Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio. My guest today falls into one
Speaker 1: of my favorite categories, politicians to keep an eye on,
Speaker 1: because they're doing amazing things. Lorraina Gonzalez represents California's eightieth
Speaker 1: Assembly district in southern San Diego. She was first elected
Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen and got into politics after years
Speaker 1: of working as a labor leader. She's a progressive Democrat
Speaker 1: who supports working in middle class Californians with an impressive
Speaker 1: list of wins, including paid sick leave, overtime for farm workers,
Speaker 1: protecting janitorial workers against sexual assault, automatic voter registration at
Speaker 1: the d m V diaper tax relief. The list goes
Speaker 1: on and on. Growing up, Assemblywoman Gonzalez saw first hand
Speaker 1: what government can do or not do to help working
Speaker 1: class families. She was raised by a single mom who
Speaker 1: put in long hours as a nurse to support Gonzalez
Speaker 1: and her two older brothers. Today, Lorraina Gonzalez has five
Speaker 1: kids in a blended family with her husband, Nathan Fletcher.
Speaker 1: He's also in San Diego politics as a county supervisor.
Speaker 1: Gonzalez and Fletcher are both Democrats, but that wasn't always
Speaker 1: the case. He was a Republican. He was actually a
Speaker 1: Republican assembly member, and at the time I was the
Speaker 1: head of the a f l c I O in
Speaker 1: San Diego, and he was always a much more moderate Republican.
Speaker 1: But through the process when he ran unsuccessfully for Mayror,
Speaker 1: we had a ton of discussions. This is before we
Speaker 1: started dating or anything, and he saw the light. He
Speaker 1: became a Democrat. Then we started dating, then we got married.
Speaker 1: That makes sense to me. The first thing I think
Speaker 1: about when I look at your biography and so forth,
Speaker 1: beyond your family, the thing that strikes me most is
Speaker 1: my goodness. You have the trifecta of academic credentials here
Speaker 1: Stanford undergrad, Georgetown Masters, u c l A. Law school.
Speaker 1: You have the credentials to have done a lot of
Speaker 1: things for yourself. You know, you're certainly the whole Goldman
Speaker 1: Sacks material academically and everything, and yet labor organizer, state Assembly.
Speaker 1: What is it? What was the calling for you that
Speaker 1: you wanted to forego taking care of yourself in order
Speaker 1: to take care of other people. I put a lot
Speaker 1: of that on my mom. So my mom for most
Speaker 1: of my life was a single mom. She just worked
Speaker 1: her ass off. I don't know else to put it.
Speaker 1: I don't ever remember her having a forty hour work week.
Speaker 1: She worked fifty sixty seventy hours a week, multiple jobs
Speaker 1: at times, all to make life better, not just for
Speaker 1: me and my brothers, to give us an opportunity to
Speaker 1: go to college and do things, but also to make
Speaker 1: life better for her patients, for people she was serving.
Speaker 1: She taught me that in life, what actually matters isn't
Speaker 1: how much money you have in your bank account or
Speaker 1: how many trips you get to go on, but how
Speaker 1: much you do to save the world. And we laugh now,
Speaker 1: my husband and I, and it's it's a question do
Speaker 1: you want to savor the world or save the world.
Speaker 1: We're still on the save the world trajectory. At some point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's everybody's right to take a step back
Speaker 1: and savor the world a little bit. There's just so
Speaker 1: much work to do, and I think that I saw that,
Speaker 1: and I saw hard working people and saw what they
Speaker 1: go through, and just wanted to ensure that I could
Speaker 1: try to make other folks lives a little easier. I
Speaker 1: moved to l A three for the first time, to work.
Speaker 1: I lived in l A. I remember coming to California
Speaker 1: then and it was very much a dialogue and very
Speaker 1: much a part of the culture was migrant workers, and
Speaker 1: the California was the great state of the migrant worker
Speaker 1: in Chavez and all that legacy in the central California thing.
Speaker 1: Now in northern San Diego County, you have a migrant
Speaker 1: worker a labor community. Correct. We have small family farms
Speaker 1: in San Diego. When I say small family farms, they
Speaker 1: have somewhere between twenty five and fifty maybe up to
Speaker 1: a hundred farm workers. So it's not like the massive
Speaker 1: farms that you have in the central Valley. But we
Speaker 1: do have small strawberry fields, flower fields, um in farm
Speaker 1: workers where your father worked, Correct, your father worked in
Speaker 1: the strawberry was it a migrant worker community by and large.
Speaker 1: There it's less migratory, if you will. Um, it's more
Speaker 1: farm workers who stay there, but they're immigrants primarily from Mexico,
Speaker 1: and they often stopped in me their homes. In North
Speaker 1: San Diego County and San Diego County, we have avocado
Speaker 1: groves as well. So my father, like like most of
Speaker 1: the workers even today, his father was Brasseto so it
Speaker 1: was part of a program during the World War two
Speaker 1: to ensure we had enough farm workers. They brought individuals
Speaker 1: up from Mexico to work the farms at substandard wages
Speaker 1: and sent them back home. And so my grandfather's Brasseto.
Speaker 1: So my father, after hearing the stories, also wanted to
Speaker 1: come to the United States. Uh, so he came. He
Speaker 1: started in the straw fields in north San Diego County. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I asked, because and you say the preferred world is
Speaker 1: migratory workers, not migrants. Correct, Well, there's different. They're considered
Speaker 1: immigrants or migrant workers. But I sometimes people think of
Speaker 1: probably in the eighties, and there was a time when
Speaker 1: we had workers who would come and they might work
Speaker 1: in the fields and Imperial during certain seasons and then
Speaker 1: migrate north and work other seasons in the pistachio or
Speaker 1: almond fields, you know. And so they would travel throughout
Speaker 1: California and all the way up to Washington for the
Speaker 1: apple season. And that was a little bit different than
Speaker 1: what we're seeing today when a lot of immigrants come
Speaker 1: in and work one farm. Now, my friend Christina since Soon,
Speaker 1: who once ran and I think co founded the Workers
Speaker 1: Defense Fund. She mean for the Senate in Texas this
Speaker 1: last election, and Christina since soon has run organizations to
Speaker 1: protect migrant workers in Texas. In the construction industry, people
Speaker 1: would would they would lose a limb, they would have
Speaker 1: their their hand chopped off in an accident, and if
Speaker 1: no benefits and nobody sources to help them deal with
Speaker 1: their unemployment or whatever or workers compensation. So she worked
Speaker 1: very hard and very successfully to address that. Is that
Speaker 1: still a problem in California, whether it's in northern San
Speaker 1: Diego County or up north of there, that these workers
Speaker 1: lacked the protections that other workers have. It is and there.
Speaker 1: So you brought up construction. So let's take it in
Speaker 1: two different ways. And I think it's important for people
Speaker 1: to understand this. Farm workers in the United States don't
Speaker 1: have the same rights as other workers. There are two
Speaker 1: sets of workers. Way back in the FDR days, right
Speaker 1: when they pass a Fair Labor Standards Act, there are
Speaker 1: two sets of workers that were taken out of that.
Speaker 1: The Fair Labor Standards Act is what gives us minimum wage,
Speaker 1: overtime protections, what we assume is kind of workplace protections
Speaker 1: we have today. They took out farm workers and domestic
Speaker 1: workers and if you think why, at the time, it
Speaker 1: was a vestige of slavery. So the work that was
Speaker 1: being done at that time by rural Southern African Americans
Speaker 1: and then later by an influx of immigrants, was taken
Speaker 1: out of basic protections, not even the right to organize
Speaker 1: and so um in California, we've done a lot to
Speaker 1: put those rights back in. So uh five years ago
Speaker 1: we create the ail Er B which allows farm workers
Speaker 1: to organize. We had minimum wage requirements, and just a
Speaker 1: few years ago, in fact, I passed the bill to
Speaker 1: ensure that farm workers also get over time. We're the
Speaker 1: only state in the nation that has passed that. There's
Speaker 1: only a couple that allow farm workers to organize or
Speaker 1: pay minimum wage even to this day. The construction trades,
Speaker 1: they have those protections. But what happens with a lot
Speaker 1: of our immigrant workforce in construction, in particular janitorial work,
Speaker 1: is employers just cheat the system. So they pay them
Speaker 1: under the table, they don't pay them the right benefits,
Speaker 1: they don't sign them up for workers comp so they're
Speaker 1: violating the law. But when it comes to farm workers
Speaker 1: and domestic workers, they don't even have to violate the
Speaker 1: law because there are so few laws for most of
Speaker 1: the country. Now there's a variety of bills and so
Speaker 1: forth that you've authored or co authored, and I wanted
Speaker 1: you to hopped through a couple of those, because I
Speaker 1: find all this stuff very fascinating. Assembly Build five requiring
Speaker 1: workers classified as employees rather than independent contractors for more
Speaker 1: labor protection. Take me through that. What's the difference. Well,
Speaker 1: over the last maybe decade, a lot of employers have
Speaker 1: taken advantage of loopholes in the law and classified what
Speaker 1: would be traditional employees as independent contractors. And yes, it's
Speaker 1: cheaper for the employer, but the cost that it puts
Speaker 1: on both the employee and society is a large has
Speaker 1: to be taken accounts. So when you're an independent contractor,
Speaker 1: the employer does not pay their person of your Social
Speaker 1: Security or Medicare that's seven point five percent. You're responsible
Speaker 1: for the full fiftent of those two things. They're not
Speaker 1: required to provide healthcare. They're not required to give you
Speaker 1: paid sick leave, paid family leave that we have in California.
Speaker 1: They don't have to provide you with workers compensation. You
Speaker 1: don't have the right to a lot of civil rights
Speaker 1: and and sexual harassment laws. As an independent contractor, you're
Speaker 1: viewed as an individual small business, not a worker of
Speaker 1: the company. So obviously there's a number of benefits and
Speaker 1: most important during COVID, which we found is nobody's paying
Speaker 1: into unemployment insurance for you. So if you lose your job,
Speaker 1: you're on your own. So it is this idea and
Speaker 1: I can imagine and for some people it's an important
Speaker 1: piece to be an independent contractor, to be a true
Speaker 1: small sole proprietor small business, and we have those. You know,
Speaker 1: you may be a plumber, you might be a doctor
Speaker 1: that has your own business and you're on your own.
Speaker 1: So for example, a doctor as an independent contractor, he
Speaker 1: would then become whose employee to qualify for the benefits
Speaker 1: you're enumerating here. Well, in doing a B five, we
Speaker 1: took what was called in California a decision by the
Speaker 1: California State Supreme Court dynamics, and we applied that it
Speaker 1: was going to be presidential basically, and so we applied
Speaker 1: it to our entire labor code, and we said, but
Speaker 1: there will be exceptions, and we took the reasoning and
Speaker 1: the decision that said, if you have the ability to
Speaker 1: bargain for yourself, if you truly require a certain certificate education,
Speaker 1: you have the ability to provide these things for yourself.
Speaker 1: Were less concerned, right, because what happens is a doctor
Speaker 1: doesn't need these benefits necessarily, they self ensure they self
Speaker 1: provide them, and then if something goes wrong, society is
Speaker 1: not on the hook, right, It's not like some taxpayer
Speaker 1: funded program. They can actually take care of themselves. If
Speaker 1: a janitor is classified as an independent contractor and doesn't
Speaker 1: have those benefits and they lose their job, they're going
Speaker 1: to end up on state sponsored support. We we don't
Speaker 1: want people to to be homeless or go hungary, so
Speaker 1: we do provide a safety net, but they don't have
Speaker 1: somebody paying into the system. There's no social contract that
Speaker 1: was established. And those companies who are misclassifying workers are
Speaker 1: at a competitive advantage over companies who are biding by
Speaker 1: the law. So this is just strengthening the existing law.
Speaker 1: And a lot of this came about because of the
Speaker 1: upswing of all these tech companies that think if you're
Speaker 1: hired through an app, you're an independent contract or your
Speaker 1: own business, right, And that's what I'm curious about is
Speaker 1: that is that let's say I have a building an
Speaker 1: office building, but you're telling me that they will hire
Speaker 1: janitorial staff and call them independent contractors and not call
Speaker 1: them employees. So usually what would happen if you hired
Speaker 1: a building is you hire janitorial company and you don't
Speaker 1: know you have the building. You hire a company. That's
Speaker 1: all fine, But the people working for the company, they
Speaker 1: would be independent contractors when they're actually just employees who
Speaker 1: have been misclassified. Give us the most vivid example of
Speaker 1: who the bill was aimed to help. The bill was
Speaker 1: aimed to help delivery drivers for Uber. For example, right yep,
Speaker 1: I carry my Uber Eats bag. I'm being told where
Speaker 1: to go, when to go. I can't negotiate with Uber
Speaker 1: over my pay I can't negotiate with Uber over whether
Speaker 1: or not I want to take a certain job. And
Speaker 1: uh Uber says, I'm a small business and I have
Speaker 1: to pay for my own expenses, for my own insurance. UM,
Speaker 1: I have to pay my own taxes. There's no payroll
Speaker 1: taxes taken out. Uber investors and Uber owners get very
Speaker 1: very very wealthy and billionaires and the workers making submimum wage.
Speaker 1: Another area is in two thou in seventeen. This one
Speaker 1: was very sensitive to me because I was involved tangentially,
Speaker 1: but I was part of drafting and circulating petitions in
Speaker 1: terms of lead paint in the schools of New York
Speaker 1: and in two thousands seventeen, you would have be requiring
Speaker 1: all K through twelve schools to test their drinking water
Speaker 1: for lead. Did your concern for this issue in was
Speaker 1: the trigger that you're a mother? What was the genesis
Speaker 1: of that? Obviously A lot of what I do is
Speaker 1: the fact that I am a mom, and I'm a
Speaker 1: mom first, right, So I approach a lot of issues
Speaker 1: that we're facing as any mother would. Yes, you send
Speaker 1: your kids, I send my kids public school. I hope
Speaker 1: and pray um that they're safe, that nobody's going to
Speaker 1: gun them down, that nobody is going to um poison them,
Speaker 1: that nobody's gonna sexually abuse them, and that they'll get
Speaker 1: a good education at the same time, So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of trust we put into our schools. And we
Speaker 1: had a situation in my district where it was a
Speaker 1: really odd situation. A dog, they put water out and
Speaker 1: the all that reacted to it, and so they end
Speaker 1: up testing the water and um, the water had lead
Speaker 1: in it. And this is like New York City. We've
Speaker 1: we fought for years in my community in particular, which
Speaker 1: is a Latino working class community, to replace lead paint
Speaker 1: in the houses. We took lead out of candy. We
Speaker 1: know that it poisons children and disproportionately poor children, and
Speaker 1: so when we found it in the water fountain at school,
Speaker 1: it was a shell shock for me because the one
Speaker 1: thing you sent your kid to school and you're like,
Speaker 1: don't drink the sugary drinks. Go have some water, Go
Speaker 1: drink some water, drink for the water fown, drink more,
Speaker 1: you know, and like how many times drink diet code exactly?
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh my gosh, for my own kids,
Speaker 1: you think of that thought, like how many times do
Speaker 1: I say, okay, after pe make sure you drink some
Speaker 1: water from the water fountain, you know, hydrate? Well a
Speaker 1: little did I know We're sending kids to poison themselves.
Speaker 1: So what we did is in some of these schools
Speaker 1: are very, very old, and we said it's time to
Speaker 1: test it for lead. And we got a lot of pushback.
Speaker 1: Everybody's like, well, is it makes sense to test? I'm like,
Speaker 1: how can we not test when we know that there's
Speaker 1: lead in the water. Who on earth would be opposed
Speaker 1: to testing the drinking border of your children in the school?
Speaker 1: Who people who know that if it's positive, they're going
Speaker 1: to have to pay to replace the pipe? Right? What
Speaker 1: was the upshot of that in two thousand and seventeen,
Speaker 1: Did the testing lead to any remediation of the problem
Speaker 1: that they ripped the pipes at a certain schools? Or
Speaker 1: what happened? They filter? It was filtration the answer filtration um.
Speaker 1: They replaced, they brought in water stations to some And
Speaker 1: what happened is there there had already been a number
Speaker 1: of school bonds that had passed, both statewide school bonds
Speaker 1: as well as local school bonds. And what happened as
Speaker 1: soon as they started finding this then you know, when
Speaker 1: you pass the school bond, there's a lot of things
Speaker 1: you can spend it on. In in San Diego Unified,
Speaker 1: for example, had well, we had some football fields and
Speaker 1: some lighting that needed done, and we wanted, you know,
Speaker 1: some hvac um done in the classrooms, all important things.
Speaker 1: But if you find lead in the water, guess what
Speaker 1: replacing the as water fountains gets to the top of
Speaker 1: the list in money that was already going to be
Speaker 1: spent it becomes prioritized. So the world didn't end. The
Speaker 1: waters has been tested, and now it's being fixed. California
Speaker 1: Assemblywoman Lorraina Gonzalez. If listening to interviews with up and
Speaker 1: coming politicians gives you a sense of hope, be sure
Speaker 1: to check out my conversation with Texan Christina since Soon,
Speaker 1: who co founded the Workers Defense Project. I think that
Speaker 1: there's an image of Texas that people have that is
Speaker 1: not the true Texas story. When people think about Texas,
Speaker 1: they usually think about us in a singular way of
Speaker 1: people like my white grandfather, which was a cowboy. And
Speaker 1: the truth is that the state is you know, you
Speaker 1: have a city like Houston, it's one of the most
Speaker 1: diversities in the entire country. You have one in three
Speaker 1: Texans that are immigrants, were children of immigrants. The state's
Speaker 1: population is Latino. It's majority people of color. At this point,
Speaker 1: here more of my conversation with Christina since Soon in
Speaker 1: our archives at Here's the Thing dot org. After the break,
Speaker 1: Lorena Gonzalez talks about cheerleaders and her fight to get
Speaker 1: California's biggest sports teams to pay them like the professionals
Speaker 1: they are. I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to
Speaker 1: here's the thing. In two thousand eighteen, Lorena Gonzalez co
Speaker 1: authored a bill which put California on a path to
Speaker 1: generate of its electricity from clean, carbon neutral energy sources
Speaker 1: by two thouty five. She says, the state is on
Speaker 1: track to meet its goal even sooner. We're already almost there.
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, We're gonna get renewable quicker than
Speaker 1: we had imagined or hoped. But that's because we required
Speaker 1: it by way of what. By way of large scale
Speaker 1: solar farms that you're seeing go up wind energy that
Speaker 1: you're seeing. We're exploring other forms, biomass, pub stations, things
Speaker 1: to provide renewable energy sources throughout California. Obviously rooftop solar
Speaker 1: plays a role in that, but we have really adopted
Speaker 1: in California an approach that is getting us on any
Speaker 1: given Saturday, about of the energy coming through a grid
Speaker 1: is now coming from renewable sources. Well, the reason I
Speaker 1: mentioned this is because I was involved with a group
Speaker 1: of people who were this was all theoretical, No, nothing
Speaker 1: was getting to the legislative phase where we were saying
Speaker 1: how we wanted the federal government to withhold you know,
Speaker 1: the classic withholding of transportation dollars. And there's always the
Speaker 1: threat of withholding those dollars if you don't this or
Speaker 1: that or this or that. And what we wanted to
Speaker 1: do was we wanted to demand that the states do
Speaker 1: the two following things. That any construction over a certain size,
Speaker 1: over a certain square footage of any public building, college, dormitory,
Speaker 1: high school, airport, library, hospital, you name it, anything that
Speaker 1: was funded by state or local or federal dollars, that
Speaker 1: any refurbishment over a certain size, and any new construction
Speaker 1: over a certain size, you would demand that they had
Speaker 1: some photovoltaic element built into that construction where there was
Speaker 1: solar panels on the grounds, solar panels on the skin
Speaker 1: of the building or the roof of the building, something.
Speaker 1: And the second thing we wanted to demand was that
Speaker 1: any purchase of or any maintenance of fleet vehicles over
Speaker 1: a certain size, and exempting emergency vehicles like fire and
Speaker 1: ambulance and police because you can't have them have to
Speaker 1: plug in. You have to have hybrids there at best,
Speaker 1: but any of the fleet vehicles you had to go
Speaker 1: fully electric, fully plugged in by a certain year or
Speaker 1: you were going to get the transportation dollars. Is there
Speaker 1: anything like that on the drawing board in California? I
Speaker 1: love that, But we're moving towards that naturally in California,
Speaker 1: not with withholding funds. Under our previous governor, Jerry Brown,
Speaker 1: he mandated that all new construction of houses have to
Speaker 1: have roof top solar private homes, private homes, new construction
Speaker 1: and private homes have to have rooftop solar. Unfortunately, there's
Speaker 1: not a lot of new homes being built. You have
Speaker 1: that now in California, yeah, yea through executive order, through
Speaker 1: the governor, and so we we naturally have some requirements
Speaker 1: that were put in. Tom Steyer did an initiative a
Speaker 1: few years ago, Prop thirty nine, which provided for schools
Speaker 1: to be able to put solar on their rooftop. You know,
Speaker 1: it's good green jobs, and it's good for the environment,
Speaker 1: and it pulls down the cost of their energy bills.
Speaker 1: So it really did work. We had money available for that.
Speaker 1: We are going towards a gasless society. We have goals
Speaker 1: um hopefully we'll be codified. I think in the next
Speaker 1: few years that will say, by by this year, we're
Speaker 1: going to have all electric vehicles, but we have to
Speaker 1: do the hard work with that. It's not enough to
Speaker 1: say that we've got to have more charging stations. I
Speaker 1: always give example my husband. I. We have an electric
Speaker 1: vehicle and we live in my district. It's one of
Speaker 1: the poorest districts in California. It's a porst coastal district
Speaker 1: in California, and there aren't charging stations. You know. Luckily,
Speaker 1: we can charge at work. He works at the county
Speaker 1: building and work at the State building. Um, we we
Speaker 1: have rooftop solar and we can charge at home. But
Speaker 1: a lot of apartments in multifamily complexes and working class
Speaker 1: communities don't have charging stations. And so as we moved
Speaker 1: electric vehicles, we really have to think about that piece
Speaker 1: as well, the infrastructure necessary to get us off of
Speaker 1: fossil fuels. How did you get involved with the cause
Speaker 1: of the cheerleaders in the NFL as you lost I
Speaker 1: guess you lost your box seats at the Chargers game.
Speaker 1: I was not a popular person at the Chargers I'll
Speaker 1: tell you that. Uh what happened, to be honest, is
Speaker 1: you got a figure. I was actually a Stanford cheerleader,
Speaker 1: so I was a cheerleader and a labor leader, right,
Speaker 1: I know how to use a bullhorn and a megaphone. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a rare combination. So when I had read
Speaker 1: at the time the raider at the cheerleaders for the
Speaker 1: Raiders had started a couple of them start a lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the Raiders for not paying the minimum wage because
Speaker 1: they were classified actually as independent contractors. And so I
Speaker 1: talked to the attorneys, and I'm an attorney, so I
Speaker 1: talked to their attorneys and I was like, this is outrageous.
Speaker 1: They're basically almost pain to do this fantastic job. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's a job women want, it's a job that that
Speaker 1: is respected to a certain extent, but it's still a
Speaker 1: job everybody else on the football field. It doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if you're the physical trainer. It doesn't matter if you're
Speaker 1: the person picking up the trash. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: you're selling the peanuts, if you're the coach, if you're
Speaker 1: the player. You're all being paid like an employee. And
Speaker 1: these cheerleaders were being given a stipend, being penalized. They
Speaker 1: signed an employment contract with the NFL. So I said,
Speaker 1: this is easy. We're going to make them by code
Speaker 1: employees so that they have basic labor protections in California.
Speaker 1: And so I remember the first time I introduced it,
Speaker 1: and of course a lot of journalists were more fascinated
Speaker 1: with fact that I was a cheerleader at Stanford and
Speaker 1: one of those pictures, and so we're like, all right,
Speaker 1: here's a picture, now can we talk about this really
Speaker 1: important issue? And and then my favorite part of the
Speaker 1: story is having to go to then Governor Jerry Brown.
Speaker 1: And he's anyone who knows he's a little I don't
Speaker 1: want to say crotchety. You just never quite know what
Speaker 1: you would get with a no nonsense guy. No nonsense,
Speaker 1: and I mean, I'm like, God, I got to talk
Speaker 1: to him about cheerleaders, like this is gonna And so
Speaker 1: I said, um, we were at a dinner together, and
Speaker 1: I said, Governor, when you have a chancel and talk
Speaker 1: to you about this bill I'm working on. It has
Speaker 1: to do with professional cheerleaders. And he said I was
Speaker 1: a cheerleader, and I was like, are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: He apparently he was a cheerleader in college or high school.
Speaker 1: And so I was like, oh, I think I'm going
Speaker 1: to get this one. But we did. I'm very proud
Speaker 1: of that. So what was that path? Was it directed
Speaker 1: at an individual team or was this league why you
Speaker 1: wanted the NFL to recognize. Was the situation in San
Speaker 1: Diego duplicated at all the NFL teams, Well, none of
Speaker 1: them were getting paid. None of the NFL cheerleaders to
Speaker 1: this day, only in California do they have rights as
Speaker 1: an employee. There was a bill actually introduced in New
Speaker 1: York as well, but it never made it through. So
Speaker 1: it was any professional sports teams in California, the dancers
Speaker 1: or cheerleaders have to be treated and have the basic
Speaker 1: labor protections of an employee. So that includes, of course
Speaker 1: the Chargers, the Rams, the Lakers. It was basketball and football.
Speaker 1: So I was going to ask about that because I
Speaker 1: go to Knicks games where I used to and those
Speaker 1: women were out there not getting paid either now and
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but they are now only in California.
Speaker 1: There's a national fight still against the NFL. There's been
Speaker 1: a lot of lawsuits, a lot of the teams have
Speaker 1: lost lawsuits, and there's been a lot more attention to it.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of documentaries and issues pertained to it.
Speaker 1: We'd like to see it, of course, on the national level.
Speaker 1: So I had the lawsuit work in California and not
Speaker 1: in the other states. Well, it was settled, and so
Speaker 1: in other states it's been settled as well. But so
Speaker 1: often when you settled these lawsuits on worker issues, the
Speaker 1: judge accepts a settlement, so it makes whole the workers
Speaker 1: who were suing, but it doesn't force companies to fix
Speaker 1: the problem. So it's kind of like an ongoing invitation
Speaker 1: to sue without fixing the problem. And that's why sometimes
Speaker 1: you need legislation to come in and say, all right,
Speaker 1: nobody can do this, this is enough. Now, in two
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen, you passed legislation that extends the statute of
Speaker 1: limitations for survivors of sexual abuse who are seeking justice
Speaker 1: in court. Now, I think most of our listeners know
Speaker 1: what a statute of limitations is, but I want you
Speaker 1: to explain, as an attorney, the reason for a statute
Speaker 1: of limitations In most cases, and there are some crimes
Speaker 1: I believe, like murder, where there is no statute of limitations.
Speaker 1: But where there is a statute of limitations in place,
Speaker 1: why is there one? There's often a statute for a
Speaker 1: variety of reasons. One, um, you can't preserve evidence. So
Speaker 1: you know, I could say, hey, when twenty years ago
Speaker 1: you stole this TV from me, Well, that TV doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Witnesses probably don't exist. It's hard to pin that down.
Speaker 1: People die, they move away exactly, or or they forget
Speaker 1: I mean quite frankly, you know, I can't remember ty
Speaker 1: years ago probably, So to have integrity in the trial
Speaker 1: of the witnesses, you need to do it in a
Speaker 1: certain time frame. But childhood sexual assault is unique. So
Speaker 1: there's some things that made it unique and made the
Speaker 1: Statute of limitations very damaging. Number one. So often the
Speaker 1: primary witness, the child themselves, uh, suppresses it, basically doesn't
Speaker 1: think about it, doesn't come to terms with it, and
Speaker 1: until later in life when they're dealing with a failed
Speaker 1: marriage or depression that it comes out. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: you know that's the primary witness is a person who
Speaker 1: was assaulted, if you will. And what we had with
Speaker 1: childhood sexual assault is actually a lot of people knew
Speaker 1: what was happening. We actually have official documents, like the church,
Speaker 1: the Boy Scouts, they actually had complaints that were filed
Speaker 1: that were put away that there still exist and you
Speaker 1: still need all of this proof if you will, to
Speaker 1: establish a case, but it allows time to have passed
Speaker 1: and yet still victims to get some sort of justice.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to you as a mom
Speaker 1: because you do have five kids, correct five. We we
Speaker 1: have five together. It's a blended family. But our two
Speaker 1: youngests are adopted. And then I have an eighteen year
Speaker 1: old who is just graduated and headed to college. I'm
Speaker 1: a stepmother to a twenty two year old who's deployed
Speaker 1: in the Marines. And then I have a twenty five
Speaker 1: year old and she works in the industry, a little
Speaker 1: kind of working her way, clawing her way up from
Speaker 1: I think she's an art coordinator. Now what does she
Speaker 1: want to do? She's on the production side. She works
Speaker 1: for Netflix. Well, what do you want for your kids
Speaker 1: in this world? You know, my children, probably like yours.
Speaker 1: I feel, in some ways, are really lucky. They were
Speaker 1: born into a privilege I could have never imagined. They
Speaker 1: will never know for want. They will always have healthcare,
Speaker 1: and that's a good thing. I want them to continue
Speaker 1: to have the basics in life that allow them to
Speaker 1: be happy. So for me, I think what would make
Speaker 1: my kids happy and I don't know. I have a
Speaker 1: ten year old, a thirteen year old, and eighteen year old.
Speaker 1: I want them to be able to love and marry
Speaker 1: whoever they want to love and marry. I want them
Speaker 1: to be able to work hard and get paid a
Speaker 1: decent living. I want them to be able to have
Speaker 1: help care. I want them to have air to breathe.
Speaker 1: I want them to be able to choose a life
Speaker 1: for themselves that brings them joy. And that's all it
Speaker 1: comes down to. My mom expected and she's past, but
Speaker 1: you know what, she expected so much out of me.
Speaker 1: She expected me to make the world better for other people.
Speaker 1: I think I'm to a point where I want them
Speaker 1: to contribute positively the world, and I think they'll do
Speaker 1: that if they're happy, and all the things that we
Speaker 1: work on is to get them a society where they
Speaker 1: can live and let live and enjoy life and hopefully
Speaker 1: put a hand out and help other people as well.
Speaker 1: California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. If you're enjoying this conversation, be
Speaker 1: sure to subscribe to Here's the Thing on the I
Speaker 1: Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: While you're there, please leave us a review when we
Speaker 1: come back. Lorena Gonzalez pushes back against rumors of an
Speaker 1: exodus among California's wealth East two states with lower income taxes.
Speaker 1: Gonzalez makes the case for why they should stay. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing. California Assemblywoman
Speaker 1: Lorraina Gonzalez speaks her mind. In a tweet from May.
Speaker 1: She had some choice words for Elon Musk after she
Speaker 1: found out he was moving his Tesla plant from California
Speaker 1: to Texas. Look, my mouth gets me in trouble. I'd
Speaker 1: lie if I said otherwise. I say exactly what I
Speaker 1: think and what I mean. But you have to look
Speaker 1: in context. Elon Musk has made a crapload of money
Speaker 1: off of California taxpayers. And if people don't understand why,
Speaker 1: it's because everything he makes is subsidized by taxpayers. So
Speaker 1: the Tesla's that flew off the market, those all had
Speaker 1: taxpayer rebates on a hundred thousand dollar cards. I mean,
Speaker 1: people who didn't need the rebates were given them because
Speaker 1: we want to encourage electric NICs. His solar panels and
Speaker 1: solar storage had been highly subsidized by the state California,
Speaker 1: so taxpayers have helped make him a billionaire. In California.
Speaker 1: We have really supported Elon Musk, and coming from the
Speaker 1: labor movement, he hasn't really been too good on worker issues,
Speaker 1: so he's been slapped down by the n l r B.
Speaker 1: He's he's anti worker. He's had really some big safety
Speaker 1: problems in his facility. So I've always been a little irked, like,
Speaker 1: here we are giving you taxpayer dollars and you can't
Speaker 1: even abide by the law when it comes to union organizing.
Speaker 1: That upsets me. Well, during the pandemic, he decided, forget it,
Speaker 1: I don't like these orders. I'm going to open up
Speaker 1: my factory in Fremont. It doesn't matter what the county
Speaker 1: public health officer is saying. And you're talking about an
Speaker 1: area where we had tons of Latinos dying from COVID.
Speaker 1: We had the spread. It was at roaring at the time.
Speaker 1: So he brings back his workers and he says, if
Speaker 1: anyone stops him, he's going to take his jobs to Texas.
Speaker 1: I mean, at some point, look, every elected official in
Speaker 1: California should be saying I won't say it here, but
Speaker 1: go go away. Elon mus There is a point where
Speaker 1: where as elected officials. And this kills me. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter who it is who is getting things from us, right,
Speaker 1: Leadership is also being able to make those tough decisions
Speaker 1: and say, hey, al right, we like your product, we
Speaker 1: like what you're doing for the environment. But by the way,
Speaker 1: we've got rules and we're going it doesn't matter who
Speaker 1: you are, you're going to stick by the rules too.
Speaker 1: And it it irks me that so many of our
Speaker 1: rules in California, in this nation, we apply them disproportionately
Speaker 1: to communities like mine and not to billionaires like Elon Musk.
Speaker 1: And I think we have to be stronger about that.
Speaker 1: He has a lot of fans on Twitter, and I
Speaker 1: got a lot of lush comes with the territory. It does.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that California is similar to New York, where
Speaker 1: the COVID has driven some measurable amount of businesses out
Speaker 1: of the state. Correct, it's a high tech state. New
Speaker 1: York is really struck. I got friends of mine who
Speaker 1: I mean, people that I never dreamed I mean in
Speaker 1: the EBB and flow of the fiscal health of New York.
Speaker 1: Now when the city most needs the money, they're gonna
Speaker 1: have the lowest income tax revenue. They're raising taxes and everybody.
Speaker 1: It's really really painful, but a very very measurable and
Speaker 1: healthy number of people, at least from my optics, who
Speaker 1: I never dreamed they would leave New York as their home.
Speaker 1: They might keep a little piano tear there, but who
Speaker 1: New York was their home. New York City was their home,
Speaker 1: and they were willing, maybe not happy, but willing to
Speaker 1: pay the taxes because New York was They're gone. They
Speaker 1: sold their homes huge apart, moved to Florida. Moved, they moved.
Speaker 1: Then they figured, while I'm gonna move, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: all the way. I'm gonna move to a no tax state.
Speaker 1: So they mean people who would say they'd rather die
Speaker 1: than live in Florida, they're going to Florida. The same
Speaker 1: problem in California, people leaving. Well, I think that that's
Speaker 1: a storyline. I think if you look at the numbers
Speaker 1: that that doesn't quite add up. And I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what's happening in New York, but I will say
Speaker 1: California had its best budget year ever because we have
Speaker 1: created more billionaires during this pandemic than ever before. And
Speaker 1: so unfortunately, what we're facing in California. There's a lot
Speaker 1: of talk about the exodus, but it's not quite as
Speaker 1: real as as people like to say when you look
Speaker 1: at the actual numbers, and in fact, our income tax
Speaker 1: revenues are out of control. They're so healthy because of
Speaker 1: the very rich that we have, good for you, But
Speaker 1: income inequality has become a real threat. So as we
Speaker 1: continue to build billionaires in California and Silicon Valley continues
Speaker 1: to create new billionaires, we've got to figure out how
Speaker 1: we take care of people who just work for a living, right,
Speaker 1: the people who service the tourism industry, the people who
Speaker 1: serve people fast food, the folks who really are just
Speaker 1: struggling gift by, like I always say, the people who
Speaker 1: inspired me. The reason I am in politics is because
Speaker 1: you have folks who are on their feet, working forty
Speaker 1: sixty hours a week, multiple jobs, especially in immigrant communities
Speaker 1: like mine, and and the fact that they cannot afford
Speaker 1: housing or to put a little money away from retirement
Speaker 1: or to send their kid to college is is something
Speaker 1: we've got to address. So, yeah, I get it. Moved
Speaker 1: to a no tax state, Go ahead, and you get
Speaker 1: what you pay for. Look, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: in Florida, where building codes are and in their approach
Speaker 1: to climate change is so bad that that we have
Speaker 1: a mass catastrophe happening. You know, I'll pay my property taxes.
Speaker 1: I just I want to make sure that we have
Speaker 1: an equitable society for everybody, not just those at the top.
Speaker 1: I want to live in the state and its good
Speaker 1: building codes. Yeah. God, it's just devastating. Just a brief question,
Speaker 1: Why Secretary of State, have you announced or you don't
Speaker 1: want to say that on the air. I did announce
Speaker 1: with then we had a little bit. I actually it's
Speaker 1: on hold because I announced a few years ago early.
Speaker 1: There have there's never been a Latina in statewide office,
Speaker 1: and so it is the only demographic in California that
Speaker 1: has never achieved statewide office. So we announced, we raised money,
Speaker 1: and then our Secretary State, Alex Paedia, was appointed by
Speaker 1: the governor to be a U S Senator, and the
Speaker 1: governor appointed Dr Shirley Weber, an African American icon, to
Speaker 1: the position of Secretary State. So my plans are a
Speaker 1: little on hold, and until she finishes up now it
Speaker 1: won't be an open seat in two like I had hoped.
Speaker 1: But the reason I am interested in Scretaria State and
Speaker 1: I've done a lot of work on voting. In fact,
Speaker 1: I authored the bill to have automatic registration and we
Speaker 1: are now at eight percent registered voters. I think the
Speaker 1: more people who vote, the more we open up democracy
Speaker 1: in in California. In the world, you have elected officials
Speaker 1: who reflect real people. You have people who remember what
Speaker 1: it's like to have a mom who works sixty hours
Speaker 1: a week. You elect people who remember what it's like
Speaker 1: to talk to to the workers at the bus stop
Speaker 1: on the way to school. You know, remember what it's
Speaker 1: like to have a father who immigrated here in whose
Speaker 1: papers um don't quite match things the way they should.
Speaker 1: So when you have a broader electorate, you having more
Speaker 1: diverse elected officials, and then you have better policy. So
Speaker 1: that's that's why I want to be Secretary State eventually
Speaker 1: and UH and continue to push the idea of having
Speaker 1: as many people participating elections as possible. Well, thank you
Speaker 1: for the update. Are you going to go back to
Speaker 1: the Assembly and run again next year? You're gonna run
Speaker 1: for another office? I'm running for re election in two
Speaker 1: and we're seen what's out there. I mean, there's congressional
Speaker 1: seats are in the future. I don't know we're redistricting
Speaker 1: right now. There's statewide seats. The bottom line is this,
Speaker 1: and I talked about this a lot. Latinas are of
Speaker 1: the population California, right Latino's overall ourt but Latina's female
Speaker 1: Latinos are of the population, and we are the most
Speaker 1: underrepresented in every form of life, including elected office. And
Speaker 1: so my job and my goal is to continue to
Speaker 1: push for regular folks and to also service hopefully a
Speaker 1: time when when I won't be the first Latina to
Speaker 1: do or serve as something, but we've got to continue
Speaker 1: to push that. Well, let me just say this because
Speaker 1: we wrap up, and I really mean this, Jenemy, you
Speaker 1: were such an amazing woman and all your credentials and
Speaker 1: your accomplishments and your passion, you're somebody who it's still
Speaker 1: your task to save the world, I'm afraid, and not
Speaker 1: savor the world. You have to have to postpone the
Speaker 1: saving of the world a little bit longer. You and
Speaker 1: your husband. You have to keep going. There's no turning back.
Speaker 1: You've got to keep running and keep doing this great
Speaker 1: work you're doing. You've been doing a amazing work and
Speaker 1: you were such a role model. We wanted you on
Speaker 1: because people spoke so highly of you. Andrew Day, the actress,
Speaker 1: was talking about the work you did with that school
Speaker 1: down there. Robert E. Lee. Yeah, in San Diego, you
Speaker 1: can imagine, Yes, because we care about our history, you
Speaker 1: had the name of the school changed. You and other
Speaker 1: people were working on that cause I did. And this
Speaker 1: was before we kind of started attacking the Confederate name issue,
Speaker 1: so I got to see what people said before they
Speaker 1: realized it was politically incorrect. But you don't have a
Speaker 1: school in San Diego named after Robert E. Lee in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, the same year that we ended segregation
Speaker 1: in the schools, and it not be tied to racism.
Speaker 1: So that school today is over kids of color and
Speaker 1: they finally don't have to go to school that is
Speaker 1: named after not just the biggest traitor in our in
Speaker 1: our history, but somebody who was fighting to keep people segregated,
Speaker 1: in keep people enslaved. Well, what an honor it is
Speaker 1: to get to meet you. I know your time is valuable.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, thank you, thank you. California Assemblywoman
Speaker 1: Lorreina Gonzalez. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's the Thing is brought
Speaker 1: to you by iHeart Radio. We're produced by Kathleen Russo,
Speaker 1: Carrie donohue, and Zach McNeese. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.