. - His inaction made us go to IOU's increased our cost of bonding, cost the state an extra 25 million dollars a day. So when you look at the amount of time that drug out, it cost us an additional 475 million dollars to backfill his inaction. So he's cost us that many time and time - Without any reason. - Right. - He said later. - Oh, well, I wish I'd done it. - Right. Right. And, that is one of the very difficult parts. So, you know, the only way to make government work better is to create some of these structural reforms so that you really protect the integrity of a democratic process, that you don't allow it to get polarized in the way it has, so that you take away the ability from minority. A political minority to hold out against the will of the majority. - So John, we have three minutes remaining and I just wanna ask you. Is there anything enjoyable or joyful about the job that makes you, - Oh. - Not sorry you did this? - Look every day, there's something joyful about the job. Working with people that you knew felt they didn't have a voice before and that you helped them you know, get a voice. That's an incredibly joyful experience. Being able to raise issues that other people wouldn't have raised if you weren't there, that's a powerful, powerful feeling. And being able to sit in a committee and really struggle with the policy imperatives that are at issue, there is something tremendously fulfilling about that when you're able to really dig in and try to figure out how to take this kernel of an idea that somebody had as a bill and make it, make more sense as law. - And the same with your own proposal? - Oh, absolutely. - I mean, I used to joke to people. Well, the great thing about being in the legislature is if I decide all the trees should be purple and I put in a bill, suddenly the discussion switches to why all the trees should not be purple? - Right. - You ought to show me a reason. I mean, it's a very, very powerful responsibility. And I think one, I'm very happy that you take very seriously. - Yeah. - But I know that it's exhausting and it's tough right now and I'm really, really glad you're there. - Thank you, thank you so much. - Thank you so much for doing the show today. I really, really appreciate it. I'm very glad that you were with us as well. And I hope that this has been of interest to you. I hope it's not a surprise that government actually has something to do with your life and it's something positive. So get used to it. (mellow music)