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Water, Work, and the Man From Merced · Blue Dog Radio

0:03
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Blue Dog Radio.
0:05
SPEAKER_00: This episode comes from several days on the road in California's Central Valley with Congressman Adam Gray, the Blue Dog representing California's 13th District.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: We followed Gray through Merced, Los Banos, the farm fields, water sites, UC Merced, Merced College, and the kinds of infrastructure conversations that rarely make national news, but which shape whether a place can survive and grow.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Gray is from Merced.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: His grandparents built the house where we sat down for this interview.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: His family ran a dairy supply business a few blocks away.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: He spent 10 years in the California assembly before winning one of the closest house races in the country and heading to Washington to represent the place that raised him.
0:50
SPEAKER_00: What stood out over the course of the trip wasn't flashy.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: It was work.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: Water work, agriculture work, medical education work, road, flood protection, and community project work.
1:02
SPEAKER_00: The kind of work that decides whether farms can plant, whether students stay, whether rural communities can find doctors, and whether the Central Valley has a future that looks anything like its proud past.
1:15
SPEAKER_00: So this conversation is about Adam Gray, but it is also about the place that made him.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: A district where people still work with their hands, where agriculture is both tradition and technology, and where politics is judged less by who wins the argument than by who gets something done.
1:32
SPEAKER_00: Here is Congressman Adam Gray.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: Congressman Gray, thank you so much for coming on Blue Dog Radio.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: For someone in your district who may not know you yet, how would you introduce yourself?
1:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, something I do a lot uh going around the district, campaigning, uh going around the country and campaigning uh and in Washington.
1:52
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I grew up here in Merced, California.
1:54
SPEAKER_02: We're sitting in my backyard right now.
1:56
SPEAKER_02: Um this is actually a house my grandparents built and uh has been in my family ever since.
2:01
SPEAKER_02: And just a few blocks uh from where we're sitting right now is uh what was our our family business for over 50 years.
2:08
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh Merced Dairy Supply, which uh sold dairy equipment, kind of uh built and outfitted dairy barns and uh and also kind of what was what was an old-fashioned family feed store, an ag supply store.
2:21
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, growing up here in a uh relatively small town, Merced's almost 100,000 people now, but uh uh, you know, was more in the 60, 70,000, 80,000 uh numbers when I was uh growing up and and it's growing a lot.
2:37
SPEAKER_02: We have a University of California now, we've seen some of that over the last few days, and you know, and representing uh a small and growing town uh and a very middle class place where people work uh oftentimes with their hands uh to make a living and to you know do better for their families and and a really diverse place, right?
2:55
SPEAKER_02: That's uh an interesting thing about uh you know this district that I've gotten to represent is there's people here from all over the world, you know, 72 different languages spoken here in Merced County and uh people in agriculture from uh everywhere, from India uh to uh you know El Salvador uh to Portugal, right?
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Who have come here over generations.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: And and that's the story of my family.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: I remember as a kid going to all the uh restaurants we had here, and uh it felt like it would take 30 minutes to get from the front door to sit down to eat because they'd say hi to everybody along the way, right?
3:32
SPEAKER_02: And you know, uh I think a lot of small ag communities are like that in the sense that people uh people know each other, and um and there's a sense of kind of uh I don't know some people might call it individualism or or or um you know pull yourself up by your bootstraps kind of you know attitude.
3:55
SPEAKER_02: But but I think on the you know, oftentimes that's kind of portrayed as something uh maybe negative uh versus um you know this idea of being involved, like taking some responsibility, right, for your community.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think a lot of that led me into public life, right?
4:11
SPEAKER_02: An opportunity to work in the state legislature, which which I did coming out of college, uh assuming I was gonna go home and kind of maybe run the family business or be involved in Merced here.
4:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I did a little pit stop in our state capital in Sacramento and worked for a guy named Dennis Cardoza, who was the chairman of the Ag Committee.
4:30
SPEAKER_02: And um, and that's where I got my first glimpse of being involved in uh bringing a university to the Central Valley, uh, in getting involved in how we improve uh healthcare.
4:42
SPEAKER_02: And and probably most importantly, or or most impactful in a sense, uh, understanding how government can affect, you know, agriculture, uh, sitting here in this in this huge agricultural valley.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: And and all that led me to the opportunity to, you know, work uh in the state legislature as a representative for 10 years, representing Merced County and Stansaws County.
5:06
SPEAKER_02: And of course, now the opportunity I have uh to serve five counties, everything from really Fresno to Stockton uh in the United States Congress, right?
5:15
SPEAKER_02: And and and get a sense of you know how that work uh can be good uh you know for the for the growth and the opportunities here in this little small town.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: But it's all kind of crazy to think back on because it certainly at 19 years old, I don't think I would have, if you'd have told me that I was going to be in the United States Congress, I think I would have thought you out of your mind.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: How do you describe the Central Valley and your district to someone from another part of the country who's never really spent time here?
5:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, I think uh, you know, small town, obviously, small farming town.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: Growing up, it always felt like we were two hours from everywhere, in the sense that we're two hours from San Francisco, we're two hours uh from Yosemite National Park, uh, we're two hours from the state capital in Sacramento, uh, we're two hours from Santa Cruz and Monterey on the coast.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh so there's a lot of things, you know, that we would uh get to experience, you know, growing up here in California.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: As I've grown older, I think I've grown to appreciate the town itself, right?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Not just what we're close to, but um what a great experience it is to be in a small town where uh people know each other and and get involved.
6:27
SPEAKER_02: And what a special thing it is to represent the largest agricultural valley, the most productive agricultural region, right, in the in the world.
6:36
SPEAKER_02: Which is something, you know, I think anything.
6:38
SPEAKER_02: If you grow up in the beach, you don't appreciate the beach.
6:42
SPEAKER_02: If you grow up around farms, you know, you're always kind of looking as to what the world has outside of your own experience.
6:48
SPEAKER_02: But um, but this is an incredible place, and uh we really are uh the most important agricultural region kind of uh economically and certainly as it relates to feeding the country uh and the state.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: We're we're one of the most important places in the country.
7:04
SPEAKER_02: Get a chance to both grow up in that and then uh to represent it and try to help it and improve it.
7:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh take all those life experiences that you build up.
7:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, I'm 48 years old now, so uh over a lifetime of of work and and living and um and then being a big diverse place, an international city like Washington, D.C., with people from all over the country.
7:29
SPEAKER_02: And there's a lot of special places in this country, right?
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh this is one of them, and I get the honor of representing it.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: So when you're in Washington or talking to people who aren't from here, what do you think they misunderstand most about the Central Valley?
7:43
SPEAKER_02: I think people that aren't from here would be shocked that we have 70 plus languages in Merced County.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: We have one of the largest Southeast Asian populations uh in the country, uh Hong, Lao, Mien, living here in this community, farming uh alongside uh Dutch and Portuguese and Indian and everything else.
8:02
SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes, you know, we all stereotype, and I think people stereotype small towns or rural communities into a certain kind of thing.
8:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh and I think uh if people came here, they'd find something something much bigger than that.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: Increasingly in our politics, we stereotype communities.
8:17
SPEAKER_02: Um I'm sure they would think this is a really, you know, conservative community in a sense.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: Um I always struggle when people try to pigeonhole what this district is politically.
8:31
SPEAKER_02: When I hear the talk in Washington about, well, this is a swing district or a uh purple district or this or that and the next.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: And I think what it is is a place where um people still have a lot of respect uh for each other, where your words still mean something, where uh, you know, agriculture I think is probably one of the last uh industries uh in kind of modern America where business still gets done on a handshake, right?
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Where somebody will sell or lease you uh an opportunity land or help you start a business uh without the formalities that maybe you see in big cities, right?
9:08
SPEAKER_02: And I think some of that comes with the intimacy of knowing each other, right?
9:12
SPEAKER_02: There's a trust uh that's built up with that.
9:15
SPEAKER_02: In a place where people work with their hands a lot, there's a connection uh to getting a job done.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: There was a time, I think, in this country where almost every family, you know, had farming in their family, right?
9:26
SPEAKER_02: Some relative.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: And I think as we've grown and gotten bigger, uh that's changed.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: And I think as we've grown farther from uh a time in a place where maybe you had to grow your own food or butcher your own meat.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: And if you think about it, we live now in a time where I can pick up my phone, I don't even have to go to the grocery store.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: I can literally like order the milk to my front door with my phone.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: So you think about what a disconnect that is from uh from when my mom was growing up in North Dakota, and my mom's family's from North Dakota, my grandfather came there in the early 1900s and farmsteaded uh out on the North Dakota Prairie, and actually we still have a family farm that's still in the family uh back there.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: But you know, when she grew up, the the milk would actually go from the dairy right to the front door on the milk truck, right?
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh or you might even milk your own.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: And uh we're a far cry from that.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: I think some of the attitudes around government to bring this full circle uh to what you know people might misunderstand about us, is we're so connected to the to how things get done.
10:38
SPEAKER_02: How does a carrot get to your plate?
10:41
SPEAKER_02: Right.
10:42
SPEAKER_02: And it involves uh not only a farm, but involves a truck and it involves a food processing facility and all these other things.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: And we see more of that maybe in our day-to-day lives or our jobs.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: And so I think we're more connected to it.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: And I think it creates its own kind of different frustrations with the government when stuff's not working right, or or when government kind of gets in the way, uh, so to speak.
11:06
SPEAKER_00: What are the basic things this district is still fighting for that people in other parts of the country might simply take for granted?
11:13
SPEAKER_02: Well, oftentimes when people ask me, what are the three most important issues in your district?
11:17
SPEAKER_02: And my response will be water, water, and water.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I say that in jest in a way, but uh but on a serious note, there's nothing more important to a farming community.
11:29
SPEAKER_02: You don't have water, you can't farm.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: You know, you get a little bit of that chip on your shoulder here in the Central Valley of um living, you know, in a state government that maybe doesn't necessarily pay attention, you know, to you.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: And it's interesting now that I've been in Washington, um, you know, fighting for water in a sense or trying to build more water, you know, in our state, I realize that there's a lot of other states that you know look at California differently.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: And even though we we might have a lot in common with Nebraska or Iowa, but they're not necessarily rooting for our success, right?
12:06
SPEAKER_02: They're they're looking after their own interests, right?
12:08
SPEAKER_02: And so yet again, you feel a little bit like a uh uh red-headed stepchild or something, uh, you know, as a as a region.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, water is a very unique thing here that is extraordinarily uh important.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: People are talking about how government has gotten in the way, you know, of progress through regulation.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think that's an issue that is really front and center for people here because they deal with it uh so directly, right?
12:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, when you own a small business uh or farming or trucking company and you're constantly dealing with the layers, you know, oftentimes well-intentioned ideas, right, that are about protecting the environment or the air, or what, you know, doing these different things.
12:51
SPEAKER_02: But they create really legitimate hurdles for somebody trying to, you know, get that uh lettuce uh from the farm uh to your salad.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know, you don't really go to other parts of the country and other districts, and here we say, oh, water is the most important.
13:06
SPEAKER_02: I think cities oftentimes just take for granted that you turn the faucet on.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: But I tell people all the time, you know, specifically on that issue, to try to help them understand the plight of a of an ag business person or farmer.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: I say, you know, what if you woke up one morning and the city said, we won't deliver water to your house anymore?
13:26
SPEAKER_02: How much value do you think your house would have?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: And and you know what?
13:30
SPEAKER_02: When you when your house goes being worth you know from being worth$300,000 to nothing, do you think the bank's gonna forgive you the$250,000 loan you have?
13:41
SPEAKER_02: And so I tell people that so that somebody who lives in a city could think, you know, through their own personal story, like what it's like um to depend on water and then to have the government, you know, so involved in uh, you know, regulating water or or maybe from a farmer's perspective, taking water, right?
13:59
SPEAKER_02: Water that they've had for generations uh to farm with.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: We heard the word reliability again and again during our water visits.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: When a farmer or a water district says they need water reliability, what does that actually mean in real life?
14:15
SPEAKER_02: Well, so to farm a certain crop might take two acre feet or three acre feet or four acre feet of water, meaning uh enough water to cover an acre uh a foot, they've got to be able to plant and then reliably know they're gonna get that.
14:28
SPEAKER_02: And what you see, and some of this is about timing issues, about when we measure how much water is available.
14:34
SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, for people who don't understand water at all, I mean, you know, uh snows, snow falls, ends up in mountains, uh, snow melts, runs into rivers, uh, rivers run into communities, um, rain falls and is absorbed into the ground.
14:49
SPEAKER_02: And so you either get water, surface water, you know, from uh rivers running through throughout your state, uh, or you pump water out of the ground.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: And what's happened in California is um in an effort to improve the environment through regulation uh and protect certain habitat or species, we've uh done extraordinary swings year to year in how much water is available.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: And so if you're counting on, you know, uh four acre feet of water because you're growing pistachios and you've got uh a thousand acres, you know, uh of trees, uh and the water folks uh in government essentially come out and say, well, we're gonna give you half of what we promised.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're not gonna be able to keep your trees alive, right?
15:36
SPEAKER_02: And produce it.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Right.
15:38
SPEAKER_02: Um, and and this is something that's been been happening uh for the last 40 years, 30, 40 years now, consistently worse.
15:48
SPEAKER_02: And and and the funny thing is if you look at 100 years, you see roughly the same amount of water.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've always had droughts, you know.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Funny, I was born the one of the worst droughts in California history is 1977, which is the year I was born.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: So I always think to myself, I was born into a drought, and I feel like I've spent my whole adult political life fighting uh to protect us from droughts.
16:10
SPEAKER_02: You store water in the good years to have water in the bad years, right?
16:14
SPEAKER_02: And as we've you know done more and more in California to protect the environment, to protect habitat and species, uh, we've restricted water in ways that it's wildly different year to year, and that makes it really hard uh to plan uh, you know, for uh for these farmers.
16:29
SPEAKER_02: And and it's just a really important thing.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: You've described the Central Valley as one of the most important agricultural regions in the world.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: So what should people understand about agriculture here that they probably don't?
16:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, the easy things that I always share with people uh when telling them about my district is you know, 450 different commodities uh produced and grown here in California.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: Um nearly two-thirds of our fresh fruits and vegetables uh come out of California.
16:57
SPEAKER_02: And that's an important, I say fresh fruit and vegetables, uh, which of course is what the doctor always tells us to eat more of, uh, but it's very unique to our Mediterranean climate here in California and and our specific uh soil uh here in California, that that uh you know, we have the right ingredients, right, to grow those things.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: You get into the Midwest, um, you know, and back east, you see uh a lot, you know, they've got a lot of dairies, like we have a lot of dairies, they have a lot of corn, uh, wheat, soy.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, but as far as those fresh fruits and vegetables, uniquely uh most of that comes, you know, from California.
17:33
SPEAKER_02: Wisconsin's the the dairy and cheese state, and you know, I've got counties that compete uh with with the entire state of Wisconsin, you know, and I've got multiple counties in my district.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: So we do a lot of dairy as well.
17:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, but you know, we are an incredibly uh important when you go to the grocery store and you see that that abundance of uh produce uh sitting there, a lot of that comes from from California.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: And so um we play an outsized role.
18:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh if California went away, uh most of that would come from out of the country.
18:04
SPEAKER_02: So like imagine if we did uh get to the point where it's just you couldn't you couldn't make it farming in California and we were depending on our fresh fruits and vegetables uh from other countries.
18:15
SPEAKER_02: And then look at the, you know, look at the disruptions in the world.
18:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, look at this recent war in Iran and what it's done uh with disrupting the ability to move oil right to the Strait of Four Minus.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: Well, imagine if we couldn't move food, you know, and imagine what that would really mean.
18:29
SPEAKER_02: This isn't just important to the Central Valley, and this isn't just important to California.
18:34
SPEAKER_02: This is important to the entire country.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: Uh we should all have a hand in protecting agriculture, and that when we make investments, uh whether it's water or anything else to support agriculture, that's protecting and preserving our food supply as a country, right?
18:49
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's something most people could appreciate.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: We saw a lot of agricultural innovation on this trip from Merced College to UC Merced to new technology out in the fields.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: Farming is one of the oldest jobs there is, but it's becoming incredibly technical.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So, what does that innovation say about the future of farming in the valley?
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Technology is touching every aspect of our life.
19:12
SPEAKER_02: Ag tech is becoming its own thing.
19:14
SPEAKER_02: We actually have a uh uh venture capitalist who started a VC firm here uh in the area specifically to focus on ag tech, recognizing that um there's a lot of investment opportunity around technology and innovation as it relates to agriculture.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: And it makes sense, right?
19:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we all eat uh, if not two, three times a day, right?
19:37
SPEAKER_02: And um the food economy is is massive, right?
19:42
SPEAKER_02: And this is the epicenter of the production of that.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, yesterday we got a chance to see a machine that can uh essentially use cameras to identify weeds, even weeds that the human eye uh can't see, uh, and apply herbicide uh in small amounts to just the weeds.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: Much better, both from a health perspective and environmental perspective, but also uh a cost and farming perspective, right?
20:10
SPEAKER_02: Where's what we're uh saving on labor, we're saving uh, you know, on material uh costs, you know, within that farming ecosystem.
20:18
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, that's a a great example of ag tech, GC Merced, where they're uh doing tons of research, you know, around these different you know, innovations.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: We see the same thing at our local community college, which has a huge ag program.
20:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we see it with this VC firm.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's tremendously exciting because it I think people too often are afraid of anything new, right?
20:40
SPEAKER_02: You see that in society right now around artificial intelligence.
20:42
SPEAKER_02: A lot of people uh wound up about, you know, what's this mean?
20:46
SPEAKER_02: And and obviously, you know, sometimes whether it's our mind going to, I don't know, Terminator or the Matrix, we're thinking about all kinds of uh ways that technology can become out of control or some you know uh bad vision of future.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: But the reality is whether it's the invention of the wheel uh or the invention of this, you know, uh uh hyper futuristic weeding machine, um, technology always has increased productivity, right?
21:15
SPEAKER_02: When we don't do a good job of making sure young people and communities have the skills to meet uh the next challenge, that's where things you know fail, right?
21:28
SPEAKER_02: But I think what's going on here in Merced, around the greatest agricultural valley with uh UC Merced, which is part of the greatest public university system in the world, uh, is pretty amazing, right?
21:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is doing the things we need to do to make sure that young people uh are learning the skills to take farming and uh you know to the next level.
21:51
SPEAKER_00: UC Merced is a big part of your story.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: You helped push the UC Merced medical education effort during your time in the assembly.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: Why did that matter to you?
22:00
SPEAKER_00: And why does the valley need to train its own doctors?
22:04
SPEAKER_02: So, like a lot of rural communities, this isn't unique just to our region, but it's true across the country.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: When you get into rural communities, you have less doctors, less nurses, less hospitals.
22:13
SPEAKER_02: And just to be clear with folks, because I think sometimes people think, oh, well, it's a small town.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: Of course there's less doctors.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: But I mean like in an apples to apples comparison.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: Like the city and county of San Francisco, which is a very urban metropolitan area, has you know more doctors per 100,000 people than Merced does.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Period, full stop.
22:33
SPEAKER_02: There's no uh, you know, just a in a straight-up comparison, there's just more physicians, more health care uh in more urban populations.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of that, um, like anything, is about the business of healthcare, right?
22:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the you know, to have a hospital or a doctor's office, it costs a certain amount of money, you gotta have enough paying customers.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: Some of it's about poverty, because you get in rural communities, you see increased levels uh of poverty, uh less insured, uh, these types of problems, right?
23:03
SPEAKER_02: Uh two-thirds of this congressional district, which spans from Fresno to Stockton here in the Central Valley, is on Medi-Cal, meaning, you know, government-assisted, you know, healthcare where they can't afford uh, you know, the full freight uh of health insurance, right?
23:18
SPEAKER_02: And those programs pay less to the doctor as well.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: So imagine if two-thirds of your customers are on the low-paying health insurance, uh, that makes it harder to stay in business, right?
23:29
SPEAKER_02: And it also, even if you can stay in business, makes it less lucrative, right?
23:34
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, we literally have less doctors and and that's been a uh an important part of you know bringing UC Mercedes to our community and my whole life.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when I was a kid, the local community leaders here in Merced were going up to the state capitol and saying, we need to build a uh university, part of the UC system in the Central Valley.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: And at that point, it wasn't necessarily UC Merced.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: It was a university in the Central Valley.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: It could have been a Fresno, it could have been Merced.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: But people here rallied uh as a community.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: I always loved that about my hometown.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: Um students at our local high schools wrote letters to the regent, the board of regents who made the decision saying Merced should be the location.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Um, a local ranching family donated the land to build the university, right?
24:27
SPEAKER_02: There was this incredible community effort to go, okay, how can we bring university, both to raise the education opportunities for rural communities like ours, and also to bring in uh medical school programs, uh, you know, and and improve our healthcare uh infrastructure, which then in turn uh improves your economy, right?
24:50
SPEAKER_02: When you have better healthcare, better education universities, you get more businesses, more investment, right?
24:57
SPEAKER_02: All of this kind of set the table for what you're seeing with ag tech now.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: But that story spans uh, I mean, I'm 48 now, so high school to 48.
25:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's been, you know, three decades of work.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: First getting the university approved, uh, and then beginning to build it, and then building it out, and then growing it.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: And of course, you know, towards the end of my uh time in state office, we succeeded in getting a medical school building, which now we're watching that being constructed, and it's going to be, I think, ribbon-cut, open, and operating this next year, right?
25:32
SPEAKER_02: That's all real exciting.
25:33
SPEAKER_02: And when we talk about it in a five-minute interview, uh, it feels like it happened quickly.
25:39
SPEAKER_02: But when I think about it uh at 48 years old, it happened over my whole life.
25:43
SPEAKER_02: I was lucky enough to be able to be part of all of that.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: And I'm lucky enough now to continue uh, you know, in a number of ways in my work in Congress to support, you know, the university and help grow it.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh, I've taught at the university for the past 15 years in the political science department.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: I once a year I teach a class about the state legislature, of which I was in for for many years.
26:07
SPEAKER_02: And uh and so it's been a big part of my life.
26:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, and it's gonna be a big part about, you know, for improving healthcare now that we've got this medical school program up and running, and and improving healthcare here is gonna be a big part about improving lives uh and communities up and down the valley.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: In your first term in Congress, what are one or two things you feel you've already delivered that people in the district can point to?
26:30
SPEAKER_00: And when you look ahead, what still feels unfinished?
26:33
SPEAKER_00: What are the bigger, longer-term projects that keep you going?
26:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, the the things we've done in the immediate, right, in this first term in Congress is we've got I've gone to work with, you know, across the aisle with my Republican colleagues who are in charge right now.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: We have a Republican House, a Republican Senate, we have a Republican president.
26:51
SPEAKER_02: Delivered uh you know almost$20 million already in uh community funding projects.
26:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, and these are not always sexy topics.
27:01
SPEAKER_02: This is like a community needs a new wastewater treatment plant and they don't have the money, right?
27:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's gonna mean higher, you know, water bills uh, you know, for the community if we can't get something done.
27:12
SPEAKER_02: And we go to the federal government and we find that money, right?
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Uh local road projects um, you know, that that create safety or uh bike paths or uh or just better transportation routes for the community.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: Um you know, these are the kind of boring everyday government things that are really important to get done.
27:35
SPEAKER_02: And you know, I've always made the promise to my community that I'll never let partisan politics get in the way of doing the work.
27:43
SPEAKER_02: And one thing that you know I always make a point of is trying to use the word fight a lot less in politics and use the word work a lot more to drive that message home that you didn't hire me uh to go fight with somebody.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: You didn't hire me to win an argument, you hired me to make your life better, right?
28:04
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes those little things like investing uh in a road or making a uh, you know, sure a uh a school or a city gets some new funding for an important project uh that they're doing, that's the work.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: That again, no nobody's it's not gonna be on uh Twitter.
28:22
SPEAKER_02: There's not gonna be anything, you know, it's not gonna be on the cable news networks.
28:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh, but it's important, and I've done that uh in this first term by working with people, right?
28:32
SPEAKER_02: People that I don't agree with on a lot of things, right?
28:35
SPEAKER_02: But we all do agree that we want our communities to be better and we want to bring money home uh and invest in those communities, and and so that's been the near-term success, right?
28:44
SPEAKER_02: Thinking about the long-term objectives, that's a different thing, right?
28:48
SPEAKER_02: Um I want to see a full-blown medical school and hospital uh here in the Central Valley.
28:55
SPEAKER_02: I'm committed to doing that, and it's probably gonna take many years to do.
28:58
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna take a lot of money, right?
29:00
SPEAKER_02: We're talking in the billions of dollars to accomplish that.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Some of it'll be private money, some of it'll be government money.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: It would be incredible if I could play uh a role in making a major investment in water infrastructure that supported this incredible ag community that that sustained it for another hundred years, right?
29:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the last major investment, and we got to go out and see it as part of our visit, you know, here in the district, John F.
29:30
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy cut the ribbon on the last big project.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: Right?
29:36
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just think about that.
29:37
SPEAKER_02: I know we all know who Kennedy is.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Most of us, uh, you know, this is someone from our parents or our grandparents' generation.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: That's the last time we built this major water project, right?
29:47
SPEAKER_02: I don't know how we can say we're we're you know, we're we're meeting the moment, so to speak, if we can't build big things, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_02: I oftentimes talk about how um, you know, Democrats were really successful as a political party from uh you know the 1930s and FDR through the 1990s, but particularly uh that kind of FDR uh to LBJ period.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: We had FDR, we had Harry Truman, we had John F.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: FDR kind of came out and you know, post the Great Depression said, we got to put people to work, we got to do things.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: And he built the water systems, he built electricity to rural community, he did all these incredible things, right?
30:28
SPEAKER_02: And um and and frankly, uh I think the Democratic Party benefited for many years afterwards, right?
30:34
SPEAKER_02: And they believed in in this person who had said they were gonna fix these problems, had gone out and built the things necessary to uh, you know, solve those problems.
30:43
SPEAKER_02: And then Harry Truman comes along and is Mr.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Accountability and the buck stops here at my desk, and he uh, you know, he says government should should perform well.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Right?
30:53
SPEAKER_02: I think too often in modern politics is like, well, well, whatever the other side's for, I'm against.
31:00
SPEAKER_02: And whatever my side's for, I'm for.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: And and not nearly enough attention gets paid to is it working?
31:06
SPEAKER_02: My dad's old saying that you know, if you want to be successful in business and life, find things that work and do more of them.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: Find things that don't work and do less of them.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: And then government misses that sometimes, right?
31:18
SPEAKER_02: Like what we should we should want for success.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Even if I don't agree with your idea, if your idea helps us solve the problem, and the and the and the facts are we can both see that it solved the problem, I ought to change my mind.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Right?
31:33
SPEAKER_02: That's how politics should work, and you should be open-minded to my ideas as well, and we should disagree uh, you know, when we can.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: You know, but then you know, post that kind of Truman let's make government work thing.
31:44
SPEAKER_02: We had, you know, John F.
31:45
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy who said, let's dream big, right?
31:47
SPEAKER_02: Let's send a man to the moon and let's do it in 10 years.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: And they and then here's my favorite part.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: Then he did it.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy was out here cutting the ribbon on a, you know, that they built that reservoir in, I don't know, five, six years, right?
32:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe 10 years from idea to completion.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we can't complete the paperwork in 10 years in 2026.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: We should all, regardless of our party affiliation or our whether we're conservative or or or progressive or whatever, you know, whatever flavor your politics is, we should all be for success and results.
32:23
SPEAKER_02: How do we build?
32:25
SPEAKER_02: How do we uh succeed?
32:27
SPEAKER_02: How do we hold ourselves accountable?
32:29
SPEAKER_02: How do we dream big?
32:31
SPEAKER_02: Right?
32:31
SPEAKER_02: These are the things that uh, you know, too often are missing.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: And if I could dream big and build that next uh level of water infrastructure in California that serves agriculture, uh and you know, make sure that we continue to be the greatest agricultural value in the world that produces fruits and vegetables for the entire country uh, you know, uh in abundance for a long time coming, that would be a great legacy, right?
32:58
SPEAKER_02: It would be a great, it would be a great investment of my time uh on behalf of this community uh in what goes on in Congress.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: You're from here and you represent this place now in Congress.
33:10
SPEAKER_00: What do you feel like you owe to the Central Valley?
33:13
SPEAKER_02: I think I owe everything this.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that obviously this is the place that shaped me.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: And I wouldn't have it another way.
33:19
SPEAKER_02: I know your people, I often tell people I don't spend a lot of time thinking about ideas like regret because I think when you spend times or you say you regret something, um it says that you don't appreciate where you are.
33:35
SPEAKER_02: Right?
33:36
SPEAKER_02: Because whoever you are and and and ha and however you came to be, the person that's sitting there was shaped by all of that.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: The good, bad, and the indifferent, right?
33:46
SPEAKER_02: And so I look at my uh opportunity to grow up around, you know, agricultural small towns, um you're having a uh father who was deeply committed to work, uh a mother who was deeply committed uh to changing the world, educators uh all throughout my family uh who understood the importance of community and helping those around us, right?
34:09
SPEAKER_02: All of those things shape me in a way that uh you know got me to this moment serving this community, and I and I'm grateful, you know, for all of it.
34:18
SPEAKER_02: Um like I said, I wouldn't happen any other way.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: My final question: how important is it for a representative to actually be from the place they represent, to live there, to know it, and to be shaped by it?
34:31
SPEAKER_02: I always laugh with people.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: I've run for Congress now.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: Uh this is my third election running for Congress, and I've yet to run against anybody who actually is from here.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Every and that's on both sides.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: I ran against a couple Democrats, uh, you know, that that uh that weren't from here and and and had run for other seats in other places.
34:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh Republicans, same thing.
34:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, so there's a lot of that in politics, right?
34:56
SPEAKER_02: People, you know, and this is a funny thing, people don't know.
34:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, if you're in the state, in state office, you're required to live in your district.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: That that is a requirement in the state, in state law.
35:06
SPEAKER_02: But because federal law and Congress is established by the Constitution, the Constitution just says you have to live in the state.
35:15
SPEAKER_02: So you can be from LA and run for Congress in San Francisco, uh, etc.
35:20
SPEAKER_02: And you see that in not just here in California, but around the country.
35:23
SPEAKER_02: I wish that's something we could amend in the Constitution because I think most people would prefer to be represented by somebody who's you know living uh in the same community they're living in, experiencing life in the same way uh they're experiencing life, uh, and connected, right?
35:40
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is an important value.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: And um I always joke, um, we're sitting here in a house that my grandparents built a few blocks from the business that my family ran, you know, forever.
35:52
SPEAKER_02: And uh I've lived in this neighborhood my whole life.
35:56
SPEAKER_02: Right?
35:56
SPEAKER_02: I always joke with people that I haven't gone far in life because I've been in in the same two-block uh region, right?
36:03
SPEAKER_02: But um, but I appreciate that, right?
36:05
SPEAKER_02: And and I've had the chance, you know, in college and working in Sacramento, and I've had the chance to experience other things and other places now living uh part of the week in Washington, serving our community there.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: I get to see that, right?
36:18
SPEAKER_02: So I've seen you know parts of the world, but I've always been, you know, here in this community and it it shaped every bit of my work and and living here shapes my work.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you go to the grocery store, regular people stop me and you know, because it's a small town, people know you know who I am or that I'm representing.
36:35
SPEAKER_02: And they got something to say.
36:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, I I read about this.
36:38
SPEAKER_02: And you know what's the most interesting is what people are talking about at home is never what they're talking about in Washington.
36:46
SPEAKER_02: It there's such a disconnect with the the the hot topic of the day on the cable news or in Washington versus what people are experiencing here.
36:56
SPEAKER_02: It, you know, I'm not saying it's you know never aligns at all, but for the most part, uh very different.
37:03
SPEAKER_02: And certainly how they're talking about it, but I think it makes me a better representative.
37:06
SPEAKER_02: That's why I think it's important people live in their districts uh and come from those communities.
37:10
SPEAKER_02: That's part of having somebody in Congress uh representing your interest, not the Democratic Party interests, the Republican Party interests, not any other your interest.
37:20
SPEAKER_02: Like how is your life better where you live, right?
37:23
SPEAKER_02: And um, and we shouldn't, you know, even in our disagreements, like somebody from Ohio should be for stuff that makes Ohio better.
37:31
SPEAKER_02: That's what they should do.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: And I should be for stuff that makes the Central Valley in California better.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: And that doesn't make us bad people, it just makes us people that are doing their job representing uh folks at home.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: Congressman Gray, thank you so much for your hospitality.
37:46
SPEAKER_00: We really appreciate it, and we hope to talk to you again on Blue Dog Radio.
37:51
SPEAKER_00: That was Congressman Adam Gray representing California's 13th district.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: There's something about when he says he tries to use the word fight less and the word work more that lingered with us long after we left Merced.
38:06
SPEAKER_00: In a district like his, that distinction matters.
38:09
SPEAKER_00: A canal doesn't care who won an argument, a farm either gets its water or it doesn't.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: A medical education building either opens or it doesn't.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: A community project either moves or it sits in a stack of paperwork.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Grey's politics come from that reality.
38:25
SPEAKER_00: They come from Merced, from agriculture, from a family business, from a part of California that feeds the country and still has to fight for the basics.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: That's the blue dog story here.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Not moderation for its own sake, not performance, work, results, a loyalty to place, and a belief that government should still be able to build things that people can use.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: You can read more from our time with Congressman Gray and the Blue Dog Bark on Substack, and keep an eye out for more from our Central Valley visit.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you for listening to Blue Dog Radio.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: When your mind starts, when you win a walking time to board the starts, when you want to kind of swap and go down to the house, you've got to be a bit of a new maximum.