Latest / Breaking The Meta / Idaho's Labor Shortage: A Farmer's Nightmare
Transcript
- Breaking The Meta: Hello everyone and welcome to Breaking the Meta. name is Mike Winson. Today we are sitting down with Emily Fisher who is running for Idaho House of Representative District 23. Hello Emily, how are you doing today? Emily Fisher: Great, it's so nice to be here with you. Thanks for having me on. Breaking The Meta: Absolutely, glad to have you. ⁓ The way I always have to start is, would you just give us a little background on who you are and why you decided to run for ⁓ Idaho's House of Representatives? Emily Fisher: Absolutely. So like you said, my name is Emily Fisher. I am a grassroots candidate. I am not a politician. I'm actually a business coach and artist. I decided to run because I've lived in Idaho my entire life. And in that course of time, our legislators have become increasingly ideological and extreme. And I just feel like we're heading the wrong direction as a state. ⁓ You know, I think for a lot of years, I assumed that someone else would figure it out and kind of turn things around. I realized as I've gotten older that who better to do that than me? And I just have to feel so strongly that Idaho has the potential to be an incredible place to live. And we're going to need leaders that are going to bring us to that point if we're gonna get there. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. As you've gone around and talked to people in your district, ⁓ could you give us just an idea about your district in general, but also the pain points, the things that most people talk to you about when, you know, that they could use your help in the House of Representatives? Emily Fisher: Absolutely. And that's such a great question because District 23 is in southwestern Idaho. It is massive. For those of you who are at all familiar with Idaho, it stretches all the way from southern Nampa to the Oregon border to the Nevada border over to Mountain Home. So it is almost, I mean, a whole corner of the southwestern part of the state. And most of it is agricultural. It's very rural. And most people in this area are either living in the Breaking The Meta: ⁓ wow. Emily Fisher: cities, towns of Kiona and Nampa, or they are way out in the boondocks. So that presents a really interesting challenge, not only for me as a candidate, but for these residents who don't have easy access to a lot of the basic services that people in larger cities would be used to. So that is one of the biggest challenges that I am hearing over and over again, is how do we get people to not only have access to things like public school, but even just to have water. We have seen unbelievable amounts of growth in this area and so we rely on wells. We don't always have access to city water infrastructure. So making sure that we're not over developing and over drawing the wells that people rely on to survive is one of the topics that keeps coming up as I'm talking with residents. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. How has the ramifications of the tariffs and the big, beautiful bill and the loss of the ACA subsidies, how has that affected District 23? Emily Fisher: Another great question. one of the biggest things in Idaho is the big, beautiful bill was something that our legislators and governor signed off on. yeah, I mean, what can you do? But they really kind of took it on. Most of our legislators are very pro-Trump and very pro-federal reform, which is kind of interesting being the party of local governments, know, the party of small governance. It's really weird. ⁓ But the implications of that have been Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Emily Fisher: an enormous budget cut across the board. We did a 5 % budget cut across our entire budget just to try to make up the deficit. That actually still wasn't sufficient. We still had a deficit after that budget cut. But in order to understand what that 5 % actually represents, we are talking about 5 % cut to the programs that manage our water supply, for example, just building off of that issue I mentioned. So the Idaho Department of Water Resources actually had to cut Breaking The Meta: Mm. Emily Fisher: Critical infrastructure that was their own words ⁓ Critical systems and infrastructure that allows them to monitor and manage water While we are entering one of our worst drought years in decades. So that has a real impact right there but to specific to the other programs you mentioned we're seeing an incredible increase in ⁓ Fertilizer costs due to not only tariffs, but the war obviously we're also seeing an increase in labor Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: challenges due to some of the immigration policies coming down at the federal level. And many of our ranchers, farmers and dairymen are starting to come out and say like, look, we're struggling, like we can't make this work. We don't have citizens that are willing to fill these jobs and they cannot get enough people. ⁓ know, even through even legal immigrants, I think that's one of the more challenging things. This is not exclusive to illegal immigrants. Legal immigrants are scared to go work at these places where they are afraid they might be arrested and deported, like without due process. So it is just created a myriad of challenges in District 23 that is really unique to this area. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah, and I actually watched something just recently where a rancher was like, I can't get United States citizens. I can't get legal immigrants. I can't get anybody to do this work. Emily Fisher: which I really want to speak on that for a moment because my family's lived in Idaho for over a hundred years and most of them were actually like dairy farmers and ranchers. And I don't think people understand that that is where our food comes from. Like there is a disconnect. I don't know if you've experienced this at all, but like people really think that food comes from the grocery store. Like it just, there isn't a lot of awareness about, it's so funny coming from the families that have provided these services. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Well, that is what Trump told them, so... Emily Fisher: there is a huge disconnect between people realizing that those legislative decisions directly impact our ability to feed ourselves. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: Yes, correct. ⁓ I think one of the other issues that I hear a lot from a myriad of people, and it doesn't matter what side of the aisle we're on, ⁓ is this idea of accountability or the lack thereof when it comes to our representatives. What does accountability mean to you? What does accountability look like in terms of ⁓ you and your constituents? Emily Fisher: Yeah, so good. So this is a buzzword, like you said. And to me personally, accountability is the same as integrity. If I say I'm going to do something, I either am going to do it or I need to own if I don't. And that doesn't mean that I just hope nobody notices or is like, ⁓ yeah, it didn't happen and come up with excuses. It is a process of saying, look, I said I was going to do that. I didn't do it. And here's how I'm going to make that right. that is just a skill set that I've developed. Breaking The Meta: No. Emily Fisher: over years and years and years of being a business owner, in order to have trust with my clients, you have to have that level of transparency and accountability and follow through on what you say you're going to do. I, for myself personally with this campaign, I have a running document of all the promises that I make. So as I'm talking to all these interest groups like law enforcement and teachers, and I'm, know, I have ⁓ appointments with all these community interest groups. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: I'm actually writing down all the promises that I'm making and posting it on my website so that I can be held publicly accountable for what I say I'm going to do and follow up if for any reason I don't. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. That brings up an interesting question because I think another issue that we hear from a lot of people is you can't trust politicians. They tell you one thing and then something else happens. How have you how have you ⁓ worked through that issue? Because you want to be you want to fix things. But there's also the reality that that especially you in Idaho would deal with where ⁓ It is a Republican, know, mostly Republicans, Republican majority in the House of Representatives. So how do you how do you navigate that when you interact with with the people when you talk to them? Emily Fisher: Majority, yeah. I am very upfront that I am going to vote a certain way. I'm going to support or oppose certain things. I cannot make promises about the outcomes of things. Just the stand that I will take and what people can expect from me is like my voting behavior. But I will, I go a little bit beyond that because I have a lot of history in civic engagement outside of the legislature, just as a citizen who's willing to call people and make sure that relevant parties are talking to each other to solve community problems. And so Breaking The Meta: Mm. Emily Fisher: In the cases where I feel that legislation is necessary, I'm clear that like, look, I can't promise this will get passed. I'll tell you how I'll vote. I'll tell you what I believe in. But, you know, ultimately that's up to the majority party. But then I will also follow up, like, for example, with I was speaking with a teacher recently and she was sharing some challenges about non-legislative issues that just are not being communicated from the Idaho Department of Education down to the district superintendents. And I was like, well, that's a citizen issue. And that's something that I can take on outside of being able to influence a bill or legislation. I can really take a stand and say, look, I'm willing to connect you with this person and this person or to hunt that issue down, et cetera. So it's just being really transparent about where I can guarantee an outcome versus where I can't. Does that answer your question? I want to make sure that I... Okay. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yes. Yep. Yep. No, you're you're absolutely right. I mean, it's not it's not easy in general. I think that's probably the hardest thing that any of us have, especially with a with such a divided ⁓ divided. I say divided with with air quotes because I don't think we're quite as divided as as many of us have been convinced we are, which brings which brings forth another interesting question that I that I have. Idaho as a historically red state, least recently especially, ⁓ after the last 14 months of whatever this administration has done, causing all of these issues to the people in your district, what has it been like going around and talking to people that maybe have been historically conservative? Are they more willing to talk to you in a way that they may not have a couple years ago? Emily Fisher: Yeah, you know, it's a mixed bag. I think what I'm seeing, which has been really fascinating, and I want to kind of like preface this by saying that I grew up in Idaho and grew up among many, conservative people. The conservative party that we're seeing at the federal level, you know, mostly the Make America Great Again MAGA party has drifted considerably from a lot of conservative values, especially here in Idaho. And we see that with the Idaho legislators are kind of splitting into two groups of those who are going more the federal conservative level versus the traditional conservative values level. And so I say that to kind of contextualize when I'm talking with someone, if they are very like Trump conservative, mega conservative, they can't hear it. They won't discuss it. It's just, they have a belief system that is untouchable. But I actually speak to a lot of conservative concerns and I don't care what party someone is. I think we all want the same basic things. really couldn't, I could care less, you know, and I think that's the point, right? We all want to have individual freedoms. We all want to be respected. We all want to be heard. And I can reach a lot of traditionally Republican voters at that level. And actually I have a lot of Republicans who have confirmed that they will vote for me because I'm not someone who's going to vote along party lines. I'm not a very extreme candidate. I really am here for whatever the best interests of all of district 23 might be. Breaking The Meta: Right. I think it's an interesting problem, one that I hope someday we can get past, which is this idea of identity politics. A letter next to your name should never decide who you're going to vote for, ever. Emily Fisher: Absolutely. I agree. Yep. Person over party is what I keep saying, you know? Yep. Well, and think it's funny too, like I'm a big history nerd. Our founding fathers were so against parties. if you actually read the writings of like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, they were like, Jefferson has a fantastic quote that it's like, if I'm required to have a party to get into heaven, I'm not going. And it's like, I think that, you know, these people who really idolize the founding fathers. Breaking The Meta: Yep. Yeah. Emily Fisher: We need to recognize why they were so afraid of that. And it's exactly this divide that prevents us from being able to make the best choice possible because we're selling our soul to whatever someone else is thinking or saying. Breaking The Meta: And even worse in many cases, just whatever letter is next to your name, you could completely disagree with them. I have heard people say, I don't agree with anything that this person says, but he has an R next to his name. So that is who I'm going to vote for. it's like that something just feels wrong about that. Emily Fisher: Absolutely. I've heard that too. Yeah, and I faced a lot of that, you know, like running, this is literally one of the reddest districts in Idaho. It has never had a Democratic representative at any level. And so I face a lot of that. I don't even know what the right word is. People are conditioned to feel a certain way. And I think when they actually meet me and see that I am a human being that feels the same way they do in a lot of issues, it's almost like this cognitive dissonance of like, ⁓ my gosh, how do I deal with that? Breaking The Meta: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So I would like to do a little future casting. So let's say November 3rd comes around and you win. Congratulations. ⁓ January comes around and you are sworn in as the representative for the 23rd district. What are the first things that you do? Emily Fisher: Mmm. Yeah, so number one, I want to start making relationships with every single person in the legislature, regardless of what party they represent. Going back to our conversation before, change can only happen with cooperation, especially with a party majority like we have. And so really getting that personal connection where people aren't going to oppose me based off of, you know, someone they've never met that might have a different letter. I think that is something that is not done often enough. And just using those connections to really strengthen the things we have in common and like just coming to them with respect, but also saying like, look, we might differ on a lot of things. I think we have the same interests. Let's find out how we can work together. So that would be my number one. The second thing that I would do is really look at how we can improve the legislative process to not just hand off mandates to people and expect them to figure out how to implement them, especially when there are so many contradictions or unenforceable bills being passed, that's something a lot of the community interest groups, like I said, teachers, law enforcement, that they brought up over and over again is like new legislation just gets kicked over to them. They have to figure it out, but it contradicts other bills that they've had come down the line. So, you know, some of them are totally unenforceable. So I would love to introduce some kind of follow through and legislative review process that helps prevent that from happening. Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Emily Fisher: maybe even a requirement for bills to have a mechanism of enforcement before they can be passed. Breaking The Meta: One of the other things that I have found interesting about talking to so many different people from so many different states that most of us probably don't have many interactions with in general. I grew up in Massachusetts. I live in North Carolina now. I know Idaho is different than what I am used to. If you When you interact with people from Idaho, almost like I'm asking like maybe give an idea to people that don't understand what it's like to be an Idahoan compared to a Californian or a New Yorker or something like that. Emily Fisher: Yeah, ⁓ man, this touches on so many interesting things. So again, I'll say like my family's lived here forever, right? So I grew up with my grandma. We'd walk around town and she would wave to every single person that we saw. I, you do you know those people? Like, who is that? And it's like, no, that's just what you do. You just wave, you say hi, you know, that was just the culture back then. And I say back then, but I do that today. People always give me weird laughs. You know, half of them kind of back. And like, this is actually funny, but ⁓ Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Emily Fisher: you forever, I would just kind of give it like a little hey flight wave. And then I had someone recently like really full out wave at me and I was like, that is delightful. I'm going to start doing like enthusiastic wave. So I think that gives you an idea of how Idahoans, like, you know, people who were raised here, who have that culture, like that's how we interact with each other. I have, I have lived in other states. That's not typically the case, you know. Now that's only one element of it though. And I think that there are some downsides to Idaho culture that are hard to understand. One of them. Breaking The Meta: Right. Emily Fisher: is an avoidance of education. ⁓ It is almost a badge of honor for a lot of people to not be informed, to not do well or to go on to higher education, right? Like it's still very much demonized and seen as like brainwashing to go to college in many areas in Idaho. So I don't know if that's similar in North Carolina. Is that, have you run into that at all? Right. Breaking The Meta: Mm. ⁓ I mean, it may be in rural areas. It may be in some of the rural areas ⁓ where I am is is Charlotte. So I'm in everybody is educated. Everyone's way more educated than I am. So. Emily Fisher: Yeah, that's awesome. Well, and coming from Massachusetts, I know they're big, my family's ⁓ part of my family is from Massachusetts. but yeah, so other places I've lived that it's been the opposite, right? Like the more educated, the more informed, like that's much more desirable, but here that is just not the case. And that, that represents, yeah. Breaking The Meta: They're big on it there. Yep. Yep. Yes. everyone, literally everyone I know has a minimum of master's degree, if not a PhD, like maybe not every everyone, but almost everybody that I like interact with on a regular basis has a master's degree or a PhD. Emily Fisher: Yeah, that's definitely just not the case. Like, good for you. That sounds incredible. ⁓ you know, and there's nothing, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. Sorry, might have some noise interference, but, it does create a unique challenge, right? Like I, like I said, I'm a big nerd. I love learning. I'm always learning new things. I got my bachelor's degree and have done a lot of continuing education. So Breaking The Meta: Hahaha No! You're fine. Yeah. Emily Fisher: you do have to connect with people on a slightly different level if they don't feel that there's a real importance or value to being informed. So that is a cultural thing that has presented a unique challenge. Breaking The Meta: Mmm. Does that mean you need to change as someone who likes being educated? Does that change the way you have to, like the actual way you have to interact with people as you walk around? Emily Fisher: Yeah. ⁓ definitely. Like, it just is meeting people where they're at, right? Like, again, there's nothing wrong inherently with it. But it is like, I'm not going to appeal the same to the same values as someone who values education, I would use a lot of sources, and, you know, data, facts, but someone who doesn't value those things, you do have to meet them where they're at and what they value, which just, you know, I'm happy to do, but you do have to kind of suss out like, okay, what's going to be the level of this conversation for you? And what's going to make it, you know, Breaking The Meta: Yeah. Yeah. Emily Fisher: something you want to engage with. Breaking The Meta: That's just wild to me. Yeah. For anyone that has been listening all the way up until this point and has heard everything that you've talked about, what are one or two things that no matter what you would want them to come away with knowing about you and your campaign? Emily Fisher: It's really interesting. ⁓ my goodness. Well, one thing I really want to say because it's just top of mind is that so many people say that they want to support grassroots candidates. And I have seen so much talk of this year, which is fantastic. We're seeing political reform around not having dark money or super PACs and all these other things involved in politics. We still have a massive gap in people actually showing up to support those candidates. So, and that's not just me, that's across the board. I've talked to a lot of other candidates who are seeing that same thing. Breaking The Meta: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Emily Fisher: So one thing I would say is if you have the desire to have more candidates with more integrity, candidates who are not funded by outside interests, we need to encourage ourselves, our friends and neighbors to not only donate, but volunteer to show up, to reach out and see what they can do to get us across the finish line. Yeah. Breaking The Meta: Absolutely. So on that note, for anyone that wants to learn more about you and support you, whether it's through volunteering or donations, where can they find you? Emily Fisher: Yeah, so emilyforidaho.com is my website. That's where you can find more information about me. I'm also fairly active on social media. So any platform, just search Emily for Idaho. I also have my phone, my actual cell phone number listed on my website. I know, I know. I know. Breaking The Meta: You aren't the first one to do it. So many people are doing that. It's crazy. It feels very not 2026. Emily Fisher: Bye. I thought the same. was actually, I have to admit, was inspired by everyone else doing it this year. I thought it was insane, but I actually love it. And I've had people reach out. Most of them were like, is this your real number? I'm like, it absolutely is. What's your question? But I do want to be very accessible. And I think that's so important. So if people want to reach out, if they have any questions or concerns, like please reach out, engage with me. I'm happy to have a conversation. Breaking The Meta: Ha ha ha. He he he. Yeah. Emily, thank you ⁓ for coming on here and sitting down with us and letting us get to know you and what you hope to do for the people of District 23 in Idaho. I appreciate it. Emily Fisher: My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Breaking The Meta: And for everyone else that listened this far, thank you as well. Please hit all those buttons down below, like, subscribe, share, comment. ⁓ It helps me do what I love to do, which is interact with amazing people like Emily and so many people around the country that are doing what we've been begging people to do, which is be held accountable, break the status quo, have those hard conversations, not take pack money and all these other monies and like, be held accountable, be real people that care about you. And because of that, they need things like visibility and name recognition in a way that that million dollars isn't going to give them because they don't have a million dollars. So please watch, share, follow here, follow on their stuff. Just follow everywhere and just help. It's really easy. It's like it's the simplest cheapest thing that you can do, which is watch the content and share it. So please do that. And for everyone that may be new to what this podcast is about, just so you know, Breaking the Meta is about having hard conversations when necessary, fighting to break the status quo, and the idea that all people, no matter your race, religion, gender, or identity, deserve rights, respect, dignity, and safety. And again, Emily, thank you for being here. And for everyone else, we'll see you next time on Breaking the Meta. Bye, guys.