Transcripts For CSPAN Rep. Josh Harder Town Hall In California 20240713

Whether or not it is egged on by extra credit or something else, i dont judge. It is fantastic to see you all together, exercising your constitutional rights. One of the goals of my office has been to set a new standard for accountability and openness in our community. That is why we have done 17, yes, 17 town halls in person across our Community Just this year. Three of them have been in manteca, at least three. And we are trying to make sure we are listening to every single voice in our community, whether you voted for me, didnt, didnt vote, i am still your representative and it is my job to make sure i am listening to your concerns, suggestions, comments about how i can do my job, making sure my First Priority is to be grounded in the needs and realities of our community. A little about my story. I ran for office because i love the Central Valley. My family settled here in manteca. My great, great grandfather came on a wagon train in 1850, 2000 miles in search of gold and he stopped 50 miles short. He settled here to become a peach farmer in manteca. Off main street there is a eucalyptus tree he planted. My literal roots are here, and that is the story of so many folks, coming here because we have the best water, best soil, best climate in the entire world. My story is one where the community invested in may. I grew up in turlock, went to the public schools, got a scholarship from the Modesto Rotary Club and the American Legion to go off to college. I worked in business, i was teaching in Modesto Community College Teaching kids how to write a Business Plan and start a company, and i realized that so many of the challenges i cared about in our community, whether it was lowering the cost of health care, bringing jobs to the valley, the problems were not going to be solved by more entrepreneurs are just more teachers. We had to have a set of political leaders that could Work Together and get stuff done. I was not seeing that, so i decided to see what we could do to fix it. And we have made a couple priorities in our first nine months, 10 months of being in office. All of them, really led by listening to our community at events like this and making sure those being responsive to interests. I will talk about a couple of those. One of the first priorities i made was going to our veterans and talking to veterans about , the needs they had. And they said that there was a huge challenge of Vietnam Veterans affected by agent orange, a terrible chemical we used that was causing cancer, a lot of diabetes. And it has been 50 years, but we have a lot veterans who are still living with these conditions, who are paying out of pocket because they were not being covered by disability benefits under the veterans administration. Folks were paying tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars in some cases, outofpocket for this. I thought that was unconscionable. We took a bill that had been on the back burner for 50 years in congress. We made it a top priority. We brought together democrats and republicans, and just a couple months ago that bill passed the house, it passed the senate and it was signed into trump,y president meaning every single vietnam veteran affected by agent orange in this country now has their disability benefits fully covered. That is what we were able to make happen. [applause] and there is a lot of other stuff we are working on. I will highlight a couple others. Water and health care, which i think are two of the biggest existential threats we have in the valley. And when i sit looking in manteca, i see the challenges a population that is growing quickly. Manteca is really growing and we need to make sure we have the local jobs here, so people who are doing that drive over the ultima pass can have opportunities to stay, and be employed. One of the best mechanisms for that, in a community where one out of every three jobs is directly or indirectly tied to agriculture, is making sure we are preserving the lifeblood of the valley, which is our water. We have a boom and bust cycle with water. We have years where we will have too much, and we will have floods, and then we will have way too little the next year, and we will have a drought. And that is something that we need to be able to do a better job of managing. We need to be able to build the reservoirs, the groundwater recharge, the water recycling facilities, to make sure we are prepared for the next drought around the corner. It is the best way to preserve and grow the jobs we have in the valley, which continue to feed the world. We are fighting for a couple projects this year that i think we will be able to get funding for. Out near tracy, the reservoir to the north, the san luis reservoir, which we are working to expand, and the Canyon Reservoir that is out near patterson. We have been able to secure 14 million in funding just for those projects in we are working to get it across the finish line in a budget package by the end of the year, just going for going to our community to build Water Infrastructure programs for the future. Another program we are working on is the lack of access to health care in the valley. This is one of the personal reasons why i ran for office. My own brother was born 10 weeks premature, he was less than two pounds when he was born. I could not even hold him when i met him because he was behind the glass in the icu. And we have done a good job of making sure that folks have health care coverage, but we have done a terrible job of making sure they can afford prescription drugs, and that they can actually have a doctor that they can go and see. We have half the doctors per capita in the valley that the bay area has and other areas have across the country. That is a problem. We have 12 residents that graduated in my Congressional District just this year. 12 residents, 12 new positions, only one of them stayed. 11 of them took jobs outside. So that is the current state of affairs. And i dont blame somebody for having 500,000 in medicine 500,000 dollars in medical school debt, and deciding to do surgery somewhere else. That is their economic challenge. We need to be able to connect folks to opportunities here so they stay in the valley. And so a couple weeks ago, i introduced a bill, again with republicans and democratic support, that will create a Loan Repayment Program for all physicians working in nonprofits in california. That program, if we can get it across the line, which i think we are going to be able to, the California Medical Association believes that that will lead to 10,000 positions staying and working in our area. That is what we are talking about. That is a huge win in an area where we dont have enough physicians of any type. Those of the projects we are working on. I could continue to go on and on, but again the best part of , these is not when you are listening to me, i hear myself enough already, it is making sure that we are giving it up to the Community Memory and hearing your comments, your suggestions, your priorities for how i can continue to serve you. So thank you for coming. Andso grateful, and that excited to open it up to questions and hear how i can continue to work for you. Thank you. [applause] i know we have melissa on one side, we have katie on the other. Raise your hand. Ask whatever question you want, or we can start cold calling. Whatever is important to you. I will ask you some questions. [inaudible] is coming back next year, what are you going to do . Representative harder the question is, we seem to have missed the power outage at this time, but what is going on . I am so frustrated by the situation we have with power right now. Pg e has done a terrible job. I admit it is a tough situation for them, where you either turn off the power or you could see a situation where you are worried you will have more fires, more things like we had in paradise, not that far from here. But we should not be in this position to begin with. Gmdi would contrast what he g e has done, and some of our irrigation districts. Turlock irrigation district one of the reasons we have been insulated from these problems is because we have we dont have the same problems in our irrigation districts. We should learn about that. We need top to bottom reform at pg e and make sure that this is clear that this is an , unacceptable level of service, when you have one million customers across the state of california at risk of losing power for potentially days on end, and while this was not as bad as it could be we know the , next potential blackout is around the corner. So what we are trying to do is work both at a state level, which manages a lot of the oversight at pg e, as well as at the federal level. Good ideas are making sure that we are not charging ratepayers during the black outs, that we are establishing fundamental e. Orms at pg the infrastructure, a lot of it was designed in the 1970s, so basically fixing that. This year, they gave their executives multimillion dollar bonuses. I wrote a letter and i said, this is not acceptable, you should not be paying yourselves with bonuses like you are on top of the world when you are at risk at not delivering services to areas like manteca. [applause] thank you. Other questions, do not be shy. Thank you. Im deborah from tracy and my question is this. Int you did for veterans what you just passed through the legislation that is on the president s desk, but i am concerned about the legislation that has not been passed, such as infrastructure. Our roads, even in the valley, it is atrocious. I used to commute to redwood city. I know what the altamont is like. Im concerned about the usmca , that would help farmers. That would help most of the middle of the country. Why isnt that being passed . Rep. Harder it is a great question. You have two different things, but overall i think your question was right on, why is not enough being done in washington . I could not agree more. That is one of my big frustrations. And i would not blame one party or the other, but i will note that there have been 200 bills that have passed the house, that are sitting on the senates desk right now, that they have not even taken up. If you vote it down, that is one thing, but it is another did not even take any action. It is very frustrating to me because i voted for 200 bills that have passed, that got out of one chamber but are being held up because of politics in the other. Now some of the things, i will go into specifics, like you mentioned Something Like infrastructure. It is a huge challenge. We have decaying infrastructure in the valley that is costing us more money than it would cost to fix it. People are paying hundreds of dollars out of pocket every single year just to fix their car because the potholes are so bad. The worst bridge in california is the 73 bridge in modesto and it has a score of 2 according to the american civil corps of engineers. Two out of 100. I do not recommend driving over it with a truck. That is the situation we have today. So they should not be a partisan issue, this has got to be something where we come together. President trump campaigned on a trillion dollar infrastructure plan. I think that is a fantastic idea. I absolutely support it. It needs to be put into action. The plane he put into action actually pushes 80 of the cost down to our cities and counties, which i do not think is the answer. There must be an opportunity where people can come together. And the holdup has been making sure that folks who have taken pledges to never raise taxes are actually doing the job that they are forced to, because this is something we are paying for one way or another. We have got to make sure we are actuallyhing fixing the infrastructure that is on our streets today. And your second question is about the usmca. For people not familiar, we have a series of trade disputes and , this is basically nafta to 2. 0. Out nafta california produces 80 of the worlds almonds, a lot of them produced around here. We have less than 1 of the worlds consumers. There is only so much almond milk we can drink. We need to be able to sell our product, not just almonds, but dairy and everything else, all across the world. The first solution is our partners in mexico and canada, which usmca would address. We are working hard to get this to yes. And i feel like i was hoping to get this to a vote by the end of august, that did not happen. I am hoping to do it before the canadian elections by october , 31. That could slip and now we are hoping for maybe the end of the year. It is very frustrating for me to see that folks are not actually getting something done on this because it would be getting solving some issues with it, it would lead to a boom in the valley. What usmca does for this region is, it opens up the canadian dairy market. We have lost 90 dairy farms in san joaquin an Stanislaus County over the last 10 years. A lot of dairy farms are in trouble. And just when we are getting back on track, we started trade wars with canada, japan, with china and other countries. The best way to do it is make sure we are getting an agreement across the finish line and that , is one of our big priorities. Thank you. [applause] do not be too shy. We will start cold calling the students. [laughter] not a good idea . [laughter] can you hear me . Yeah . I have enjoyed talking to you personally. You havent addressed all those things, you did with this lady right here. There is one that kind of really i think i want to find out about this one, it is the impeachment issue. I want you to talk about the impeachment issue, with the democrats bringing this up. I will tell you honestly, im up to here with the impeachment stuff, alright . Rep. Harder thank you for your question. Thank you for your service and everything you did. It is frustrating for me. I did not run for office to be in this situation. This was not my goal. And i think that it is a circus out there in washington, but it is a circus that we have to hold accountable. As many of you know, i have been very cautious to go in on this, but i think after what we saw on the ukraine transcript, and by the way, i recommend to all of you to go out and read it, but what i saw and what i read was a president putting his personal political vendettas ahead of our national security. And i think that is blatant corruption and i think it requires an inquiry. And that is exactly what is happening. And i think the same standard that we are holding here, i hope would be my same standard if we have a democratic president at another time that is doing the same thing, asking for political dirt on a domestic opponent with china or with the u. K. Or some other ally across the country, or some other person. So that is why i think it is important. That said, my focus in this district has not changed. The Top Priorities i have are making sure that we are securing our Water Infrastructure, bringing more doctors to the valley, we are fixing our transit and transportation infrastructure for the 86,000 people that drive over the Altamont Pass every day, and ultimately we bring more jobs to the valley. So that is my commitment to you. I have a constitutional obligation to do my job and make sure we are making that happen but my first focus is to make , sure we are responsive to those in the community and the valley, and reminding people that california ultimately is franciscoabout san and los angeles, which i think my job really comes down to. Thank you. [applause] so you are going to vote for impeachment . And is your stance on fullterm abortion still the same . Rep. Harder yeah, so i have never supported fullterm abortions. I dont support it. I think that this is a misnomer that folks try to make into a political attack. Im prochoice, but i do not think it is the governments opportunity to get in between a woman, her body and her doctor. [applause] on the inquiry, i think i have been pretty clear that the step we are at now is to make sure that there is a full, impartial investigation. And i think that all of us, regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of who you voted for, i think you should want the same thing. And we should make sure that all the facts are on the table and , that folks are testifying in open committee hearings, saying what they heard. I think that is the least we can expect of our nation, because ultimately this comes down to believing that we have a legitimate, democratic process, that we have real accountability between our branches, and that we are not allowing foreign interference in our elections. I think that is the step we are at now. [applause] and i think it should be pushed by all of us to make sure the inquiry actually takes place. [applause] im glad that you made reference to concerns about foreign interference in our elections. There is ample circumstantial evidence that there was outofdistrict interference with the last election here in the 10th district. And for those of you who say , circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence, the simple definition is if it walks , like a duck, moves like a duck, it is probably a duck. Between statistical anomalies and statistical impossibilities, when you look at the voter turnout, even former speaker of the house paul ryan made the comment that for an official to win the ballot box vote, to win the absentee boat, and then lose the entire election on special provisional ballots is almost an impossibility. Are you committed to ensuring the integrity of the election process, and i am much less concerned about foreign entities trying to influence elections than we have people coming possibly from outside this district and committing voter fraud. And there has been a number of examples shown of how that may well have happened. Again, i am glad you are concerned about the integrity of the elections, and i am concerned about the elections here in the 10th district. Rep. Harder thank you for your question, and thank you for your concern. I think we all should share the same value, which is you should have faith in the democratic processes that are in place, to make sure the boat you cast is equally weighted across all the voters in the district, and that you ultimately have faith in the end result. And it is very frustrating to see that faith breaking down. And i think that this is something that, again, should not have anything to with party affiliation. We should want a legitimate process. So i think we had this in the last election. I think here is what i will say about that, which is after President Trump got elected in 2016, he alleged voter fraud and he did something about it. He actually created a commission headed by kris kobach, somebody pretty far to the right that i do not away see eye to eye on, to go out and investigate and find voter fraud wherever it is. And regardless of the merits of starting that commission was, the end result is President Trump himself disbanded that commission after they found no evidence across the country. So i hear you, we are all for making sure that we have a legitimate political process. We are all for making sure that whatever fraud is, that we can find it, stamp it out. We all want that. I thing the best thing to do is the house has passed a secure , elections act, which will make sure that every single ballot in america has a paper ballot that comes with it, that we can trace those paper ballots across and make sure that there is real integrity in our election system. Right now, that has been sitting on the desk of Mitch Mcconnell for months. So if we really believe this is a problem, well, i voted to put in steps to combat voter fraud. And i would encourage all of us to continue to make our voices heard that this needs to be a priority. Thank you. [applause] can you hear me . Thank you for hosting tonight. My name is jen, i am from the Central Valley and have worked in the Central Valley all my life. Nurse, and i am here tonight to bring a concern for you. Just to bring attention to a bill that is moving forward that is essentially going to eliminate your constituents access from being transported to tertiary centers. You touched on a little bit when you talked about, compared to San Francisco or the bay area cities, they have access to levelone trauma centers, Pediatric Specialty Centers in a much vaster capacity than we do. So tonight i wanted to bring attention to that, and how important it is. You know i spent my career , taking care of patients and trying to do the best by them. So just a little attention to that moving forward. It is labeled a health bill, however, in the fine print it is really going to eliminate those services for your constituents here. Representative harder representative harder thank you for that. I didnt realize that was moving forward. We will look at it and if you , wouldnt mind afterwards sharing the details of the bill and well do what we can to , track it down. We dont have enough access to Health Care Services in the valley. And air transit is one of the best way to address that. Getting more doctors to the valley is another way to address that. Getting telemedicine and Health Opportunities across the valley is another way to address that. We have another bill to push for telemedicine opportunities across, so maybe you dont have to drive six hours roundtrip to see a dermatologist. You could take a picture of that rash and have it addressed right there. So there are a lot of things to do to come together to address the profound of health care and health support. I thank you for all the work you but do. It is so critical in an area that we dont have enough nurses, to have folks like you on the front line. So thank you for what you do and , let us know how we can help with that legislation. [applause] my name is molly. Im a senior in high school. My question is towards public education. Are you working on any projects that help support Technical Education in schools . Representative harder yes. [applause] thank you, molly. Go, manteca hi. Ill put it this way. In my line of work, i have an opportunity to meet with Top Employers across our community. And again and again, i hear they want to expand the number of jobs they have, they want to continue to hire more folks, but they just cant find them. And then right after that, ill go and meet with some of the High School Students and say i want to stay in the valley and i want to continue to work here, but im worried i may have to move to the bay area. That is a connection problem. We are not doing a good job. We are not doing a good job theonnecting our jobs to needs of the education community. And so we made this a huge priority. I put forward a skills education package and what this package will do is solve a core fundamental problem which is if you get a four year philosophy degree, you can get a pell grant for that. But if you want to do a sixmonth program to be a maintenance mechanic, you cant. And i dont think thats right. We have a huge shortage of mechanics and people like that here in the valley, we have to make sure that is not cost prohibitive. We have to continue to employ folks. And this comes out of the core problem, which is are we going , to continue to shift tens of thousands of our best and brightest every single morning across the altamont, or can we create the opportunities for those people to live and work in the same place . My goal is to make sure we are bringing those jobs and creating opportunities for local businesses to expand but the , only way we do that is invest in the type of Career Education programs that have been successful and take those up to the next level. So thank you for all the things that you are doing. [applause] one thing we are not hearing about is the blossoming and getting this deficit under control. What is your position on that and what are we doing about it . It is approaching a trillion dollars next year. Mr. Harder there are some things where we need to come together on, where republicans and democrats need to meet. There are some things that both democrats and republicans are dead wrong. And this is one of those, where everybody seems totally content just racking up the debt. I hope to be around another 50 years. Im pretty young, i want to make sure im not inheriting a debt that is completely unsustainable. And one of the things i did just a couple of months ago, there is a big budget talk on the afpble the annual budget, and i was only a handful of people, a handful of folks that actually , broke with my party and voted against it. Because i think we were not having a real conversation about how we can lower the longterm debt across our country towards sustainable levels. Heres what has me worried. In 2008, when we had a market crash, we had a lot of problems especially in our community, we had debt levels that were relatively low, Interest Rates that were relatively high. We were able to cut the Interest Rates, we were able to stimulate the economy to get it back on track, which didnt happen fast enough but at least we had some , room. If that were to happen today and get into recession tomorrow, we wouldnt have any breathing room or anywhere else to go. We couldnt increase spending. We couldnt do a stimulus in the way. We cant cut Interest Rates because they are already quite , low. So i worry that by letting this get out of control when the economy is really good, we have limited our ability to address it when the economy may be bad, around the corner. I have taken votes to draw this folks attention. Im one of the few people banging on the drum in washington saying this is a , problem and this has to be led by communities like ours that , understand there is no such thing as a free lunch, and you have to make sure you are paying for your bills. And this is a huge challenge we will continue to fight. As long as we agree on one thing which is continuing to spend more than their means. Thank you for your question. [applause] my name is natalie. You mentioned that water is one of your main concerns and something you are focusing on. And i was curious what your on, the Trump Administration today actually permitted to open up hundreds of thousands of acres of Central Valley land for leasing for oil and gas companies, which could have impact on our environment, wildlife, and clean water. And also fracking. And part of that is in san joaquin county. Mr. Harder thank you for the question. And i havent seen what happened today yet. I have been out in our community all day, so let me take a chance to look at that and understand the details. But i think there is no question that california is in a war with the Trump Administration over andronmental standards, vice versa. And i dont think this is helpful for anyone. I certainly dont think it is helpful for california when you see the Trump Administration deciding to lower emissions standards for cars, when even every single car company in detroit has decided that they dont want to go there. It is rare to see a government want to pollute more than a car company. That is not a typical situation that you see. And it is really hurting our businesses already here in california who are worried about , what actually the implications of this are going to go on. The second thing i have written a letter about that and will do what we can. This is a tough issue because the head of the Environmental Protection agency, andrew wheeler, is a former coal lobbyist. He was head of the coal lobby. Thatat is pretty clear is he does not have our best interests at stake. And the other thing we have done on this is work to ban offshore drilling and this is a huge , problem. We are close to the coast but not on the coast, but we know california depends upon its shoreline and more short sided decision to build an oil rig off the coast of the pacific, right off the coast of the the atlantic. I think that would have huge impacts across our state and across our country. So i voted yes on a bill that would ban offshore drilling on the coast of california and on the other shore as well. So we are working on this but , ultimately this has to be a consistent battle. And ill look what is going on with our public lands, because what you have said is very concerning. Thank you. [applause] im from tracy. Theconcerned about prospects of a huge bomb blast of that are supposed to be, proposed to take place at site. 00 [inaudible] to 1000 pounds at a time. These detonation routes these detonations will have no air pollution control, for our kids to breathe, and it comes from tracy all the way down through the valley. So congressman, i would like to ask you if you could do things to keep your constituents in our community safe. One, if you could contact the San Joaquin Valley air pollution control board and express your concern about these tests. And we all want to invite you and your staff to a special Community Meeting that will discuss these blasts. That will be in tracy november 13 at 4 00. Thankentative harder you. For folks that arent as away arent aware of this issue, the Lawrence Livermore lab does a lot of great tests. They test bombs, they test activity they test radioactive activity, and they test it pretty close to tracy. And maybe this was an idea that maybe made sense when tracy had 5000 People Living in it, but doesnt make much sense now, when tracy has skyrocketed in population. We shouldnt have our school kids going to school next to a radioactive site and shouldnt have our school kids worried about bomb contaminants. There is a lot of land across this country and not all of them are right near cities with 93,000 people. And this is a superfund site. Superfund sites have to be cleaned up. The contaminants in them have to be cleaned. And you are sensing a theme here, but the head of superfund cleanup in the Trump Administration is the former person who was in charge of working with radioactive companies to slow down superfund cleanup through the epa. Now he is in charge of that division at the epa. Again, the fox guarding the henhouse all over again. A big priority for us, we have written letters and drawing attention to this and not just , for tracy, but for other cities across the country that , the demographics have changed since when these sites were created 50, 60, 70 years ago. We have to update our maps and accelerate the contamination cleanup and make sure that our groundwater is secure and , every resident can sleep at home at night that they arent exposed to contaminants that shouldnt be next to a major city like tracy. [applause] my name is manual from tracy. I would like to thank you for being so accessible. I know you are used to doing a blot of town halls, especially at a time when a lot of people are being sent here to spread misinformation. I appreciate you continuing to do these things. I do want to ask you, because i came here from tracy right now. There is a proposed valley link train that is going to take people through the central and it is going to take people off at altamont. My fear is that those people are going to be replaced with people moving closer to the Central Valley because now there is an active point to get to the bay area. As a young person in my generation and one of the first not be able to stay in tracy and live in tracy and buy a house in tracy because of conditions there, will you do whatever you can to work with local governments,local to make sure young people and renters in general arent priced out and kicked out just for people to come here from the bay area . [applause] tracy, there is a brandnew subdivision. Will you do whatever you can to help us out . Representative harder thank you for the question. I think you hit on what is the core challenge that you fights the valley, which is we are a region that is already growing two to three times faster. People cant afford to live anywhere else. They can barely afford to living barely afford to live here. Our population is continuing to expand. The challenge is how do we upgrade our services and infrastructure to accommodate that . And that means our transit infrastructure has, education and health care systems, but probably more than anything else, it means our housing situation needs to be dramatically upgraded. Vacancyless than 1 rates across our cities. You see rents going up 50 in tracy the last four, five years. Thats a huge challenge. Think what we have to do is make sure we are building the Affordable Housing solutions. One of the best things my office can do is make sure we are actually attracting dollars. Angelescisco and los have sophisticated lobbying efforts. They frequently get dollars that are deserved here in the valley. We are trying to do our part to make sure we are arguing for that. Just a month ago, we got a 3 million grant to build Affordable Housing projects for folks who live here and want to continue to live here and want to make sure they are not priced out and going somewhere else. Thats just the start of what needs to be done. We have to make sure we are building up more accommodation and more affordable accommodations for folks. That is what we need to do state at the state and local levels to create the infrastructure to make sure that people thank you. Can live where they want to live. Thank you. [applause] you mentioned a while ago abhenhouse. Lets just get settled. We need to pass some laws where no one, whether its in the senate or house of representatives can hold up 200 , bills that are important to all the infrastructure that you just went over and to other critical needs, and every one of these people from whoever is in charge of the epas held accountable, and it never happens again. Because im 72 years old and i remember john mitchell, edwin meese and oliver north and have all been pardoned and have been able to become rich afterwards and did serious harm to the , whole nation. And we have to do something in politics where it doesnt happen. Because frankly we have a bunch of concerned citizens but a lot of people have given up on our government. And nice to see the High School Students that came here tonight and see what is going on in this country and its a problem that , is almost unbelievable. I never thought i would see the day where the United States of america was operating concentration camps refugees, or the other things that are going on today. It is criminal. And it is very discouraging. [applause] representative harder thank you. And this is very troubling to me. I think that youre right. Cynicism is growing about our political system and people are , right to be frustrated. Now ill talk about what im , trying to do, and then i will talk about what everybody else ought to be doing as well. What im trying to do is we need to change the law and find ways to Work Together. And one of my most formative moments is my first day in washington dc, i was stepping outside my hotel room, 9 00 a. M. Monday morning. And there are two big buses ready to take all members of congress to the capitol and i asked the security guard, which bus should i take . And he said, well, there is the republican bus and the democratic bus. And that broke my heart. In the valley, you cant get on one bus or the other, you have to find ways to Work Together. I ended up walking and grabbed a , bunch of folks who shared similar sets of values. And now in washington, every wednesday i get breakfast with 10 republicans and 10 democrats, and we try to find ways to Work Together. We can continue to disagree on something, but we can focus on things where we can find common ground. Thats why when i talk about Blue Water Navy and pushing a bill to make sure every single veteran from agent orange has their disabilities covered. That came from folks that care about the military just as i do. And that is why, in the first nine months of my office, i have sponsored more republican bills than any other democrat in the country. It is not because i am compromising by compromising my values, it is because i want to get something done. The valley is a unique place. You are very likely, guaranteed even, to go to church, to go to school, to go to work with somebody who believes in politics and sees politics a little bit differently than you do. Thats not the case across the country. A lot of folks go with where they believe one way or the other. I have the unique opportunity to set an example. The second thing ill say, all too often i see folks respond to this cynicism about politics, the frustration that the political system isnt being responsive enough to their needs and they tune politics out. , and they say that doesnt matter to me, im going to stand up and walk away. And in fact, our response should be the exact opposite. Because of these issues, if you care, if you have a kid with diabetes, an uncle with cancer, then you really care about making sure that people with preexisting conditions should have their Health Coverage maintained. That is at stake. If you have a dreamer that sits next to you in math class, if you drive every day over pot holes, politics is affecting you. My message to young people here is, if you feel frustrated by the system, i hear you. But dont let that frustration cause you to walk away. Instead, let it cause you to make you jump in politics. My example. I was frustrated by politics and decided to run for office and im trying to fix it. If you are frustrated by politics, do the exact same thing, run for office, get involved knock on doors and make , your voice be heard. That is the in your opinion of town halls. One of the 17 we are doing is making sure citizens have a political voice and voice matters, that we are listening even if we dont see eye to eye, i want to hear what you have to say, and i want to continue to work ill close by saying, we for you. Ill close by saying, we are not going to fix every one of these problems overnight. A lot of these challenges are real. But i can promise you a couple of things. Im going to promise to continue to tell you the truth, im going to continue to show up in front of our community again and again, and im going to continue