Welcome To The Resistance: Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Prepares To Fight Back Against Trump

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez is not going to take Donald Trump’s presidential victory sitting down. The California state representative has spent her career protecting the rights of the many immigrants who live in her district (the 80th) south of San Diego. She’s not about to let an anti-immigration administration trample on those rights.

“California is a laboratory of the left, and we’ve shown you can move forward with a progressive agenda and it will work,” she told CALinnovates Chief Evangelist Kish Rajan during an interview on the podcast “A Step Ahead.”

Although she views Trump’s plan to build a wall as mostly symbolic, she’s still worried about what his actions will mean for people such as the Dream Act kids, who willingly handed over their parents’ addresses (even though they are here illegally) to secure their own visas. Now the government has that information and may use it to deport people.

“They’re scared the government is going to break up their families,” she said.

Gonzalez also plans to fight for people in the service industry. While she acknowledges that the technical marvels that employ so many people in Silicon Valley are costing jobs in other parts of the state and country, she believes there’s still hope. Automation doesn’t mean an end to human workers — it means people will still need to operate and service machines and provide some human contact in settings such as stores and salons.

“You could have a robot cut your hair, but there is a social aspect to the service economy,” said Gonzalez. “We don’t talk about that a lot.”

To prepare the workforce of the future, Gonzalez believes we also need to rethink education. The idea of everyone going to a four-year college is a lofty one but may not be realistic or necessary, she says. She would like to see more apprentice programs, not just in tech but in industries like child care and health care.

“Going to college and studying sociology might not be the best path for everyone.”

Listen to the full interview below:

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A Step Ahead: Lorena Gonzalez

Hey all! Kish Rajan, Chief Evangelist at CALinnovates, and welcome to this edition of A Step Ahead.

Lorena Gonzalez has become one of the rising stars of the California State Legislature, and as you’ll hear in our conversation, she is a proud progressive leader, part of what now is being viewed as the “California Resistance” to the new incoming Trump administration.

She’s passionate on a whole host of issues, and I hope you’ll enjoy the discussion that we have.

Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, thanks for joining us on A Step Ahead. I appreciate it.

Lorena Gonzalez: Thank you for having me.

Yeah, it’s great to be here in beautiful downtown San Diego. Any chance to come down here is always nice.

Yeah, people don’t usually complain about having to come down to visit.

No. No, no, this is not tough duty.

Nope.

So listen…as we record this, we are still in the immediate aftermath of the election of President-Elect Trump. We are seeing him make some very key appointments, or at least indicating who he wants to appoint to important positions.

I’d love to unpack that a little bit, and talk about the reaction that you all have, just in the California State Legislature…is it fair to say that, in California, welcome to the resistance? Is that the way you all are seeing it up there?

I think it’s clear there are two things. One, we’re going to ensure that we protect Californians…every Californian, from any kind of atrocious act by our federal government. You have some, I think, really progressive people who probably never thought that they’d be waving the banner of federalism and state rights…but suddenly it’s become very important.

But you also have California. And it’s, kind of, the laboratory of the left, if you will, and we’ve shown in recent years that you can move things forward, progressive agendas…and it can work.

Right.

We’re doing well in this state. There’s always going to be problems, but we’re doing very well. And I think that you’re going to see us continue to show that it.

It’s going to be more important than ever, because eventually, we’ll get out of this nationally. We’re not going to be stuck in a…kind of a, Trump America…I don’t think, for more than four years.

Yeah.

Definitely not for more than eight.

And we have to provide an example of where America can go. And I think that that’s what we’re trying to do.

I think it’s a good point, although we’ll see about the “eight” limitation, you never know what the ambition may be. I think Steve Bannon said they were going to rule for fifty years after this.

Don’t scare me!

It’s Friday, I wanted to…

Yeah, yeah.

All right. Let’s talk about some of the specifics.

So, immigration…we saw how strident he was during the campaign. He’s appointed an Attorney General who has a track record, personally and through his staff, of being very tough on immigration…the president-elect hasn’t backed off the idea of a deportation force, that he talked about in the campaign. He certainly hasn’t backed off the idea of building the wall. You all took some action this week, talking about those issues, as I saw.

We’re obviously going to push back. We’re going to protect Californians. Quite frankly, the obsession on the wall is…I represent the border. And our border is completely fenced or walled off already.

I think those of us that live along the border, who represent this area, laugh…we know that most of the drugs that come in come in via tunnel. He’s not even talking about a tunnel. We know that a huge portion of those who come to this country, and don’t have documentation, overstay visas…they’re not walking across.

So I guess a symbolic thing…for other parts of the country, they would have to actually create some sort of barrier.

Yeah.

I think it’s much more important and we need to focus on what’s really going to happen.

I always say, “Fine. If you’re going to build a wall, I hope it’s done with union labor…I hope that we can build it under a PLA when we build it up, and under a PLA when we take it down, eventually, because that’s what’s going to happen.”

Right.

So, I think…it’s symbolic though, right? Of kind of, putting a barrier between what we know are families. It’s not just two countries. It’s portions of families that live on the other side of the border. And we need to be cognizant of that.

I represent a community, City Heights, in my district…well, all of my districts…has a large immigrant population. But in City Heights, the small community where I actually live, a third of the folks who live there are foreign-born. We have a huge…one of the biggest Muslim refugee communities in the nation. My district itself is one of the largest, both legal and undocumented immigrants.

And so, a lot of his rhetoric has become very, very scary.

It must be terrifying that people, I trust, are coming to you, and asking you for help, or protection, or support against the kinds of things that he’s suggesting.

The two folks who I feel, I think, the most for, are: One, school age children, who maybe were born here, many of them born here, who know that their parents are subject to deportation.

And the fear that we saw, even coming into this election, I think probably, and I blame all of us, for giving false promises that it was never going to happen.

And I think going back and trying to protect those kids who have never spent a day in Mexico, or another country, who have been born here, who are citizens, but know that, maybe, one or both of their parents are not here legally…that thought of breaking up families is very scary.

It’s amazing. And then, the DREAMers, right? The idea…

The dreamers are the other, I was going to say.

We’ve had interns who are DREAMers…I worked on a DACA bill, and a few of them have said it’s amazing, when you think about the fact that they gave this information to the federal government…not just about themselves, but about their parents. The only way to become a DREAMer officially, or be qualified, was to show consistency in the United States. They gave up the address of their non-documented parents.

I think there’s some fear, yeah. And that’s already in the hands of the federal government. There’s not a lot we can do about that in California.

And, we know, we passed a law in the last few years to allow, of course, every Californian the right to drive, and we’ve collected that information. Where that information goes is very important. We have students, and colleges, and universities, as well as K-12, that need to be protected.

So, yeah, there’s a lot to do. We have to.

It appears there’s a real clash.

How do you feel about the proposed appointment of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra? Because that’s going to be a critical role on immigration and on other things.

Well, I’m really looking to him to show his brilliance. A Stanford grad, a Stanford law grad. There’s bias there.

I knew that had to come out at some point. Go there, but that’s a different podcast.

I was very happy to see Xavier appointed in that position. I think, as Attorney General, it may be the perfect appointment.

I mean, Jerry Brown always surprises us and gets things just right, and I think that this is one of those. Somebody who has shown himself to be a leader nationally on immigration issues…Has shown himself to be able to stand up and articulate why we’re doing things…And I think he’ll lead the way in fighting this administration.

Yeah. Well, I think he’s going to have his hands full. But I think it’ll be interesting.

Switching gears a little bit to climate…of course, California’s prided itself and done so much to be a global leader in the fight against climate change. President Obama’s administration has done a great deal as well.

Now you have a new appointee, or proposed appointee, whose mission as the Attorney General of the state of Oklahoma has been to fight, and to sue the EPA…the organization that now he’s being appointed to lead.

Your thoughts?

Well, you know, the Department of Defense has stated in the past that climate change is the biggest threat facing the United States. It is the biggest threat internationally.

So I think, if…for somebody like the president-elect, who has said he wants to fight terrorism… he should probably look at starting with protecting our environment. Because we know that what comes next, because of the heating of the world, is scary.

It’s almost beyond me to imagine we’re going to go backwards, and I just have to keep having faith in states like California, obviously, Oregon, Washington…some of the states who have really led the way, and will continue to, on ensuring that we’re moving forward.

And not to understate…California still could be its own nation, so…

Right. Well, there’s no doubt.

And you think about everything that’s happened in California, as you say, from a resilient, and a threat perspective to our people, but also to our economy. Here on the coast, the Port of San Diego, the Port of Long Beach, the Port of Los Angeles…obviously, subjected to sea level rise as a result of climate change.

The economic implications of backing out that policy is very big for our state.

I think it’s very big. And that’s our state, where we have the political will, I think, to continue.

But if you look at states like Florida, and you have places in Miami where the water’s just seeping up on the sidewalk. Hey, you know, they’re not going to be able to ignore it either.

And so, I think we’re going to have increased effects. We don’t get the extreme weather that other parts of the country get, and that’s going to continue. And if we make it worse I think at some point, people have to realize.

And I loved seeing even the Pope talking about this as one of the biggest issues facing our world.

Yeah. It’s an economic issue and it’s a social justice issue. There’s just no question about it.

I’ll keep moving through the issues. Labor, which is something that…you, obviously, come out of the labor movement, feel very connected to and remain a leader in the California labor movement.

We have a new designee for the U.S. Department of Labor and I wanted to pull up a quote. So this gentleman is currently the head of the holding company that owns Carl’s Junior and Hardee’s and other fast food restaurants.

He had a quote a couple of months ago talking about automation in those retail establishments, and how important it is to replace workers saying, quote, “Machines are always polite. They always up-sell. They never take a vacation. They never show up late. There’s never a slip and fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.”

He was just celebrating how wonderful machines are from a labor standpoint. Apparently, that’s the philosophy he’ll bring now to the Federal Department of Labor.

Well, it’s going to be a challenge. It’s not exactly what president-elect talked about in his stump speeches, and I think that people are in for a rude awakening.

This is a man who really, as we’ve grown, kind of, the rights of fast food workers, has just pushed back. He has suggested that everything from, the minimum wage shouldn’t exist, no sick day legislation. He’s been opposed to overtime rules.

He’s just not exactly somebody who has ever fought for a worker, or even from the rights perspective, has even looked at the possibility of workers mattering. And so obviously this quote doesn’t surprise me.

We know that the workforce, and that computers, and machines, are going to enter the service industry. That’s been coming. That’s nothing new.

Right. Sure.

You saw Amazon’s PR push this week about this new retail store concept that they’re rolling out. That, it’s a grocery store that’ll have no clerks, no checkout. It’s all automated.

The minute that you wall in with your Amazon account, it detects who you are, your payment mechanism is connected, and you can literally just grab and go all of the items and it will automatically detect…it’s kind of like the old mini-bar concept, right? Where you touch that sucker and it just…

It’s done.

Yeah. They’re building out stores right now. They’re launching one in Seattle in a couple of months, so it’s coming.

Yeah, there’s definitely an automation that’s coming, but, what we’ve seen, And I think that this is true, is it won’t go fully automated. There’s just no way. We have…The fact that the clientele won’t adapt to that.

You try to tell my father that he’s not going to have a person to talk to at a store, and you’re going to have mass chaos. And I know he’s not the only one.

And you have ways around that. In California, obviously, if you want to go checker-less, I suppose, you can’t sell alcohol.

We have laws we’ve already passed to kind of look at some of these issues, because there are protections that are necessary, that human judgment is the only thing that can come into play.

So we’ve known this is coming. Obviously, we’ve got to adapt to some of it.

Right.

The question is, how much? And what all will change, and how quickly, and what we do as a society to help ease the way?

But in the big picture, shouldn’t we be embracing and encouraging this level of innovation and technology? And not holding on to traditional or legacy approaches to labor? I mean, isn’t there attention there that perhaps can be an inhibitor to progress, and stop us from finding ways to employee people in different ways?

So, I think there’s a balance, right? When we saw automation, kind of, in the manufacturing industry?

There wasn’t a lot to be done about it, quite frankly. It was coming. We’ve seen it in agrarian society. It doesn’t completely replace the workforce, but we’ve seen this already happen in different forms.

I think one of the unique things about the service industry is there is a person-person contact that happens. You could have a robot cut your hair. You could. They’d probably figure out a very good way to do it.

Yeah.

But there’s something about people going to their hairdresser, their barbershop, and having that relationship. And I don’t think we can minimize that. I think that there will always be a need for people in the service industry, because it is a social aspect.

And that’s not talked about a lot, because we talk about business as, kind of…supply and demand, and customers, and the product, but that’s a very real portion.

You see, your kids, for those of us who have them, they’re not picking the phone up and calling their friends anymore. They text, they email, but they don’t even email, let’s be honest. They text and they message on whatever thing, or they’re playing a game together, somehow, remotely.

They still go over to each other’s house. They still hang out. We still have organized sports. So, as things change, we’re still human beings. And we’re going to need that, kind of, person-person contact.

On the other hand, look. We’ve got to figure out…where are those new jobs going to be, though? And how do we get people into those new jobs, and productive? Because work matters.

And it doesn’t matter if you’re the person making the hamburger at Wendy’s, or if you’re the person cleaning up after everybody who had been there goes home. That work matters too, and it matters to the individual.

And we can’t just disregard the notion of work for folks.

I think it’s a critically important point. And you’re talking about self-worth and dignity, and it’s always been the anchor of people, and families, and communities. There’s no question.

But we really are in this very complicated time of seeing the advancement of technology. In California, you and I met when I was leading the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development.

I traveled all around the state, really saw what was happening, and it doesn’t take you very long to see this bifurcation of the economy, where you have these technology hubs, and innovation, and entrepreneurship that is driving incredible economic wealth.

California, once again, the sixth-largest economy in the world…at the exact same time that we have one in four Californians living in poverty, almost one in three children in southern California living in poverty, and the divergence of those lines widening all the time. It’s a very, very troubling set of circumstances. And no one has a magic wand.

But I guess the question I would ask, though, is, how are you thinking about it from a labor perspective, right? You had a bill that you introduced this week. Tell us what that is and how you think those types of mechanisms are helping to stem the tide that we’re talking about here.

Well, I think a lot of the bills that I try to introduce with labor, and including AB-5, the Opportunity to Work Bill ordinance, is attempt to say, “We understand the world is changing. But that doesn’t mean there’s not a human capacity, or there’s not a human component to it.”

So, the Opportunity to Work…it’s modeled after what the Silicon Valley just passed, San Jose’s Measure E, and it says, basically, if you’re a larger employer, you hire part-time workers…before you continue to hire part-time workers, you offer your part-time workers more hours.

And we heard, from time and time again, part-time workers at a McDonald’s getting eight hours of work a week, and then they’re bringing in new people. Not because they’ve ever asked these folks, “Do you want more hours?”

A lot of this has to do, actually, with automation. And not the kind of automation we’re thinking about. Not the fact that you can order with the computer. They’re still hiring people. The automation that’s happened is that so much scheduling is being done by a computer, and so there’s not that human component.

What we said is, “Hey, you’ve got to still realize you’re relying on human beings. Quite frankly, you’re relying on a human workforce. We live in a society, in a community, where, if you don’t provide for your workers, then our taxpayers still have to.”

So we’re going to make a decision…say, how many millions and millions of dollars do we provide for fast food? It’s funny that we’re talking about fast food workers, because they don’t get enough hours. They’re not paid an adequate minimum wage.

Well, these big employers that are making corporate profits that are still off the charts, let’s make sure that they’re responsible to their workforce as well.

Sure. Yeah. Of course, the argument is, that if California becomes too much of an outlier in these types of rules around wages and hours … That it puts us at this competitive disadvantage, and it’s a disincentive for businesses to start here, or to grow here.

Is that a concern that you think about? And how do we address that part of the equation?

Well, you know, it’s always interesting that we talk in those terms. Because, when we talk about business, there’s a lot of different types of business. Right?

Do big IT companies in Silicon Valley, who are hiring programmers and very well and high-skilled workers? No. The market takes care of that, if you will.

What we’re talking about is really a service industry that can’t be outsourced. If McDonald’s wants to say, “Well, we just won’t allow McDonald’s in California,” all of us would laugh. Because we know that’s just not true.

And it’s not so different, actually, when we said that why we met during the fight about redevelopment at enterprise zones. Right?

That’s right.

Where we were giving millions in tax breaks to people like McDonald’s, who were making a decision, and I don’t mean to pick on McDonald’s, I should use Jack in the Box, or whoever, but making a decision to come to a poor community because people are buying their product, and yet we’re saying, “Oh, we’re attracting business.”

They aren’t coming because of the tax break. That was just money we are giving them.

Right.

It’s the same kind of idea.

If it’s something that can’t leave, and that’s what we’re talking about with a lot of these rules. The mass numbers of people that are affected are in an industry that is coming in ways…the demand is here. They’re going to continue to be here, and quite frankly, are doing just fine.

So I think we should be a model for other places.

Yeah.

And that’s why you see so many of these, kind of, innovative worker ideas coming out of high-density areas. New York, or Chicago, or places…Seattle even, where folks are saying, “Yeah, we know, you’re Starbucks. You’re not going to get up and leave. You’re not. You’re going to build another one. They keep coming, regardless.”

Right?

That’s certainly true with Starbucks. They are gonna…

They keep coming.

Yeah.

Let me turn to a couple of other quick things with the time that we have left.

We’re talking a lot about retail, which is tremendous, and it’s an important place to work, but how do we sort of think about broadening opportunity, and give them pathways up to grow in their careers?

And that certainly turns to education and workforce. I know, another huge topic we could spent a lot of time on.

But, kind of quickly, what are your thoughts? How do we renew an approach to education and to workforce so that we’re giving folks a…more contemporary skills and training that can allow them to capitalize and participate more broadly in this new innovation economy that…clearly, it’s not new, but it’s continuing in a very pronounced way?

Whenever I go down this path I get in trouble, and so I’ll probably get in trouble here, and granted, in all reality, I have three degrees. I’ve benefited from this idea that poor Latino kids should go to college, and then keep going…go to graduate school and go to law school.

I’ve benefited academically. I wouldn’t say, necessarily, I picked the right path to benefit financially.

Yeah?

But something my daughter told me when she was in 8th grade, having been raised around organized labor is, she told her 8th grade English teacher, when he was pushing college for all…she pointed out that, if I’d gone to a union apprenticeship, I’d be making more than I did taking on all that debt in law school.

And she was right. And the fact that we really need to get back to this idea…even if we’re going to go to automation, somebody has to fix those machines. Somebody has to program those machines. Somebody has to build them in the first place. Somebody has to clean them. Right?

And a lot of this work is semi-skilled, or highly skilled. And yet, not necessarily what they’re teaching in college. Right?

You don’t have to be a philosopher, necessarily, to do some of this work. So I really think we have to refocus the way we’re teaching people. I really believe in the apprenticeship program, the joint labor-management, kind of, apprenticeship program, building trades, has created and grown. Especially with people like IBW, like higher skilled. It’s just phenomenal.

And you see other countries really leading the way on apprenticeships, going beyond just construction trades, and I think that’s what we need to look at. And for some of that, it might be more appropriate to go to…after high school, and then directly into a program. Or directly into a program, or start that program in high school.

But we kind of have this academic idea, and it’s beautiful, and lovely, and I think sometimes I say it myself, “Well, of course you have to go to college. You have to go to college.”

Well, going to college and taking sociology may not be the track for everybody. It may not be what’s going to be best for…

Well, I’m with you on this, 100%. I think that we aren’t trying to devalue or diminish the notion of going to a four-year university or graduate school. Those are incredibly important pursuits.

But to have that be the only focus, at the detriment of creating a more robust set of pathways for people to go down and get a more practical…it’s an interesting thing.

I don’t know exactly where your family came from. My father came from India, so I’m sort of that immigrant stock, too, and it’s almost like…we can’t let go of the idea of a four-year university. If we position any other notion, we’re lowering expectations. We’re diminishing these kids’ potential, and it’s really proving that it’s almost opposite…is the way things are playing out at the moment.

I don’t think it’s smart, and I don’t think we’re doing a lot to take care of our society as a whole, to train the next generation of a workforce that we need, and instead, then we’re…of course, we’re going to use work bases to bring people in from other countries, which people get angry about.

But, if we’re not teaching folks to do that here…and how do you do that? And how do you disrupt the status quo in a way that doesn’t? Unfortunately, what I see in politics, and I think one of the frustrating things for me is when people start talking about reforms, and disrupting, even, the status quo in any way, it becomes this question of unionized teachers, you know? And it has nothing to do with that.

Or it becomes this idea of, are we minimizing this community? Well, you know what? I represent a very poor and working class community. You want to bring some apprenticeship? You want to bring the companies that make what’s going to be the service in the future? Okay!

Like, bring it. Let me put some kids in there. Let’s give them a pathway, something interesting. And the other thing we have to be careful about, even going down this route, and I always worry about this, coming out of labor, is, it can’t be just male-focused apprenticeships, quite frankly.

We have a lot of needs that are…and not that we’re categorizing men or women, but I had…I tried hard to get girls into the trades, and a very few number actually want to go.

Yeah.

But there are some fields that are traditionally female, that girls self-select into, that we need more workers in. Childcare, healthcare…

Yeah.

And the apprenticeship kind of model should be extended to that. There is just not enough childcare in California. It is the biggest barrier to employment for all women.

Well, why aren’t we training more childcare providers? Why aren’t we taking folks and actually making them apprentices in childcare, and then having them help take care of other people’s kids so those folks can go on to school or go on to a different job?

That’s a job, and it’s a worthwhile job. So I think our focus is kind of off sometimes.

A great thought.

All right, final question. And that is, one thing that perhaps we could work on, with the Trump administration we’ll see, is this idea of an infrastructure program that he’s talked about. We’ll see how it actually materializes.

But certainly, in California, there’s no question that we need a substantial overhaul of our infrastructure, and in many ways…although, the thing I wanted to ask you about is in infrastructure, we tend to immediately think about roads and bridges…very important, although transportation is totally changing…whole other podcast we could do on transportation.

Yeah, please no more roads.

Yeah, well, you’re…

I mean, we’ve got to fix them, but we’ve got to build some other things.

Well, I think that’s right. I think transit’s critically important. We have to recognize that. And I think that’s good.

But I think about IT infrastructure, right? So broadband, and bridging the digital divide, right? And that’s the last thing I want to ask you about, is…you know, given your district, and given the things that we’re talking about, education, workforce, pathways to opportunity, different career possibilities, all of that depends, it seems to me, on creating real, universal access to the networks that are the prerequisite for participation in all of these things.

I’m curious to see your thoughts on that.

It’s funny you ask. This is something I’ve been talking to a bunch of groups about over this past interim. And it’s not just internet for all, if you will, or broadband for all. It’s quality, access to quality, infrastructure, quite frankly.

I was complaining the other day that I pay the same amount in my very working class neighborhood that, probably, people pay in a different one, and yet, we have the internet go out 12 times in a month.

And if the internet goes out when your child is working on a paper for school, and it goes out for three or four hours, that’s, it’s not true access at that point.

Sure.

And a lot of it is, we have aging infrastructure that was originally put in…we have a need to upgrade, and a constant need to upgrade.

And you talked about jobs. There’s jobs that we could provide for and invest in, and ones that I think that we could do. And that’s just it.

But we, of course, need to train workers for that type of investment. We need to encourage the telecoms and the wireless provideres to actually come in and invest in these neighborhoods, and I think they’re trying to.

At the same time, we’ve got to make sure that our local governments aren’t putting up local land use barriers to having…I mean, talk about, God forbid, a tower, even if it’s a small one.

Wow, you’re not kidding.

Yeah, we did. We did the smart cities panel here as part of what we’re doing in San Diego, and 5G, which is the next generation of wireless.

Yes.

It is going to require a whole new series of smaller cells, smaller repeaters. It’s just the nature of the way that network functions.

And you’re dead right. If you’ve got every municipality that is putting up roadblocks to getting that infrastructure deployed, it just doesn’t work. You don’t get the network you need if you can’t put the physical pieces in place.

And it’s thousands upon thousands that need to go up, and a lot of times, go on our public infrastructure already, on our light posts, and I think there’s room for it. We do.

I think that’s where it’ll take some tough decisions by state legislators to say, “I understand that every local government wants to be able to do x, y, or z, but let’s not go crazy. Let’s not avoid this moving forward.”

And we’re seeing that, like, we can’t be in an internet or wireless, kind of, crisis that we’re in with housing. And that’s what we saw in housing.

Oh boy. Yeah.

And we really should look at what each municipality has done to prevent the kind of high-density, affordable housing that everybody agrees we need…just not here.

This is a whole other podcast too!

We’re going to have to come back, and talk with you more. I can’t keep you all morning. But I really appreciate all of your comments and the thoughtful answers that you’ve given to these questions.

There’s so much that’s on the table in California. It’s got to be a dynamic time. And I trust you’re looking forward to the upcoming session, and where we go from here.

I am.

Just a reminder, though, on that piece. When you’re electing state folks, it’s not always important that they came from local government. Because sometimes, not coming out of local government means you’re more likely to step on their toes and do what’s right for the entire state.

So, I just want to put that out there.

Interesting.

Well, with that, I will say assemblymember Gonzalez, thanks so much for your wonderful insights and for sharing your perspective and time with us on A Step Ahead. Very grateful.

Thank you.