00:00People who have worked with me will tell you she doesn't play games about focusing on that community because they need our attention and they needed it yesterday.
00:14Hi, I'm Tanya Christian, News and Politics Editor at Essence Magazine.
00:19Today we're speaking with Amanda Edwards, who's running for Texas Senate.
00:23So for many people, they are now being introduced to Amanda Edwards.
00:28So what would you say to Texans? Who are you?
00:32I'm someone who's truly a servant leader. And when I say that, I don't just mean it in terms of a slogan.
00:38I mean it in terms of what my emphasis is, my focus. I'm here to serve people.
00:44And I think part of that journey is really focusing not just on campaign time and campaign season where you've got a litany of elected officials or candidates who are coming into neighborhoods and visiting with people and talking to them.
00:58But not delivering when after the election cycle takes place, we've got to have a bridge to that disconnect in which communities begin to see democracy work for them.
01:10So what I mean by that, it's not good enough just to come and find my home at campaign season if you're not going to find my home when it's time to deliver.
01:18And I've been someone who has been serving about 2.3 million Texans for the past four years and have really been focused on delivering meaningful change for people.
01:29Not just service level change, but meaningful change that in fact makes a difference in the trajectory of their lives.
01:35That's what I want people to know about who I am and what I will bring to the table as their next U.S. Senator.
01:42And you mentioned it a little bit, you've spent some time in City Council.
01:47And how has that molded you, being in the Houston City Council, to run for Senate now?
01:53Absolutely. Great question. My service in City Council has been a remarkable experience for me.
01:59Not only did I get an opportunity to work going to two and three different civic clubs and community meetings a night even,
02:07but also in hearing those concerns and putting my finger on the pulse of the community,
02:11but it also sharpened my tools that I need in order to promote sustainable long-term change.
02:17One of the things that's really critical that I have a background in community building work,
02:22and one of the things that's critically important is that you invite the residents or the people that you serve to the table.
02:28It's not good enough to impose your policy ideas or impose your project onto a neighborhood.
02:36Invite them to be a part of not just checking and balancing whether or not they like what you've proposed,
02:41but rather really developing that vision so that they can have ownership in that vision as well.
02:47When you do that, it gets beyond just a ribbon-cutting or some type of short-term change.
02:53It becomes something that the neighborhood or the community can own and embrace, and then, of course, see flourish.
03:00And I think that's one of the key lessons.
03:02Another interesting aspect of my service has been the emphasis on restoring confidence in people having government
03:09and having, making sure that they see that democracy can, in fact, work.
03:13So I started our technology and innovation task force for the city,
03:16not because by any means is that my background, but it's our job as elected officials
03:22that when we see holes, you should fill them.
03:24When there's an opportunity, you should pursue that.
03:27When there are problems, you should fix that.
03:30And in that context, we had a challenge going on in Houston
03:33and that we weren't attracting the venture capital investment for our startups
03:38and people had great ideas, but they had to go elsewhere to get investment and support.
03:44And so when looking at that, I said, well, how do we cultivate more of a supportive environment for startups?
03:49Couldn't get an answer when just asking informally.
03:52So we put together a task force.
03:53I started the task force for tech and innovation in our city.
03:56And now I'm proud that we have now broken ground on a brand new innovation district for the city.
04:00Congratulations.
04:02And then also a fund of funds and a variety of things that are tools and strategies
04:07that are building and cultivating an ecosystem that we also want to make sure is inclusive as well.
04:13So that's one piece.
04:15Another aspect of my service that I think is something that brought me to my why.
04:19So, of course, your why is always critically important.
04:23And when Harvey hit the city of Houston in the Gulf region,
04:27it was about 51 inches of rainfall that fell across the region.
04:31It was hundreds of thousands of units of housing that were damaged,
04:36billions of dollars in loss and damages, and lives lost, of course, as you might recall.
04:43And I remember getting a call shortly after the storm,
04:46after the waters had receded in those places,
04:49to go check on some of our low-income senior citizens in one of our areas of town.
04:54And so I said, no problem.
04:55And I remember going and sharing and talking to folks on the ground,
04:59knocking on the doors, talking to them, asking them what they were doing
05:02to remove some of the furniture and things like that.
05:05But when I'd ask the question, well, what are you doing to get the walls out of your home?
05:10They'd all look at me, house after house after house that I visited.
05:13And they'd say, well, those walls are already dry.
05:16And, of course, that was heartbreaking to me because, as we know,
05:20you can't allow for walls to remain in a home after they've been soiled by floodwater.
05:25So I developed a canvassing program, mobilized hundreds of volunteers,
05:29and we were going door-to-door to go check on our seniors
05:32and making sure that they were getting connected to volunteers that could assist
05:36in removing the walls or nonprofits that could assist.
05:39So I'd wear my city council shirt so they'd know why I was there.
05:42And one of the first questions that would be asked, and it was all in innocence,
05:48but was asked to me was, oh, are you up for re-election?
05:53And so that was very striking to me that in the face of the second-worst disaster
05:57in the United States history in terms of dollars and cents,
06:01that one of the first things that come to mind when you see your elected official
06:05actually responding and doing her job in the midst of such a tragedy
06:09is that we must be here because we still need something from you.
06:13And so that dysfunction is something that motivates me to run for this seat
06:18because we've got to now bridge that disconnect of just making the promise
06:23or saying anything that people want to hear
06:25and not being effective in the role once elected.
06:29I know another issue that you're taking up is gun violence.
06:33Yes.
06:34You had a family member who passed away from gun violence.
06:37So can you tell me a little bit about why that's so important to you?
06:41When I was in third grade, my cousin was shot in the street and died due to gun violence.
06:50So I learned as a very young person what gun violence could mean
06:54in terms of how that can rip a family apart.
06:57And the fact of the matter is and how prevalent it actually is
07:01and how many of our households and our families experience gun violence.
07:05I think it's an atrocity.
07:07I think it is beyond inappropriate for currently the state of our gun violence policies
07:15to be where they are.
07:17Columbine happened when I was in high school.
07:19And yet and still we are in almost the exact same space
07:23in terms of the policies that have been pushed or actually passed since.
07:29Which means that people are not focused on protecting and serving the people
07:33that they're elected to serve.
07:35The NRA has had a strong lobby.
07:37And the incumbent in the role to date, John Cornyn, has an A-plus rating with the NRA.
07:42And I like to tell people all the time,
07:44I have made good grades over the course of my life,
07:47but an A-plus rating from the NRA is not one that I will make.
07:51Because it's not worth it to have blood on your hands
07:55when you're thinking about the lives that are lost.
07:59Red flag policies, making sure we have background checks.
08:03Nearly 90% of Americans believe we should have background checks.
08:07I mean, some of these things, quite frankly, are just simple, common sense solutions.
08:14Restrictions with regard to weapons of war.
08:17I mean, there are just a litany of things that can be done
08:20to keep people safe if, in fact, that is your priority.
08:24Another thing that I think affects Texans more than a lot of other states,
08:29it's a border state.
08:31So immigration is a big deal.
08:34And I feel like there's a war on immigration at this point.
08:37Do your constituents feel, or I should say some of them,
08:40do they feel unsafe living in an area where families are being ripped apart?
08:46Of course, deportation is appropriate when you're dealing with serious violence concerns.
08:51But in so many of these instances, we're using ICE in our immigration policies
08:56to send messages to people that, you know, the administration thinks needs to hear it.
09:02And I think what we need to do is overhaul in a comprehensive manner
09:06our immigration policies in our country.
09:08It's not enough for people to just be outraged about what's happening at the border
09:12as it relates to asylum or what's happening at the border with family separation
09:16and keeping children in cages.
09:18That's outrageous.
09:19But we have to take a step beyond just being a commentator about how outrageous this is.
09:25How are we going to force our federal government to finally have the courage to act on an issue
09:30that has been debated and debated and debated
09:33and, of course, now being used as a weapon to tear our communities apart?
09:38People who are dreamers, who were told that they could be here and be here safely,
09:41and to have that rug pulled from underneath them back in 2017 is egregious.
09:50We have to be serious about what type of paradigms we want to establish,
09:54what are our American values, and what is the appropriate use of our resources.
09:58And I think if we do that in a way that really looks at the whole picture
10:02and what benefits communities versus what are political promises
10:07and fear-mongering and scapegoatism and get away from some of that
10:12and focus on what we're really distracted from,
10:14which is how do we really scale up solutions to build the economy
10:17so everybody has a job, that has a sustainable wage, that has benefits.
10:22Those are the issues that we need to be talking about rather than saying,
10:25that person stole your job from you, so you should be happy that I'm going to get rid of them.
10:30That's division, and I think that division is a form our mechanism used to distract us
10:36from the fact that we've got people who are elected in office
10:39who haven't been doing their jobs, haven't been evolving in their roles
10:43and addressing the needs as they have continued to change over time.
10:46What makes you uniquely qualified for this seat?
10:51I'm uniquely qualified for this seat for a few reasons.
10:54One, oftentimes people ask,
10:56what makes you think you can make the leap from city council all the way to the U.S. Senate?
11:01And I believe that's precisely the type of leap that one should make.
11:05Because I'm on the ground, I'm walking the streets,
11:09I'm in the homes that have been ravaged by the floodwaters.
11:12I understand where there are disconnects on a federal and state level
11:17as it relates to policy and how it's impacting people on the ground.
11:21And then, of course, I have the wherewithal to be able to fix and fill those gaps
11:26and those policy issues that have become an issue for those communities.
11:30So in addition to being able to address those concerns and my knowledge base on the ground,
11:37I'm also uniquely positioned to build the necessary coalitions in order to win.
11:42Ultimately, we have to be able to have people in the middle feel that they are part of this equation.
11:49A lot of what's happened now have left a lot of people saying,
11:52where do I fit into the politics of today?
11:54We've got to say to them, you've got a space right here in my campaign
11:59and the work that we're doing with this movement.
12:02But in addition to that, we've got to galvanize more of that base.
12:05Again, I'll bring back to the forefront the 2018 election cycle.
12:10It was 215,000 votes that stood between Beto O'Rourke becoming our next U.S. senator
12:16and Ted Cruz retaining that seat.
12:19And if you had more people of color, more people under the age of 35 casting those votes,
12:25we would have already flipped the state of Texas.
12:28And so it is doable, it is possible, but you have to have the right messenger
12:31and one where they know that this is not a campaign touchpoint,
12:36but rather someone who is committed and who can and will be effective for their communities
12:41in order to galvanize them into the fold and get that support.
12:45So I think I will be uniquely positioned to do that.
12:48And then, of course, my focus on people.
12:51I often say that I don't like politics.
12:54And I know that sounds cliche, but it is, in fact, very much true.
12:59I don't.
13:00I think it's a means to an end, but it should not in itself be the end.
13:05I think we have to focus on how is this person or how is this community
13:09or how is this state or how is this nation better
13:12because of the work that we have produced and delivered for them.
13:16And if it is not better off and if people are not getting the results,
13:21it does them no good just for you to give a roaring campaign speech.
13:25They've got to see that change because these issues for the community are, in fact, urgent.
13:31These are life and death issues.
13:32These are life trajectory issues.
13:34We've got to have folks that are seriously focused on delivering results
13:38and can be effective in government in doing so.
13:41And that's one of the things that I bring to the table is that laser focus on people and results for them.
13:47And, you know, people who have worked with me will tell you she doesn't play games about focusing on that community
13:54because they need our attention and they needed it yesterday.
13:58Well, thank you.
13:59Thank you for coming in and speaking with us.
14:01We appreciate it.
14:02And best wishes with everything.
14:05Well, I look forward to staying engaged.
14:07And I think thank you for allowing this platform to share with people that change is on the horizon and is possible.
14:15We just have to also make sure that they're getting that message across.
14:18So I appreciate you providing this platform to do that.
14:21No problem.
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