On the Record: Charles County w/ Clifton Crosby Jr.

In this episode, host Carlos Childs explores key issues shaping Maryland's 27A district through an insightful conversation with Delegate candidate Clifton Crosby Jr. They cover topics from local infrastructure projects and data center opposition to renewable energy policies, transportation solutions, housing affordability, and the future of legislative governance. If you're invested in Maryland’s community progress and political future, this discussion is a must-listen.

Clifton Crosby Jr.:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

What is up, you all? What is up, you all? Welcome to the Left-Handed Leftist. You all, we have an amazing, amazing conversation today. We're going to be talking about a little bit about Charles County, a little bit about Prince George's, and another candidate conversation, you all. We're going to be talking about District 27A. We're going to be talking about data centers, infrastructure. We're going to be talking about transportation. We're going to be talking a little bit about technology, housing, all the different things that are going on in our political atmosphere as well. We're even going to be talking about the Maryland Israel Development Center and everything in between. So, you all, I am so, so happy about this conversation. And I know you all are like, Carlos, we keep getting these candidate conversations. And I will tell you all, after the election cycle, I am looking forward to some non-candidate conversations as well. Something that we can get back into the grassroots of community. But because elections are coming up in Maryland in a few weeks here, we want to make, I want to make sure that I'm giving our viewers and our listeners every opportunity to engage with candidates and make sure that they are making an informed decision about who they may or may not be voting for. So with that introduction out the way, um I am so happy to be joined in this conversation with Clifton Crosby Jr. He is a candidate for the delicate for the House of Delegates in Maryland's 27A district. And before we get into the podcast, you all remember, please like, share, subscribe, rate us five stars, leave us a comment, do all the things that continue to keep this podcast growing. And don't forget to hit that notifications bell so that you can get alerted every time we drop a new episode every single Wednesday. Without further ado, you all, let's get into the episode. What is up, you all? What is up, you all? Clifton Crosby Jr., how are you doing today? I'm doing good. How are you? Good, good. Always on this weirdly overcasty Sunday. This like 80-degree weather and then 60 degree weather and then 80 degree weather is wrecking my allergies and making it like I can't plan anything.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

I'll get in the car, gonna go one place. It's sunny. I get out, it's cloudy. I don't it just comes with living down here, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 2:21

Right. I'm gonna need the DMB to get some better weather. If we're gonna move forward, I'm gonna need climate change to like not change here and go everywhere else. Somebody do something about it, please. Right. But thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Yeah, we have a really uh jam-packed conversation, but let's kind of kick it off with for the viewers who who may not know you, can you please tell people who is Clifton Crosby Jr. and what you're running for and why?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Absolutely. So Clifton Crosby Jr., I'm born and raised in Charles County. I'm running for to be the next delegate of District 27A, which represents parts of Charles County and then parts of South County and Prince George's County. So like District 9, if that's your area, District 27A covers you. And my story starts. I'm a graduate of Charles County Public Schools. So I went to Wade, Davis, and North Point. Shout out, Go Eagles, you know. Um, and I went to Towson University. And that's really where my legislative background and all those kind of things start. So I went to Towson to be a computer scientist. I've been doing STEM. My mom had me in STEM camp since I was about eight years old. So I love robotics, coding, all that stuff. Like I love math. It gets me going. So I went there just to pursue my dream of, you know, going to work for the government, stuff like that. And I stumbled in the student government association office. And quickly, I mean, I just hit the ground running. And I always tell people the overlap between those spaces, even though they're on like two different planets, is the problem solving aspect. I didn't realize how much of my passion for robotics and computing was based in problem solving and not necessarily just the ones and zeros. So I got in, I became a senator, and I was elevated to Senate leadership. And for anybody who doesn't know what Senate leadership means in student government, it just means that I am teaching my fellow 20-year-olds how to be a good legislator. So us unpaid legislators trying to represent our students, pass law. I mean, not past law, past policy, things like that. And then I later got elected as the vice president of undergraduate affairs for the University of Systems of Maryland. So basically, SGA at the state level, we represented our USM schools. I represent about a thousand undergraduates in the state of Maryland. And that's where I really learned about policy at the state level, understanding how to make one policy affect all these issues that are people having just completely different experiences, different problems. And how does that, you know, how do you advocate for that many people on that, on that kind of scale? And I fell in love with all of all of it, honestly. And then I graduated, I came home and I said, well, I want to keep going. I I I it's really fulfilling work. I realized I was kind of good at it. And I wanted to work in some of our local delegates' offices. I reached out to some people and I'm doing research. And I'm like, these are a lot of problems that I'm seeing that, you know, I feel like I could solve. You know, I feel like I'd have ideas. And it just got and led me into this race. And now I'm here with you.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Wow. Okay. That's a that's a full 360. But also, I'll say this is it's good. We need more people who actually putting themselves up to run because a lot of people look at legislators as this like omnificent. Oh, they know what's going on. A lot of them don't. A lot of them honestly need community members to tell them what to do or corporate interests to tell them what to do, depending on who the person is. So wow. Okay, that's awesome. And kind of since you kind of told us about your like background in robotics, kind of computer science, stuff like that, I want to kind of talk to you about data centers then. Yeah, yeah. Because that's that's one of the biggest things happening right now. We see that data centers are popping up throughout the state of Maryland. Uh recently, Prince George's County has put in a temporary moratorium on it. Um, you have Charles County, which is looking at putting in a ZTA to allow data centers to come into the county. You have a lot of back and forth. I'll say there's residents in Charles County, Prince George's County do not want data centers. It has not even been something that they're looking at as a possibility as far as residents are concerned. Governments look at it as, ooh, this provides, you know, tax revenue, which in many cases it doesn't. But then also you have the General Assembly who recently passed legislation to make it so that data centers have to bring their own power source, which there are some people who are saying, oh, that's good and it mitigates electricity costs for residents. But on the other hand, you're looking at having a data center next to a uh nuclear power plant or a natural gas plant or diesel generators. Six in one hand, half a dozen on the other, for how bad it is. What are your thoughts on data centers uh currently within the state of Merrill?

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I love this topic being I'm in a STEM background and a non-STEM space. And one, I I always lead off with this so there's no confusion. I am against data centers, even with my technical background. And I I've been I've been a contractor for the for the federal government for about the last five years. So I understand both sides of the argument of why data centers are such a hot topic right now. But I also understand that the good is not as good as they're making it out to be. Like you said, the tax revenue that we're always getting told that it brings and the jobs that it creates are far more overcasted than the bad of data centers, which is really spot on, if not worse, than what they're telling us as far as electricity usage and the environmental impacts, you know. So I'm I'm against data centers. And I think I think the conversation has to start with educating people on what data centers actually are and understanding, you know, why is it such a hot topic? I think a lot of people like to say, you know, we need regulations around data centers or we need to go study it. I don't think we need to study it any further. I think I know the boom of AI kind of makes data centers on the on the front foot, but data centers have existed before AI. Data centers are used, you know, for servers. They, internet runs through them. As far as Virginia is concerned, and you know, we have to talk about Virginia because we share our group with them. You know, I think a small percentage of the world's internet runs through Virginia because of how many data centers they have. So it's more than just the AI conversation. I think we have to really give people the big picture as to why this is such a hot topic. You know, you have a lot of companies lobbying for this, you have a lot of people who are going to benefit from the creation of data centers. And more likely than not, it's not gonna be us everyday people. You know, so I think when you give people the context to actually have the discussion, you find that people are finding themselves, actually, I don't want a data center. You know, I want something else. And I'm a and I think that my biggest philosophy is if the people don't want it, then we shouldn't have it. And I think we spent a lot of time getting enough no's to where we could say, you know, let's move the discussion somewhere else. I don't think we need to spend another 365 days talking about if we need data centers. I think we hear that it's it's contentious, but I think we're hearing more no's. I think we just need to move on, honestly.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

100% agree with that. And you kind of go into kind of what your thought thought process is when it comes to you seeing so many legislators or or hear here hear what you just said. No. Like people are telling them no, we don't want it. And then legislators and other candidates try to make this like warp in their mind to say, I get that you're saying no. But let me tell you, what if we just regulate it in this way? Will that make it good for you? What is your thought process to like why other people are are doing this, but also why why you are not taking that same route as the it it it kind of goes to, I guess, my my I'll call it my legislative philosophy, I like to say.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

And I think I come at with a different approach coming from such a STEM field that we work in such objectivity, right? It's either your answer is right or it's wrong. If you're doing math, your answer can't kind of be right, right? You you either got the right answer or you didn't. And that's kind of my how I look at problem solving. I think there exists objective right answers to our problems. And for me, when I look at data centers and you can cut it as many different ways, I don't, I don't think you could honestly say it's the objective right way to go as far as solving, you know, tax problems or revenue problems while trying to create jobs. I don't think that it's the number one option. You know, I won't speak to, you know, why other people do that. I mean, I think it's some people duly believe that data centers are okay, that it could be regulated. You know, I feel like if that was the case, government regulation would be, you know, the highest standard, but we know that not to be true. And I also think people forget that these are the first data centers to come into Maryland. Maryland has a lot of data centers already. And I think we need to use the data that we already have, not to make a joke, to look and say, hey, how are these data centers being regulated? You know, are these regulations that people are proposing, are they one already actually in place and are they working? And I think we don't have a lot of, you know, oversight on data centers that we currently have. And that's one of the policies I'm running on is making sure that data centers are by law, have to report, you know, how much electricity are you using? What is your greenhouse gas emissions, and then holding them accountable to actually fixing those for the data centers we do have because we can't act like they don't exist already, right? They do, we do have some environment. But I I I can't speak to why somebody would do the mental gymnastics of saying we could put it here and it's not gonna impact us. It it's it's the whole, it's our it's our area, it's our it's our whole county. I don't, it doesn't matter how deep in the woods you tuck it, it's gonna impact our electricity, it's gonna impact our environment, and it's and it's negative. I I think people try to brush over that part like it's oh yeah, it's bad, but I don't think we should do that. I think there are plenty of other options as far as revenue generators, I think that we could potentially explore. Or if we don't have them yet, we should work harder to find them than trying to sit with data centers for, I think it's going on a couple years now that this conversation has been around. So I can't, I don't understand it when I hear other people say that if we just regulate it and if we just do this, it's like if that had worked before, then the world would be a perfect place, I guess. But it's just we have to work be in reality.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Exactly, exactly. A lot of a lot of these people are living in their own. I wouldn't even say fairy tale, because I don't believe a lot of legislators or candidates believe it. I think a lot of them are just like, hey, look, this is where the money is in their mind. I don't really care what you all say. It's public, which is kind of horrible. And before we get on the economic development part of like, so if we don't use data centers, how are we bringing money into the state and into the counties? You mentioned how we are on the same grid as Virginia, Pennsylvania, all these uh all these other states PJM, which kind of goes goes to why electricity costs are so high, because even if Maryland says no data centers, we're paying for Virginia's, we're paying for uh Pennsylvania's. I know Pennsylvania has talked about uh possibly removing themselves from PJM. What are your thoughts on Maryland separating itself from this conglomerate private, public-private entity that is uh PJM?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

So I think I like that you brought up um Pennsylvania's case. When I when I did my research, and I hate misquoting research, so don't attack me if I say something wrong. But when I did my research, I think that Pennsylvania's case is very different from ours. That on the PJM grid, Pennsylvania creates the most energy out of all the states. So they have the leverage to say, hey, we're gonna just leave because they're holding the whole thing up, right? And I think, you know, we could try to follow them, but we don't have the same, you know, leverage in that sense because Maryland doesn't create that much energy. We actually are energy consumers when it comes to the grid. Even with Virginia next door, you know, we consume a lot of energy and we also don't put a lot of energy back. Now, that is because, you know, we like to have a clean environment, right? We we're one of the most greenhouse-friendly states in the nation because of that. But the trade-off is we don't have a lot of energy creation going on. So I think it's something to be explored, but we can't act like we are Pennsylvania because we just don't create as much energy for the grid as they do. You know, they could put up their own grid and be self-sufficient. We could not do that right now. We we need Pennsylvania if we're really being honest about that. So I do think we have to look at our relationship with PJM, but I don't know for sure if leaving it is the right answer because where do we go? And then once we leave, you kind of leave yourself open to, you know, well, how much are we paying? Are we gonna leave and get cheaper rates? Because we're still gonna be all of this infrastructure, we're still connected with Virginia. It's just whoever's over top of those grids. So I think what I when I think about utilities and and and rates and stuff like that, I really look at the laws that we have in place here. And I don't know how familiar you or the viewers are with the Stride Act that passed coming up maybe 10 years ago. And essentially allows gas companies to set the rates whatever they want in the name of recouping cost, like recouping infrastructure costs, right? And I and it's something that when I've when I came across it, I was like, why isn't this the one thing that we're looking at? And I don't want to go all the way into what the Stride Act is, but to put it simply for anybody watching, since that law has passed and been enacted, our rates have tripled. Gas companies have been allowed to triple our rates in the name of just profits. And I think thing laws like that, if we fix them or get rid of them, we can see our rates come back down, even with the data centers that Virginia has. So PJM, people like to point at it in the grid, but I think there are other solutions we can take before we have to get to that point. And I think it just comes with us as legislators saying, how can we objectively handle the problem the best way here before we need to start worrying about other states and PJM and things like that? I don't think we're handling business within state lines to be looking at PJM.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Okay, okay. So what are your thoughts on how how we start to generate more um uh more actual energy, whether it's or do you support it being being like a renewable resource, like solar power, or are you looking at bringing on more like natural gas plants and things of that nature? And also, what are your thoughts on nuclear power?

SPEAKER_01 15:55

So, nuclear power, I'll do that one because that was the last one you said. Nuclear power is interesting, right? Because it's it's probably second to data centers when we're talking, we're having these conversations. And that is one I actually am a fan of just saying go study it. Because I don't want to just say, let's go get a nuclear power plant, right? Because everybody wants to have a nuclear power plant, but then nobody wants to be there when things go wrong, right? So I say go study it. And I also want Maryland when we say go study things, I want to be leaders in that space. Let's make Maryland leaders in, you know, safe uses for nuclear waste, right? Let's figure out that question, right? I think that's something that whenever you talk about nuclear power, what are you gonna do with the waste? You know, you can't just throw it in the water. So what are we gonna do with that? Let's go figure out solutions to those problems. So we can actually have answers. Say, do we need nuclear power? Because I think you do have to explore it for that sake. But if you don't have the answer to those questions, then we shouldn't have it. You know, we can't just say, oh, just regulate it. That's not gonna, you know, that's everybody's favorite answer. That's not real. You know, let's actually have answers to the test when we're talking about nuclear power and let's let's see if we can be leaders in that space. Let's see if we can become leaders and uses for nuclear energy, how to handle the waste. How can we make sure that people don't die working here, you know, or or die just because they live near a nuclear power plant. You know, let's figure those things out. Go study it. I think we're it's too raw to be talking about, oh, let's just go build a nuclear power plant or just go reopen some. I know a lot of people are like, just go reopen it. I'm like, let's relax. Because if something happens, nobody wants to be there, right? Everybody wants to be there for that. So that's my take on nuclear power. I'm definitely a fan of renewable energy. And I look at a lot of policies that other states are doing with renewable energy. I know we're not in the same situation as, say, a California, but I do like that they have laws for, you know, new houses and new buildings that they're anywhere in the state come with solar panels. I mean, I think even just a little bit of that will provide relief to the power grid that we're on. And I think we'll see a difference. I also like, you know, offshore winds. I'm a big fan of that as the alternative to data centers because you create, you're creating essentially the same kind of jobs. When people talk about job creation, who's gonna build these things, you're putting those same union members that would be building a data center, but putting them towards renewable energy. So I'm a huge fan of that. I'm a huge fan of solar farms. I'm I want to see more of that development going on in the state. But also just seeing that when we're building houses, you know, can they can they be built, pre-equipped, ready to go for solar panels? Not necessarily putting a solar panel on it, but the tools necessary to put a solar panel on it are already there. So if the homeowner wants to have a solar panel, they can do that. I think policies like that would encourage us and push us in the direction of renewable energy. One, provide relief to the power grid, which would assess bring the cost of electricity and energy down, you know, maybe minimal, but it's better than adding a data center per se, right? So I think things like that are what we should be exploring, but definitely all eyes on renewable energy in my book.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Awesome, awesome. And then kind of two like clarifying questions. One is are you opposed to um like natural gas plants or other non-renewable resources?

SPEAKER_01 19:05

I am opposed to it just because I I feel like we should just be objective about these things. I'm not a big fan of harming the environment, just because we can't just keep saying, oh, it's only a little bit. It's only a little bit because it just rolls over, right? We know how bad these things are. I don't think we need more natural gas. I think we need to look at new energy creation as opposed to going backwards. So I wasn't trying to dunk that one.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you're good. No, you're good, definitely. No, that's awesome. And then one last one on data centers. Would you support um the state of Maryland passing, or would you sponsor um legislation putting in a moratorium so we have no, no more new data centers within the state?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

I would definitely support it, and I'm I would be happy to, you know, put the chat forward. I I think we hear a lot of people say, yeah, I support that. And especially in the legislative space, it was like, well, go try to put the bill on the floor. Obviously, it's not as easy as just bringing it to the floor, but I want to see more legislators putting bills on the floor. I think when we're talking about what we're gonna fight for, what we're gonna represent, let's do our legislative job and put the bill on the floor. So I definitely would be, I would definitely be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Wonderful. Exactly. It's it's too many of them them saying, oh, I'll support it once someone else does it, and then no one ever puts it up. So you talked about kind of how we have different avenues and ways to actually fund our state given our multiple, multiple millions, probably into the billion dollar deficit that we have have within the state. How do you propose solving this uh deficit?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

So a lot of people want to do the dance of not wanting to say we're gonna raise taxes and not also wanting to say we're gonna cut. I'm against doing that dance. I don't want to see taxes go up on anybody anymore because we're squeezing out our middle class. We're just an overtaxed. We have that unique aspect in Maryland where we just have a lot of creative taxes outset, and taxes and fees. So that's not the solution for me. Automatically puts us in one, we're gonna have to find ways to grow our economy and generate revenue, but we're also gonna have to cut things. And not stopping there, right? I think a lot of people stop there and say, well, that's it. But one positive that I'm running on, it's it would be the first of its kind in any state is having performance standards in our departments and our programs. And what that would look like is departments would look at the programs that they have and what we're funding and say, what is success in this area? What is objectively saying you're succeeding and putting that into a grade that people can understand and saying we're we're succeeding at a 75 out of 100, right? However, they need to cut up and whatever that means, they'll create the definitions themselves. But what that will allow us to do as legislators and just the general public is see where we're succeeding and failing as a government and tie that to well, does this program need funding? You know, we have it, we're putting millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars towards it. Is it working for us? And if it's not, do we need to pull our money from it? Do we need to make a systematic change so we're not wasting our money? I think what we're talking about building. Efficiency. I know a lot of us are traumatized by that word from what happened in DC. But when you look at why that happened, it's because people were making decisions with no frame of reference on what's going on. When you ask legislators, you know, what are we going to cut? You don't really get an answer. And it's because we don't know what's succeeding or what's truly working for us as a government. So having that data allows us to look more plainly and make more objective decisions when we're saying what we're going to cut. Instead of saying, you know, we're cutting this service because I don't like you, we're saying, hey, it's not working. We need to put something else in its place. We need to reduce the funding because we're wasting money on something that's not working. I think if we had that data, one, we can go into our 90-day sessions with a bit of direction, right? We can say, hey, this is where we see we're failing. We don't need to all, all 180 of us just throwing bills, throwing bills. We actually can see with data, hey, we're not efficient in healthcare in these, in delivering service to people. You know, we're spending a lot of money in in schools and we're not seeing the grades come up the way we want. If we have that data, we can have higher level conversations, more directed conversations and allow us to make those decisions that lead us to saving money in a sense. I think if we're serious about, you know, saving money, we have to say, well, where are we wasting money? And a lot of people don't have that answer. And if anybody's going to tell you that they have the answer without that data, it's a seven, what is a $70 billion budget that we just had? You need to be a borderline economist to understand what's going on when you get that budget package. It shouldn't be that way. We should be able to say, hey, this program isn't working. It's underperforming severely. Maybe we just pull the money, save money that way. I also think we do need to have a statewide inspector general, just because we need oversight. We need to make sure that there's somebody there keeping a watchful eye on taxpayer dollars. I know that I saw that the governor has, I think he's he basically contracted out that role in a sense. I don't want to misspeak because I don't, I'm not fluent in that area, but he essentially has an inspector general, I guess, company that's doing the oversight of our dollars. I think that just speaks to the fact that we need that to be an official position in our government. I think if you implement those two things, you'll start seeing conversations that allow us to save money more efficiently.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Okay. So glad you brought it up. How do how do you get around the fact that to a lot of people when they hear this, it may sound like Doge. It may sound like, hey, we're going into the government saying, email us what you're doing. Let's look at the report. This isn't really working out as we see it. We're gonna cut you and we're losing out our jobs because we even saw that when Doge started cutting people, the governor Westmore took in a bunch of people and then realized, oh, we don't have the funding for it. And then a few months later, he's trying to like buy people out to leave. Saw that.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah. Yeah. It's unfortunate that that happened very recently. And I understand that people are traumatized by the word of cuts and efficiency. It's like, no, I actually don't want to hear that right now. And I and I understand it. It just comes with us educating people what we're trying to do. I'm not here to say I want to cut you with essential services. That's not my idea. I don't want to do that. I think what that policy would do is say, how can we be more effective? Because not every single solution is a monetary, right? We can't just throw money in all of our problems. I think right now we're at, if something's failing, well, let's just raise the line item and see if it works. I don't think that that's should be our philosophy as a government. You know, I think we should say, hey, if this isn't working, we're gonna pull our money from it, but we're not gonna stop trying to solve that problem, right? We need to put another program in place. We need to put policies back behind it. We also need to be objective as leaders and say, hey, we are wasting money here. And we cannot do that. That's not, that's not an option for us as a government. You know, we're not a company that can say, oh, we're wasting money, but we'll make it back this other way. Especially when you acknowledge the fact that our economy is a very underperforming one when you're looking at us with our neighboring states. So we are definitely not in a position to just be wasting money. So I know people are a bit traumatized by the word cuts, but be traumatized when you have unadvised cuts or cuts based on what a lobbyist told somebody. With this data, you have people saying, Well, I'm gonna make a cut because of this. Not I don't know what this is or I'm familiar with this program. That's what doge was. That was a that those were essential services getting cut because whoever was working in an office said, Well, I don't know what this is. I don't know what this country is. I've never heard of this country. Why are we sending them money? That those were the conversations that were being had in DC, and they were unadvised cuts. And that's the danger of unadvised cuts. So I think look at this policy as saying a prevention to Doge when we're talking about reducing spending. Cutting is just sounds so harsh to people, but you know, I think we do need to look at our look at how we're spending and say, hey, we need to reduce it a bit because we're in a deficit and we're not generating the revenue that we want. So we have to operate like it.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

Okay. Okay, okay. So what are your thoughts on like a millionaire slash like billionaire tax? We see California looking at doing a billionaire tax. Other states are looking at like, why, why are the most wealthiest people within the state who also congruently give a lot of money when it comes to campaign contributions as well? Why can they skirt around? And when people say we're not going to raise taxes, I always hear it as like, oh, we're also not going to charge the wealthy with with with gun providing for the rest of the of the residents here.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

Yeah, I I think that we we need to close a lot of those loopholes. We need to make sure that millionaires and billionaires are paying taxes just like we are, right? Everyday people, me, you, whoever's watching this video, we don't have a lot of loopholes to us. Tax season just came and went. It was unfun for a lot of people. And it's been unfun, especially if you live in the state of Maryland. So they need to be paying their fair share. I mean, if you're making a million, billion dollars, hearing a tax that's gonna raise up 1% and things like that, they're not gonna see it. They're not gonna feel it. And it's a part of that they want to keep their money, so they're gonna get into the news, they're gonna get into social media and say, hey, if you raise tax on billionaires, well, all the billionaires are gonna leave. We heard that all in all day in New York. I'm a huge fan, I'm a Zorma momdanny fan here in Maryland, so I keep up with that. We heard in New York that as soon as he came, all the billionaires were gonna leave and it was gonna fall apart. And none of that is happening right now. New York is, if you live in New York right now, you're having a great time, honestly. I'm a bit jealous. So, you know, a billionaire, these things are necessary. And I think we need to remind voters that it's possible. I'm a big fan of Zoram Dai, not because he's just such a cool guy, but because he's running on these ideas that in other states and other populations would say, yeah, but nobody's gonna vote for that. Like, yes, it's the right thing to do, but not enough people are gonna come out and vote for that. And we saw people, when you actually organize and you actually come out and vote for the objective right thing to do, what it can lead to for your jurisdiction. And we're seeing him solve problems like no politician before in my lifetime. I've never seen a politician be that effective at their job and following through. It's been amazing and motivating for me. I think we need to remind people that we can do these things. These are not pie-in-the-sky ideas that billionaires pay their taxes, you know, that we don't have to bear the entire deficit on our shoulders, that raising vehicle registration fees another $50 isn't gonna solve all of our problems. It shouldn't be all on us. I think we need to remind people that, hey, we can't do this. We just need to vote for the policies that put it in place.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yeah, it's time for more elected officials, but also more just residents having a bigger vision of what can be, rather than saying, well, this is what we've always said. We've always kind of catered to the wealthy and kind of put um regressive taxes on people. We need to stop that mindset. So thank you for that. Another kind of thing around not really economic development, but tax revenue, is that uh Maryland puts in uh millions of dollars and also some some counties uh put in money to the Maryland Israeli uh development center, which is a kind of a public-private partnership between us and the state of Israel. Do you support having that partnership given that they are openly committing a uh genocide? You have them actively removing people's land in the West Bank. They have us in Iran for a whole war, which is I even hesitate to call it a war because it's it's openly us being the um aggressor in it. So it's just weird to even call it that. How do you feel about this development center?

SPEAKER_01 30:08

One, this would be my first time hearing about it. So I definitely, I'm I don't have a well-verse as all my other answers were, but one thing it's unfortunate to see when this conversation comes up that we have to do a lot of preliminary work before we can actually have the conversation, but we have to anyway, because of media and how words can get twisted. When we talk about our state or our nation's relationship with Israel, people like to link it to, well, that's your view on Jewish people and your community. I like, I like to be very clear from the beginning before I say anything. I have no hate towards anybody. I don't discriminate against anybody, I have no hate towards anybody. And I think we do need to be able to have these conversations without people, you know, being able to talk about these things in an objective way and not being having to throw back in their face with you hate Jewish people or you hate Palestinians or you hate people in general, right? I think that the relationship that the United States has with Israel is one that is gonna be a hot topic in this election and the next presidential election. And it should be, it should be. And I think that we need to let, not let, but I first think that DC needs to set the pace for that. I do want to see us as Marylanders and see the governor, you know, calling things out as they should be, you know, calling things a genocide when it's a genocide, you know, and and being objective about that.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

I can't, I'm not trying to dance around because I can't speak to the development because I guess Or I gu I I guess do you think that I guess do you think that Maryland should be investing in partnerships with Israel?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

I think it has to benefit us, right? I I think if we're talking about investing in, it has to benefit the people of Maryland. I don't think we should be doing it for, you know, just to say we have the relationship. I think what are the investments that how is it objectively benefiting us? Because if it's not, and if it's backroom politics, then I don't think we should have it. And I think it it needs to be benefiting us. If we're if we're putting resources, if we're putting money into something, how is this solving our problems in the state? How? Is this generating us revenue? Is this creating infrastructure for us? We need to answer those questions for me to be able to say yes or no on that. And I hate doing, I hate giving like weird non-answers that was- You're good. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

No, you're good. You're good. I kind of look at it almost as like the opposite of that. I feel like because of what's going on, the genocide, um, the occupation, and things like that, it should be a clear stance from our state to say we're we're done. We're not investing in a country committing this. I almost look at how us as a nation, and it took a long time past other countries doing it, kind of divested from South Africa doing during their um apartheid. So I kind of see it as like Maryland shouldn't be investing in this because of of what's going on. But then also to that point, what are your thoughts on uh Governor Hogan uh during during his administration signed an executive order to uh to stop um BDS, the boycott, divest, and sanction um movement within Maryland? So if you're a nonprofit who get uh tax money from the um state, you cannot participate in boycotting, divesting, and sanctioning from Israel. People have been asking, and bills have actually been put up to change that in Maryland now. But to this day, Governor Westmore has not repealed that that executive order. Do you support the repeal of that executive order?

SPEAKER_01 33:25

I think I think we should. I mean, based on how you just said it to me, I I think that we should. I think people protest a lot of things that, and sometimes that that I don't like, or sometimes if people are protesting, you know, what we've seen in recent history are protesting us as people, you know, the people that look look like you and me. And they have a right to do so. So I think that people should have a right to organize and voice their opinions, especially when it's such a hot topic as this as this. I don't I think that not allowing people to not protest one specific topic is a bit interesting. I'm young, so I didn't know that that was happening. I think probably when that was going on, I was outside playing. But so, but I that's no, I think we should. I think we should repeal that. And I think people should be allowed to organize and voice their opinions and making sure, you know, that they're doing that safely, right? They're not putting people in harm's way, right? But I think people should be allowed to organize and protest when it's necessary.

SPEAKER_00 34:19

Awesome. Thank you, thank you for that. And as we kind of switch on to a different more, I guess you call it lighter, lighter topic from that. Oh, it's all good. I want to ask you about transit, given that your district represents southern Prince George's, northern Charles County, I believe it's right around um the uh 210, right? Yep, you're you're literally on on 210. Given that it has been declared that 210 has the worst commute for people going into work, you have in Charles County about 70 plus percent of the residents have to go into DC, Northern VA to work, and that given that traffic is just getting worse and worse, and then on top of that, we even see this aforementioned sphere coming to um the National Harbor is just gonna make traffic worse. On top of that, what are your thoughts and solutions towards uh relieving this problem within your district?

SPEAKER_01 35:11

We need real public transportation solutions and not the Van Gogh. I love the Van Gogh, I respect the people that work the Van Gogh. I love you guys. I saw one actually come into my apartment complex. I said, I didn't even know they came here. But that's not going to solve our problems. Once an asset, yeah, that's not gonna solve our problems. And I I I also heard if we were at a forum, can't remember, we have so many, but somebody said, you know, maybe we need to just go to the bus transit instead of the light rail because that's more feasible. I residents don't want to hear what's feasible. We've had these issues since I was a child, and I'm tired of it. I work for context, I work in Quantico, Virginia. That is a longer commute than most people in my district. So when I talk about public transportation, I want public transportation for me. So I feel this burden every single day. I hate, it shouldn't be that I hate leaving work because I know I'm just gonna be in immense traffic. So we need public transportation solutions right now. Like, not we're gonna go study. We've been studying the light rail for I don't know how long, since light rails could be studied, right? Yeah, like and we have the money too. Like, it's not a financial issue because we have the federal funding, we have the matched funds from the state, we have the program that Westmore created, Governor Moore created for public transportation. We have all the things in place. From my understanding, we just need to start working on it. I I don't know why, especially in an election year where everybody likes to over you know, the theatrics of politics. I'm surprised we haven't at least had, you know, a photo op of shovels in the ground that we're building the light rail. We need the light rail. I I don't, I don't know what the holdup is. As your nice delegate, I'm gonna figure it out. That's something that I want to see done, right? And we also need to look at how we're developing our roads, how we're developing, you know, where we're placing infrastructure because that also plays a part, right? I always tell people it feels like we have Crane Highway and Branch Avenue and 210, and we just put everything right next to it. Everything's just all alongside of it. That creates traffic in itself. We're at lights for 20 to 30 minutes. We need to be smart with our development and planning, but we also just need to invest more into public transportation, especially like you said, my district is in Southern Maryland. We don't have those solutions. It is you are fending for yourself. And I always bring the conversation back to what happens if we don't, right? What happens if we just kind of keep kicking this can or we provide another solution that doesn't actually solve our problems? And this is a big piece of data that actually got me into this race. As recent as 2024 and 2025, the state of Maryland ranked in the top five for out-migration rates. And what that essentially means that people are leaving the state of Maryland at an unforeseen level, right? And a lot of that is due to the quality of life that you are experiencing in the state of Maryland, especially for Southern Marylanders who are tired of their commute. Because with the things that happened in DC recently, working for the government was always our strength, right? That would you come here, your proximity of the government, you're having affordable house while working for the government. Well, working for the government is no longer a strength for us right now. So people are a lot of making the decisions that, well, why am I living here then? Because I was living here to work for the government and all the other stuff. I kind of just stomached it. People don't want to stomach not having a having a job that they work in a completely different state, right? And then I have to sit in traffic all day, and then I'm getting overtaxed, and then the infrastructure at home is just not up to par. We need to start solving these problems with a sense of urgency because people are actually making the executive decisions to leave our state. And we're talking about budgetary problems and we're talking about, you know, all of these things. These things get exasperated when we don't have residents here. So we need to do this not because it's the right thing to do, but because people are starting to leave. And if we don't start providing solutions to them, they're just not gonna be here anymore. They're not gonna just sit here and say we're gonna study it for another five months. They don't want to hear that. They don't want to see buses. And I also think, too, putting buses on the roads isn't gonna solve traffic.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

That's more traffic.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

It's more people on the roads. We need solutions that take me off the highway. So we have to have solutions. It's so simple that I don't understand why it's not getting done. And the biggest thing that I want to do from the state position is that making it a priority for the state. We all know that if it's not a priority for government in any sense, it's not going to happen. We need to make it a priority that Southern Maryland gets invested into. We need investment and we need urgency, just like all the other counties that have, you know, way far grander public transportation solutions taking place. Like the purple line is not us, but I think they're closing on billions of dollars going into that or something like that. And we're not even asking for a part of that. We're asking for light rail. Just give us something to get us where we're trying to go. It's not even gonna get us all the way to DC.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

Just connect us to a metro station in Branch Avenue. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

We're asking for breadcrumbs when we're looking at, you know, what other counties are getting. We just need to have it as a priority at the state level, all the way down to our county levels. And that starts with our state level leadership make actually delivering on this and saying, hey, the same way people are saying no to dating centers, people are saying yes to a light rail. We need to deliver this for them. It's that simple for me.

SPEAKER_00 40:19

Yes. And then think of the the unionized jobs that come from from building it and things like that, operational-wise. But with that, kind of two follow-up questions. One is do you think that do you think that we should be advocating for light rail to this, to this day still? Or do you think we should just upgrade it to like full service metro? Because as we see numbers continue to grow in Charles County and Prince George's County, as the local elected officials continue to build homes, just just just left and right. Do you think at at this point we should just expand to a full service metro station?

SPEAKER_01 40:51

I want to say yes, but then looking at the purple line, that development is going. I don't live there, so I won't speak negatively about it, but I don't think it's going as planned. And it's a lot harder than people make it seem. And I want to say yes, but seeing how we're struggling with the light rail right now, I wouldn't want to see us waste money on it. If if we're gonna do it right, well, if we're gonna do it, do it right. And I don't like the fact that it's that it's taken so much twisting of the arm to get us a light rail. We don't even have it yet. Let's not even speak. They could very well just give us buses.

SPEAKER_00 41:23

We're still doing the environmental study that we just got. And that's all the funding we have ends at the environmental study. We then we have need more funding to even like lay track down.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

So I I want to see us do it right. And I don't want to see us overextend ourselves and say, well, we're gonna go get a full metro stop, and then we don't see it for 20 years, and then we overspend a billion dollars on it, and then actually it was messed up, and then now everybody's now we're even more unhappy because now there's just construction going on and traffic. You know, that just again coming with being objective and how we're finding our solutions. I think we promised people, well, not we, because I wasn't there, but it was promised to us that we were gonna have a light rail, and I think we need to deliver on that. We can't just keep pivoting around when things get hard or we're finding out other things along the way. We said we're gonna have a light rail. I think we need to deliver on that. Now, I would love to see a metro station here because that would help. I I'm a big fan of public transportation. I love it. So I would love to have it here, but it needs to be done right. And it needs to be done way better than what they're doing with the smart transit.

SPEAKER_00 42:22

Yeah. And then even going into that, even if it's light rail, full service metro, all that, I am so sick of people talk talking about how in I'm not really in the conversations in in in southern uh Prince Georges, but in Charles County, hearing a lot of people say, Oh my gosh, the crime that's gonna happen. The people who are gonna come here, I was wondering if you were gonna go there. It's I'm insane.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

I've heard this discussion. I've heard this discussion from family members. They're like, you're advocating for that? And I'm like, yeah, what about the crime? And I'm like, like, that is such a weird. I don't know who made this up.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

I don't know who where I want to know who is coming from DC in this because it is rooted in some kind of like internalized racism with anything, oh, black people from DC are coming.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

I don't want those people to come down into my neighborhoods. And sometimes I want to tell people, and well, I'm telling them now, let's relax a little bit because it's not like we have so many things here that people are just dying to come down here that we feel like we have a light rail. Yeah, like let's relax. Our inf when we're talking about infrastructure upgrades and we're talking about what businesses we have down here. There's a reason we all go to DC and Northern Virginia when it's time to do just about anything not work-related. People are saying the crime's gonna boost up. Why? Why would people come down here? People, we need a light rail because we're trying to get somewhere else, not because people just are dying to get to Waldorf. I don't know what corner that got pulled from. And people push it like there's real data behind that. There are crime written places, but no public transportation right now, guys. So, and I can't remember what aspect somebody said to this, but the the growth. People say if there's a life. More people are gonna come down here. I think we forget that without the light row, growth has been out of control. So I think we should get a solution that does something rather than just say, well, let's just keep doing what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 44:11

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:12

Yeah, that that's such a funny point to me. I don't know where it's it's almost hard for me to take it serious when we're having these conversations because I don't even know where that comes from.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

Exactly. And it's always been weird to me one to what you mentioned that no one's coming all the way from Northern Virginia, even the northern parts of Prince George's to come down here to like steal from the Marshalls. Like, like there's just not, we don't have those like high-end stores that people even like like infanticize about when they talk about robbing places. And then two, if anything, it spreads out where people live because now you don't have to live just in Waldorf because there's stations throughout Charles uh County. So people can actually spread out, spread out more and we can have targeted like urban centers. Because the one thing that's been craziest to me is Waldorf has no urban center to it. It's just strip malls and single family homes put up everywhere in random places.

SPEAKER_01 45:03

Can we can we go a little bit of a deep dive into that? Because that's a Please do. When we talk about when we talk about infrastructure and we talk about development, that is a big part of my platform and something that I want to take a harder look at. And I always use the example of Northern Virginia, not because North Virginia is just so far superior to us, but I think we need to be, this is gonna be the word of our interview objective. Northern Virginia didn't get like that by accident. They didn't turn themselves into that because of Northern Virginia. They planned for that type of development. They planned for that type of growth because they had a vision for what they wanted the community to look like and feel like and what their residence and who they wanted to attract and all of those things. It was a plan. And when we look at how we're putting up just even our retail centers and what we're building and how we're building it, it's not going in the direction I think many people want it to be or that it could be. And one of the things I want to do from my position as delegate is seeing an increase in state investment into, I say higher quality infrastructure, higher quality developments. And what higher quality may mean is more multi-purpose development, right? So if we're gonna build, let's say we're gonna build a shopping center. Well, the shopping center can have a park. The shopping center can have, you know, it can have spaces for small businesses. It can also have spaces for white tabletop restaurants. You know, it needs to be multifaceted, something that can be a pillar to the community. It can have the recreational things in there. You know, we don't just have to have gas station, gas station, grocery store, grocery store. Let's expand what we're providing to residents. And that and that's gonna take more money out up front. And I think that's what scares a lot of people. And that I think that's why we develop the way we do when we allow certain developers to come in, because it's not as much of an upfront investment. But I think we're we're getting kicked on the back end of it because it's not generating as much revenue as it could, and people are just unhappy with it. And again, it goes back to people just opting to leave because this development is not good. I mean, if we're being honest, it's not fun living in Waldorf because when are we gonna get nice things? When are we gonna get sidewalks that allow me to walk the community? And then the sidewalks to walk to nice stores and nice restaurants. I think we need to, as a from top to bottom leadership, from state level to county level with the commission, actually have a broader discussion of what direction do we want to take Charles and in Southern Prince George's County? Where could we go if we just invest higher quality materials? We bring in, we we stop opting for the developers we have and say we want better developers who are gonna actually invest. And when you do that, you send a message to a lot of different areas. One, you send a message to other developers that say, hey, Southern Maryland's actually serious about what they're trying to do. And they're gonna be more inclined to work with us, right? They're gonna be more inclined to invest and attract the businesses that we keep talking about. And it lets other businesses, the the nationally known businesses, those stores, and say, hey, I actually can put an Apple store in Waldorf. I actually can put, you know, Whole Foods down there because they're actually trying to develop, maybe not soon, but you couldn't.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

No, no, no, I can that was that was that was my own personal thing with um the corporation, Amazon, and all that. But no, no, go ahead. I don't again No, you're good, you're good.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

But you know, these these corporations, you know, we don't have to just settle for Royal Farms and I always say chicken shops. You know, these companies and these businesses can say, you know what, I actually can put my business here because they're trying to take this somewhere. I think people say, well, why is our mall bad? And and and why do we not get the white tabletop restaurants and find down and all those things? Because we're not providing them a space where they want to be. And we're also not developing in a way that will thrive their business. So it's it's really a circular conversation. And it starts with us saying, let's actually, we need to reinvent ourselves a little bit and say, let's develop in a certain direction that attracts these businesses down here and makes people enjoy living here and not just stomach living here.

SPEAKER_00 48:57

I agree with that wholeheartedly. I think one of the one of the biggest problems that we've seen is that you have elected officials who are kind of like, hey, whoever wants to come here, come here. If it's a royal farm, sure. If it's uh Raisin Cane, sure. Whatever you get, you get. I kind of look at it in two different ways. One is I think Charles County, Charles County, we should not be competing for these uh chain restaurants and stores because if anything, people are still gonna leave because they're saying, why just go here for this cheesecake factory when it's a cheesecake factory in BC, plus I have all the other stuff around it. Let's find some like small family-owned, small private businesses where when you come to Charles County, it's an experience because you're not getting that nowhere, nowhere else within the region. But then I also look at fellow residents and say, we got to stop going to places. Like we we can't have when Zaxby opens or Raisin Cains opens, they have lines down the street. Like we just can't, we can't do that and at the same time say we want to.

SPEAKER_01 49:50

We don't want, absolutely, absolutely. And especially I like that you brought up local businesses because when we don't create a business-friendly environment, they suffer as well. And but they they can't leave like the chains and the national corporations can. They can just say, Well, I'm just gonna pull my, we're just gonna pull our storefront from here and we're just gonna go to Northern Virginia where these residents are shopping. Our local businesses are suffering because of because now our shopping centers are now having way more vacant storefronts. Now people are immediately thinking, well, I can't find that here. You're you're you're training people to think, oh, you want a nice, you want, you know, a good, I don't know, croissant. You can't find that here. You got to go somewhere else for it. And they may live right next to that business or that small business. So you you start training people to say, well, we don't have it. If you want, if you want to shop here, you're gonna get Zaxby's and three Chick-fil-A's. No, if you want anything else, go find it somewhere else. And that makes our local businesses sucker too. And I when I talk to local businesses, they say that. They say we need to invest more here so people can keep their money here and be more inclined to shop and spend and just live here.

SPEAKER_00 50:54

You're definitely right. You're definitely right. Thank you for that. So as we kind of move on just a little bit, you kind of mentioned housing costs going up too. I want to ask you about renters' rights because a lot of time we spend all the time talking about well, what do we do about homeowners? How do we help them? How do we help seniors who who like own their places and things like that? We kind of leave out renters, which is a huge subsection of the housing uh crisis that we're facing. I want to first first ask you, what is your plan um to alleviate the the ever increasing um uh rental costs within the um state of Maryland, but specifically within your district, where we're in Charles County, we have some uh new apartment complexes being being put up. You have a single bedroom for about 700 square feet going for like $2,000 at this point.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Yeah, yeah. Uh as someone who is on the housing market now, that is a very accurate depiction of what's going on out here. I would like to see, you know, having a bit more control over the rates that we're having. I can't remember the term right now, which I'm so upset about.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Rent stabilization?

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for saving me there. Yes, rent stabilization and but making sure that we're not, you know, overbearing landlords and stuff like that, because you still want people to be able to rent their homes out. Because again, you can't just say, well, then I'm not just gonna rent my house here. You know, that's people can do that. But I also want to I want to explore that at the county level, at the state level, because rent is astronomical right now, and people rent because they can't afford to buy a home. You know, they're they're pushed into that. These most renters want to own a home one day, but they can't because they can't afford it. So they have to rent. And now these rents are the price of people's mortgages, and they basically can't get out. And rent is allowed to just go up as much as it wants, and people are just getting taken advantage of. I do I want to see the state take more control of rent civilization, however that may look. I know that's that's a that's a new topic for us in the state of Maryland, I think. And and I know that there's gonna be a lot of people on both sides. I think it's something that we do need to explore as far as, okay, you can't just price gouge people, right? Especially when we have such a housing affordability crisis in the state. We know that. So I think exploring that option, there's no arm in that. And it and it protects people. Also, I'm running on, I'm also running on ending no just cause lease terminations. So, you know, getting thrown out of your apartment just because, right? That's essentially what that is. Protecting people and allowing them to have stability where they live while they're trying to navigate everything that goes with living in Maryland with the high cost and trying to provide for their family. They should be able to have some stability in where they actually are living, whether even though they may not like it. So though that's some of my opinions for the rent of protection.

SPEAKER_00 53:44

Okay, okay. No, I like that. I'll say for the rent stabilization, definitely we've had like counties or even Prince George's has has their own rent stabilization program, not the best. Montgomery County has has one, different municipalities have have one as well. I think that it is insane. I I hear the kind of like pushback that property owners give of like, well, what about my expenses? All that. I don't know a single property owner who's renting out a place that they're not making a profit on on top of all the bills that they're they're taking, they're they're they're making sure that they're good. Yeah. Especially especially when you look at most of the multifamily units are corporate owned, which is by like a conglomerate or a company, or how you even look at some of these Wall Street companies who are buying up uh developments from the developer so that no home within a whole complex is even for sale. It's all it's all for rent.

SPEAKER_01 54:36

I live right there one. Yeah. So yeah.

unknown 54:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

So we definitely need a risk stabilization program. And I'm also glad that you mentioned uh just call us eviction as well. Because I think not having that allows for that like gray area when it comes to discrimination. You could easily oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

They honestly, those two spaces work together because you're getting rid of tenants, and then as soon as they leave, the price goes up. It's it they they work in tandem. So that would eliminate a lot of the the renter problems that we see. But I definitely want to uh you're about to segue into another point.

SPEAKER_00 55:08

No, no, no, you kind of made made my my point. No, that was no no, that was great. My my point was just just how it kind of opens up discrimination because I can discriminate against you and you not know it because I don't give you a reason. I just say, hey, you're done, which kind of segues me to a different question that I kind of just thought about as we were talking. Given that we talked about Doge, we talked about having these uh cuts. What is your thought on Marilyn uh still having ad-will employment to where an employer can let you go without any type of warning, without, or not not even warning, without even giving you a reason to know why we're letting you go. We could just say, hey, you're done as of right now, go clock out. And do you think that we should end that program to actually have some uh some some regulations on like why you can actually terminate somebody and actually companies having to to justify while why they're they're terminating something.

SPEAKER_01 56:02

Definitely, definitely. I I never even considered it because my mind has always been that's just how you get fired. I actually would want that because uh at least giving people a day, right? Or or or two days, or say, actually having to take the proper steps before just firing somebody, unless somebody commits an egregious act, of course, but actually giving somebody a chance to keep their job too, if if we're if we're opening that entire box and say, hey, did you actually take the proper steps of remediating whatever the problem was taking place and giving and telling them? Because I know some people who've gotten fired and they didn't even think they were doing anything wrong, and they were just up and out of there. So I definitely want to see that. And I also want to see us explore companies that are letting go of people and replacing them with AI as well. I think that's something that we can, as I say, stand up to or say, hey, if you're letting people go, it cannot be, or a certain percentage or whatever cannot just go to an AI, a computer doing this person's job. Because we need to be employing people and we should be disincentivizing AI doing everything for us, right? So I think that can all of that kind of fit into that same box of more protections on workers and say, hey, you're not just getting fired for no reason. And the reason is honestly to replace you with someone who's gonna do the job for cheaper or a computer. So 100%, 100% awesome.

SPEAKER_00 57:21

And I would even say to your point about um AI, it's crazy that we will give tax money to businesses for even coming here or staying here, and then they just fire all their workers, and then it's like, okay, cool. I guess now we just have no one working there with a company just reaping in all the benefits. And even to your point, too, I want to ask when it comes to workers within the state, right now, Maryland is actually looking at automating some of our uh systems, like whether you call um uh uh 911, and instead of it being like a live person, it turns into like like an AI system, which will do it. Uh operating some of these like government 411 services, like making it more of an AI hub than actual person to person. What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 58:04

I'm super against it. If anybody has had to interact with those AI hubs in the phone calls where you're yelling at them and they're I don't know, I don't know what you're saying. We don't have that option. I'm not a fan of that, especially not when we're talking about emergency services. You need that person-to-person diagnosing the problem, right? But even just in lesser spaces, I'm not a fan of that because it's not efficient. When when I talk with coworkers, because I work in a technical space, we all sometimes laugh at other people who talk about how great AI is and how far it is. And we're like, it's not even half of that. It's not even operating less than half of the at the way that they're saying it operates, right? AI is far from just being able to handle a 911 phone call. It's not stable enough for one, but it's just not there yet. A lot of people are jumping the gun because we're getting oversold and over-promised on what AI is. I think a lot of people are focused on what it could be, right? And I think that's why we're trying to implement these things and guising it as efficiency. I mean, people are losing their jobs because of that, and then the systems aren't running effectively. We just need to slow it down. I think it it's it's it's an overreaction when I hear things like that of, well, we're just gonna put AI here and it's gonna be great. It's like, relax. It's not even, I don't even trust AI to sort my email box right now. Like it's not even 100% it doing that. I you're opening a can of worms, it doesn't need to be open. Let people do these jobs, let people, let real people work in these spaces and let AI assist them. Because automation and AI are are separate too, right? People hear automation and they think it's AI. Automation just says certain things are supposed to happen in order. If I click a link, it's gonna go here automatically. That's automation. AI is its own space. Automation is fine for efficiency, right? If you have a person working in automated service, that's okay. But when you're talking about removing people entirely and in the sake of AI, no, I I don't, it's an overreaction for me. I that's all I can sum it up to. So no, I'm I'm not a fan of that.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Okay, definitely. Thank you. Especially as we see a lot of these, like, and not to be an age person out here, but as people get older and they're not really even good with technology, I fear having someone's grandmother call call 911 and then they're like cussing and yelling, just waiting, waiting, waiting for somebody to show up. But also the older members of the General Assembly who don't even really use technology, it's crazy for them to push legislation like this at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

Yeah, I definitely think we need to have people who actually understand these technologies having discussions about these technologies. And that kind of a little, I don't we don't have to go too deep into it, but it's also another point, too, that I I try to have with voters on the campaign trail of when we're talking about who we're gonna elect and, you know, kind of advocating for myself in the same space. When we look at the entirety of the General Assembly, we have to start thinking about well, who are we sending to Annapolis to tackle these problems, right? I and I think what we've fallen into is that we're kind of sending the same-minded people to all have one big discussion where we have a lot of, you know, we have lawyers in Annapolis, we have seniors in Annapolis, we have former elects and career elects in Annapolis, right? And I think we need to start looking at what don't we have in Annapolis and how can we help people who are trying to solve these problems? And and I tell people, some people are sometimes scared of my youth. And I tell them, well, look, if you're scared of that, there are older people that are in Annapolis, and I'm going to work with them.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:31

A lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:32

But we but what we don't have are people to represent the next generation. Who's advocating for young people? Who's advocating for people in schools? I I think people forget that a lot of the people when we talk about education reform haven't been inside of a modern-day classroom at all, or right, or are sometimes 10 to 15 years removed from being in a public school classroom, right? We need people to speak to what's actually happening and just having diversity in our assembly so that multiple perspectives are being brought to the conversation, not just one like hive mind of saying, Yeah, I agree with that, because we, me and you are from the same exact experience. We have the same education, we have the same philosophy of solving problems.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:11

We need people to- We have the same chalkboard in class.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:14

Yeah, we we all had we all had the same tools and we're all gonna agree with each other. I don't think that's what we should have. So I think we definitely need to have people who are experienced in having these conversations. So when we're talking about how we're gonna regulate it, especially when we're talking about laws of protecting people from AI or or, you know, cyberbullying is gonna take a new form, or cyber crimes are gonna take a new form. And actually having people who understand what they're talking about is is gonna be really important for the next four years.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:42

Awesome. Thank you, thank you. And kind of last question as it pertains to like like workers' rights, do you do you support the rights for public sector workers to be able to to a strike? Because currently currently they they do not have that right. They can form contracts with the government, all that. But then if the government is not acting in good faith, you're kind of so wet.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Yeah, I I I 100% support that. And I also support having cost of living adjustments being a mandatory conversation in negotiations, right? And what that essentially says is that, you know, we're not you may not get it, right? But you have to discuss it. You have it has to be a point of conversation, right? So that workers actually have the opportunity to keep up with inflation. You know, we're talking about worker wages and making sure that people are are making or getting paid the right amount. Cost of living adjustments is not a guarantee for workers. It's not a guarantee to be brought up in the discussion. We're talking about contract with unions and things like that. Making that law to actually have that discussion allows workers a bit more, you know, when we're talking about leverage and bargaining, right? You could say, hey, you have to talk about this. We have to say, what percent increase am I gonna get every single year? We're not talking about raises, we're talking about 3% sometimes, right? So making that law that you actually have to have that discussion in negotiation, I think is will go a long way too.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:02

Would you go further than just making it have to have a discussion that they have to actually give them that adjustment? Because they can have that discussion all day long. The government can look at it and say, we're not gonna give it to you, we just gotta talk, talk to you about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

I think that one, your point is correct, that that that sometimes can get stepped over and say, hey, we talked about it. Well, I told you you told you, Margaret, I have it. But then would you also give them the right to strike? It kind of combats that to say, no, you you also have in laws that you have to negotiate in good faith, too. You actually have that. So you can't just say, nah, I'm not giving it to you. You have to say, well, we want 3% and they land on 2%. But obviously, you know, we know people we'll find, we'll try to find the ways around. But I also, when I think of just policy writing, it's it's sometimes hard when you just say, hey, you have to give them this percent, right? It's mandatory. You don't want to see things inflate unnecessarily. Or like in in some of these negotiations where maybe cost where they aren't advocates, they don't aren't looking for cost of living adjustments, right? You want to give these discussions some wiggle room. So that's why I say having it as a discussion and making sure that they're negotiating in faith and say, hey, we we brought it up. You know, making sure that they're actually protecting it actually is brought up in a way that they can get three percent or they can probably get themselves more than that, right? If it's a long-term project, say maybe we could get five. I think allowing them to negotiate is important, but I'm definitely not opposed to having it being either for sure. I cost of living adjustments are essential to making sure you're getting paid for your word. So if we could get that far, I'd be ecstatic. I think I'd be, I might get a statute for that or something. But you know, I'm definitely for that, but I also am for making sure that our policies aren't restrictive in a sense, or there exists bad policy, good idea, but bad policy. So making sure there is room for negotiation. Um, but yes, to your question, I would go that far. You know, if we have the right conversation and it's actually feasible and it will work 100%.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:52

Awesome, awesome. And kind of this is this is a question I actually didn't think about asking until you kind of kind of talked about it around being. A younger person running running for office, we see a lot of a lot of people are looking at quote unquote crime when it comes to young people, saying that, oh, we need to start locking up young people. We need where are the parents who are who are holding them accountable? The kids are like going out in the street, taking up space, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What are your thoughts when it comes to the police with the police when it comes to younger people and the community? And do you want to see more of a divestment from looking at police as the solution to actually offering resources to younger people?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:32

I don't want to say divestment from police to give resources, because I'm I am against that. I do think that we need to be equipping our law enforcement to do their job as effectively as possible and actually having systems that allow them to have those relationships with the community, right? So I definitely don't want to take away from the police doing those jobs. But I am 100% for giving young people these spaces. You know, we're looking at the teen takeovers, for instance, for DC, giving young people the spaces to be young people and experience their communities. I think when you're looking at things like that, that's young people telling them we don't have things to do. I know a lot of people say, well, my young person has something to do. We're always doing X, Y, and Z. And it's like, well, yes, power to you, but that's not everybody's situation right now. Not everybody can afford sports, right? That that's a real thing. Sports is super expensive, right? Not to get into all that, but I do think we need to put the things in place that actually cater to young people. And I'm happy to be the young person at the table having discussions because we always talk about young people as if they're just like some these distant people from a foreign land. Like, what are we gonna do about them? Like, let's actually bring them because young people actually will vocalize hey, we're we're outside at 12 in the morning, or this is happening in our schools because of X, Y, and Z. Well, we also look at what happened at St. Charles and how the guns were found. That was found because students know what's going on. Students know what's happening in their own communities, and they also are able to advocate for themselves. So we need young people to be a part of these discussions. You know, I'm not that young, right? But I am a young person and I am closer to that these generation of kids and being able to say, hey, this is what these kids actually need. And creating systems that enable law enforcement to be proactive in our communities and actually having a relationship and really mending our relationship with law enforcement as African Americans. I think most of us don't like any police interaction. I I, for a long go ahead, go ahead. For a long time, I say if I can go as long in my life with not interacting with the police, I've lived a good life, right? Because I don't ever, I'm never trying to commit a crime and I never, I don't even like getting pulled over. I don't even like being around police lights because it's like, no, this isn't the space that I need to be in.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:47

My life could end at that moment. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

Yeah. So I think we I I want to see law enforcement. I want to enable law enforcement to have more proactive approaches to being in the community and actually mending this relationship so that when we're talking about how we're gonna solve these problems, they actually have a different way to diagnose what's going on and address the problem instead of just saying, well, we're just gonna lock everybody up and everybody's gonna get charged, right? That that we know that that doesn't work, right? We have enough data to say that that doesn't work. So actually saying, hey, let's have, let's one, hire officers from these communities, right? Let's prioritize hiring younger officers who actually have that experience working with young people and say, okay, how are we gonna prevent this from happening? Can we create spaces for them to come into so that these crimes aren't just out of control? Let's give them a space where they're safe and can interact and be young people. I think also when we're looking at certain behaviors, speaking on the the St. Charles incidents, I do think that I heard a lot of great discussion. I heard Delegate Wilson, I saw a video of him speaking back at that event. And and opinions on Wilson aside, I mean, I think he's a great guy, but I know some people may have a differing opinion. But hearing what he said, I think it it was 100% accurate. And for people who didn't see the clip, he was basically saying, as parents, we need to be more present in our children's lives and have and taking more accountability in our children's behaviors, right? I do think that that's an honest conversation to have amongst community members. And I know I think a lot of the conversation right now is looking at how you can encourage that in a way, I essentially by saying if your child is doing something, well, the parents are gonna get charges, right? And I mean, it's I mean, it's getting supportive of that? It's I'm interested in that conversation. I haven't formed I haven't formally made it, but it's interesting because when you talk about, when you talk about people doing anything, right, you have to encourage somebody to do something. Most times it's a monetary incentivization of like, hey, being your child's life. Usually if you have to tell a parent to do that, there's a reason that they're not, right? So how are you going to encourage encourage someone to do that? Well, it's not butterfly and rainbow's encouragement. It's like, hey, if you don't, and these kids end up harming somebody, well, we have to look at your role in that process as well. Now, I'm not saying just throw everybody in jail, right? But I definitely think that you have to explore solutions that how do you we how do you get people to actually parent their children, right? Because you do have to look, people aren't 3D printing guns because that's the new fad, right? That there's there's a disconnect happening, especially when you hear people say, Well, I didn't know that that my child was doing that. You should know. I think that's it's okay to be objective and saying, hey, there's there are certain things you you should know that your child is doing, right? There's obviously children to keep things from you, right? But I think there's certain levels of objective objectiveness we can have about parenting and saying, hey, there is a certain standard that you should be like even with laws of like making sure that your kid goes to school. If your kid doesn't go to school, parents are in trouble for that, right? That's that's well we don't lock parents up because here's what I'll say. I don't because I because let's actually have the conversation. Let me let's explore the thoughts on it. I I don't want to see parents get locked up because that's not gonna help anybody, right? So I think you can resort to fines. I think fines would work because one, you allow parents to stay in the household. I think when you lock up a parent, the whole thing collapsed, right? I'm live thinking right now. This is anybody viewing I am working out these thoughts right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

So you get to see what a what my thought process is that's one thing I'll also say is good for this conversation too, is that we're having an active conversation rather than you see a lot of these forums and stuff is like, okay, I am trained. This is the answer I'm gonna give, this is the only thing I'm gonna stick to, rather than actually being a thought-out process. But no, no, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:32

I am exploring this topic live in front of you. I I definitely don't want to see parents get locked up. So, but I I think what I was more so trying to say is how do you have accountability when you have children committing, which which should are sometimes felons, but you have ghost guns creating ghost guns. That's that's I think that's a felon right now, if I'm not mistaken, or is they're exploring making that a felony charge. So how do you have accountability with that? Oh, it's just not my fault. I I don't think that's the right answer, right? So I think I don't want to lock up parents. So I would say some sort of fine system, some sort of you got in trouble for kind of not allowing this, but like, you know, this this is your this is your son or daughter, you know, and we need we need you to do this because we don't want law enforcement to have to do something about it because we don't want to see our young people getting arrested, right? So we need parents to do that. It's not because we just want to put everybody in jail, right? I'm I don't I don't like putting people in jail. I don't think that's the right solution we talk about rehabilitation and what's right and what's wrong in that kind of sense. I don't think we're right on that as a nation, right? So how do we encourage parents to keep people, keep children out of the hands of law enforcement? But at the same time, law enforcement has to do their do their job, right? They they have to we we they have to keep people safe. But if you have a if you have somebody creating guns in their home, we can't just say, hey, have give them a stern talking to. No, that's a real problem. That's a real thing that we we cannot have. If you are creating untrackable firearms, well, then it's a it's a less conversation. Yeah, we can't, we can we can't be as nice as we want to you now. We kind of have to have a different conversation. So encouraging people, encouraging parents to keep children out of harms. I was always raised of like, hey, make sure you come home. Make sure you're safe. Don't, if if law enforcement is there, you're on your best behavior. Don't do anything to get get, hey, it's but it's a reality, right? Don't don't be don't be don't go out and start committing crimes, or you see people getting in fights and and jumping in, right? Don't don't be that person. Like be a menace. Who we raised you to be. Be the best that you know you can be. Don't don't be that person, right? Yeah. And obviously, that's most people are familiar with those conversations because of our relationship with law enforcement at most black people have that conversation as well. Like, hey, which you get pulled over, your hands are on the wheel, and your your whole job is to make it home, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:14:53

Which shapes my kind of thought process when it goes to parents definitely should should have some accountability. I also look and say, it I'm kind of torn on how that looks too, because I also look and say, it's a lot of parents who are working in two jobs. They they don't have the time, resources, know what's going on. It's some parents that I honestly look at and say, you you don't know what you're doing. Or you shouldn't, or you shouldn't be doing, because it's a lot of parents who who don't who don't care, and that the child being outside the house is the safest place for them. So definitely, as you said before, having having some safe spaces for no matter what time it is, a kid can go to so you have a safe, a safe space to go. The part that kind of like has been in the back of my mind during during this conversation is the can you kind of go go into what you mean by like give the police the tools and resources that they need, but also your comments about how like we need to kind of bring the bring the community and police together. I look at that the same way I look at data centers of like the community has said, or certain communities have said, like, we don't want to see police in our neighborhoods handling X, Y, and Z issues. We want people who actually train for the mental health workers and things like that and resources for our kids. And you hear a lot of politicians or just elected official and candidates talk about how, like, I want to mend that relationship. It's like, well, I don't, the community didn't break the relationship. It was the police officers who broke that relationship. And I would also say, I don't think there ever was a relationship that was positive between really police as a system and the black community, but also other communities as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:25

I think what when I explore that, I like what you said about actually having mental health professionals because you also hear law enforcement say we're not equipped to handle those situations, but it's all on us to handle them and address them. So we I do want to see us invest in those professions that are actually equipped to handle these unique situations. It can't just all be on law enforcement. And I I like that you brought that up because yes, that I 100% agree. And when I talk about giving them the tools to be proactive or and when I say proactive, it's not just patrol cars everywhere. That's that's what I let let I want to be clear on that. Like not surveillance cameras on in front of homes and stuff like that. When I say proactive, I I like to look at what's happening in Baltimore. I can't remember the organization, but it is a community-driven organization, and they are interacting with young people who are, you know, in gangs or or have guns or deal drugs or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:21

Mostly um uh uh formerly people who got out from the uh uh system.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:26

Yeah, they they they go to these people directly and say, hey, we want to put you on the right path. Let's remove you from what you're doing, let's point you in the right direction. I think that's what I mean with proactive relationships in the community of saying, hey, we got to get you guys on the right path. Whether it's we got, you know, trained professionals coming into the schools and talking to them, if we have having it in our curriculum of like, you know, how do we put people in the right avenues, right? So they don't resort to crime or think that crime is this like cool thing or whatever, right? Because that's why young people get into that, because they glorify it, right? How can we be proactive in steering our children in the right direction? And for law enforcement, like you said, the the relationship really hasn't been there for our community with law enforcement. I think it's time that we have a relationship with law enforcement and saying, hey, we don't want, well, let's be clear, some people sometimes do want that. But saying hey. Some people do that.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:18

Some of those older people in the community.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

Some some people do just want to lock everybody up, but saying, hey, I do believe, I I try to keep out faith that there are law enforcement officers that are trendily just want to see the community better, right? Most people, I know I have a lot of friends who are who just became police officers or going to be officers because they want to have a more impact, a positive impact in their community. So I know that these people exist and allowing them the spaces to say, hey, how can we help you have a relationship with young people? I remember being at North Point High School, our officer in our in our in our school, that's all right, he he yeah, he he was great friends. Everybody knew him, we loved him. If if there was something going on, he knew about it before administrators and allowed him to do his job more effectively because he's not reacting to everything. He's simply not just showing up and putting people in handcuffs and stuff like that. He's actually saying, okay, this is going on. I know what's happening here. Let me try to address it before it turns into something. That's what I kind of mean with the proactive and the relationship building because those things are important because it allows people to do their job in a different way that we haven't seen law enforcement operate. Our understanding of Lost Warren is that something happens, they show up, they arrest, and that's it. There's no crime prevention happening. There's crime remediation, but there's no prevention of things happening. I think we got to look at how can we, what can we do as leaders and as a community to stop things before they happen. So that's kind of what I want to see more of in in for our future when we're talking about law enforcement and how we're gonna address juvenile crime. We have to start kind of getting on the forefront.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:56

I think that's another term. I think that as a society, we need to get away from is like not calling kids just like kids. Like, like, like, like these are kids. Like they're not like juveniles or like convicts. How we try to paint a picture. And I think I see a lot of like people paint, we paint kids in a picture that kind of reinforces that like this is how we talk about you as like a criminal. But even so also, I want to thank you so much for your time too, because I've definitely kept you over time. I have like I'm having a great time. I'm great. Thank you. I'm I have just like two more topic, two more kind of questions, same same topics. Is that you are running against a I hesitate to call the person you're running against an incumbent because they did not get elected. They were they were appointed just this this year. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:44

So you're you're running against someone who was appointed by the central committees. And to be honest, as someone who served on there for like three months, no one knows who the central committee people are. No one knows how to contact them. They do not go out and do public town halls for the candidates who want to get appointed or even really do any out outreach to people. So, with that, do you support changing the system from appointments to an actual um uh special election process? Because currently currently, within the whole General Assembly, about a quarter of all the delegates from the House of Delegates had been appointed rather than actual elected.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:21

I 100% support special elections. And for anybody that's kept up with about the last six or seven months about what happened in Prince George's County and the appointments, even just council member seats and the 20s, you you can have what you want to say about the 27A seat. Essentially, the people didn't like it. It did they felt removed from the process. They were more observers of the appointments as instead of being key players in who gets appointed. It felt like the people who had the power got to make the wrong decisions. That's really what it felt like. So I definitely want to see special elections happen because they're necessary. These people are their entire job is to represent us, to represent their constituents, and they should be chosen by their constituents. And, you know, people are gonna say it's it's gonna be hard or it's gonna be the logistics and expense, but it's necessary. People should elect, people should elect their leaders. Leaders should not just be given to them, or these seats should not just be handed out because we're all friends and you did me a favor that one time four score years ago, right? I I don't think politics should operate like that. We it was very disheartening to watch it happen because I I could only be an observer, right? I was on Facebook like everybody else, just like, oh, there's 20 people who go up for the seat, and then like 48 hours later, somebody was chosen. And we didn't really hear about how or why or what they're gonna do for us or or anything. And then it's in an election year where being labeled as an incumbent does play a big part in the endorsements that you get, the the money and the funding that you get, and just sometimes people who, you know, may not know what's going on, they say, well, if this is the incumbent, I'll pick the incumbent again. But they're not really. You know what I mean? They they were picked maybe a couple minutes ago. So I think it's important that we have special elections because it also allows us, it forces us to educate the community more and keep them informed when we're not in an election year. It's it's I think it's essential.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:11

Okay, awesome. And then the other thing about the General Assembly is that, like you said, it's a 90-day session every single year, and you're basically in a mad dash to get everything that you want to do, all the priorities of not just yourself, but your county or two counties that you represent and things like that. Do you support making the General Assembly a full-time position?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:31

I have thought about this. I I wanted to look at, I looked at how many other states have a full-time because I was just curious. I was like, you know, 90 days, I wonder, is that normal? Is everybody else doing that? And like I just wanted to see, I would entertain it, honestly, because you make this legislative process more legislative, right? You're not you're not trying to negotiate and say, and having holdouts and saying, well, I know you need this by Wednesday. So if I just I'm gonna leverage you, I'm gonna push you to the limit and I'm gonna make you concede a vote somewhere because I know we have a time constraint, right? And it also so much happens in that 90 days, and we just don't hear about it because it's the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. And the biggest thing is you don't hear about all the bills that take place and you have legislators and session at what was that like what session that was? Were they in at like one in the morning or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:21

The sigh and die. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:22

Yeah, yeah. I was watching, I was watching some legislator stores, and I'm like, I'm in bed, and you're still trying to get involved. I'm like, what's going on? But they have to because of the 90 days. I think it's there's definitely something worth exploring of seeing, you know, what are the one of the costs associated with that of having people up there and looking at that. But I also think when you get more full-time legislators, you kind of start weeding out the people that run for these roles and saying, are you coming here because you enjoy doing politics or are you coming here because you want to legislate and putting that into full time? So I definitely would, I would, I would be intrigued to see it and how it works and how we can address problems more proactively instead of waiting until the next 90 days. You know, we have things that we talk about all year round and we gotta wait until January to actually start. I'm intrigued. I would want to see it. I want to see how it works. Awesome. And talk about that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:14

Do you support term limits for um General Assembly members as well?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:19

I think overall I do. And I say I think because there's a there's multiple aspects to it, right? But I I do in general want to say yes, just because that's how you progress as a society, that you you always have fresh minds, you always have fresh perspective in this role. And I wonder what the term limits would be for a state assembly, because I know like for Charles County, we we just had two-year limits, right? Two terms. Oh, two terms. So you have like eight, eight years. Eight years. Eight years. Sorry, I misspoke. Oh no, you're good. I wonder, I wonder what that would look like for the state. I don't know if it would be two. I I probably I think if you told the General Assembly two, most people would say, I'm not passing that. Um but I do think so because it facilitates progression, that you don't have the same people, you know, kind of just sitting in the seat. You actually have people who are coming in, they're putting their ideas in, and then they're out the door. I think that's how you keep progress and you keep people who are in tune with their community, right? And I I think you also can say, you can kind of, you know, how do you how are you gonna solve, how are you gonna address that? We'll say, well, well, if let's say you're the, you're the the the the Senate president, maybe your term, you're you you have longer term limits, right? Because you're, you know, you don't want to keep rotating a Senate president, right? Because you do need that steady hand of leadership in some aspects, you know, everybody likes to say experience matters. That's the theme of election seasons of like experience matters.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:40

Some of these horrible experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:41

Yeah, yeah. Some people have experience for the sake of experience, right? But in some, there are ways in areas that experience does matter, right? So it's sometimes we do benefit from having experienced members in the legislature because you have people who have the historical context of the policies that we're talking about, right? I think those things matter. But I also do think we have to commit to progress and having leaders progress through instead of just I'm gonna sit in the seat for as long as I want. You don't have progress that way. So I I definitely do support term limits and having a greater conversation about how does that look, how many terms, of course, and stuff like that. But I think it's I think it's necessary, especially when we have people who are making this into their career instead of it's just you should be here with ideas. You know, if you don't have ideas, I think as a legislator, you're really more so a voting member because this we're all here trying to solve problems at the end of the day. That's what the 90 day session is about. And if you don't have an idea to solve our problems, then we got to send somebody up who does. So I I do in general, yeah, support it.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:40

Awesome. Thank you, thank you. Clips and cross-running, I have kept you here way past your time. It's been a this actually has been an amazing conversation. I definitely love that that it has it's been more than just like question answer, question, answer. It's actually like we actually had like a real in depth conversation and kind of like figuring out just how many things that was my first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:00

I'm hearing about some topics. I mean, I was I was crafting answers on the fly. If anybody thinks I got paper over here, I wasn't prepared for this at all.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:08

Awesome. I love it. I love it. Please, can you tell the viewers how they can follow your campaign, how they can support, uh, stay involved, and any last thing you want to say to the audience?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:19

Absolutely. So on Facebook, I don't know how Facebook usernames work. I'm young. I'm not. So if you search Cliff the Crosby Jr., I am bound to come up. On Instagram, I am the Cliff Crosby. Um, and we also have the campaign, Instagram account, Team CrosbyHQ. And support, you know, donations are cool, but we're running a very big ground present campaign. We're knocking a lot of doors. We've been knocking doors since January. So if you want to come out, you don't have to just live in District 27A. We're knocking doors. We're talking to voters because we we feel, I say we because it's me and my entire team, we feel that policy should be the focus of every single election. And our biggest focus is educating voters on what I'm running on. And if they support it, they'll vote for us. If they don't, then they won't vote for us. And that's that's all that we're trying to do. So knocking on doors, volunteering, and sharing our stuff. I come across a lot of people say, Yeah, I saw that. I support you 100%. I'm I'm voting for you. And I'm like, well, can you tell somebody that? Like, we need to get the word out. So, you know, donations are cool. That's a great way to support campaigns. But, you know, the more value thing that you can provide me is volunteering, sharing this with a friend, you know, telling somebody you watched this video and that you you really enjoyed it. That kind of stuff helps us. And yeah, go vote. Vote. If you're watching this, you don't, even if you don't live in 27A, please vote. We need to make out of, I guess, mid-cycle or midterm elections, voting in these primaries more commonplace. I I'll speak on something that most elected officials won't say. About 8,000 people voted in the last 27A primary that dictated, that dictated who won, right? Because we know how important primaries are in Maryland. About 8,000 people decided the last election. But then 11,000 came out in November, but it was already it was already decided. So vote in your primaries. You can't wait until November. You have to educate yourself and you have to be a part of the change. We can't be, we can't be on the sidelines and we want change. So please get out and vote, support your candidates, be vocal about who you're supporting. And if you are supporting me, please do that. Um, come out, follow us, share us, and yeah, hope you enjoyed this discussion I had today.

SPEAKER_00 1:30:27

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. And and you all remember all of the links to the social media and our website will be down in the show notes. So please give that a check out. And then also remember this is a podcast. So please like, share, support. Do all the stuff that we've talked about is how you amplify this podcast that you all have been doing such an amazing job at. And remember, hit that notifications bell to get alerted about every new episode that comes out. And with that, we'll see you next time on the Left Handed Leftist Podcast. Thank you.