Empowering Differences and Fight for Equity with Ashley Brundage

Ashley Brundridge is on a historic mission to become the first trans woman elected to the Florida House, and her journey is nothing short of riveting.

From surviving homelessness and battling discrimination in Tampa to achieving an astounding 81.1% primary win, Ashley's story is a testament to resilience and determination.

Donate Here ▶︎ https://www.ashleybrundage.com/
Order Empowering Differences ▶︎ https://amzn.to/3Tz32gh

----
CONNECT WITH ASHLEY ON SOCIAL MEDIA
▶︎ INSTAGRAM | https://www.instagram.com/brundageforfl/
▶︎ FACEBOOK | https://www.facebook.com/BrundageForFL
▶︎ X| https://x.com/BrundageForFL

Kitcaster Podcast Agency
Did you know that podcasts are a great way to grow your personal and business brand voice?

Buzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched!
Start for FREE

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Trans Woman Running for Florida House
• 6:52 Addressing Florida's Insurance Crisis for Homeowners
• 14:00 Voter Suppression and Healthcare Access
• 27:01 Advocating for Diversity and Inclusion
• 32:04 Importance of State and Local Politics
• 43:03 Supporting Ashley Brundage for Florida House
• 47:49 Empowering Trans Woman Campaign Interview

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is the Transparency Podcast Show. Hi everybody, and welcome to the Transparency Podcast Show. I'm your host for today, jesse McGrath, and I am so excited to be able to introduce you to a gal who I have known for a number of years, who is absolutely amazing, and she has got some incredible stories to tell, and we're hoping that she is going to become the first trans woman to be elected to the Florida House. And so, without further ado, let me introduce you to Ashley Brundridge.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Hey, how are you?

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hey, ashley it is so good to see you again. It's been a few weeks since you were out here in Los Angeles doing some fundraising and I would love to be able to get a chance to see you again, probably before the election, but it's probably not going to happen. So tell us a little bit about yourself. You're not originally from Florida, is that right?

Speaker 2: 0:59

No, I am born and raised oh yes, she's a born and raised Tampanian through and through Tampa. It's where I battled a year and a half of homelessness, harassment, discrimination. I broke out of the nasty stuff that I had to live through after transitioning my gender and I got a job as almost like a second awakening, and my second career was like a means of survival in many ways. I got a job as a part-time bank teller and then in four and a half years I worked in all the different financial various capacities. Four and a half years I worked in all the different financial various capacities across the bank and I went from a teller to a banker, to a business banker, to a registered investment advisor specializing in risk mitigation for my clients, and so I'm leveraging that experience.

Speaker 2: 2:00

And then I got involved in my community during my generalization and that's what led me to running a chamber of commerce. It's what led me to being involved on the Transportation Authority Board, to being involved on museum boards and advocacy organization boards where I was doing a lot of work to make my community better, to make my community better. And then that led me to leaving the financial services industry, where my last post was the National Vice President of Diversity, equity and Inclusion at PNC Bank and I did that job for about six years and then I started running my own company as an entrepreneur and I ran my business and I still run my own company, and then that led me to where I am now today, also besides running a company, but also running for the Florida State House of Representatives.

Speaker 1: 2:58

And you won amazingly large in your primary, didn't you?

Speaker 2: 3:03

Yes, oh my gosh, we got eighty one point one percent of the vote in Tampa, which, of course, told us that Tampa is ready, ready to break down these culture war, bs bills. They're ready to to have a voice in Tallahassee to represent them, to break the supermajority that exists in Tallahassee. It tells us that Tampa also apparently is not transphobic and is willing to, you know, measure the candidates' work experience and vote for the best candidate, and that is obviously shown with winning such a wide margin in the primary.

Speaker 1: 3:43

And that's just so fantastic and I'm going to do a shameless plug for you here. Ashley has a book out called Empowering Differences and in it she tells some of the story about how she got to where she is at this point in life. Of course, it does not have the information about running for office, because you wrote that prior to actually declaring your candidacy and such, but it's a fantastic book that talks about how you were able to build yourself up and you left home at a very early age.

Speaker 2: 4:20

Yeah, yeah, I moved out when I was 17, really because of my gender identity struggles and you know gender affirming care, I argue. Gender affirming care really is for every single one of the eight and a half billion people who live on this planet and their hormonal makeup and their sex characteristics, you name it. People all struggle and need gender affirming care and I was one of those kids at 17 who was really struggling when I started to see like my appearance was changing, different than how I looked and viewed myself internally, and especially like my sister called me Ashley growing up and so like I was her little sister really and we didn't really see anything wrong with that. We just we just loved each other and and and then going through, starting to go through puberty. It really affected me in a negative way and this is why having these kinds of discussions are so important for people to have resources that they need medically.

Speaker 1: 5:22

I was shocked to read that you were really started out as a part-time employee at Boston Market I guess it was and you managed to work your way up taking hours from other folks and learning all aspects of it and becoming one of the youngest executes in the company.

Speaker 2: 5:43

Yeah, so I did a corporate rise in two different careers, right. So first was the restaurant industry. You know it's. What's interesting about my district is that you know there's a big divide, potentially right. There's the people that had that have a lot of resources and have very expensive houses in my district and the waterfront, and those people are actually being disproportionately hurt with the high cost of insurance crisis that's going on in our district. And then, on the flip side, then there's people who live in my district, who are the people who live in apartments and who live, who work in the restaurants and the bars and the and there's a lot of bar nightclub district areas in my in my area. You know, in my district where I live.

Speaker 2: 6:28

And and and so I can also connect with those people because I worked in the restaurant industry. I was making $4 an hour, non-tipped, as a non-tipped server, uh, in the restaurant industry, and I worked in that industry for 12 years, so my experience really crosses along the bridge of the people who live in Tampa from both sides of the world, and I think that that's really helpful. In your state. Legislator, is you want someone that can speak to your experience and understands where you come from? And that's definitely me, definitely me.

Speaker 1: 7:01

Yeah, for so long we've had these politicians who are nothing more than rich people's mouthpieces, who have not gone through the experience that so many of us have had to do in getting to where we've gotten in life. Like you, I worked in a tire store, I worked on the farm. I did all kinds of things in order to be able to get my education, in order to be able to expand my possibilities in life, including I joined the Army National Guard in order to pay for law school. So having people like you and me who have these real-world experiences, who've lived paycheck to paycheck, who have wondered where their next meal is going to come from it gives us a certain sense of compassion for people that are suffering right now. Key issues that is facing everyone is the dramatic increase in costs for insurance, homeowners insurance and other things. People are not able to afford that.

Speaker 2: 8:43

A hundred percent.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Yeah, this is the number one issue in my district, especially because my district represents the city of Tampa and all of the waterfront coastline, that is, all of western Hillsborough County.

Speaker 2: 8:57

In fact, for those that know the geographical region for Tampa Bay, tampa Bay is an actual body of water, it's not a city. There's Tampa and then there's St Petersburg across the way, and there's three main bridges that connect the two counties, between Hillsborough County and Pinellas County, and my district actually covers half of all the three bridges and so, with the waterfront being right here, obviously my district is disproportionately affected by the property insurance crisis and, ironically and I love using this word ironic because you know you can't spell ironic without Ron, because you can't spell ironic without Ron and, ironically, you can't go and have this issue be an issue without recognizing the fact that my opponent in the race, karen Gonzalez Pittman, voted for a $1 billion billion with a B $1 billion insurance bailout, with no strings attached and no accountability really attached to it. In December of 2022, basically, ronnie DeSantis decided to call a special session after he had a runaway election in 2022. And he said hey, you know what I got an even bigger superma, super majority.

Speaker 2: 10:15

Let me call a special session, let me give the insurance company a big bailout and um, and then let's not hold them accountable. And that's exactly what Karen voted for and that's the. And since that moment, the insurance has only gotten considerably worse for people in my district, even though we haven't really been hit with as many hurricanes as people seem to think. Yeah, we've had a few and yeah, we've averted some disaster and yeah, some people were hurt in disaster in this space, but it's not disproportionately such a high amount that should be causing the insurance prices to be going up. Even just in July, they went up 14%, causing the insurance prices to be going up. Even just in July, they went up 14%. And so they've constantly gone up since this moment in time because the companies know that they're not being held accountable and it's time to hold them accountable.

Speaker 1: 11:06

I mean, how can you give a billion dollars away to these companies and not get some form of payback for the taxpayers who are helping this by requiring them to do reduced rates or whatever it is that needs to be done? But something definitely needs to be done and this is happening. It's happening in California also because of wildfires and things like that, where we have had our insurance companies stop writing new policies for folks. Some people are getting their policies canceled and it's creating a horrible situation for so many people because you're required by your mortgage company to have a homeowner's insurance, Otherwise you don't get to have your house 100.

Speaker 2: 11:54

Yeah, this is ridiculous in so many ways. So I'm actually working on what I call the Insurance Accountability Act, and I've aptly called it that for an important reason, right, because accountability has to be essential to how we solve the insurance crisis, and we have to work together to do this. It's going to take Republicans and it's going to take Democrats working together, and it's going to take the insurance industry, knowing that we have to hold them accountable. It's also going to take the legal industry for their advice and their guidance, because they are connected to this as well.

Speaker 2: 12:27

But you know, I think we hold insurance companies accountable, but we can also give them a creative way to mitigate their risk by expanding the geographical region where we're riding policies. We can't just do state-by-state policies anymore, because some states are risky at certain times and then other states are risky at other times. So, during hurricane season, yeah, we might be more risky, but during other parts of the year, other parts of the country are more risky. And if we can expand the geographical region where these companies are riding policies, all of a sudden now they have a way to shoulder some of the risk, aka risk mitigation. Risk mitigation is exactly the pathway to how we can actually drive the cost down for homeowners, and that's what I plan to do for people in my district.

Speaker 1: 13:12

So I have to ask you live in Florida, which is incredibly transphobic with their laws and incredibly anti-trans through the state leadership, through DeSantis, who tried to run an entire political campaign on attacking trans folks and found out that that was not a good political strategy. I'm wondering what is it like on the ground for you meeting potential constituents, talking with them? Are they interested in your story? Are some of them very, I guess, negative towards you? Have you gotten any bad experiences?

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I'm kind of all over the place here. Obviously, yeah, the laws are not great. I mean, like, literally, if I didn't already have health care, I might not have health care currently, because there's a bill that criminalizes gender-affirming care, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me, considering that gender-affirming care is something that's applicable to all people, you know, aka the little blue pill, yeah, I was going to say I mean, do not men realize that taking Viagra is gender-affirming care for them?

Speaker 1: 14:31

it blows my mind that they're so outraged that we have gender-affirming care. I was like, okay, well then, you don't want your Viagra anymore, you're Cialis, right, yeah, yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:41

So you know I love to normalize gender-affirming care. It's always a fun thing when I liken it to something else. It's one of my, it's one of my most favorite pastimes, but nonetheless. And then you know I think about yeah, my opponent passed the bathroom bill. My opponent passed the criminalization for gender affirming care bill. They passed a trans erasure bill.

Speaker 2: 15:03

This is all my opponent's work. She I mean literally she passed six anti transgender bills in the last two years. Literally she passed six anti-transgender bills in the last two years. And then she had the audacity a week and a half ago to go on the news and say that, when asked about the fact that she's running against a transgender candidate that was elected, duly elected transgender candidate, and she had the audacity to say, oh well, that's America, it's good for America, anybody can run for office. And I'm thinking to myself are you kidding me? Like, oh, it's good for America, but at the same time, you want to showcase how you want to take away rights of transgender people. That's not, that's definitely not good for America. So I mean, my own opponent has been on wibble wobbling on this topic and she wibble wobbles a lot on things, which is not shocking. But yeah, so I've also been knocking on doors.

Speaker 2: 15:55

In fact, I knocked on 180 doors personally this weekend and the response has been really good actually, I mean if people are, you know, and I'm not really knocking on Democratic doors, fyi, since I already won 81.1% of the vote, I don't really have to work hard to coalesce Democrats. So, you know, we're knocking on independents, libertarians, we're knocking on Tea Party, we're knocking on NPA voters that you know are not necessarily Democrats or Republicans, democrats or Republicans and in most cases, a lot of times, it's a Republican house, that it's their teenager that's going off to college that is registered to vote as an independent because they're over the two party system. From what I've seen, a lot of youth are registering independent because of this issue, you know, or they they're wanting to rebel from their parents in some ways, and and so I'm knocking on that door this weekend. And then, you know, the mom comes and answers the door and is, you know, a little bit shocked. Uh, their mouth might be open to the fact that I'm at her door and she's like wondering what, what the hell I'm doing at her door.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Uh, that that was a response, but, um, but even in that scenario, I, I share. Hey, I just want you to know that. You know that. You know. Oh, you may know who you're voting for already, but just FYI, karen Gonzalez Pittman voted for the one billion dollar bailout for the insurance industry with no accountability connected to it, and that was two years ago. And look where we are now. It's not any better, it's way worse, and so we tried that. So now let's try something different. You know, and I can have that conversation with anyone.

Speaker 1: 17:34

Yeah, what is the voter demographic of your district? How does it break down Republicans, democrats, independents?

Speaker 2: 17:40

Yeah. So it's 38 percent Republican, 32 percent Democrat and then 30 percent independent or MPA percent Democrat and then 30 percent independent or MPA. So that means the way I value that information is that about 62 percent of the district are not Republican and don't think that we're not also going to be knocking on doors of Republican women as well.

Speaker 2: 18:06

We're going to be doing that as well because for us it's in our sphere of people that we know that might consider voting for us, because I'm going to be pro-amendment four in Florida, which is women's access to reproductive health care, and we have an opportunity to enshrine that into the state constitution this year here in Florida with our constitutional amendment.

Speaker 1: 18:31

We have that same type of. Actually, we have two constitutional amendments on the ballot in Nebraska. One is one that is an actual constitutional amendment. The other is one being put forward by the Republicans which says it's a constitutional amendment but it allows the legislature to be able to make changes in those laws, including the outright banning of abortion. So in my state we've got two competing ones, but what I've seen is a lot of states are having these constitutional amendments to protect the right to reproductive health care, and I think that that is going to be a very big factor in the turnout on the elections this year, and I think that that does nothing but help you in that regard, because it's really. People are voting about the right to bodily autonomy and the right to make their own health care and medical decisions with themselves and their doctor, and I can't help but think that that is something that is going to help you in this election.

Speaker 2: 19:34

Yeah, 100% yeah. And when I think about that that topic too I think it's important to that. Voters know that you can't just say yes to the constitutional amendment and think that your your will is going to be protected. If you also then elect a supermajority of, of a Republican supermajority in a state as well, you're basically throwing it to chances that they're going to circumvent your will of the voters. Let me give you a perfect case in point example In 2018, the will of the voters was to was to vote a constitutional amendment in Florida to allow people who were felons, who paid their debt to society, to earn their voting rights back after paying their debt to society that happened.

Speaker 2: 20:26

Ron DeSantis went in with his supermajority and then they enacted a bunch of bills to make it statistically or virtually impossible for the felons to earn their voting rights back. And they said they couldn't get any grant money to help pay for any of the bills that they may have owed. And then they taxed them ridiculous amounts of money and basically created a poll tax then at that point.

Speaker 1: 20:54

And so what do you think is going to happen?

Speaker 2: 20:55

in this moment. What do you actually think is going to happen when you get the opportunity to vote for a constitutional amendment for reproductive health care and then you turn around and you vote for a Republican supermajority to happen in your state? You are basically saying that, hey, I voted for reproductive health care, but I don't give a crap about what happens when it comes down to the state legislature operating and then enacting all kinds of BS rules surrounding it. Because that is what will happen if you don't also then vote blue, because you have to know that I'm going to be protecting women's rights to have anything that they need to have health care towards, especially reproductive health care.

Speaker 1: 21:38

Yeah, I can see states, in response to constitutional amendments, guaranteeing the right, but then turning around and trying to use the taxing authority to make it so it's impossible to be able to get that, putting on unreasonable taxes, unreasonable restrictions. We also have seen across this country a concerted effort to disenfranchise people from voting. In Nebraska we also have worked very hard over the last few years to restore rights to individuals who have served their debt to society and have been released from prison. And we now have they're using our state attorney general to go in and say that the law is flawed and that the Constitution prohibits, you know, being able to do that, and so every chance that they can get, if there's a voter that they think is not on the right, they are using the power of the state to disenfranchise those folks.

Speaker 2: 22:36

Yeah, this is an issue. We have to be very purposeful about making sure that we call out this as an issue, because a lot of people don't even know that this is an issue and that this is happening in their states.

Speaker 1: 22:49

And it's really, and they're doing it on so many levels. They're going through and arbitrarily deleting individuals from voter rolls that are Democrats. They have in some states. They have people who are challenging voters and so they automatically get withdrawn from the voter rolls when that challenge is made. It's a real concerted effort to try to change the dynamic and keep people from exercising their constitutional right of franchise.

Speaker 2: 23:18

Oh, yeah, yeah. This is something that the Republicans here in Florida have been doing for a while. I mean, ron DeSantis has been trying to police the signatures that were gathered for Amendment 4. And, like way late in the game, still trying to do that, which is ridiculous. And then also he just got caught last week utilizing state taxpayer funded money to produce content from his health department a state-funded organization to try to propose information, debunking and all kinds of things surrounding Amendment 4. He's literally trying to use taxpayer money to involve himself in an election against Amendment 4 and trying not to get Amendment 4 to pass in Florida, which is the reproductive health care of a constitutional amendment. And so there's a bunch of there's a bunch of counties that are launching um uh lawsuits against him for misutilizing state funds resources. Uh, it's just another example of hypocrisy at its highest.

Speaker 1: 24:29

It's just another example of hypocrisy at its highest, and DeSantis is a master at using the legislative process to cover his tracks when he's doing things that are not particularly on.

Speaker 2: 24:42

The up and up bill in the legislature last year that was used to to block any, any ability of citizens to be able to see what his travel schedule was like and who he was meeting with and where he was going, and they seem to think that that's all perfectly fine yeah, he actually uh, rewrote the entire sunshine laws basically to his benefit, when, um, when he was preparing to run for president, um, and in actuality, in the state well before he rewrote the bill and then passed the bill with his supermajority, uh, the, he would have had to actually resign as the governor in order to run for president of the united states of america and he rewrote the rules. He rewrote the rules so that way he didn't have to resign his post as governor in order to run for president, and we know how well that worked out for him. And this is an example of another case of hypocrisy at its highest right here.

Speaker 1: 25:48

And so that's got to be tough living in that environment, knowing you have a state governor and state legislators who are actively seeking to do harm to your ability to survive, trying to outlaw your existence. So that's what's so amazing about you standing up and fighting back and getting into the arena something that you know I had considered doing in Nebraska and just the timing was not good for me at this point. But I have to admire you so much for putting yourself out there and defending the people of our community and other communities that have been targeted by, largely, groups who are I hate to say it are somewhat racist and bigoted, but that's what their policy and their platforms are.

Speaker 2: 26:38

Yeah, I mean, I've seen it. Obviously, everyone knows that. You know, don't say gay right in Florida. And then there's trans erasure bill. There's a you know a lot of anti-trans bills. Just pick your bill that you want to focus on. We've passed a litany of all of them and I'm sure there's more that they're going to be preparing for next session.

Speaker 2: 27:01

But Florida has also been a battleground of assault against black history. I mean, literally, ron DeSantis ran on a platform of trying to say that black people benefited from slavery, which is absolutely preposterous. You know this. This is one other example of this. And then you know he he's, he's done things to obviously take away women's rights. So it's like who's next right, who's next on the chopping block?

Speaker 2: 27:27

And this is why it's so important that that communities stand together and stand up to this kind of rhetoric, because it makes no sense. There's no place for it, there's no place for hate in a state. We should be purposeful to make sure that we have everyone's back. You know, and it's like I think about this word diversity is like the presence of differences that make us each unique. That means that every single one of the 22 million people who live in Florida are all different and they all represent a different background, which means they all bring value to the conversation. That's my Republican friends, that's my independent friends, that's my Democratic friends. I'm friends with people who live across all the different political parties because it's so important to respect that people are different and learn from them. If we just learn from them, this would make our world so much stronger, and this is exactly one of the main reasons on why I'm running for office.

Speaker 1: 28:23

And we have that same issue in Nebraska, where they're attacking DEI and in fact the University of Nebraska had funding cut and they have eliminated their DEI programs.

Speaker 1: 28:38

Had funding cut and they have eliminated their DEI programs, which are very beneficial in educating others in that system about the systemic and ingrained racism that does exist in this country. People don't want to admit it but it does exist and there's been a whole history of that and eliminating education about that is so wrong. It's like the Holocaust deniers who want to deny that the Holocaust ever occurred, that there was somebody who killed millions of people because of their religious background. They're trying to basically eradicate history and if you don't learn from history, you're doomed to repeat some of those same things. So historical education in relationship to what has happened in this country is something that should be celebrated and not something that should be feared. But because it attacks their well-being and their systems that they have set up that allows them to profit at the expense of everyone else, they don't want that type of education to be out there to folks and that is sad, and I assume DeSantis is doing the same thing as far as eliminating DEI in Florida.

Speaker 2: 29:57

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:58

Yeah, I mean, I know that many programs at universities have tried to rebrand it to be the Center for Inclusive Excellence and navigating around it that way is one way I've seen it being done. One way I've seen it being done, but it's you know, I, as a former DEI practitioner, I used to literally run a program for 60,000 employees at PNC Bank surrounding employee engagement, employee development and community activation, and we always leveraged our differences to impact change. So that meant that if you know you were a white guy, well, guess what? You could go out to white guy connection groups, right, and build relationships there and cultivate people to come to the bank, right. And then you go to women's groups to cultivate relationships and bring people to the bank. And this is why it's so important to have people across all the differences to be a part of your team. And then when you start to learn things about different communities that are different, then you could be the one to go and show up at the community.

Speaker 2: 31:08

I mean, I went to the Hispanic Bar Association. I wasn't a lawyer and I'm definitely not a Hispanic, but you know what? I decided to support the Hispanic Bar Association and I went there and you know, and I said, you know, obviously I provide I do some work surrounding continuing legal education credits LGBTQ lawyers or women lawyers I do that for any lawyers, right and so this helps me open up my sphere of influence to do more business with more people, because I'm focusing on building relationships with people who are different and I'm opening up my eyes to do business with more people. This is why diversity is so freaking good for business. It's absolutely mind-blowing to think that someone wouldn't want to garner more business for their company if I go outside their normal realm.

Speaker 1: 32:02

It's crazy how some of this works sometimes. I've been for the last four years on my office's anti-racism, diversity and inclusion working group that is working with the County of Los Angeles on anti-racism, diversity and inclusion programming. We want to educate people within our offices about those differences and and see that diversity is a good thing and it allows you to get the different experiences and allows you to be able to relate to people on on different levels. And so to take that away is away is so short-sighted. And you guys got a Nebraskan down there running one of your at the University of Florida. Our US senator resigned so that he could take the job down there and, I guess, continue to muck everything up and make it a lot worse. And then our governor appointed the former governor that we had to the US Senate. So we have two Senate races in Nebraska this year. But it's like the dirtiness of it of political payoffs and jobs to attack minorities. That is so cruel.

Speaker 2: 33:21

Yeah, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. You know who ends up winning on these kinds of fights, because when these bills or these policies aren't acted, then the advocacy groups hire the best legal teams in in the country and then they light them up and then the governor's office is then fighting in a legal industry battle versus them, and the only people who benefit is the legal industry. They only benefit from when the Republicans and the Democrats fight each other. And you know and this is a big issue out there in this world we, we, we the taxpayer, is the one who loses every time this happens and and it's about time that we wake up as taxpayers and want to say why don't we have a more balanced legislature in some of these extreme states so that that way we don't have to worry about fighting all these legal battles down the line? Think about how much money that's going to save our state, your state, wherever you're watching, if we stop having all these BS, culture, war, legal battles.

Speaker 1: 34:25

It's a big issue gigantic case coming up later this year in front of the US Supreme Court out of Tennessee, the Scermetti case, which is going to make a determination on what the standard of review is on these bans for gender-affirming care and whether being trans is something that is worthy of being protected. We've had circuit courts basically say that being trans is there's nothing to being trans. Trans people don't really exist, they don't deserve equal protection of the law. They, they, uh and so that is coming up before the U S Supreme court. So hopefully that is going to give us some definitive answers as far as what, uh, what they can and can't do, and whether they have to have just a rational basis for doing it or whether there is some heightened scrutiny, whether there has to be a compelling state interest of some kind or there has to be a basis more than just we don't like trans people, which is what they're getting away with right now, which is what they're getting away with right now.

Speaker 2: 35:34

Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean, that makes me think of the Amy Stevens ruling, which, you know, of course, gave us the groundbreaking ruling for the protection for transgender workers and that people couldn't be fired for being trans. So that was a Supreme Court ruling as well.

Speaker 1: 35:54

So you know, that happens and yeah, yeah, I'm hoping that we get that same type of decision out of Gorsuch and maybe another justice or two. I am going to go back and watch that argument when it happens. Being a member of the Supreme Court bar, I think it's important that we have trans individuals in the courtroom when they're arguing this so that they can see who this affects.

Speaker 2: 36:22

Yeah, yeah, definitely it's, yeah, it's a big issue. I mean, you know, this is, this is another reason why these, these local elections really matter, right? I mean, like, obviously, representation at the state level can help us to protect us long term around these decisions. You know, obviously, supreme Court is one piece of our governmental three governmental branches on the federal level, but a lot of people don't realize this that the states also have their own rights, and this is a big thing for Donald Trump, right? He's all proud about.

Speaker 2: 36:56

Oh well, let me throw it back to the states, like that's his ultimate catch-all thing that he tries to do, because he knows there are more red states than blue states and then, once again, it's bordering a supermajority as well.

Speaker 2: 37:09

In that scenario and I challenge people who are watching this also to Google Article 5 of the United States Constitution If you want to know why state house races are just as important as to who your Supreme Court justice is that my race for the state house of representatives is just equally as important as that. Go ahead and Google Article 5 of the United States Constitution and then come and argue with me as to whether or not it's not important or not, because I can tell you right now that the states that operate in this gray area purple area. It's a huge opportunity to protect civil liberties for people who live in America, because if we get too many red states which is literally the Republican Party's goal surrounding all these anti-everybody bills it's to scare people and get them to all move to New York, california or Chicago right, because if they can condense us all to three states, they can then have that supermajority across the states as well, and this is really important. People don't talk about this at all.

Speaker 1: 38:18

And that's one of the reasons why I moved back to Nebraska is because I needed to go into where that was being done and fight back on that. And so, on a more personal level, and one of the first podcasts I did was the candidate for district attorney here in Los Angeles, and one of the things that I thought was really cute was he got his, his daughter, involved in the campaign and doing that. You have two kids. Are they involved at all in your campaign?

Speaker 2: 38:45

Um a little bit. Yeah, so my oldest is a freshman in college and so he's really focusing mostly on his college experience and he's supportive of me, but he's really, you know, focusing on that. And then my youngest is definitely passionate about our campaign. He's helping wherever he can Both of them have attended events for the campaign as well.

Speaker 2: 39:08

But, yeah, my youngest also works about 30 hours a week too, so my kids are kind of like fully emblazed and kind of cultivating and growing their own lives too, so I'm trying to be respective of that as well. At the same time, uh, as you know, happy whenever they do want to come and be involved in something. And really, this is one of the reasons why I was comfortable to say yes to running was because, you know, in that moment, I, I, I knew that, uh, you know that I wasn't gonna be, you know, putting them in harm's way, because they're, you know, they're doing their own thing now, which is also equally cool.

Speaker 1: 39:45

Yeah, that that that was one of the concerns I had in looking at running is is my children are very private. They they don't necessarily want to be, you know, known and and I was certainly afraid to a certain extent that that they would get drug into it, and so that's something I'm still any future potential run I've got to consider on that. But the fact that they're they're very supportive of you and it sounds like you are instilling into them the same work ethic that you develop by by going out on your own at 17.

Speaker 2: 40:17

Yeah, 100%, yeah. I think it's so important that we, you know, share the positives but we also educate around the issues. You know, this is a big thing from our discussion, right? Is that we can't ignore the things that maybe weren't great. We have to also talk about that. We have to use those as teachable moments. This is how we get better as a society. Is we bring people together, right? I always say empowering differences. Right, it's an opportunity for us to give authority and power, to connect it to other people, and every time we have an opportunity to, you know, change someone's perspective. I'm not going to move someone who's, you know, a full blown trumper, who doesn't want me to have any rights. I'm not going to move that person really to going voting for me, right? No, that's not going to happen. Ok, but certainly I know that I can talk to that person and have a conversation with them and be civil and and maybe potentially, I can get them to move to maybe not actively campaign against me you know, and that's a win in my book.

Speaker 2: 41:19

Okay, Um you know, and and and then I know that that they realize that I'm an actual person and that I'm going to do some really great, great stuff when I get elected, you know. That's that's the issue here is going this right back to the main issues, you know, and I think that another thing too. I know that I guess we're getting low on time, so, but I think it's also important that people, if you're watching the podcast and you're trying to think what can I do to get involved or how can I help Ashley, yeah, you can, anywhere in the United States of America. Uh, if you're over 18, uh, you can donate at Ashley Brundagecom. That's a good place to start there.

Speaker 2: 42:04

Uh, there, you can find me on act blue. Uh, you could just type my name in on act blue. You'll see our. You see, you will see us come up on the on the radar there. Uh, also, if maybe you don't have any financial resources, you could also go to ashleybrunagecom and click the volunteer tab and you can actually sign up to make calls for us from anywhere in the United States of America.

Speaker 2: 42:28

You can help us to fundraise. You can help us to call voters. You can help us to register voters. You could help us to request mail-in ballots, because Ron DeSantis canceled every single mail-in ballot on purpose so that way people wouldn't have an easy path to getting to vote and adding more obstacles to voting. You know, this is part of why he's done this kind of stuff and we're going to be passionate about this race. It's so important that we get people involved.

Speaker 1: 42:54

And I'm pretty sure that we're going to have down in the comment section a link to your website so that they will be.

Speaker 1: 43:01

We'll make it easy for people to help you out.

Speaker 1: 43:04

I have donated to Ashley and I'm going to donate some of my time to make some calls for her, and so it's very important that when we have candidates who are viable, who stand a chance of winning, that we support them all that we can, because it's so rare that we get people into positions where they can make a difference, and getting Ashley into Tallahassee and getting her to face up to all of those people who want to do harm to our community is going to be something that she is going to be able to help change minds in Tallahassee. Now, it may not happen overnight, and it probably won't happen overnight, and we may end up with situations like we ended up with Zoe Zephyr in Montana, where they purposefully changed the rules to marginalize us and prohibit us. But we make change, we make differences, and so, yes, we are going to have your link there, because we definitely want to get you some support, because this is a difficult, difficult race, and let me just also quantify this for people really easily too.

Speaker 2: 44:17

If you're wondering oh, she's in Florida, she probably has no chance of winning. Fyi, the district I'm running in is a plus four Biden plus four district, meaning Joe Biden won this district in 2020 by four points, so a Democrat could win this seat and we have an opportunity to win because the woman I'm running against she's all over the place, as I told you through this interview. It's important to know that and I'm pulling only 1% behind. So the shocking thing is is I've gotten a lot of press, I've gotten a lot of engagement from people around the United States and around the world, but we have not had a lot of people go to our website and donate, which is really frustrating. And then I think about this. It's like there it just in Florida alone, there's an estimated 120,000 transgender people. If people say it's half of 1%, so 22,120, thousand people. If just all of those people donated two dollars, we would have all the money we would need to run our campaign. We have a shortfall of two hundred and forty thousand dollars right now, and so if everyone around America donated one dollar or five dollars or whatever it is that they have the resources for, if all of our trans people went around the world and supported us and donated towards our campaign, we would have be fully funded and I would be able to have the resources to say, oh you know what? Yeah, I'm going to approve a mail, a piece you know, for mail piece program. We're going to send Ron DeSantis' picture on mail to houses and we're going to tell people that. Hey, by the way, I gave Ashley Brundage the award for women in business because I think that she is a shining, positive example and role model for our community. We could literally print that on mailers because you decided to get involved and challenge everybody else to get involved in your community. That could literally happen today if you got involved and got other people to get involved.

Speaker 2: 46:21

Now don't think that that just means that you can go on social media, on Facebook, and post the link and with my link to donate and say donate to Ashley because I did. That's not going to be seen. Fyi, facebook's algorithm is going to shut that down faster than you can say shut down, because they know that political campaigns need to be paying money for them to get seen. So that's not going to work. But you could go to my site. You can make a donation, screenshot your donation and then share the screenshot image of your donation and say I did something so powerful today. Look at what I did. I want you to go and get involved in my community too, and you could do that. And then, in the comments, once people start saying what'd you do, what'd you do, what'd you do Right? And then they start seeing your image. Facebook is not going to hide that because it's going to go past the algorithm. You could do that easily and get involved.

Speaker 1: 47:17

We need you and then you can put that in the link to your site in the comments and yes, and so you can make a difference.

Speaker 1: 47:24

So we have a call to action for for folks here let's help get ashley to tallahassee, because I've known this woman for quite a while. I have been thoroughly impressed with her. She is one of my friends. I have donated to her and it was more than a dollar, so I expect 100 of my friends to match me and help me out. And so let's get out there. Let's do this, and thank you so much, ashley, for taking time out of your busy campaign schedule to sit down and talk with a little blogger who doesn't have very many folks on, but I definitely. You are such an empowering individual, your vision is fantastic and we need to get you into office.

Speaker 2: 48:12

Yeah, yeah, we can do it. We can do it With any amount of people. We can do it. All right, so thank you into office. Yeah, yeah, we can do it. We can do it with any amount of people. We can do it.

Speaker 1: 48:18

All right. So thank you everybody. This is the Transparency Podcast Show. If you like what we're doing and you want to see more, hit the like and subscribe, button down below and leave your feedback. Let us know what you think about these conversations that we're having and about the importance of electing trans individuals to office, so that our message can get out there. Anyway, thank you, ashley, and I look forward to seeing you again soon and when you're back out in LA, I'll take you to the T-Girl Nights again and maybe we can catch another Dodger game.

Speaker 2: 48:50

Yes, I would love it.

Speaker 1: 48:52

All right, thank you, ashley Bye.