Politics Aside: Creating the Conditions for Economic Growth

Join host Kevin Shutty for a conversation with Congresswoman Emily Randall as they explore the role of collaboration in building stronger local economies. From workforce development and infrastructure investments to innovation, small business growth, and the importance of working across the aisle, this episode examines how partnerships at every level help create the conditions for thriving communities. Whether discussing local ports, federal investment, or the future of Washington's economy, the conversation highlights the power of finding common ground to move communities forward. #MasonCountyStrong

Check out:

Congresswoman Emily Randall's Official Website - https://randall.house.gov/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/RepEmilyRandall

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/repemilyrandall

Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/repemilyrandall.bsky.social

Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/@CongresswomanEmilyRandall

MasonEDC's Website - https://masonedc.org/

Sign up for MasonEDC's Newsletter - https://shorturl.at/O5oOZ

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Economic Current Podcast, your source for all things economic development in Mason County, Washington. I'm Kevin Chudy, Executive Director at the Economic Development Council of Mason County, and your host for today's episode. We have a great show lined up for today, and I'm excited to welcome our special guest, Congresswoman Emily Randall, to our studio today. Good afternoon, Congresswoman. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I am great, Kevin. Thanks so much for having me. This is like the most professional audio recording experience I think I've had since being in Congress. I feel really excited and a little nervous.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Excellent. Well, we will do our very best to make you feel comfortable today. We have uh, I think a good conversation lined up, but maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself and and your role.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Okay. Well, I'm about 18 months into my first term in Congress. Was elected in 2024 after serving in the state senate for six years. Um, and I have the honor of representing the community where I grew up. I went to preschool in Belfair. My first library card was at Timberland Regional Library Card. And I've graduated from South Kids Up High School, but spent a lot of time on the peninsula, um, you know, on the canal, hiking in the woods, exploring our community. And now I get to do it with the new ones. Um, going to businesses, hearing stories about how folks are trying to grow our economy, support not only their families, but their neighbors, and building opportunity right here at home. And figuring out how we can help them do that from the federal level is sometimes frustrating, but often both interesting and always rewarding.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

That's excellent. And so you represent the sixth congressional district here in Washington. We of course know Mason County is the epicenter of the sixth, but tell us a little bit about the district.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yeah. So Mason is one of the six counties that I represent. We have all of Kittsap, all of Clollum, all of Jefferson, all of Grays Harbor County, and then the parts of Pierce County that are on the west side of the Narrows Bridge, along with 40,000 people in the city of Tacoma.

SPEAKER_00 2:14

So, like from five to forks, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

Yeah, it's a lot of mileage to cover.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

It is. It's it is. I sometimes talk to my colleagues who have like a little bit of Los Angeles in their district, and I think, wow, what a different uh experience that is representing like part of a giant urban center as opposed to so many trees. Um, but I think I have the better deal, frankly.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Yeah, it is a great place to live and represent. So so 18 months into your first term, um, tell us a little bit about your journey. You mentioned you had started in the state senate in elected office. Tell us a little bit about that time and what led you to run for Congress.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Yeah. Well, I I didn't grow up thinking I wanted to be in politics, um, but I knew that I wanted to do good in the world in a really vague sort of way. Um, a lot of our constituents have heard me talk about my sister who was born with pretty severe disabilities. And I was working at Planned Parenthood Federation of America at the time of the 2016 election. And I knew when Donald Trump was elected to the presidency the first time that we would see impacts to healthcare access in our communities and that we had the opportunity in Washington state to pass policy and make investments that would protect our neighbors. And so I ran for the state senate in 2018 and served on the health and long-term care committee for all six years in the Senate. I led on Washington's Universal Health Care Commission policy, some of the strongest state-based universal health care policy to be passed anywhere in the country in over a decade. I worked on Medicaid expansion, I worked on immigrant health care, reproductive health care, and then also chaired the higher education and workforce development committee. Because I am the first of my family to go to college. And to afford it, I had to take a scholarship from a private school on the East Coast instead of staying here at home. Because at the time that I graduated in 2004, we hadn't made the investments in higher education that families like mine needed. In the legislature, it was important not only for folks like me, but also for the Washington Business Roundtable and businesses all across the state who knew that they were going to need more graduates from college in order to fill growing workforce demands. We've got a goal of 70% credential attainment. That's not just bachelor's degrees, right? That's associates, that's trade school, that's post-high school credentials. And we were lagging behind. We still are in Washington. And in fact, even though we've made huge investments at the state level, federal policy under this administration that has stripped back student loan repayment programs and financial aid opportunities is making it harder for us to meet those goals. But that higher education work, that healthcare work, and then a lot of work I did on the transportation committee helps inform the work that I'm doing now in Congress. I, you know, wasn't thinking about running for Congress. I was thinking about growing in leadership in the Senate. And then Derek Kilmoir, our former representative, called me and said he was retiring. And then my phone rang for about 24 hours after that from neighbors, colleagues, news media asking if I was going to run. And I had to give it some real thought because Washington state politics are much different than Washington, D.C. politics. But I decided to run in the end for a lot of the same reasons that I decided to run for the state legislature because Trump was in the White House again because we were likely to be.

SPEAKER_00 6:58

That's a big part of the work that we do at the Economic Development Council. And you look at how funding has changed for programs like the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act and Economic Security for All and things like that. And it just becomes, you know, even available apprenticeship opportunities and things like that. So I'm really happy to hear you talk about that. And so maybe just spend a couple of minutes telling us about some of the projects that you've been able to help support here in Mason County to help create economic opportunity, but also create a thriving community. I've seen recently some information out from your office about supporting Macecom and some of their modernization. MaceCom is a great partner to us and has great leadership with Joe Schmidt. Just curious what you're seeing project-wise here that you're supporting.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Yeah, absolutely. So sometimes folks call them earmarks. They're officially called community project funding. Members of Congress have the opportunity currently to solicit applications and interest from organizations, nonprofits, local governments all across their districts, and submit those to the appropriations committees in DC and, you know, try to vie to get as much funding for their community as possible. And I knew that when in a climate when I couldn't get a lot of bills passed, making sure that we got as much money for our district was going to be really, really important. And so my team reached out, we did webinars to help uh nonprofits and uh local governments learn how to navigate the process, know what they were gonna need. We sent before we had the final application language from committee staff, uh, we sent previous years applications to folks so that they could look at and get ready for the application process. And in 2025, we submitted, we were allowed to submit up to 15 projects and we got all 15 funded in the appropriations bills passed in 2025, which included Mason PUD, Turning Point, Survivor Advocacy Center, and then projects all across the district. And in this 2027 appropriation cycle, we've submitted a $1.5 million request for MACCOM because everybody deserves reliable access to emergency services. And without emergency communications tools, that's not possible. And we know in rural communities that it already takes longer than in an urban center for emergency response ticket to folks. And so we don't need any more communication lag. We need up-to-date technology. We also submitted a request for bathroom facilities at Sweetwater Creek Water Wheel Park and a Squawkson Island Tribe Housing Project. So hopefully we'll be able to bring, let's see, three, four, five million back to the district, back to Mason County in the district. We don't always get the full amount that we request, but we request as much as we can so that we're able to bring those dollars right back here to our community to invest in those programs and so often to grow the number of jobs locally, because a lot of these projects have construction elements that are going to need folks to do that work.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, your point about why we need modern emergency communications infrastructure. You think about how many people come into Mason County to recreate, people going into the, you know, the national park and forest from here and being able to have those reliable tools is really important. So thank you for the advocacy on those projects for Mason County. Now, this is an economic development podcast, and so I like to ask our guests um to finish the sentence for me.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Okay. So economic development is creating the circumstances in which folks can invest in their communities. I think, you know, certainly the Economic Development Council and organizations, chambers of commerce, um, organizations like you are helping to make those circumstances possible. But I also think it's so important that we remember that economic growth is spurred by individual people who are contributing to their community and their economy, whether that's someone who's taken a chance to start a business, giving up their salary at a job, their benefits at a job in order to start a business that may at first just have a few employees, but eventually will scale to support more right there in their community, whether it's people who are taking a chance to grow their business, to invest in someone else's business, these are our neighbors. Our economy is built by regular people in our community. And economic development means making sure that they have the tools that they need and the security they need, the safety net they need to make those brave choices.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

So kind of staying on that topic. So a lot of experts have kind of described our economy right now as a little weird. So we are that's their words, not mine. Very, very uh you know, we're we're with the uh experts here. But you know, we're seeing a relatively strong job market. You know, we're seeing some strength there. There's a lot of concerns about AI and disruption sort of in the global economy, what that means for affordability and things like that here closer to home. So, you know, as you're out and you're talking to constituents, as you're talking to entrepreneurs and workers in our community, um, you know, what are the things that you're hearing from them and how do you kind of view your role in Congress to help improve the economic conditions?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah. I definitely hear a lot about inflation and affordability challenges. And, you know, that can sound really vague, right? But what I hear from real people is that those are the everyday costs of childcare, costs of housing, costs of insurance, um, you know, business insurance, um also the access to health care and the unaffordability of health insurance, both for employers to pay for for their employees and for individual business owners to buy on their own because we've lost those Affordable Care Act tax credits. I hear about um, you know, the cost of gas and goods that are exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Iran. And, you know, folks are making it work, right? We have so many people who are dedicated to figuring out a way. I think that's something that you especially see in rural communities, people who are used to working hard and figuring it out together. But it takes a toll on people. It takes a toll on business owners, it takes a toll on, you know, parents in the sandwich generation who are caring for their kids and who are also worried about what's going to happen to their parents. Um, it takes a toll on the folks who are doing social work and human services in our community, who are seeing rising crime or domestic violence or, you know, substance use challenges because the economy is hard for people. You know, I think it's our, it's I I feel like it's my job to advocate for a more stable uh economic outlook. That means not spending trillions of dollars on overseas conflicts that are driving up costs for regular people. That means making sure that our taxpayer dollars are invested in the safety net and the programs here at home that makes people's lives better. And you know what also means being as present in the community as possible so we can hear the the you know unique examples of what folks are going through and we can figure out how to problem solve with them.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Washington has this really proud and strong legacy as being a really innovative economy. Um, in some of our work, you know, there's conversations about, you know, have we lost our competitive edge in in our state? And what do we need to do in order to, you know, kind of get that back and compete internationally, lead nationally with innovation? I mean, we have, you know, Boeing and Microsoft and Amazon and these world-renowned brands here. What's your sense of Washington's competitiveness and what we should be doing to help support that kind of economy here?

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah. Um, Washington has this incredible, as you said, innovative history. We're also one of the states that does the most import-export, you know, most trade-dependent state of any state in the country. And I think that's a unique position for us because we have goods that folks want. And businesses in our community have good relationships with businesses in other countries and are importing really interesting supplies and goods to market here. All of that has been put at risk or additional struggle, uh facing additional struggle because of tariff policy and you know, international conflict and, you know, this global market that the US is influencing because of federal policy decisions. Uh I know that when people think about economic innovation in Washington, they do think about like the big names, the Amazons, the Boeings, right, the Microsoft's. But I was reflecting today on how innovative Mason County has been in economic development and growth opportunities. Years ago in the legislature, the members of Color Caucus came to do a tour of a cannabis farm in Mason County, and we, you know, learned about the county's particular recruitment strategy for this growth market once legalization passed in Washington. Mason is innovative and figured out a way to create policy that inspired investment and growth in that sector. Earlier today, we went to visit Squirrel at the airfield, and one of my staff members may have jumped out of a plane. Um and, you know, learned about how that company moved from France right here to Mason County because the circumstances were right for them to grow and develop. And they, you know, they're still small, but have, you know, contracts on the horizon that are going to allow them to grow and scale and employ more people here in a sector that is so unique, right? Nobody is doing what they are doing. Nobody is manufacturing this way. And that's possible because, you know, public entities like the port worked with them to create the circumstances for them to be able to settle here and grow and have a long-term outlook that is secure. I think it's also really important to think about the tax policy, right? That that's so much of what goes into a business-friendly or unfriendly environment. Some of those policies are state, some of the policies are federal. What we've seen at the federal level is that this administration and Republican leadership in Congress are really prioritizing the biggest businesses for preferential tax policy. You know, Amazon's, Microsoft's Boeings, and millionaires and billionaires getting more tax carve outs while the tax policy isn't beneficial, as beneficial to smaller businesses and, you know, working class people who might become entrepreneurs. In the state, when I was one of my last years in the legislature, I worked on a manufacturing tax policy that created more tax credits for warehouses and manufacturing facilities that were not Amazon-sized, right? That were smaller manufacturing facilities and warehouses, because most small and mid-sized businesses didn't qualify for this kind of credit. And I was talking to the folks at Squirrel about that today as they think about what new facilities they may need long term. I think it's really important that we understand the nuances of these emerging businesses, of you know, growth opportunities for us in uh, you know, innovative economic sectors that are not the big names yet that we think about when we think about innovation. I'll also say that you mentioned AI policy and you know, changing landscape. Absolutely, I hear from folks both on the employer side and the employee side, and high school graduates, frankly, who are worried about what AI and an unchecked landscape does to job opportunities. Some policy Washington has put into place is limiting the use of AI using state public funds. So, you know, in port infrastructure, if you are going to use state dollars, you can't automate in a way that eliminates jobs. And I think, you know, there are some creative solutions like that at the state and federal level that we're gonna have to continue exploring. I think there are some like privacy concerns for individuals that I hear a lot about. Job displacement, definitely. And I think we have to balance like how do we allow for technological innovation in a smart and responsible way? Because, you know, the world is gonna continue to change. We have to figure out how to change along with it in a way that safeguards the economic climate that we want to protect and the individual privacy needs.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, the innovation conversation is one that we're really you know tuned into in the economic development world and mentioning companies like Squirrel and um you know some others here that are doing great work, you know, but it also extends to our timber industry, um, you know, and and our shellfish industry. I I you can't find a more innovative aquaculture company than Taylor Shellfish, which was you know founded right here. And you know, looking at some of the work that Squirrel's doing and and um other businesses at the port, um, like TrueFab, which is a which is a manufacturer there, you know, they have a lot of contracts with um Boeing and the United States Navy, and they're doing that kind of work here. The Navy has been such a economic uh you know sort of anchor for our region for uh for a long, long time. Um and there's some plans to do modernization work up at the up at the shipyard in Bremerton. And um I always like to tell people in 2024, Mason Transit did uh just over 21,000 rides with their worker driver program to the shipyard. So that's a it's a lot of Mason County workers that are going there. Um what can you tell us about the Navy's plans to modernize there and and what your office has done to support that?

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Yeah, uh supporting the shipyard modernization effort. Or have been really important to me since I was in the legislature. My dad started his career as a shipfitter at PSNS, like so many families in our community. And so making sure that I understand the Navy's needs for facilities like PSNS has been really important. I'll also say that there's we've been highlighting this intersection between the Navy's needs and also our community maritime needs. Because we don't have dry dock space right now for all of the Navy's needs at PSNS, it means that they're relying on some other dry docks like bigger Nichols Brothers in the Puget Sound, which means that a lot of other vessels that might need that dry dock space are competing against the Navy's needs. That includes Washington State Ferries, uh, includes like the fishing industry. And, you know, that uh that market competition certainly drives up costs, but also there just isn't capacity for the investments we need. So investing in the Navy's dry dock capacity is good for Washington State Ferries, it's good for our maritime industry. I think we also need to grow our community capacity too. But uh those jobs at the shipyard are important to, as you mentioned, the entire region. It's not just Kids Up, it's not just Mason. Folks commute from Seattle, they commute from Jefferson County to our region's biggest employer. We've got projects in other parts of Naval-based Kids Up as well that are going to be really important for our job growth in the region and for our national defense. And we as an office submit amendments to the NDAA. We submit language to ensure that the committee knows how important these are to our region. I'll also say we are in the final stages of submitting uh proposed CODEL congressional delegation trip. We are going to invite members of both parties in Congress from certain committees to come out and visit a naval base kids app in our region to get to see some of the important defense equities and also understand what an essential part of our nation's economic growth strategy exists right here on the shores of the Puget Sound. And so look out for more updates on that. I think it's gonna be really exciting. And when I was in Alaska last year with some members of the Natural Resources Committee, I floated this idea to them and they were all pretty excited too.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Well, that's a great segue because I I want to talk a little bit about um just sort of our national discourse right now. Um, you know, it's just it feels like we're living through a historically divided time in our country. And I mean maybe we don't see that in our day-to-day interactions, but you know, bipartisanship, it feels like that's no longer a desired attribute in in some of our leaders and something that maybe we're getting away from sort of big picture nationally. You just talked about inviting members of both parties to come visit our neck of the woods. You've been um visiting other parts of the country with members from both parties. Um tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Aaron Powell My dad, who worked at the shipyard, was a Republican. I my mom is a Democrat. I grew up in a bipartisan household. And um I talk about this a lot. Like I remember so many conversations, debates around our dinner table where we would disagree with each other, either on like a policy or you know, sometimes values, but almost never on facts. And these conversations, fights, arguments, whatever, were also carried out with a lot of love and respect. I think our country deserves that from not just familial conversations, not just conversations with your neighbors, but from our leaders. Our country deserves elected officials to be able to, you know, argue and debate with each other respectfully, like while seeing each other's humanity and um and that is harder and harder and harder. I I think it's it's hard for a number of reasons. I I think it's hard because our fractured and changing media environment means that folks are often being inundated with an entirely different set of facts. You know, you we live in bubbles on our phone and you know uh folks aren't getting the same news from eight nightly news shows anymore. They're they're getting to read what people like them or think. And I don't have a solution for that, except that it's I think it's our job to research and expose ourselves to different perspectives and to talk to folks that we disagree with and to listen to learn, not just to respond back. And I try to model this as much as I can with my colleagues in DC. I I'm on the oversight committee, and it was really hard for me to accept that for the first few months because it is a committee that is like really contentious. The first hearing of the oversight committee was when you may have seen this clip on late night shows. Uh Nancy Maith's challenged Jasmine Crockett to take it outside. And that was supposed to be just a hearing where we voted on the committee rules, like should have been 30 minutes in and out, and it became kind of a spectacle. And I don't know, I not really my style of politics, but uh but because of this structured media environment, I think more and more people feel like you have to be splashy in order to get coverage. I want our government to be so much more boring than that. I want us to be able to like talk about policy in a way that um is not quite so contentious. And so I, you know, I went to Alaska with my Republican colleagues because I wanted to get to know them. I wanted to share meals, I wanted to meet their spouses who traveled with them and learn something together. So we went on uh, you know, a boat out on the river with Department of Fish and Wildlife. We met with the governor, we went to a oil field, we got to see things that were unique to Alaska and also things that so many of us hadn't seen before and asked questions together and you know, we were literally seeing the same facts at the same time. And I try to find bipartisan sponsors for my policy wherever I can. Two bills that have been included in the 25 and the 26 National Defense Authorization Act, or bills that my team wrote from scratch and they got in because we worked with Republican offices to make the policy better, to make sure that it was well representative of, you know, multiple parts of the country and that we had the coalition we needed to move that along. Policy is better that way. I felt that way when I was in the state legislature and I worked with Jeff Holy from Spokane on higher ed policy. He was a good friend of mine. I learned a lot from him. I think he learned a lot from me, and we got to make sure that everybody in the state felt like they had a voice on the committee. I think our neighbors deserve that. And taking the temperature down wherever possible is important. I I will say though, that, you know, I read the comments on my social media. I'm not willing to sacrifice my values, right? Like I believe that everyone deserves access to healthcare, comprehensive health care, reproductive healthcare. I'm not gonna compromise that. There's no common ground there for me if you if someone else doesn't believe that people deserve access to healthcare. I think we can listen to each other and disagree respectfully, but that is a value of mine that I am gonna hold. Similarly, I don't believe our neighbors deserve to be terrorized in their communities and rounded up just because they were born in another country. You know, folks who are working hard and paying their taxes and, you know, trying to contribute to our economy. People who live in Washington State deserve to feel safe in their communities. And so on immigration, making sure that we have real accountability for ICE and Border Patrol is important to me. I don't think, for example, that emergency responders who are working on firefighting at a wildfire like Bear Gulch should face an immigration raid like we saw last year. And so I've worked on policy to ensure that that doesn't happen again. That's a value that's important to me. But I do think we can, even if we disagree, we can do it with respect.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Talked a little bit about uh a little bit earlier about sort of the politics around the dinner table. I know that this is something that you talk about quite a bit when you're out and about, but you like to host dinners. I do. And yeah, I'm guessing you like to bring people together from different backgrounds and with different lived experiences and things like that. And that's been kind of central to some of the things that you've done in in Washington, the other Washington to represent our home Washington. Um I'm just kind of curious, uh, you know, talk a little bit about those. Um and, you know, bonus points to you if maybe you share a dream guest list and menu with us.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Okay. This is a good question. I have hosted a number of dinners, both for members of Congress, but also committee staff, um, which uh is really gratifying for me to get to learn what some of these incredibly talented staff members bring to their career, what they think we could be doing better on committee or as caucuses. Um and I don't think it's very common. I'm working right now on another member dinner, and so was just like making notes on a menu while we were having lunch uh earlier today. I'm gonna do roasted carrots with pepitas and cotiha cheese. I'm gonna do a chimichuri that has some, it's like a riff on chimichuri, carrot tops and cilantro of some of the herbs in there with um like a carne asada flank steak. Um, and and then definitely a cocktail with a hibiscus simple syrup and a little bit of optional uh jalapeno simple syrup for my colleagues who are more adventurous. But the dinner guest that I have been working on scheduling with the longest is my friend Jeff Hurd, who's a Republican freshman from Colorado. We've gotten together while we were both um in meetings in San Diego. I've spent an hour at a cafe with him and his son. We serve on the Natural Resources Committee together. He's someone I really like, but schedules in Congress are really hard. So we've been playing back and forth tag between ourselves and our staff to try and find time for us to have dinner. Um and I think finding places where we can have these bipartisan dinners is really, really important. And I want to give a shout out, speaking of economic development, to a business in DC, if anyone finds themselves there, there's a restaurant called Ama that's woman-owned, um, Italian real farm to table kind of vibe. And she gives a discount on Monday to members who bring in a member of the other party to have dinner. And it's so great. It's a real way that, like example of um private sector business community investing in the kind of government and leadership they want to see. It's not a policy that she's lobbying for, right? This is about creating space for people to have these relationships that are better for all of us.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

That's fantastic. Well, we'll have to put a put that on the list for the next time we're out in DC. Um so you spend a lot of time traveling back and forth. I'm sure it gets a little bit grueling. And probably when you're on the plane, you're doing things to prepare for the week ahead and things like that. However, hopefully you're also spending some time listening to or reading some things that are kind of take you away from the work. So if we were to get into your Apple music right now or your uh or look at the books that you're reading, what are you listening to and what are you reading right now?

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Okay, I am almost always listening to Taylor Swift. Like it's my uh like go-to girly pop music. Um I listen to a lot of things, but Taylor is definitely on my Spotify rapped. But the book that I am reading right now is the second in a series that I like if I knew all of what it was about, I'm not sure I ever would have picked up the first one. But I was at a bookstore and the cover was interesting. And then the woman who worked at the shop was like, Oh, you have to get that. It's so fascinating. It's by Mona Owad. The first book is called Bunny, and the second book is called We Love You Bunny, and it is so strange. It's like dark academia, speculative horror kind of fantasy. It's these women in the first one, these women who are in a small cohort in a creative writing master's program. And there's like some cult, there's some animal sacrifice, there's some like, do we know if any of this is real or not at the end? Um so I don't know if I will recommend that to you or not. But um, that is the description. I I have found it really fascinating. Um, like a real page turner, I never know what's gonna happen next. And it is like exactly the escape from reality I need.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

That's excellent. Yeah, definitely a good diversion. Probably a little bit more of a page turner than your briefing books. Depends sometimes, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Don't tell my staff that.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Well, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. So well, thank you so much, Congresswoman. It has been great to chat with you. Can you let us know how to keep in touch with your work uh over the summer and beyond?

SPEAKER_01 36:09

Yeah, absolutely. Our website is randall.house.gov, which is the place that you can go to sign up for our newsletter or fill out a release form if you need help with casework, navigating a federal agency. You can also find us on all the socials at repemily randall. We're on TikTok, Blue Sky, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all the things.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. It was great to have you join us. Um, and once again, thank you for listening to the economic current. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to like and follow us on our social media on Facebook and Instagram, and visit our website at masonedc.org. Thanks, Congresswoman. Great to see you.

SPEAKER_01 36:54

Thank you, Kevin. So great to be here.