Inflection Point with Lauren Schiller; #101; Running for Office In the Era of #MeToo: Minnesota State Representative Erin Maye Quade

after that i'm lauren shuler today an inflection point we continue to ask the question of how few non howard it leads to power i would ask a really basic questions and he would always say like you understand when you're older i don't ask questions like that to answer my question and it was at that time and i realized asking basic questions shouldn't throw people are here how aaron mcquade basic questions led her all the way to the minnesota state legislature statins this i am aaron

mcquade i am a state representative representing thirty nine thousand five hundred constituents in the northeastern portion of about twenty minutes i'm lauren shuler and this is an inflection point stories of how women rise out the first thing you need to know about aaron is that she's the only person to flip republican seeing in twenty sixteen and minnesota's state elections yeah i have always been a person to question not just the way things are but why things are the way that they are a lot of times when you ask someone why do we do this this way the answer's often not we always done it this way and i'm a person who likes to question though why do we do it this way and politics is a great place to get back to roots of why we do things the way that we do and i should mention that this is a first for inflection point in the hundreds of interviews i've done for the show not a single one has been with a partner as one woman on twitter set

upon hearing about this is so nice i don't remember what it's like to have respect for a politician well there are a few out there who are doing the job we sent a detailed i'm hoping this conversation will help us all remember and what it's like to have respect for a politician as more women run for office never before i thought it was time to give credit to women who are already in office and here what they're really up against how empowering it is to run for office on how are you really have when you went and what stands in the way of both which brings us that aaron mcquade specifically and her first run for office chief flynn most as i was running against any year tea party conservative she had taken the seat from a democrat and had won by wide margins as for the previous four cycles and so i think people decide are a crazy go ahead

and have fun so right away and i started to run you know a lot of my dad and a queer and i'm young millennial and thirty two and to be quite frank very short i'm five to an antenna have more of a baby face i don't look at a thirty two or twenty five programs that i've ever had that i've always been progressive and so when i started to run to look at a place like i don't talk about being a professional relationship with your wife in public which i really don't know what that means it's clear that aaron had to tear down some expectations about what it would take to win this race and i use the word create deliberately while she was running for office and after she was elected air and had her on a need to know that we'll get that we're going in when i was getting the nine eleven happens and

i remember shortly after war going to war in iraq i had so many questions for adults because i didn't understand why we're going to work the country over the actions of a group that may or may not be in this country and i would ask really basic questions and they would always a regular salmon are older or don't ask questions like that answered answering my question and it was at that time and i realized asking basic questions shouldn't throw people off they should have a very quicken basic answer for that and so at that time i realized that maybe they're not asking those kinds of questions and someone should be asking those questions and so that's when i started thinking maybe the adults don't really have audience at new kinds of folks should be asking new questions but i will say i do work with a lot of young folks in my district a particular imam and i would invite them to ask me questions because i never wanna be a kind of adult who tells a young personable this is just the way that it is and that's how we've always done that

and sometimes i find myself thinking well if i can explain this to them than maybe it's not the right thing to be doing and so keeping that chacon using a kind of that that mindset that young people have it's untainted by a process and end just like we've always done it this way to remind myself that i should fall into that same trap and grow up to be the same type of person i was so frustrated with as a young person i am how did you make the transition from being an organizer and out working on other people's issues to take it upon yourself to run for your own office you know i'll tell you that's when i started running for office i had a huge lead up because i had worked on so many campaigns i knew were not just about the time commitment to end and kind of what the intricacies of a campaign where but i had already done the paperwork that door knocking and the phone banking in the organizing volunteers in the creating the training and figuring out how do we explain these ideas in a way that's not jirga name but it accessible to people hud we listen and take the stories that we hear every day and

turn them into policy solutions that was you know set second nature to me by that point when i actually thought was that when i was elected i would have to pay to issue or lose my organizing instincts and one something different and what i learned as i might organizer instincts were just as valuable if not more so as a policymaker as they were when i was a campaign organizer or a person who worked on campaigns are organizing is essentially bringing folks together to talk about what is this is you know what are we gonna do about it who's going to do it and i found a legislature that those instincts helped me get bills passed i'm like i've passed a bill as a freshman in the minority a deep minority and i was the only person who flipped the seat from republican to democrat the state house in twenty sixteen so i can be honest there's not a lot of love for me from some of the leadership on the republican side and yet i still get a bill passed my first year in office and that was through organizing and making sure that i was taking stories i was hearing in my community and hearing is a bill about the transition hearing in the veterans community and bringing it to

the chair of the veterans committee and getting him to be my number two on the bill and then the number three was the tax chair who others will eventually have to go through the tax committee and those organizing and sinks really helped me be successful in my term that's what about the actual decision to run for office in the first place so we've been hearing about you know more women than ever writing process and i'm really curious what that what is that actually mean in real life not just the headlines what does it take to make the decision to run for office so it was working for congressman austin and i was filling in for a coworker actually he had a visit set up with the sheraton story which is a non profit that partners local businesses or churches with schools who have a significant number of students who face the weekend hunger capsule and they don't have access to food between friday and monday at school and this was not my issue area so i just drove them to the visit gave him the brief that my colleague and wrote and i was kind of sitting in the back and they were talking about the issue of childhood hunger and where it's at

minnesota and there was this map on the wall of where they serve and my wife's elementary schools on the map and i thought to myself oh yeah rawl poverty is a thing and then i saw my elementary school and i saw my middle school and i saw my high school on that now and i googled under the table i should've been listening to this presentation about childhood hunger and i found an article that had been written probably the previous week about childhood hunger having gone up and poverty excuse me in my elementary school three hundred and eighty four percent in the ten years since i had graduated from high school and i still lived in the community i still went to church in my community and i have not heard anything about this issue and i was quite frankly pest and so after the meeting with the sheraton story when i was driving powers nelson to the next to the next event he was listening to it i should've been briefing him on it i was arranging as if i'm in a going to church and we're going to contact the schools and we're going to participate in this program and he can to challenge me like when are you going to run for office and she's the systems that don't allow families to pay the rent and feed their kids a month an hour wait hold on

ok i work for people were like dead an essential what you waiting for i really did not have an answer for you know i do need more community experience it need more organizing experience it anymore passion for policy i was really waiting for anything i guess i was just waiting for someone asked me so i went home and i talk to my wife and i said would it be crazy if we did this and she said you should absolutely do this and then we just were go from that point on ok so you you were up against this tea party or when you ran and you flip the seat and why like what advice do you have for other women or candidates who are in a similar position you we have a lot of people in a position right now as a weak as a time to the midterm elections cross country so the first is that you know your community better than anybody else does and a lot of people like i had said we'll give you advice because of what they think i am but i got to ignore and i could ignore it because i knew that they were wrong because i was already talking to my community so

people who are running they know their community's trust your back on that and then actually talked to folks do work door knock your constituents be available and taken their stories learn new things learn know what gets people up in the morning what keeps people up at night type stuff on those issues of your community don't be afraid to take a position have a position on something don't waffle people sense and authenticity in a very real way and when they're trying to send someone to represent themselves and their immediate neighbors for you know the next thirty nine thousand five hundred or seven hundred thousand or what have you they need to know that you're going to tell the truth about how you feel about an issue and then you're gonna go show up and do that and if you don't know something be honest ask you know every piece of advice that you get run through your own lands i just think that there's so many people who try to distill a candidate down to just the sight of eerie mechanical thing it's not for humans voters are humans your human

they'd like to see that you're human it like for you to acknowledge that they are human and we we lose that humanity we try to get really technical about this work that we do hire people of color and women to work on a campaign to be in your campaign offices are going to be on your staff because once you're elected it's not just you it's you and your staff were doing that work and it shows up as your staff is a continuation of what we've always had a long and you know be able to i have a slogan for my campaign it's committed to community there was it was a really easy way to explain to people what i'm for ray when i was in the elevator pitch on events that elevator door opening i could say committed to community be able to have that type of thing to explain to people there isa singly waiter for because in a very fast paced world and not helped by what's happening in dc you're on a deal to get that message out very succinctly and then over and over and over again and on the over and over and over again peace you're going to have to say the same things a million times for some and if your them

once you're not repeating yourself you're just being consistent so don't be afraid to keep saying the same things i'm lauren shuler and this is inflection point my guest is minnesota's state representative aaron mcquade for more stories of how women rise at subscribe to the inflection point podcast we'll be right back it is nice i learned schiller and mrs inflection point my guest is minnesota's state representative

aaron mcquade so when you decided to go for it you your job again some high stakes tell me about that experience of running what did you run into where it was challenging about it for you in that and what did you feel like it was really great about it so right away when i started to run they told me not to talk about race and equity so forcefully that a minute to talk about guns so when i started running for office my wife worked for every town for gun safety moms demand action and i had to spend with her on that meetings and talking to survivors and sharing some stories about parents with kids going through lockdown drills and it was a very personal issue to us to me and i talked about it a lot in april a tough talk about guns in the suburbs and you know don't be progressive you should moderate yourself and you know i never did any of those things but that was the overwhelming advice that most people and the difference for me in so this is probably the good part is that this is a community i was born and raised and my parents moved to the community or a

present in nineteen eighty two they had there wedding reception at the local community center they have lived their the hall lies we were raised there so these are people that i know these are my teachers these are my pastors these are my fellow church goers these are my friends or my friends' parents and so when i would get this bad advice from people who did live in my community and i'm sure and then i would know in my heart and my gut that that's not what the people of my community want i never wanted to run a race where i was trying to run towards some mythological middle i'm in order to be elected i wanted to tell the truth about what i believed and what i think that we should do as a state legislature in terms of policy and where i thought we were out of the community and if people were on board then they would vote for me and if they want them they wouldn't but i never wanted to win by pretending to be someone that i'm not to do so i really enjoyed talking to my community and running pena some of the more interesting issues that i hadn't been aware of before and so interesting so i mean can you tell me where about his day you know he is this is his disembodied they argue that the surge of fracking or the

establishment you know other people who are already in politics or who who is giving you this advice sake of a coverup who you're authentic self really is you know it could be anybody for so like you know i've worked in politics for a very long time so my friends tend to run in political circles or could be offhand remarks and advice from a friend or from my senate district chair or from an organization that was thinking of endorsing me are going to endorse me and i was never it sad as and we don't believe in you know that lady she do this we well it was we really believe in you and think you'll be a great voice the legislature we want you to win and we just don't know if if those folks in your community will vote for you if you tell the truth about how you feel about xyz and i proved the opposite i told the truth about everything that i believed him and i think more than anything what i have found is that people respect the fact that even if they don't agree with me on the issue they know exactly where i stand which means every time an issue comes up that maybe we didn't

get a chance to talk about during the election they trust my judgment and they trust where i'm at on the issue because they know i am out that she may not sound something i was tell folks is that people very rarely vote for you because of the policy positions that you have the belfry because they trust your judgment more than anything else not only tennessee some of the swing districts here in minnesota it's so interesting i mean in many ways an end and particularly i'm thinking of in in this way as this old called old school because unlike the old school thinking and how to work with in the current system when we know that the current system is stacked against women generally and you're colored mesh and i am and your bravery really have to say like this isn't working for me and i'm not gonna discover of the things that i did i am in and believe and i'm going to changing things by being who i am even if that's not what the systemic typically elevates and i think it's it's not working for other people either you know up until being elected i was kind of just

citizens right and i knew that it wasn't working for me either and so i have this deep love and reverence for our democracy and for our constitution and the way that our government to set up but it is set up based on truth telling and it's based on us really being in community with and in conversation with the people that we seek to represent and i think we've moved away from that towards you know canned talking points in poll tested language and are trying to find again that mythological middle and to appeal to the widest number of folks and i always say that if you if you tried to run to the middle and everything you'll lose everyone on both sides and so people actually want to know where their elected representatives stand even if they don't agree with they want to have access to those representatives to share thoughts concerns yeas and nays even if its heart rate we have folks here in minnesota and across the nation that won't hold town halls are a lot of selective town halls where there's tickets and you got to show your id i have coffee in conversations

during session every weekend and out of session every month and then i have town halls quarterly and they're open to everybody because it's really really important that we do not stop listening to the people that we seek to represent because it's hard like people might yell you oh well they're yelling at him about something that's tough in their life or that they need you to hear because we're doing the work for the people and if we don't talk to people i'm not going to work or what is what was your experience images are experienced than in the stage of social media at with people are yelling at you on the internet trolling willie yeah i'm so i found well there's a few things so scientists found that trolls tend to get discouraged when you respond to everyone else except on and so it uses trident your method of positive reinforcement there are people who started on my facebook page or on twitter as people who were there to troll mean but when they would

say like oh i'm interested in that i would respond and be like that's great timing more and so three positive reinforcement and they're not trials they're just people who are constituents that comment on things now do i love every comment now but it's got into a respectful place where i don't have to hide it and have to ban people from the page as seen on twitter and i do like to interact with people and have thoughtful unintentional dialogue i think that social media is a place or we can have tough conversations about some things not all things are not super nuanced conversations that soul you know patrolling it's not particularly bad once you learn how to use the meat function and meet some words and then actually engages folks that disagree with you in a respectful manner did you experience any trolling that would be essentially considered he'd speech yes i did i mean my opponent in twenty sixteen i mean wasn't the worst immediately after giving a speech as saying you know him disparaging my marriage and my ethnicity and you know i was called a date i was you know i've had some racist terms law that me

not terribly bad but that's part of color as a light skinned for being very shall not particularly dark but yeah that does happen and i think more than anything i feel pity for those folks to carry that amount of rage and anger and that very limited worldview around more than anything else and so i try to approach it from aspect of compassion more so than being angry or like taking it very personally as if it's some sort of relevant attack on my character did you have to work to get about place you know honestly working for president obama and then working for congressman keith ellison in dc worst things on and so it eat you get to that place when you see enough time's really terrible things in iraq and colleagues of oman omar i we were elected in the same term and so seeing that the type of abuse and he'd want to hurt him is when like what is our journey is nothing compared to that in so getting to the place i think a little bit it has just been thirty two years old i mean like that's not gonna be a thing that shakes my whole day

yeah it took a look at a time to not be super our hearts and offended or scared honestly kids again being a anti gun violence a person you need to get some of them are scary dangerous on folks on the other side of that that issue is also scared i think is probably the biggest one that i have to work to get in a good place for me so that's exactly what it is that is to punish a temper that fear with you know being safe at the same time now last night as they just people have a deep and an abiding belief and demanding better than theology comes and i do that i'm lauren shuler and this is in flux and my guest is minnesota's state representative aaron mcquade you haven't been following minnesota politics going on in the mourning ring and now

she raced living in a refugee camp for four years after fleeing somalia to becoming the first somali american to win a seat in the minnesota house tj has a vast playing along and there's a lot of rising up happening in my everest to gain attention unfortunately rising up stories universally involve someone to rise up against ignorance case that someone came in the form of a fellow elected official to scientists when she got off as was it anything like you expect that it would be no not at all i don't think anyone can prepare you for elected office and a lot of it is like college particularly at the first few weeks in early of committee monday wednesday friday from eight fifteen to ten fifteen united your office here in meetings see after write briefs or read brief serrate emails back and take meetings and you're

wearing a lot in a short amount of time you're switching topics really fast but i think when i started to run one thing i didn't fully grasp was that people come to you me or look to social media our look to what i'm doing in the lens of your state representative or you're going to be a state representative and so kind as i'm getting rid of some other extraneous things that i might talk about a comment on the right like not everything is a comic from me but certainly not a comment from either state representative and that is kind of getting my footing and and in the space that i now occupy versus the space that i did i keep it on a public servant and there's a public component to that and so there's a lot of discipline required and that is a muscle that i had to do to build in strength and i want you know i was in its prepared for both with the camaraderie that exists across the aisle and the games that can be played on i was not expecting i think it's probably

the most annoying thing a lot of the aisle well when you're in the majority you did this and i was like ok well i wasn't here and if you don't like it why are you doing is some of those a child like behaviors and i wasn't prepared for the assets of harassment that was pretty surprising that was pretty immediate end awful and i wasn't prepared for the influential rising or are the lack of preparedness i should say from some of our colleagues when i bring a bill to it able to have it her in the committee i am prepared with every single thing he did and i know the bill backwards and forwards a test of fires and statistics and the level of mediocrity that allowed some folks in the legislature and just come up and this is the bill given to them by special interest group they had no idea really what it does they did not write it didn't work with their community to make it better and then just like hand it over to you you know the chamber representative to sell the bill and answer the questions of a person to sit on the side i was in her care for that it was mind blowing that summoned to take such a way easy

way of legislating what let's talk about the sexual harassment and there's those lazy people everywhere but they don't have to be sexual harasser is everywhere right so even though there are less let's talk about the sexual harassment is my understanding is that you were actually harassed while you were still a candidate and then it continued once when she got elected so that that's one person and his name is in public and as senators shown here while former state senator shown in man party so when i was home the candidates i work for farmers house and there was a very public urban shooting of an unarmed black man named jr clark and it happened about a hundred feet from our commercials and offices and so there was an occupation of the fourth precinct many apples priest's apartment for a long time and the senator was then a state representative and he reached out to me to say if he has a police officer as well and he had reached out to me to say and if you want to talk about that the law enforcement aspect of this

with this whole thing money known as a cap and is doing a job for keep this isn't part of my campaign texting internal me out because i had never met him before i thought maybe he was just weird but persistent and then he sent me a text message to examine for me has meant for someone else and they just said i'm working on a pretty hard i haven't got are quite yet but i'm a moron or not to do it that i was an elected yet he was i was trying to be part of the carcass that you know they talk to his campaign manager protect is a leader do i talk to his senate district i mean there is no clear an amazing the things i didn't at the time so once you once you gotta like dead and he is he was the hottest seat yet he ran for state senate in the same options that he was actually i'm in a different chamber un has a senator then after that the men in the legislature there were other representatives who are the perpetrators of the sexual harassment there was the chair of the public safety committee tony cornish man who would send really and he'd say really gross things but he sent me a really gross text

message that was that i'm stephen staring at me on the floor and i felt someone staring at me so i looked up and i did a halfhearted wave and he sent me a text that so i got busted for syria on the fort your fault for look into them dead affirmed for governor i must emerge ultimately i said legalities are now this third or fourth time he says and they really grows and some people who sat closed behind me on the floor would say things while i was speaking on the floor given speeches about my body into waste but i'm a lesbian those kinds of things i learned schiller and this is an inflection point my guest is minnesota's state representative aaron mcquade subscribe to the infection free podcast to hear more rising of stories when we come back here and has to make a tough decision what she continued to put up with this tax had no nonsense or will she stand up and say me too i decided to stop re like i wasn't going to say you should fire him he should take away his chairmanship but i decided to stop touch it i may consider in the us will be right back

i'm lauren shuler and this is an inflection point my guest is

minnesota's state representative aaron mcquade before you break and shared her story of going public with allegations of sexual harassment by the band shine and tony cornish so why were you the first person come out i think it's a combination of a few things you know when it happens and there are a few other times that it happened as well just in person and verbally i am you know i've reported it to the speaker of the house you know i just i just wanted to stop way like i wasn't going to say you should fire him you should take away his chairmanship but i decided to stop touching and i may consider in the us and though we wanted a mandatory sexual harassment training for all legislators cause a lot of them had been there before we actually did sexual harassment training and when i came forward the center in my own party my intent was actually to just say that be done and the speaker on asked said no one has ever made report a sexual harassment to me since i been speaker notable that's no i mean it wasn't true it reported it and so at that time i decided to come

forward because i was done with men protecting other man's driving behavior and so you know for both senators shown and punished there were i mean dozens more than a dozen women that came forward thinking was more than twenty four for summer shone in more than thirty riverside cornish and he had assaulted a lobbyist he was not her female staffers it was just the reason i can for it was because i was angry that this was a part of my job i was angry that this had been happening to people for so long but i also had a little bit of power in my election certificate and that's you know i could be fired for coming forward where as other folks a lot of other folks could and the harvey weinstein thing was really that i'm the impetus for me to come for about both men because i was a man as in dc for a conference i'm sitting in a hotel room when that story came out and i was reading all of the people who had were acknowledging that this is something that they've known it was the worst kept secret in hollywood we have that here and if there is one more woman that is sexually

harassed or assaulted and i didn't say anything i didn't use this modicum of power that i have that i will say are responsible and that's really comparable i can forward or when he did come forward i saw a news clip of you talking about the harassment that you were reluctant to name the horizon i had animal is really is the place you said you know what at it here's a name that's tony cornish with aging and you know i i didn't see the reaction reported on charges he was picking his drop off the table way in then a man who i mean why were you as medicine to save lehman and what changed in your mind was going through and so i was reticent because so keep in mind we're trying to put through background checks on gun sales and red flag laws and decriminalizing you know certain things in our state statute and the chair of the public safety committee was twenty crash he holds the gavel he decides the bills and i am knowing the kind of power that he had i was you know i would still have to go back and work

with these legislators after coming forward and i am not in the majority and in the minority and i'm i was nervous about that having to have professional consequences for telling the truth in public about public servants and so the reason in that moment was effect is because there's a staffer who is sitting off to the side i can't look over before i say it and that person had told me a story as we've been walking to that interview about being harassed by represent cornish house like you know why not have to sit next to someone who was harassed by this person who can come forward because their staff and not say it and i had a text messages to which was helpful in kind of quotable proving that this was going on so in the end the corniche and shown both resigned really mean is that is that the only forgive forgive my name it and how this works but can they be fired or didn't have to resign so our members can be expelled or by the legislature but it takes an insanely high threshold in that certainly right wouldn't happen i don't i mean in my given the senate to be perfectly honest with you but it

certainly wasn't going to happen in the house the reason representative cornish resigned as if it was part of his settlement with the assault lawsuit with the lobbyist that he assaulted got it and then john resigned un to do what what got him to resign and i want to give the credit to it but the chair of our party and the majority and minority leader in the senate for both calling for him to resign i was very nervous that when i spoke out they would not say anything more you know maybe defend him and they were very quick with same as an arcane he should resign even though we know we had a a one seat minority in the state senate and so that opened up a special action which could have put us further into the minority and they were very quick and saying this is now paying he should resign which i appreciate so i think that it big and he's also a police officer and i think not dragging out on and be able to keep the job he had outside of the legislature was important to him as well and what was the seed eventually

felt biden a democrat yes a woman all right senator bingham okay welcome senator become so as a result of your family going forward about that harassment with these two guys what else changed for better or worse as as a result of freedom well i was blacklisted by the speaker gave instructions to his caucus to not talk to me don't laugh of meet other office schneier front and so it was i mean next and hassle to get republicans to co sign on to bills with me i had a lot of especially female colleagues are republicans will come to me and to be their number two on bills that they knew i was interested in not stopped it was just straight up awkward there weren't you know subtle dig for like little comment here or there and we had to go through mandatory sexual harassment training our second day back the following session after i'd come

forward and that training itself was pretty awful it kind of blame to those who didn't say stop and start doing that as the ones we're perpetuating sexual harassment or lamb though the victims to to say stop and if they don't have other fault and so it's really hard to sit in a room with him it was mandatory that we were there so sitting with all one hundred and thirty four of their colleagues and they know why they're there and to have that be the training was was pretty hard but on the flipside of it you know there were women who felt more comfortable sharing their stories about what happened in the legislature we started looking at a process for reporting for sexual harassment so for independent contractors the media lobbyists because they don't have an owl meer to report sexual harassment and looking at what consequences actually look like that started so you know i was a little bit of plus minus their mormonism plus but it was worth coming for yeah i am i read something about that training and there is another representative hill and can read what she said about it and that was that there is a slide in the

presentation that said the most horrifying thing would be to be accused of being a harasser when i met her was that you add the slide actually satellite lot careers ruined lives destroyed and families in tatters or something like that as the risen above the others others think yeah i wasn't as it and it was given by someone who is actually on defense attorney for people who had been accused of sexual harassment in the workplace so they got second prize your perspective right there that is that yes different lens to put on things it seems like the training thing is something that is just not really considered all that affect old and you get the as these attacks and rid of perspectives around who's to blame for in the behavior of the harassers what do you what do you think are the things that are the most effective in terms of putting an end two sexual harassment

so my one line at advice for everyone is do not approach non sexual relationships in a sexual manner it's a very easy thing to do most of the suit every single day but i think you know real consequences for sexual harassment end and that kind of behavior in the workplace that is probably one of the best deterrent of it because so often when it happens it's just a job in utica too seriously and like now and there's no consequences for their behavior sustain cultures and tones where their behaviors not accepted that is the outlier and that person who is behaving that way is the one who is not sitting in instead of the other way around those are the types of things that i think more than anything on you know every industries different every workplace is different but if someone who runs a workplace or manages workplace is really keen on getting to that recall was like take the temperature of the folks that work for you because they are probably the best equipped to tell you what are the problems and how can we best

address them and it goes back to this idea that if you talk to the people who are most impacted and then listen you're more likely to have effect of results that's true for policy that's certainly true for sexual harassment ok so you think things did change again for you there you are you're asked to run for lieutenant governor dr carol brayne so erin murphy nino two women issue into aaron's few errands to women i mean and has been a wonderful mentor for me since i was in college actually my mother oh wow ok so why anytime i'm curious about a couple of things while i am curious what role the dead did the coming forward about this actual roston play in her decision to choose el you know i think more than that and i did a sit in on the house floor for twenty four hours because we had not moved them out of engine measures for house through the legislature and all despite you know

students are rallying and walking out of their classrooms and the number of organisms that happened certainly before parkland that absolutely after parkland and i was frustrated and i know that every when he was outside of the capital was frustrated as well as i did that sudden and it was it was hard you know physically yes to sit down and be awake for twenty four hours hard but certainly within our caucus that wasn't widely loved in celebrated not everyone is very did i was doing it and i think that was a thing that she looked out to say you know you did the right thing even though it was hard even though you the pushback from our colleagues even now i am you know is the right thing to do and i was an easy thing to do and the sexual harassment keith i think was more that i was willing to do the right thing even when it dealt with people in our own party and even elena delle of people who had more power in our own party and so when you're looking at governing a state on and lieutenant governor state are having someone who steps in for you know she wanted someone who could continue the agenda that we had laid forth for

minnesotans if something had happened to her she didn't want someone to balance her out she wanted someone that would continue our very ambitious agenda and she saw me as a person so that was part of the calculus that was someone who is bold brave and unapologetic about what we believe in and why they believe it and was it unusual to have a two woman to get for the governor lieutenant governor to be seen the seafloor it we were the first all female ticket endorsed by a major party in the cinemas and and history would not comment how that play out in terms of your campaign to do you did you play that captivated down where where well what was its function any its function i mean we do not play to it was important it was an historic ticket for a number of reasons and it works against us a number of ways because in the same way you know we've seen that female politicians you know for time in eternity the question of quote unquote electability always comes in and i was only brought in in

terms of us and you know we're both from what we call the metro so in minnesota we have eighty seven counties we have seven counties that are on the hold about fifty five sixty percent of population and other ed have harassed and so they call that the metro and so as a metro centric ticket wasn't balanced geographically and so it was about are they likable will voters vote for two women or two women from the metro and it was kind of used as this whole can people really get over this thing on until we run our campaign talked about the politics of joy rate because there is fear built into that narrative of canna womanly and we've never had a female governor minnesota our constitution still says he shall he will he appointed senate talks about the minister and so i think that that fear can play a huge role when it comes to female politicians and can they really and will people really talk about electability right the thing that makes him unelectable that people liked them that's it the president proves that but it did play a role in both why

we're excited to run and then also why people might it have hesitancy about voting for us and ted tell me more about the politics of joining does and how does that translate into the way you talk about issues or the way the you purged i'm you know he would have been about three in yemen we talked about the politics of joy not as like smile through the bad stuff it was there is joy in our future there is joy in working together there is joy in fighting for the things that we actually believe in even if people tell us that it's too hard or too much or too far and so in it especially over the summer in an era where things were just if italy right there are so many family separations are happening i know donald trump is the president and the head i am a long hard summer and so when we're looking at what do we want people to feel about this campaign what do we want them to know about our campaign that there is joy in what we're doing more we're seeking to do and how we're going to do it together as beautiful well congratulations on the robin mcpherson oh gosh why it happened you why why

why do you think that you can win the primary well there's a number of reasons i think you know we've seen across the country in a number of races where the progressive folks are people counted out i'll come out to women the ones are coming and you're dumping a really great example is and our cars are protesting a great example and so i think when you in particular of for our election our primary but even after looking at that there's always this like apple i can we pull out i think a big part of it has to do with the fact that minnesotans tended looked right we have ninety percent voter turnout went and presidential years and so we have high information voters and be really devout and so a lot of these places where we're seeing protests of candidates i am really galvanize uncertain and wayne dyer indeed in you folks who haven't really been part of the process before they're now voting and hero we could persuade candidates in cuba people to vote for us and so we did have the endorsement of our party but we did have some folks who are not keen on their quote unquote match your

ticket and we also you know there was a little bit on the flip of politics enjoy the politics of fear and tempo and key who was our former governor before current governor and ran for president was running in the primary and people were very scared of having technology the next governor and so i think when it came down to it they thought you know i just i can't have to learn to be your governor and so i wanna make sure that we win and i think that this there's a different ticket that you know as it's close my eyes amenity everything but i have the feeling that certain types of folks in the knesset are more likely to vote for that person and they may or may not have been rotten but i think there's a little bit of that fear that was baked into ahmed says some decisions but at the same time you know we had two really great candidates and we had as a surprise third candidate that entered the race on their last day of filing as our attorney general lori swanson and then her running mate was the congressman up in the eighth district i mean iron range was actually stasi retiring and so i kind of shook things up in a weird

way and i think it took a while for folks to get their footing and so i think at the end of the day you know we were just in poll numbers and we probably could've organize a little bit better on the field and see we could have you know got more places and then said more things you know that the standard things for for why people lose campaigns but the good news is is that we have a great interest to get now on minnesota's tim walz a picket line again and they are dazzling in a beet jeff johnson in november which is exciting so i mean what an incredible experience an and i'm sure the plant in so much energy into into making that success while also still doing your job as a representative and the uk your job as represented online because they can we can do better with rape so for what what next you know right now i'm working for you and she cried he was running for congress and cd two she is i think the top or one of the top football districts in the nation and running against jason lewis who won two years ago with forty seven percent of the vote and then she ran against last

time so we got one twenty percent more innes and after that i now see how things shake out from the options and love to work for what officials again until i decide to run again and i do plan on running for office again because i really enjoy policymaking i'm a huge pulse energy and if you like policy you should make policy so aaron you do you you've been out you've been down here is a wet when the surveys that anyone's ever given you about picking yourself that happen again in and moving forward you know when i was a really really little ted i made a mistake and accidentally lying about it i didn't really realize that the thing that i had done was the things on a vastly downsize had no it wasn't me and it was me and i realize it like a day later and i felt so guilty for it and i'm undecided what first go back and apologize and villagers and then she said and a little while in office about anna laughter that one feels

about him a little out of us about little you always feel this way and so my advice to everyone else that i was given as a theory of a second fifth grade and i did this mistake i did is that you always feel this way and so don't get so my hair down and everything they show right now because it was just way they use how you show right now to fuel yourself later in our member why doesn't show that right now so that we have to give the extra bit later on that i don't feel like that again or if you when it feels really didn't remember how it felt to win so that the next time you're going to do this anymore and your abilities into the transit on the other at age thirty two of minnesota's state representative aaron mcquade is positioned to be at the forefront of a wave of rest of political leaders representing a new generation of voters for now she has to contend with the powers that be

and a quarter of abusive behavior that male politicians on both sides of the aisle have historically been given a pass on over the past year in minnesota alone senator al franken was forced to resign after several women came forward with their stories the house representative and state senator that sexually harassed karen both resigned and even congressman keith ellison who encouraged her to run has been accused of abusive behavior toward an ex girlfriend in erin's story or seeing a glimpse of what happens when some empowers herself with the confidence refused to play along just because that's the way it's always days we're also seeing what happens in that place that howard is confronted with the unvarnished truth doubles down and deny it fights back with character assassinations of accusers things to the persistence of fearless when i'm like jeremy wade and christine was the word and the countless women who have come forward to call it abuse of sixteen

cracks the dominoes are falling and hopefully more politicians both men and women like to pick up the pieces and build something i'm lauren shuler and this is an inflection point is that their inflection point for the day all of our episodes are an apple pie catholic media public stitcher and can hear one of the five star review and subscribe to the podcast no one in the degree rising and very importantly review dot org the monthly contributions your support for these stories from their inflection thing really of these but implicitly media company twitter and allie shaw

to find out more about the guests you heard today the final four letter inflection point radio dodger inflection point is produced in partnership with kalw ninety one point seven fm in our story editor and content manager is neither or engineer and producer lauren shuler