Latest / World Ablaze with George Fontes / Can Republicans Break California’s Supermajority? (Rhonda Shader)

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Can Republicans Break California’s Supermajority? (Rhonda Shader) · World Ablaze with George Fontes

• 0:00
  welcome back to another world ablaze today i have yet another guest i will have ronda shader she's
• 0:14
  representing district 34 in california running for the senate very interesting conversation i'm glad
• 0:20
  she agreed to be here but of course before we move on i have to read the sponsor real quick and that
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• 0:38
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  15%. For those that are not watching, the link will be in the show notes. And you can also go
• 0:47
  to the website worldablazepodcast.com. Click the sponsors tab. In that sponsors tab, you just click
• 0:54
  the link for a way to coffee and you will save yourself some money. And so with that out of the
• 1:00
  way, I don't want to hold Rhonda up too much. So let's go ahead and bring her into the fold,
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  so to speak. Rhonda, thank you for being here. Hi, George. Thanks for having me.
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  Thank you very much for being here. I'm ready to set the world ablaze with you today.
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  Oh, let's do it. I hope you set California ablaze because we have a big, well, we need to
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  add a little more balance. Let me just say that much.
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  At a minimum.
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  Yeah, we need to add a little more balance. I didn't even say this offline, but I consider
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  myself conservative or Republican. So just so you know ahead of time. But that's why I say we need
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  a little bit more balance here in California.
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  Yes, we do. Rightly.
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  Yeah, absolutely. So first off, I heard you on a fellow podcaster and on Shades of Jade podcast.
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  and great, great discussion.
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  And after I heard that, I was like, I got to talk to you.
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  So that's why I reached out.
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  She gave me your info and I'm glad you agreed to be here.
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  So before we move on though,
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  I got to get some more background into your journey.
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  I want everybody to know basically
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  why you decided to run for Senate.
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  And I know that you have a background
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  as your two-time mayor, correct?
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  Correct.
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  And so you've already been a public service,
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  but what called you and why do you think
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  you can make a difference in the Senate?
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  Yeah, so my journey began, I'm an entrepreneur, I own my own insurance agency. And so I was busy
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  building my business. And unbeknownst to me, because I wasn't paying attention, my little
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  city of Placentia here in North Orange County was on the verge of bankruptcy and had been for quite
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  some time, meaning like a couple of decades. They just had these really big things happen
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  over and over again. And the year was 2016 when even though they were in such financial distress,
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  the finance director at the time stole $5 million from the city. So yet another blow to them when
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  they were already down. And I had a friend in politics in the city next door that I knew from
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  business. And she took me to lunch and she said, something's wrong. Your city needs help.
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  And so when I first came into this, I really looked at it as almost like when you serve on
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  the Chamber of Commerce or you serve at the Kiwanis or the Rotary, the Women's Club,
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  just another act of service as a business community leader. And I said, well, I said,
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  if you think I can help. And she's like, yeah, just get in there and find out what's going on
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  and use your brain and your common sense to see if you can help. And so I did. And of course I had
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  to run for election and I was okay with that. I figured all that out and I won the election.
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  And that really started my journey because when I first got in there, I knew, I knew the big
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  problem with finances for the city. And so I sat down with one of the finance guys for three hours,
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  literally within the first month that I was officially elected. And he broke the news to me
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  because I asked, how much do we actually have in reserves? Like, what is our situation? What's our
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  debt? What's our income, the whole thing. And he explained to me that as of the last audit, which
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  is how cities work, we had cleared $49 in the bank. And that's 49.00. Nobody can even believe
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  it when I say that. And that's why I say it a lot. So we were in deep, deep trouble. And so honestly,
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  I was just like, okay, I signed up for this. Let's get to work. And so I just proceeded to
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  do everything possible, visit, talk to everybody, other cities, CalPERS about the pensions.
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  I just wanted to know what my options were. Where could I go? What could I do? And of course,
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  there were some people at the city who had already been working on this and they had some ideas as
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  well. But what happened is, is because I was sort of new blood, I became a catalyst for change at
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  the city. And so in the eight years that I was there, and as you said, we rotate mayor. So two
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  of those I spent as the mayor kind of leading the charge for that year is kind of the way it works
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  in smaller cities in California. By the time I left eight years later, we had $15 million in the
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  bank. We were paving roads. We were refreshing parks. We were starting to maintain buildings
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  that we hadn't done in decades. Because when you go broke, everything stops for a city, right?
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  All you can do is make payroll. So you couldn't even keep up with the infrastructure that people
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  needed to live there? No, we absolutely could not. It was crumbling before our eyes. And there
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  was so much backlog that they're still working on it today. I left office in 24, the end of 24.
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  So I've been out almost two years. And so my colleagues that were there are still working
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  on this effort and trying to maintain that new culture of accountability and keeping the fiscal
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  sustainability of the city job number one, it's not an easy thing to do because in city government,
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  as with any government, there's lots of ways to spend money and everybody has ideas of how you
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  can spend your money. Especially in smaller cities, right? Or small towns. Yes. Yes. And
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  And everybody, you know, there's always another comment.
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  There's always something coming to you.
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  And so it's really, really hard to keep your focus pure.
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  And so that was one of my biggest lessons was,
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  if I believe that public safety and infrastructure
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  are the two most important things my city should provide to people,
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  then my budget should show that.
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  And that's really what we need from our government, isn't it?
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  the big things that we can't do on our own.
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  That is the reason for government.
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  Yes.
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  Literally, right?
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  Initially, you know, our expectations of our government have really increased.
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  And I say that for everybody.
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  It doesn't matter what party you are.
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  You expect more out of your government today than you ever have in the past.
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  Yeah, I've seen a shift not just for expectation, but also reliance on the government.
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  You know, there's been not a good shift.
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  shift, in my opinion, to more reliance on the government to provide for them.
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  You know, not just like we're talking about the infrastructure and the basic needs, but
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  also financial needs, medical, everything else.
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  And I can get the argument for it, but, you know, I would like a little bit smaller government,
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  but a government that steps up where it's supposed to be, you know?
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  Yeah.
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  And the one thing I noticed in California is a lack of accountability with the current
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  government.
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  You being in California, I'm in California.
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  And so that is one thing that really interested me.
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  Like you did city council, you're a two-time mayor, and now you want to move to the Senate
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  here.
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  Yeah.
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  Why the Senate?
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  So the reason why a state race is because the whole time I was on city council, our
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  state was thwarting my efforts the whole way.
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  In other words, I would come up with a plan and want to do something and our state would
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  pass a bill or something and say, I couldn't do it.
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  One of the biggest moves I made and changes, and when I say I, please know that I had colleagues.
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  You have to have three votes.
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  So I had colleagues and staff on this journey with me, so I give them credit as well.
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  Is we left the county fire that we had originally joined to save money.
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  it became so bloated that by leaving the county fire and restarting our own fire department,
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  we were able to save our city almost $28 million over 10 years.
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  That's crazy.
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  It is crazy.
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  Like how many fire trucks is that?
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  Like those fire trucks go for what?
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  Two to 400,000.
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  Oh, they're half a million.
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  Yeah.
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  They're half a million dollars.
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  So we had to get all the equipment.
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  We didn't have to do stations.
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  We already had stations because we had previously had our own fire department, but it had been over 30 years since we had had our fire department.
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  And quite honestly, George, I could see a time in the future.
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  Maybe we end up back at county fire.
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  Yeah, I mean, who knows?
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  I mean, these things ebb and flow.
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  It seems like reasonable to me that if you do a joint effort, it should cost you less.
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  But in government, nothing ever works the way you think that it should make sense.
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  So anyway, that being said, I was able to not only start my own fire department and leave the county fire, which was very difficult, but we stumbled into the fact that we did not have to offer CalPERS pensions to our firemen, that we had an option to do a 401k, which is kind of like a 401k that most of us have in the private market.
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  it works very similar. And so we pulled the trigger on that. And so that was part of the
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  savings and continues to save today. Now it is extremely generous to the point you probably
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  couldn't find this in the market. I mean, we're somewhere around nine, 10% match. It's very
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  generous, but that's to make up for the fact that they're not having a pension like some of their
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  co-workers right that are in a different area um but i had a an assemblyman run for um after we
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  made that move he ran a bill that passed in sacramento that no other city could ever do that
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  again so cities already don't have very many options to handle pensions and we found a loophole
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  and they immediately closed it.
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  Of course.
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  Of course they did.
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  That's a perfect example of how when you get so far removed from the local level,
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  from the people to the small town to the city,
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  the bigger it gets, the more removed they are from what actually is needed
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  by those living in the smaller towns.
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  That is so true.
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  I say it all the time.
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  Government closest to the people is best for the people.
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  Right.
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  Interesting.
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  Unless it's Sacramento.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, okay.
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  And then we need the federal government to come in and help once in a while.
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  Once in a while.
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  So you're truly running to make sure that these type of things don't happen again.
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  You want the government to do what it does, but you don't want it to be to where it's choking off the small towns and small cities.
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  And George, they took tools from my cops.
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  That I want to keep us safe They made cleaning up the homeless in my city just way harder than it needed to be They made building housing that suits my city harder than it needs to be and more expensive than it needs to be I mean the list just goes on and on
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  and on. And what it's made of is a bunch of little bills that Sacramento has been passing
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  mostly over the last decade that has just created this overburdensome regulatory environment
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  that is just maddening.
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  And, you know, we talked earlier about balance in Sacramento.
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  You know, that's what it's about.
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  Because if you don't have balance, you have no accountability.
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  And you have no devil's advocate pushing from the other side.
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  Because at this point, they don't have to listen to their colleagues
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  on the Republican side.
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  They don't need them. It's super majority. Right. And so we have to change those numbers. And so that's the reality of it. But behind that, you asked my personal motivation. And that's what it is, because these environmental bills, these burdensome regulations, the attack on oil and gas has done nothing but create a huge burden on working class families,
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  which is a majority of my district here in North Orange County, it's on their backs.
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  Their utilities are more, their gas is more, their housing is more, everything is more for them,
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  and it's harder for them. I just saw a statistic that said, this is our economy right now,
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  and these regulations coming out of Sacramento, they are hurting the people that are $100,000
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  or less. So when you're in that $40,000 to $100,000 range, you don't qualify for a lot of help
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  and you're on your own, but you don't have enough to really make it. People making more than that,
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  maybe people that have owned their home longer, things like that, they're able to absorb some of
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  a little bit better, but it's the, that, that working class people that are breaking my personal
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  heart, um, that they're the ones I want to help. Um, cause nobody's helping them. They are the
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  voiceless ones, um, that don't have anybody looking out for them. They don't have the choice.
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  They are gardeners and construction workers and housekeepers.
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  These are people that drive cars and trucks.
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  And when we raise fuel prices, it directly affects things for them.
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  And they've been forgotten, in my opinion.
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  They've been forgotten by Sacramento.
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  And, you know, there's only one way to change it.
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  And you and I both know that.
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  It's numbers.
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  And so we need good people to run for state offices, to keep after it, to change the messaging, to get to those voters so that they can understand the difference.
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  Because everybody's forgotten what it could be.
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  George, nobody even knows what leadership looks like anymore.
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  No.
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  It's been gone for so long.
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  Not with Gavin as a leader.
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  I don't even know what's going on with that guy.
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  He's not even in the state half the time.
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  He's out there parading and I don't know what he's doing.
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  But you said a few things that are very important for people to understand.
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  Okay, we're talking about policies.
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  We're talking about regulations imposed by the state in Sacramento.
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  And one of those things I've seen and has been a big thing here where I am, and I'm
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  sure you've gone through because you just brought up is housing and how the state is
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  forcing you to build so many houses to meet the state quota.
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  But that doesn't necessarily work for that particular town or city.
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  And so where we are, we're located.
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  We're not too far from San Jose, San Francisco, all of that.
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  It's basically, if you want to make real money, you're going to have to drive.
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  And you're spending three hours in traffic to get there, another three to five to get
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  back home.
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  And I used to do it.
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  And so what you're just basically doing is creating these giant bedroom towns.
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  When the state is pushing you to do that, it shifts focus away from actually addressing
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  the cost of living where the cities can actually go, okay, we need to expand, but we also need
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  to provide for the people so they don't have to keep living this life of slavery, basically.
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  just to make enough to get ahead.
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  You never really get to enjoy your life.
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  And so that's one thing that I've seen
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  that's very detrimental to many small towns and cities
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  is Sacramento, as we discussed earlier,
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  is so far removed from what's going on.
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  As you said, government that is closest to the people
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  is better for the people, right?
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  And so when you get in the Senate,
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  which I'm pretty sure you're going to,
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  I hope that that's something that can be addressed.
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  It's like, hey, we need to actually look at the needs
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  of every town, every city,
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  because a lot of what's driven,
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  as you said, by Sacramento or LA or even San Francisco.
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  But there's a big gap in between that whatever we actually need is never really truly addressed.
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  It's just you've got to fall in line and that's just part of it.
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  It all starts with voting no on some of these bad bills.
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  That's number one.
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  People say, what can you do about the cost of living?
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  And I go, well, here's something I can do.
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  When it comes before me and it's going to raise the cost of living, I vote no.
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  I don't vote for it.
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  you know,
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  and if we get enough no's,
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  we start to put the brakes on these things.
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  Then you start to try to roll back some of it.
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  Believe me,
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  I've got ideas.
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  Oh,
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  I'm sure.
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  Of things that we can do.
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  And so,
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  you know,
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  Rhonda,
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  that can take us another,
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  another direction here.
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  And,
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  and here's,
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  here's the problem when we're talking about balance.
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  Now,
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  look,
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  I don't think any state has to be all Republican,
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  all Democrat.
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  In my,
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  my personal opinion,
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  I don't mind the balance as long as it's respectful and it's logical.
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  It makes sense.
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  Like,
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  You have a valid argument.
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  I'll hear you out.
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  It makes sense.
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  Okay, maybe I should do that.
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  But I don't believe in what we have now, where it's so tilted in California that Republicans don't even show up to vote.
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  All right?
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  And we just went through that in Prop 50.
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  Okay, we have over 5 million registered Republicans, 4 million voted, and then we have over 5 million independents.
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  I'm sorry, but the California GOP didn't do enough to sway the independent voter.
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  And on top of that, if we're talking about all registered Republicans, not even all registered Republicans came to vote.
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  Of all registered Californians, I'm sorry, Californians are registered Democrats, only 7 million of those voted.
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  So if we could have rallied together all Republicans and some of the independents, we definitely could have held the line on Prop 50.
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  But we didn't.
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  George, that was such a unique situation.
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  In my Senate district, only like 5% of people voted.
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  Isn't that crazy?
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  I mean, the average voter had no idea what was going on.
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  Like, you know what I mean? It was off cycle. It was weird. It was convoluted. I mean, I still have people that are, you know, people that are active, like in politics. They'll ask me, were you affected by Prop 50?
• 20:17
  Well, no state race was affected by Prop 50. It was only congressional. So the congressional just sort of moved around us. But I mean, that tells you how uneducated everybody was. There was just no way to know. And it only passed because it was activists voting only. And the activists voted against Trump.
• 20:43
  I don't think people realize the importance because, yes, congressional, but you're also in danger of losing your actual real representation.
• 20:51
  And it was a concerted effort to not just turn and flip red seats in counties that were red, but to even try to at least turn them purple enough to where the vote kind of washes, which was crazy.
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  And we've seen that happen in many counties, which is sad because, again, not all Republicans came out.
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  Not all independents understood what was going on either.
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  And the problem is too many people just go with the flow without even looking into the actual issue.
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  But it was hard this time because, as you said, the advertising, marketing, everything was so convoluted.
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  And so you're running for Senate, District 34, right?
• 21:28
  So what can be done better, let's say, from the conservative Republican side to reach independence to better educate everybody next time these type of things happen?
• 21:39
  Well, Prop 50 was pretty unexpected.
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  And so I think you just have to be nimble and ready.
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  for instance I don't even think the Republican party was funded well enough to be able to get
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  the word out to yeah I think you're right on that one 25 million people or whatever the effort was
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  going to cost so we do have an apathy in the party and it's a challenge for all of us to try to
• 22:12
  you know motivate them and inspire them not to give up I think Steve Hilton's doing a great job
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  of doing that. I'm so glad he's on the ballot. I think it's going to help all of us,
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  um, because we have a choice, you know, governor at the top. So I'm very excited about that. I'm
• 22:33
  also very excited about voter ID. I think that's going to bring our Republicans out.
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  I think, you know, Republicans need a win, you know, we do in California. We need a win.
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  We need a win. And I think we have a lot going on this, this cycle. And I'm hoping that we get,
• 22:53
  we get something out of it because it would help. You know, that's the question for the ages,
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  because the Republicans don't vote in my district either. You know, they don't show up the way
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  I would hope they would. And that's really hard when you're a candidate and you're working so
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  hard and you're putting so much effort into this and then your own people don't vote um i think
• 23:19
  it's really heartbreaking yeah and i think hilton may be charismatic enough to win now the
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  unfortunate reality is even if we do get a republican governor as as you know um the
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  the overall government in sacramento is still going to be majority democrat
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  the legislation, everything is just, it's Democrat. So you getting into the Senate,
• 23:43
  how would you be able to change that? Because you're still going to be outnumbered, right?
• 23:48
  But how do you think you'd be able to change that?
• 23:50
  Yeah. Let me tell you what the Senate's working on as a whole. So we have 40 senators, right?
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  There's 40 million people. We have 40 senators. We all have districts that are close to a million
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  people and we have 10 Republicans.
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  So we need four more seats in the Senate to break that super majority.
• 24:11
  So that doesn't sound like a lot though, right?
• 24:12
  It doesn't sound like a lot. It's very exciting.
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  And we have some strong possibilities.
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  And so we are working to try to break that.
• 24:23
  The numbers in the assembly are bigger because they're bigger.
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  There's more of them, right? Right.
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  So the Senate, you know, only needing four is kind of a fun place to be.
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  We picked up one last time.
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  And so they have four targeted seats in the state.
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  And I'm probably number four as a pickup.
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  One of the reasons why I'm a possible pickup is because I have an open seat.
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  So the senator that's currently in the seat is turning out.
• 24:55
  so anytime you have an open seat you got to try and go for it yeah absolutely so that's that's
• 25:02
  kind of what we're doing here so um that is very exciting and you know just to answer your question
• 25:10
  about that that you know the senate approves all the governor's appointments so he needs that
• 25:20
  the Senate also approves any monetary things. So the budget, you know, they're going to help with
• 25:26
  that. But I did, I don't know if you had a chance to read Steve's book, Cal failure.
• 25:32
  I did not. But that's one of the reasons why I've supported him from the beginning,
• 25:37
  because I read that book. I had seen him speak at something and I was like, oh, that sounds amazing.
• 25:44
  He has policies and things that he will do in all the subject matter areas, many of which
• 25:52
  you and I are talking about today He knows what he up against right He been in a difficult government before in the UK And I think he going to be able to do more than you think
• 26:06
  He seems to get it.
• 26:09
  He seems to get it.
• 26:10
  And he knows how to talk, knows how to represent himself.
• 26:13
  He's in election mode right now.
• 26:15
  Oh, absolutely.
• 26:16
  But once he wins and he's in policy mode, I think he'll be very effective.
• 26:22
  So let's talk about one thing you brought up earlier.
• 26:25
  And this has been something California that's been a struggle.
• 26:28
  Okay.
• 26:29
  So I'm going to share this with you.
• 26:30
  I don't know if you could see it, but I'm going to read it.
• 26:32
  You already know this info, but just for the audience, I'm going to go ahead and read a little bit of this.
• 26:36
  So here's what's concerning.
• 26:37
  California has more than 400 state boards, commissions, authorities, and oversight committees that manage public policy, state finance, and specialized programs.
• 26:45
  Now, that's a lot.
• 26:47
  But what's more concerning and why most people feel defeated, especially Republicans, is this.
• 26:52
  approximately, excuse that, 99% of all laws in
• 26:56
  acting in California are passed by the state legislature without ever going
• 27:00
  to a public vote. Ever. And so it seems
• 27:04
  like a lot of regulations and laws, it's not just the legislature, you have, you know, oversight
• 27:08
  committees, governing bodies, etc. that will just pass regulation
• 27:12
  and or there's laws that are passed that Californians wake up one day and it's like
• 27:16
  what's like the tire thing that just happened, right? Just for an
• 27:20
  example, you know, what are we going to have to dispose of 70,000 something tires on the shelves
• 27:25
  because they want to do more eco-friendly tires, I guess. But you know, there's always these things
• 27:29
  like that, gas, whatever. And so there's some things we can vote on, but there's other things
• 27:33
  you just wake up to. How are we able to be able to be effective and break that up? And I mean,
• 27:40
  once you're in there, which I really do think you're going to be able to get in there,
• 27:45
  how are you going to be able to work with others to try to change that? Or are we just like,
• 27:50
  are we just cooked in California?
• 27:52
  Like we just have to keep dealing with it.
• 27:53
  We are cooked until we change the numbers.
• 27:57
  Got it.
• 27:57
  And I don't,
• 27:58
  don't get too frustrated
• 28:00
  because there are other states in this nation
• 28:03
  that have been in our circumstance
• 28:04
  and they have been able to turn it around.
• 28:08
  You just can't get weary.
• 28:10
  You have to keep after it.
• 28:12
  And we used to be.
• 28:12
  You have to keep after it.
• 28:13
  And I would love to talk about these agencies.
• 28:17
  Sure.
• 28:17
  About the tire thing.
• 28:18
  This is your time.
• 28:20
  You go ahead and take it wherever you want.
• 28:22
  Here's how it works.
• 28:26
  The governor says that the climate change agenda in California, we must be the leader.
• 28:35
  We must be number one.
• 28:36
  Then the Senate passes a bill that says we are going to be net zero in greenhouse gases by 2035.
• 28:48
  And then that passes.
• 28:52
  And then they push it down to all these agencies that you just said, right?
• 28:57
  One of which is our environmental agency.
• 29:01
  And so they've been going through the list.
• 29:03
  What can we do to go to net zero by 2035?
• 29:07
  And so they've just been stacking it on.
• 29:10
  Yeah.
• 29:10
  Okay.
• 29:11
  There's a lot of things that came before tires.
• 29:13
  Oh, yeah.
• 29:14
  Absolutely.
• 29:15
  Okay.
• 29:15
  So finally, we got to tires.
• 29:17
  They've been working on this for two years, trying to get to tires.
• 29:21
  They have committee hearings with the public, with tire manufacturers, with people who sell tires that can weigh in on it.
• 29:33
  And so that's where, you know, that public comment happens.
• 29:39
  But the decision to go to net zero was made by the officials that they elected and put in office.
• 29:45
  and the governor they elected that said, this is our climate agenda, our climate change agenda,
• 29:52
  right? This is how we're going to contribute to that, to the world. Okay. And the thing that I
• 29:59
  love that came out of this as well is our friends on the environmental committee. And I don't know
• 30:05
  if you saw that video of the woman who did this, who got in the media, which she probably never
• 30:10
  gets to be in the media, but now everybody's mad at her. And so she gets to be in the media and
• 30:16
  explain herself. Oh, I think that's what you're talking about. She was smirking. Yeah, yeah. I
• 30:21
  know who you're talking about. She was smirking about this. And then we find out, which is public
• 30:26
  information, that the people on this committee, for this part-time committee for the state,
• 30:32
  make six figures they're they're into the six figures they're like 115 120 for being on this
• 30:41
  commission that did these tires well guess what back to what i said earlier my people in my district
• 30:49
  who all of a sudden have to buy new tires and are not going to have choices anymore
• 30:56
  are going to have to buy these really expensive tires.
• 31:01
  And there's going to be a scarcity, right?
• 31:03
  There's not going to be all the choices we have today
• 31:05
  where if you're broke, you can buy the tires that are less
• 31:09
  and they're just not going to last longer.
• 31:11
  But you can make that choice because you're in a bind
• 31:13
  and you have to do it, right?
• 31:15
  I mean, if you're normal, we've all been there.
• 31:18
  I remember buying tires when I was younger.
• 31:20
  It was a nightmare.
• 31:22
  It felt like it always snuck up on me.
• 31:24
  It could just be an emergency situation
• 31:25
  that's like right in the middle between paydays.
• 31:27
  And you're like, oh.
• 31:28
  Right.
• 31:29
  And George, the way they think,
• 31:31
  and plus, you know,
• 31:33
  maybe you don't have that extra money in savings
• 31:35
  because something else came up, you know?
• 31:38
  And so what they say is,
• 31:40
  oh, don't worry.
• 31:43
  These are going to save money at the end of the day
• 31:46
  at the pump or on your electric bill
• 31:50
  or something like that.
• 31:51
  Well, guess what?
• 31:52
  That's a whole different part of my budget.
• 31:54
  That has nothing to do with the day I buy tires.
• 31:58
  You know what I mean?
• 31:59
  It's just like you got to think it through to the end user.
• 32:05
  Does that make sense?
• 32:06
  No, I get it.
• 32:07
  But here's one of the things that's crazy about California in my mind.
• 32:11
  I'm not a scientist, but I don't think it's scientifically possible to get to net zero.
• 32:16
  A net zero planet equals no plants, no green.
• 32:20
  It's not the planet, George.
• 32:21
  It's just us.
• 32:22
  I know.
• 32:23
  It's only California.
• 32:24
  Yeah, we're going to put a giant bubble that we can't see and just hold California in, right?
• 32:29
  And just protect you.
• 32:30
  Well, and guess how we're getting there?
• 32:32
  On the backs of other states and other countries.
• 32:35
  Of course.
• 32:35
  Of course.
• 32:36
  We're going to ruin all of them.
• 32:38
  And guess what?
• 32:39
  When we get to net zero, guess what difference we're going to make in climate change for the world order?
• 32:44
  1%.
• 32:45
  Yeah, it's very much negligible.
• 32:48
  So our people are suffering and we're doing all of these things.
• 32:52
  I like my favorite term.
• 32:54
  you're going to learn this about me is death by a thousand cuts.
• 32:57
  Oh yeah.
• 32:58
  Oh yeah.
• 32:58
  Absolutely.
• 32:59
  None of this happened overnight.
• 33:02
  It's happened over time,
• 33:04
  hundreds and hundreds of bills.
• 33:06
  And now it's just the pressure is mounting and the people are getting to the
• 33:11
  point where they can't carry it anymore.
• 33:13
  I mean,
• 33:13
  you're,
• 33:13
  you're absolutely right,
• 33:14
  but it's,
• 33:14
  it's,
• 33:15
  it goes back to like the average Californian or Californians in general,
• 33:18
  don't get to vote on these things.
• 33:20
  They just,
• 33:20
  they just kind of,
• 33:21
  even if it's slow and incremental,
• 33:22
  like we,
• 33:23
  just wake up and these things are happening.
• 33:25
  You voted for the people that said
• 33:27
  Well, correct. You're right. And they were honest
• 33:29
  and they told you. There is that.
• 33:32
  What their agenda was.
• 33:33
  But they don't. You're not
• 33:35
  hiding it, but most people do.
• 33:37
  You're being sincere.
• 33:40
  But, you know, and the other thing, I don't want
• 33:41
  to dwell on the tires, but I mean, look,
• 33:43
  I watch F1 and I'm just going to tell you the most efficient
• 33:45
  tires are the ones that wear out the quickest.
• 33:49
  I don't
• 33:49
  know. I don't know. We'll see what
• 33:51
  happens here. Well, my husband
• 33:53
  is living because he has a truck and oh yeah i'm sure thing he does is take off the tires from the
• 33:59
  dealership i get the tires he wants on his truck and to have that choice taken away um i know they're
• 34:09
  phasing it in over the next four to six years i mean just think of all the tire shops the people
• 34:15
  that sell i mean it's another attack on business as well oh absolutely okay so so now we're going
• 34:23
  to have tire shops going out you know are you even going to be you can't go get go to costco
• 34:28
  and get those cheap tires anymore they're not going to have them you know it's just
• 34:33
  it is an attack on business it's just such a good example though george and it's a recent example
• 34:40
  that's why it's fun to talk about because no it's so practical you know what i mean well because
• 34:46
  everybody it's practical to to the to the degree that you don't really think how bad it could be
• 34:53
  until you have to go buy new tires, basically.
• 34:55
  And then you're like, whoa, wait a minute.
• 34:57
  And what you were talking about
• 34:58
  with how this stuff happens incrementally,
• 35:00
  it's the same thing as not just taxes,
• 35:02
  but all the other fees that are attached
• 35:03
  to your gallon of gas.
• 35:05
  It's not just the tax.
• 35:06
  It's the environmental fees, the regulatory fees,
• 35:08
  the special blend fees, like all this stuff.
• 35:10
  And we were talking about gas.
• 35:12
  I mean, a lot of people don't realize
• 35:13
  how oil-rich California is,
• 35:15
  but putting all these demands
• 35:16
  and all the companies that refine the oil to make gas,
• 35:21
  You have to have special blends for summer, for winter, everything else.
• 35:23
  They're just throwing their hands up.
• 35:25
  And it's like, look, it's no longer feasible for us to do business here.
• 35:29
  And then what do we do?
• 35:30
  We're paying to truck it in, which makes no damn sense at all.
• 35:35
  I just don't understand it.
• 35:36
  But it does.
• 35:37
  I'm telling you, it does to our governor and to the leadership and the legislature.
• 35:45
  This is exactly what they wanted.
• 35:47
  They don't want oil and gas here.
• 35:49
  They want it in another place because they can get to net zero faster.
• 35:55
  That's crazy.
• 35:56
  That's the agenda.
• 35:57
  That's just going to hurt everybody economically.
• 36:00
  It is.
• 36:00
  And it's like, I don't like to focus on it all of the time on my campaign.
• 36:07
  But at times like this, when we're digging in, we have to be honest about it.
• 36:12
  We have to be honest about how we got here.
• 36:15
  And that's really how we got here.
• 36:18
  I get the environmental things can be a big topic that can get you nowhere.
• 36:24
  No matter who you talk to, because everybody has a strong opinion on it.
• 36:26
  But what we're talking about, I think, is relevant because the next place we're going to go is exactly what you mentioned earlier is business.
• 36:31
  This does affect business.
• 36:33
  And I heard your story on another podcast where you were talking about how businesses were pretty much wiped out during COVID.
• 36:40
  Some of them hung on.
• 36:42
  And even now, many of them still can't get back to where they were.
• 36:46
  what are we like six, seven years later? Right. And so what's your, what's your plan or idea?
• 36:51
  Like, how would you be able to help small businesses thrive again? Or at least how,
• 36:56
  how would you set up, you know, the road and take away the stumbling blocks from businesses to be
• 37:01
  able to get back to doing business again in California? So, I mean, there's two sides to
• 37:06
  that. One is what we're talking about is changing the electorate, meaning change your legislators
• 37:13
  so that you change the culture.
• 37:16
  And that there isn't a culture of what I would call hating business
• 37:20
  because it does feel that way.
• 37:23
  It does.
• 37:24
  I met with 100 businesses in 100 days last year across my district.
• 37:29
  And that is where I picked up these stories.
• 37:31
  I didn't make them up.
• 37:32
  I was told these.
• 37:35
  These businesses, many of them are still paying back
• 37:39
  $100,000 in loans that they had to take to survive because it was a family restaurant.
• 37:48
  So not only is mom and dad not having income, but neither are the sons and daughters and their
• 37:55
  adults and their families because everybody works in the family business. Now they're working in the
• 38:02
  family business under these conditions, paying off the loan, trying to make enough money to pay
• 38:09
  everybody, but still pay off the loan. You know what it's like, you're juggling the debt, you know?
• 38:15
  And so I had one of the businesses tell me, she said, and this is like back in 22, she said,
• 38:25
  you're not going to see businesses go out of business right away. Some of them may, but those
• 38:32
  but what you're going to see is over time, you're going to see businesses that have been around
• 38:37
  30, 40, 50 years. They're going to start going out of business. And I know all of us have stories.
• 38:45
  They're in the paper. We have, you know, here we have the Orange County register.
• 38:50
  There stories all of the time about oh this one restaurant and it been the icon forever Well guess what They out of business because they going broke number one And number two there no succession planning because nobody wants their kids going into the
• 39:09
  restaurant business in California right now. It's just not doable. I mean, any business owner that
• 39:16
  is successful here and hanging on, they will tell you, I have figured out a way to make it work,
• 39:23
  but I will never open another restaurant here.
• 39:27
  If I open up one,
• 39:28
  I'll open it up in Florida or some other state.
• 39:32
  You know,
• 39:32
  I got a,
• 39:33
  I got a,
• 39:33
  okay.
• 39:34
  So I got a little story as far as that and how it hit businesses.
• 39:37
  I've owned six businesses and the current one I've had has been,
• 39:40
  you know,
• 39:40
  it's been 27 years.
• 39:41
  Okay.
• 39:43
  And this one is in the events industry.
• 39:45
  Okay.
• 39:45
  You want to talk about an industry got wiped out?
• 39:47
  We got,
• 39:47
  okay.
• 39:49
  We were literally shut down.
• 39:50
  No more concerts,
• 39:50
  no more festivals,
• 39:51
  nothing.
• 39:52
  You couldn't even gather in a room to do a wedding.
• 39:54
  It was like, forget it.
• 39:56
  And it was a struggle for everyone I knew in the industry.
• 39:59
  And I know a lot of people to even keep the doors open.
• 40:03
  And yeah, the government will tempt you with take this loan at low interest rates, et cetera.
• 40:07
  But you're right.
• 40:08
  You still have to pay those damn things back.
• 40:10
  And so we got hit so hard that now today, and somehow many of us found a way to get through it.
• 40:17
  But now today, and what you said is very true.
• 40:19
  what that lady said, that business owner, many of them are still struggling. It's weird. Like
• 40:23
  all of a sudden it feels worse now economically than it did going through the pandemic. And many
• 40:31
  people are now seeing less money in the pocket of the clients to even do events. Many of them are
• 40:36
  starting to get out. Many of them are closing their doors, selling things off. It's just like
• 40:41
  you said, that is going on in the restaurant industry. It's happening in the events industry.
• 40:44
  and a lot of it had to do with the policies that were put in place during the pandemic
• 40:50
  that really hurt everybody and so cost of business went up you know and then when you're talking about
• 40:56
  restaurants everything else the convenience of hey i'll just order all this stuff on amazon now for
• 41:01
  you know pennies on the dollar and it just really shifted everybody's way of thinking and doing
• 41:05
  things that just hurt small businesses from operating and moving forward so i that's that's
• 41:10
  what you talked about what i'm telling you is one thing a lot of people don't talk about when it
• 41:14
  comes to business in California, it's easy to go, hey, Tesla's leaving because of how they're
• 41:18
  treated. And they'll say, oh, big bad Tesla, that billionaire, trillionaire, whatever, he can afford
• 41:22
  it. But they always leave out the people like me, the restaurant owners, like the people who built
• 41:27
  the cities and the towns and connected with the people. They never discuss what they go through.
• 41:33
  And that's like the backbone of California or basically the entire nation.
• 41:37
  Right. Yeah. For every one big business like that, there's hundreds of little ones.
• 41:42
  right and those little ones provide services to those big ones i mean what about the catering
• 41:48
  for the parties like all of that i always tell people i'm like really think about what you're
• 41:52
  saying about small business because that's the quality of life and services right around your
• 41:59
  home it's your dry cleaner it's your nail shop it's you know where you pop in to grab something
• 42:06
  You know what I mean? It's like, you know, when you want something unique or you need it faster than you can order online.
• 42:16
  Things like that happen. And so our small businesses are just everything to the community.
• 42:25
  And they provide so many jobs. Added up all together, they provide more jobs than these big companies.
• 42:32
  because there's so many people that have like a few employees that's that's how i am at my
• 42:37
  insurance agency but guess what there's thousands of insurance agencies right times you know three
• 42:46
  to five people you know and it's just it all adds up and and they're forgotten um and let me tell
• 42:54
  you something back to the what are we going to do i have all kinds of bills from talking to these
• 43:00
  people, many of them are rollbacks. They would tell me stories of specific areas because look,
• 43:09
  chances are when I get up there, I'm not going to be able to make sweeping change.
• 43:14
  Right.
• 43:15
  Just like we got here, death by a thousand cuts. That's how we're going to get back out.
• 43:19
  Right. Repairing each piece of glass, one thing at a time. And so I was looking for these little
• 43:27
  nuggets that they could give me to say I could run this. Because if you look at what a legislator
• 43:33
  does, you know, they run, you know, maybe, I don't know, let's say five to 12. It depends on the
• 43:40
  legislator. You run like a dozen bills, you try to cover some different areas. Right. And I'm like,
• 43:47
  I will have a bill for business every single time, at least one, if not two,
• 43:52
  to try to roll something back to ease up something for businesses.
• 43:58
  So staying on the topic of business for a bit,
• 44:01
  I'm curious and what you think in helping businesses with insurance
• 44:09
  because that is one thing that killed a lot of businesses.
• 44:14
  The cost of workers' comp just went skyrocket.
• 44:18
  Now getting commercial insurance on vehicles, forget it.
• 44:22
  Like most won't even insure you anymore or they're going to charge some astronomical rate.
• 44:27
  It's gotten insane to be quite honest.
• 44:30
  How are we going to get California, you know, back to being able to like have insurers offer affordable insurance, not just to, you know, everybody out there, but the business owners as well.
• 44:43
  Like insurance for everybody.
• 44:44
  No more selective insurance and saying, well, we're no longer going to insure this industry, which also happened to my industry, by the way.
• 44:52
  They said, oh, we don't insure that anymore.
• 44:54
  It took me forever to find someone to insure me once that all happened after the pandemic.
• 45:00
  And I know that happened to other business owners.
• 45:01
  So that's one question I have for you.
• 45:04
  What's your thoughts on that?
• 45:05
  So my resolution for that specifically is competition.
• 45:10
  so we we have a government that shooed you know shooed away and made it so hard for insurers to
• 45:19
  even survive here yeah insurers that had to be put in a position do you think an insurer really
• 45:26
  doesn't want to insure your industry they just got to the point where they had to make hard
• 45:32
  decisions like that of course they want to insure people that's the business that they're in
• 45:37
  But they also better have the money when you need them.
• 45:41
  If your business gets sued, you know, and it's the one time in your life where you really need your insurance company, that insurance company better have the money to protect you and get you a lawyer and make it happen.
• 45:53
  Right.
• 45:53
  Just like if your house burns down and all of those things.
• 45:56
  So, you know, it's a delicate industry.
• 46:01
  It's based on statistics.
• 46:03
  And if you have a government trying to control and creating an environment that is risky for insurance, think about the environment that we create in California.
• 46:18
  California, the way, to your point, the way we have employment lawsuits, the way we handle our
• 46:31
  forest and the wildfire threat, the way we allow theft, and the result of all of those things
• 46:41
  are an insurance company looking at this, and their risk assessment of what they're getting
• 46:47
  into goes way up. So every decision that Sacramento has made, again, death by a thousand
• 46:54
  cuts, they're like, oopsie, we caused insurance companies to not want to do business here because
• 47:01
  it's not sustainable for them. Yeah. Completely understood. Yeah. So bring it back and have an
• 47:12
  insurance commissioner that's going to welcome in these companies because you know when you had
• 47:17
  three or four companies that wanted your business and it was competitive you could get a decent rate
• 47:24
  absolutely right i mean we were all there i would walk into ralph's and ralph's would be selling
• 47:31
  insurance i mean i had competition everywhere costco was selling insurance you know everybody
• 47:38
  was in the market and then all of a sudden it just dropped off. Why? Because it just became
• 47:46
  unsustainable. So again, it, it goes back and I wasn't trying to poke an insurance coverage. I
• 47:52
  totally understand. No, that's okay. You just asked my solution. My solution is more.
• 47:59
  No, you're correct. When we have competition, the price goes.
• 48:02
  It came back to what we're discussing earlier. It came back to the California government.
• 48:07
  like and you're right
• 48:09
  this was slow overtime death by a thousand cuts
• 48:11
  but it's like it almost
• 48:13
  makes you wonder do they even care thinking about
• 48:15
  the adverse effects of their decisions
• 48:17
  it doesn't feel like it
• 48:19
  it doesn't feel that way and I've been in their
• 48:21
  offices I lobby about insurance
• 48:23
  all the time for the company that I'm with
• 48:25
  and I haven't been able
• 48:27
  to write homes
• 48:29
  in over
• 48:31
  three and a half years that's crazy
• 48:33
  and I would like to
• 48:35
  write a home again. That is crazy. I make a lot of money writing homes and I haven't been able to
• 48:39
  do it. I'm losing people. And so I go up there and I talk to them about that. And then they turn
• 48:45
  around and run a bill that makes the company I work with go, yeah, we're not coming back.
• 48:51
  Not yet. They make insurance mandatory, but then make it impossible for you to offer insurance.
• 48:57
  Yes. Oh, geez. So let's, thank you for your answer, by the way. And I know,
• 49:04
  Look, for people that are going to watch this or listen, all this is relevant and important because we got to keep the economy going by getting back to supporting the small businesses, which really the communities are always built around.
• 49:16
  So that's why I asked you those questions.
• 49:19
  The tire thing was interesting because a great example of bureaucracy and different decisions that are made for a goal that is probably going to be unachievable, but still.
• 49:30
  And so what about cost of living in California overall?
• 49:33
  Some of the stuff you talked about is absolutely directly affecting cost of living.
• 49:38
  But in your opinion, like we're looking at groceries that are at least four to five times
• 49:41
  more than they used to be.
• 49:43
  I saw a meme online recently.
• 49:46
  And I remember this when I was younger.
• 49:48
  It was like $100.
• 49:49
  You got two giant like carts of groceries and now $100.
• 49:53
  Like literally, I can go to like Whole Foods, Sprouts, whatever.
• 49:56
  And I get like two bags.
• 49:58
  Two bags.
• 49:59
  Two bags.
• 50:00
  And I look in there going, what did I get?
• 50:02
  A couple of bananas.
• 50:03
  And it's your brown bags.
• 50:04
  Yeah, exactly.
• 50:05
  Not a lot of stuff goes in.
• 50:07
  And then they rip.
• 50:09
  Okay, so I know this is a national thing, but let's talk about California.
• 50:13
  What can California do to make things more affordable for people to just live?
• 50:17
  Like, you know what I mean?
• 50:19
  Like groceries, for example.
• 50:21
  Just the everyday things that you take for granted that just demand your money.
• 50:26
  on top of the fact that they have mandated how much the grocery stores have to pay
• 50:33
  um their employees right and you know what kind of bags they use to bag their groceries
• 50:43
  and the charge report and many other things that the grocery stores have
• 50:49
  demanding the price of food has gone up dramatically they then the grocery stores
• 50:59
  come up with an idea to have self-checkout so they can have less people at the thing
• 51:06
  and so now that is being attacked by the unions saying no that took a job and we want that back
• 51:14
  So the unions and these aren't the grocery store unions.
• 51:18
  There are other unions.
• 51:21
  You know, that makes sense.
• 51:24
  OK, so they're going to city levels to get checkout stopped.
• 51:29
  And so now they're taking that tool away from them.
• 51:32
  And then they just decided this year going into effect and they have, I think, two to three years to make it happen.
• 51:43
  No plastics in the whole store.
• 51:46
  Wait, like packaging everything?
• 51:49
  Everything.
• 51:50
  Displays too?
• 51:51
  Everything.
• 51:52
  Carts?
• 51:53
  Vegetables, salad, drinks.
• 51:58
  I mean, building materials?
• 52:00
  I mean, how far are we going?
• 52:01
  No, George, no plastics.
• 52:04
  Wow.
• 52:05
  I just took a survey.
• 52:06
  It was like a candidate survey.
• 52:08
  They said, what's one thing you would do to lower the cost of living?
• 52:13
  And I'm like, I'd bring back plastic.
• 52:17
  It's a funny thing.
• 52:18
  What are we doing?
• 52:20
  Yeah, it's a funny thing to think about, though, because years ago, before plastic was mainstream, we lived without it.
• 52:29
  Everything was glass, paper, etc.
• 52:30
  but it's going to be too hard to pivot back to that like that.
• 52:34
  There's no way there is no way it's going to happen.
• 52:37
  So I don't under, again, I don't understand the thinking.
• 52:41
  I just,
• 52:41
  and not only that think about the work that we've done environmentally with
• 52:45
  plastic.
• 52:46
  Yeah, no,
• 52:47
  they've changed how the plastic is.
• 52:49
  We had to get used to our water bottles,
• 52:51
  like being so thin,
• 52:53
  you can't hardly hold them.
• 52:56
  That is true.
• 52:57
  They've made everything,
• 52:58
  all of us recycle now.
• 53:00
  Like, so we're reusing our plastics.
• 53:04
  So we've made a ton of progress, but it's never enough.
• 53:09
  No, it's just never enough.
• 53:11
  And if you think asking a grocery store to remove every plastic and to take on that project
• 53:19
  and the cost of it, originally they were like, it's only going to cost the average family
• 53:24
  $190.
• 53:26
  Okay.
• 53:26
  Well, that was when they did the study two or three years ago.
• 53:30
  Now it's going to cost the average family $700 to $900.
• 53:35
  On top of what we're already paying.
• 53:38
  It's ridiculous though, Ronna, because what is California doing with all this money?
• 53:42
  All these fees that they get from these regulatory standards and everything that they're doing, where's the money going?
• 53:49
  Okay, well, you and I just explored 400 and how many committees and commissions?
• 53:55
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 53:56
  All of those cost money to run.
• 53:59
  So that bureaucracy. And then last I checked, I mean, the group Churla got $72 million from California government over the last three years. So we're giving it to these NGOs. They're doing the important work of helping illegal aliens figure out how to stay here without becoming citizens.
• 54:23
  and protesting and doing all the things they do
• 54:31
  against our ICE officers and things like that.
• 54:36
  So there's a lot of places for the money to go.
• 54:42
  They don't have any trouble spending money, George.
• 54:45
  It's crazy, though.
• 54:46
  It's crazy to think that they want more for giving you nothing back.
• 54:50
  and I hope that's something that you can slowly change.
• 54:53
  Because like I said, it's going to take numbers to offset the majority.
• 54:57
  That's why it's so easy for me to say no new taxes.
• 55:01
  And it was really easy.
• 55:03
  The governor's budget has four new taxes in it.
• 55:07
  Of course it does.
• 55:08
  We didn't get to vote on those.
• 55:10
  Nope.
• 55:10
  They're just going to happen.
• 55:12
  Like I said, you wake up and, you know, hey.
• 55:15
  Every Republican voted no on the budget because of those taxes.
• 55:21
  Because they said, you don't need more money.
• 55:24
  That's not what's going on here.
• 55:26
  That's ridiculous.
• 55:28
  So California, look, we need this turnaround because costs just keep rising.
• 55:34
  They're making it harder for businesses to actually survive out here.
• 55:38
  Wages do not even come close to cost of living out here.
• 55:41
  I mean, look, there's no reason why someone in San Francisco, you have to live four to six people sharing a studio that's costing four to $6,000 a month, which is ridiculous.
• 55:51
  And those same people are working service jobs that are paying less than $20 an hour, maybe.
• 55:56
  Well, now I think it has to be 20 or something.
• 55:57
  I forgot what it is.
• 55:59
  But still, that doesn't come close to living in, for example, San Francisco, much less Los Angeles or any other place like that.
• 56:07
  And even where I am, I mean, that doesn't cut it.
• 56:09
  You know, it really doesn't.
• 56:12
  So it's just ridiculous to see how California is hurting based on the decisions made by those who only want to, I don't know, appease others who give you the challenge.
• 56:24
  Like, for example, net zero, something that's never going to be attainable anyway.
• 56:28
  But, you know, it'll make California look good, right?
• 56:31
  Whatever.
• 56:32
  Yeah.
• 56:32
  I mean, it's good for us to push industry as a government to do better.
• 56:37
  but it felt it feels like you know like our oil and gas companies and our refineries
• 56:46
  they've done so many things they have changed so much to do better in california in order to stay
• 56:52
  here and it was just never enough it was never enough and they got no credit for the things that
• 56:58
  they did special just for california yeah absolutely there's there's no there's no gratitude
• 57:05
  there for making the changes or touting those changes. And so I have no problem with making
• 57:14
  the environment better. I just think there's a different way to do it. And I feel like we've
• 57:20
  gone too far too fast and put too much pressure on the government entities to make decisions that to your point almost aren even realistic and
• 57:36
  aren't going to help us get there anyway um and so it's just a really frustrating place to be
• 57:42
  i think i think intuitively voters know that we could use more balance i think they're sensing it
• 57:49
  the question is is can they bring themselves to check the other box because when you're a
• 57:56
  a registered Democrat, you've always voted Democrat, and yet you're sensing something
• 58:01
  should change, especially at the state level, you have to understand that your Democrat
• 58:08
  that was really good on the city council, he's going to vote with his party now.
• 58:14
  Yeah.
• 58:14
  And his party as a whole up in Sacramento is very progressive and doesn't really represent
• 58:20
  where you're at.
• 58:22
  No.
• 58:23
  And so if people could be brave enough and give it a try and say, you know what, it's just too much now.
• 58:31
  I'm going to vote this other party and see how it goes.
• 58:35
  And see what happens.
• 58:37
  There's hope, though, because we have seen a rise in people who are registering as independent.
• 58:42
  And I'm not sure that those independents are necessarily centrist, but it is a signal that I think people are tired of the BS.
• 58:50
  and they're like, you know what?
• 58:50
  I might just base my decision on the person and their policies.
• 58:55
  Right?
• 58:56
  You know what?
• 58:57
  That's what I was really hoping.
• 58:58
  Yeah, well.
• 59:00
  Do you want to hear how they bursted my bubble?
• 59:03
  Yeah, I do.
• 59:05
  The DMV has been registering everybody.
• 59:09
  Oh, I heard that.
• 59:10
  No party preference.
• 59:11
  I heard that.
• 59:12
  Yeah.
• 59:12
  And so the rise in no party preference matches the timeframe
• 59:17
  that the DMV has been automatically registering people,
• 59:22
  which means it doesn't really have anything to do
• 59:25
  with their own personal decision.
• 59:28
  So it's all fake?
• 59:30
  I don't think it's all fake
• 59:32
  because I think there are some people
• 59:34
  that are disenchanted with both parties.
• 59:38
  One of the things that I did in this particular race
• 59:40
  is I got the endorsement of the American Independent Party.
• 59:44
  Awesome.
• 59:45
  And I was really grateful for that
• 59:47
  because I hope that it tells voters
• 59:51
  that even though I am a Republican
• 59:55
  and almost all the Republican values
• 59:59
  I'm going to bring with me when I vote,
• 1:00:03
  I do have an independent mind
• 1:00:05
  and I would not let it go too far.
• 1:00:09
  I'm still going to do what makes sense.
• 1:00:12
  And I have an independent mind and always have.
• 1:00:15
  But I do have strong feelings about how a competitive market works.
• 1:00:21
  And some of the things that we do that they are pretty Republican.
• 1:00:27
  And so I feel like it would be disingenuous for me to not have myself labeled as a Republican.
• 1:00:33
  But Rhonda, everything you and I have just talked about thus far is they're all things that should take nothing more than logic and common sense to apply to these issues and make real decisions.
• 1:00:51
  And the problem is we don't see logical decisions being made by the government.
• 1:00:57
  So the thing is, I don't think anything you've said is necessarily a partisan issue or a partisan approach.
• 1:01:08
  It's just decisions that need to be made that affect everybody equally.
• 1:01:13
  And that, I think, is the approach in California.
• 1:01:15
  As much as we want to see more conservatives, Republicans versus Democrats, in the end, we need people like you that make logical decisions that affect everybody.
• 1:01:24
  and and that's that's what makes sense to me and i think that's what makes sense to a lot of people
• 1:01:28
  out there we just don't see enough of it yeah yeah and i yeah i'm not on the attack i don't
• 1:01:35
  have any like hidden agenda i just like to bank people's lives better right and that's that's i
• 1:01:42
  think that's what most californians are wanting and and before i think we're getting um to our
• 1:01:46
  time but before you go i do want to ask you um or let's discuss one more topic like how how are we
• 1:01:52
  going to address accountability for government officials in California?
• 1:01:56
  Yeah. So that's a biggie.
• 1:01:59
  Another hour.
• 1:02:01
  Well, one of the reasons why that's gotten so out of control is that there is no checks and balance.
• 1:02:06
  Right.
• 1:02:07
  Because you have a super majority doing whatever they want. So you don't have the natural
• 1:02:12
  checks and balance that's going on. There was an interview. Do you follow Ashley Zavala?
• 1:02:19
  she's like one of the few reporters that actually digs into sacramento i know who she is yeah and
• 1:02:27
  ashley um interviewed our auditor controller his name is something grant or something like that
• 1:02:35
  anyway he even admitted that he has concerns and is looking into things
• 1:02:41
  But as a legislator, you can ask for audits of different, whatever you want.
• 1:02:53
  Where did the money go?
• 1:02:56
  What the lottery doing with the money What the DMV doing You can call for audits Your colleagues have to agree to move that forward because they don want to over
• 1:03:08
  inundate, right? The controller's office. And then once that audit comes out
• 1:03:16
  about what was found, you have to take action on it, which means you have to write a bill
• 1:03:24
  or somehow communicate and get done what was making that bad and reverse it.
• 1:03:32
  But honestly, Sacramento's in a position today where we had Nick Shirley come into our state,
• 1:03:40
  a private reporter, and do investigations against fraud in our Medi-Cal program.
• 1:03:48
  And so what did Sacramento do?
• 1:03:50
  instead of joining him and figuring it out?
• 1:03:53
  Or even telling him like,
• 1:03:55
  thank you, Nick.
• 1:03:57
  We were aware of this and we're working on it, right?
• 1:03:59
  There's all kinds of choices
• 1:04:00
  the leadership could have made.
• 1:04:03
  No, they ran a bill, George,
• 1:04:05
  to stop anybody from ever doing
• 1:04:08
  what Nick Shirley did again.
• 1:04:10
  Yeah, exposing the actual fraud.
• 1:04:12
  Doesn't that sound familiar?
• 1:04:13
  That's ridiculous.
• 1:04:14
  Let's write a bill
• 1:04:15
  so somebody can't ever have that option again.
• 1:04:17
  Well, why would you pass a law
• 1:04:19
  that would stop anybody from questioning what's happening with taxpayer money.
• 1:04:23
  And since you brought some of this stuff up, and you don't have to speak about Gavin,
• 1:04:28
  but I'm going to say I do recall Gavin at one point saying that you're not allowed or
• 1:04:32
  we can't audit the missing $24 billion in the homeless program that they can't even
• 1:04:37
  account for.
• 1:04:37
  I remember that.
• 1:04:38
  I did a show on it.
• 1:04:39
  Me and my brother talked about it.
• 1:04:40
  Everybody talked about that.
• 1:04:42
  We can talk about the high-speed rail system, the train that started at, what, $38 million?
• 1:04:46
  That's over $100-something billion now.
• 1:04:47
  because of bureaucrats and big contractors, etc.
• 1:04:54
  But it's like, how do we get from that to some astronomical number
• 1:05:00
  and some project that has never, ever finished or achieved?
• 1:05:03
  And what I also mean by accountability isn't just that.
• 1:05:06
  It also, and hear me out, this also extends to politicians in the government
• 1:05:13
  that never see jail time for doing things that me, for example,
• 1:05:16
  if I spit on the street, I'd probably spend time in jail tonight or something.
• 1:05:19
  It just doesn't make any sense that we don't see that accountability either.
• 1:05:23
  I'm not saying throw every politician in jail, but it's like it shouldn't be rules for thee and not for me.
• 1:05:30
  Right?
• 1:05:30
  Right.
• 1:05:31
  And that's the other issue that we're seeing.
• 1:05:33
  And that's why a lot of people, I think, are also disenchanted with politics at this point and the government in general.
• 1:05:40
  And I think that's why a lot of Republicans throw their hands up in California.
• 1:05:43
  But I think with someone like you doing the work, and like you said, you only need four seats, you said, to really flip the majority, which is not much.
• 1:05:52
  So I hope more people support you and keep supporting the movement here.
• 1:05:57
  But again, I hear a lot of what you're saying is just common sense.
• 1:06:00
  It's decisions made based on logic.
• 1:06:04
  It's like it's not like you're coming from far right, throwing some crazy solution out there that doesn't make any sense to everybody.
• 1:06:13
  That's the thing.
• 1:06:14
  And that's what we need.
• 1:06:15
  Yeah.
• 1:06:16
  So,
• 1:06:16
  and so again,
• 1:06:17
  the solution to fraud,
• 1:06:20
  waste and abuse,
• 1:06:21
  not,
• 1:06:22
  not the a hundred percent solution,
• 1:06:23
  but again,
• 1:06:25
  the solution is still breaking that super majority.
• 1:06:28
  Number one,
• 1:06:28
  because you have to have that check and balance.
• 1:06:32
  And we,
• 1:06:33
  we lost it in California a long time ago.
• 1:06:35
  And to date,
• 1:06:36
  we haven't been able to get it back,
• 1:06:39
  but we're trying.
• 1:06:41
  There is,
• 1:06:42
  there's,
• 1:06:43
  There is a good conservative running in every single Senate seat.
• 1:06:49
  You have several in central California.
• 1:06:53
  So people can look and find these people and figure out how they can give them some support and try to help them.
• 1:07:03
  I mean, we all have to pitch in.
• 1:07:07
  It takes everybody.
• 1:07:08
  I'm running for office.
• 1:07:09
  That's my call this time.
• 1:07:11
  And that's not always my call.
• 1:07:14
  Like sometimes I've been helping other people, right?
• 1:07:18
  Not everybody has to run for office.
• 1:07:20
  You know, you're giving me a platform to talk.
• 1:07:23
  Like that's your role right now, you know, for some of this.
• 1:07:27
  But we all can play a role in making change in our state.
• 1:07:31
  And it takes all of us doing what we can to do it.
• 1:07:36
  But I have hope.
• 1:07:38
  I think it can happen.
• 1:07:39
  And it sounds like in some cases here, it's just simply getting registered Republicans to actually vote.
• 1:07:46
  Yes, that would be extremely helpful.
• 1:07:47
  Realizing it counts.
• 1:07:49
  Vote actually counts.
• 1:07:51
  It does.
• 1:07:51
  That would help.
• 1:07:52
  Yeah.
• 1:07:52
  When I walk and knock on doors, I tell people that they're excited I'm running.
• 1:07:57
  They're glad.
• 1:07:58
  And I say, I just really need you to vote.
• 1:08:01
  Right.
• 1:08:01
  You can just vote.
• 1:08:02
  And people say they're going to, but I think a lot of people, they get it in the mail and they just set it aside.
• 1:08:08
  and they don't do it.
• 1:08:11
  Yeah, you're right.
• 1:08:12
  It happens.
• 1:08:13
  Yeah.
• 1:08:14
  Okay.
• 1:08:15
  Rhonda, I don't want to keep you too long.
• 1:08:18
  So I need you to tell everybody how they can find you how they can support you all of the stuff that you need so that you can win Yeah So if you go to my website it shader for Senate F O R shader for Senate There it is
• 1:08:35
  Yeah.
• 1:08:36
  And that's my website.
• 1:08:37
  And then of course I'm on social.
• 1:08:39
  I'm very active on Instagram,
• 1:08:41
  Facebook,
• 1:08:43
  try to be active on X and all of those are at shader for Senate.
• 1:08:47
  And those,
• 1:08:48
  that's where you could even hear short recordings and things that I've done
• 1:08:52
  where you can learn more about my issue positions, if you haven't heard enough already today.
• 1:09:00
  But every candidate needs money. At this point, it's kind of exciting to give to a candidate
• 1:09:06
  because literally 100% of what you give is going to go to voter contact because it's go time. So
• 1:09:13
  I'm really looking to fund some of my ideas that I have for, you know, getting to these voters.
• 1:09:22
  We are phone calling. We're sending postcards. We're knocking on doors. We're sending text messages. We're paying for slates. Slate is where you get on the cops voter guide or things like that. Because the Senate districts are so big, one slate cost me $8,000.
• 1:09:43
  just to run and have a ballot statement cost me $4,000. So California is just big. We have a lot
• 1:09:53
  of people here. And so, um, your candidates, that's why we all have to raise money because
• 1:09:59
  I'm not independently wealthy. I can't fund myself. Um, and I want to bring people along
• 1:10:04
  with me for the ride. Um, and investing financially is a great way to do that.
• 1:10:09
  and then of course I have wonderful volunteers that help me get all this done too so I think
• 1:10:18
  that it's very important that people need to realize that the reason politicians ask for
• 1:10:23
  money for the campaigns look for me as a podcaster I can just tell you the cost it is for us to
• 1:10:29
  actually reach people to advertise and market and what that does is allows you to go beyond your own
• 1:10:34
  capacity to make sure other people can hear you hear your message and know who you are and I can
• 1:10:39
  and say that if I was running a campaign,
• 1:10:42
  that would be an astronomical cost
• 1:10:43
  because it's more important
• 1:10:45
  to reach everybody to get their vote.
• 1:10:47
  And so a lot of people dismiss politicians
• 1:10:49
  when they're like,
• 1:10:50
  or anybody running for office
• 1:10:51
  because like, oh, you don't need the money.
• 1:10:52
  You're rich or you have connections already.
• 1:10:54
  But no, it costs a lot to get ad space.
• 1:10:57
  It costs a lot to do all the prints
• 1:10:59
  that you're talking about.
• 1:11:00
  Like it's not cheap whatsoever.
• 1:11:03
  It's also very encouraging
• 1:11:05
  as the person putting yourself out there
• 1:11:07
  to know that there's people with you.
• 1:11:09
  absolutely you know i have i came up with an idea a long time ago um to put on my donation site 26
• 1:11:16
  dollars because i wanted people to know like even if you gave me 26 dollars like
• 1:11:23
  it means something to me it matters that that i know you're standing with me and that you would
• 1:11:29
  even give me 26 dollars i know i loved your on your website you're like buy me a cup of coffee
• 1:11:34
  and I know I'm not buying you a cup of coffee,
• 1:11:38
  but I was like,
• 1:11:39
  that's really cool.
• 1:11:40
  Like,
• 1:11:41
  you know,
• 1:11:42
  I had this thing I did where it was like,
• 1:11:45
  buy a word in my ballot statement.
• 1:11:47
  I figured out that my ballot statement cost me $15 a word.
• 1:11:51
  That's actually a pretty cool approach.
• 1:11:53
  And I look at it this way for,
• 1:11:55
  for,
• 1:11:55
  for everybody listening right now,
• 1:11:57
  I can say at least this for those who are voting for Rana and district four,
• 1:12:01
  I'm just going to say that at least,
• 1:12:03
  you know,
• 1:12:03
  where your money's going.
• 1:12:05
  At least your investment is going towards something good to make your life better.
• 1:12:08
  And that's what I can say versus a lot of other things where we can invest in, let's
• 1:12:13
  be honest, there's some charitable organizations.
• 1:12:15
  We don't know what they're actually doing, but at least in this case, we know it's going
• 1:12:18
  towards something that's going to make your life better.
• 1:12:19
  They know what it's getting behind.
• 1:12:21
  It's getting behind you.
• 1:12:22
  They know it's helping you get where you need to go so you can represent those and better
• 1:12:26
  their lives.
• 1:12:27
  And so that to me is the big thing right there.
• 1:12:30
  At least you know where your dollars go on.
• 1:12:32
  Your $20 or $50.
• 1:12:33
  It doesn't even matter.
• 1:12:33
  I love that.
• 1:12:34
  Thank you.
• 1:12:35
  Yeah.
• 1:12:36
  Yeah.
• 1:12:36
  Anything else you want to say, Rhonda?
• 1:12:38
  No, I just thank you for the time.
• 1:12:41
  Please, everybody, don't lose heart.
• 1:12:44
  Like, California is a beautiful state.
• 1:12:47
  We can make it golden again.
• 1:12:49
  There's so many great people on the ballot this time.
• 1:12:52
  It's a really fun election to vote for some great conservative people that really want to make a difference in this state.
• 1:13:00
  So get out and vote and do what you can to support your local candidates.
• 1:13:05
  That's my message.
• 1:13:07
  And when we all work, we'll win.
• 1:13:09
  We'll win together.
• 1:13:11
  Absolutely.
• 1:13:12
  Well, that being said, we're going to end it here, Rhonda, and I'm going to encourage everybody to support Rhonda.
• 1:13:16
  Donate to Rhonda's campaign.
• 1:13:18
  And when it comes to this show, please remember to like, subscribe, and share.
• 1:13:22
  And with that, laters, everybody.
• 1:13:25
  Devils hide behind redemption.
• 1:13:30
  Honesty is a one-way gate to hell.
• 1:13:55
  Bye.