 Hi, welcome to the All Things LGBTQ interview show, where we interview LGBTQ guests who are making important contributions to our communities. All Things LGBTQ is taped at Orca Media in Montpelier, Vermont, which we recognize as being unceded Indigenous land. Thanks for joining us and enjoy the show. Hi, everybody. It's my great pleasure to reintroduce a friend of the show, John Kolecki. Welcome, John. Hey, nice to be here again with you. I love you three. Okay, I just love you three and you've been so nice to me and you're my friends and I appreciate that. Well, we love you. It's unanimous and mutual, apparently. We're here to celebrate your latest accomplishment, which involves a show at White River Junction in what you describe as a maker's space. But before we get to that, I'd like to recommend the audience, once again, John's wonderful book, Because Art. Read it, buy it. I've just reread it. It's really fabulous, full of all kinds of insight, and it's very smart. And as I was going to say to John before he started taping, one thing I really love about interacting with you is that I always learn so much. And we'll get to that in a minute. But I'd also like to commend the audience, commend your latest podcast interview to the audience. It occurs on Transcat. And could you tell us a little about Transcat, if you wouldn't mind? What also is striking is that you're everywhere. Your venues are so eclectic. I learn about new places and publications every time I see any of your work. Oh, well, thank you. First of all, I want to shout out to all things LGBTQ, because your program has gone on for a very long time. And it is one of the sole voices in our universe and the media landscape. And to think about what's happening in our country right now, your show is going to be even more essential. So that you keep doing this these years is so amazing to me and it is deeply appreciated. And Transcat is a new podcast platform by Claire McCarthy, who has a really fascinating life story with a Latin teacher and transitioned and came out as transgendered. And she decided that, as you all did with your media is to figure out, well, how do we build community? We build together. So she's, I was just on the 15th episode of her new podcast, Transcat. And she's sort of like you in that she does a lot of research. She's an academic. And then she asked a lot of fun questions. And she's irreverent and funny. And the other speakers, many of them are trans themselves. And I learned things in the world. And I was just it was a pleasure to be on talking to her. It was a lot of fun. Well, it was a great podcast. And I learned many things and even took notes, as I said. You always take notes that that's part of your your historian. Now, also, I want to say, okay, we can say this, we are queer elders. Okay. And I and Linda are in outwards, the archive for queer elders. And there's interviews. So make sure your listeners go to our words and see the interviews with the two of you as well, because, you know, you have great stories. And you and Linda are on the calendar. Of course, I'm Mr. July, honey. And my friend Carla is pictured with you on your month. So I work disability awareness month in July, I'm told so I'm very proud to be with Carla. And Linda is reading in Burlington in her picture, but we digress. Let's get to what's going on with you. And on February 1, which will be after this show airs or before the show airs, you're going to kick off Junction Arts and Media and the website addresses UVIAMUJAM.org. And we'll put that off. They are sponsoring a month of radical love. What a fabulous idea. And you're going to be in it with three of your intermediate installations, including flux flow and allergies. Flux, we're going to talk about at great length because it will give us a window into an early art movement that many of us don't know about. And it's, so there's a little description of that. Other works include a collaboration with choreographer Aiko Otaki, speaking, you're both speaking to your dead mothers. And I've seen that before. It's so moving. I, you know, every time I see it, it's, it's really heartbreaking. And I have some quotations from you that I'll share and propose that you say art doesn't have to be beautiful. And then in an article about your college work, you say art is indeed where hopeless. So those are two important things to think about as you watch that. And then you're also showing or they're also showing an abstract work with tears, which is very provocative. The installation is going to be on display at Junction Arts and Media in White River Junction through February 28th. And can be viewed between nine and five Monday through Friday and Saturday, February 11th. After this interview appears between seven and eight 30, Jam is going to host drinks and hors d'oeuvres reception with the artist who's right here with us. That would be me. Let's talk a little more in depth about your background, although everybody knows who you are and you've been a visible person on a cultural and political scene before serving two terms as legislator in the Vermont House of Representatives. Kalecki worked as executive director, program officer, and curator for broad range of arts organizations, including the Flynn Center in Burlington, your Buena Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Foundation. Kalecki's videos have been screened in festivals, galleries, museums, hospitals, and universities worldwide and are in the collections of numerous libraries and universities. I'm also thrilled to share my recent work at Jam. Love having it in dialogue with other media makers in White River Junction. So let's pause and talk a little about the other, this makers space that they've created. Well, as your show is housed in Orca Media in Montpelier, Junction Arts and Media is a new public access space. They just moved into that new space. So it's an open space and they have worker stations for people to come in and make their work. Their staff is there, they have a micro cinema, they do performances. It's right on Main Street, South Main Street in White River Junction, I think next to the pie, the wonderful pie restaurant. And so they put a call out for people to do installations and they said it was a month of radical love. And so I wrote them and sent them these three videos and I said they're not quite radical love, but I'd love to have you look at them and it would be an honor to have them there in a space that other people are making work on their computers, too, because I thought it was fun. In particular, the piece we'll talk about, Plox, is a piece about process and making work. So I thought, well, that's just perfect. And so I'm going to have the Aco piece talk, which is called Elegies that you referenced. It's a duet that we do talking to our mothers. It's been on Vermont PBS. It's had a great run. That's going to be in a monitor. And then I have this abstract piece of tears running down my chin, basically. And that is going to just be projected on the wall. And then the fluxes piece is going to be on a workstation with the sculpture that I've made in the film. It's me making a piece about making a sculpture. And the sculpture is going to be there next to the video of me making the sculpture, because I want it to be in a makerspace in that way. So I thought it would be a lot of fun and, you know, they said, yay. So it's, well, you know, because you're an artist and a writer, and it's so hard when you make something. And then you think, oh, you're frozen. What do I do with it? You know? And so when I make this, I'm back. Are you back? Okay, start at the beginning. It's so hard when you make something. Okay. You know, you're an artist and you know this. It is so hard when you make something. And after you've made it, you think, oh, what do I do with it now? How do I find a place in the world for it? Where does it belong? What does it mean? And it's a very fragile place for an artist after they make something to do something. So this is actually the premiere of this flux piece is going to be in White River Junction. So that's why I was excited about it. And it's a kind of an homage to the fluxist art movement in the early 60s. And that came right after happenings, you know, where people were doing wild, crazy things. And then this group of artists who were really in a class with John Cage in the late 50s at the new school, were talking about, hmm, what's, is there a distinction between art and life and the art world has gotten so pretentious. And maybe we just have to look at daily activities and drop all this higher, lower kind of stuff. And so people like Yoko Ono, who it was very important in that time, she would just do idea pieces, or she would just do these performance scores about the sky. And a composer Lamont Young did a great score called Draw Line and Follow It. Oh, that's where that comes from. I thought they had some cages line. And what's great about that is everyone could do whatever they wanted with it. And that's what fluxes was about. They didn't want theaters, they didn't want galleries, they often did things in the street, or sometimes they just did male art and said things back and forth. But the Draw Line and Follow It was kind of a wonderful thing that a lot of artists had fun with. Nam June Pike was in a gallery and dipped his tie in ink, and then he dragged it across the line, and that became his art. And many people have done that. So in this particular piece, I take the performance scores, not the actions, but the scores, and interpret them in my own way. So at one point, you'll, you'll see in the video that I take a piece of chalk and I draw a line, and I scratch it under the wood of the table. And that actually becomes the map of the next gestures I'm going to do. Now, no one's going to know that and no one has to know that. It's just like a deliberate action that has the intention is just the doing of it. And so for me, I thought, you know, these people are really important to me. They're like the foundation of postmodernism and conceptual art. But what happened is, and they worked in the 60s, by the 70s, because they really weren't making too many objects. They, the museums couldn't collect them as much. So there's very little known about them. But many of them transitioned and became very famous because they start making objects for museums. So I love this little sliver art history that I feel has influenced so many people. And so this is my kind of homage to something that most viewers won't know anything about. And that's okay. That's what's fun for me. It's like, okay, someone watched it and they said, Oh, it's like, it's like a Zen practice. And I thought, great, okay, that's good. I like that. And it is in a way, it's very deliberate and intentional. I have a friend who paints Zen and Zoos. Yes, we talked a very, I learned a lot from that interview too. But in this film, you have 12 gestures with found objects that are references to past pieces. And each of those objects, the gestures relate back to the past pieces. I had so much fun. I wanted to only use stuff I found. So I officiated at a wedding, a friend of mine on a farm in Williston. And afterwards we were all cleaning up everything. And there was this one old table they were going to throw away. And they had, they covered it up and it became the bride and groom's table. And I said, don't throw it away. I'll use it for my film. So I grabbed the table. And a friend of mine had a violin. And I said, well, influx is someone named you like smashed a violin. So do you have a violin that's kind of broken or because I don't want to smash something. But she said, Oh yeah, I have one that's cracked and has no strings. Perfect. So it in the piece, my homage is I take this violin, I polish it up a little bit. And then I play it as a percussive instrument because it doesn't have any strings. And that's sort of what I do with that. And it was fun finding all these things and thinking, okay, now, how can this become a collage of meaning by putting it together? And then you have percent holders, which is your process art that you include in the piece. Can you talk a little about that? Yes. I really was thinking about, okay, so is there an end product or what is it that in the arc of this, this video, what's a common any moment? And you've been very generous at the top of the interview talking about my book. So that's been important to me. That's compilation of 56 of my writing pieces. But the other two pieces are old cassettes of my AIDS trilogy pieces from the 90s, the videos I had made, and my disability videos that I made in the 2000s. And I thought, well, that's sort of what my art has been is both my video activism and my offer activism. And so I just made an abstract sculpture of a piece of wood that I found on the farm as well. And I just put plaster or Paris around it. And in a way, one doesn't have to know what those videos are about, because it's or even the book. But I thought, well, that is actually my art, the arc of my art. So it has meaning somewhat. And this, this is a real departure from your past videos, which have been reliant on personal narratives, is that right? Yes. Yes. I really felt like I wanted to try something new. You know, this is my 17th film. I have some had some documentaries made of this, our singer friend, Janicean, a beautiful hour long documentary that's been shown all over the world for so that's been great. And I also had a documentary about three couples dealing with disability. But most, most, most of them have been the AIDS, agit-prop works and the disability works have all been personal narratives about my life and the impact of the pandemic and disability. So I decided, I thought, well, let me try something different. You know, let me not do all narratives. The other piece in the show, elegies is a piece that I wrote to my mother, and I shared that with Aiko Otake. And so that is a personal narrative piece that we share with, with, that will be in this show as well. So I, that's why I thought it was, it was nice to show that piece. And then to show this new direction or this next piece, I don't know what directions are after 17. And so, and the water piece is a tiny little piece that I made in 2017. And I was gonna, I had an exhibition at Champlain College of a retrospective of my video works. And I wanted to have a new work in there. But that was all my AIDS work, my disability work. And I wanted to have like a, just a short purification piece because these, and I felt that that was like a blessing for people who had come to see this installation because it was so dark and, and the personal narratives were, you know, kind of sad, lamenting. So I thought, well, just this piece. So it's, it's just a, a slow motion of this bunch of me and it's just water coming down. And I showed it at Champlain College. And then it, I didn't feel like it had a life, you know, just that's what it was. But the Susan Cowell's gallery in Montpelier, this, this summer had a call for artists pieces under five minutes that they could show outdoors. So it was during the art walk. And it was like, so I sent it to Susan and she showed it. And it was just, it was great to see it there and in her gallery. So I thought, oh, maybe this has a piece. And I also felt it was a nice transition piece between the sadness of elegies on the death of our mothers and this process piece of fluxes. And so just to have this little, I don't know, purification piece, I guess. It's a great combination. Let's go back if we could to the three age related videos that some of us were privileged to see on December 1st. And you told us, you told me before we taped a story about some of the audience for that. Do you feel comfortable sharing that with us now? Sure. The Susan Cowell's gallery on December 1st for World AIDS Day screened at a one night screening of my three eights videos. And I cried all through them, by the way. They're so moving. Well, thank you. Thank you. It was distracting. I was crying and sniffling. And I made the in the 90s when many of my friends were dying, many of my friends were sick. And it was a way for me to survive the grief, really, in the elegiac pieces. And they're about bodies and trying to make the body holy again. Because bodies have been demonized. Queer bodies have been demonized and sick bodies have been demonized and all of this. So it was important to me to kind of claim the body, reclaim the body. And so they've had around AIDS activist videos. They've been around the world. It was nice. But it was nice to see them again now, you know, 30 years later, when they were screened on this World AIDS Day. And I was very touched. There was a man who came and he was sitting there quietly. And I thanked him for coming and he told me he didn't get out much. But that he wanted to come because he didn't want to feel so alone. And I just felt so honored to be there because I also was made these films 30 years ago, not to feel alone. So, you know, when you were there was important because you're part of my community. But I knew you and I didn't know him. And I felt like maybe he was seeing that that evening. I hope so. That's a lovely story. I hope so too. You have some memorable quotations and let me run some back to you in the time we have left. One fabulous thing you say in the interview on Transcat is the fringe is where all the change happens in the world. Expatiate, if you would. Well, as a curator at the Walker Arts Center, a contemporary artist, I saw that artists from the fringe make a huge impact and some of them mainstream, but they change. And even the fluxes period that we're talking about. Andy Warhol was not part of the fluxes movement, but he had dinner with those people. And a couple of years later, he was making brillo boxes, paintings. Okay, so Andy Warhol was he mainstreamed the fluxes ideas. This is how art happens in the legislature. It's the same thing. I learned that it was I was much more comfortable. And I felt it was important work for me to focus on the disenfranchised. Those without homes, you know, and working on affordable housing issues, working on issues of recovery, and people with substance issues, and those were important. And what was great for me is I realized that those are the people that I was there to serve, you know, and by helping the fringes of our society, it heals mainstream society, just as in the art world. So I do believe that. And, you know, in a sickening way, you can look at the right wing in this country. And the fringe of that, look at the impact it's had on our world as well. And so it's this these the fringe things from all sides, I'm just used to one side, my left, this is my left hand, but that might look right, but I want it to be left. I'm a little more comfortable on that side of things. But we see that that's that's where aesthetic and political revolutions begin on the fringes. Well said, John. Well, let me, as we draw to a close, let me encourage the audience to go to the junction arts and media in White River Junction on from now until later, but also especially on February 11th, where John is going to be there. And if people like Rocky Horror Picture show after on the February 11th, after my reception, they're having a screening of that. So you can dress up and be your fabulous self and come on down to Art River Junction. And between five and seven, there's going to be a dance party. On the fifth. Oh, on the fifth. Yes, I think so. It's let me see. See, I have the from five to seven, a first Friday dance party from five to seven, followed by Valley Improv, and a shadow cast production of the Rocky Horror Picture. I don't know. Well, anyway, uvjam.org and get more information. All right, well, we'll put up the link, I'm sure. And you know, I thank you for this. And, you know, I really want to urge your viewers to also see your interview in Outwards Archive. It's terrific. Well, thank you. For this episode of All Things LGBTQ, the interview show, we have welcomed back an old friend. And we're going to talk about the legislature and priorities and that rainbow caucus that we may have heard about. So please welcome back Representative Emma Mulvaney Stannock from Chittenden 17, the old North End. Old North End and New North End. I'm actually a hybrid district. Yeah, it's almost split 50-50 when you look at the voter file. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. So, Emma, you, as I keep telling people, you grew up with activist politics involved in the progressive movement and nonprofits and initiatives and serving on the Burlington City Council being the chair of the state progressive party. And now you're a second term legislature. So let's start by talking a bit about the rainbow caucus because you were one of the legislators who were involved in the creation of the caucus, who is involved in it. And what we're seeing as being the voice that the caucus could provide that the legislature might not have been hearing. Great. Yeah. So thanks for having me on your show, of course. Keith, it's always a delight. And I think what I think the piece I'll start with with the rainbow caucus is there's always been, as we know, with queer people and the history of people, there's always been queer people. But in terms of people feeling safe enough to be out, especially in an elected body, like the Vermont legislature, it's only been in the last couple of terms that we have had an out rainbow caucus, which for now, are any member of the House or Senate who is LGBTQIA plus identified member of either body. So we had about 14 members last biennium and we went up one, 15 for this biennium. Of course, we also have state treasurer Mike Pichek on the constitutional statewide level, which is so exciting. First queer person in that statewide role. So we're very excited. We had a few retirees, including, as most folks probably know in Vermont, Representative Bill Lippert, who for a long time was the only out member of the House of Representatives. And so he has retired from the House of Representatives. And then of course, the other very famous member that has stepped down for bigger, brighter rainbow futures is Senator now Congresswoman Becca Ballant, who's now headed to Washington, D.C. And just had that great thing on social media that she said something like a proud small fierce dyke or something like that. So she's off doing other amazing things scrappy. That is such a great correction, because I knew I didn't have it quite right. Totally. Yes, I'm going to get the t-shirt anyway. So we are 14 members strong. We have this biennium. We have two members in the Senate and the other 13 are in the house this session for the rainbow caucus. And to your question about like, what's the what's the purpose of this caucus? It really has there are many issue based caucuses in the legislature, but they're not they're not any, I think, that are based on one's identity. And this became it started really as just a networking connecting kind of space. But over the last the first two years since I've been a member, it really became a space for coordinating a leadership voice for folks who are queer identified on a public more public and wider platform to speak up when issues of harm in particular, sadly have happened to our community. So things ranging from the murder of Fern, feathers about a year or so ago, to just offering statements of solidarity to schools where there's been acts of hate against young queers in the schools, and really just trying to make sure that that local local communities and especially local queer folks see we see them and we stand in solidarity with them. And we make a statement often when the media is somewhat silent or frankly gets it wrong. And so with a unfortunate with the murder of Fern feathers, our caucus really step forward to really push media to get pronouns correct to get names correct to make sure that they were really reflecting who Fern was as a person rather than the default to dead naming that that was a complicated case of course, but just really making sure that we are adding that extra level of accountability and visibility for our community. So knowing that we have lived into time and when you and I get together, we could talk for hours looking at some of the issues that the Rainbow Caucus might be talking about. Certainly the resignation last week of Representative Kate Donnelly. It has to be in the forefront. And Kate raised a number of issues that, you know, we say we're proud to be a citizen legislature, but then we make it impossible for citizens to truly serve. So are there any conversations or any thoughts about how the House in particular might respond to Kate's resignation? Well, there's two important points with Representative Kate Donnelly's resignation, which just happened last week. So she was a member of our Rainbow Caucus and represents a portion of LaMoyle County. I'm sure the first outquir person to represent that district and that's a pretty easy assumption in most places of Vermont, sadly, still today. But there were two major pieces of why she decided she could no longer do this work. And one was structurally how the legislative system is set up in Vermont, the citizen legislature that's part time that makes wild assumptions around what these jobs should be compensated at and yet haven't been updated to really reflect how complex policymaking is today. And also how challenging it is to have a legislative body that only meets five months out of the year when our executive branch, the administration, is full year working and implementing or not policies that we pass in the spring and then we don't get back into session again until January. So the checks and balances even on very important policy is often lagged. There's a lag time in what we're able to do. So, but as an individual when you serve in this body, it's extremely difficult because it pays $13,000 a year, $13,000 for a job that is year round, to be honest, because it's not like constituents stop contacting you after May when we adjourn or that you only start working on a bill or an issue in January when the session begins. I have found the bulk of policy development work, researching, working with interns, figuring out what other states are doing, monitoring the press, monitoring Vermont, listening to constituents, all these different ways we get policy ideas and bill ideas, all that actually primarily happens May to December and yet nothing is compensated during that period of time. So I actually was working on a bill last biennium. I've improved upon that bill this session and I actually want to call it, if I could, the Kate Donnelly bill in her spirit, in her honor really, because it addresses a few of these key areas and it's actually a bill I really worked hard to look at with an equity lens. So it's not just compensation. So for folks who are self employed, Kate is self employed, for example, I'm self employed, for example, unless we had partners with access to health insurance, there's no health insurance access for legislators. So back up, I'm going to increase the salary. I think that was probably a given definitely increase the salary going to make sure the state offers health insurance to all legislators who need it. This is an accessibility issue for working people for single people from folks who have crappy insurance wherever they might work to be able to access the state plan. A third area is to look at our reimbursement system. So currently the reimbursements we receive are related to housing mileage and food. And if you have the economic privilege to live in Montpelier during the week, you actually make more money at the end of that cycle with reimbursements $135, $40 a night, other than versus people who have small children like Kate and I do, who have to commute back and forth to our homes to care for small children. I actually lose money. I don't know about Kate's story, but I lose out money because I have to pay for a babysitter on top of my very low salary and my mileage doesn't cut it to cover my car and gas. I have to pay for babysitter. I can get back to Burlington every day and I can't access the housing reimbursement because I don't spend the night down in Montpelier versus other people who are spending every night in Montpelier. So it's completely backwards system and it's outdated. It's just completely outdated and needs to be thrown out in my opinion. The other couple quick things in that bill include making sure that folks with physical limitations are able to get parking reimbursements. Now they can't. They have to pay for parking. It's like such an insult. If they spend the night at the Capitol Plaza or elsewhere and they get charged for parking, they have to pay for their own parking. That's not a reimbursement through the state legislative system. So there's a number of items in this bill. It's going to probably be introduced later this week and I really hope it pushes us forward. I will say there's another bill in the Senate, but I find it actually quite short-sighted because it calls for us to do yet another study on this and we have studied this I think at least two or three times over the last 30 years in Vermont. We have more than enough information and if anything it will delay their becoming more equitable approach for legislators if we kick it down the road through another study and wait another whole biennium to try to address this issue. The other important thing I just want to mention Keith though because Kate resigned for two big reasons. One is the structural system, but the other is being a queer legislator in the state of Vermont and these political times in this country is really difficult and she and many of other folks in the Rainbow Caucus have been targeted on social media and in our communities for taking a public stance on things like gender affirming care for minors or gender affirming care period and other issues that transphobic people are challenging and just it's a vulnerable space to be put out there for. So I wish that was not the reality because everyone should be seen and validated for who they are and should be valued in the system of representative democracy and yet it's not safe. We have limitations because of people's free speech but people can still be mean and send a tax and unless they literally make a physical threat to us we have to sort of take it on the chin as public elected officials and that's not right either and yet I just want to name that because that's another very challenging environment to be an elected leader especially with a minoritized identity like being queer. There are so many things that I would love to follow up on but I know we're not going to have time. Very quickly I didn't hear you mention child care as being a portion of what you were looking at and then also could you talk a bit about the bill that is currently before House judiciary that would provide some protections around people coming to Vermont for reproductive liberty and gender affirmation care. Absolutely read my mind on that second part and I'm appalled I'm clutching my non-existent pearls I can't believe I didn't talk about the child care reimbursement that is a huge part of my bill and actually it's more inclusive than that it's dependent care because there are legislators in the future in the past who also have folks who are dependent on them for their care and again same logic if we're off legislating we need to be able to to not be losing money by being able to support the people who depend on this when we're off in Montpelier legislating be it children or you know aging parents etc so that is a huge part that actually what was one of the pieces I struggle with the most in the bill to try to figure out what is a fair number to put in what's a real number I should say a realistic number on what people are paying right now for dependent care for after school care for you know toddler infant care in the state so yes that's definitely peace so yeah let's talk about let's talk about the shield law so or shield bill hopefully it'll be a law soon so that bill is moving through house judiciary I actually don't have the bill number right in front of me do you know the bill number H89 this is why I have you here keep yeah H89 a lot of bills have been being introduced in the last week or two but this bill pretty much as soon as it was introduced went right into committee in house judiciary and most folks will probably know because of the dobs decision by the supreme court there's a large call among many states that want to continue to protect abortion and reproductive health care to create some level of shield laws for reproductive health care specifically abortion but here in Vermont we took that a step further and in H89 it's a two-part policy where number one it protects providers and patients who are seeking abortion and care but it also protects patients and providers who are seeking or providing gender affirming care health care so that is not something we've seen in many other states who are just trying to tackle abortion and we're proud about that here in Vermont it's it's been interesting we haven't seen a lot of opposition to it yet but at the same time I think it's it's really as we say like a very ripe piece of policy to make sure that we're showing up if we're going to open up the legal protections for providers and patients we need to always look for folks who are you know push the margins of our society and seek out what their support is needed for health care and of course that's queer folks especially gender people seeking gender affirming care here in Vermont so there's they're working through all the details about the limitations there's media out on it now about limitations of how much can we protect folks and a lot of it includes like physically where people are so if you get the either type of those care here in Vermont you are protected here in Vermont and Vermont will not participate in any legal action that your home state like Texas or something tries to invoke on you if you had your care here in Vermont it also protects the provider here in Vermont who provided that care for you it gets a little harder when folks get back to their home states to have additional protections carry on from there but at least Vermont itself as a state will not will not participate in any legal action and I know our attorney general our new attorney general charity clark is 100 behind this as well so it's great to make sure that all aspects of our government in this state at least is really working hand in hand to further protect people's fundamental rights and there were 100 sponsors who signed on to the bill which was amazing and in committee they're talking about looking at data protection in a broader sense because there were some questions that came up but in our remaining time I know that one of the priorities for you and for the members of the legislature is about paid family leave so and I know that there is a proposal that's that the Scott administration has put forward which would be a voluntary process but you all are talking about something more comprehensive and more robust but could you share a little bit about what you're looking at absolutely well paid family leave is one of the reasons I ran for office two years ago and continue to run again so the legislature got close to passing paid family leave about three ish years ago before the pandemic but even then I think it what didn't go far enough it didn't it did not create a system where families all types of families can really buy into a system and benefit from a paid leave system so the governor right before the legislature began back to that my point earlier things happen when we're not in session and it's really hard to respond in an adequate way when we're not actually convened so he proposed a voluntary paid family leave system which I believe New Hampshire and maybe a couple other states have explored and it phases in in a voluntary manner paid family leave for state workers in year one for employers in year two who want to participate not required and then in year three self-employed people who want not required to participate now the problem with a voluntary system is that it is it doesn't it does not generate enough resources to really adequately support everyone who could really access and benefit from paid family leave and what about if you are working at McDonald's or working at Walmart I will pick on these low-wage you know retailers right who who frankly make a lot of profit off the back of some workers and we all know that so I will forever criticize them so you know what if they don't participate many of those folks did not participate in the voluntary COVID relief money that we were moving trying to get to frontline workers during the height of the pandemic so what do we what and what way do we think that they're going to voluntarily sign up to contribute into a paid family leave system it's a it's a very half-baked policy that frankly shows that that the governor does not have interest in making a universal and progressive system so we need everyone in because frankly everyone at some point in their life benefits from having access to paid family leave be it if you have a child or you have a sick relative or you're sick yourself or you have an aging parent this is these are many moments when people can access that program so the the the bill that's moving you through that also got over 100 cosponsors at least in the house is a full-fledged system it would involve a payroll tax it would involve as I understand it a payroll tax as introduced and it would also make sure was accessible to everyone including those who are self-employed including folks who are we require every employer so didn't matter if you worked for wal-mart or you work for the most progressive employer in the state you would have access to it and the most important thing Keith is we would get off this completely inequitable and harsh system that often mostly impacts female-identified folks right where you have to suck it up and figure out some magical math to figure out how to you know care for your aging parent while still working full-time or go back to work too early after having a child and it's it's it's one of these many layers that that continues to suppress the earning power and frankly just the well-being of female-identified folks in our economy and this is an incredibly important piece and I look I hope with 100 cosponsors this will start to really move and we'll have a more meaningful policy soon and if I understand what the budget people put forward even though it's a payroll tax people shouldn't you know shutter that the amount that you're actually contributing is actually a fairly small amount and it is not going to adversely impact those people who are earning lower wages you know you're not going to be paying a large portion of your salary so that you have this future care so with that I need to say thank you for spending this time with us that was it I I know well this is what I said when you and I get together but I'm putting out there now that in a month or so I'm going to be inviting you back because we didn't talk about affordable housing you know we didn't talk about what's the work that you're doing in your committee you know are there other issues that the Progressive Caucus where you know you are the you're the head of the Progressive Caucus in the House are there other initiatives that you were supporting and you believe that the legislature should be looking at and and then I'll give you a chance also to take a bigger pot shot at the administration and well I'm here for it and so I would love to come back and talk more about the Progressive Caucus priorities or other bills and maybe I should bring one of the new four new members of the Rainbow Caucus with me next time but I would love to come back we can absolutely do that and with that thank you so much thank you thank you for joining us and until next time remember resist