Teresa Leger Fernandez:
We’ve been really busy and it’s, that’s the nature of being a Congresswoman in a legislative cycle with a president who wants to get things done. And it’s wonderful! I am not complaining about the idea of being able to get stuff done.
Mary-Charlotte Domandi:
What I wanted to talk to about today was gun safety. This is a topic I’d wanted to bring up with you, and I was like, well, let’s wait until there’s a mass shooting. And the next day there was a mass shooting. I mean, it’s so—the fact that you can sort of set your watch by there’s going to be another one soon in this country is just unfathomable, but here we are. The Atlanta shooting involved six Asian women, and there were so many dimensions to this story—race and religion and sex and sexism—and then Boulder and underneath it all is just the availability of guns to anybody who wants them at a moment’s notice. And so, I guess first I wanted to ask you, what was your reaction when you first heard about the Atlanta shooting and then the Boulder.
TLF:
I mean, each time you hear about that your heart breaks, because you know it is something that can be addressed. It’s not beyond our control. It has been something that Republicans— and not all Republicans, but most Republicans—have been unwilling to address, despite the fact that the majority of Republicans support these common sense gun measures. So it is not unpopular with Republicans. They recognize it. These deaths happen in their communities. And that’s why it is so heartbreaking because it comes up again. You know, last week we passed in Congress—and I was so happy to speak on the floor and to wear my orange mask in solidarity with all those families and all those who seek gun control—and we passed it. And we passed both of the bills that we considered. One of the bills would close the Charlotte loophole so that you can not just sell a gun to somebody because the FBI hasn’t finished their review.
And then also increasing the time by which, you need to allow the FBI to do its work. And then applying background checks to all sales, so that you can’t say, well, I’m buying it online. The way I’m going to get around is buy it online. Or I’m going to go to a gun show and get it that way. Cause then that’s like, Hey everybody, Hey Mr. felon, Hey Mr. abuser, Hey Ms. felon—cause it’s on both sides. Not so much; most of the gun violence that we see is perpetrated by men, but not all. And so we closed that. That doesn’t mean you can’t lend your hunting them to somebody when you go out, Hey, use mine instead, right? It doesn’t apply to that. It doesn’t apply to passing on your firearms to your children. It doesn’t apply to those family things. But it applies to those gun sales. We passed it. And now it’s headed over to the Senate. But in the Senate we need Mitch McConnell to get out of the way to let the Senate vote on this, because as long as we have the filibuster, he can stop that.
MCD:
So this is an ongoing conversation that, you can’t even open any news site without seeing something about the filibuster. So I think it’s up and it’ll be interesting to see what filibuster reform looks like, because of course the other side of it is when the other party is in power, they can use it against you. And I think everybody’s trying to get their safeguard. So there there’s … do you think that there’ll be some kind of compromise or do you support a kind of compromise as opposed to getting rid of it entirely?
TLF:
I support movement on it. So I will take what we can get a movement on filibuster. And I am hopeful. I have had my radical optimism about the filibuster. I think there is very much a willingness to see movement on it, whether you do it for such things as civil rights legislation. So you do it on a limited amount, we’ve heard that. You do it so you take it back to its roots, which is you can continue to talk about something before we vote, but you cannot delay a vote. We cannot let it be a veto power, but if you want to stand up and talk about something until you need to sit down again, do it.
MCD:
It would be interesting if the talking had to stay on topic too, because sometimes people get up and like read the phone book or whatever.
TLF:
Well, when Mr. Smith went to Washington, you know, he didn’t only talk about the topic. So I don’t know that you can really talk about a topic that long.
MCD:
Exactly.
TLF:
It would shorten the talk. Although I will say that when we—woohoo!—when we passed the Dream and Promise Act and the Farmer Modernization Act, the speaker noted that she had spoken—I believe she said, I’m not sure it was six or eight hours, on the Dream bill l before, because it was her way of in essence filibustering, because she wanted to make the point that we should pass that. And that’s when there was a Republican-controlled House. But she talks, she says, I talked all about the dream act because you can talk about dreamers, because there are so many stories about dreamers. So we’ve done something on the House side as well, and she did talk on topic, I understand.
MCD:
Back to the question about guns and gun control. I mean, there’s so many different questions, especially in the Atlanta shooting, and in the Boulder shooting as well, but questions about race and racism and religion and the role of politicians like the former president fanning the flames of racism, especially against Asian people. And then you’ve got questions about this Baptist church, where the gunman was part of this church and it declared openly it’s anti-feminist anti-gay, anti-sex, overtly authoritarian views on the website, which was then taken down when the shooting happened. But those questions provide a context for real questions about why people do things and what makes them so knotted up inside that they go out and commit these acts of violence. I mean, I don’t know how much these things enter the kind of conversations about common sense gun legislation, cause it’s a different thing, but still, I mean, is that something that you think about and have ideas about—
TLF:
You’re raising issues that go well beyond gun control and talk about what do we want our communities to look like, and how do we want people to feel within those communities and to feel welcomed in those communities, and to feel safe in those communities. And I think that that is something that each of us, as individuals, as citizens, as community members, can work towards, that we want to get to a place where people feel good about themselves. Because when you feel good about yourself, even with all of the contradictory notions of who you are and what you believe and who you believe, that when you can actually feel good about yourself, then it’s also easier for you to be curious in a positive manner about somebody else who’s not exactly like you. And then it takes you down the step of saying, wow, they’re not like me, but boy, that’s interesting—I’m not that, but I can kind of be interested in that and find it interesting and welcome it, without being afraid of things outside of yourself. And those are issues that we talk about. We talk a lot about needing to address behavioral health and mental health. I sat in a hearing yesterday and the last week to deal with prevention, violence against women prevention matters, so that we could break the cycle of violence and abuse. And so we are going to be reauthorizing laws that will help break the cycle of spousal abuse, of domestic abuse, and we’re going to be doing that. And that is one of the ways in which we also then need to do trauma-based counseling. So there’s a lot of work that can be done. My role in Congress is to recognize that these needs are there, to recognize that trauma-based counseling works, and to authorize the laws that allow that to happen and then authorize the appropriations to allow that happen.
TLF:
And then community needs to do its work. Because we are all in this together. We all have a different role that we choose to play, to make our communities safe and happy and engaging and curious about others in a positive way, so that we can wrap them them into our community. And I think we all play some kind of role in that. My role is very limited in that sense, but there is a governmental role. And I think that then each of us has a role to welcome those us who live with us in our communities.
MCD:
And I think one of the big sea changes that’s happening right now is acknowledging that government really does have a positive role to play in our communities and in things that seem at first glance, like completely personal issues.
TLF:
Exactly. And elected officials have a role to play in describing that. And you know, talking about “the soul of a nation” and talking about unity, when unity means the nation and the community, and that that’s, what’s important. And so I think we all have a role to play in talking about things in a welcoming manner. And as everybody knows, mine is “protect what you love.” And when you, when you talk from a place of love, it is very different than from a place of anger. And when we speak from a place of love and curiosity and wanting to welcome and wanting to address issues, I think you get to a different place. And I think there are a lot of elected leaders, starting with our president on down, who are engaged in that kind of conversation. And I’m thankful for that.
MCD:
Gracias.
TLF:
Muchimisas gracias a todos, adios!
