Down Ballot Banter

Ever wondered what the Commissioner of Labor really does or why a picture in an elevator just doesn’t cut it? Join us for a special live episode of Down Ballot Banter recorded at No Preference Fest, where Monét and Quay sit down with Braxton Winston—labor union advocate, former Charlotte City Council member, and current candidate for NC Labor Commissioner. From working within the system to shaking it up from the outside, we explore how change happens, the everyday violence of unsafe workplaces, and why electing the right people matters.

Heads up: there are some cuss words in this episode. Just a few!

We dedicate this episode to the memory of Wednesday "Wendy" Johnson. May we build an NC that creates safe and dignified jobs for all workers. Learn more about her story here.

Are you ready to start the conversation? Eat, chat and act with Down Ballot Brunch.

Down Ballot Banter is hosted by Monèt Marshall and Quay Weston and is a production of Earfluence.

Creators & Guests

Host
Monet Marshall
Director. Playwright. Arts Consultant. Cultural Organizer.

What is Down Ballot Banter?

Welcome to Down Ballot Banter, the podcast that puts the spotlight on local elections and what local government actually means for you. Hosted by Monèt Marshall and Quay Weston.

00:00:03 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Hey, y'all. Welcome to Down Ballot Banter. The podcast puts a spotlight on local elections and what local government actually means for you. I'm Monét Noelle Marshall.

00:00:13 - Quay Weston
And I am Quay Weston.

00:00:14 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Yeah, you are.

00:00:16 - Quay Weston
Local elections are extremely important, and we're on a mission to learn together and to break down local politics in a way that makes sense to us and doesn't require us to be experts, because we are not. Hello.

00:00:27 - Monét Noelle Marshall
So, whether you're a seasoned voter or this is your first opportunity, we've got the insights and information to keep you informed and engaged.

00:00:34 - Quay Weston
Because when it comes to building new worlds, all of our inputs matter.

00:00:39 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Yes. So if you're ready to learn with us, let's go. So today is another one of those special episodes. There's been a few others in the season, so you should know the rundown by now. It is a live recording from no preference festival, which happened on August 3 at North Star Church of the Arts. And this conversation was really about working inside of institutions, especially political institutions, the government, and then working from the outside to cause change. And this conversation featured Braxton Winston, who is running for the commissioner of labor for North Carolina, and our very own Quay Weston here. The other thing to know about this conversation is that this conversation was the whole reason we did no preference fest to begin with. We wanted to have a moment to hear from this candidate particularly, and to just have people more engaged around the state and local politics. And it's also kind of this conversation that kicked off Down Ballot Banter. So I'm really excited for you to hear it. And I feel like Quay really hit it out the park, and we really learned some things in this conversation.

00:01:55 - Quay Weston
Yeah. If I can add quickly, please. I do think, like, I appreciate the conversation and also really appreciated Braxton's ideas around the council of state that we learned about and what that means and what the commissioner of labor actually does. I think it really speaks to the gaps in information about local elections and then also, like, what, who the players are, which we talked about in our learning episode of things we were curious about. So I think that's really helpful in this conversation. And I want him to win, actually.

00:02:30 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Yeah. You know, every vote matters. All right, let's get into it. So this conversation that we're about to have is actually the conversation that is the reason that we even having this event. So the background story of no preference festival is that there were some folks who wanted to do an event, and they're like, we want to do a community engagement, and somebody who I will not name in this moment was like every time white folks come into a black neighborhood about community engagement, they're like, we're about to be fleeced. So let's not. How about instead we do a no preference fest, and these particular people are like, well, we don't really want to do that. So, no, thank you. But I had already reached out to Kway and Braxton about having a conversation with these two black men in North Carolina, because I think that there's something really important about the ways that you all are both engaging politically in this moment. So for those of you that don't know, this is Quay Weston. He is an artist. He's a local activist. He's a father. He's a husband. He's a friend. Man about town, best dressed, not just sound fast. And this is Braxton Winston III, and he is running the second. I'm sorry, the second. The second. And he is running for commissioner.

00:04:01 - Braxton Winston
My son is the third.

00:04:02 - Monét Noelle Marshall
The third. There is a third. He is not the third. He's running for the commissioner of labor for North Carolina. He was also a city council member for Charlotte Mecklenburg and comes out of the labor movement. And so I wanted to have this conversation because I feel like so often there is this misconception that folks who are working within systems are automatically at odds with folks who are working outside of systems. And I actually believe that we have a long history of working together and agitating in support of each other. So I wanted to have a conversation about that. I also really want to lift up someone. Miss Wednesday, Wendy Johnson. She was a postal worker in Fayetteville, and she died this summer from working hours in a postal truck that was not air conditioned. And she got back to the office. She worked her full shift, got back, and then was found unresponsive in the bathroom. When we talk about violence, so often, we can see the violence in the street when someone loses their lives. But there are so many ways, actually, that these systems are taking our bodies from us. And it's really important for us to also elect folks who are working to make sure that our workplaces are safe, that our schools are safe, that our water and our air is safe. And also, those are not the elections that get the most attention. We don't get a lot of education, and often they're just a picture in the elevator. Right? And we deserve more than a picture in the elevator. We deserve to be in relationship, and we deserve to know that the people who are working for us have values that we align with. So that's why I wanted to have this conversation today.

00:06:06 - Braxton Winston
Thank you.

00:06:06 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Mm hmm. So I'm going to ask for y'all to briefly introduce yourself, share your pronoun, and how would you describe your place in the political system in this moment?

00:06:23 - Braxton Winston
Excellent. Well, thank you for doing this. First of all, this is a beautiful space. Y'all are a beautiful crowd, and I've been sitting here listening to these conversations, and I've wanted to jump up and be on all the panels because there's so many things that I agree with and wanted to riff off of. So thank you for just having this. My name is Braxton Winston. I have the honor and pleasure of sitting in front of you as a democratic nominee for North Carolina commissioner of labor.

00:06:52 - Braxton Winston
And part of the reason why I wanted to do this is because I think this position is. Is much more than just a picture and an elevator. Right. I think we should be the number one state for both businesses and workers. Those two ideas aren't mutually exclusive.

00:07:07 - Braxton Winston
You know, I think every worker should enjoy a fair day's pay for a fair day's work, should expect to go to work in healthy and safe environments, and shouldn't be retaliated against, you know, for standing up for their rights under the law. Those are things that might be political, but they shouldn't necessarily be partisan. Right. But here we are. I'm probably not your traditional candidate for commissioner of labor. I was born in Camp Lejeune. Oh, I'm sorry. My pronouns are he and him. I was born in Camp Lejeune to a guy who retired from the Marine Corps and retired from the United States Air Force, and at 64 years old, is still riding around on a fire truck pulling people out of fires. My mother's a retired high school math teacher. My grandmother's a retired middle school special education teacher. And when I graduated from Davidson College, I started a career as a union stagehand. I would be the first commissioner of labor in north Carolina to be a union member.

00:08:07 - Braxton Winston
I've been doing that for 20 years. Right. I've been doing that and working backstage on things like rock and roll concerts or Broadway shows. I've been a camera operator for the Charlotte Hornets for 20 seasons, and I work on film and television production sets as a set grip. So, all that to say, my lived experience and my background, I understand the challenges that working families face day to day.

00:08:28 - Braxton Winston
I'm a guy who clocks in and clocks out. And that, combined with also being the former mayor pro tem on the Charlotte city council, where I serve three terms. Like I said, I've come to believe that we can and should be the number one state for businesses and workers. Those two things, again, they're not mutually exclusive. Businesses want to come and set up in places that are taking care of their workforce, where workers are going to be skilled, where they're going to thrive, where they're going to have the education, where they're going to have reliable transportation, and where they're going to. They're going to want to set up. And workers, we want our employers to do well and make a lot of money and build wealth and grow. We just want our fair share, right? We want to be able to work a job and not live in poverty. We want to go have a job and earn a living wage so that we're able to put food on our table and put clothes on our kids back.

00:09:28 - Braxton Winston
And that is a responsibility of the community. If you're going to go, your business is going to go bankrupt because you're providing water for your employees, or a place where they can have shade. If they're working outside in the sun, or a place to cool off, they're working inside and need a break. I think you need to look at the business model and not necessarily what those needs of the workers are. So that's part of what I'm doing. I think the second question, part of the question was, where do I find my place? Look, I did this ten years ago. If you that asked me if I was gonna be running for any office, I would not have thought this is what I would have been doing. I ran for office in 2017, a year after there was a police involved killing of a band named Keith Lamont Scott. And I found myself at the forefront of the demonstrations where we shut down Charlotte for a week. There's nothing any. Nothing I had. Had done about that. But as I kind of stepped back, and I think we're going to get into a little more in the conversation, I started showing up into different places, and one of the places that I showed up to was our local government, right.

00:10:45 - Braxton Winston
Because I graduated from Davidson with a degree in anthropology. So I look at things, you know, from a historical and cultural perspective, and, you know, a culture. How I define that is how you do what you do. Change in the community is good. We need to organize person to person, congregation to congregation, neighborhood to neighborhood. But if we don't change the laws and policies, then you're not going to get that culture shift that we want. And as I was seeing that people, the leaders that I wanted to show up in the spaces where the policies and laws were being changed. They weren't showing up.

00:11:27 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Thank you. Kway.

00:11:29 - Quay Weston
Yeah.

00:11:30 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Tell us about yourself and your name, your pronoun. And how do you describe yourself along in this political work, in this moment?

00:11:40 - Quay Weston
Yeah. I'm Quay Weston. I'm from Pantiga, North Carolina, 252 Beaufort county. My pronouns are he, Himdez, and I think in this moment, I often think of myself as just like a collaborator, a storyteller, a truth teller, one who's gathering others, one who is healing or attempting to heal and gather others to be in the process of healing and transformation. And I think of myself as mostly truth telling. Clarity, bringing clarity to space, but bringing kindness and gentleness to people. And also getting us to slow down, to be able to pay attention to, like, what's really happening. And finding other ways to plug people into things that might move us in some form of liberation. That's me at the moment.

00:12:40 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Thank you. So this is a question for both of you. What possibilities do you see for this political moment and what challenges? And, quay, we're gonna start with you.

00:12:52 - Quay Weston
Yeah, I was excited about this one possibilities. I see both in all the conversations that have happened. I think we are in a moment of radical transformation. And I think that's based on the fact that so many people are. It feels like so many people right now are engaged in questioning systems and processes and institutions, both at the student level, like the student encampments, the protests, rallies that are happening every day somewhere around Palestine and Sudan and Congo and Haiti and all of those places. So I think what seems possible is us getting to a new step or new phase of, like, what might be possible within our communities and people willing to be engaged in a part of it in a way that feels different for me. Throughout college, there were many different things to organize around which there's always problems, always things to fix or do. But I think, yeah, it feels like the possibilities are around building new worlds in a different way. That brings in multiple identities, intergenerational conversations, intergenerational thoughts. Not that any of it is new, but it feels more open and spacious for us to do new things. Just possibilities. Right. That's what we're talking about.

00:14:19 - Monét Noelle Marshall
And some challenges.

00:14:21 - Quay Weston
Challenges. Okay. From my kind of experience in venture's point, some of the challenges are challenges that have always existed. But I think the one that I noted to want to say most is that I think we're going to be challenged by particularly those of us that are on the left. Of, like, moderate by each other and getting on the same page about a thing. And I also think we are in a kind of rapid acceleration of misinformation and untruths and things that are disconnecting us from each other and forcing us, making us believe things that may not necessarily be true and having to unlearn things while you're learning new things, because every day something new is coming. Right. So I think that's a challenge. And I also think a challenge is like, moving through that conflict and that the best of what we have created in terms of culture and language and Dei and all of these things are gonna be used against us and we're seeing it. Right. And like, race reductionism, meaning you collapse a person just to their race and just based on race, that means you have to support them. And that doesn't leave room for questions or conversations or critiques. And I think that's also a big challenge that we're seeing now and we'll continue to see as, yeah, the learning happens around how we think, what we do to move forward and also, like, using that against us to move backwards, too.

00:16:00 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Same question. Braxton, what possibilities and challenges do you see in this electoral moment?

00:16:05 - Braxton Winston
Well, there are immense possibilities. We are in a moment, and however you want to kind of put time stamps around that moment, but we're in a very disruptive time in so many different ways. You know, think about technology, right? The way AI is promising to be a tool, depending on how that gets used to really change how, you know, sort of how the Internet came around 40 years ago, but then it wasn't until everybody had a PC, then everybody started knowing what the Internet was and then, but it really became a tool when these things came around. And it was, it's, it's taken over our lives. AI has a chance to do that. But you look at all types of other industries, the way the energy sector is getting disrupted, the way transportation is getting disrupted federally, the different bills that we have for North Carolina right now, there's set to get a disproportionate amount of resources over the next decade in this state, how that's going to, how we use them, it's going to change a lot about how business has been getting done in North Carolina. If you also look at just again, nationally, we're looking at the way we develop neighborhoods. There are policies that have been reckoning with the effects of urban renewal and segregation that's put in things like exclusionary zone, and those things are changing and which way we go and who participates in those processes are going to really determine what type of disruption does or doesn't happen. The challenges are. Is that, again, how we put these timestamps around? You talked about mirrors and windows. We have to also have a process of zooming in and zooming out. Right. To zoom in, to really kind of challenge and dissect things that are happening, but also have the ability to zoom out and put them into a bigger context and understand these things. We also have to have a sliding door sometimes that stands in between those mirrors and windows to be able to kind of see what's going on, but also put yourself in those places. So we exist in these continuums, and we're trying to, as we try to disrupt and as we try to change things, sometimes we look at these from a very zoomed in perspective and don't zoom out. To understand all of the different parts of the system that are going to change when we make one little change here, but also how we have to have, like, a comprehensive approach on the whole system. If we do this one thing here, we have to have somebody working on that over here. We got to have somebody. And if we don't, then the change that doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't have the outcomes. And then to understand that there are unknowns. Right. When you do change something, if you think it's going to be for the better, you have to be ready, you know, to. And if you. That's why zooming out is so important. You can contextualize, you can get clues from what has happened in the past, but you're never really going to kind of know until you go up and flip the table.

00:19:24 - Monét Noelle Marshall
And we are in a church, so maybe we just need to go flip some tables. You said a really interesting word, participate. And I want to talk about participating, participation, and about what empowers you and also what support do you need, or do you see other elected officials needing so that they can actually make the changes they were elected to make? I know. Big question. I know. And then, Kwei, the question to you is gonna be similar, but about participation. How do we show up and participate in process from outside of the process and be in relationship that way?

00:20:00 - Braxton Winston
Well, cut me off whenever you need to. Well, so there's a difference between politics and governing. I don't like the whole politician part of it. I mean, there's a part to it. When you're going through a campaign like I'm doing now, I have to tell you my politics. Right. The lens that I look at problem solving through. But if once I'm in office, all I'm focusing on is what I care about and my ideals, and I'm boxing out everybody out, then I'm a politician, and it's not a good place to govern. Right. So you govern in a democracy based on, like, who's showing up. So again, it's one thing to organize around an election, but then you have to keep showing up after that election. You have to show up to your city council meetings, your county commission meetings, you have to participate in the committee meetings that are deciding what are the policy agendas going to be. And if you don't stay organized and at the table, then it's very hard for a person sitting in the seat to do it by themselves to say, hey, this is important. Well, if nobody is coming and saying that it's important with you, then it's just your own political kind of perspective. And that's not something that the rest of the council or the rest of the staff that has to do the work is going to necessarily be able to follow around. And participating in elections is so important. And even if you don't, you show up to the booth and you don't vote, you need to just show up, because it makes it harder to get. If you don't do it, it makes it harder to get people that have your interests or share your priorities into that office. And I'll tell you a little bit about it real quick. Again, I ran on a platform of building a more equitable and accessible and interconnected community in Charlotte. Voting and showing up to the booth is completely connected with that. You build equity in the system when you vote, right? You add literal value to it, to your name. It's something that is a time that binds us all from the top of the bottom of the economic scale. So I was elected with 70,000 votes in my first election. When I'm deciding who I mail stuff to or who I email stuff to, everything has a cost. Everything has a cost. And so while I would love to send an email or send a piece of mail to all 400,000 voters in Charlotte, every one of those pieces of mail has a stamp. That's a cost. I can't raise $200,000 just to send a piece of mail. So I start driving down into the data to see who's going to actually show up to the voting precinct. And as I dig down into that, I can tell everybody who shows up, I can't tell who you voted for or what you did when you got in there. So you start to build equity to that, and people will pay to provide you the information of what they're considering, because they'll know you'll show up, and you'll start to get the information before other people do. So you have to show up, whether it's in those processes or at the voting booth, to really help build your cause and give other people, people that want to represent your ideas, a chance to do that on the form, on the policy making table.

00:23:41 - Quay Weston
And for me, it was about showing up in.

00:23:44 - Monét Noelle Marshall
I'd be forgetting that the other side of it, you know, like, what does it mean to show up and agitate? Maybe agitate's not the right participate. What does it mean to participate in the governing process and to push once people are elected?

00:23:59 - Quay Weston
Mm hmm. One thing we're trying to figure out still is how we hold people accountable when they don't align with our values or the values that they promised initially. We still trying to figure that out here, even in Durham right here. So question mark on that. But I think in term, there's some people, familiar faces here. We were organized around the ceasefire resolution at Durham, passed I don't even know how long ago, some months ago. And I think what was most important in that showing up was the community in which myself and my wife Brittany, have created for ourselves, not for ourselves, but with others. And in that type of relationship, understanding what people cared about, what our neighbors care about, what things are important to us. What are people talking about online? What are our friends who live, live in XYZ places? Like, how are we aligned on what we do want? And how is that connected to this larger context of people who are saying, what we do want is an inter occupation in Palestine, right? So it's thinking about where my particular gifts and abilities might lie and then thinking, oh, yeah, I'm an artist. So it does make sense to be on the cultural roadmap planning group for Durham because I care about culture and art and how that will impact people. Right. It's looking at those pockets. It's talking to friends like Omi. It's talking to people who are doing healing work and spiritual work. And, like, where are the lanes and places we need to be in order for our people to get what they need? And that may be going to a council meeting, but it also might be showing up to this other meeting because, like, we have some things going on, right? And it's just finding ways to be active and engaged and, like, actually present with people that I think has created more access points for, yes, it feels right. We need to go to city council. Let's talk about that. Yes, it feels right we should go to a county commissioner's meeting because we care about the budgets for education. Let's work on that, but only through being connected to people in a relationship with others who care as well about things and about black people or brown people. That's the way that we create that showing up or participate in the showing up in whichever way makes the most sense at that time. Yeah. And I think historically, right, like, people have always. Well, not always, often participated in the doing that has led to us winning things, be it small things, big things. Yeah. So it's a matter of engaging others, engaging friends, engaging community, engaging neighbors. And I think that helped me personally, if we're talking about me, to show up, well, for everything else that needed to happen. That's my current thoughts around that.

00:26:51 - Monét Noelle Marshall
I think I just want to thread the needle around this common piece we're hearing about community and that we cannot show up by ourselves. You cannot. As an elected official, you cannot do the work by yourself in Quay. You can stand in front of Durham city hall and scream all day, all night, and it's not going to change nothing. So I think I'm really hearing the ways that we need to be in relationship. So this is a question for both of you. If you were designing your ideal relationship for you, Braxton, like with someone in community or with a community group, how would you like to be supported? How would you like to be in relationship so that you could do your job better if you were elected? And, Quay, same question for you. What describe how you would like to be in relationship with your elected local and state elected officials? Actually, Quay, you gonna answer first this time?

00:27:40 - Quay Weston
Okay, this is on the spot imagination. So I'm gonna just go. Um, I would like to see the people that we support and elect at things that community is present at. That's one I would like to trust. I would like time to build relationships with that person. Often what has happened is people come to campaign related functions. You may see them elsewhere, you likely will not. And I think that builds trust that makes people believe that if a question arises, you will be responsive to it. It's just like any other relationship in life. Right? So I want that. I also would like way to get you out of there if you not stepping accordingly and have an agreement of what that means. Right? Like, yes, this is a community in which I feel accountable to. And accountability for me means if I fuck up, if I speak out of value in alignment with what we agreed to. This is a consequence or that is a consequence. And like, what does repair mean in the places where you do fuck up? That doesn't seem to exist very well. It's either we blasting your email, we put some shit up about you on social media, and like, then you overhear and we just need somebody else to do what we want them to do. Right. It's not mutual reciprocal in that way. So I think that's a desire. And I want people to be kind. God damn.

00:29:23 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Like, you can't be kind, just be kind.

00:29:25 - Quay Weston
Not nice kind. Right? Like, be honest, be who you are fully, and be open to critiques as not embarrassment or being called out, but being called into something that might help you show up better. That's my desire.

00:29:48 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Braxton, what do you desire?

00:29:52 - Braxton Winston
So, one, so, from being in an elected position, I always wanted, and I wanted tables for people to be able to come to and to be able to participate and to hear their voices, right. To be able to govern with them. And there are not a lot of official processes or places for that to occur and to actually try to create that some elected officials don't necessarily agree on, that they want to actually sometimes hear less. So, for instance, as I'm looking at this new position, I've gotten a couple of interesting questions about co governance. Once you're in the commission of labor position, I was like, you know what, I don't know if there exists a table at the Department of Labor where workers can come and talk about the needs outside of, you know, when something goes wrong and filing a report, you shouldn't have to wait till somebody loses a leg or dies, you know, because they were in a truck that was like an easy bake oven. And that was on quote of that family member of that postal worker that you mentioned to deal with something. Right? So how do you create tables where your constituents can, you can have that back and forth in an effective official pattern. But also I would say we have to be more comfortable with getting uncomfortable. And change doesn't happen when just by organizing the people that agree with you, you have to get. Change happens when you have people who have different priorities and you get them at the table and you find common ground respective moving forward, because that's what a democracy relies on. It's a numbers game. You got to get people behind you. So the kind of after 2016, I was just. I called myself a concerned citizen. I was learning from people that, particularly young trans youth that have been organizing for their lives for so many years in Charlotte, I had seen so many people. I had never done anything like that. But I have been given a platform that show people that I call it activist, somebody who uses their platform to amplify the voices of others that don't have that platform. And people in my community were telling me to use my voice and say, hey, people are listening to you. A little different, although we're seeing the same thing go out. And I was trying to figure out, okay, how am I supposed to do this? How do you change things? And I went to, I heard somebody speak, and this philosophy has kind of always helped me. You could put the catholic diocese on one side of the table and plan parenthood on the other. Now, if you want to put, if you just want a food fight, if you want to just hear an argument, you put abortion on the table. Because those two entities are never going to be able to have common ground because somebody is going to have to compromise their values. And frankly, nobody wants to compromise their values. If somebody compromises their values, they'll have a lasting. They might have peace for a little while, but it won't be a lasting peace. But if you put on the table, how do we increase access to women healthcare in economically underserved communities? Or how do we invest in eradicating cervical cancer in all women? This is something that both of those entities can lock arms and without compromising and work on together forever and hopefully find something. So I care less about changing people's minds. I care less about trying to get people to change their values. And I try to figure out, and I think we all should figure out, where's the common ground that we can work together on and move forward there. And if we don't have it or we can't find it, keep it moving and go find somebody else, another group to organize with and bring in. So we have those numbers to find someplace that we can be effective with. If we constantly try to focus on changing people's minds, we're not going to move forward and change the culture in ways that are tangible, in the way that our community needs the change to happen.

00:34:11 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Thank you. So I want to take a minute because I know. What does a commissioner of labor do?

00:34:19 - Quay Weston
Good question.

00:34:21 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Can you just tell us, please?

00:34:23 - Braxton Winston
Sure. This is, again, this is another great example. Who can tell me what the council of State does?

00:34:28 - Monét Noelle Marshall
No, I.

00:34:28 - Braxton Winston
Anybody heard of the council of State?

00:34:30 - Quay Weston
Council of State?

00:34:30 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Are you the lawyer for the state?

00:34:32 - Braxton Winston
No.

00:34:32 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Okay.

00:34:33 - Braxton Winston
The council of State is our executive branch of the state government. It's made up of ten elected positions, right. The governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, commissioner of insurance, superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of labor, commissioner of agriculture, the treasurer. And there's one more out there. There's one more. No, no, no. I said attorney general. There's a 10th one. But they make up the council of State. The Council of State, right. Our job is to administer, interpret and execute the laws of North Carolina. So the general assembly, which we often focus on. Right. They make the laws, but the executive branch is the one who executes the laws. We are a strange state in that we elect ten of these positions. Usually states elect two or three, but we have the ability to control ten of these positions. We are only one of four states that elects the commissioner of labor. Right. Most other states appoint those. So the job of the commissioner of labor is to run the Department of labor, which administers, interprets and executes chapter 95 of the North Carolina Code, which is our state's labor laws. Right. It relates to the wage and hour laws, it relates to the health and safety laws, it relates to migrant housing and deals with human trafficking and worker misclassification around labor. There are so many other public safety responsibilities. And inspects, as you know, every one of the 20,000 elevators in North Carolina. It inspects all the roller coasters and amusement park rides, ski lifts, Ada lifts. And that's funny. But then you see, you might have saw a video like last year, 18 months ago from Charlotte. There was a. A roller coaster that was broken, right? And then people were riding and it was flapping in the wind. You know, when one in four of those safety compliance officer positions goes unfilled.

00:36:43 - Monét Noelle Marshall
And there's only four for the state?

00:36:45 - Braxton Winston
One in 425 percent of the state.

00:36:47 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Oh, one in 425.

00:36:49 - Braxton Winston
There are 106 budgeted in this state, but at any given time, only 85 of those gets filled. That's for a state with. Again, I named all those elevators, all those things. 4 million workers, something like three quarters of a million jobs. Those are the folks that also have to inspect every time there's a workplace accident, a workplace death, every time you report something that's un. So what is the confidence that that job is getting done on time every time? So you asked that question about the council of state to folks that show up to every political meeting. They don't know either. So the power is in understanding the systems that exist around us and how can we leverage our influence on these? And part of the reason why I ran for this is that not enough people know about these council of state positions which we have real power to focus on if we want to. It's going to be very hard to undo the gerrymander so that we can create the laws that we want in Raleigh. But we are a state that can win, put people in place statewide. You can't gerrymander a whole state. And we have ten people on the ballot that I would suggest you take a look at, as well as three judges, a Supreme Court justice and two court of appeals justices that we all have a vote on but are integral in terms of balancing and checking a corrupt legislature. So we have to be engaged and involved about all these positions. They don't teach this in school. Again, part of the reason why I ran for city council is I have all this fancy education. I could tell you how a bill is made in Congress, but I couldn't tell you how to hold the police chief accountable and a council manager form of government like I had never. I grew up in New York City. The buck stopped at the mayor, which was a strong mayor position. I never even heard. There's a person that's hired that runs all of the systems. What is that? They don't teach that anywhere. So we have to find ways to educate our communities about how all these systems exist so we really know how to put pressure on the right parts to get the changes that we want and need.

00:39:04 - Monét Noelle Marshall
I have never even heard of the Council of States. Has anyone else in the room heard of the Council of States? Yeah.

00:39:09 - Quay Weston
I didn't know they had a name.

00:39:11 - Monét Noelle Marshall
A name.

00:39:11 - Quay Weston
I know all of y'all are up for vote.

00:39:13 - Monét Noelle Marshall
This.

00:39:14 - Quay Weston
I didn't know that was a council.

00:39:15 - Braxton Winston
So one last thing. I'll say another important responsibility of the Council of State is the council of State. While the General assembly has passed the law, a lot of the executive actions that were taken, particularly during the pandemic or during hurricane season, on natural disasters, the governor was able to do that on its own. But the General assembly, after Covid, they made a law that in order for the executive orders to go through, you have to have a vote, majority vote of the council of State. So now, and they did that because they know that people aren't paying attention to that. So it likely can. Right now it's majority republican. So in order to have some of those protections that if we, again, if we vote the person that we want, I want Josh Stein, but if we vote the person that we want to be in the governor position, if we don't give them the council of state, that is going to work for the good of the people. Then again, that position can be a feckless position because of the way the laws have been written over the past five years, basically.

00:40:34 - Quay Weston
So at that point, if Josh Stein passed an executive order, the ten of y'all, if there was y'all them, whoever could say no, correct.

00:40:45 - Braxton Winston
So the mask shit. So, yeah, yeah, basically, social distancing, mask mandate, all that stuff. Right? And, you know, sorry, I could go into this. We've all heard Sherri Berry for 20 years in this state, and again, it's a picture in the elevator. It's funny, but she was completely anti worker. She wasn't even pro business. She was admittedly anti worker. She did not run for reelection. So when the pandemic was happening, we didn't have her in there. We had the gentleman that's in there right now, Josh Dobson, Republican, by no means. I would say he's progressive in terms of worker rights or anything like that, but he took this job seriously. You know, he was the one that push forward some of those worker protections. And because of those things, we fared better than a lot of other states. But he paid the political price. He said he did not run for reelection because his elbows were not sharp enough to get through his primary because they wanted somebody who was just going to be as adamantly anti worker as Sherry Berry. And I. It showed. Sorry. It showed in my opponent. It's. I'm running against a guy who said Joe Biden is trying to use OSHA as a backdoor for national vaccine mandate. He's gonna do everything that he can do to make sure that OSHA and Osh have no place in the workplace and in our economy.

00:42:16 - Monét Noelle Marshall
So we need OSHA. OSHA stands for occupational safety, health administration.

00:42:25 - Braxton Winston
Yeah. And the state equivalent is Osh.

00:42:27 - Monét Noelle Marshall
O s h. Awesome. Quay, I'm gonna ask you our final question for today.

00:42:33 - Quay Weston
I'm upset about that. I mean, I knew, but.

00:42:39 - Braxton Winston
All right, all ten are on the.

00:42:41 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Ballot, so, y'all, we gotta go talk about the countess auditor was the last.

00:42:45 - Braxton Winston
One that our auditor was.

00:42:49 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Talk to your friends about the council of States. I learned about it. I was today years old, and you were also today years old. So go tell your friends and family at your next Down Ballot Brunch. So, Quay, and our final question for today. What are you dreaming for North Carolina?

00:43:10 - Quay Weston
One primary thing I've been thinking a lot about and talking to people about is, like, you talk a lot about workers, and as an artist, artists aren't often seen as workers. And I think if we had an analysis of labor and work for artists, we would potentially get health insurance or housing or retirement plans or insurance again.

00:43:40 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Or a living wage.

00:43:41 - Quay Weston
Or a living wage. Yeah. So I think a lot about North Carolina that honors the work of those we have historically considered unvaluable work or invaluable work, or, like, culture work or abstract, fun things that you hope to do. And it's not a lucrative career. I think about protections for workers in that way. I want my great grandmother to not have had to deal with Medicare issues in meaning she had to sign her home over to me to be able to get healthcare, because with Medicare regulations, you can't have a certain amount of assets to get care or get that benefit. I want a. Yeah, I want climate conscious legislation that is thinking about the future, particularly of land and heirs property, which is very close to my heart, which has still been in this committee for about a year and a half, I think. And no decisions have been made around that. So I think that's important for North Carolina, particularly black people who have farmland in North Carolina. I think about a North Carolina that actually honors women's or people who births reproductive rights. All this, like, transphobic, homophobic shit sliding down. All this legislation is particularly violent. And I want a North Carolina that doesn't represent that. Childcare. We come in for childcare, parental leave. Fuck parental leave, childcare support and benefits in North Carolina. All these things that have changed in the last several years, right? Like this is not really old things. Some of it, you know, roots of slavery. But what else? People talk about universal basic incomes. Dharma has piloted that a little bit. That's awesome. The heart program, things like that. To be funded around this state. Whoo wee. Lots of dreams. And then a world in which we don't necessarily depend on governments to have to provide that to us, but we are building that intentionally ourselves and able to determine for ourselves what freedom looks like on land that's occupied. Yeah. And peace and healing and restorative work in communities.

00:46:17 - Braxton Winston
Can I riff off that for a second?

00:46:18 - Monét Noelle Marshall
You sure can.

00:46:20 - Braxton Winston
So many. As you were rattling those things off. There are so many things as you were rattling those wonderful desires off. I was thinking of all because, honestly, it resonates with my platform. The whole worker. You have to take care of the whole worker. Work doesn't work without affordable housing and access to childcare and all of this. All those have different policies and laws that govern them. And it can be so frustrating sometimes. Like the heirs property issue, right? That's something that is a housing issue, but from a municipal standpoint, you can't do anything of substance around it outside of making a statement if the law doesn't change. Right. The arts and culture standpoint. I've made my career on arts and culture, and in Charlotte, we had to reckon with arts and culture drives exponential more revenue than the hornets and the Panthers and major league Soccer combined. Right? So we had to go through a long process of changing the way we invest our public dollars in arts and culture. We didn't stop looking at it from a philanthropic perspective and looked at it as an economic development. Say that, how do we understand these different industries that do make up the whole arts and culture scene? Definitely got to go through your economic development offices to understand how to change those things, all of these things that quay said we deserve and we should have. And to the point that you said, you don't want government to provide it, you want the community to provide it. But if the framework to be able to do that legally and in a protective way doesn't exist in those laws and policies, then the community is going to continue to run into dead ends after dead end after dead end. So it's so frustrating to get zoom in and zoom out, but it has to be constant, and you can't give up. You have to take care of yourself. You have to delegate, and you have to, as some folks were saying earlier, you have to sometimes just take a breath and drink some water and chill, but always find a way to kind of always be persistently moving, moving forward and surround yourself with people who are persistently moving forward. So that's why I'm doing this, you.

00:48:47 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Know, and I'm glad you're doing this. Thank you, Braxton. Thank you, kway. Yeah. Just thank you for being down. Thank you for stepping up in all the ways that you both step up, which is both different and in relationship. Right. That we need people at every angle. We need people at the table. At every table. We need people outside shaking the table a little bit. Remember what you said. Remember who you like, who belong to and who you are part of that. Like, and I just. I am dreaming a world where we remember our connections to each other and that people remember, like, you got a grandma. Is that really what your grandma would have needed? Is that the legislation that would support your grandma, like, in real life? Like, I. So, two things. I never want to run for office. It's not my desire. I'm an artist. Because when you're an artist, you can say whatever you want to say, and I maintain whatever you want to say.

00:49:49 - Braxton Winston
When you elected officers, you know that's.

00:49:51 - Monét Noelle Marshall
True, but because I want to. But because I'm Robin Marshall's child, I can't say everything I want to say. So I really. Yeah. But I started the student government at Powell's Lane elementary school in 1999, and that is my entrance into politics, because we wanted to have a Valentine's Day dance, which we did, because I believe in organizing people mainly for joy. And the other thing I want to say is, I've been thinking all day about my grandmother, Evelyn Marie la Jour Marshall.

00:50:32 - Monét Noelle Marshall
She was born in 1922. And in 2015, after the massacre at mother Emanuel church in South Carolina, when they finally took down the confederate flag, the South Carolina government took down the confederate flag for the last time. I remember standing with her and sitting with her and watching it on the news. She was 92 years old at the time, and I was feeling so cynical. I was like, nine people died. And what you got for us is to take down this flag. That's what you got.

00:51:04 - Monét Noelle Marshall
You don't got no policies changed. You don't got no gun rights like we don't. You're going to take down this symbol. Okay, I'm over it. And she said, I never thought I'd see that in my lifetime. And in that moment, I realized again about the zoom out, about the long arc of justice, that this is not like we gonna solve it in November. There is nobody we're going to elect that is going to solve our problems in November. There's no one going to elect here locally, at the state level or federally, that will solve our problems by November, which means we have to continue to participate and we have to be in relationship with each other in order to participate, because I am not trying to go to city council and fight just for me.

00:51:49 - Monét Noelle Marshall
That's boring. And I'm tired, and I can't be at every meeting, right? And I know that I am privileged and that I could be at every meeting if I really made the effort.

00:52:00 - Monét Noelle Marshall
But my neighbors can't. I know my mama can't. She's a school teacher. She's tired. You know, like, my elders cannot do that. And if. Unless we are in relationship and hearing and listening to one another to the point where we're saying, I am not just speaking for me, I'm speaking for 100 other people because I know them and I know what they want and need, what are we doing? So this is an invitation for us to continue to show up, to continue to have conversations.

00:52:29 - Monét Noelle Marshall
The Down Ballot Brunch guide is really just. We're already meeting with the people we love. Let's just have a conversation and let's take an action. Hey, I'm a vote on November 2. You coming with me. All right? And after, we gonna go have lunch at Mike D's barbecue. Great. You know, let's make a plan. Let's show up, and let's make it joyful for me. I'm an artist, so I always wanted to make it fun.

00:52:54 - Monét Noelle Marshall
I always want to feed people, and I always want it to feel good. We can build the world that we want and deserve. We don't have to wait for it, and we don't have to wait till someone else delivers it, because they ain't going to. So I hope that you're feeling inspired. I hope that you're feeling like I can do something and I can look around the room.

00:53:15 - Monét Noelle Marshall
And when I'm feeling hopeless, I can remember that there are other people dropping one pebble, right, doing one small thing, and that that's enough. I'm grateful to be in community with y'all. I know that you all represent 100 people, right? That you love, that you care about your community with, and I trust that this message will continue. Thank you for taking your time on a rainy Saturday to be here having this conversation. This is just the beginning, and it doesn't end in November. And I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for who you are, who you are right now, who you have been in the past, and who you are going to be. And I'm grateful to be in community with you. Thanks y'all. Thanks for tuning in to Down Ballot Banter. We hope y'all enjoy diving into the tentacular world of local politics with us.

00:54:07 - Quay Weston
Yeah. And don't forget, this podcast is an extension of Monét's beautiful dream. The Down Ballot Brunch, where there are three simple steps, is to eat, have a conversation, and to act.

00:54:18 - Monét Noelle Marshall
That's right, have a conversation. Using this podcast episode, the Down Ballot Brunch Chat guide, or your own prompts, write a note to an elected official on a Down Ballot Brunch postcard. Share quotes from your convo on social media, with consent, of course, or text three friends about their voting plans and find out what matters to them.

00:54:38 - Quay Weston
And if you're watching on YouTube, be sure to like share subscribe. If you're listening on other platforms, be sure to rate and review share it with your people.

00:54:47 - Monét Noelle Marshall
Until next time, stay informed, stay engaged, and keep up with the Down Ballot Banter.