Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The Politics Chicks is a progressive politics podcast and politics news show hosted by Christy Branham and Monica Healy.
Every week, we sit down with candidates, elected officials, journalists, historians, policy experts, advocates, and everyday Americans shaping the future of our democracy. We go beyond the headlines with thoughtful interviews, fact-based analysis, and candid conversations about the issues that affect our livesāfrom elections and public policy to healthcare, education, civil rights, and the economy.
Whether weāre interviewing members of Congress, first-time candidates, medical experts, or community leaders, our mission is the same: to inform, challenge, and inspire.
If youāre looking for a politics podcast that values evidence over outrage, curiosity over division, and hope over cynicism, welcome home.
New episodes every week.
Follow us:
Substack ā¢ Threads ā¢ Bluesky ā¢ Instagram ā¢ TikTok ā¢ Facebook
@ThePoliticsChicks
Monica: Hello, welcome to the Politics Chicks podcast. I'm Monica Healy.
Christy: And I'm Christy Branham.
Monica: Last August, Minnesota was shaken by the devastating shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. Two children were killed, families were forever changed, and survivors have spent months pleading with lawmakers to take action on gun safety legislation.
Christy: Last week, tensions boiled over at the Minnesota Capitol when Republican leadership refused to bring a gun safety bill to the House floor, even after it had already passed in the Senate.
One of the lawmakers protesting that day is our guest today, Minnesota State Representative Kaela Berg.
Monica: Kaela is a union leader, a flight attendant, and a three-term legislator who has authored legislation focused on workers' rights, gun safety, and student mental health, including a bill requiring mental health professionals in Minnesota public schools.
Christy: We're talking today about what happened at the Capitol, what families are asking lawmakers to do, what schools are carrying right now, and why labor voices still matter in politics. Welcome to the show, Kaela. We're so happy to have you.
Kaela: Thank you for having me.
Monica: Great to have you.
Christy: We're super excited to get into this. We wanna hear the skinny on what happened at the Capitol. Why don't you walk us through what happened at the Capitol last week from your perspective? We're so excited to get that first-person account.
Kaela: So it actually unfolded over several days. our caucus leader, or our floor leader, Jamie Long, uh, when it, when it came up for the end of the session for the day, he would always say, "Point of parliamentary inquiry," in which he would then ask the speaker why she wasn't bringing the gun violence prevention package forward, and would ask her where it is.
And her response would always be, "Well, this bill is under review." And so he pushed a little bit each day at the very end of the session for the day, asking for accountability. Where is the bill? When will we be taking up the bill? And so that kind of began about six days, six or seven days before, um, Thursday, when we made an announcement that if they didn't bring forward this bill, so it was Senate File 4067 that the Senate had passed to a vote on the House floor, we would then have a sit-in from gavel out to gavel in.
Now, that was on a Thursday night. Then they decided we wouldn't have session on Friday at all. So we sat in after gavel out Thursday to gavel in on Saturday.
Christy: Wow.
Monica: for our listeners that might not be familiar with Minnesota politics, we have a Democratic governor, but we have a split legislature, including a Republican House speaker. Um, and some of you may be familiar with Lisa Demuth because she partnered with Nick Shirley in bringing this young YouTuber in to supposedly focus on the fraud.
And we are like the epicenter of the world, uh, with the auspices of how bad the fraud is without looking inward at the federal government. Kaela, can you tell us specifically what was in the gun safety legislation that never made it to the House floor?
Kaela: Sure, and I have a little guide here so I don't forget anything. It, it contained the assault weapons ban, the high-capacity magazine ban, my bill to ban binary triggers, um, prohibition on ghost guns, restrictions on instructional files for 3D-printed firearms, uh, expansion of secure storage laws, investments in school safety and violence prevention programs, um, funding and improvements for extreme risk protection orders, uh, that was carried in the House by my friend and classmate Cedric Frazier, who's running for Hennepin County Attorney, creation of a statewide violence prevention research center, and expansion of gun-free school zones.
Now, that all might sound really good, but I wanna make sort of a, a contrast between what Democrats were putting forward versus what Republicans were putting forward. Republicans had brought, uh, a bill forward for school safety, which included sort of hardening our schools, and it inc- it included this particular software that would be able to identify whether there was a weapon in a school backpack or a passerby in front of schools.
So cameras would be set up aimed towards the entrance to the schools, and it had this technology that would be able to see inside, uh, backpacks or underneath a jacket, for example And that sounds, well, maybe that sounds pretty great. And the-- their argument would be if this software identified a firearm or some sort of weapon in a backpack or in a passerby, that the principal would then come out and take care of the situation, ask the kiddo, "What's in your backpack?
Can we, can we see that? Let's talk about what, what you're going through today." It made it sound very reasonable, but some of the pushback is, and rightly so, is like, okay, so our kids are gonna have recognition software every time they walk in the front door and leave the, the school? And what happens with that data?
Where is it stored? What could it be subject to being used for? And none of those questions were really answered. And to veer slightly but still connected, you may have noticed that we passed a bill, um, that bans nudification. So that's the use of AI to take an image, uh, of a child or a minor, and then they can produce, child sexually explicit material.
That is a first-in-the-nation bill that we did pass with bipartisan support and that the governor signed into law. But that's what this particular technology brings into question. Whenever you've got stored data of the images of a child, you're opening up, uh, a Pandora's box of what those images could be used for.
So that was one of the pushbacks that Democrats had on that particular bill.
Monica: Well, and it also brings to mind, uh, you know, not addressing the problem at the root of the problem. It's sort of like handing the kid some matches and then not giving them a hose to put out the fire.
Kaela: Right. Right. And we-- So we had that argument with the Republicans in the House. They would bring anything forward that was not access to firearms. So whether it was technology to identify possible weapons, whether it was, you know, their big argument is, "Well, it's mental health. Guns don't kill people, people do."
And it's anything to deflect from how easy it is to access a firearm in this country. And we have discussions saying people have mental health crises all over the world. That's a thing. What is different.
Christy: they don't have this problem.
Kaela: Yes. And, and I don't know if you'd heard some of the press and some of even the families from Annunciation.
There was sort of this idea and this verbiage used that the epidemic of gun violence is a uniquely American problem,.
Monica: Absolutely.
Kaela: true. There are mental health crises. There are bad actors. That is-- That combination is everywhere across the globe. What you don't see is the same kind of access to firearms.
Monica: Right. The, the gun culture that we have in our country is just really unique in, in the, in the world.
Christy: and we hear about it quite a bit from our followers on social media who aren't from the United States. They make the commentary about how easily Americans can access firearms in this country. And to them, it's common sense. Don't, don't make them as accessible. I believe people should have the right to own firearms if they want to for self-defense and to hunt.
That's part of our culture here as well. hunting, especially in Minnesota, is huge. But why do they need access to semi-automatic weapons? Why do they need an access to bump stocks? Why do we need ghost guns, right? To try to evade registration. So we know that this is all common sense stuff that you guys have in the bill.
So let's just address the elephant in the room. Why do you think the leadership is refusing to allow the vote?
Kaela: It's very clear. It's an election year, and Speaker Demuth is running for governor She knows. She's seen the polls where people in communities across the state agree that we shouldn't have access to weapons of war, high-capacity magazines. Look, my partner's a gun owner. I've been to the shooting range.
I've been out in the woods. I've learned a lot. When I had to carry the bill to ban binary triggers and, uh, increase penalties for straw purchases, I dove into gun culture. I went to gun stores. I held weapons that I would never wanna touch. I went through hours and hours of YouTube videos. What is this?
What is this culture? What is it about? and so I really came to understand how widespread gun culture is, and kind of what the consequences are. But even with that, even with our rich history of hunting here, which is something a great variety of people enjoy, you know, spoiler alert, Democrats own guns.
Um,.
Christy: Right?
Kaela: yes, even with that, there is no reason for these weapons of wars to be in the hands of regular people. They would obliterate a deer. there, there is no, practical use for them. If you want to shoot them because you think it's going to be a thrill, go to a gun range, rent it, controlled environment, rent it, have your moment.
and I do think, I do very much believe in the right to own firearms, as you mentioned, for self-defense, protecting your home and your family, and for hunting. And the Republicans would constantly say, "This is gonna harm responsible gun owners." Well, no, it's not, because if you're a responsible gun owner, you already store your firearm safely.
You already, uh, probably would report a lost or stolen gun. If you're a lawful gun owner, you're not gonna need a, a extreme risk protection order. Um, red flag laws, if you're not having some sort of mental break and access to a firearm, a responsible gun owner likely is not gonna be in any of these situations that cause or have the potential to cause harm.
And so some of these very common sense measures protect people from themselves in some cases and from harming others. And right now, the forefront, uh, in our minds are the Annunciation families, but let's not forget that gun violence is the number one killer for children. Like, we know this. We have the data.
So the push behind gun violence prevention legislation is based on data. It's not a wildly political issue. It's we have the data. There is harm. There are steps we can take to mitigate the harm. But the Gun Owners Caucus, the NRA, the big donors to the Republican Party don't want their people to vote on these measures.
And so when you're looking at an election year, if you're Lisa Damith running for governor, you're gonna want all that outside money. You're gonna want all those donations, and you're not going to, anger the donors. And so in the, in the House, the speaker controls what bills, uh, are heard from the House, especially when they come over from the Senate.
And to be fair, both sides do it. Both sides don't bring bills to the floor that could be a hard vote for their members. But this is something after the political violence where we lost Melissa Hortman and her husband and her beloved dog, when the Hoffmans were attacked, when other legislators, including myself, were on this published assassin's list, putting us all at risk.
That's how we started last summer. We're coming up on a year. And then the Annunciation shooting happened, you know, a few short weeks later. Minnesota has seen horrific gun violence one after the other, and in communities across the state. It shows in the polling, in the data, that voters want.
this.
Monica: the shooting in Annunciation was at the very beginning of that school year, and now we are at the end of that school year, and those families have been pushing the entire school year for this legislation.
And there were families, uh, I'm guessing that you had some communication with?
Kaela: Yes. And so when we had the bills, uh, come forward in the Public Safety Committee, which I sit on in the House, um, those families were present. Can you imagine this crushing grief? Um, and these families had the courage to come forward anyway and to sit in front of that committee, um, and to-- And as you well know, it's televised, so it really could be watched by anyone and everyone to come forward and to share their experience and their grief and their pain and to take action.
Um, if you recall when the funerals of, um, Harper and Fletcher happened, they said, "Pray and move your feet." And so that's kind of what we in the House brought forward to this movement is move your feet, and that's what, um, the families who came forward to testify did. And that also included the, um, the Moisys, but also, Lydia's dad, who was the gym teacher at Annunciation School, and held his daughter as she was bleeding and tried to help other students that day.
They came forward, and they testified in both the House and the Senate when those bills were being heard, and they were on the, in the gallery when the Senate heard the bills. And, um, when we wouldn't bring the vote up in the Minnesota House and we had Moms Demand Action and other gun violence prevention groups and volunteers, and they were chanting outside the door, "Hold the vote, hold the vote."
And so Democrats, when sh- when Lisa Dana adjourned on Thursday without bringing that bill up, we were shouting, "Hold the vote," and banging our desks, and she had to shout above it to get, uh, Leader Niska to do all of the necessary things to gavel out. These people, despite their pain, were present in those moments.
Monica: Well, I think it should be pointed out that it's not just the families of the children who died, it's the families of the survivors and the trauma that they have been through. Like that school they carpeted the entire school in the aftermath of the shooting because children have metal water bottles, and when the water bottles fell on the floor, the children hit the floor and went under the desk because they were afraid that it was gunfire again.
Christy: And what do you say to parents who feel like even after children die, lawmakers still can't make that move on basic gun safety measures? How do you frame that? I mean, it's an impossible question for you to answer, right?
Kaela: that's exactly how we frame it. This should not be happening. Lawmakers should not be refusing to bring these bills to the floor. There's-- It's more that there is nothing to say than there is a right thing to say. Um, and I think that actually speaks volumes, that there is no excuse for this. There is no human excuse for us not to have taken up that bill package, and that responsibility lies squarely on the Republicans.
But these families are grieving. Uh, we had a woman that came on during our live stream. A mom came on to-- And she showed us a picture of her kids prior to the Annunciation shooting and her kids that day as they were kind of hiding behind a tree. So these bright, beautiful smiles and these lively, full-of-life children, and that day, a picture of them shrinking, right?
And so those visuals are things that you cannot forget. And even so, even throughout this grieving, even watching the House not take up that vote day after day, they still came onto our live stream and told their stories. We had families from Annunciation. We had families who had been through gun violence in other, spaces.
We had, just people that support gun violence prevention. We had Betty McCollum and Representative Omar and Tina Smith and Angie Craig. Whether they came in person or they were there by, um, video, they were supporting what the Minnesota House was doing during that time. And we also kind of did it in shifts.
There were some people that slept at the Capitol. Um, others of us, I think I was there from about nine to midnight each day, went home, slept, showered, came back, sat, you know, again throughout the day. Um, so we really had a presence there by every member of the caucus in, in the way that that was possible for them.
It was really incredible.
Christy: I gotta tell you, it really gave me-- it made me feel like you guys were doing something when you did that, because we often complain that politicians aren't doing enough because they're in the minority, especially in the federal government. But what I saw from you guys was not only using words, you were using your bodies as a means of expression and using your physical presence, not writing a strongly worded letter, showing up every day, making a statement.
Monica: And that action is, is very much appreciated from the general public like ourselves. I'm gonna circle back to something you said earlier, um, about how the Republicans go-to response about school gun violence is, "Guns don't kill people, uh, people kill people," and they point to mental health. But they are the party that dismisses help for, for the funding of mental health, but not you.
And let's talk about that because one of the things that I really liked that I saw in your bio was, um, you sponsored a bill that requires a mental health professional in all Minnesota schools. And as a recently re-retired public school teacher, I appreciate that so much. But tell us what made that important to you?
Kaela: Sure. Um, it was a mixture of things. My youngest son struggled during his educational experience, and it was almost like a second job advocating for him because school counselors were there one or two days a week split between four or five different campuses. The measures we put in place in elementary school didn't transfer to middle school, didn't transfer to high school, and so I had to kept going back and advocating all over again.
And I recognized that as a middle-aged mom from the suburbs with English as my first language, with, with a job that made it possible for me to be able to walk into the school in the middle of a weekday, these are not things that every member of my community were able to do, whether it was a language barrier, a cultural barrier, somebody's working three jobs and cannot afford to take that time.
Why should their kiddos be left behind? Why shouldn't they be, um, have access to resources and, and He allowed the ability to thrive in their education. And so that was part of it, because once we got my youngest son to high school and there was a full-time school counselor in high school, is when we started getting him the resources he needed.
But from elementary school to high school, he just failed up. He just kept going from grade to grade. Not, you know, not with any-- He was, he was getting the information and he would come home and tell me about it, but it wasn't present in homework or test scores. That was part of it. The other part was campaigning through and, and then coming into office during COVID and knowing that our kids needed access to more resources, kids that had been isolated, kids that had been at home when home isn't a safe place.
Um, all of these different pieces of coming through a global pandemic were going to play out once they returned to school, and we knew they would need add- extra resources. So my first session, we were in divided government. It didn't pass. And I'll never forget our, our chair put it in the bill anyway and talked about it on the floor, and the committee administrator thought she was texting him, but she texted me instead.
And she's like, "Does Berg know she's asking for $250 million, or is that a freshman thing?" And I just texted, texted back, "Yes."
Christy: That is.
Monica: That is awesome.
Kaela: And, um, dear friends. She's incredible. We are dear friends. She felt terrible, but we were able to pass it during the trifecta when it was House File 8. And when the governor had that as one of his top 10 bills showed the partnership and the priority on getting our kids the help they needed in school.
Now, we're coming out of this ICE occupation in our streets. Kids who don't understand why their best friend wasn't at school or didn't understand the fear that their friends had that they might not see their parents when they come home. And so we introduced a bill for additional funding for mental health, um, resources in schools.
Guess if it passed or not in a tied house. It did not.
Christy: gonna go with no.
Kaela: It did not. Right.
Christy: Nothing.
Monica: Shocker. Yeah.
Christy: Party of pro-life. I mean, let's just be honest. They're, they're pro-life as long as the baby's still in the womb, but the minute that that child has taken their first breath, they're no longer the government's responsibility, right?
So yeah. Monica often says if teachers and nurses were in charge, we'd be living in a lot better of a world. So I, I totally... And now f- and flight attendants. I'm gonna add flight attendants.
Kaela: But long before I was in elected office, my position was pay our teachers and pay our nurses, the people that spend more time with our children during the day than we do, and the people who take care of us at our most vulnerable. Pay them. Give them all of the things: a pension, uh, a living wage, access to healthcare, all of that.
I mean, honestly, our teachers and our nurses are some of the very best people, and you see some of them in the legislature bringing that to the forefront, which is critical.
Monica: Well, your background, uh, before your life in politics was as a flight attendant, and you were active as a labor organizer. Um, did that shape your worldview going into politics?
Kaela: Well, it absolutely did. Um, you know, I was gonna be a flight attendant for a couple of years, see some cool places, and it... check it off the list. I ended up joining my union, and then it was remain a flight attendant to be a part of my union. Um, and I really think that more union members and more working-class voices belong in politics because the decisions are made about our lives every day in those halls of power.
And especially if you look at the United States Congress, there are what? Maybe one or two working-class voices in Congress, and one's a Republican, um, Lauren Boebert. Um, but, but you see doctors and lawyers and millionaires and business owners and bankers. You don't see working-class people. But everything that is coming out of the federal government, workers bear the brunt of, whether it's this illegal war in Iran and we are paying for higher gas prices, whether it's the asinine tariffs and we are paying the higher grocery, uh, prices.
And the people least able to bear the brunt of that are workers. If you look at the Trump administration gutting our healthcare even further to fund this war in Iran, it's the workers that pay higher premiums. It's the workers that can't access healthcare to begin with. And so, um, did joining my union and being a labor organizer and leader form my worldview and my politics?
Absolutely. Because while I appreciate a collective bargaining agreement, it's... there is only so far that can go when there is an all-out attack on working families from this administration.
Christy: Right.
Monica: more and more as we have talked to political leaders that that experience in the real world means so much for people to, to have the experience of maybe having to live paycheck to paycheck and living in the real world.
Kaela: Well, I often get asked, um, "If you make it to Congress, how are you gonna remember the everyday Minnesotan?" And I am the everyday Minnesotan. I'm a state legislator, but I still work two jobs to make ends meet. When session ends, I go back to flying. That's to make ends meet, not to get ahead, to make ends meet.
I'm coming to you live from my one-bedroom apartment. Um, I didn't have healthcare as a flight attendant during the global pandemic because I didn't qualify, uh, through my employer. These are things that I take with me, whether it's in the Minnesota State House or whether it's the United States Congress.
You don't forget that. And living paycheck to paycheck, being so close to my community is such a huge benefit in my work at the Capitol. That's why I get reelected and increase my win numbers every time, because my community knows I'm living their life right alongside them. I'm not some fancy person who sympathizes.
We share this experience, and that's been really meaningful to my community, and it's been really meaningful in my work to be able to talk about these issues from a place of experience, not just from a, a report.
Christy: Yeah. And you've helped pass legislation banning captive audience meetings too, which a lot of people have probably never heard of that. Can you explain that so our listeners are aware of what that is and why that matters for workers?
Kaela: Yes, my pleasure. So captive audience meeting is when your employer mandates you to come into a private meeting and they tell you why unions are bad. That doesn't sound like a big deal. People are like, "Well, we have our own critical thinking skills, like just don't listen." It's actually the most effective union busting tactic that there is.
They instill that fear that if I organize a union in my workplace, I'm gonna get fired, or I'm not gonna get the good shifts or some other kind of retaliation from their employers. So we banned captive audience meetings here in the state of Minnesota. Your employer can no longer force you into a meeting.
You can voluntarily go into it, but they cannot force you. They cannot require you to sit through a meeting, um, where they tell you all of the reasons why you shouldn't form a union. Because we know that when workers can organize and collectively bargain, that lifts up all wages, it lifts up all benefit packages because then employers have to compete with the union negotiated contract.
And so you don't have to be a union member to have the benefit of a collective bargaining agreement that sets the wages. Well, that bill two months ago went all the way up to the United States Supreme Court and they upheld it. So even our conservative Supreme Court upheld the bill that workers should not have to, uh, be put in that situation.
Imagine what we could do on the federal level for hardworking families if we just send a union member there.
Christy: Right? Right.
Monica: And y- you went from union leadership to state government, and now you're making the big leap to running for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd District. What made you decide that this was the moment to take that run?
Kaela: Well, I looked at this moment in our nation's history when we have such a corrupt federal government, when, um, we are looking at the SAVE Act, when we are looking at the criminalization of abortion care, um, both for the people seeking abortions and for the providers. And I like to say, uh, to my labor friends, there's no one better to fight for us than one of us, and I feel that very strongly as a woman, too.
When we are facing these-- the possibility of a nationwide abortion ban, when we are criminalizing our care providers, when we are criminalizing pregnant people seeking life-saving care, when we are looking at the SAVE Act, which will possibly make it impossible for women to vote, very targetedly women to vote, people who took on their husband's last name.
We know that this is gonna disenfranchise even further Black women who, let's face it, through most of our movements, we stand on the backs of Black women who came before us and Indigenous people that came before us, right? And so we need a, a person who is courageous, who is gonna stand up against this corrupt government.
We need a union member and, uh, a real working-class person to advocate for workers and hardworking families in this district. And we need a woman to stand up against, the war against women. I'm just gonna say it out loud. War against women, right? And so it's not that I, I looked at my opponents and thought, "We can't have this."
I looked at them and I thought, "Well, we'd be okay," but we deserve better than okay, and right now, okay isn't good enough. And that's why I jumped into the race to bring that real working-class perspective to Congress, but also that perspective where, look, I can't be bought. I am not taking corporate PAC money.
I'm not taking AIPAC money. Um, I cannot be bought. I don't side with Big Insurance or Big Pharma, and that matters. That matters more than ever. I'm the candidate in the race that is endorsed by End Citizens United, which the-- is the leading organization to get dark money out of politic, cor-corporate money out of politics and ban congressional stock trading.
I'm endorsed by Everytown for Gun Safety. I'm endorsed by four or five now, uh, pro-choice groups, women's groups who want pro-choice women in, in Congress and 12 labor unions. These are my values. If, if you wonder what my values are, look at my endorsements. It will tell you everything that you need to know and how I've spent 20-plus years in the labor movement fighting big corporations, fighting systems that keep working people down, and I am not about to stop fighting now.
Christy: Yeah. And in Minnesota, we have a really weird endorsement/nomination process where it's kind of a hybrid of a caucus and a primary. So we have endorsement conventions here for every district. So what happens is delegates from every district get together, they listen to the candidates, and the delegates cast a vote.
the candidate needs to get at least 50% in order to get the endorsement, and if they receive the endorsement, then they become the candidate for that district. There is the option for other candidates to choose to force a primary, if they did not get 50% of the vote,.
And you made that decision to force a primary. so why don't you explain a little bit about the reasoning behind that decision for you?
Kaela: Well, look, the-- this entire campaign, this race is not about me. It's about hardworking families. And, um, we talk about wanting to build a multiracial, inclusive democracy. But then we have this convention process where you have to sit in a, in a, it's typically in a school, for 10 hours to vote on the things we wanna put in our party platform, to vote on endorsing our, state level candidates, and then ultimately voting to endorse, uh, a candidate for Congress, um, and the governor.
Um, all of that takes time. All of that takes hours and hours and hours in a place that is not always accessible for our differently abled folks or for folks that are a little bit older, um, or for hardworking families. What happens if you're a single mom who can't afford childcare for a 10-hour convention?
What happens if you're a shift worker and you can't get that long amount of time off from work? What happens if you're still too afraid to leave your home after the ICE occupation? Those people don't get a say in the process. Um, you look around at these conventions and look, I've participated in it.
I've been a delegate before. I have been a DFL endorsed candidate for all of my state races. I respect the DFL endorsement, and we are missing hundreds of thousands of voices. You have about 180 people between delegates and alternates that make these decisions, and then there are 750,000 other people that live in this district who, for a variety of reasons, are not in that room. If we talk about an inclusive democracy, that means everyone. That means our, our differently abled people who cannot physically sustain sitting through a convention get a voice. That means our hardworking, um, shift workers, the single mom who can't afford childcare, the US citizens that are still targeted when they leave their home should have a voice in who ends up on the ballot, and that is who I'm fighting for.
and that value was made perfectly clear at the convention when I had a young mom lined up to introduce me. And so we got the schedule a couple of days ahead of time, and I said, "Okay, if you can secure childcare between about 2:00 and 5:00 PM, that should be, that should be good." Well, they moved up the congressional endorsement to 11:00 AM, and I think by the time it was all said and done, speeches started about noon.
And I just texted my, my friend, and I said, "Don't worry about it. We're doing speeches now." That could have not made my point any better than this young mom who had to secure childcare, who planned to make an outing for the day to come speak about me and what it means to her to have someone like me run, completely pushed out of the process because another campaign was able to change the schedule.
Like that right there made my point.
Monica: Yeah, I, I really appreciate that explanation, and that makes me sort of think that maybe Minnesota needs to change the process.
Kaela: If we want to build that inclusive democracy, we might want to take a look at it, or we might innovate and say, "Well, maybe you can join remotely." Um, would it be cumbersome? Probably. Would it be challenging and difficult? Probably. But this is our democracy for as long as we can hold onto it. It is messy, but it is ours.
Monica: I like that. A- as we look to wrap things up, um, what is giving you hope right now, especially after such a difficult legislative session?
Kaela: one thing that gives me great hope is the record turnout at caucuses, the amount of new people coming into, our Senate districts and our congressional districts and coming out to participate in the process. It's not a perfect process, but people are coming to participate. That is amazing.
The courage of the people who joined us by live stream or in the chambers when we had our sit-in for gun violence prevention. The, the full rotunda was, um, utilized from gun violence prevention activists shouting and chanting. You could hear it through the chamber doors. People are showing up.
I don't think there is any better indicator of hope than people showing up. People who are our neighbors, who are conservative, but they watched their neighbor dragged out of their home in the middle of winter and said, "This is not okay. I cannot support this Republican party." We are seeing it in a variety of places.
We are seeing people who never protest and never get involved fill our streets during the No Kings rallies. We are seeing people step up and run for city council, for state legislature, for Congress. Never thought they would, but they cannot sit by and watch this administration harm the people that we love for one second longer, and that gives me great hope.
And look, here's one thing. We talk about how terrible things are, gun violence, ICE, you know, uh, affordability, healthcare, childcare. It's all bad right now. But we should be allowed to dream. We should be allowed to hope. This administration is making sure that we are so head down into affording our lives that we-- not only can we not rise up against them, but maybe we've stopped dreaming.
Whatever that looks like, a dream vacation, a cabin on the lake, um, sending your child to college, all of that is starting to dwindle and be completely out of reach for even people where it shouldn't be, and definitely for people like me, um, living paycheck to paycheck. But let's not forget we should be allowed to dream.
Christy: And let's be very clear that, muffling of hope is intentional on the part of the federal government because that is how authori- authoritarianism works. They start making people feel less empowered. They start feeling like their voices don't matter, and they start losing hope because they feel like no matter what they do, they're not gonna make a difference.
And Monica and I are two great examples of if you have the will, there is a way for you to make a difference. And every voice, no matter how small you think your voice is, it matters, and get involved. and so as we're wrapping things up here, where can listeners follow your work and your campaign?
Kaela: So you can find us, um, on social media. KaelaForCongress.com is our website. Um, we are all over Facebook and Instagram and Threads and Blue Sky and all of that. KaelaForCongress.com, that's K-A-E-L-A ForCongress.com is our website, and that's where you can find out how to volunteer and how to contribute, um, and how to show up for our campaign.
We welcome everyone. This is truly a grassroots people-powered campaign. In fact, I don't even call it a campaign. I call it a movement, and we welcome everyone to join us .
Monica: Well, thank you for coming on and, and sharing this information then. This was a, a really fascinating conversation. Do you have any final words before we sign off?
Kaela: Just thank you for having me. Thank you for what you're doing to make sure that you're, um, the people that follow you can hear about what is happening in their communities and find ways to plug in. That's critical in this time. So thank you.
Christy: Well, politics is a team sport, and once people realize that, it works a lot more smoothly and efficiently, I think. So Kaela, thank you for joining us and for taking the time to have this conversation today. We are honored to have you as a guest on our podcast, and we're excited to see where this goes for you.
And thank you so much for the hard work that you do for the people of Minnesota. And, you know, I-- it's a thankless job sometimes, and we just want you to know that we appreciate,.
Monica: We do.
Christy: you and we're behind you.
Kaela: Well, thank you. It's been an honor and a privilege to serve my community, and we'll see what's ahead.
Monica: To our listeners, if you are finding meaning in the stories we're sharing, if something moves you, challenges you, or makes you see the world a little differently, please like, comment, and share. It helps more than you know.
Christy: And follow us everywhere at the Politics Chicks on Substack, Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.
Monica: Thanks for being a part of our community. Keep shining your light so we can find each other in the dark.
Christy: we're stronger together. Thanks again, Kaela. We're so glad that we had the opportunity to talk to you today.
Kaela: Thank.