My second chat with Deidre DeJear
Trying something different this time - I have broken up this conversation into parts to make it easier for listeners to navigate. I like to think of it as a nerdish-policy version inspired by my love of 1980s style choose your own adventure books* - but - you really should listen to it all.
NOTE: Transcript is below for people hard of hearing/people with hearing loss
Iowa is a petri dish - and is still a belleweather:
Anti-trans bills, fabricated challenges, and Reynolds needs to fund sports and FFA:
Calling a lie a lie is necessary, but DeJear’s campaign won’t be taking time to correct every misstatement, untruth or lie from the Reynolds camp:
About the backfill…ARPA and how Reynolds decision to end it can come back to haunt municipalities, towns:
Punitive policies, governing with a GOP legislature, veto power, and yes, thanking Joe Biden for the ARPA funds:
* An excellent article from BookRiot by: Cassie Gutman
TRANSCRIPT:
(automated - pardon the wacky formatting, etc)
Ms. DeJear 00:00
The other part that that I want to draw to people's attention is that when we see the bills that she's signing, they're punitive. They're restrictive, right? You can't do this, you can't do that. If you do this, this is the punishment for our students, for our parents, and our teachers. Right, we see that happening is when they're trying to impede on the bargaining process, things of that nature. We need a good one best. We need a governor who will add value. We were just in Cass County yesterday, and was in a diner and a mama brought her kids to be a part of the conversation. And there was a little boy who was in sixth grade, no fifth grade. And he said he had a question about tax cuts. Victoria, my lion, Mr. Lyons, Warren had questions. He said. So I see that she , she's cutting taxes,
00:53
 what is he a 60 year old man?Â
Ms. DeJear 00:59
when he came up to me, he even had more, because I was talking about investing in school. So when you say invest in schools, what do you really want to invest on? And he used my words with me, he said, you know, you said that, that Kim Reynolds, oh, students money that there's a Past Due Bill owed to our students, I say you're right. And this is how we can use those resources. We talked about mental health, he was into it. We talked about facilities, he was into it. And so our kids are seeing the lack of investment that they're getting, they're seeing their other peers are our urban kids are seeing are their suburban peers get more and cannot compete, because they don't have the resources. And so we've got to come to terms with this reality. This is the moment where we invest. We're sitting at $1.2 billion nest day that Republicans are calling a trust fund. I'm of the mindset that you got to be in a position of privilege to have a trust fund, we got to fund education, we also need to fund mental health, we should have had six mental health care access points in the state by July of last year, we only have two. Meanwhile, people on the six 810 month waiting list to see somebody Well, and
Andy Kopsa 02:09
that's another thing too. So she she's going to expand childcare where her answer to expand childcare is not licensed. Anybody. I'm like, You know what, that's a recipe for disaster. It's a recipe for children to get hurt. It's not paying people more. It's not, at least from what I can see. It's not she talks about it. And she says she's using this funding, which by the way, thank you, Joe Biden.
02:33
That's, that's
Ms. DeJear 02:35
Yeah, yep. Because without those federal funds, we wouldn't see the investments that we need to happen. She's got a plan for how we're going to use federal funds, but no plan of how we're truly going to maximize the potential of Iowa Pakistani taxpayer dollars. And I think that that is negligent, to be honest, because we've got to put Iowa taxpayer dollars to good use, and we're not doing that. In fact, she's and I'm just gonna give you your money back. We're gonna give it
Andy Kopsa 03:03
to you. She's already said the stuff with like, the ending the backfill that is going to come back to haunt
Ms. DeJear 03:09
it already is it already is our municipalities don't know what to do.
Andy Kopsa 03:12
When the Treasury started letting loose all the funding, a lot of counties were saying we're gonna use some of this American rescue plan, Act funding for the backfill, and I'm like, you can use it for that that is a tax. And so she in my opinion, has misled everybody. We can all sit around here and talk about how much we know about federal grants and the backfill. But do you think in your travels, do Iowa municipalities and towns get the fact that oh, wait a minute,
Ms. DeJear 03:42
okay. They get it. They get it because they were fighting and advocating against that. But they completely get it now? Do they get how they're going to fill in that gap? Not all of them do? Not all of them do. And so, again, another restriction, another repercussions and another form of retaliation, or, at the end of the day, another form of this national Republican agenda just does no good for us. I mean, tax fit, sounds good. But this is the moment again, that we invest and we strengthen the state and set the state up for success. Because she's just not facing those challenges. Right now. She's not even acknowledging the challenges. You saw two completely different thematic speeches when you heard Joe Biden and when you heard Cameron holds, the President talked about the challenges that regular everyday people were facing. He talked about what the administration was doing to help resolve those challenges. Knowing that he wasn't perfect to some degree. He said that we're not getting everything done that he wants. And then he finished. I think this is what we need to do. This is how we continue to move forward. And he challenged Congress to help him to help him along the way. What we heard from her was nothing about what I'm once we're facing the fact that we can't make Knowledge that challenges is the case that she's not going to address. Our legislators asking for $300 million immediately to be invested in our public school systems from that that surplus. No, not happening. Meanwhile, our kids are leaving the state vowing never to come back. Teachers are leaving the profession or they're leaving the state estate going to never come back. We see more challenges with workforce. We're not welcoming to strengthen our workforce. And I know we can do better but we got to reposition, reposition ourselves in the state or in this country. But we don't do that with Kim.
Andy Kopsa 05:37
One of the biggest gaps in workforce obviously is women.
Ms. DeJear 05:42
Childcare, that's a big thing. We've lost 40%. But that's a
Andy Kopsa 05:45
unifier. That's a unifying message. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Ms. DeJear 05:50
Yeah. Mamas are making decisions right now. Because they disproportionately left the workforce, take care of family, we lost 44% of our child care providers. Now they're making a decision, do I do part time work? Or are they just go ahead and stay at home? Because it's not worth it? It's not worth it. We've got to increase reimbursement, right? I do work day, Wednesdays, every Wednesday, I go to a different business, nonprofit arm, whatever. And I worked for a few hours. And I went to a childcare facility last month at where it was at Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge, and the only nationally accredited childcare facility in the state. I was talking to the teachers there, we were talking about Kim's adjustment to the ratios, because she wanted to increase the per pupil ratio, and they're like, that's a disaster. And so one of the things that should be done right now is that every family in this state should have access to at least 30 hours of pre K, at least, at least 30. Right now they're guaranteed 10, what do you do it? What do you do it so you can't get a job with 10 hours, you can barely go to the grocery store and get back to your kid, you know, with that type type of time in a week. And so that's one thing she could do. The other thing is create stronger avenues for moms to open their own childcare, making sure that they're safe, making sure that they're certified and they've got the resources that they need to start up and to grow. And then in increasing that reimbursement rate is going to give our childcare providers an opportunity to pay those childcare workers more on average, in Iowa childcare workers are paid $26,000 a year. What do you do with that, because if you if you go based off of financial wellness, you should be spending about 30% of your resources in a month or in a given year on housing, they can't afford housing. They're there. They're spending 50%. So there's a great deal of work that can be done to address this workforce crisis that we have. But her mindset is, oh, we're just gonna minimize the number of weeks that you have on unemployment.
Andy Kopsa 07:48
And right, so that's another I was just gonna say, so now she's penalizing people for being on unemployment.
Ms. DeJear 07:55
Yeah, that's not the problem. That's not the problem. I mean, because that's only a small group of people. Most of the state fraction of the state, I will say, is on unemployment. A fraction of the state, what are we going to do with everybody else? Because what's what's going to happen? Well, I can't get unemployment anymore, but I still can't find a job. We're perpetuating a crisis. So we look at the indicators that get people to work, increase wages, access to childcare, small business owners having access to affordable health care options, so that they can provide benefits, increase opportunities for transportation, filling in the skills gap, working but creating a pipeline between our K through 12 institutions, and our two year institutions that train, we've got to push work back into the high schools and middle schools so that work readiness is a real thing for students all over the state. Now, mind you, there are some schools that are getting it, right, because they've got the resource use. So we've got more than half a million students in our public school system throughout the state. We've got to make sure every student has access to an education that's going to give them a limitless future. But we're not doing meanwhile, she's going and praising the schools that aren't getting it right that are that have the wherewithal to create public private partnerships that have a tax base. What are you doing for the ones that are left behind because majority of our schools are left behind right now?
Andy Kopsa 09:19
Well, labeling them failing schools is not a good place to start. It's just it's not a good place to start
Ms. DeJear 09:25
under my watch, no school will be left behind. That can't be because our students are too important.
Andy Kopsa 09:30
So when you put when we talk about like real change in Iowa when you win, right, you're gonna have a house and a Senate that are full of a bunch of GOP I mean, you might just be an auto but you
Ms. DeJear 09:49
know what gives me hope. It gives me hope right now, attitude reflects leadership. That's where you see the sports seated on the job. You see it in government, attitude reflect leadership. And that's what they're reflecting right now is their leader. Yeah, who's doing no good for us at this point in time? And so in all honesty, the way I see it is that I'm not one that's going to be reached across that kind of be the one in the middle. We also have incredible people in the state that work in government. Oh, yeah, credible people who work in economic development, who work in our education system, and they're presenting the status quo budgets when they know they need more. I want to one trust in their expertise, and believe in what they think can happen in this state, and give them a budget. That makes sense, because it's less about funding, and it's more about outcomes. How do we get to the outcomes that we need to achieve? What's it going to cost? And if we can't get the money in state, where are the other resources to make that happen? But we, we have to make sure that our at least our state dollars are prioritize to work for Iowans. And then we go and find other resources to enhance what we've already got.
Andy Kopsa 11:01
But you can't work with people like the sinister agendas of the world. I mean, now again, you said leadership is going to be reflected? And why didn't
Ms. DeJear 11:09
tell you about the hope part. You remember last year? Yeah. When we were trying to figure out what the lines are going to be? Look, they they lived up to our gold standard, right? They didn't mess with it. And so when I heard that happen, when I heard that vote, that gave me a lot of hope that they got it, no, they've got they they're not that far gone. They're not that lost. They just need some leadership that don't send them down the right path, right, because I'm listening to their constituents and their constituents have the same issues in our rural communities, as our urban communities and our and our suburban communities. They just don't know it yet. We've got shared struggles, and we have shared values. We believe in education, but we also see a lack of funding. You know, we believe in access to affordable housing, but we don't have the housing in our communities that we need. And so the issues are out there. And these Republican representatives and legislators, they know, they know what's happening in their communities. And they know they're not doing everything they need to do to help their people. We're gonna put people before interests. And that has to happen, because that's how she's leading right now. She's leading with interests, political interests, and not not people. We've got to put people first.
Andy Kopsa 12:21
So I mean, I mean, I think that, from what I'm hearing, just from people I talked to at the statehouse, it's like, there's a lot of Republicans that fear reprisal. Mm hmm. So it's like kind of ruling by fiat,
Ms. DeJear 12:33
you also got to look at the setup of our legislators, too. There's so many folks who've been there for 10 plus years. So they've been there. They're not foreign to the concept of progress and the state, but they're on this national wagon, some of them again, feel like they have no choice, and I'm chatting with them. But how do we interrupt that? The leadership,
Andy Kopsa 12:54
I mean, I know you can't get too far ahead of yourself. But also, you got to kind of know your next moves down the road. What's it look like from here to election?
Ms. DeJear 13:02
So these are because we're, we clear the field for the primary. This is our opportunity to really nurture our party. You know, we because we can focus on a unifying message. We can help train people, we can help re engage folks. So that come post-primary, when we all end up being one ticket, everyone's ready to engage more Democrats, but to also take that next level to engage independence, because only 45% of independents showed up in 2018. And that's
Andy Kopsa 13:33
another thing too, right? It's like getting people to the polls and getting people to turn out
Ms. DeJear 13:37
last school board and city council races. Yeah, that people's turn. Right. And these are the races that get the fewer dollars. So it wasn't like we were spending $50 million in the state on school board and city council race. But with minimal resources, people showed up and we had one of our record years for school board and city council races. So folks are ready, the people are ready. Everywhere I go. They're done. They're tired. Iowans love civility, you know, our state we tokenize the field of opportunities. But what's the most important part of that field is that you've got fertile soil, and folks are feeling it. We're not where we need to be they're unsettled. And there folks don't like to be uncomfortable talk, not talking to their neighbor or actually talking to their neighbors there. I just want to talk to my neighbor again, I just just want to talk to my friend again. And our current governor is not facilitating that type of Iowa night, because that's what I organize really means it's our ability to see the humanity that exists in one another. Our path relies heavily on Democrats showing up and an independent showing up. But that doesn't mean I leave out Republican right because there is much as a part of the equation as anybody else and there party. There's a space for folks. That's why I don't want to do my due diligence to beat down the Republican Party because I'm not going to agree with them every day out of the week, but there's a lot of good because they offer to the table if they take away this agenda, you know, ramming this agenda through people's throats like there's there's a lot more that can happen, because I want to know what's good for the state. I mean, we know better from from our farmers all the way to people who are in corporate America, they know how we resolve these challenges. They just need a table to show up to