CA Assembly, Josh Lowenthal: Shaping Tomorrow - Bold Ideas on Government, Justice, Social Media, and Peace

coming up on the Nick Stanley show I would like to understand from the IDF What specifically are they doing at this stage in the war and what are their plans to minimize civilian casualties in their goals secondly I'd like to better understand what is the plan you know to dissect this issue just for a second yeah nobody has a plan the only plan that I know of is from Hamas their plan is to eliminate Israel but the Israelis don't seem to have a plan the United States doesn't seem to have a plan uh the Palestinians who don't support Hamas don't seem to have a plan so uh we really need to you know put everything out on the table I think it's totally appropriate for Israel to have the right to protect itself but there are limits to that and that goes hand inand with understanding exactly what the plan is and we support and enable the Israeli government the Israeli military and that should have limits as well and I say this as a Jewish American a very proud Jewish American and I lived in Israel for some time I spent almost three years there I was a volunteer uh at an immigrant absorption Center I was a volunteer on a kibutz in the north of the country I was a volunteer into the IDF in a non-fighting capacity um I learned to speak Hebrew and I feel a deep connection to the country and to the Israeli people but I'm also very Pro Palestinian I believe in a two-state solution I believe that Palestinian people should have all the rights and dignity of any people in the world and should have the rights to their own nation and the vast majority of them are being used as a political hot potato and what they really care about is education for their children and maybe how to go you know go out to dinner and uh you know live a nice life and um care for their parents care for their children you know um and it's really untenable what we have right now so we've got to get focused on security safety and getting past the things that have happened and focus on what we can do going forward the life of a republic lies in the energy virtue and intelligence of its citizens I'm happy today to welcome a citizen with a lot of energy virtue and intelligence who's decided to dedicate his life to public service in the government sector assemblyman Josh lenthal comes from a family dedicated to Public Service Josh was elected in 2022 to the 69th District which includes the cities of Long Beach Carson Signal Hill and Catalina Island prior to his election Josh served in various roles in the Telecommunications industry first as the president of freeconference call.com and then as the general manager of mint mobile he lives in Long Beach with his three daughters Josh welcome to the show thank you Nick appreciate it how are you doing today I'm doing great it's exciting to be here yeah this is uh well not only the first podcast I've been on I've never listened to a podcast so nice there you have it well hopefully you listen to this one it's uh it's definitely going to be uh on my list of things to do for sure all right let's start at the beginning where did you grow up who are your parents let's go from there uh grew up in the LBC born and raised in Long be as a matter of fact so born at uh Kaiser Harbor City actually and I went to Long Beach Unified Schools public schools my dad was a professor at Cal State Long Beach my mom taught at Long Beach City College um during my dad's sabatical years he went and taught in Mexico and Spain and sent my brother Danny and I to Local Schools so we learned to become fluent Spanish speakers as kids and kind of gave us a global perspective at that young age and you know this is the 1970s there wasn't a lot of English there wasn't a lot of globalism there wasn't the internet there wasn't cable TV at that time in fact in the neighborhoods we lived in in Mexico there wasn't any TV so it it was and we didn't have a phone in our house even a fix line phone so we were you know totally and completely immersed and uh after Mexico we came back in uh Willard Elementary School Long Beach at that time was the only bilingual education School in Long Beach Unified that was a new thing right and so U my parents insisted that we go there to continue Spanish but also to you know really have a diverse you know upbringing and socialization and that was the greatest gift they ever gave to me and my brother um I continued on with magnet programs in Long Beach Unified so I was in the sharp program at Signal Hill Elementary I was in the tap program at Hughes Middle School and then I went to poly pace for high school with Snoop Dog and Cameron Diaz and you know many movers and shakers that are really just doing incredible things throughout the world right now right did you ever cross paths with Snoop oh yeah yeah and of course the Diaz family are here in Seal Beach and you know closely connected with this community um and have been campaign supporters of mine actually so they're close friends and you know once you're from long Beach and you grow up with that flavor you can't replicate it anywhere else in the world so to that end you know even if you go on to do other things the people from Long Beach stay connected with each other right and Cameron if you want to come on we'd love to have you um what's the biggest lesson you learned from your father growing up the biggest lesson that I learned from my father well my parents were were ahead of the curve on human rights issues way before um on on a lot of different things on immigrant rights on lgbtq rights as a matter of fact yeah inalienable human rights and so you know learning those things as a kid just set the stage foundational for the values I would have as an adult um I remember my mom saying to me at a young age I was talking about a war and she would say I don't believe in war and I didn't understand that I mean well you believe in God you believe in you know things what do you mean you don't believe in war so I I don't believe in War I don't believe there's any reason why we should ever you know kill each other there not got to be a way that we can resolve conflict in other ways and she's right there are other ways to resolve conflict yeah we could use more diplomacy right now in the world rather than solving it with shooting each other well I'll put a pin in something right now but actually this coming week I'm off to Israel oh wow uh with several members of the legislature and there will be a few members of the Jewish caucus going but most of the members well roughly a little over half the members that are going are not Jewish yeah um it is events that take place Global globally global conflict impact us here in California and our daily lives in California and so it's totally and completely Germaine for us to you know be involved it's also the second largest Jewish population other than New York outside of Israel is here in California and you know one of the largest Muslim you know populations and so it's it's really important for the citizens that we you know address the conflict in as much as it's impacting the people here yeah what is the Hope for that trip over there that the group is wants to achieve well there's there are many goals uh we'll be meeting with the president we'll be meeting with a you know uh IDF leaders so leaders of the actual uh military themselves we'll be meeting with Muslim leaders uh Arab Israeli uh leaders and so forth and I think and Business Leaders we have a lot of concerns first of all we're economically interconnected with Israel mhm uh California companies have multi-billion dollar investments in you know especially the tech sector uh in Israel right now and um and so that's a big thing on even more important than that of course there are families in California that are connected to the hostages there are certainly families that have um been impacted and had family members perish or been injured in the conflict both on October 7th in the terror attack but you know Palestinian families in Gaza as well innocent families in Gaza impacted by war that is not of their doing and um you know California families are impacted by that totally and completely um and you know there is such passion for and connection to this area for so many for millions of people across the globe and California's fourth largest economy on the planet you know we are a global player whether you like it or not so I think the different members have different goals and objectives I would like to understand from the IDF What specifically are they doing at this stage in the war and what are their plans to minimize civilian casualties in their goals secondly I'd like to better understand what is the plan you know to dissect this issue just for a second yeah nobody has a plan the only plan that I know of is from Hamas their plan is to eliminate Israel but the Israelis don't seem to have a plan the United States doesn't seem to have a plan uh the Palestinians who don't support Hamas don't seem to have a plan so uh we really need to you know put everything out on the table I think it's totally appropriate for Israel to have the right to protect itself but there are limits to that and that goes hand inand with understanding exactly what the plan is and we support and enable the Israeli government the Israeli military and that should have limits as well and I say this as a Jewish American a very proud Jewish American and I lived in Israel for some time I spent almost three years there I was a volunteer uh at an immigrant absorption Center I was a volunteer on a kibutz in the north of the country I was a volunteered into the IDF in a non-fighting capacity um I learned to speak Hebrew and I feel a deep connection to the country and to the Israeli people but I'm also very Pro Palestinian I believe in a two-state solution I believe that Palestinian people should have all the rights and dignity of any people in the world and should have the rights to their own nation and the vast majority of them are being used as a political hot potato and what they really care about is education for their children and maybe how to go you know go out to dinner uh you know live a nice life and um care for their parents care for their children you know um and it's really untenable what we have right now so we've got to get focused on security safety and getting past the things that have happened and focus on what we can do going forward in your estimation what would be the best path forward given how long that conflict has been ongoing and recent events which have obviously been horrific on both sides as you mentioned is there is there a path forward of course there is I believe that you know there can always be a path forward you know that everybody harps on the conflict since the period of 1948 until today MH with good reason um because you know you have sort of the the the the community of Nations defining boundaries in the future and you know all the things that have been quite difficult but let's not forget that Palestinian people Arab people and Jews have lived side by side in the old city in Jerusalem for centuries and centuries and centuries both peoples have very legitimate um connection to the the country to the territory to the land to the history to the culture these are people that are quite similar to each other very very similar and I think if you talk to the masses and ask what do you want they will all say peace um right now what we actually need Nick is regime change on both sides I don't think that there's legitimacy uh with Kamas whatsoever and I don't think there's legitimacy in the Netanyahu government because I don't think they're acting in good faith as it relates to um a Palestinian State a two-state solution and you know that's not making Israel safer ultimately so is there a path forward yes there's a path forward we've been very close to it in a few different occasions and as matter of fact when I was living in the country in the mid90s is when the oso cords were taking place Clinton was President rabine was there it was actually while rabine was assassinated while it was over there and they were so so close to reaching an agreement um and I you know I hold hope that that that can take place in the future I do too I mean I if we look back at World War II and how awful the fighting was between Germany and the United States or Japan and the United States and now those are strong allies of this country and I agree with you there is always a path forward if everyone can focus on the future instead of recent past transgressions yeah and I think what we have to acknowledge is the diversity of opinion that exist in those cultures and we talk about Israel we talk about Hamas or we talk about but you know realistically it's as diverse as here in the United States or here in this community you really run the gamut from the far right to the far left and everybody believes that their point of view is the point of view and and um you have the same you know diversity of opinion over there and even more so it's entangled in um you know religion in its Orthodoxy um or in you know those that are secular and the tension between those two things or across different religions or you know uh human rights women's rights lgbtq rights you know things around that it is very very complex the entire situation totally and completely complex and let's not forget that there are many actors in the world there are nations in the world and otherwise that have a lot to gain by having that conflict continue m uh right now you have Nations like Iran and Russia you to to a lesser degree China that want conflict in the Middle East to continue because it covers up some of their actions elsewhere and you know that Discord plays right into their hand and so they're going to try and pour more gasoline on the fire any which way that they can right right is there are there ongoing diplomatic efforts to talk to those countries as well to try to get them to stop pouring gasoline on this situation well that's you know who's talking to Iran right I I don't really know the answer to that question Nick um you know I don't necessarily think that that's kind of how things go sort of on a on a global level but I can tell you there are many different interests you know there's not Harmony between Arab Nations themselves right and so they all may have different interests uh um and we see that the tension involved here is escalating so the United States is taking military action right now also of great concern for the legislators that are traveling to the Middle East um and that's a big deal um those were iran-backed Rebels that have said that they are attacking us and British Targets in the Red Sea until there's a ceasefire in Gaza so let's stop and think about that for a second right right so um and you know servicemen and women and the US side actually have perished because of that so it's complex the Israel Palestine issue has become a bit of a wedge issue for the Democratic party which is an which is a complicated development in and of itself what are your thoughts on that you know we've seen a big change in society over the last 10 years and over the last five years and certainly since the pandemic it's like the pandemic exacerbated by social media and the pitfalls of social media which I want to put a pin that we can come back to that a lot of my legislation's focused on that um and I think we see the far right and the farle really kind of you know breaking off and you know with the far right it has to do with you know elections and voting and the veracity of Elections and this concept that we shouldn't be able to make it easy for people to vote MH and that we shouldn't trust our elections officials and we shouldn't trust data we really shouldn't and we should just trust what we read on the internet from people that we trust and that's it and on the Democratic side I think you know has broken off around this issue in particular um and it's tough for me as a Jewish American and the only Jewish elected official you know in the cities that I represent on any level um it it's been really tough and the level of anti-Semitism that's come as a result of this is scary it's an existential threat I'm not sure how much people uh are really focusing in on that but you know my kids have dealt with it directly they've had swastikas sent to them wow um multiple occasions uh all three of them as a matter of fact and I've dealt with it I've had people come up and start screaming at me I went to a demonstration outside Long Beach City Hall and the demonstration was for um the city to take up a resolution for ceasefire and we've seen that in urban centers all over the United States um some have accepted it some have rejected it some have been Pro Palestine some been pro Israel but they're all about the same thing which is taking a side and picking a side mhm as opposed to you know focusing on peace or more importantly focusing on what are the impacts of War on the people in California and how this is tearing us apart to your underlying Point well this demonstration at City Hall was geared to get the attention of elected officials I went to it I've tried to go to all the demonstrations taking place in the district try and learn from the demonstrators and hear them and understand them um that's the job so I went to this one one and I was kind of recognized and the people involved in the demonstration turned their attention from demonstrating on the issue and ceasefire to being angry at me they started screaming at me and uh they started a chant a recall lenthal chant and then a few people came up and surrounded me and my district director was standing right next to me they said you need to leave here right now mhm and at first I thought they were talking about my safety I thought that they were concerned something was going to happen to me and I I said no that's okay I'm I'm good I'm good yeah they said no no you don't belong here you need to leave right now then I understood what was going on I said wait a second let me take inventory what's going on yeah you're doing a demonstration to get the attention of elected officials I'm an elected official as a matter of fact I'm the only elected official here and I came here specifically to listen to you and to learn from you right I'm not going anywhere and in fact you need to back up away from me and give me some space I'm going to contact law enforcement and just to be clear they didn't want you there because you're Jewish yeah wow yeah so for whatever reason you know the the vitrol and frustration around War which is fair for people to feel emotional about war the by a byproduct of it in this has been anti-Semitism uh anti-arab or islamophobia as we call it um and just intolerance total intolerance and picking a side doesn't do anybody any good these are two peoples that deserve to live in dignity and the leaders are making choices that are makinging it harder and harder for coexistence and harder and harder to find Harmony and a good resolution to this Quagmire and we really need to make sure that we are holding those leaders accountable you know I that's why I'm going I want to hold the leaders of Israel accountable to a solution that includes a dignity for all people and security for all people because if we don't have those things this problem will never go away and and that minimizes killing of innocent people you know that's that's truly important now terrorism is is horrific sexual violence is inexcusable period on any level in any scenario uh the things that took place on October 7th are atrocious and need to be called out and they need to be called out by everyone including the Palestinian people mhm right but it is not a license in and of itself you know to you know wipe out a complete total populace of people and so um there has to be a middle ground to this and that middle ground includes understanding listening to the other side even when it's uncomfortable that's why I go to those demonstrations I'm trying to learn I'm trying to understand and I'm trying to you know find ways where we can um you know build consensus um in Any Which Way well thank you for taking the job so seriously and going above and beyond to get out there with people who are demonstrating and and listen to them and learn from them as you said and then making the trip to the Middle East to listen and learn and hopefully influence things in a positive way over there um because not all of our elected officials officials take the job so seriously um and I really deeply appreciate as a as a member of this community that you are taking those steps um to make our state a better place and the world a better place if we transition around to where we to where we were headed so grew up sorry about that that's okay that was we got deep in the Middle East real fast we did we did um as people do as they do as they do um so grew up in Long Beach and then where did you go to college I went to Cornell as an undergrad um I you know my parents both come from New York New York Jews and and uh made their way out to California in the liberal 60s and met in San Francisco and fell in love uh but my extended family is all in New York and so I always wanted to go back East to college for me that was like an exciting thing and especially because I'm a California kid and I knew I would live in California that this is the promised land for me so MH with that why not go somewhere else for four years and really experience that and really you know um get a different perspective and you know see the seasons and live in snow and you know all the things around that and um so glad that I did that was just an unbelievable experience and you mentioned Carl Sean was teaching there at that time yes did you ever have a class with him or or see him I did as a freshman I I you know he he mostly wrote books and you know travel the world lecturing right and was truly tuned into to graduate students but he was an interesting person he always made sure that you know at least one semester a year would do an undergraduate lecture class so that everybody could you know feel connected to him and uh what a great human I really helped expand all of our minds and so much he really did I so the earlier you mentioned uh you spotted that book there billions and billions oh yeah and I when I applied to pittser college piter was a backup for me and I did not maybe give it my all in my application initially what was your Top Choice UCLA oh yes and then UCLA denied me bastards bastards they're regretting that now they they might be they might if you're watching UCL it's not too late send him a letter that's right um and and then Pitzer denied me as well uh and I worked really hard on the UCLA application but the piter one my heart really wasn't in it um and I had a job at the time as a chauffeur for the kind of big donors the Board of Trustees for the graduate school that's in Claremont connected to pittser college and I I remember I had just gotten the denial from Pitzer uh and I was really heartbroken because now I'm sitting on two denials and I had only applied to those two schools which is a terrible idea as a student I was just so certain I was going to get into UCLA we should do a podcast on that strategy alone we should yeah yeah well that I'd probably listen to that podcast that one that one is coming soon good um yeah uh early next month um yes and I was driving that night picked up this trustee for the colleges huge donor I don't even know who he is though and I had to sit in the car for about two hours while he attended a dinner and then he comes back out and I'm going to drive him to the airport he was just flew in picked him up took him to the dinner and then he's back on a plane back to wherever he was going and when he got back into the car I was reading that book billions and billions and he said uh he he asked me about it and he said I just read that book uh what do you think of it and we get in this long conversation about it while we're driving to the airport and he said why are you reading it is this for a class I said no I just picked it up for fun and thought it was really interesting and uh and he said where are you going to college and I said well funny you should ask I just was denied by Pitzer and he shook his head and he said H that doesn't seem right and then she starts asking about my grades my SAT score and other things and I admit to him I said I honestly it was it was a backup school I phoned it in on the application I didn't even come interview and I lived within driving distance of the school and he said okay listen I'm going to do something for you if you promise to kick ass if I do you this favor I'm all ears now he said I'm going to call them and tell them that we met and I think they need to re-evaluate your application I said I'll do anything I said honestly Pitzer has become my first choice because I visited in between getting denied from UCLA and denied by Pitzer and I was like this is this is an amazing place to go to school I I I just you know I was 18 I wasn't thinking straight and uh he made that call they allowed me to re to do an interview and then resubmit my essay and I just apologized profusely in the interview and I said I didn't know how amazing the school was I screwed up can I please have another chance they gave me that chance and then they did admit me and my whole life changed as a result um so yeah that's why that book is on the Shelf that's a big one W Amazing Story I love that story cool well and then working actually there was a lot of elements to that story that I uh grabbed on to one of which is that you can say ass on a podcast that's okay we can say anything we can say anything we want there's no jurisdictional authority over this no oh no you can curse all you want Josh that's all I wanted that's all I needed but that is really a fascinating story is it it it is interesting how small events or people that we meet along the way can change the trajectory in our lives and um it's interesting that reading a book by Carl Sean billions of billions you know what driving somebody around change the trajectory in your life and I hope you had a amazing college experience it was excellent it was excellent so you're at Cornell were you focused on business at this time government little bit of both so I didn't have anybody in life mentoring me in business my dad was a psych Professor that time you know he later went into politics um my mom was teaching at Long Beach City College she became a marriage and family counselor so my both my parents are shrinks um how was that it explains a lot about me right now do uh that's that's a half joking yeah um no they they they didn't have any business background whatsoever um so I didn't I didn't have any mentoring as far as that's concerned so I was really interested in in the public sector I thought I was going to get involved in nonprofit management as I got older and I really I wanted to be a teacher I really didn't you know aspire to to be a business leader um but I was very interested in government at an early age so growing up in Long Beach we supported Progressive causes right that time we called liberal causes MH um for example we didn't have table grapes grapes in our house growing up because we were supporting the boycott against grapes in support of the farm work uh Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers movement which uh you know unfair treatment that they were getting literally people were dying by having pesticides cancer causing pesticides sprayed you know in the workplace if you can imagine in 2024 you know the litigation around that right right um back in the day you know with with immigrant population that was not you know conditioned to be able to speak out on these things and didn't have the advocacy until SAR Chavez came about well we supported that b boycott I got to Cornell as a freshman and I led the boycott against California table grapes in our dining Halls it's okay to have grapes we can get grapes from Chile we can get grapes from other places but we shouldn't be getting grapes from places that are actually killing the workers in the process right seems fair yeah and so you know part of organizing as a freshman right when I got there lent itself to getting involved in government so I I ran for the freshman at large in the student assembly Cornell assembly at that time I'm not sure how it's how it how it's managed now but um there were many seats there were uh seats based on what college you were in there was at large seats like a freshman at large graduate students at large there was LGBT uh which at that time we called gay lesbian B sexual at large [Music] um and uh uh I was elected by a margin of two votes to be the freshman at large and then I really enjoyed sitting in the student assembly and in my at the end of my first year I ran for the uh College of Arts and Sciences at large seat for my sophomore year and I won and then I ran to be the president of the student assembly so the president of the the body at Cornell in my sophomore year and I won so I you know I was actually elected before anybody in my family back home had been elected was really involved in student government at that time so then you're graduating from Cornell and then you go have a very successful business career how did you well first I was teacher I was teacher in Long Beach Unified School District I taught at Poly High School my El Mo taught at milikin High School school I taught history in government loved it uh by the way my time in the classroom was the best um management preparation for going into business because I had to learn how to motivate 120 kids differently based on the skills and the wiring that they have excuse me there bless you yeah thanks so um you know I I I really enjoyed that experience completely and then I went to go live in the middle leas and I applied to graduate school in the meantime in international Affairs and that International Affairs curriculum uh where I end up going at UC San Diego included comparative public policy diplomacy and International Management business okay so I was exposed to things in that environment that I never had before um you know accounting and finance and macroeconomics and microeconomics and uh comparative public policy and Economic Policy um and learned a lot of the tools that I'm fortunately able to use you know today actually in the assembly so I I I look back at that education but I I I from that I really got interested in business and business and government intersect in a lot of different ways so I got interested in the telecommunication sector telecoms back in the day were all government-owned all of them so TNT actually stands for American Telephone and Telegraph because Telephone and Telegraph and post systems were all government-owned while the post office still is Right Telegraph last I checked not a lot of people are telegraphing each other right or faxing for that matter but uh the telephone systems or our you know uh internet you know telecommunication systems are now completely privatized but many countries in the 90s when I kicked off my career in Telecom were still government-owned and from my fluency in Spanish I was able to get started in a career in Telecom with companies that were working in Latin America and um and that was it so they were still government-owned entities it's like working in diplomacy with a business bent to it and using my Spanish and using the globalism the experiences I had from as a child experien in graduate school experiences you know living abroad it was you know really a perfect fit for me and I I loved every second of it and then what was the transition like from deciding to run for State Assembly and that first experience of running which didn't go your way great question so uh I I went on this business trajectory um in global telecommunication got inv you know uh started a conference calling company uh that company ultimately got swallowed up by freeconference call.com and I worked on globalizing Free Conference Call and launching it in over 50 countries around the world um but back at home I got involved in local business so here in Seal Beach I'm an owner of local business here Patty's place and right across the bridge I'm a partner at uh the boat house yeah and several other you know businesses in town and when you're involved in local business small business you interface with government regulatory systems yeah two great restaurants by the way oh thanks man thanks um and so I you know started getting active really getting active meanwhile you know my my parents were serving my brother is a judge at this point um they're all elected officials and you know I'm the one writing checks for all their campaigns right um but really from you know the front seat able to see how they're positively impacting people's quality of life and you know doing unbelievable work and um I had always you know for my entire life always kind of struggled you know between you know what's the best path it's the private sectors the public sector and had hoped that I would have the opportunity to go back I had moved uh with my then wife into you know this community in Orange County um where she was from and right after Donald Trump was elected in 2016 which was a bit of a heads scratcher for Democrats in well anywhere right we're all surprised by it that a reality TV star with you know the explosive nature that he does and what I learned was a big Allure to people and sort of blowing up the system um you know was a big threat to many and it certainly was to me at that time and that was the impetus right after that election I kind of had to check myself and say what are you doing Josh what are you doing you know to contribute to A system that is you know electing people like this and I you know from that moment forward first of all I decide to run but I always encourage people like you Nick that good people should get out there and run for office really that's what we need is the best and the brightest people in our communities to run and represent us and you know and work with us and that doesn't mean that everybody needs to subscribe to the same ideas that you have or that I have it means that um we can validate we can um synthesize the views of all the people in our community you know to come up with something where people all feel like they're stakeholders and they have connection to the process itself and have a sense of Harmony so at that time there was a State Assembly member in this area his name was Travis Allen and he was truly bombastic guy he was really just running around trying to get headlines no connection to the community itself he doesn't even live here anymore okay and uh I knew that the state level is actually where all the work gets done MH you know with no offense to the work my dad did in Congress or other members of congress not a lot happens out there it's top down you know leadership makes decisions and that everybody in the part is supposed to fall in line and if your party is not in control of your chamber there's nothing to do actually very very little to do so that's why so little gets done in why so little gets done and there's this there's no term limits and a seniority system so you don't get a committee chair unless you've been there for 10 or 15 years um and it really takes time to work your way up you know the ranks let's contrast that with California California you can write legislation and pass bills in your first year just like I just did I had seven bills signed by the governor after my first year that would never ever happen to anybody on the Federal level right and on the local level the municipal level why I truly admire the work that's done it is actually the most impactful work that affects people's lives or what's happening on community level mostly deals with at the city council's land use and contract negotiations and uh for public service employees and that's not really you know the things that you know make me tick uh much more interested in sort of you know broader policy initiative so the state was for me so that job is what I want to do and it had always been a red district and as a you know an entrepreneur so you know business person that might be able to appeal to centrists uh I thought it was a good fit for me and I I went for it now the downside is is I had just moved into the community people didn't really know me in the community i' Been a Long Beach guy my whole life um the influence that my family had you know from you know Decades of serving and you know being involved in Long Beach didn't translate over here and so it was tough I had to to build but it was an unbelievable campaign I you know raised over $3 million for a State Legislative campaign it was the number one most targeted race in the state and I ran against uh a Vietnamese American man who's no longer surveying his name is Tyler de and there were a lot the district included little Saigon and there were a lot of you know tough identity politics that I couldn't overcome in that race we finished at 49% I didn't win but it was the best learning experience of my life and what came from that is I realized this is the work I want to do it may not be now but this is the work that I want to do yeah so then you run again two years later four years later oh four years later okay yeah I had I had uh gone through divorce and you know gone back to Long Beach where uh I wanted to be and I um was very close with the assembly member Patrick odonnell from Long Beach and he had let me know in advance when he decided not to run for reelection uh before the 2022 cycle so all of the relationships that I built in running in 2018 and the donor Network that I had built and the community of volunteers and supporters were all intact right and so I kind of got the operation going it's like hey guys let's get the band back together yeah and I feel so uh grateful you know for that and uh was able to Prevail in 2022 and here I am yeah well I'm glad you ran again because I love a good comeback story and it was such a razor thin margin the first time I mean razor thin and I really think you're doing good work now one of the things I like about how you approach difficult conversations and disagreement and I learned this at the Christmas parade party uh just this last December when we were just chatting and I think even then got into some geopolitics uh at the at the time um I like this quote from uh Naval racon he said you can approximate how independent of a thinker You Are by noticing how neatly your political belief beliefs line up with those of your party and I've heard him speak more at length about that but that there should be no single group or body that just determines all of your beliefs if you're going to be an independent thinker and I think you are an independent thinker and that allows you to have real dialogue with people that agree with you partially a whole lot or even not at all uh and that's a skill I think we could use more of in politics today do you have any thoughts on how state level Federal level we can get more Reaching Across the aisle more positive dialogue between the two parties to make Congress more functional again uh to have people stop hating each other in the streets when every time there's a presidential election cuz it it's already heating up uh for the upcoming one there's only one way yeah there has to be massive campaign Finance reform the incentives by which uh people operate in these jobs are totally tied to their ability to get there right um you know my district is over half a million people how do I get my message out to over half a million people there is no mainstream media any longer it's eviscerated right um you know in order to send mail in order to uh have digital ads in order to you know run any radio or television or any way to connect with a voter um in districts that large you have to have funding for that and right now you know we we have a system that um you know and I don't know why people won't talk about it but you are behold it to your donors MH you know I want you to think about Nick people that have helped you along the way you told me earlier in this conversation about this gentleman who you were driving around who literally changed the trajectory of your life yeah and got you into pitser college and you know in large part you know um really made you or put you on a path to where you are right now what would have happened otherwise probably would end up in Community College not that you would have been successful but it really made an important impact on you getting to that next level it did if he calls you right now and you see his phone come up are you going to answer the phone absolutely and it's what do you need how can I pay that back how can I help you yeah right so there are some people that are giving for altruistic means especially small dollar donors right because they're True Believers but anyone who has a political interest corporations labor unions people involved in a specific narrow issue they're trying to gain influence and institutionally we have a system that lends itself to that and those interests typically line up with parties right so to create truly independent thinkers that are not beholden to any interest whatsoever we have to get rid of the incentives by which they need resources to get there I believe in publicly financed campaigns completely which would take away the relevance of the parties themselves right to some degree right because are the parties really doing us much service any longer it does we get a lot from them it doesn't feel like it as a citizen um I would I would like to see things be more effective well and especially because now with the internet and social and all the bells and whistles that come with that we have a mechanism to get any bit of information that we want you know back in the day you needed parties to coales around certain things when you didn't have information to build trust now you have the ability to go and get any bit of information that you want and on any specific issue you should be able to determine where you stand on that issue so I you know I I wish we had a completely different system and by the way you know I spend a certain percentage of my time calling people and asking them for money on my re-election I'm doing it right now sure and it's it's horrific I shouldn't be spending my time on that I should be spending my time on the constituents of the sixth and9th Assembly District on the people of the State of California improving their quality of life in any which way that I can but in order to be competitive you have to raise money and that brings you right back into the cycle uh because someone else if someone else does that and you don't they're going to have all the funds to send those mailers run those digital ads and we know and you know what the crazy part is is that viability is determined by how much money you've raised right and everybody says it what are we talking about right now the US Senate race and we're talking about Adam Schiff and Katie Porter and Barbara Lee and the first thing that we talk about when we're analyzing those three is how much money has each of them raised right and you're winning if you've raised more you're winning if you raise the most amount of money because somehow that means that the powers that be that the interest have aligned behind you M that's scary yeah it should be the converse shouldn't it right but we can talk altruistically about these things and we could say this is how it should be but unless you are there to be able to make change it's not going to be that way so I'm very interested in good government initiatives you know I have 12 years in the legislature as a whole and I plan on working on some of those things while I'm there that's great I do want to talk about a couple of the things you've done while you've been there you told me at one point about the rofy strips yeah and why don't you tell everybody what that piece of legislation was cuz I thought it was a really simple way to make life better for people here in the state a as I do I just want to make sure that that you understand or anybody listening this podcast understands how it's really quite simple to go from an idea into law it might feel like it's not because all of us come up with ideas every single day nearly every day or every week or whatever how things could be different or they interact with something and say this is stupid I wish I could change it this way well you know this great blessing in my life with tremendous sacrifice is to be in this role right right and in my first year a lot of the bills that we ended up doing weren't lifelong things but they were actually things taking place in my life at that moment and a lot of them come from being a dad and very specifically a girl Dad yeah and thinking about the the challenges that my girls face as they're growing up becoming adolescent growing into adulthood what are the things that they're going to see that we need to fix um we have 65% higher rate of eating disorder suicide depression anxiety in girls than we did 10 years ago not Boys in girls it's a staggering number yeah means that a lot of the things that we have going on right now are unhealthy and working against us let's talk about a few of those sexual assault is untenable and we tolerate it because it's happening to women if it was happening to men there'd be a holy war going on right now we'd hear about it on the news every night but we still live in a sexist misogynistic Society not all of us are um but as a whole uh that that's what we do and the issue of ruying is something that I'm familiar with because I own resta that serve alcohol prior to owning these I owned a club uh here on second in PCH called sa many people uh um you know had some good times actually I it's really fun to run into people that met there got married and families actually right um but it's scary especially for women it's also happening to lgbtq men so it's men that are doing this they're doing it to women they're doing it to other men drugging them when they go out and it is Mass it is spread everywhere there are people in the legislature that have been roofied oh wow there are people on my staff that have been roofied uh when I go and I speak to people about this and I say who here especially young people they're 20s maybe early 30s I'll say to a group please raise your hand if you or anybody close to you has ever been roofied and almost all of them raise you're raising your hand yeah have you been rofi I have not no I know a woman who was yeah yeah and and you know it's it's horrible so many fortunately nothing bad happened to them so many something really bad happened to them well right a life-changing awful experience and as it as is the case in sexual assault in so many cases so many times it goes under reported or not reported at all to law enforcement and roofying is kind of wild because you're already taking a drug alcohol is a drug it's the most common available drug to us and Drug where people make the worst decisions right and um in a lot of establishments they either want to look the other way to anything else happening because they don't want to deal with the liability associate with it or they may not believe the patron just think that they've drank too much alcohol right right but Roofing is rampant and here's the deal when your Dr drink has been spiked with it used to be it's called Roofing because it used to be a drug called ruol but that's not used really anymore now it's GHB and ketamine those are the two biggies right you can't see them you can't taste them you can't smell them the drinks look normal M but you won't feel normal by the end of it right right so even though they're tough to to detect in that way they're they're not tough to test for at all and there are coasters and stirring sticks that you can put a drop of your drink on a coaster and you will know instantaneously whether GHB or ketamine is in your drink like drunk driving Nick to be successful in curbing this situation of sexual assault through roofying it has to be preventative drunk driving once the person's out behind the wheel it's already too late right and then it's a you whether they're going to kill somebody or something bad's going to happen kill themselves with Roofing it's the same thing once the drinks been spiked anything can happen at that point so the goal is to really try and prevent it if you have these coasters out or test trips out it may may may have the offender think twice right about wanting to do it because they're worried about being caught so now as this bill that was signed by the governor for from these experiences is being a bar owner and thinking about my girls and um became law and it goes into effect in the middle of this year as a matter of fact and clubs type 48 lenses which are places that don't serve food they just serve alcohol uh will be required to have these if consumers ask for them well as a father of a daughter um I appreciate this new law thanks man and we're not going to stop so we're going to continue on we we this year introducing a few more bills around ruying uh one of them is that if you ask for a drink with a lid on it they should be establishments need to provide you with a with a lid for your drink um those are actually really easy you can slap a sticker on with a drink hole in it really simply another one is if you believe that you've been ruied and you tell uh somebody who works at the establishment that served you the alcohol hey I believe I've been drugged yeah this Bill proposes that they would have to call law enforcement and try to monitor you right until law enforcement or paramedic or somebody can get there take care of you right and that's important because what's happening is people get roofied by someone and then they're drugged and then they say help I think I've been ruied and the person who did it the offender says it's okay she's with me I'll take her don't worry about it and they take them out of there and that's the problem right or say they've had too much to drink or the bartender might oh they they've had too much and getting them out of there seems like a solution when in fact you're just helping the perpetrator that's true and in a horrible situation scenario which does happen the bartenders could be part of it so any of these cases it makes perfect sense that the law is if somebody believes that they've been drugged while they've been served alcohol that that establishment should make sure that law enforcement or a paramedic can get there so that they can be remain safe yeah now I know you have thoughts on social media reform y can you tell us about that yeah social media uh boy where do I start yeah um any of us who have adolescents and teens that are on social media can see the it's a matter of addiction MH actually as adults we see people that are addicted and you can see it oh yeah they're less attuned and they're to what's going on around them and just attuned to their phones in fact it shouldn't be called social media it should be called antisocial media right because you let you lose socialization skills for the things that are happening directly around you right um what most people don't grab on to and everybody needs to is that we are not the consumers in social media we are not the end user in social media we are the product right we are being productized yeah and sold you know in any which way and the more addicted that we get the more they can sell it for right so the the end user the customer are actually advertising networks right and those ad networks don't care about our well-being and the social Med companies don't care about our wellbeing as much as I like to say that they do right they don't they they R the AI for engagement to keep us on that platform as much as possible and then take the data from each one of us and sell it to the advertisers so we will buy more things from them they're not there for altruistic reasons they are maximizing shareholder value they are driving up the value of the shares of each one of those shareholders and that means as much ad Revenue as they can get MH perod perod that's what their objectives are as you know we live in a capitalist Society those are the goals of those those entities right much like we did for automobiles were very dangerous right back in the day we had to create safety standards for them we had safety standards on the roads safety standards on the cars we had to have testing regiments and they had to pass those things and we're very strict about those much like we did in the Motion Picture Association right which is a self-regulated out but they take it very seriously there's no um you know corruption associated with that and you know often times you will hear about uh Studios that struggle with the the ratings that they got for a film that's not going to work for them I needed a PG13 rating and they gave us an r and so we have to edit and change and fix these things to get to the mass audience well we need to put guard rails and make social media safer remember the statistic I brought up before mhm 65% higher rates of Eating Disorders suicide depression anxiety in girls right in the last 10 years why would that happen what has happened in the last 10 years social media social in a very big way social media especially as it relates to body body image self-image things around that um I had a bill also my first year on body shaming and requiring all districts in the state of California to have policy and curricula associated with body shaming which is not necessarily bullying could be bullying but a lot of times kids are talking and comparing their bodies because of what they see on Instagram because of what they see on Tik Tok the sexualization of bodies of 13year olds yeah and it's wrong man and you know so our schools were not equipped to have teaching moments associated with that it's so tough when you talk to teachers these days and you talk to school administrators these days and people are evolv in the education system how they're fighting against the tide on so many things that are happening outside of campus and they just wish they could get more cooperation either from parents or from a regulatory environment that would make it easier so that school becomes a sanctuary where you can learn and not have that type of pressure right and every Community deals with this everywhere right so I think you know to answer your question the lowest hanging fruit that we have in terms of regulating social media is going to be impacts on children and how we do things around that because our children should not be productized man I just don't I fundamentally believe that there's uh you know perverse incentives on that front I don't believe that our children should be productized period when we passed laws against marketing cigarettes and vape pins to kids and it seems silly to run an experiment on kids today oh let's just see what happens if we unleash all of this social media and advertising onto them it feels to me like in the not too distant future that will seem like a really bad idea and people will go why how is that even allowed for so long totally we're going to look back at this period of time and scratch our heads as to what we allowed to happen to our kids these algorithms that are playing on the fear and anxiety listen it's tough to be 12 without social media that's right and think about you know you're wanting to be socially accepted you're wanting to fit in you're wanting to be popular you wanting to be hip you wanting to be accepted mhm and you know these algorithms as all algorithms do play on our fears this comes full circle the earlier part of your conversation Democrats and Republicans the divisions between us you know all of these things right now these algorithms are sending us to a divided spot they're sending people on The Fringe to a place where they're breaking off and you know there is this notion that we must accept and believe in the validators that are sending us stuff online it used to be that our news was an objective source that could course correct all of us you know we'd listen to Walter kronite we'd listen to Dan Rather we'd listen to these newscasters and they would give us an objective point of view that somehow you know was the way that we all found truth and right now people are finding their own truth right I mean it's tough the downside of the Walter kronite days was that we only had a few viewpoints but the upside was that we had facts we could all agree on whereas now the upside is that we have multiple viewpoints which is a good thing I believe but the downside is that the algorithms because they're pushing for engagement and emotional reaction are not pushing anything that is interest on either side of any issue they are pushing extreme views because they will elicit an emotional reaction and that gets us to stay on longer exactly they're pushing addiction yeah that's what they're pushing yeah I think you know this is very Pie in the Sky I don't know how we're going to solve this tomorrow but we're working on it we're introducing bills on this this year California is the place to regulate this by the way California is interesting we do bold can I say [ __ ] sure we do bold [ __ ] in California we do yeah we don't wait we do the things that are the right thing to do and we wait for the rest of the country and the rest of the world to follow up I've said ass and [ __ ] now I never say this in public life so um feels good doesn't it it you know yeah language is expressive absolutely um we can throw a [ __ ] in there later just to really mix it up stay with ass and [ __ ] I'm good with ass and [ __ ] um no you know California is is is fascinating and I I love uh serving in the leg I learned from and inspired by my colleagues who come from different walks of life and different things uh different experiences different constituencies that they represent totally completely different such a diverse State and I mean diverse in every way there you know it's a massive Agriculture state um you know the people are representing some of like the Eastern parts of the state like completely different issues that we do in coastal California right Northern California different than Southern California people have water issues people live in desert um you know uh all of it's really different but you know coming full circle on all this we need to find a way to incentivize to regulate or to push social media to be incentivized by Wellness that has to be part of this how does engagement on social media make us feel better not make us feel worse um and how do we you know embrace the the notion of compromise how do we you know embrace you know the notion of of living with differences amongst us and celebrating those differences as opposed to vilifying on those differences you know we're going to have to find the right secret sauce for that and the other thing that we have to figure out is how do we get people who are being productized right now to participate in that economy that their likeness that their data is being used for you know we brought up camon Diaz we brought up Snoop Dogg earlier in this conversation you put their likenesses out there they're going to get paid for that right you know Nick you and I we're still not at that level yet right um but we should be all of us should be in other words we should own intellectual property over our own digital footprint I believe that that should be a fundamental inalienable right and so you know if that's the case then we should have much more say over things or be able to participate in the economy right now that our data is being you know Bartered around for yeah I mean two things you mentioned there being able to participate in that economy it seems like we should have the choice to either either keep our data to ourselves or choose to sell it and then be compensated for selling that data that seems completely reasonable to me the the other thing you not not going to be easy though because you're taking a bite out of somebody's apple right well that's right big apple it's a big apple and they're keeping the whole thing and so that's that's not a quick fix that's going to take a lot of lot of time and it's gonna for all of this stuff to really change people are going to need to get more engaged and understand that they have power they may not be leveraging right now they do they have power so it's going to take us a little bit to get there but we will get there I think people are waking up much more they're much more supportive of this and you know what's really cool Nick about this on the topic of parties and so forth is this issue regulating social media the digital world has not been hijacked by partisanship right so cool right uh there's very few issues anymore that are still like that right uh last week there was uh Senate hearings on this very topic on impacts social media on on our youth you know Zuckerberg was there testifying and others were all these families there that have been impacted right um and you know you heard from both Democrat and Republican Senators and they were asking the same stuff right and they're equally motivated on this topic right now so I think that we're going to see changes on the federal level in the state of California you're going to see much more aggressive approach to this and I can tell you from my perspective and I know my colleagues that are working on this topic too feel the same way we're not trying to put anybody out of business right at all I want the companies that are you know providing social media platforms right now and gaming and other things out there I want them to do better than they are today I want them to be more successful I just want them to be more tuned into our Wellness our happiness you know because they have a lot of responsibility well how incredible would it be for society because the other thing you mentioned was Wellness If instead of trying to limit harm there was a way to address this problem that increased Wellness we saw a 65% drop from the Baseline yeah in suicide and depression and anxiety disorders and with the reach that social media has that doesn't seem impossible to me at all yeah yeah and AI right yes like everybody talks about AI is something that we should be afraid of and we should be like this is something we have to regulate big time right I have bills on that coming out as well yeah but actually maybe one of the greatest users of AI should be government not in a Sinister way but we should be this is taxpayer money we should be as efficient and proficient as we can in the delivery of services right yeah we're allocating x amount of dollars for a social social safety net program right let's call it Cal fresh right like you know people to be able to get you know foods that can't afford it we should be making sure that we are getting the most out to the most amount of people and there's no waste associated with that we should be able to track the effectiveness and the delivery of services that government's providing we're bad at that right we need to get better at that and we should be partnering with social media to understand who is in need of these Services who is at risk of being homeless before they're being homeless right right who's buying too much ammunition right now maybe there's a problem you know with that there we have to um be laser focused on privacy and adhere to the constitution in every which way and in the context of those things we should be much better at delivering services and there's no reason why we shouldn't be using technology to do that right well and one of the challenges the government seems to face right now is effectively communicating how government has improved people's lives whether that's a republican initiative or a Democratic initiative it seems that it's really easy to communicate online all the problems in government and yet there doesn't seem to be an effective mechanism for communicating what has improved as a result of laws that have been passed totally all of us get frustrated by the amount that we pay in taxes at some point or another especially in California especially in California but anywhere right yeah you know maybe even more so in Copenhagen right uh but but truth be told we're also very happy when you know we smell smoke in the house and we call 911 and firefighters are there literally in 3 minutes time right or you know there's a noise inside the house and there's Prowlers inside and we call 911 somebody else shows up and they go in the house for us right and they're trained and they know what to do and they're wearing equipment that can protect them and they've got backup and they've got procedures and processes and then they catch somebody and that person goes through the system and ostensibly you know uh goes through a rehabilitation process we can put it putting in that one too okay talk about Criminal Justice Reform um but you know all of us at some point disproportionately don't get Services back for the amount that we put in and at other times get it back right right I've got three kids in public schools right now that's not cheap right other taxpayers are helping to pay and fund my kids going through school right now mhm you know there are other times in my business career where I was doing extremely well and I was paying for other people's kids to go through right education and that's okay uh we talked about conflict in the Middle East the role of the United States you know and our ability to you know broker global conflict that's only because we have a strong military and presence throughout the globe you and I are paying for that Nick right right so um you know do we think that government can do a better job in delivering Services absolutely and that never is going to change we should always be striving for a more efficient and and strategic way to deliver services and that's Dynamic it changes over time for example we have a problem right now with mental health it is a crisis I think in in 10 years ago we would have said we have a homeless problem well we do we definitely have a homeless problem but what we're learning now especially post pandemic is we have a mental health crisis going on right now it is not simply about having enough roofs over the head or beds in shelters or so forth but there's a population of people who are choosing not to you know seek shelter even when it's available to them that is speaks to mental health issues there's nobody who would be healthy or mental capacity who would choose that life right so you know how do we deal with that do we have capacity for that we do not at all we do not have psychiatric care and the mental health facilities uh able to deal with the grand scope of problems that we have again exacerbated by the pandemic that we could not have predicted um we've got you know designer drugs out there right now or even less designer drugs like meth that didn't exist that weren't around 20 30 years ago that cause brain damage actually very different than you know tough drugs from the past like that didn't do those types of things you could actually fully recover from a heroin or a cocaine addiction and be a you know positive contributor self- sustaining person in society doing very well is some people who have meth addictions will never come back ever right because the damage that they're causing right and F I believe has a similar profile and is shipped from other parts of the world and with the intent of getting it into America and it if it doesn't kill you it does irreparable isn't it scary isn't it scary and you know going back to being dads right thinking about the world our kids are growing up into you know honestly Nick this is a morbid thought but amongst our you know friend group and people there's going to be some kids that you know take a bad turn and are served up something bad and you know heaven forbid they're not going to make it through right that's what we have right now right right so it's really really tough so um yeah I mean We've Got Big Ticket items that we need to fix and these things aren't easy and again they're Dynamic mhm Michael Lewis this was a thought from earlier but uh the author of yeah Michael yes the big time Big Time author Moneyball yes uh he had a book that didn't sell very well that was on a lot of he described a lot of government initiatives that no one is aware of and it's not his most exciting book I really enjoyed it though sounds like my daily life there was a good example in there though of how Apple and Google had given us so much information on the weather right you can just look on your phone and see what the weather's going to be for the next week and it's pretty accurate he said did you know all that data comes from weather systems put in place by the federal government nobody is aware of that they think Apple and Google figured it out they just figured out a way to deliver that information to us but they're 90% of the work is done by a federal program that does all the weather tracking and I feel like there's a lot of that in our lives that is already improving things we just have no idea that it exists yeah and there's a lot more that we can do which we we just uh scratch the surface of you said you wanted to put a pin in Criminal Justice Reform yes we do so many things really well in this state really really well we're addressing our climate crisis you know we're global leaders in that front as a matter of fact very germine to a Coastal Community here right um you know I think that we are addressing environmental justice we're addressing human rights here in California in a way that you know is again is global leading we confront our problems but I I look at our criminal justice system I look at our Corrections facilities we have a recidivism rate recidivism meaning reoffending rate of 70% in California 70% so that means somebody commits a crime they go to jail they serve their time and 70% of those commit more crime and go back to jail right do you know how much it costs for an inmate California how much $100,000 a year you and I are paying $100,000 a year for our system to be a factory to go out and create more crime right in prison it's easier to get drugs in prison than outside of prison m uh everybody has cell phones inside prison right now tough to to you go get those away the networks that are in place are um you know tough to dismantle our prison facilities are these giant campuses governed by prison politics M uh uh inmates are separated by race when they get in by the way we're killing our law enforcement do you know what the average age of a corrections officer is in California excuse me the average life expectancy of a corrections officer is what is it 59 wow 59 years old yeah by the way they negotiate these incredible pensions and then don't live long enough to to to have them right there's so much stress blood pressure suicide uh you name it um we have to re-examine the way that we're doing this and acknowledge that it's a failure it doesn't work right I went to Norway I went to look at the correction system there they have a completely different system their recidivism rate is 20% uhhuh um you know a lot of people are quick to say well that's because they're Norwegians it's a homogeneous society 60% of their inmates are immigrants they're not uh actually you know um from Norway or born and and raised in Norway and also Sweden country right next door very similar you know country has a system similar to ours that's based on punitive Justice not restorative justice and their recidivism rate is 60% okay so something is wrong with our system is not yielding the results that that we have we should have over there it takes two years to become a prison guard because they're trained in mentoring counseling you know it's a different type of connection and the goal is is for every one of these inmates those that are going to be released MH to be ready to be released to be ready to go to the next stage in life to really uh be able to Mentor others to not commit crime and to be able to do those things as opposed to you know learning more skills of crime while they're inside prison right right which is what's happening now which is what's now it's it's it's horrific I saw things when I went there that blew my mind I saw saw guards and inmates hug each other half the guards were women I saw them cooking together with big knives wow I saw uh a a completely different level of trust and connection M that was a Lifeline you know and let's think about who goes to prison it's mostly young people men now men's Brains aren't fully developed until 27 right yeah and what's the last thing to develop in a man's brain or in anybody's brain the frontal loes right and what happens in your frontal loes that's where you assess consequences right with actions right so most are committing crimes when they're 17 16 18 years old they're not they literally physiologically not assessing consequences and if you talk to these inmates they all have pretty much the same story mhm no dads right dad's not present moms working multiple jobs can't get by moms may have health issues or addiction issues associated with that they need family yeah these are young people who need family and who provides family A Familiar environment gangs right most of of the crimes that we have in our system that you and I are paying $100,000 a year for are connected to the drug trade in some fashion or another they may be theft but theft associated with financing the drug trade right we can fix this we can do a lot better right we certainly can you know lower our recidivism rate we need to be uh looking at criminal justice differently and we need to be admitting that we don't have it set up the right way right now and we need to invest it's going to take money but what's that going to do it's going to make us safer right all of us safer it's going to make crime go down in our communities it's going to make us you know live with less anxiety and angst it's probably going to make there be a lot less guns because people will have a lot you know feel safer as a whole that may make violence go down as a whole yeah you know we we have this circle of violence right now and I don't care if you're Progressive you're conservative you're anywhere on the Spectrum this is a management issue 70% recidivism is a failure right and we've got to fix that right is it possible that it would even be a net positive economically because huge costs with people being incarcerated and obviously it's going to take money initially but if there were stronger Rehabilitation programs and you have people if we lower that recidivism rate then you don't have people in a revolving door going in and out of prison and if you lowered the prison population you would actually save money I mean I'm just trying to find a bridge Beyond just the humanitarian reasons which are plenty by themselves 100% you are on to everything right now we need people that are not going to be a drag on the system but are contributing into the system right we need people to be successful we need them to be educated we need them to you know have have self-confidence and care for themselves and all of that comes with success and success do not just happen typically speaking it happened for me it takes mentoring love path people to create help me create opportunities that's not to say it doesn't take hard work on my part or your part it really helped having you know the guy there from piter help create opportunity for you I'm sorry we keep making this about you man but it's such a great example of you know how you know you're here because of you but there are people along the way that you know help help along the way there's no way that I'd be serving right now if there weren't people along the way that helped me get to this place including all the donors right well it's easy to do the right things when there's a strong support system in place I was reading that book in the car because I had a family that both mom and dad were both around they supported me I think it was my father who originally introduced me to that book certainly to Carl Sean to begin with so cool and all of that makes it possible for me to be in that place where I was reading that book which is what caught that gentleman's attention we all need mentors yeah we need our correction system to be full of mentors yeah to be full of people that are training to be full of people that are counseling that are be full of people that are supportive that they can change and to change and the steps associated with that and then when people are released from prison they need to have opportunity they need to be able to get a place to live right they need to be able to get a job yeah and to be able to be successful and if they served their time then they served their time and that means they shouldn't be living that sentence for the rest of their life right they served their time right yeah uh now there are people that are unsafe to be released sure that's in Norway that's in the United States in California that's that's a fact of the matter that goes back to the mental health issues that we're talking about and otherwise and that's situation but for most that's not the case for people who are involved in petty theft people have been involved in gangs or people who involved in white color crime the people who have uh found themselves in prison that have the capacity to change we need to help them get there because to your point Nick it is financially advantageous for us holistically to do that and we should and it's a nicer environment for all of us right and the right thing to do right and we went through mass incarceration in California in the 80s and it has been an abject failure right it's expensive you want to talk about one of the reasons why our taxes are so high mass incarceration right what role do private prisons plan all of this you know private prisons have uh gotten a big knock in the past because you know people are actually profiting from the system and profiting from Mass incarcerations and I think that that really uh is an important Viewpoint that we need to hear and we need to consider and be very very mindful of and careful of uh and I agree with it in practice one of the things that I'm learning is that the private prisons uh the success rate and the anti-recidivism rate is actually much better than it is in the state prisons okay so we need to learn from some of these new methodologies that are taking place and we need to be agnostic to it we can't come in with this ideology of everything that they've done is bad so we have to throw it away and get rid of it right no let's look at the data mhm let's let the data guide us not ideology the data what is working what is going to be best for us how do we become safer you know um can we use AI for that yes we probably can right to analyze those types of things can government use those types of tools to understand those things and we need to um we just have to do a a better job so that's something I think you know we're going to look to see a lot of change in the state of California the next you know that's slow change that quick right right that's going to take a long time and it's a tough you know thing to sell to people that you want to invest in Corrections and invest in that when you could be investing in school schools or you know Environmental Protection initiatives or incubating the next big sector in California that's going to bring big jobs right we've got you know to get off this oil economy that we have right now um you know I I don't like to vilify that whatsoever but we all know even the energy companies themselves know and understand that that there's a shelf life to this so if there's a shelf life how is California positioning itself to be the leaders in the next you know level of energy that's coming out I'm really excited I actually introducing two bills in the sector about offshore wind okay and the launch of these massive turbines that are going to be the size of the Eiffel Tower so far offshore by the way you wouldn't be able to see them whatsoever and going to be on the Central Coast but you know we have jobs in the in the current energy sector and by the way my district includes Carson I have two oil refineries in my district and Long Beach and Signal Hill where you see oil dcks all over the place right we have a truly an oil economy in the 69th Assembly District those are good paying jobs man MH those jobs pay 150 Grand people can you know send their kids to college you know they can really live and survive in Southern California expenses with that you know people are making 50,000 60,000 70,000 it's it's tough really really tough you know to do that we don't see that as much in North Orange County um but you know when you get to Carson North Long Beach you know place like that how can you tell somebody hey need to move to solar when solar installation jobs pay a third of what you get paid if you're working in the oil refinery right yeah so that's a tough cell it's a tough cell man so you know how do we how do we do things and then the other thing that we need to think about is I know I'm kind of jumping topics here a little bit going back to what we were talking about with AI a little while ago is automation mhm we are going through an a automation Revolution that's happening before our eyes my kids don't know about yours love Urban Outfitters well you can go into Urban Outfitters right now Nick yeah and you can get the clothes and get the gifts and get the things you want go to self checkout and walk out and not talk to anybody right um we are automating I I went to the Laker game uh the other night love the Lakers they have those stores now where you actually swipe your credit card to go in it's like the Amazon stores there's about 200 transponders on the ceiling tracking everything that you do stealing your data by the way or taking your data right parsing your data your behavior you take what you want off the shelves and you walk out sounds like it's pretty cool right there's nobody there checking you out well there's not really a consumer benefit there right at all um why do I mean by that the prices aren't lower right it's not like you're getting a discount because they've cut out the labor so all you really have in that scenario is wealth consolidation yeah that's a problem for a lot of reasons right and a lot of the people that look work in this community are connected this community are connected to the port and the goods movement sector in the port uh you know those long shoran jobs are getting automated right now right uh if you are driving a truck if you're a UPS driver if you are an Uber driver a taxi driver the number one job for men in the state of California is driving number one job 10% of men in California drive for a living those jobs are in Peril right right now as we go through autonomous vehicles right I'm seeing bills in the legislature about safety of autonomous vehicles those that's a cloak these are really jobs bills that are trying to slow down the process of automation right in any which way that they can and what we really need to do is address automation we need to address like just because we can do something technologically should we or should we be intentional about how we do it and make sure that we're incubating new jobs that work for these communities that pay the right levels right because you know when you pay the right level then you're able to go to Patty's place and the boat house and right you know test prep you know things that support our local economy and it's important to have that yeah I mean my sense of it is that new technological advances in the long run create looking at history create more jobs than they destroy but some intention about the process as we move through big changes seems very important because there can be a lot of short-term pain and so ask the people Flint Michigan right yeah well right yeah so um in Long Beach we've gone through that a few times when the Navy pulled out right and when um you know uh Boeing or uh you know kind of pulled out as a manufacturing site uh out of Long Beach we lost you know so much yeah and you know the city really had Hard Times took a long time to come out of that um so so I think government has gotten a lot wiser over time and learned from those types of experiences and now is a lot more deliberate when it comes to these things and I think when it comes to automation we have to address two things a this whole notion of jobs but B we have to address the psychology around these things too there is something really important about going to work feeling good about your work feeling challenged in your work feeling this sense of accomplishment working on a team you know uh advancing in your career even if we figured out wealth distribution Nick like let's say you know Ai and automation 100 years from now took over everybody's job and we still just doled out money just like we did in the pandemic which works by the way right when we learned from in in the pandemic we need to have the most amount of people with the most disposable income in order for the economy to stay afloat so we want economies to do well we want most amount of people to do well not it to be narrowed slow you know select individuals if we figured out wealth distribution we would still have a major socialization problem right people not working it's totally antithetical to The Human Condition my mom is about to turn 84 years old in a week and a half she can't stop working yeah that's who she is right it drives her it's exciting you know I love that about my mom keeps her sharp keeps her Mo sharp keeps her going and I I you know I really appreciate that and inspires me you know so we need to think about that there are entire sectors that I'm worried about that could be gone really quick if we're not intentional about it for example financial management it's it's going to really change I would I would much rather trust Ai and the information associated with you know an unbelievable reach of data and Analysis than somebody who I have no idea how much actual research they've put in you know simply because they're reading something that says that they should invest in this stock rather than the other right I mean I think that there are sectors that are in Peril that are not just about long shoremen and they're not just about driving right but they're actually Professional Services that we have right now what about therapy counseling what if you could do therapy at midnight yeah when you really need it right you could do it from your place you know I mean I think that there's a lot of sectors that people take for granted that we won't get taken over right that may get taken over sure and so um I just think that we need to be talking about it we need to be intentional about it we need to be planning for it we need to have a system that works for that and I think kind of like we have a cap and trade system in the environment we should have a similar type of system as it relates to automation if we designate sectors that are in Peril of being automated then those sectors uh if you take jobs out of them we should also have sectors that we are designated that we want to incubate that are going to create jobs and there should be something that helps finance that incubation and that transition and retraining and it's tough to retrain people who are in their 40s man you know who've already been in their career for 20 years right it's tough yeah easy for the folks that are in their 20s their early 30s they still have a long way to go they may have want to change careers anyway it's those people who are on the back half of their careers it's tough Josh we just realized you've got to get to your next appointment um thank you so much for staying as long as you did I there's so much more that I want to talk to you about I really want to know more about your thoughts on wealth distribution we're going to table that until next time first of all let me just say that you are such an easy person to talk to and I really appreciate your interest in talking about things um not just that are right in front of us but having that require Vision over time time so I really enjoy this and be happy to talk anytime you want Nick about these types of things and we can um reconvene um but I I I appreciate you for getting this information out there because that's the challenge these days especially without mass media is how are people learning how are they getting to know their elected officials how do they get to know whether you know their opinion matters and how to voice that um and I want to reiterate something I said earlier you know as it relates to the world I live in it is a lot simpler than people think when you take an idea to become a law MH and there are no bad ideas so people need to connect with their electeds and more than that good people need to run for office Nick good people need to come out and they need to run for office it's important you know I think we went through a generation where people really were adverse to public life and we need to change that and fix that and bring back the nobility of public service so that people get involved and um you know I I hope really hope that happens to good people right in front of us well thank you so much uh for the flattery and the kind words um if anybody wants to follow or learn more about you what's the best place to online to learn more about what you're doing uh there's learn more about what I'm doing is social media there's a Instagram for uh the assembly site uh and Facebook and you know Twitter which you know I have strong feelings about but we're out there so that people can access us and website obviously uh we have local office here we have Sacramento office and anybody can reach me directly I'm I'm you know accessible yeah and I can attest to that and I want to learn you know from anyone and everyone so this is this job is about being connected to people not disconnecting from people fantastic thank you so much for your time and I'm going to let you get out of here but I yeah really appreciate it it was an absolute pleasure thank you so much thank you man appreciate you all right well I hope you enjoyed that wide ranging conversation with Josh lenthal I really appreciated his ability to discuss contentious issues and acknowledge varying viewpoints around those contentious issues please make sure to like And subscribe on YouTube and rate five stars and follow on your favorite podcast platform and then of course follow us on Instagram Nick Stanley N St n dlea I'll put Josh's contact info in the description and I look forward to seeing you next time let's close this out with a quote from Albert Einstein laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression in order that everyone may present their views without penalty there must be a spirit of Tolerance in the entire population okay everybody until next time ask questions don't accept the status quo and be [Music] curious [Music] a