Latest / The SEANC View / Election 2024: EMPAC's Endorsements and the Power of Nonpartisanship

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Election 2024: EMPAC's Endorsements and the Power of Nonpartisanship · The SEANC View

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Music.
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Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast.
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I'm Jonathan Owens, the communications director here at Scenic,
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joined today by Artis Watkins, the executive director.
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And today we will be talking a lot about the election.
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And since the election season, our endorsements are coming out this week and we have a special guest.
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We're pleased to have Mark Dierman, the state chairman of our Impact Political
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Action Committee here to talk about our endorsements. Hello, Mark.
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Hey, John, how you doing? Good. How's it going, Artis? Before we dive into the
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election talk. It's our favorite thing. It's election seats.
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I know it's Mark's favorite thing. It's all about politics. Yes.
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I guess maybe we should just start there. Are we a little late in endorsement
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or is this the perfect time to release endorsements?
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I don't think there's anything such as late in this election season.
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It's been the strangest one we've ever seen.
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Yeah. I think that the state and the legislative races are starting to heat up, right?
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That's what I'm kind of getting at. Yeah, so the presidential race has been going for months.
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The public's not thought a lot beyond presidential, maybe the gubernatorial races in their state.
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Certainly the public's not been thinking about legislative races.
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But you've got to save the best last, too, don't you? There you go.
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You've got to have scenics endorsements come out because so many people have already put theirs out.
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But our process takes time, though, right? Yeah.
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Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about our process. Okay. Well,
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like everything else with Scenic, we are a member-led PAC.
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Our impact committees are elected by the members in their districts and into their areas.
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And then the state impact chair is elected by the Scenic convention.
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And so we make all the decisions with support from great Scenic staff here.
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And the way we do our endorsements particularly is in the legislative races.
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IMPACT is broken down into 18 different area committees, and each area is assigned
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the legislative candidates that line up with their area.
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And so we have 18 committees that do the legislative endorsements,
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and then the Council of State races and the other statewide races,
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those are done by the State IMPACT Committee.
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And in most cases, this is done with interview process.
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The areas have an opportunity to invite candidates in, interview.
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We have a standard set of questions built around issues that are important to
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state employees, retirees, and quite frankly, other working families like ours.
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And the same thing happens at the state level. We did the state level interviews
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in a lot of the areas were done this year by Zoom. It's just become a convenient way to interview.
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And then once the interviews have all taken place, the areas get together and
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send their recommendations out. The state impact committee gets together and sends there.
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It is a really involved process.
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Well, people have no idea. And then I spent the last week writing letters to
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all the counties we endorsed and signing this. My arm is sore.
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Well, I think that part of the complexity of this process and how very seriously
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scenic members take it is something a lot of people have no idea.
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They think that either staff or maybe a couple of officers just kind of decide.
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And the beauty of scenic, I think the beauty of it, is that this is a group
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of members, and like you said, in their own areas, who know the people or have
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tried to get to know the people they're endorsing or not endorsing.
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But also, everybody on your PAC signs a nonpartisan pledge.
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That's right. That nonpartisanship is really, really important because we as
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an organization, as Scenic and as Impact, we have to work with both sides of
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the aisle. I mean, we live in the real world.
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And so we're asked to put our personal political beliefs aside and sign a nonpartisan
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pledge that basically says, don't work for any candidate. I don't work for any party.
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I'm not a precinct captain for this, that or the other. So it makes it as evenly
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fair as possible. And then we make endorsements.
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Now, we talk nonpartisan, but after we make those endorsements,
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they actually become a bit partisan because you're endorsing a Republican or
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a Democrat, and so you are going for that candidate.
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But getting to that point is done through a nonpartisan process, which is important.
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But you have to admit, very few organizations have an all-over-the-map slate
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of people they've endorsed in the way Impact ends up with. Right.
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You're right. That worked really well for us when we're working at the polls
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during early voting on Election Day, because you'll see all these people out
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there working in there for this candidate or that candidate or this party or that party.
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But I'll walk up with a poem card with our candidates on it and say,
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we have a nonpartisan slate of candidates that we've interviewed.
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And people will pay attention to that because they don't hear the word nonpartisan
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ever when they go to vote.
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It's either R or D or something else. So before we jump into specific races,
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let me ask y'all, both of you, either one can answer an overarching question.
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Sometimes we get, I don't want
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Scenic involved in politics or Scenic shouldn't be endorsing in races.
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How do you respond to that? Why should state employees care about politics and
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why should Scenic be endorsing?
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State employees are involved in politics whether they want to think they are or not.
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Every single decision about their work life and their families,
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their family's livelihood, the benefits they bring home to the family are decided by politicians.
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They are political by being a state employee. That question makes me crazy.
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I do hear it all the time, but it is what it is.
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You know, we are trying to influence the people that are going to vote on our
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pay raises, our health plan, our pension plan and all these other things.
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And so we want to build relationships with these people so they actually know
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what a state employee is.
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And we talked a little bit about this, I think, the last episode,
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but it's unique that these people
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get to pick their own bosses or at least have a say. Have a say, yeah.
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Well, let's get to the good stuff. Who'd you pick? Well, we'll start off at
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the very top of the ticket with our governor's race.
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Both candidates were offered the opportunity to interview with us.
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Mark Robinson did not respond to two emails and a mailed letter.
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And he had done this in the past, and he has certainly said some things that
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make us all a little bit nervous about what would happen if he was governor.
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Josh Stein, on the other hand, is a longtime friend of state employees and retirees.
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He used to be my senator when he was a senator.
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He's now attorney general and running for governor, and he did a great interview.
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The PAC was very, very impressed with him, and so that was a unanimous vote.
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We endorsed Josh Stein for governor.
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He's kind of running away with this thing at this stage. You know,
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I mean, obviously, this can go up and down.
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But I obviously lobbied him when he was in the Senate routinely for state employees.
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And he's just like anybody. We don't agree on everything. But I will tell you
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that he always, always listened.
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And he's somebody I think that our members have gotten to know over the years. Right. They have.
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And one of the things may shock people, but none of these politicians are perfect.
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You know, we do have disagreements with any of the candidates over time.
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There'll be an issue that they're strong on or not. Well, I'm not sure it makes
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somebody imperfect if we don't agree with them on an issue. You're sure about that?
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But, I mean, I think definitely anybody that's been around state government
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a long time knows, look, no matter where you stand with him on issues,
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Josh Stein, I don't think anybody's ever accused his heart of being in the wrong place.
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And I don't know if either one of them would like me saying this.
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It reminds me of Falwell, Treasurer Falwell. And they would sometimes.
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They had a lot of things they were working on that were similar.
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I think they've both been outspoken as of late. Attorney General Stein more
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recently about hospitals and some of the problems people in the western part
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of the state had with their hospital.
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But they have so much in common. But the main thing I always noticed about both
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of them is that their heart is honestly in the right place.
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And I think that if he's elected, Josh Stein is going to make a great governor.
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I agree with you totally on that one. Wonderful segue there, Artis.
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Speaking about Falwell, let's move to the treasurer's race. That's another one
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of our big races. Yes, it is.
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Yeah, we have a different approach. We don't go to the lieutenant governor next.
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We go to the treasurer's office because it's so important for state employees and retirees.
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Yes, and we actually made this endorsement in the primaries,
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and we interviewed all four candidates that were running.
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There was a fifth one that never responded to that opportunity.
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But it was very clear cut to the fact that Wesley Harris was the man for the job.
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He won his primary, and we're very happy that he's going to continue.
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He is one of the people that's coming to our convention.
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I'm excited to talk about that, and I've gotten to know Wesley really well,
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and I think he's the best we can get out of the candidates that are out there.
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I think he has potential to be an awesome treasurer.
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And there is no job in state government where the pressure is going to be put
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on you by all of the very deep pocketed interests than the treasurer.
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He's going to be leaned on by the powerful people with all the money.
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And only time will tell if he wins, if he stands up to that.
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But I have high hopes for him. Honestly, I think he's a great candidate.
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We had him on the podcast and he was very learned, if you will. Yeah, he was very smart.
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I mean, he knows the issues. Again, I think the hardest part of that job is
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the pressure you get from, again, the most powerful people in this country in terms of money. And us.
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You get some pressure from us, right? And then us. You get pressure from us.
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But I'm not sure that pressure is as – it makes you feel the heat on your neck quite as much.
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One thing that does scare me just a little bit, I was looking at campaign finance
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reports at the end of July, and his opponent loaned his campaign $1 million.
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Tell us about his opponent. The opponent is Brad Briner. He has handled the
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Bloomberg Trust for his life, and he has a lot of friends in Wall Street and other places.
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And the fact that he can loan himself a million dollars kind of tells you the difference between...
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Him and Wesley Harris, who is an economist who works at the university and has
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served in the North Carolina Senate.
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So there's a big difference between the two. His mom is a schoolteacher,
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right? Yeah, that's right. That's right. He tells that story.
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He's from Alexander County.
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He's one of us. Yeah. So there's got to be a lot of people ready to jump back
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into the treasurer's office since Falwell's been there.
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Just chomping at the bit. Yeah. Yeah.
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So I don't know about polling on that race so far, right? We don't really have
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a good grasp of where it is.
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Really not. The little bit of polling that's been done has been really close, if I recall.
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Yeah. The only polling I saw said that past the governor's race,
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the council of state races were tilting towards Republicans. Right. Okay. Right.
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But a week later, there was a poll that came out that said- So you need to pay
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attention to this race if you're a state employee.
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Definitely need to pay attention to all of these races because they're all important.
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Next, we move to the lieutenant governor's race. We selected Rachel Hunt.
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Yes, we did. And that was another one. Her opponent, Hal Weatherman,
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did not respond to our request to do the interview.
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So it's kind of hard to endorse somebody that won't even talk to you.
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But he is a former chief of staff
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for Dan Forrest, our former lieutenant governor who ran for governor.
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And there was probably a reason he did not want to interview with us.
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But Rachel Hunt, she's Governor Hunt's daughter, of course.
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She did a great interview. view. She's really high with integrity and a great person.
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She's not a, you know, a chest thumper, so to speak, but she's a hard worker
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and she's a very smart woman.
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So it was easy for us to endorse her for the lieutenant governor's race.
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I went to high school with Rachel Hunt, for what it's worth.
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And I have to tell you, when she, you know, I didn't see her for decades.
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And then when she first was elected to the General Assembly,
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she seemed like the same Rachel Hunt she had always been, which was somebody
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who was a well-respected person.
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She does her homework on things and she she
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seems like a good egg was her father governor
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then yes yeah he would have been wow that's so
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the school bus picked her up from the governor's mansion about that where was
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that did you go brought or go brought in high school no yes brought in high
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school okay that's very very cool so the next two are incumbents commissioner
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of agriculture we have steve troxler and commissioner of insurance mike causey.
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And those are the two Republicans on our Council of State list, right?
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That's correct. And both of the candidates in that race interviewed,
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and all the other races, but except for one, they all interviewed.
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So we got to see both sides of this.
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They were both good candidates, but we have a long working relationship with Steve Troxler.
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He's done a great job in the Department of Agriculture, and,
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you know, we thought he deserved another term.
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Nobody was more vocal about the crisis of staff vacancies and the importance
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of their employees than Steve Troxler. That's right.
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Commissioner Troxler has been a legend this year.
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Yeah, he actually brought it up in a committee before our conference,
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right? He's unbelievable. He's great.
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He was. And then down to the Commissioner of Insurance.
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Again, two strong candidates there. We have Natasha Marcus as a Democrat and
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Mike Hawsey as a current commissioner. He's the Republican.
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And again, we've built a good relationship with him and the employees in his
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building. He gives scenic access to all membership events there.
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He usually drives by if he's in the building and things like that, and he's done a good job.
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This was a tough call for us, but we endorsed Mike Causey for insurance.
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Next, we have a longtime scenic member and the star of some scenic conventions.
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She spoke several times at the scenic convention, Elaine Marshall,
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for the Secretary of State.
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She usually shows up and says a few words. Yeah, more than several times by my recollection.
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This one was really easy. Not only is she a long-time seating member,
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a long-time friend, and I think we've endorsed her all the way down the list,
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but her opponent also chose not to interview with us.
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And so it didn't take much talking on that one if you don't hear from her opponent.
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And they were all treated the exact same way.
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They all received the exact same communications.
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And so I just decided we weren't important enough. So Elaine Marshall is our choice there.
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Next is State Superintendent of Public Instruction. This is a really intriguing
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race. Our selection was Mo Green.
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Yes. And what were your thoughts on that race? Well, it is an incredibly important
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race because Mo Green has a great experience in the school system.
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He was superintendent, I think, of the Guilford County Schools.
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I think that's right. I think that's right. His opponent, the Republican Michelle
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Morrow, homeschooled all of her children.
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And she has referred to schools as indoctrination operations and several other
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things that give you great pause is, do you really want this person running
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our public school system?
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And our members said, hell no, but it is what it is. And that's the choice.
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Mo Green did a great interview. He was dead on. He has a great experience to
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come in and really work and rebuild our department of public instruction, build it even stronger.
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Because I think Catherine True has done a good job. It's just that she lost
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in the primary to Michelle Mara. And that was a that was a heartbreaker.
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I think Truett was pretty much kind of walking what is incredibly difficult
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line to walk to make people happy with their really all over the map views on
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public education and how it should run.
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So that was a shocking primary for sure. But I think, like John said,
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that's going to be one of the more interesting races, because I don't know why
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it's become popular to malign public employees as part of a person's platform for office.
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But that's what it feels like sometimes. You know, if you call schools indoctrination
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centers, well, who's working there? That's got to be the indoctrinators, right?
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Those are our members. Yeah. And in increasing numbers, we've got folks from schools looking to us.
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And the irony is we're a really nonpartisan organization.
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With an increasing number of school employees in our ranks.
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So I don't know why anybody would do that. If you work in schools,
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by the way, I'm so sorry for the stuff that's said about y'all.
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Because no matter what kind of educational freedoms people want for their own
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children, there's no reason to be terrible about people who are— To be bullied.
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Yeah, yeah. There's just no reason for that part of it. Yeah.
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And one of the things that she has in common with Mark Robinson,
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which is scary, is that they both think that North Carolina should turn down
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all federal funding to the public schools because it comes with strings attached.
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We're talking about $1.7 billion a year being taken away from our public schools.
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This is not the kind of people we need running our state government.
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Where would she get that money?
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Bake sales? I don't know. It would certainly, it would leave no money to pay
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anybody in Denver. They're not thinking this stuff through.
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I mean, the public schools are underfunded as it is. I mean, we all know that.
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So at any rate. Well, it would be more than a hit on public schools.
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You still have to run them. Yeah.
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So if you didn't get the federal money, you still have to run them.
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You know, a lot of those folks want to shift a lot of those resources to the
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private schools, right? Through the voucher program.
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Yeah. Well, privatization, we go through this all the time.
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Whether it's an agency or whether it's the schools, privatization is what that amounts to.
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And that doesn't work out to the benefit of taxpayers in the long run ever.
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But the problem is what keeps the private schools from just jacking up tuition by exactly that amount?
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Yeah. I don't know. The whole thing is kind of weird to me.
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It's as school choice makes total sense, I think, to most people and certainly to scenic members.
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I think we've got people all over the map on the idea that if you want to send
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your child to another school or school them at home, nobody's judging you.
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But to think you hand people, no matter what their income is,
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money to send them to a school, it's a harder sell.
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It seems to be with the public and certainly with our membership.
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Well, and also the thing that troubles me most about it is these schools are
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not held the same accountability that the public schools are.
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You don't have to take students who have special needs.
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You don't have to take everyone who comes to the door.
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And, you know, they don't have the same standards, you know.
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Standards. Like I said, it's just that's the part that bothers me the most is
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that these people are getting scholarships to go to schools that are not giving
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them a true education, in my opinion.
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Right. Calling public schools indoctrination centers and then saying that a
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school that very clearly has a mission in their name,
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maybe a religious mission or something like that, that's striking more and more people as odd.
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So we have the attorney general's race. That's a big, hotly contested race there.
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We have endorsed Jeff Jackson, who is now a congressman. Both candidates are in Congress, right?
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Right. That's right. So why did we pick Jeff Jackson?
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Well, again, both of these candidates interviewed with us, and they both did
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pretty good interviews.
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Dan Bishop, Congressman Bishop, had been very well prepared by his consultants
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on that and did a good interview.
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And Jeff Jackson has been a friend of ours for a long time.
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He has served in the North Carolina Senate as well as now in Congress.
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And he is really very focused on state employees, retirees, and other working
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families. You know, that's his niche.
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He's a great guy. He apparently has a great TikTok channel. I'm not a TikTok
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person, but he's very good on social media.
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We wholeheartedly endorse Jeb Jackson for that particular race.
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Okay, and then moving on to our last Council of State endorsement,
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State Auditor's position. Jessica Holmes is our pick.
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Yes, we were very excited to have Jessica Holmes as our endorsed candidate.
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She was appointed by Roy Cooper, Governor Roy Cooper, to replace Beth Woods
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when she stepped down. And she's off to a good start.
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She did a great interview with us. And her opponent, Dave Bullock,
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also did a good interview. He was very well prepped by his consultants as well.
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But we just felt like Jessica is off to a good start, and we need to see her continue.
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We want the same approach Beth Woods had all these years to be the same approach
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they go moving forward. and to be respected by both sides of the aisle,
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Republicans and Democrats.
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I think, yeah, Jessica Holmes is a very impressive attorney.
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She's an impressive person. And when she ran for commissioner of labor,
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we wholeheartedly supported her.
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She lost to Josh Dodson, who ended up being an outstanding commissioner of labor.
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I think she would have been great, too. But honestly, you kind of have to wonder,
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did everything happen for a reason?
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He made an outstanding commissioner of labor. She ended up, I think,
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the Industrial Commission and
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then is now, you know, the state auditor and running for that position.
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So maybe that path took her to right where she's supposed to be.
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I just know she's an incredibly bright young attorney.
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Well, young to me. And we're lucky to have her in public office at the statewide level.
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So I think everything at the end of the day worked out great.
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And this time we're hoping Jessica Holmes definitely wins.
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Yeah, we do. And we really want to encourage you to seriously consider voting
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for our endorsed candidates. We think we've made a really good job.
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And one of the things we're going to be pushing starting a convention next week
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and moving forward is getting our members to volunteer to help to support these candidates.
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We have raised a lot of money. We've made contributions to these candidates.
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But money alone doesn't do it.
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What makes us very unique is we represent about 46,000 members,
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and if all those folks get engaged and get their friends and families engaged
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with this, we can make a big difference in the election.
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So I hope you folks will make your plans to vote. Vote early if you can and
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help us get our endorsed candidates elected because they're the ones that are
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going to support us in the future.
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Speaking of Dobbs, one race we didn't make an endorsement in was the Commissioner
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of Labor. It's Commissioner of Labor.
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What were the reasons for not making an endorsement in that race?
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Well, the state committee interviewed both of these candidates,
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and we talked about it a good bit. We decided we would sit this one out.
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I think what people do forget is that the most important race to state employees
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out of every single one you just mentioned, honestly, might boil down to treasurer.
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That and the governor's race, I guess.
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Yeah. But I mean, treasurer is, because again, you can get a 20% raise,
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but if your health plan goes up enough and if your retirement benefits erode, it doesn't matter.
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Yeah. And I know Wesley Harris is out and about across the state,
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so if you get a chance to go to one of his events, please go by and talk to
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him personally and get to hear from his own mouth because he's doing a lot of
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campaigning out there, and maybe you can help him out some with his campaign.
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Speaking of a 20% raise, we'll touch briefly on the legislative races.
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It's a little more complicated. I haven't really reviewed the list.
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There's a lot of them. What is it, about 100 races that you endorsed?
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There's over 100. This is the most endorsements ever.
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We've ever made, as far as I can tell, in the legislative races.
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And John created a cool graphic, but it's almost like a mouse pipe with so many names on it.
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But we, again, we were very judicious. We looked at incumbents that have worked
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with us in the past in cases with new candidates.
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We looked at the candidates that we thought would best serve,
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again, the state employees, retirees, and working families, and did the best we could.
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It is very tough in the legislative races because Because in reality.
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There are only a handful of races that are competitive at all.
23:22
So you've got gerrymandered districts that are, they'll be an R or D plus 20% and things.
23:28
And, you know, the other party is not going to win that no matter which party it is.
23:32
So we were really picking and choosing, trying to build relationships with these
23:36
candidates, especially new candidates, as well as in reinforcing relationships
23:40
we've had with the incumbents.
23:42
And I think we've got a good list of candidates and we'll just see what happens.
23:45
But we're going to be out there for them, too.
23:47
Yeah, and you reviewed it at the beginning. But just to reiterate a little bit
23:51
about the process of picking a legislative candidate, it starts on maybe like
23:56
an area level, right? Right, right.
23:57
And the areas are assigned the opportunity to interview these candidates.
24:02
And a lot of them did this year. There are 170 races, and it's a challenge.
24:06
Some of the areas are very, very large and have limited numbers of members.
24:11
So the ones that they did not get an opportunity to interview.
24:14
And a lot of the candidates did not respond to requests for interviews this
24:17
year, which was kind of disheartening to me.
24:20
But they were looked at at the state level, and the state committee made decisions
24:24
because of things that the staff provided to us that said, we have a good relationship
24:28
with this person or that person.
24:31
Well, you know, I think people are going to ask the question.
24:34
Yeah. Impact endorsed Phil Berger. Yep, they did.
24:38
So I think a lot of people are going to say, okay, so Josh Stein and Phil Berger.
24:43
But you get that just about every cycle.
24:46
Oh, we do. In fact, it came up at the State Impact Committee meeting, that exact question.
24:50
And we take every race seriously, and we look at this. And Senator Berger has
24:55
been a good friend of ours on key issues.
24:58
He has helped us get through some hurdles that we've tried to address,
25:02
particularly when it was related to the deaths in the prison some years ago and things like that.
25:06
So he's been really strong on some of our issues.
25:09
There are some things that have come along where we've been on the opposite
25:12
side. I was with every candidate, but he was the one to endorse in this particular race.
25:18
Yeah, and I think at the end of the day, that's part of the strange thing about
25:21
scenics endorsements, but I believe it's what makes scenics endorsements.
25:25
So valuable. Like you said, when you go out and you when you're working at a
25:29
poll site, a voting site, and you're talking to people and they see this is
25:35
odd, it's going to make them wonder why.
25:37
And at the end of the day, the answer is an important one, which is folks have
25:41
honestly dissected every bit of these endorsements.
25:45
So, I mean, my hat is off to you and to the committee. It is not easy work.
25:49
It is about as hard to work as there is in this organization.
25:53
Well, it is. We take it very seriously because we were elected to these positions
25:57
to represent 40-some-thousand members.
26:00
And we do the best we can. You know, you can't represent every single one of
26:04
them for every single race because
26:05
that's just not the way the world works. But we do the best we can.
26:09
No, and I know, you know, lobbying for Scenic, there have been times that sometimes
26:13
the person Impact chose just was confusing to us as lobbyists.
26:19
But at the end of the day, that, too, is a beautiful thing because it means
26:23
that the democratic, little d democratic process in this organization is working.
26:29
Yeah. So why would a legislator ever work with you if he knew that he or she
26:33
knew that you would never?
26:34
Exactly. Exactly. I think everyone there coming in, they may not know it.
26:39
And when you say a lot of people didn't actually interview, that doesn't shock me.
26:42
I think a lot of people, A, never heard of scenic. B, they think the party's
26:46
going to handle everything for them no matter which party they belong to.
26:49
They get over there and they start to learn kind of the ropes if they're new.
26:53
And I think one of the things I learned about Scenic is that we are open to
26:58
working with anyone who wants to help public employees and retirees. We will work with you.
27:03
And we, most importantly, will have the back of anybody who's had the back of
27:08
state employees and retirees.
27:10
We have always had the back of anybody that helped us.
27:13
Well, and over the past week, the State Impact Committee, the area chairs,
27:18
have been allowed to contact the candidates that they endorse in their area.
27:21
And I've had several reports back from people, particularly Junior Hulin,
27:26
our State Impact Vice Chair, who was talking about people that had said that
27:30
they'd never been endorsed, never got money and all this stuff.
27:33
They're just over the moon because they were endorsed this year and gave him
27:40
the cell phone number and all this stuff. I've built that whole relationship
27:44
out just with that one candidate.
27:46
But others like that, people, even when we start the interview process,
27:50
people will not know a lot about us, but they see how legitimate we are by the
27:54
way we do things, the way that we're nonpartisan.
27:57
I mean, just like it's not fair to characterize all public employees in any
28:01
one way, that that's just uncool.
28:02
It's equally uncool to just decide everybody
28:06
coming to the legislature with a letter no matter what
28:09
the letter is next to their name deciding you know how they're going to act
28:12
you do not i will assure you that yeah i can assure you neither party has all
28:17
the answers so this may be an off the wall question we get the comment on facebook
28:25
when we post these endorsements,
28:27
and I think we just got one, but that why don't you use that money to lobby
28:32
for state employees and not use it for endorsing candidates?
28:36
Can you explain that the money for impact comes from donations,
28:41
right, directly to impact? It's not scenic dues.
28:44
That's exactly right. Cine's been on the last few years, a million-dollar mission,
28:49
is the goal is to raise a million dollars every two years to support our endorsed candidates.
28:53
This comes from voluntary contributions from our members.
28:57
So I think people don't understand there's election laws and that those really
29:02
dictate how you can raise money.
29:04
But also, there are members of Scenic who feel so strongly that every candidate
29:10
they support, they want it to be of one party.
29:12
So they don't want to give to RPAC. They should not want to give to RPAC because
29:16
RPAC is always going to be a hodgepodge all over the map.
29:19
And therefore, that's why, as Mark said, that's a voluntary thing so that people
29:24
who really believe in putting our resources towards the people.
29:29
Not the party, but the people who have supported us, that that's the way to
29:33
go. And these funds, these are all personal funds, voluntary, as Artie said.
29:37
But they also go to the campaign committees.
29:40
They do not go, we do not write a check to Josh Stein. We write a check to the
29:44
campaign committee for Josh Stein and all of our other candidates.
29:48
And that's all controlled by election laws.
29:50
Senate cannot legally use dues money to make contributions to candidates.
29:55
Is we can use the money that's collected by it back through our million-dollar mission.
30:00
And I don't have the final numbers yet, but it looks like we're going to have
30:03
ended up with about $800,000 over the last two years, which is getting closer
30:07
to that million-dollar mission. Getting up there. Pretty sizable pack there.
30:10
Yeah, I know. And my job, the most restrictive thing I ever deal with is elections.
30:15
Like everything that we do, we have to send to our attorney to see if this is okay.
30:21
That's correct. Yeah, and I mean, I'm sure that the finances are even way more stringent. Oh, yes.
30:28
Believe that Mark doesn't want to go to jail. I tell the pack frequently,
30:33
I do not look good in an orange jumpsuit, so we're going to follow the rules.
30:37
So we're super careful. But to piggyback on something you said earlier,
30:42
the contributions are important, the monetary contributions,
30:45
but they are nowhere near as important.
30:48
As the votes. Yes, and the volunteer. Yes. The volunteer time.
30:52
If you don't love all of the candidates the PAC endorsed, don't volunteer for the PAC.
30:58
Volunteer for those specific people you like that matter to you.
31:01
I mean, participate in the electoral process if you can.
31:05
It's a really great thing to do.
31:07
And if you're a state employee and you do want things to be different.
31:10
Vote. Yes, because we will never have the money, to be clear, that big business has.
31:15
No. Oh, there are donors out there, rich donors that can write an $800,000 check
31:20
out their business. personal account and not even miss it. Right.
31:22
But what we have, like you said earlier, that they do not is numbers.
31:27
And if we get those numbers of people, even a fraction of those numbers of people
31:32
active in talking to other people and truly talking to them,
31:37
not at them like so much of politics is these days,
31:40
but talking to them about why scenic endorses who they endorse.
31:45
You would be surprised that you'll get some pretty good public officials into office.
31:50
That's the plan. That's the plan. It's a good plan. Well, it's great to have you on, Mark.
31:55
Appreciate the opportunity. Do you want to go through John's crazy question
31:57
of the week, or do you want to sit there? Oh, why not?
32:01
John's wacky, weird question of the week.
32:03
Music.
32:08
Well, I'll hit you with this question. I'll give you a little time to think.
32:12
What are your Labor Day plans?
32:14
What do you do at Labor Day? And you know what I'm doing?
32:18
Fantasy football drafts. I have three of them this week. Oh, my goodness.
32:21
Are you serious? I told my family we couldn't go to the beach because last year I missed my draft.
32:26
I had to do it on my phone. Tell me that's not the truth.
32:30
You didn't literally tell your family you could not. This year I marked it on the calendar in May.
32:36
I have to go to this draft. I'm sorry. Someone needs to do their doctoral thesis
32:42
on the psychology behind that.
32:45
This whole fantasy football thing. I can't wrap my head around it. Oh, it's...
32:51
You know, I'll be interested to see if there's as much interest in it this year
32:56
because sports betting is so big now in North Carolina. But I digress.
33:01
What are you guys doing? Well, I'm going to the Dermott Family Reunion at my
33:05
brother's place at Lake Tillery.
33:07
We do that every Labor Day weekend, so I get to see some of my cousins and my brothers and sisters.
33:14
That's a great thing to do. Lake Tillery is awesome. I drove over it Saturday.
33:20
Yeah, he has a jet ski, too. Oh, nice. That's my favorite part.
33:23
But I grew up going to Lake Tulare because my uncle had a place there.
33:27
And anytime you thought of a lake, that's where you thought of.
33:30
So, like, I never even knew there were other lakes until I was like eight.
33:34
Yeah, yeah. Well, I usually do
33:37
my yard because I'm headed to Scenics Convention the day after Labor Day.
33:42
But I do want to say there's a lot of events going on always around Labor Day
33:48
to commemorate the actual meaning.
33:50
And so if you have an opportunity, go to something like that.
33:55
I know it's a great time for folks, families to get together and get out in
33:59
the boat or something like that.
34:01
But Labor Day is an important time to just commemorate what we're,
34:05
how blessed we are, honestly, to live in a country where work looks the way it does.
34:11
I think we complain about work a lot. And you can thank the labor movement for
34:16
that holiday and for the weekend that you have every week, right?
34:20
So to all the people who came before us to make it so easy that we actually
34:24
have time off, and that's an amazing thing. And we're not working when we're 12.
34:30
All kinds of good things from the past.
34:33
We'll end it on that note, but be sure to go out and vote and work for your
34:38
Scenic-endorsed candidates. And check our website, scenic.org,
34:42
if you want to see our list and study it a little closer. Thank you for tuning in.
34:48
Music.