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Someone in our church that is going to be
running

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for a state house uh position.

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So not a federal, uh not uh Congress in a

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federal government, but here uh in Texas, and
they want

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they're running for a state house Texas seat
that will

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be our area.

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And so I wanted to bring him up here and

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talk about it.

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But before you come up, um just so you know,

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their household has a Democrat and a
Republican in it,

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and they still really love each other.

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They don't always agree, you know.

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But uh what I want I wanted to bring Dale

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up.

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So, Dale Frey, why don't you come up with
everybody?

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Let's give him a hand.

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I wanted Dale to be able to come up to

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be able to kind of talk to us about uh

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this question, you know, how do we how much is

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too much?

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How do we get involved?

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What do we do?

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How do we balance some of this stuff?

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And Dale is we've gotten to know each other,
so

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he's running as a Democrat for for the
position.

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And uh I wanted him to talk to you about

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how this happened for him, because it's not
his first

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career choice.

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Uh and so why don't you give us your story

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a little bit and tell us uh what's going on?

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So welcome.

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Sure, sure.

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Uh so hi, uh my name's Dale Frey.

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I'm running sorry.

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Just want to make sure you can hear me.

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They gotcha.

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All right.

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Uh yeah, so I'm running for the Texas State
House

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of Representatives for HD here a little bit.

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106, which is basically this area here and
also northeast

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Denton County.

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And uh there's a lot of reasons I'm running
for

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office, but probably one of them that's more
personal to

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me is uh our healthcare system.

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So uh I did that 23ME exam, that blood exam

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thing out of curiosity.

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I never thought that thing would come back and
tell

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me that I'm genetically unable to get
Alzheimer's when I

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get older.

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That was a huge shock to me.

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I eventually figured out it runs on both sides
of

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my family.

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And I find this out right around the same time

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that I meet a woman named Kenneth Kenneth owns
her

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own LLC.

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She is a healthcare provider, particularly for
assisted living, so

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she takes care of people with Alzheimer's and
dementia and

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things like that.

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And she's ranting to me the other day.

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She says, Dale, I'm about to go out of
business

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unless I drop my Medicaid recipi.ents because
Medicaid is not

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the rates for Medicaid has not been adjusted
since long

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before the pandemic and inflation

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It's just killing the sector.

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So this is something that just it really irks
me

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a lot, especially that we live in Texas.

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It's one of the few states in the country that

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has not opted into the Medicaid expansion
program.

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For those of you who don't know, the Medicaid
expansion

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program is something that we pay money into
from our

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federal taxes, and only certain states gets
that money back,

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and it's not us.

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So we are spending money and paying for
medical programs

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in California and in New Jersey, but not back
here.

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So I mean, I it is insane to think that

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we're not opted into this, and I believe that
we

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absolutely should.

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Now this is something that really affects
people's families.

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I've seen it firsthand.

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My father in law, Leander's dad, when he was
battling

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cancer in his later years, I mean, it was real

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hard to put him through all those treatments
and pay

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for it given the very little money that comes
out

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of Medicaid alone without Medicaid expansion.

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And it's also that he made such little money
as

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a retired school teacher because school
teachers do not make

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enough money here in Texas.

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They are not supported the way that they
should be.

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And especially in retirement, they just do not
make Jack

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Squad.

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I've seen it, man.

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It's real bad.

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So I believe that we need better leadership in
uh

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Austin to support our medical programs and our
school teachers.

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And that's sort of those are things that are
personal

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to me.

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And Dale, what's cool is as God's burdened you

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with this, he's shown you this is a way for

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you to be able to walk and work that out.

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And you know, so we need people who are
passionate

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about Christ in our system, in the system, and
fighting

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for things.

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The thing is, how many of you knew that about

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our tax dollars with that leads to my next

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question for Dale is how do we find out about

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this information about stuff that's going on,
especially here locally?

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Oh, yeah.

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So if you want to learn about things locally,
uh,

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here's what I do.

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Um, Fox News and CNN, those are both national
level

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stuff, and they're also very, very partisan.

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Uh local news tends to not be so partisan.

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So what I really like is I believe it's called

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K V U E.

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Let me make sure I get I sometimes slip up

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those acronyms.

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K V U E.

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If you look that up on YouTube, uh they are

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a local news station to Austin, Texas.

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So you will see local Austin news stories in
there,

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but they also cover the Capitol pretty well.

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They will tell you about the general ongoings
that's happening

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in the Austin uh legislature.

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Another one is uh the Texas Tribune.

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I like Texas uh the Texas Tribune a lot
because

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they're a nonprofit organization.

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Um they're they're really well-rounded.

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Uh I know that some people consider them to
actually

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be a stepping stone to NPR, because they had
quite

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a few people uh leave the Texas Tribune to
work

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for uh NPR, the National Public Radio in
Washington, DC.

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And uh aside from that, I mean I I also

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probably I don't know how many of you guys use

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Reddit, but there is uh a subreddit called
Texas Politics.

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And uh what I like about Reddit is that uh

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it's basically a collection of news articles
where people get

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to vote upon which article they think people
should be

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looking at more.

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So the problem with Reddit sometimes is like
you're not

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always gonna see the latest stuff immediately
because people need

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to vote for a news article to be pushed up

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in the feed.

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But I like that because it's not based on some

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algorithm, it's based upon the community
voting for what they

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believe is the most important.

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So those are those are three things that I
follow

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for local politics here.

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Another thing you can do is take Dale out to

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lunch and ask him because he'll let you know
stuff.

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Honestly, that's it.

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Because there's a lot of things that if we
understood

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what was happening, we'd be fired up about it
and

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want to do something.

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But it's difficult.

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And part of the responsibility, I believe, for
us as

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living in this country where so many, like we
celebrate

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Veterans Day.

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Uh and we have this system because people have
paid

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a price so that we can be involved in it.

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And when we don't know what's happening and we
aren't

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engaging, I feel like we're not living up to
the

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responsibility that we have as a citizen.

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Not our rights.

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Most of us like to claim our rights, not our

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responsibilities.

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And uh, you know, uh many of you know that

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I was on the Republican side when I was in

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politics when I was younger, and so there's
probably things

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that you and I would disagree with, but uh I

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so appreciate those who have a passion uh and
are

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following Christ uh because it will allow the
rest of

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the body to be able to know and understand
what's

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going on.

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So another thing that you can always do is
please

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talk to Dale, and I know that that he would

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be happy to be able to do stuff.

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And so as we're going through this, um, well,
I'll

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get to that in a second.

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So the last question is so when we find out

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something like this with our taxes, what can
we do

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really to make a difference?

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What are our options?

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Sure, sure.

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So there's there's several things you can do
if you

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want to get involved in your local
communities.

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00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:48,440
Um, if you want to get involved with your
local

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communities, there are several clubs uh where
you can meet

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like uh like minded people.

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For example, uh there's the Denton County
Democratic Party, and

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there's also the Denton County Republican
Party, and they basically

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have events where you can go meet them.

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And typically at those events, sometimes
you'll find uh candidates

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or state house representatives uh there as
well, where you

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00:07:04,520 --> 00:07:07,160
can actually sometimes meet your local
representative.

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Um, usually not so much during the regular
session, because

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they're all gonna be in Austin, but around
this time

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here, as soon as this special session ends,
then you'll

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typically see them around.

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I know for the Frisco Democratic Club, for
example, I

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need to make a point to always show up to

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those because I'm a candidate and I need to
make

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sure that people can meet me and talk to with

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me.

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Um another thing, too, if if uh if you're
willing

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to, uh you can always become something called
a precinct

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chair.

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So I've been a precinct chair for about a year

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now.

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00:07:30,640 --> 00:07:34,560
And you the both the RNC and the DNC,
obviously,

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those are the Democratic National Committee
and the Republican National

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00:07:37,040 --> 00:07:41,040
Committee, those are obviously countrywide
entities, but they also do

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have their own state-level entities and they
also have their

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own county-level entities.

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00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:47,760
And those county-level entities will allow you
to become part

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00:07:47,760 --> 00:07:50,880
of the RNC or the DNC if you want to.

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00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:53,040
All you gotta do is sign up, it's completely
free.

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00:07:53,040 --> 00:07:54,960
Uh they will give you access to something
called the

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00:07:54,960 --> 00:07:57,040
van system, that's the voter action network.

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00:07:57,040 --> 00:07:58,960
And what that is is a system where you can

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00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,200
uh look up people's voting records, and with
that, you

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00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:03,280
can basically try to figure out all right,
which house

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00:08:03,280 --> 00:08:04,960
do I want to walk up to and knock on

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the door for, or who do I want to call

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00:08:06,400 --> 00:08:06,720
up.

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00:08:06,720 --> 00:08:07,920
If you just want to make sure that people in

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00:08:07,920 --> 00:08:09,920
your local neighborhood are getting out to the
uh the

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00:08:09,920 --> 00:08:11,760
polls to vote for, whichever way that you want
to

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00:08:11,760 --> 00:08:12,640
influence them.

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00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:14,720
Um when I say that, but I don't know if

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00:08:14,720 --> 00:08:16,640
you know this or not, but your voting record
is

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00:08:16,640 --> 00:08:16,960
public.

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00:08:16,960 --> 00:08:19,040
Not who you not who you vote for, but whether

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00:08:19,040 --> 00:08:20,800
or not you voted is public.

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00:08:20,800 --> 00:08:23,840
And in the primaries in Texas, you can only
choose

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00:08:23,840 --> 00:08:26,640
to vote for either the Republican ballot in
the primary

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00:08:26,640 --> 00:08:28,880
or the Democratic uh ballot in the primary.

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00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:31,520
And that information is information that you
can get from

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00:08:31,520 --> 00:08:32,080
the party.

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00:08:32,080 --> 00:08:33,600
And that's usually what we use in order to do

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00:08:33,600 --> 00:08:35,920
phone banking when we try to call people uh in

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00:08:35,920 --> 00:08:38,480
your area or people's houses and knock on
their doors

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00:08:38,560 --> 00:08:40,400
and say, hey, make sure that you know this is

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00:08:40,480 --> 00:08:42,320
an election coming on because a lot of people
sometimes

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00:08:42,320 --> 00:08:42,960
don't know.

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00:08:42,960 --> 00:08:45,680
For example, if for the uh Collin College
Board, we

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00:08:45,680 --> 00:08:47,360
had a runoff election, and a lot of people
don't

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00:08:47,360 --> 00:08:51,520
even know that runoff elections are even
happening because sometimes

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00:08:51,520 --> 00:08:52,960
they don't happen and sometimes they do.

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00:08:52,960 --> 00:08:54,240
Depends if there's a runoff.

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00:08:54,240 --> 00:08:56,240
So those are things you can do if you want

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00:08:56,240 --> 00:08:57,200
to get involved more locally.

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00:08:57,200 --> 00:08:57,760
That's what I've been.

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I've been a precinct chair for about a year.

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And you can also, if you uh if you want

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to talk directly to your state house rep, you
can.

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You can go to house.texas.gov.

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you Um

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if click on there's at the top bar, there's an

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area called members.

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And if you click on members, you can find your

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local state house rep and directly from their
profile page

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there, it will give you their email.

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You can actually email them through the
website.

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So if you want to contact your state house
rep,

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you can do it through there.

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Um helps them go through all the emails that
they

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get because they can get a lot of messages,
but

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it will be something that is uh being seen by

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that representative and or their team.

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So uh you said a couple of things that uh

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we didn't talk about, but I want to talk about

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uh so you heard that the parties track a whole

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bunch of information about you just now,
right?

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So sometimes uh in elections, especially if
you're faced with

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candidates on both major parties that um
you're

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not happy with.