LGBTQ+ Leadership Discover how Senator Nikki Antonio is fighting for fairness an
00:00:00 so everybody let’s give it up to Senator Nikki Antonio when I got my master’s degree in public administration with a focus on policy and I ran an outpatient treatment program for women in Cleveland they knew I was a good candidate and it actually I think helped me win really um because the push back from it from the community was so strong we have all these advances in medicine right now there are times when a wanted pregnancy goes down he keep it realer than most he do it for the culture that’s always the
00:00:34 goal this is strategic moves with [Music] Kow this is strategic moves with [Music] Kow hey what’s up everybody you tuned in to another episode of strategic mes I’m your host kenow this is a place where we bring art culture politics and business all together and we do it every week right here on this Chann but when I’m not shooting this podcast I am the owner of strategic resources where we specialize in political campaigns government and public relations work we’ve been doing it right here in this state for over 25 years and I want to
00:01:14 make your next move a strategic move and this program gives me an opportunity to do that I got an opportunity to go around talk to some of the people I met we come in we sit down we talk about some of our experiences and maybe just maybe it’s something out of it that you can get that will help you in your business business or personal life so if this sound like something that you’re interested in all I need you to do is hit that like button hit the Subscribe button and the notification Bell as well so that you would know the next time this
00:01:40 program is coming on so what we’re about to do is get started today we got a special guest in the house who’s going to talk a little bit we going to talk a little bit about politics and we’re going to talk a little bit about what’s going on here in the state of Ohio as it relates to politics in the legislature but before I do that I’m going to give a shout out to the best podcast producer in podcast history I gave him the title as the best podcast producer in podcast history he got a lot to live up to uh let’s give it up to uh DJ true what’s happening in there brother
00:02:12 yo what’s going on a every day is a holiday every day H holiday Every Day’s holiday so we G to sit back we gonna get going today man because we got a lot to deal with I forgot to turn the timer on cuz we will sit here for two hours I learned that the hard way so let me turn my timer the Democrats fairing that’s what we going to talk about how how how is US Democrats fearing this war tee oh that’s what we going we going to put we going to talk to the person that’s down there who should know best
00:02:48 she deals with these Republicans and the Democrats every day I need some inside information cuz we we got to we got to unite well that’s what’s happening we going to see so we going to get started without further Ado I want to introduce to us our new state senator she has a new and reason why I’m call her new state cator because she has a new District that broadened her Horizons and now she’s really really Broad and representing a whole host of people so everybody let’s give it up to Senator Nikki Antonio to the pr thank you for coming in today good to see you oh thank you for
00:03:25 coming in man we going to sit down and have a good conversation and talk a little bit tell me how you doing today before we get going I am good I am good I am having a good week uh busy uh I know people think that when summer comes around that the legislators all go home and sit at the pool or something but we’re out there in the district we’re um connecting with the people and and really listening to what people and people have a lot to say uh absolutely but it’s been really good it’s been really good so what we do and we we we going to not SP a lot of time on it but I always do this
00:04:02 with every guest to come on here we get a little bit in your business we get a little background on who Nicki Antonio you grew up here in Cleveland you’re a native from here and your parents give me some background where you come from so so I grew up on West 90th uh in Cleveland in Cleveland uh between uh Dennis and Lorraine at the time now it’s uh Dennison and Clark okay uh before the highway came in and um my parents were divorced and uh so my mom was was working it on her own she uh I learned about all about finances uh and how hard it was for uh divorced woman in the 70s to be
00:04:41 able to uh even buy the house she had to have my grandmother and my uncle on her mortgage because they would not give a mortgage to a single female really at the time now things have changed but it was amazing and it’s something that I carried with me always I think um I went to high school at Lutheran West which is in Rocky River I told my mom I wanted to go there because I wanted to go to college she said um you can do that if you can figure out how to pay for it wow so I have been raising money since I was in high school so you had ra money to go to high school high school I
00:05:21 raised my tuition they had partial scholarship for me the churches all got together and gave a scholarship but I had to come up with the other half of the money so I tell me what you do at that age what did you do to babysitting cutting grass cleaning houses anything anything and you just keep piling the money up in the scar box right wow and then you get the bills together and then you you give it I gave it to Mom and mom wrote out the check for the school now did you had to do that every year or you got to and it got easier once you got in no you had to do all I did that for
00:05:53 four years and then I started saving for college doing the same kind of thing but then I worked two jobs um uh got a couple of degrees from Cleveland State uh I started out as a teacher uh with kids with special needs I worked in the pep program the positive education program right and I tell people all the time that I learned everything I need to know about how to deal with my colleagues in the legislature from troubled youth working with troubled youth because you need to if you’re going to work with kids and I worked with Junior High age kids they’re my favorite you have have a
00:06:30 sense of humor you have to be fearless or at least show no fear that’s correct right correct and you really have to like people and find the the good in them the strength in them and then help them bring it out so was you in cmsd I I worked for the pep program which was a county program but our kids were from cmsd and they couldn’t they they they needed to get a little adjustment before they get back in the classroom at cmsd so you took the hard job the hard job it was great though I loved it then I went on got my master’s degree in public administration with a focus on policy and
00:07:07 I ran an outpatient treatment program for women in Cleveland uh drugs and alcohol for about 10 years really yeah it’s the center is it was the Women’s Center of Greater Cleveland now it’s called Uh Lata way it’s still over on store avue in Cleveland okay did that and then I worked with a lot of other nonprofits moved I had a Mary Poppins thing going on yeah work a couple years in a place things better found it move on to something new um and then when my kids were uh getting a little bit older and one of them wanted to skateboard we lived in Lakewood okay I went to a city council
00:07:47 meeting and I was advocating for a skate park in Lakewood Park and I felt like the people weren’t listening to me I I think one of the guys was sleeping actually up there and I came home and I said oh my gosh I cannot believe I could do that job and I heard myself say I could do that job and so the next year there was an opening on city council I ran I won I stayed there uh five years I I ran again for reelection but then a seat opened up in the Ohio House the seat there I ran and one that I spent eight years in the house and now I’m in my second term in the Senate you know
00:08:29 it’s remarkable the things we do for our kids you know um it it it was the same way my kids um girls was playing softball and Cleveland Heights and um we you know they started when they were 10 then when they got to 14 I think it was they said all right well that’s it I was like what you mean that’s it they was like well we don’t have no more programs up here I’m like what you mean we don’t have a program for girls I said well how long can girls play they said they can play till they I was like well why come we don’t have a league that’s there and they was like well because we
00:09:04 have coaches and blah blah blah and we started a league I did the same thing I went and got with the community people why we don’t have a league and went to folks and we end up putting a league together with a whole bunch of other cities around South uet um to pull that together and I think they somewhat got the league now CU my kids all played through it and finished it out but you know it’s the things we do you know just little things how that sparked you into getting that cuz you want to get a skateboard park for your son because I wanted the kids to be safe
00:09:34 and and and to be able to do what they were trying to do but in a safe environment rather than out on the street or by buildings and all kinds of stuff and I think um and skateboarders you know how they are they they’ll look at a building and be like that’s the building yeah I like that challenge yeah I like that challenge right there boy yeah and it’s and it’s um it’s the thing that a lot of times motivates people to get involved in politics especially women I’ll say um you know when we sit
00:10:05 around and talk with each other a lot of times the Common Thread is there was some issue that just pushed somebody over and said I’m not going to sit back anymore and I had for years worked on other people’s campaigns I really wanted to see more women in elected office I just never really thought it was going to be me and then all of a sudden it was so tell me about that first campaign my that to run for city council well city council I believe yeah just go with give me a little bit of both of them until you got there well city council um the thing that was unique for me is
00:10:42 I’m the first member of the LGBT community that had run uh and been elected in the community and I really didn’t get a lot of push back until you know you know those October surprises right there’s always right before the election somebody tries to pull something and there was some flyer going around you know that was negative what really just made my heart uh so big and so feel so good about my community was people saw it and they went around and they push back on it they um they started a campaign online telling each other you know we will not tolerate
00:11:23 this kind of thing in our community um the negativity they knew I was a good candidate and it actually I think helped me win um because the push back from it from the community was so strong and you know I had been active as a volunteer with my kids with my family in the community for years and so people were not ready to stereotype me and put me in some kind of a negative box because they knew me right and I think that’s the key to everything um most successful elected people especially at the local level you get elected when people know who you are because you’ve shown them
00:12:04 already through your volunteer work for being in the community and they rallied so that was awesome uh when I ran for State Rep um that race was really the first one it was really a a a primary because it’s a very Democratic District yeah and that’s why I fig that one was a little easier I would that one was a little easier just a bigger scope bigger group of people I was representing Lakewood the west side of Cleveland yeah so you said you first lgbtq really in the Ohio legislator legislator 129e history I am the very first person to be openly from the LGBT community and elected
00:12:46 to office and you also all right so let’s get into that a little bit because one of the questions I was going to ask you is um uh you you just gave me your remarkable journey to become the first openly gay member of the assembly um what um and you answered the question what kind of drove you into the politics role of that how difficult is that being in that role now that you’re there and in the leadership yeah so so how difficult is it to be in that role um on a day-to-day basis not a whole lot of difficulty it depends on what’s going on um it depends you know it’s kind of ebbed and
00:13:25 Float depending on whether the focus was um the culture wars which we have a lot of right now a lot of talk around that but I have to tell you I I came through when I ran that Women’s Center it was in the 90s it was the height of the HIV and AIDS pandemic and so one of the things I learned there was um we were providing services for people on the street on the ground who were affected by HIV and AIDS at the time people originally thought it was only the gay community we knew it was in all of our communities very quickly and so especially um especially through alcohol and drugs and all
00:14:10 of the complications for people um so we I learned real quickly that first of all you can’t you can’t stereotype you can’t just say there’s one group of people that’s affected in One Way by anything I take that attitude with me every day to the legislature and I went to the house and then the Senate to get things done for the entire group of people that I represent and because of all my work with nonprofits and in the social services and teaching people also I think believe that understood that knew that about me I had a good reputation for uh hard work and getting things
00:14:51 done and so that that was the top priority um as as far as as far as far as my colleagues I I’ll tell you a story the very first day uh first week I was there uh guy came up to me in the elevator and he said oh you’re uh Nikki Antonio and I said yes and we had that 30 second elevator you know conversation you have with somebody um he said you have a partner right is that the right word and I said yes and I said how about you you know and he told me about his family and so we chat and you know the doors open we parted nice meeting you talk to you later about a couple hours later
00:15:36 uh we’ll call back guy uh legislator a legislator B comes up to me and he says hey I heard you talk to legislator a before because he came up to me and he said hey I met that Nikki Antonio you know she’s so normal and he said and I told him well of course you knuckle head what did you expect MH and I said well thanks for sharing um and I’ll see you later and I walked away and I realized a couple things one was that legislator a uh found me in air quotes normal uh because he I thought at the time he’d probably not talked to somebody from the LGBT community before he truly you know
00:16:22 everyone knew that’s who I was um legislature B wanted to tell me the story because he wanted me to know that he was more enlightened than legislator a you know so it was an interesting thing down the road though uh about a year later I found out legislator a came to me and he sat down with me and he said my only regret I want to tell you I had a twin brother and he died of AIDS during the pandemic at the height of the pandemic and my family was ashamed of him really and my family denied that he even existed and he said I didn’t talk to him until he was on
00:17:04 his deathbed and he said I’m seeing you be here you’re my colleague and my only regret is that my brother couldn’t live to see this day and he said I am so proud that you’re here and I’m so ashamed of the way my family acted at the time and I said you know what I think you sat with him I think he knows that you loved him and that you accepted him and even if it was at the end that’s powerful wow yeah that’s a hard one to deal with you know I think that’s like um that that kind of conversation and things happen in families all the time and you hear about it and it’s just really
00:17:47 really tough the the understanding of it you know just just in the um the approach of um I told my wife and everything Nicki’s coming on my Pro they don’t know who he was then I told her who was and they was like oh that ought to be an interesting conversation I said no it’ll be all right you know um because I’m still a little old school not in my my Approach because I respect everybody but just trying to understand everything the one biggest thing that I can say that I I’m really proud of
00:18:17 is that the world is changing so dog on Fast right and things are changing with all the everything not just with the lgbq but just with everything that at 56 years old I’m glad I’m there right I’m just really glad I’m there because I don’t know what the kids and everybody else is going to be dealing with 20 30 years from now but it’s gonna be different I would love to come back and see or be here to see right but it’s gonna be different n you know it’s gonna the presidency you one day it be a a LD lgbtq president or something you you never know what this world is going to turn out
00:18:55 to be and that’s the biggest thing you know sure and the thing is we right you know you’re talking about us involving uh in our ideas or attitudes but also I think in our compassion our empathy our ability we’re civilized we’re supposed to be a very civilized uh society and you open the circle up for everyone and I think um I think we’re at a point truly where I don’t know I think the I think the the few people possible right now don’t know someone from an the LGBT community either it’s a family member a cousin a sister a brother or it’s your neighbor your coworker someone and little by
00:19:44 little because of all the changes people have been more comfortable being their authentic selves and being able to stand up and say yeah this is who I am I hope you accept me they’re we we are every everywhere we are your doctors your lawyers your nurses um your teachers everything we’re we’re a part of the fabric of the society and my biggest hope the the most important reason why I do talk about it sometimes is because I want our young people coming up to feel okay about who they are whoever that is and whoever they love um because that’s the most important thing to me is that
00:20:26 they can grow up feeling like okay to be their authentic self we as a society we benefit from that when people feel good about themselves then what do they do they succeed I love what you have on your wall when you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe then you will be successful that’s correct that is that’s it that’s the heart of it all you know and and that’s why I say they say time heals all wounds so that’s why I say 10 years from now it everything normals itself out to this is how it’s going to be and things change you know and you just have to be a part of
00:21:03 it unfortunately we got some folks who trying to bend on the change I’m a lot more Progressive than I were before you know what I mean as it relates to everything I live in Cleveland Heights and um that area and moving from the city of Cleveland there took some adjustment then as the years went on it took more adjustment as my kids went through school the adjustment came because um we went from going to school to like whoa what’s happening in school now you know and they coming home and them having an effect on you to get you to open up your mind hey Dad you got to know that
00:21:38 we things are different now and we going to do things this way so like I say it’s just time I think Time Heals our wounds and everything keeps going so let’s get to another question because here we go it seems like you’ve been a star for advocating for lgbtq rights I’m getting that down lgbtq I get all lgbtq rights can you give us a sneak peek of some upcoming legislation that we need to that’s happening down there that’s going on that you think people ought to pay attention to and anything along those lines well sure I mean there’s there’s there’s a a lot of legislation
00:22:15 in terms of uh things that are proactive um one of the things that I’ve been working on so every General Assembly which is a two-year period of time I always introduce a fairness bill which is LGBT equality in the in the workplace um and in housing and just moving around the public sphere uh always introduce that we’ve got a number of sponsors on it uh it’s tough for us to move it in this climate as you can imagine the interesting thing is a number of years ago the Ohio uh Chamber of Commerce came on as as supporting it because they understand how important it is for our
00:22:56 economic advancement if we want to recruit people to come to Ohio for good jobs um and we got a lot of things happening where the Intel plant and and and Google wants to add a facility there’s all kinds of wonderful things happening we need people with jobs young people want to live in places where people are accepted and welcomed uh across the board they want to see everybody welcome if that’s the case then they’re willing to put down Roots they’ll raise their families um it it it just makes such a difference and so that bill we keep introducing it you know there’s
00:23:36 a couple there’s always some culture War negative things happening um it gives people an opportunity to talk about it you know it the the sad thing about all that is that but those aren’t the issues that are the most important things to the people of Ohio okay you know the most important things to people of Ohio are um how much of my groceries cost can I put gas in the car do I feel safe in my community and is there a is there a good job for me and then for my kids right and are there good schools to send my kids to that’s the most important thing so we are constantly working on
00:24:14 trying to uplift the communities with safety um I talked to Brent Larkin uh a couple of weeks ago there was an article in the uh plane dealer over the weekend that talked about all of the sensible bills for gun safety sensible things like making sure there’s gun lock on your on your weapon and um making sure that the guns stay out of the hands of people who’ve been convicted of domestic violence things like that these are basic simple things that the majority of people agree with but we can’t get them moved um you know I think gun violence in general is
00:24:53 something that everybody’s concerned about oh the guns up here is just is just ridiculous I and I’m a I’m a gun carrier and Advocate and all of that but it’s just ridiculous I mean I it it’s just really bad with the the ease of how it is for them people to get guns and and um you know Mike Aly had a thing up yesterday you seen that on the news where he was talking about that the um the prosecution of the young miners um he believe is just not strong enough for some of the crimes that they’re doing it’s be a thing he’s putting a thing out they gonna be talking about because that’s
00:25:31 one of the issues I think with the guns I mean they’re they’re arresting these these youngers with weapons and they’re putting them right back out on the street with no kind of anything they may give them some probation or telling they have to be home but they’re going right back out committing a even worse crime and then you find out that you just let this person out 30 days ago 60 days ago and they was they had a weapon in and that’s the part of it that I just don’t get in the state legislators seem like I I know what you’re dealing with down there so it seemed
00:26:04 like it’s just how why don’t you tell the people how difficult it is to try to get something passed down there like that well the the it’s it’s very very interesting because I know this will come as a shock to some people but we agree actually at about 90% 90% of the legislation that goes through we agree on the 10% that we disagree that’s what you hear about wow that’s what makes the headlines and makes the news right um we just ped a capital budget bill it was an incredible um $800 million
00:26:39 dolls of fi of funding that’s coming to our local communities to help with projects big and small it’s amazing investment all over the state uh we’re getting a lot of money up in Northeast Ohio we got over a hundred million in Northeast Ohio it’s it’s going to be um transformational right did you hear a lot about that no no you didn’t because because I think the media likes to focus on the fight and the antagonism and you know if is there some blood to be seen somewhere that’s what they’re looking for unfortunately um the good stuff doesn’t always make the headlines
00:27:20 it’s still tough to pass legislation any of the bills that I’ve passed and I’ve passed quite a few uh it takes a bipartisan effort it takes I got to find somebody across the aisle who agrees with me on a specific issue and then we work together uh one of the things I’ve been trying to do since I’ve been in the legislature is end the use of the death penalty in the state of Ohio okay and um I have the most bipartisan group of people that we’ve ever had on the bill right now as co-sponsors I have a republican joint sponsor um we are working together to try to
00:27:58 convince enough members to vote on it um I haven’t given up on it at this point and frankly that’s a thing that we should have evolved out of first of all we get it wrong sometimes and there are exies from the state of Ohio that we bring out and they make speeches and they talk to people in the legislature they talk to the communities um we got it wrong with them if there’s only one even one person that we get it wrong we should get rid of it we should not use it um it’s not a deterrent people don’t say I’m not going to I’m not going to kill this person
00:28:34 because because of the death penalty it hasn’t been shown to be a deterrent disproportionately it’s used against people of color um and it also depends on what county you’re from whether or not they even impose the death penalty Justice Piper is one of the chief justices who years and years ago brought the death penalty back as a legislator okay he now testifies against it and says it’s a death Lottery we should get rid of it so what’s the suggestion just keep them um the suggestion is to go with life without parole when you’re sure okay when you’re 100% sure this
00:29:12 is the person that committed that crime and not every crime Rises to a capital punishment level it’s just Sav for the most heinous crimes but we as a society have to be better right and again um if there’s one time that we get it wrong that’s one time too many for sure education has always been in the spotlight down there with all of the books ban the books and all the other craziness that’s going on in education won’t you Enlighten us what’s happening on the educational front so I think the biggest concern we have well there’s a couple of things one is um we did Chang the
00:29:53 funding formula last General Assembly you know for the longest time we were not in compant with having a a fair funding formula for schools we changed the formula but then we didn’t fund it completely so we’re still working and we’re hoping that this time around um before the end of the year that we make sure that the budget is reflective this year and next year when we go into a two-year budget again that we actually put the money in we need to but one of the big problems right now is the voucher program has exploded um into private schools religious-based schools are
00:30:32 getting these vouchers and they took the cap away on um the top yeah Ed choice but it’s but it’s there used to be a limit on how much money you made how much how much you got oh that’s right everybody getes their choice now right that’s right that’s right and and when they did the initial study what they found was it wasn’t people leaving leaving a a failing school and going to a private school it was people who already have their kids in private school just getting getting a subsidy to pay for the school wow and at the same time those private schools are not held to
00:31:07 the same levels of accountability that our public schools are and so um we need to cap on them for sure and then we also need to make sure that those private schools have the same transparency and accountability as the public schools and that we should not be taking any dollars away from public schools in fact we should be adding to it because our kids need so much more today than they needed it’s more expensive to educate kids today than it was 20 years ago with computers and the and the notebooks and all the things that they need but if we can give them what they need they’re going
00:31:51 to be able to make a living wage to get a good job uh to go to college if that’s what they want get some additional training whatever it is um but we have to prepare them for that and so in order to do that we have to make a Level Playing Field it’s not that way right now you you um and and I think there has to I don’t know if they fixed the solution or not but it has to be a way that private schools in these schools won’t accept all these kids get them in then kick them out because the first time they get because like you say public kids and cmsd and all they come with
00:32:24 little issues sometime even even in the suburb I mean just kids period they come with an issue sometimes and they’ll get their a choice money get them in there soon as they mess up oh you get out but they done got the money and now you kick them back to cmsd and they’re trying to recoup the money so I think that that’s a big flaw that’s in that um whole thing with that and then it’s the educational piece how much does the state has to deal with um the type of curriculum that kids are learning it seems to me that we should try to put more um programs in school that will allow the
00:33:00 kids more of an opportunity whether if they wanted to go to college or not but more trades and that thing yes does the State play any role in trying to implement that and it’s one of the things we’ve we’ve agreed on uh across it it there’s not a polit political divide um when it comes to stem when it comes to um any kind of Career Tech when it comes to the preparing kids for the trades and being able to um work you know even if you want to go into building things you want to go into if you
00:33:35 wanted to go into manufacturing anything welding you want to be we need welders if kids that want to do that you still have to be competent in using computers everything is computerized now and so um we have agreed we’ve lowered the age that kids can start into some of these um a path to a trade um where it used to be nth and 10th grade now it’s seventh and eth grade and I think that’s a good thing okay the biggest barrier right now is getting kids and their parents to understand that even manufacturing is not Grandpa’s manufacturing it’s it’s very new very clean in a lot of these
00:34:16 plants the jobs pay great A lot of times people companies want kids to be coming right out of high school but they want to make sure that they’ve had some of that pre-training that they got in high school we’re moving in that direction um clear it’s very it’s something that we’ve talked a lot about and that we funded at the at the state level and it’s something that we have to continue to push for sure because it seems like even it I know that um cmsd has a much big their budget is bigger than the whole city of Cleveland’s budget to get um to get um kids to educate kids have a lot of
00:34:56 empty buildings where we have buildings where you don’t have nearly the amount of kids I I tell everybody to keep asking what’s going on see y’all need to have more babies that’s the problem y’all ain’t having no kids you’re not the only person that I’ve heard say I mean that that is the reason this new generation yeah they ain’t having no kids they ain’t trying to do nothing but live at home I’m trying to tell you they ain’t have no kids they ain’t moving out and and part of that is the and it’s been started it happened some years ago where the population start going down in cmsd and
00:35:26 we started seeing that years ago and and it was that it was like kid people are just not having the amount of kids that they used to have in these days in these neighborhoods to sustain the schools and it it just seemed like um I think it makes it uh um that argument even stronger for the other side knowing what we’re dealing within our schools with the fact that you know the trades are just really we have one trade at Max Hayes is one of the schools that really does a trade the rest of the schools really pretty much don’t do that kind of thing funnel them to most of the most of the
00:36:01 cmsd kids can go to Max Hayes you know as as the premier place however I am a strong proponent of we need a trade school on the east side of town as well and Sandra Williams was my colleague when we we served in the legislature together and um she and I had many conversations she was really trying to push for a location on the east side as well and I think it’s something we should absolutely do those are such good paying jobs you know with a job like that you can actually afford to have children well a job with with that you can afford to have children with having the trades you might
00:36:40 be able to pay your way to go to college because you can get out of school with a trade all that and I think it’s hard I I got bused to Lincoln West as a kid okay so it’s hard catching a bus early in the morning and and we were on a yellow bus so I imagine if you were in anywhere else you have to take RTA so the challenge of doing all of that trying to get through your neighborhood all that’s a lot to put on a kid to come all the way to the West Side to learn and then have to get out there and come back home that way so having one on the east side wouldn’t be a bad idea and
00:37:14 you know what guess what you represent the east side now yes I do I represent the I represent the majority of Cleveland right now and then Lakewood um right now it’s parman and Parma Heights but come January um um it’s almost all of Cleveland up to Collinwood and yep downtown east uh downtown and then the west side then it’s Lakewood and in January it’ll also include Rocky River Bay Village Fair viiew Park and West Lake and they take Parma and Parma Heights put it into different District different District yeah and you so you’re gonna get um all the Westside
00:37:51 all the Westside Wards just about all of them not quite I think West Park still goes to a different East you’re going to pick up um you’re going to pick up Carrie you’re going to pick up I have downtown in um and the and the east side right now a lot of the east side so I have um W five oh so you got um star yeah you got Stephanie Stephanie I have Stephanie you have Conwell um Conwell part of Conwell part of Conwell and you have Anthony um yes part of Anthony yeah yeah part of Blain just a coule just a couple of precincts in wow now that’s why you out so now why wow it is very
00:38:37 yeah yeah all right so you stop mainly that far with Blaine and you go as far as P you got all the penic H half of pen half of pen that’s a pretty big District it’s a lot a district so every Senate District is about 360,000 although they can grow to 375 which is my district they inflated the 375 37 75,000 people um it’s about half of a congressional district that’s what we represent yeah so in that now that you have a new diverse more diverse you got picked up a lot of black areas in there how your what’s your plan uh uh working with that it’s some different and
00:39:16 Outreach and all of that and and how you and and the challenges because that comes with a a whole another different set of challenges like we were just talking about how how you plan on working through that well I um move around Cleveland and the district and and actually kanyaga County for a long time so um with this new part of the district I mean um during the capital budget I went all over to all of the projects that had applications within city of Cleveland this broader District met with folks advocated for a lot of the projects and you know you can’t get funding
00:39:53 for every single one um but we got funding in some of the the parts of the district um we got the um the Huff YMCA got some money I have Huff in my district um we have um there’s a number of other smaller Community projects where we were able to get some funding for so um that always helps to start out um you know even even when I was campaigning for this for the second term you know it it’s it’s showing up a lot of community um meetings you know councilwoman house and I serve together in the legislature okay already so we know each other she does an amazing job of she’s
00:40:39 always having Community meetings and and um events and stuff she does a great newsletter so we get around we get her information and everything and get around for sure um it’s really just trying to strong collaboration strong collaboration um councilman Conwell we’re great friends so we he lets me know when things are happening in my office know we let him know when when we’d like him to come down and talk to us in Columbus it’s a it’s a I have good working relationships with the council people and really that’s the key than to touch and base in the community what do the
00:41:17 um aah give some shots of Latif in there for me too um what are some of the um things you think go ahead I’m going let you drink a little bit what are some of the things you think that um the public should try to utilize the um your state senator more for sure well we get a lot of people calling in but what we do um well it’s a couple things during covid my staff were on the phones every day all day the majority of what they were doing was connecting people a lot of it was with unemployment because that was one one of the hugest questions and concerns of people
00:42:01 during covid right so um we are the connectors we are the connectors for people between themselves and state Services a lot of times people will call us though about something that maybe is a city council uh just affordable housing uh be available for people and it’s tough it’s tough because there’s these llc’s that are coming from on a national level from as far away well some of them are even International where they’re coming into our communities buying up homes flashing a lot of cash and then letting them sit and rot or uh doing a quick turnaround and then
00:42:44 renting them out but they’re substandard um and the rents are high so we have legislation I have bipartisan Le legislation where we’re trying to catch some of those corporate people okay that uh we want to fine them big okay with huge fines so they stop doing this um there’s a number of things we’re trying to do to make it harder to uh take advantage of people and make it easier for people to be in homes you know owner occupied homes if possible I think the the area that we’ve had the most difficult time is dealing with runal frankly and you know there’s not a lot we’ve been
00:43:26 able to do to bring down the high cost because it’s becoming impossible for people to afford to even rent that’s why everybody’s at home exactly that’s why they’re in your basement that’s why those kids are living in your basement but yeah exactly exactly yeah and when you when you find out you don’t blame them because it is when you find out what it costs for one bedroom two- bedroom condominium or house like that it is it’s like buying a house but the interest rates on buying houses are so high it’s like man you kind of damned if do that if you don’t right um and and
00:44:00 the most important thing as a as a policy maker is that the properties are safe and affordable and that people can be able to have a quality of life that’s high as well so that means everything’s supposed to be working in that house you know the water the the heat the everything and if it’s not then it needs to inform um the public because I think an educated and informed public ultimately is the one that ends up stopping this you know there was a program on I think it was called um how America was made or the Something That Built America it is it’s a program called so I’m gonna
00:44:47 put it in the description because you need to check it out but what they did is they did like the Auto industry they did the foods that built America that’s was the foods that built America the um technology that built America they did all of them but they did one on contraception and for anybody who want to know what women had to go through back in the day to not get pregnant I mean it I mean it was wild the contraceptive everything that we have now had to be experimented right somebody had to experiment with that and and the stuff they use now wasn’t always the
00:45:26 stuff they used back in day to be able to stop that right and to not get pregnant so this like you said is not nothing there been going on for years that um women just didn’t want any more kids or just felt it wasn’t safe for them to have and and and and um it should be a right it shouldn’t be something that’s forced on you know I think you should have it if not people gonna go back to what they have to do and that stuff was just not safe danger it’s just dangerous and and we make this the these bills that would prevent um people from making these decisions on their own and and let’s
00:46:03 remember you know women don’t get pregnant by themselves um exactly you know so there’s two people involved in in the in the decision making around this as well but the thing is that we can’t go back to a dangerous time but also we have all these advances in medicine right now there are times when a wanted pregnancy goes wrong something goes wrong it’s just nature and for a woman not to be able to get absolutely every available care to her to make sure that she survives whatever whatever’s happening whether it’s a miscarriage or anything and that she’s able to go on if she
00:46:51 wants to to have children down the road or maybe she’s a mom with kids at home we want to make sure that she’s survives that so that she can go on with her life um there there is way too much happening where they’re where they’re making women wait before they get the care they need because of some of these restrictive extreme laws and that goes against the ability to provide medical care you know that’s that’s just wrong so that that that can lead us into this question lead us into our closing we’re gonna close out on some good fun politics good fun politics uh so how with
00:47:32 President Trump picking JD Vance JD Vance being such a hard nose about women productive rights and all of that how more difficult you think this gives to the legislature knowing that um they may have a strong person in the white house if he was able to pull this off how difficult is that going to make your job down there for all of the things you fight for not just that but all the things you because they’re against everything that you everything you for so how how how does that how you feel you gonna battle that out well I think the way we battle that out is at The Ballot Box
00:48:09 and I want to make sure that they don’t have the opportunity to make those decisions for us for all of us um that means we have to be informed voters uh we have to make sure we’ve not been purged from the polls from the voting rules the voting book right now too because there was a purge that went on in Ohio where they just took people off of the role so you may think well I didn’t vote a couple times but I’m I know I’m registered everyone within the sound of my voice needs to make sure you can go online to the Board of Elections and make sure you’re registered to vote if you’re
00:48:46 not you can register uh there’s still time there’s time up until I think the end of September to make sure that you’re registered to vote and then we just need to be informed voters voting for our rights and our freedoms do you think that um President Biden’s policies have been under scrutiny what’s your stance on the administration approach to issues in effect in Ohio his administration well it’s made an incredible difference starting with the infrastructure Bill all these monies came in to not only um Shore up our bridges our roads and our bridges build new
00:49:26 ones um it was a safety issue but it’s also an economic advancement issue um so starting there the chip factory that’s going to come to Ohio that int so so these little tiny chips that are in everything our phones our cars our computers our phone our cameras everything these tiny chips had been made off shore overseas in China and Korea and Taiwan and all different kinds of places under the Biden Administration they brought all of that back to the United States not all of it but the majority of it They’re bringing back and so they put all this invested money into setting up a new
00:50:10 chip factory they looked all over the country they settled on outside of Columbus in Ohio okay to put this they are going to end up building a city okay in that area with good paying jobs and educational advancements and all kinds of opportunities and then there’ll be all the things that have to be um all the jobs that’ll come from being around yes exactly and so that’s one of the key things um but there have been so many advances and so much productivity under this Administration that um I’m
00:50:48 hoping I’m certainly hoping that it continues I have a lot of faith in um getting the job done the next term Donald Trump remains a polarizing figure how do you think his potential candidate will his potential candidacy will impact what’s happening in Ohio landscape well and I guess we’ll say Yeah in in this landscape and even to this let’s stretch it a little bit on that his potential with the legislature but also his potential of picking JD Vance and that effect on even shared Brown because of um that him getting INR do you believe that all of that is how you feel that
00:51:27 threatens all what the Democrats and everything is working for well you know what’s interesting is Ohio uh a lot of the time has had in the past we all have two senators every state has two senators in Ohio the majority of the time we have had a senator from each party a Republican senator and a Democrat Senator and I think it provides a good balance for Ohio I think it’s um it’s been it’s been shown to be pretty positive I’m hoping that people people will want to continue to see that we have a republican our Democratic senator is up for reelection and he is truly a man uh of
00:52:07 the working people uh sherida Brown has showed that over and over again uh he’s helped bring some of those jobs back to the United States but also to Ohio he fights for workers he’s been fighting for pensions um and so I really believe that um whether or not JD van has been chosen as the running mate for the president I I don’t think it will affect sherid Brown in an negative way I I think it’s important for us to to take a look at and make sure that shered returns for sure so you don’t think people feel it’s more of advantage to have a vice president and all Republicans in
00:52:49 I guess the Republicans do well yeah I am sure but see in my vision in my vision of the world um that doesn’t happen and that the Democrats get four more years in the white house I think um and I think the Senate and the house are G to always uh right now are going to be very close I don’t know whether they’ll tip one way or the other but I think they’re going to be close and there’s you know I I think it shows how divided our country is right now that we’re we’re almost like 5050 on so many things so you don’t think um that what’s the Democrats are doing now as it relates to this Joe
00:53:32 Biden needs to get out to race KLA Harris and to me it seems to show a device I’m gonna tell you how I feel okay tell me how I was watching MSNBC and I was watching CNN flicking back and forth it seemed like Rachel medals Joy Reed all of them over there just whining crying and they’re just wh wh whine we going to lose he’s doing he should get out the race they they going going back and forth and even though it it seems like the Democrats are just a bunch of whiners and and the Republicans are saying we gonna shove this down y’all throat and and even to the point of now that they’re
00:54:15 not supporting the president in the way you would think they support and so when we out here talking to people about we need to be this way and they be like Democrats s y’all don’t be doing this and this is why we doing it so what’s your thoughts on that I mean they need to fix I mean there’s a mixed message that’s out there and it’s really bad and here’s even gets worse the mess is so bad that even they can’t even agree on kamla if they were to say okay let’s go ahead and it’ll be kamla Harris then you can say okay but they’re like we don’t even want kin Nei let me tell you how it’s
00:54:48 gonna be I’m very clear I’m very clear all of the um the majority of the people that are going to to this um convention in a couple weeks are already already committed to Joe Biden that’s a fact we have signed a piece of paper that said Joe Biden is my candidate okay I am a delegate for Joe Biden that’s one number two Joe Biden comes with a vice presidential candidate that is Kamala correct and I am 200% in for Kamala I think if if there if we knew Joe was an old guy he’s an old guy but you know what he’s an old guy with principle he he mixes up his words sometimes but he gets
00:55:33 stuff done I edited myself right there he gets stuff done and if he’s not up for any part of this and any moment I have 100% faith in Kamala and I am trying very hard to get my Democratic colleagues on the same page with me and I really think the majority of us are there are in the they’re believing the same thing I am you know you got to remember the people that you just talked about are in the media correct and they want attention I asked somebody the other day I said look one of my constituents came up to me and said why is the the media focusing so much on whether
00:56:15 or not Joe Biden misspoke or had a bad night why aren’t they talking about the guy that is a felon and a rapist and a liar why aren’t they focusing on him and I said I asked somebody from the media the same question and you know what they answered me they said because Joe Biden having a bad night it was news it’s news because it was different that day than it was another day and so all we need to do is wait for a new day and a new thing right now they’re spinning and because every time they spin people just get caught up in the spin I really when all is said and done it comes down to
00:56:56 these SE are the two guys that we’re going to be deciding between we’re going to decide between two old guys they are two old white guys we know that um one who want who has told us he wants to be a dictator and one who has said uh who has shown Us by what he’s done that he’s doing the best he can to work for the people to make our lives better I know who I’m G to pick I’m GNA pick Biden every time and I love the fact that Kamala is right there at his side to be the vice president she could possibly be the first black woman president in this country I can’t wait for that to happen
00:57:36 well they say she’s polling better than he is so I that think that’s wonderful yeah they say she’s polling better than and I think with joy and everybody else because to the media to that media I think they pounded Trump as much as they could throughout the year because he made it easy he was getting in trouble and everything else I think that one debate where Joe didn’t do well I think they really wanted him to do so well that they knocked it out the block but he didn’t and they can’t get over it and they sitting there just whining about it like Let It Go and come on now
00:58:08 we gotta move on and that’s so we gonna move on We Ain’t Gonna Keep hopping but they need to let that go all right they need to I’m with you 100% they need to let that go Who’s Your Role Model senator who who you role model that is a that is a wonderful question when I was in college um I discover I didn’t disco I discovered again Shirley Chisum Shirley Chisum um for I hope everyone knows was was actually the first black woman to run for president uh from a from a party from a from one of the main parties she was a Democrat uh she ran for president she was the first black woman
00:58:48 in Congress she was amazing she was articulate she dressed really awesome for the time too you have to go look her up uh yes yes the movie was good and and she was she said but she wrote a book and her book was unbought and unbossed I love that and I thought that is who I want to be that is who I want to be in whatever I do that I do not want to ever do make any decision because somebody has money I want to make a decision because it’s the right thing to do and frankly no one is the boss of me I loved that that was her motto as well she did all kinds of work she is the person
00:59:32 responsible for any of the food programs in the schools um she she was amazing and um I actually got the chance to meet her she came to Cleveland State in the early uh right before she died about two years before she died she gave a speech and um there was a reception afterwards and I was sitting there and she sat down next to me and I said hello Miss Miss Chism and she said hello and we had a nice little chat and I was like fangirling the whole time I was so amazed to be sitting there and
01:00:07 she she was incredibly impressive what advice do you have for young aspiring politicians especially those from marginalized communities uh get involved get involved in people’s campaigns find somebody that you like that you like what you hear them say you like what believe in um because it matches your values get involved in their campaign volunteer do and do all the work that’s no fun at the beginning but you learn so much from it and keep talking to people be be visible tell people that you’re interested um ask for assignments volunteer to be on committees and commissions
01:00:50 when I started out by somebody asking me to be on a committee and a commission in Linkwood that was the first thing I ever did and you just keep at it and keep at it meet as many people as possible learn from them learn from people the thing to do and when you see somebody acting badly make note of that don’t do that and just keep at it and then when you feel even if you don’t feel like you’re ready when there is an opportunity take it and run my last question I have for you we’re gonna let you end on this one is finally there’s been much to debate about the stands on Ohio Fairness
01:01:28 Act and some undermine religions and freedom how what’s your respond to that well the the Ohio Fairness Act acknowledges even in the language in the bill that um there are religious exceptions right now exemptions in the law it upholds them you know no one should have to jeopardize or compromise their religious beliefs um and so that bill does not would not do that absolutely would not do that it was important to me to make sure that we honor people’s religious beliefs at the same time acknowledging that there is a fairness that should be available and affordable
01:02:10 to all people in the state of Ohio we want people to be able to have a job live in the place they want to be able to live in go to dinner with their family and not be harassed I think that’s something that all of us can agree should be available to every single person in this state excellent DJ you got a question I want to get your stance on what did you feel that it was a lot of controversy with like drag shows and schools and things of that nature what was your take on that and the second part of the question is when should kids be introduced to sexual orientation
01:02:56 or sexual type of content in schools that a hell of a question L I didn’t even think of that one I’m G give credit you always drag out one I didn’t think of either one of them go ahead that’s so first of all there’s no drag happening in schools okay that’s the first one um there was some Library there were some libraries that had Story Time drag story time you know throughout history and we could go way way way way back to the Greeks to the Romans um certainly we see drag and and actually in shakespearian plays were done by men they played all the parts so drag has been part
01:03:40 of our societal culture for hundreds of thousands of years that’s one um as far as children being exposed you know I respect parents’ rights I I have fought for upholding the rights of parents to make decisions for their children and in the case of any of the controversy that had sprung up there were parents who made the decisions to have their children entertained and I do want to say I I also want to say very respectfully that the a drag a person in drag reading a story book is not sexual there is nothing sexual because I believe um sexual content is not appropriate for little
01:04:26 children I think we can all agree on that there was there there was nothing sexual about it and um so but the parents made the decision to have their children there I respect parents right to make decisions for their children I don’t think the government should do that I’m a firm believer on that and did you did you now what about the age that sexual orientation or anything sexual in nature should be introduced to a kid het or other sure sure well there you know I’m a former teacher and so um there are guidelines around um I I will say Ohio is the only state in the nation
01:05:14 that does not have formalized guidelines around sex sex education I don’t know if you knew that break that we don’t have that we don’t have that well we’ve tried to put them in and people think it’s encouraging talking about sex so they haven’t understood po the policy behind it and so they the legislature has refused to put we have sex ad in school you probably you probably did um but there’s no um approved curriculum at the state level really so I know the city of Cleveland um the Cleveland Public Schools do a wonderful job it’s age appropriate getting to to the DJ’s
01:05:54 question age appropriate means um as a child gets older there’s more discussion that’s clearer about whether it’s biology or whatever but it matches their age and is appropriate for their age you know little children when you even talk about protecting children from sexual predators little children you talk about um Good Touch Bad Touch you don’t go any further than that with anything I mean there are guidelines there are there are ways to do this that is that is appropriate when CH and the same thing is true of talking about orientation sexual orientation um but at the
01:06:37 same time if a child is in a family that has two moms or two dads and comes to school and talks about their family uh talks about you know we went to the zoo this weekend who’d you go with my dad’s that is not talking about sex that’s the child talking about their family and that should be allowed would we deny that child or tell that child something’s wrong with them or their family because their family is made up a little bit differently than some of the other children that’s interesting well Senator we appreciate you coming on our program you did a wonderful job
01:07:17 everything that you would like to meet from the senator we gonna put in our descriptions in our program where you can get in touch with her office for any type of thing that you would need from her and if you like to get involved with the campaign she’ll let you know how to do that as well but what we do on every show k um Senator we give you this camera right here you can look right into the camera and tell the peoples whatever you would like to tell them what’s on your mind or just give them a little word of encouragement we take your time and do what you like to do well first
01:07:45 of all I think it’s really important that we make sure that everyone is registered to vote and then if you’re old enough to vote that you vote uh be an informed voter make sure that you vote your values and that your values are expressed by the people that you vote for um the second thing is we we have seen a lot of violence we see violence in our communities we fear for our children we um we fear now for um political uh entities political campaigns I think it’s really important that we take a breath and that we think about how can we um deal with issues in our own lives and show our
01:08:32 children a better way another way uh other than using violence I know for myself that there were times with my children where I told them you know what I need to take a timeout the first time I said that to my child she was very surprised she said usually timeout is for me I said you know in this case I need a timeout so maybe if all of us took a breath and took a timeout once in a while and show our children how to do that um that we can start curbing the violence that happens even even personally Even in our own lives um I thank everybody for watching and thank you for inviting
01:09:12 me I’m just want you to say my name is Senator Nicki Antonio watch me next on strategic moves with Kena my name is Senator Nikki Antonio watch me next on strategic moves with kenal this is strategic mus canow [Music]