You Can Run for Office. Yes, You! Just Ask RI Sen. Meghan Kallman!
Opening Arguments
Opening Arguments Media LLC
4.3 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 12 August 2024
⏱️ 52 minutes
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Summary
OA1059
This week we welcome Rhode Island state senator Meghan Kallman for a conversation about the power of state lawmaking and ordinary people in elected office.
Meghan is a professor of sociology at UMass Boston whose work in both the theory and practice of how people organize led her to a parallel career in politics. As the Democratic Presidential ticket coalesces around a woman and (for the first time since 1980!) a non-lawyer, we discuss the unique challenges which women still face in US politics at every level as well as what it is like for someone with no legal training or no political experience to run for and hold elected office.
Also: How can state and local governments make progressive change even when the federal government can't or won't act? What is it like for someone with no legal training to write laws? And why is Rhode Island the last state in the Union to take an entire day off to celebrate the US victory over Japan?
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The Conceivable Future, Meghan Kallman and Josephine Ferorelli (2024)
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“Sousaphone vs the KKK,” Christian Science Monitor (7/23/15)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. |
| 0:07.0 | He gags me! What's my crime? I got bold and a little negligent? Nope! |
| 0:23.0 | Bales are coming to take away my will to live. |
| 0:28.0 | Fuck them, lo! |
| 0:32.0 | One count of being a bear, and one count of being an accessory to being a bear. |
| 0:37.0 | I hate the Supreme Court. Hello and welcome to opening arguments. |
| 0:47.0 | This is episode 1059. |
| 0:49.0 | I'm your host Thomas Smith. |
| 0:51.0 | And in a moment, we'll be getting on over to not only real life attorney Matt Cameron but a special guest. |
| 0:56.7 | This is something Matt's wanted to do for a very long time and now seems like the perfect time because if I remember right there were so many politicians, like say AOC, who were, you know, for lack of a better term, pretty much normal people, not career politicians, not people even, I don't know, Ivy League on the track to become politicians who |
| 1:16.3 | won elections at every level and the fruits of that labor are still being felt today and |
| 1:21.8 | I am thinking with the change in energy that has |
| 1:24.7 | happened after Biden stepping down and Kamla choosing someone who I didn't |
| 1:29.6 | know and is now my favorite politician almost Tim Waltz. |
| 1:34.0 | There is so much energy now. |
| 1:36.0 | The polling's looking great. |
| 1:37.0 | Obviously we can never get ahead of ourselves, |
| 1:39.0 | but knocking on every wood that's available, |
| 1:42.0 | things are looking like they could be very good. |
| 1:43.7 | And hopefully we can see that same kind of inspiration in terms of getting people into politics |
| 1:48.6 | or advocacy or activism or whatever it is that we saw back in some of these other wave elections. |
| 1:54.7 | And today's interview is perfect to get inspired and to stay inspired because Rhode Island State |
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