This is the FCB Podcast Network. A pras Masoda day that we won't was sad and we won't say all we got it? Does no want get take that away? Don't say it's gonna be okay? Day that we won't say and then we won't say all we got it? Does no one get take that away? Don't don't bade it's gonna be okay. Hey, everybody, I hope you enjoy this interview with Lance Christensen. Listen all the way through because he has some really pointed things to say and some messages for parents out there who are wondering why we just can't seem to change anything. But before we get started, I just want to remind you if you're not subscribe to this podcast, please subscribe to this podcast. That's how you can support my work most importantly, and leave me a review if you feel so incline five stars please. And also I would like to remind you to check out some of the other great shows we have here on the FCB Network. Sometimes you hear them advertised during the break, so we've got a full menu of shows for every kind of person. Really, and lastly, I want to remind you to go sign up for my substack just Kiara Davis dot substack dot com. If you sign up, you can sign up for free, but I would really appreciate it if you did buy a subscription, because your support helps my voice stay independent and heard. So thank you very much, and enjoy this interview with Lance Christensen. All Right, Hi, everybody, welcome back to another episode of Just Listen to Yourself. It's a Just Listen to Yourself plus episode. And I have got my good friend, my good friend, my good friend, Lance Christensen here with me. Lance is the former candidate for Superintendent of Public Instruction here in California. You've heard him on this show several times before, but I actually did a big interview with him when he was running and we talked about the state of education. We were both running at that time. We both lost. So Lance is coming on today. I wanted to talk to him. Well, I'll get in a little more about how this whole conversation got started in the first place. But Lance, why don't you introduce yourself and tell people what you do up there at California Policy Center. Now all trenches together for the last little while, and it's been fun. I work at the California Policy Center as the vice president of Education Policy and Government Affairs, and my job there is to make sure that we are doing the best to have an accountable, transparent government out there, and if we can do that in a way that involves and engages people that ordinarily wouldn't be paying attention to what's happening at the capitol or their cities or their school districts, that we want to help get them involved. So there's a series of projects that we do, like Parent Union and CLEO or California local elected officials, and we also help people leave their public employee unions. So pick pick the projects, and we're very involved and try to hold government accountable. Well, the reason that we're let me adjust my mic here, sorry, folks. The reason that we're talking today is because we're we talk quite often. I mean, we're friends, and also we're education activists in the state. And we had a conversation the other day. I called you to let you know what was going on with our school board meeting. Of course, as always, it turned into our long conversation and everything that's wrong with how we run school board elections and what we need to do next year. Even though we both were like we're done forever when we were now we're like, okay, what needs to happen next year? So people like you and I are kind of hopeless. But as we were talking, I thought, well, and you said we need to do a podcast on this, and I was like, yeah, let's do this, because what I wanted to talk about this week on my own podcast was the parental notification policies anyway, because we've got that, we're doing that in Capital unifiber As. That's what I called to talk to you about. But one of the things Lance, that let's start with this that stood out to me in the conversation is you are a I would say you are a very gentle spirit. You are a very gentle man, a gentleman and a gentle man, and you're a believer. You are a family man. And if you see Lance, he doesn't look like the kind of guy that's going to be harsh or pop off or do anything like that. But what I was talking and he's always amenable. He never says a bad word about almost anybody. But when I was talking to him, one of the things you said was parents are calling me and they're just distraught and they're saying, we need to change things. Lance, we really need you to run again because we really need you in Sacramento. And your response was, okay, I will do that, But you know what, I'm not your savior. I'm not your kids savior. I can run to represent your interests and to be a spokesperson for you and a guardian in Sacramento, but I am not a savior. And I just think that was so direct, and it was something that I'd never heard you say before. But I think that that is the problem Lance, that there are too many parents looking at people like you or me or anybody who's running and going, oh, I'll just leave it to them. They'll save everything and I don't have to put in the work. I think I probably was a tad worked. Right. It's time to put up or shut up. Right. When you have parents who get really frustrated about what's going on in their lives with their children, they get really protective about the different, you know, challenges these kids have at school or with their friends or teachers or any number of places. If they're not willing to stand up and stand for something, then they'll fall for anything, and they will fall behind any of the opportunities that are there to help them be and protect their kids and really take care of what needs to happen in the future. And it also means too that we can't just have parents that just our keyboard warriors all the time, you know, media or Facebook or Twitter or whatever, name your preferable platform. But they can't just sit there and type angry screeds. They actually have to show up and start to to spate in the process. And that's I think what we were trying to get to during our conversation. Yeah, so on Wednesday night we had as a contentious school board meeting here and Kappel unified. We were trying to get a parental notification bill put on the put on the agenda for next month. It is on the agenda now, but we were met there by Antifa and some other ill elements and it turned into chaos when we really had no intention to make it so they made it so. And we had said earlier, you know, we had been begging the parents come out. We know the unions are going to come out strong, come out, and it was, you know, kind of the same ten people that are always there and yet Lance even though I'm currently not running for school board. I lost last year. I still get messages from parents every single day asking me what can I do? I'm so scared this is going on. What can I do? I'm like, well, where are you? At some point you have to show up? What do you mean? What you I feel like a lot of people what they want to hear from me and people like you is here are the steps ABC. You do these three things and then you will win. And they just don't have anything like that for im. Like, I'm just as confused as everybody else. I'm just as scared as everybody else. I have a kid in the school district right now. I'm as anxious as everyone else. The only difference between me and you is I'm showing up. You have to show up. Yeah. We were chatting about the challenges that both you and I have with our children and their various vulnerable situations. And I don't want to go into the really deep dark details of my son, but you and I chatted about how difficult it was at a certain time him in his middle school life where we had to take some very assertive steps to protect him. And I paint for people who have children who being threatened or intimidated or harassed or bullied in their schools, and that teachers won't stand up for them. And it could be for any number of reasons. And so a parent who feels like they're there at their wits end, they need to find a way to actually step up and make sure that they can be an affirmative, positive power and influence for their kids. And sometimes that can be done at a at the school site level, sometimes ask to be elevated to the school board or some other organization, or sometimes they just have to start and go out and create their own sort of movement. And what we have found at the California Policy Center, and part of the reason that we exist, is that there's a lot of these movements that burn hot, burn bright, and then burnout. And it's unfortunate when a parent who has a lot of experience, who's kind of gone through the whole paces, who has figured out the different talking points and the challenges and overcome those challenges, to then walk away from it once they've engaged in that process. And so our goal is to keep them together to kind of coalesce this movement so that we're building upon each other and adding to our experience instead of having people walk away or people doing it on their own and feeling that they're wandering in the wilderness all by themselves. Yeah, And I think that this is a challenge that we're having because as conservative parents especially, I think a lot of us don't feel like the GOP has been very active in taking us seriously. There's this, there is the notion that education is quaint, that parents are parents are quaint, that these are silly little issues like dog catcher, the race for dog catcher or something. And I feel like over the last three years, we here in California and parents everywhere have proven that education isn't not only an important issue, it is the issue, and it's a winning issue. And yet I don't think parents feel very engaged by their political party. The Democrats do wonderful work in engaging their face. Now it's based on lies, as we're being told when we were there on Wednesday night. But for those of us parents who are in the in the mix, I have to just be honest with you, Lance, And I know you have worked inside the GOP. Are you a delegate? You are a delegate? Yeah, yeah, you're a delegate. So I'm not trying to put you in the hot seat. But I do want to get your honest response to this, because I feel frustrated. I felt that we had proven last year that education was the issue to go with to win, and I felt like when I got in that I would have the GOP behind me, and I really didn't. And I think a lot of parents feel disappointed and confused by that, and so the signal that gets sent to them is this isn't really an important race, and so someone else is taken care of it, so don't worry about it. So let me step back a little bit, because I think it's important to set the stage and then figure out how the politics get involved. What most people don't understand is that the definition of being a citizen is actually derived from the Greek and Latin words for politician. And if you are not interested in being a part of that conversation, if you don't understand that what you eat, what you buy, what kind of clothes you wear, drive any decisions that you make on an everyday basis have serious political ramifications, that you're essentially in voting with your wallets, that you're voting with your feet every single day. Education is no different. And if we just assume that somebody else is going to step in and take of our kids needs and work through all the difficult and challenging problems that will confront us with our kids education, we're foolish. And so I think that's I just want to set that ground floor because what I'm about to say here will inform that in California we have thirty eight million people, which we're on the trajectory for forty million up until a couple of years ago, and then we had this cliff, and it wasn't just COVID, it was a lot of the policies that are being adopted across the state. Public safety's an issue, homelessness and mental ownness. We have issues on the economy and high cost of living and housing. You and I could have a whole podcast on the thousand problems that are rong in California. But as we focus on education, what we also forget is that in the state constitution, which is a little more prescriptive than the United States Constitution, is that we actually have rights delegated to us as parents and taxpayers and voters on education. And it's an Article nine of the state Constitution and Basically, it says that we are establishing an education system that can produce really functional individuals, that we're not just putting out people out of a factory or machine. We're not putting them on a convery belt in kindergarten and hoping that it works out by twelfth grade and that they might go to college. We are trying to form an active and engage citizen. If we don't think really hard about that, and we just assume that the education system is going to be as good as it was when you and I were kids. I was a public school kid. I went through the whole system. My wife was too. All five my kids are right now too, except for my oldest who just graduated, so we've been through the system. This is not like something I'm talking about at some sort of ephemeral a viewpoint. So if it really is necessary for us to be engaged as citizens of the state of California and then to have a school system that is supposed to produce incredible citizens, that means that everybody has a stake, not just or parents that have kids in the system. Right now, I can't tell you how many people have said this to me and probably said it to you too, well, my kids graduated or or you know, my kids are not raising their kids, and I look at them and I think property values, truancy, economic issues, housing values, your tax base would just go through all the things that would impact them if we don't have a good education system. So in the state of California you have two parties that are functional. When you want to accomplish anything, you actually have to have a political vehicle to make things go forward. And people say, oh, well, I'm really independent. I'm a self thinker. I make a determination on the person, not on the party. That's really cute. In coin, that's not how it works. I worked legislature for a long time, and there are really two parties. It's the Party of the Cats and the bats. And I explain it this way. The Party of the Cats are usually your center right conservative libertarian types that want to live life and be left alone, and they're going to make their own decisions. And if you've ever tried to herd cats, good luck, it doesn't happen. On the other side, there's the count the Party of bats or kneecappers, so not bats that fly in the air, but bats like baseball bats because their job is to make sure that everybody stays in line, and when you when you get out of line, then they will take the bat and kneecap you. And I saw this a thousand times when I worked in legislature, where you would have a quote unquote moderate Democrat trying to vote their district or their conscience, and then all of this sudden, you've got the leadership that comes up to him and says something like this, we have a really big decision to make, and we understand that your staffer is pregnant and just about to be Is that right. It would be terrible if they lost their job and their healthcare influence or insurance in the next few weeks when this really important vote is about to happen. Or Hey, remember that really important bill you were moving for your constituents in your district. We've seen some snags on that bill and we're not quite sure if it's going to make it through. We wanted to come talk to you to see if we could work through this a little bit some of the details on these things, or like happened to me a few times. I was walking down the hall one morning in the Senate and a Democrat moderate state senator from Orange County area goes to unlock his door and he's a friend of mine, and I said, Senator Genue, call a sergeant's you know, it's somewhere off your key And he said, nope, I know what happened. He had been locked out of his office, his staff had either been fired or but reallocated. He had lost his legislation, and I remember he lost a few key committee assignments because he decided to be independent. So when people hear this, they're kind of they don't believe me that this is just some sort of one off thing. I just give you three examples that were real life examples. I could give you twenty more and show you, but I'll tell you it tends to one side of the aisle. And most people will say, oh, well, Republicans do that too. There are some heavy handed Republicans. If you go to Republicans state, I'm sure that happens from time and time. It is not at the same level as the left or Democrats. And so getting back to your original issue, when you have Republicans, they mostly want to win issues that are important to them and if they don't have some sort of skin in the game. They just might not push as hard as maybe a Democrat one. And I'm not justify it. I'm just describing what's kind of psychology there. And in California, we've lost so much across the board that the focus has been on where are the places that we can win back some of the places that we lost, And that's been in Congress, and that's all find of good. Of course, I think we need more congressional representation. In Congress. I know pretty much every single congressman my first name. I've known them for a long time. I worked for a couple of them. But it misses the point because now we have a legislature that we're severely in the minority, at least those that are in the center right. You don't have to be conservative Republican to not feel representative. But it's also in your local governments. And it was for a long time that your city councils, school boards, county boards of super advisors were a majority, a clear majority of center right people. Now again, I always try to be careful to not conflate Republicans with center right. There the ven diagram covers pretty nicely right, But it doesn't mean just because you're republican, you're gonna be conservative, or you're conservative, gonna be a Republican. But generally that's where the party's line up. And my friends who have decided to become or our libertarians or you know, American independent parties, God bless them. You know, I wish you the best. You just there's no political motion. There, hot topics, the news of the day, in depth interviews, and all a lot more. This is the Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast today. That's out Laws, The Outlaws Radio Show an FCB podcasts. I'm gonna keep let you keep going if you have more to say, but let me just interrupt and say that, Yeah, I have a lot of libertarian friends because of the type of work I do. I know you do too, And there's a lot at even at CPC, and I get that. But I have been to a libertarian conference several and there's a reason why the Libertarian Party can never get out of the ground there. First of all, the Libertarian Party houses way too many points of view. It's too diverse. You can be there are people in the Libertarian Party who are socialist capital columnslse socialist capitalists. How do they even vote side by side with conservative capitalists in the Libertarian Party. So there's a reason why the third party doesn't take off. I want to direct listeners and viewers right now to my episode on the two party system. I did a comprehensive review. I'm from Canada, I lived under the parliamentary system, so I have a really good, I think, a solid perspective on the difference between the two And I know Americans think that because we have a two party system that that means we don't have choice. That's absolutely not true. We have choice. We just make the choices at an earlier level so that we're not chaotic when it's time to get to work. Canadians don't have the same That's why you have Justin Trudeau being the Prime minister forever and ever, even though he's a hugely unpopular prime minister. Even my Liberal friends don't like Justin Trudeau, but the parliamentary system means that we have to have him. So yes, the third party. I mean, I appreciate your values. I appreciate like standing up for what you believe in, but just know that you've got two votes if you want to really move the needle. And what it comes down to is understanding who's starting the fires and who's the fireman, and some people can't make that distinction. And I have a lot of really good friends. Again, I work for a Reason Foundation. It's one of the premier libertarian organizations in the world, and I love all my friends there, and this is not a knock on them at all, but we just funnamily. I learned after I was at Reason. I'm not a libertarian, and again, I love all my libertarian friends, but I really understand that you've got to have a basis of values and that while politics is downstream of culture, which is true and Andrew Breitbart really made this, I think a very boot piece of what he talked about when he was alive. But culture is downstream of faith or religion. And if you don't have a solid worldview or faith, if it doesn't somewhat align with the Judaeo Christian sort of concept of our American founding. And again I think the vek Ramaswami is shown that you don't have to be a Christian to align with those things. And we have a lot of Muslim friends and seeks other people who are very conservative socially, but we share a different faith tradition. They at least understand that they can't have the sort of freedoms they want to have without this basis. And one of the points I make a lot which is not really a public policy point, but when people want to fix the culture or society, I think three words, go to church. If you're not doing those kinds of things, you don't can fix it. So how does this all play into where we are with the school board race and everything. Parents can't just sit on the sideline anymore. Like I said at the beginning, it's time to put up or shut up. If your child is having a problem, there's a good chance that other kids at the school are having the exact same problem. And when you start to talk to other parents, you'll find that they also want to be involved, but are scared of being the only person doing it. So you build kind of a momentum and movements. I was on a call literally an hour ago with some parents from Sacramento. Without going into too many specifics, but they all thought they were alone. They all thought they were kind of doing their own thing, and now they're meeting and meshing, and they're moving policies forward. They're making noise, they're not changing the boards decisional all the time, but they're they're presenting information and putting the policies in a way that somebody's going to have to make a decision. I've also encouraged them too. You've got to start making the arguments from the other side's point of view. This is one of these philosophical jiu jitsu moves where taking the other side's arguments and using it against themselves perfect. I was just gonna go into one example book bands. Right, You and I are both fascist book banners. We have burn parties all the time, and our property right, and we're taking all of these really objectionable books and and shredding the machines and everything. I haven't advocated for a single ban of a single book in my entire life. And I've read a lot of books, and I have a lot of a lot of books that I don't think my kids should be reading. I don't think that every school has Library of Congress as their school library, and so they have to make a decision about these things. What books are helping them pursue their academic interest and the objectives of the board for these kids to graduate. If they're going to have a curricula, let's make sure that whatever material they have the libraries or in the classrooms or accessible to these kids is pushing the right direction. Right. It's all about trajectory. If we start sidelining kids because we're going to give them a lot of very activist type books or materials or texts, then what are we doing to actually fulfill the requirement and then mandate that the board has to have a curriculum that actually works for these kids. That's a big problem. The other thing, too, is just because a book should be in a school library doesn't mean it should be an every school library. Here's my example. At kindergarten has no need for a college calculus textbook. It's not because it's objectionable or it's not a good goal eventually, but at kindergarten doesn't need to read about calculus. It's c spot run and those kinds of things, right, same thing with the middle school. You've at middle school kids that are making this weird transition, going through that hormonal swamp we call puberty, and they're trying to make adult decisions about a number of issues. They don't need us to plant seeds in their head about sexual activities or things that are controversial that they themselves can't even process. And I think it's a good parents prerogative to make sure that we're monitoring and calling that kind of material. But a school district doesn't have to say, you know, we're going to get rid of a whole bunch of books. We're just not going to offer things that aren't necessary for these kids at this time of their life. And so I think, as when as parents understand this, this has nothing to do with us trying to get rid of to Kill a mocking Bird or Huck Finn or whatever. By the way, let me stop you there, Lance. There are people who want to get rid of to kill a mocking Bird and Huck Finn. But those people are liberals our side. Yes, they're not on our side liberal because the N word is in there and it talks about slavery, and now we're supposed to pretend that those things never existed. So you know that picture of our governor, you know, in the cafe and Sacramento with a stack of books, reading band of book and he's reading to Kill a mockingbird. It's like, you're the idiots trying to band to kill a mocking bird. Because I do bring that up with people. It's not me advocating for the speed book. In fact, it's sitting right there on my shelf, right by Catch on the Rye, which I think is a terrible book. It's terrible, terrible book lance. My daughter just read it at last year in school, and I had a proud mom moment because I always hated that book. I didn't read the book in school because I was educated mostly in Canada and we that wasn't required reading. So I read it as an adult, and as an adult I was like, this is the book that Americans would all This book is trash. And then my daughter came home from school and she was like, Mom, I don't get holding Cawfield. He's trash. Why do we even read this book. I was like, proud mom. I've tried to read slaughter House five. I just can't get through it. It's like, you know, there are a lot of books sitting on that shelf right there that if my kids want to read, let's we'll have the conversation. I was having a battle up here with a neighboring school district literally a mile that way from my house, a fairly conservative district, where they had a requirement for the ninth grade leadership class at the local high school to read that garbage book called The Hate You Give. And if anybody's familiar with that book, like seventy sometimes it has profanity two hundred and thirty. Sometimes it has rape scenes. I mean, it's all sorts of really objectionable stuff. It wasn't just in the library. It was the leadership class for the ninth grade, and if a kid wanted to opt out, originally they couldn't opt out, but they finally allowed him to opt out, gave them a different book, and then told him they had to read the book outside the class in the library, without the discussion of the other book in the class. So what are we trying to accomplish if we present this kind of objectional material and we don't give them an out? And I presented them with about ten different alternatives that would have accomplished the same thing. About ethnic identities and struggle with racism in our culture, all those things things that we can wrestle with, but not through some grotesque, an objectionable way that's no more than softcore porn. Yeah, well, obviously, I mean, at the end of the day, just like you were saying, this is a battle for culture. And I definitely believe we are in the post Christian era in America and so and in the West in particular, and so we're seeing the results of that. We're seeing how much freedom and normalcy and prosperity was sort of baked in to the cake just by sort of being a jodeo Christian society. I had an interesting conversation with my dentist recently, who is an immigrant Hindu Indian, and she really had kind of a political awakening during COVID. She wanted she did all the compliance stuff and then knew some still screwed or business over, so kind of red pilled heer. We talk all the time when I come in, and I guess I should stop calling her my dentist because we're really friends. But she said something interesting to me Lands the other day when I was there her visit. She said, when I first moved to this country, one of the first things I did was I went to church. She said, I'm a Hindu, I'm not a Christian, but I recognize that Americans create a great sense of comfort and community in their churches, and it was the church that provided for me and my family, provided community, provided activities for the kids. You know, she was really I was surprised to hear that, and I said, Oh, I'm surprised because you're Hindu, and she said, yeah, I'm Hindu. But see, in the East and most of the rest of the world, even if we don't share faith, we recognize the need for faith. Right we don't care for these godless people who talk about diversity all the time and then want to get rid of religion. Most people in the world are religious because we recognize that we need a higher authority to give us these guidelines for prosperous thriving. I was just so surprised to hear that from her, But then the way she explained it, it just made sense. And so I was looking at a picture the other day of this puppy fetish group that was meeting in Germany. Puppy fetish is not just people who like to pet puppies, is a sexual fetish. And there was a time when you to even be seen in that photo, you would risk your job, you would risk your family, you would risk your place in society, and now people are openly displaying that kind of behavior and it just reminds me of that old saying that if you if you don't believe in anything, you will fall for anything. If you don't believe in anything, you will leave in anything. And that's what we're seeing. And so what we do need is parents who believe in something. And I'm not saying you have to share my faith tradition, as as as Lands pointed out, we have lots of allies in the Muslim community, in the Sikh community, especially in here in California. But it does mean that that your belief in something greater than bureaucracy is vital to you freeing your students and yourself from the boot of government oppression. So the book that you and I can co author one day is brains falling out. You know, if your mind is so open, your brain is going to fall out. And that's what we've come to society. There is a reason that we have norms and conventions and marais because if you don't keep that stuff together, it will all fall apart. The center cannot hold and anybody who hasn't read a history book of civilization and understands that every two hundred and fifty ish years things come to this precipice and then they're fooling themselves. And there's no way that a licentious culture can long sustain itself. And that's where we're at. You know, we're at the point of weak men and very difficult societal questions that have to be answered. And it won't be enemies from without to destroy a country like America. It'll be pretty much from internal things that we do and what we tolerate. We will get more of that which we tolerate, and soon enough we'll have United States Senators showing up to conduct the official business of the people in shorts and button up shirts. Land Lands. That's ridiculous. You're being ridiculous. It would never happen. No, I said. That's where we are in this whole conversation. And if we don't do something to say, okay, we've got to stitch these things back together a little bit. We've got to re buttress some of the cultural pieces that kept the train running down the track. Otherwise we will have an Atlas Shruk society where the train just stops and nobody can fix it. Or Make It Work, hot topics, the news of the day, in depth interviews, and a whole lot more. This is the Outlaws Radio Show. Subscribe to the show on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcast today. That's out Laws The Outlaws Radio Show, an FCB podcast. I said, I hosted KBC Radio last weekend and one of the story that I covered was the Burbank mayror who went to a at Lance's Rolling Aside right now. He went to a Democrat fundraiser and was it was, it was, I don't know why the Democrats are obsessed with drag queens because they think we're obsessed with it, and we're not. We couldn't have cared less about drag queens until you dragged them out in front of our kids. We really couldn't have cared less. But there's a drag queen fundraiser, and there were teenagers at this event. It was for fifteen and up. Friendly, family, friendly for fifteen and up. And he allowed himself to be spanked by a drag queen. And this drag queen bent him over and spanked him in this very sexual manner and it was ohhhaha, funny. And then it got caught, and to his credit, he actually did apologize. He actually did say it was inappropriate of me. He might not believe it, but at least he said it out loud. Most people would have justified it. But this is what I was saying about the issue. I said, this is why people, it is important for you to elect normal, dry politicians. Yeah, I get it, we don't like we wish they were funnier or quirkier. But the reason why you want a normal person, and I'm using air quotes here, a normal person in office is because when times get weird and weird things start to happen, you need to be assured that that person in that office is going to make a normal decision for the weird thing that's happening. Otherwise it's just piling weirdness on top of weirdness. So normal might be boring, but there's a reason why we typically as Americans, even to this day, typically elect politicians who are married, who have children, who don't have a lot of facial hair like. We have very specific aesthetic desires for our politicians. A lot of that is just subconscious because those things scream normality to us. So we need people who are normal, because we're going to need them to make normal decisions. Those gets back to the region original issue that you and I were talking about, like how do parents actually get involved in a way that's helpful and can drive the policy that is positive for them and for society in general. So I would say, out of the thirty eight million people we were talking about, only twenty two million are registered to vote, and only eleven million. Last year during the gubernatorial election where I was on the ballot. You're on the ballot, only eleven million people voted. It's even worse is on my campaign I got three point two million votes, not terrible, It's not as much as I wanted. But if you add that to the five point six million votes, that's not even nine million people to vote in that election. All that would have taken is for the five point three million Republicans that are registered to show up a good chunk of independence and conservative Democrats. Actually, I found out I had a ton of progressive Democrats from the Bay Area because they were tired of all this garbage that was happening in their area. If they had shown up to simply vote, I would have won. Probably the same thing with Hugh, but we have it's a lot of people who say, oh, my vote doesn't count, doesn't really matter. They don't tell their friends, they don't tell their kids how their vote, they don't tell their neighbors or talk about at church, and then they get mad when all these things go sideways on them. And so when they come to me, I usually look at them and the first question I say is, Okay, how much did you donate to a candidate that you cared about? And that sounds crashed to people, except that the other side spends hundreds of millions of dollars in California and elections every two years, hundreds of millions, sometimes billions. So they're willing to put up our shut up now again. You and I can have a conversation about a lot of that money being compelled because they're union members or they belong to different groups to just shove their nonprofit money. They launder it through different processes, and if you're a nonprofit on the left, they get very creative with these things, you know, in terms of voter registration and and different advocacy on particular policies. They get out the vote, They really move people out there, and they really require people to fill out the ballot even if it's not their ballot. And I know this because my last house, when I got four or five ballots from people who didn't live in my house and hadn't lived in my house for ten, twenty and even thirty years. If that was happening in my house, I'm pretty sure what was happening at other places my house. There are three voting adults in my house while including my son when he's home from college, and we got five ballots. So five ballots, But if you lived in another part of the city and it didn't change your address and they didn't catch it. Because I'll be honest with you, most registered our offices are not full of really competent people. They don't know how to go and clean this stuff up. And it is the customer and practice of a lot of other states that when somebody moves into an area, they will send a letter back to the state they came from and said, hey, just FYI, we have this voter that used to have you might want to counsel their vote. California doesn't do that, and so people can live in multiple states, or they can come here the week before the election or the deadline registered of vote, vote here and then leave. And if people think that's not happening, I know three instances the last election where the exact thing happened, and so we have to be fortified. But what we can't do, and this is not a screed about election integrity, that's a whole different podcast, but this is about actually getting involved and making sure that we're overwhelmingly supporting the people that need to be supported. And when they understand that a lot of people are checked out and don't want to be involved, those are the areas they strike for and they will go and and they will be successful because we have talked ourselves out of actually being involved. So three steps we actually be successful. One is you actually have to know what's going on. You gotta pay attention and if you're not following, you know, like your Kira's podcasts and Instagram and Twitter feeds, then you're not doing yourself a service. We've got to know what the conversation is. Number two is we have to know who's actually representing us. Most people don't. I think if you go look out abroad, can you name your city councilor your scoreboard trustee, your semi member, your senator, congressman, No, forget it and shame on you, because that's your job. That's your responsibility to know who's representing you. And then three, if you're not communicating with them and you're not letting them know what's important to you, you can't do it the day before a really important viewed like, you've got to be out there communicating to say, listen, this issue is really important for these reasons. Put a face to it, make it emotional if you have to, but also give a rational process to argue those things when they are making important votes. When you try to jam at the last minute, yeah, you might be able to slow things down, but you don't get them to the place where they can make a really good decision. And that's what we need to do more of. Yeah. Absolutely, I think it is exactly what you were saying and what we were talking about in our personal conversation and continue to talk about. And people need to show up at the end of the day. Lance government goes to those who show up. And you're right, our Orange County is a perfect example of apathy being making us a huge target. When I first moved here fifteen years ago, this is a quiet, sleepy little suburb, a very very very conservative, but completely a political I mean mostly the people here just want to go to work, buy their you know, their toys, their boats and their motorcycles, and get their kids into Stanford and move on with their lives. That's what they want to do. And I'm not making a personal judgment on those life choices. But like you started this podcast out with Lance, you have to understand that everything you engage in in American life is political. The price of your grocery, it's the cost of your gasp, the tuition payments at your private school or college, all of those are affected by local politics. And people around here just weren't interested. So when I first got into polit politics, even though California is, you know, this is the battleground for national politics, reporting on local politics was absolutely useless. They got me absolutely nowhere, even on the national stage. I went to national news, I went to national outlets to do my work while other people were doing local reporting because there just wasn't an interest in it interest in it. So what happened during that time, Well, Democrats put together a twenty five year plan to infiltrate all of our small town councils here, particularly in South Orange County because we're coastal here, so we have like some of the wealthiest areas, but also those cute, small surfer beach towns that you see on TV that you imagine most of California to be. That is, that is South Orange County, and those those people in those towns, you might think they're very you know, metropolitan and sophisticated, but not they are not. They are and I don't say that as an insult. They are small town people with small town values. And so the Democrats said, well, well they're not looking. They think nobody cares we're going to take over their city councils. So this last election cycle they have finally closed the loop. They were creeping in and creeping in and creeping in, and now these small little beach towns have Democrat councils. And what's happening the beach runt's being developed. Now small town you know, the small town folks, they don't have a say, and they wonder why all of a sudden there's apartment buildings going out up on the beach when it's not what they wanted. They wonder why all of a sudden, the homeless and illegal population has ballooned in their community because they were apathetic. And even when I was out there campaigning, even though I had the the wind of the parental rights movement in my sales, it still wasn't enough to get enough parents concerned. The apathy is deadly. The unions know it, and they know people don't have a huge sense of curiosity these days, and they take advantage of it, and we're losing because of it. And this is what I always tell I'm not going to let you respond to this, and we'll close this podcast out lanes, but this is what I what I tell people. I know you want to be at peace. I know I do too. People look at me because I'm a loudmouth and I'm very outspoken. I seem like I'm aggressive. I seem like I enjoy conflict. I do not. I don't like conflict. I will always seek peace first. Probably I say this a lot, probably the result of being a child of divorce. You're always trying to make sure that other people are better and no one feels tense. That's me, that's my personality. I am outspoken and stubborn, but I don't like battle. I don't want to do battle. But we are not in a time of peace. We are at war. We are at ideological war, and it is a war that is going to determine whether or not this country will be here for our children and their children. And so the way that our forefathers signed up for literal war and happily went and gave their lives in the service of an ideal that they believed in, we have to do the same thing on this cultural level. We've got to suit up for this cultural battle. And it means, yeah, I'm making ourselves uncomfortable. And how many people did I go to to ask just to put a sign in your yard? Name recognition is everything in local elections. Please put a sign in your yard. I support you, but I don't want to make my neighbors mad. They get weird about that kind of thing. Well, what if you're not going to step up, If you're not even going to be willing to put a sign in your yard, if you're not even willing to show up to one school board meeting for a year, if you're not willing to give up two hours of your life a year to battle for your children, why the hell do you expect me to do that. I have kids too, I have a life too, I have responsibilities and a job and a husband too. I have everything going on in my life that you have going on in your life. Why do you expect me to make sacrifices for your kid that you're not going to make. I don't know how I had to. It's like if you'll if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Right, And if we don't have parents get up and get involved, and not just parents, but business leaders and grandparents. Some people don't have kids. They're not willing to be there when the fight is at our doorstep. There will be a place in time where they can't fight the battle. It just will be too much and overwhelming. And we're creating a whole generation of kids that are dependent upon the government. And if the boomers thing that they can retire and have adequate people taking care of them, they're I think sadly mistaken. They've created a whole generation of slovenly kids that don't want to do the hard thing. And this is a hard truth. And so parents, it all starts in your home. And if you can't get it done your home, you can't get mad when it doesn't get done in the school or in the community or somewhere else. But it has to be local. And that's why California policy is centered. We don't do any national stuff or international stuff. California is big enough for us, and what's happening in Sacramento, what's happening in your school board is important to us. And so I'll do what I can to provide information, talking points, give your feedback, and struct your mentor connect to you with other people. But in the end, I can only do so much. You have to decide if you own your kids or not. And if you decide you don't own your kids, the government will gladly take them under protection. Yikes, I'm just covering today lands. We've got some I have. You put me in contact with a gentleman who's been making public records requests, and he sent me over some of the records last night. So I was reporting on some of the spines, and you know, some of these things are very blatant. They're there, and the schools are lying, all right. They're lying and telling parents you don't have you don't have the right to be notified about X Y Z, and it's not true. But because we don't have a way to share this information with each other, and because parents aren't curious, schools get to be the default, and so you know, the bureaucracy. I don't know if you like going to the DMV, but I don't, and I certainly don't want them making my parenting decisions for me. But if you leave it to the government, it's basically the DMV making your parentsing decisions. I'll end with this lance, and then I'll ask you to tell people where they can find out more about you and the great work going on up at CPC. At our school board meeting on Wednesday night, a mom came from another school district to speak in support of parental notification and she is the mother of a trans daughter. I think this was she calls her her daughter, but this was a young woman wanting to transition into a man. She said her school transition. She was from Orange Unified. The school TRANSI transition and her daughter without her her knowledge, and referred her for double mistech to me as a teenager, which the daughter got and the mom knew nothing about any of this until it was too late. This is a young Hispanic mother. Okay, so this isn't your white boogie man everybody, This is a young Hispanic mother. And she said, the school never gave me the opportunity to give her the medical advice that she might need to know about getting her healthy breaths removed at fifteen, sixteen years old. The school didn't even give me the opportunity to tell her wait, which wouldn't have been a no even they labeled me a murderer and a psychopath without even giving me the opportunity to support my daughter. So she said, I would have just told her just wait, That's what I would have said, Wait and make that decision when you've got a few years behind you. And then we only got one minute apiece because of course, so she ran out of time. But she found me after the board meeting or when she was leaving, and she said, Kira, here's the thing I didn't get to say. My daughter's an adult now and she lives with me. And when she graduated high school, we never heard from any of those people. Again, there wasn't all those people who swore that I was going to murder my daughter if she was forced to share this journey with me, and who said that they cared about her and they are the ones that want to keep her safe. We haven't heard from a single damn person since my daughter left school. They don't know who she is or where she is. That's it graduation day and they were out of her lives. But guess who is here me. That's the person who's always been here and it's the only person that was ever going to be left for her after all of this was done. And that's the important thing. I think parents we need to remember this when we're talking to our boards and our representatives and these people who want to tell you that you're insensitive or you want to create an unsafe space for your kid. They won't be there for your child when they graduate school. They won't be there for your child on the sick days. They won't be there for your child on the wedding day. They won't be there for your child when they lose their best friend or their dog, or their boyfriend or their girlfriend. They're not gonna be there for your kid. You're the person that's going to be there. So don't let anybody tell you that they care more for your kid than you do. They're going to disappear the second that they mutilate your child, let you go and make them a permanent addicted person on healthcare and medication for the rest are life. To take care of something that does not work. We can't be sending our kids to seizure and confused when they come home romans. So, parents, if you don't see it happen in your public schools, fight, We're here. We need you, We need to show up. So again, put up our shut up. But we also know that if it gets that bad, that you need to understand you have ultimate control over your child, and that if a child wants to make a hard decision, I think the best response to them usually is wait till you're an adult. When you're eighteen and you're paying the bills, you can do that. But I'm telling you between now and then, your brain is not quite there yet. You're confused as the fog of four. It's puberty, it's adolescence, is all these things. Let's take a time out and let's get to that place. But in the meantime, it's time to stand and be counted. And so California Policy Center is a place that needs your support financially. We need you to show up we need you to be there. You can go to California Policy Center dot org. You can follow us on social media Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I'm also on Twitter x whatever we're calling these days. You can find me at lands Lands And I'm fighting the battle because I think it's more than just being a keyboard warrior. I'm out there doing the job. I'm at the school board meetings. I'll see you next month in Capo, will be wherever I need to be. I'm putting in the time. I did it last year, I did it before. I will continue to do this. But I also think that parents need to see somebody fighting on their behalf and make coaching arguments online. That's what I'm trying to accomplish. So if you see my stuff, feel free to follow me, feel free to spread it, feel free to engage with the trolls that come after me, which is kind of funny because most of them don't have an answer. And I believe one last kind of sentiment. Awesome Ferrar was a philosopher firm Great Britain and a biographer of C. S. Lewis. Awesome for our makes this kind of observation that if we don't fight and defend something. It's not so much the issue that we lose on. It's that we don't show the capacity to fight for something. And I tell people all the time, if you're not ready to fight, then you're ready to be consumed. You're either at the table or on the menu. So you decide. But if you decide to fight for family, for your kids, for California, you and I care will be there with these people, and I'll be there till help comes upon us. I mean, this is We're already there right. So if this is not the cause, if this is not the fight, I don't know what is. Are you reading again? For Superintendent of Public Instruction. I've established a fundraising campaign to do. I want to see if people are serious about supporting a candidate like me, and if I can raise the money, I will absolutely run. All right, you heard it here first, Lance, love you as always, Thank you for fighting for us, and thanks for having this conversation. I'll definitely see you next month. We'll probably see Antifa too, so that'll be fine. Never dumb moment, our prayers, a soda day that we won't stay and we want to say all we got it? Does no one get take that away day just gonna be okay, our prayers soda day that we won't say, then we won't to say all we got it? Does no one get tattowa, don't say it, don't be okay. This has been a presentation of the FCB podcast Network, where real talk lifts. Visit us online at FCB podcasts dot com.
