September 26, 2025 • 12 mins
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-CA) discusses the challenges facing Democrat members of Congress during the second Trump administration.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Andrea Coleman with the Black Information Network at the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundations fifty fourth Annual Legislative Conference, and
we're talking with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager Dove, who represents California
thirty seventh Congressional district. Thank you so much for joining
us today, Representative. It's always great to be here you
and all these black people.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I love it, so talk a little bit. I know
we spoke last year, and you represent.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Some historic black districts in California in the LA area
that are very dear to our heart, Crenshaw and some more.
What's on your heart todays? And I know we're going
to get to the aon innovation. But when you say California,
I mean, you guys have just been kind of like
just a hotbed of everything going on that's kind of
(00:47):
then trends or at least transcended to national.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Issues and so forth.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So how are you guys in what's going on in California?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I definitely feel like we have been living rent free
in this The guy in the White House in his mind,
the lot has been going on in Los Angeles. We
are still dealing with the aftermath of the Eton fire
and the Palisades Fire. So many black communities in Altadena
that were impacted by those urban fires. You know, my
(01:19):
district was not touched by them directly, but every single
person in my neighborhood knows someone, you know, who lives
in Altadena who was impacted by the fires, or who
works in a business that was impacted. So that's been
on our minds because we are still fighting with this
federal government to get our disaster relief, and we want
(01:40):
it without any strings attached, without having to ben the knee.
Also thinking about preparing for the World Cup in the Olympics.
The President just came out and said that he thinks
he's the Holy Ghost and can make decisions about where,
you know, the World Cup can host these events, and
that's just wholly, wholly untrue. But we need to make
(02:01):
sure that we have the security and the infrastructure in
place to put on an epic Olympic Games on behalf
of the United States of America. And then dealing with
these ice rays. You know, we have had these masked
goons essentially coming into our communities and snatching our friends
and our neighbors in my district, a man who's been
(02:24):
there for over twenty years, who has an ice cream chuck.
He sells these barlettas and he was just snatched and
detained and then put in an airplane and shipped from
one state to another without having access to his family
members or to representation. And it reminds me. I mean,
we have our own stories about family members being kidnapped,
(02:48):
you know, into slavery, and now we're seeing another form
of that in twenty twenty five, with what this weaponization
of ice when the military look like for our communities.
You know, I don't, I don't I want to acknowledge
that we also are a city that's run by an
African American woman, Karen Bass, who was in the CBC
and is now a mayor. So it's curious that he's
(03:10):
deciding to attack you know, blue cities and cities where
they're African Americans as mayors.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Anything Congress can do in response to these kind of
actions that have been taking place not only in Los Angeles,
but now at least with the National Guarden DC and
from what we understand, a couple of other cities are
on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well, we are certainly fighting back we are fighting back
by you know, sharing our outrage and letting people know
what's legal and what is And I do a little
Instagram thing called is the Shit Legal? And I get
so many comments from constituents and viewers who say, I
love that you're doing this, because you're right, it's not legal.
But when you are, this barrage of misinformation comes to you,
(03:54):
and it's because of whatever is going on in the
White House, you may be thinking, well, I guess he
can do this, So it's important for us to be
able to say no, he can't, right, So we're doing that,
and then we're also going to court. You know, over
half of the lawsuits that we filed, which is almost
close to four hundred, have been ruled in our favor.
(04:14):
So we are taking the administration to court. We are
calling out what's legal and what isn't. And then we're
also using our legislative might. I'll give you a really
great example. Just before we broke for recess. You know,
there was a censure resolution brought forth by you know,
a member from the opposite party trying to punk and
(04:35):
punish one of our members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
So you know what you know, we the Democrats and
I know this isn't partisan them just sharing facts, you know,
brought forth another resolution to kind of bring it to them,
and you know what happened. They that resolution that they
had to censure one of our colleagues failed. So we
(04:55):
are also doing that. People want Democrats to punch back,
and we are finding ways using the l legislative process
to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, coming up on the midterm elections next year, and
you know, polls are showing that some people are a
little concerned to where Democrats who are right now right?
I'm not sure if the.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Messaging is clear or so forth.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What's the plan going into that cycle of elections and
why is it important that people kind of pay attention
and get on board if they can.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, if you don't pay attention, if you continue to
sleep out, you may wake up and somebody's putting a
number on your head or on your arm, or snatching
you out of your home and putting you someplace where
you don't want to be, where you have absolutely no freedoms.
You know, what are Democrats doing? We are fighting, We
are collecting and sharing receipts, you know, and we are
(05:43):
winning and most of the special elections that have taken
place post November twenty twenty four, Democrats have won, you know,
So we are sharing the news. We are talking about
what is fake, we are talking about what is unconstitutional.
We are raising the arms and independence. Democrats and some
Republicans are taking note, and when they are going to
(06:06):
vote for their local elections, they are saying, I don't
trust these cats who now hold the gavels and have
control of the White House, the Senate, and Congress. I
am going to come back to reality and not have
these Republicans stay in office or not elect one to
get into office. So I have to share that because
(06:26):
I know people say, well, what are you doing, what's happening? Well, Chow,
we fight and in the small races we win in
but you have a guy with a big bully pulpit
who gets really upset when people aren't talking about him.
So I try not to talk about him. But I'm
also making sure that at the local level we are
doing what we need to do to win and get
us prepared for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, when we talked last year, you were talking about
protecting the rights of black artists in the digital space,
and this year you had a panel talking about innovation
and so forth. Where are we in that that whole
conversation and why is it important in this day and
age when it seems digital is almost everything and everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, you know, I happen to sit on the House
Judiciary Committee, and it's unfortunate that we have had not many,
not enough hearings on intellectual property, on anti trust, you know,
on the internet, and we spend in our time talking
about how to get rid of birthright citizenship and give
(07:28):
more money to ICE, you know, so that they can
get forty thousand dollars raises when they're snatching our people
off the streets. And we have still let the AI
space and the digital space be the wild wild West.
And what that does is it hurts black artists, black creatives,
black entrepreneurs in these tech spaces. One of the reasons
(07:49):
why I had my panel was we have to continue
to talk about what black ownership looks like, black value
and how we leverage how we leverage our black dollars
on our blackness, because we know people are all is
tapping into us for our creativity. But we also have
to push back and say we want to be fairly compensated,
and we want to have protection, you know, and we
want to have ownership over the things that we're creating.
(08:12):
And Black folks have to be okay with saying no.
You know, sometimes that money looks good, but if you
know you're worth more than that, then you have to
say no and wait for the right proposal to come
your way that respects what you're creating and what you're bringing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Where can the members of our community learn more about
intellectual property and rights and how they protect all of
that and the whole process of it, because it really
is its own legal space.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
It is. We have so many folks in the legal
community that are operating in this industry. They have associations,
they do briefings. I think it's important to tap into those,
you know. I have been supporting a group called Black
Women in Entertainment. They're out of California, and while they're
talking about artistry and protecting black entertainers, they are also
(09:02):
talking about this issue. The Black Caucus has task forces
and we have done briefings in this space. So and
we have also been working with our partners in the
tech world. You know, I don't want to start naming brands,
but there are lots of black folks and many of
these tech industries and many of these creative industries, and
we've said, hey, you need to, you know, open up,
(09:26):
invite folks to the table to talk about this because
these are real issues. Because the other thing we're seeing
is non black artists are being compensated differently. So Black
Caucus continues to raise the alarm. And if we tell folks,
if you want to continue to have any grace with
the CBC, this is what you better be doing. I
will say I've been. It's been rewarding to see companies
(09:48):
say you're right and we're going to work on this
some more. That's really good.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Your hope for the country moving forward.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Wooch out, that we get out of this fog. We
get out of this fog for the country is that
we reconnect to humanity. We have been pushed into silos.
We hate has become normalized. And I don't know about you,
but you know, protecting my soul is incredibly important. And
my soul does not thrive on anger and resentment and
(10:16):
hate and fear. And we've been fed a very steady
diet of these emotions from this White House. So you know,
I'm sad for him that he doesn't have any love
in his life. I don't know who hurt him, but
I don't need all that drama in my world because
I'm working really hard to protect my community right and
celebrate my community. So my hope is that we put
(10:38):
the phones down, we get a little more analogue, and
we reconnect to the humanity that makes this country what
it is. We have a lot of work to do,
but we're not going to move any further if we
continue to stay in our segregated silos and want to
punish people. Yeah, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Any other thoughts on your mind today as we look
at the CVCF and black leadership in particular, and the
need for you guys doing what you do and the
way that you do it in this space, Well.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You know, we always talk about how exhausting the ALC
week is, but it's been really rejuvenating. You walk down
the halls, people are giving you hugs, people are saying,
I'm checking in on you, Are you okay. There's so
many tears, but there's also so much laughter, And that's
what's filling up my reservoir is that black folks are
(11:35):
still making sure that we are connected to joy and
that we're protecting each other's resiliency. That warms my heart.
This has been a restorative week. I think I told
you that before we started, and we have to continue
to do things like this and recognize that we need
healing time just for ourselves, because we know that everyone
(11:56):
else is looking at us not just to solve our problems,
but to make it easy for them. So I'm like, yo,
we put my all masks all right now and then
we'll get back to you.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, that's so true. We do look at you, guys
and ask you to work some magic for us. So
we appreciate you and your patience as we look to
you and say, please keep your cape on.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Thank you, thank you. Well, we all have we all
have capes.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
To wear, don't we. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So it
has been wonderful talking with you again, Congresswoman. We hope
to see you again next year and keep doing what
you're doing in the style, in the manner in which
you do it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I'm Andrea Coleman with the Black Information Network at the
Congressional Black Caucuss Foundations fifty fourth Annual Legislative Conference we've
been talking with Congresswoman sydneykom Lagger Dove, who represents California's
thirty seventh congressional district. We'll have more information or more
conversations with our congressional leaders and others coming up.
Good afternoon.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm Andrea Coleman with the Black Information Network at the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundations fifty fourth Annual Legislative Conference, and
we're talking with Congresswoman Sydney Kamlager Dove, who represents California
thirty seventh Congressional district. Thank you so much for joining
us today, Representative. It's always great to be here you
and all these black people.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I love it, so talk a little bit. I know
we spoke last year, and you represent.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
Some historic black districts in California in the LA area
that are very dear to our heart, Crenshaw and some more.
What's on your heart todays? And I know we're going
to get to the aon innovation. But when you say California,
I mean, you guys have just been kind of like
just a hotbed of everything going on that's kind of
(00:47):
then trends or at least transcended to national.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Issues and so forth.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
So how are you guys in what's going on in California?
Speaker 1 (00:55):
I definitely feel like we have been living rent free
in this The guy in the White House in his mind,
the lot has been going on in Los Angeles. We
are still dealing with the aftermath of the Eton fire
and the Palisades Fire. So many black communities in Altadena
that were impacted by those urban fires. You know, my
(01:19):
district was not touched by them directly, but every single
person in my neighborhood knows someone, you know, who lives
in Altadena who was impacted by the fires, or who
works in a business that was impacted. So that's been
on our minds because we are still fighting with this
federal government to get our disaster relief, and we want
(01:40):
it without any strings attached, without having to ben the knee.
Also thinking about preparing for the World Cup in the Olympics.
The President just came out and said that he thinks
he's the Holy Ghost and can make decisions about where,
you know, the World Cup can host these events, and
that's just wholly, wholly untrue. But we need to make
(02:01):
sure that we have the security and the infrastructure in
place to put on an epic Olympic Games on behalf
of the United States of America. And then dealing with
these ice rays. You know, we have had these masked
goons essentially coming into our communities and snatching our friends
and our neighbors in my district, a man who's been
(02:24):
there for over twenty years, who has an ice cream chuck.
He sells these barlettas and he was just snatched and
detained and then put in an airplane and shipped from
one state to another without having access to his family
members or to representation. And it reminds me. I mean,
we have our own stories about family members being kidnapped,
(02:48):
you know, into slavery, and now we're seeing another form
of that in twenty twenty five, with what this weaponization
of ice when the military look like for our communities.
You know, I don't, I don't I want to acknowledge
that we also are a city that's run by an
African American woman, Karen Bass, who was in the CBC
and is now a mayor. So it's curious that he's
(03:10):
deciding to attack you know, blue cities and cities where
they're African Americans as mayors.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Anything Congress can do in response to these kind of
actions that have been taking place not only in Los Angeles,
but now at least with the National Guarden DC and
from what we understand, a couple of other cities are
on the horizon.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Well, we are certainly fighting back we are fighting back
by you know, sharing our outrage and letting people know
what's legal and what is And I do a little
Instagram thing called is the Shit Legal? And I get
so many comments from constituents and viewers who say, I
love that you're doing this, because you're right, it's not legal.
But when you are, this barrage of misinformation comes to you,
(03:54):
and it's because of whatever is going on in the
White House, you may be thinking, well, I guess he
can do this, So it's important for us to be
able to say no, he can't, right, So we're doing that,
and then we're also going to court. You know, over
half of the lawsuits that we filed, which is almost
close to four hundred, have been ruled in our favor.
(04:14):
So we are taking the administration to court. We are
calling out what's legal and what isn't. And then we're
also using our legislative might. I'll give you a really
great example. Just before we broke for recess. You know,
there was a censure resolution brought forth by you know,
a member from the opposite party trying to punk and
(04:35):
punish one of our members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
So you know what you know, we the Democrats and
I know this isn't partisan them just sharing facts, you know,
brought forth another resolution to kind of bring it to them,
and you know what happened. They that resolution that they
had to censure one of our colleagues failed. So we
(04:55):
are also doing that. People want Democrats to punch back,
and we are finding ways using the l legislative process
to do that.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, coming up on the midterm elections next year, and
you know, polls are showing that some people are a
little concerned to where Democrats who are right now right?
I'm not sure if the.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
Messaging is clear or so forth.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
What's the plan going into that cycle of elections and
why is it important that people kind of pay attention
and get on board if they can.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Well, if you don't pay attention, if you continue to
sleep out, you may wake up and somebody's putting a
number on your head or on your arm, or snatching
you out of your home and putting you someplace where
you don't want to be, where you have absolutely no freedoms.
You know, what are Democrats doing? We are fighting, We
are collecting and sharing receipts, you know, and we are
(05:43):
winning and most of the special elections that have taken
place post November twenty twenty four, Democrats have won, you know,
So we are sharing the news. We are talking about
what is fake, we are talking about what is unconstitutional.
We are raising the arms and independence. Democrats and some
Republicans are taking note, and when they are going to
(06:06):
vote for their local elections, they are saying, I don't
trust these cats who now hold the gavels and have
control of the White House, the Senate, and Congress. I
am going to come back to reality and not have
these Republicans stay in office or not elect one to
get into office. So I have to share that because
(06:26):
I know people say, well, what are you doing, what's happening? Well, Chow,
we fight and in the small races we win in
but you have a guy with a big bully pulpit
who gets really upset when people aren't talking about him.
So I try not to talk about him. But I'm
also making sure that at the local level we are
doing what we need to do to win and get
us prepared for twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
Yeah, when we talked last year, you were talking about
protecting the rights of black artists in the digital space,
and this year you had a panel talking about innovation
and so forth. Where are we in that that whole
conversation and why is it important in this day and
age when it seems digital is almost everything and everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Well, you know, I happen to sit on the House
Judiciary Committee, and it's unfortunate that we have had not many,
not enough hearings on intellectual property, on anti trust, you know,
on the internet, and we spend in our time talking
about how to get rid of birthright citizenship and give
(07:28):
more money to ICE, you know, so that they can
get forty thousand dollars raises when they're snatching our people
off the streets. And we have still let the AI
space and the digital space be the wild wild West.
And what that does is it hurts black artists, black creatives,
black entrepreneurs in these tech spaces. One of the reasons
(07:49):
why I had my panel was we have to continue
to talk about what black ownership looks like, black value
and how we leverage how we leverage our black dollars
on our blackness, because we know people are all is
tapping into us for our creativity. But we also have
to push back and say we want to be fairly compensated,
and we want to have protection, you know, and we
want to have ownership over the things that we're creating.
(08:12):
And Black folks have to be okay with saying no.
You know, sometimes that money looks good, but if you
know you're worth more than that, then you have to
say no and wait for the right proposal to come
your way that respects what you're creating and what you're bringing.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
Where can the members of our community learn more about
intellectual property and rights and how they protect all of
that and the whole process of it, because it really
is its own legal space.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
It is. We have so many folks in the legal
community that are operating in this industry. They have associations,
they do briefings. I think it's important to tap into those,
you know. I have been supporting a group called Black
Women in Entertainment. They're out of California, and while they're
talking about artistry and protecting black entertainers, they are also
(09:02):
talking about this issue. The Black Caucus has task forces
and we have done briefings in this space. So and
we have also been working with our partners in the
tech world. You know, I don't want to start naming brands,
but there are lots of black folks and many of
these tech industries and many of these creative industries, and
we've said, hey, you need to, you know, open up,
(09:26):
invite folks to the table to talk about this because
these are real issues. Because the other thing we're seeing
is non black artists are being compensated differently. So Black
Caucus continues to raise the alarm. And if we tell folks,
if you want to continue to have any grace with
the CBC, this is what you better be doing. I
will say I've been. It's been rewarding to see companies
(09:48):
say you're right and we're going to work on this
some more. That's really good.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Your hope for the country moving forward.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Wooch out, that we get out of this fog. We
get out of this fog for the country is that
we reconnect to humanity. We have been pushed into silos.
We hate has become normalized. And I don't know about you,
but you know, protecting my soul is incredibly important. And
my soul does not thrive on anger and resentment and
(10:16):
hate and fear. And we've been fed a very steady
diet of these emotions from this White House. So you know,
I'm sad for him that he doesn't have any love
in his life. I don't know who hurt him, but
I don't need all that drama in my world because
I'm working really hard to protect my community right and
celebrate my community. So my hope is that we put
(10:38):
the phones down, we get a little more analogue, and
we reconnect to the humanity that makes this country what
it is. We have a lot of work to do,
but we're not going to move any further if we
continue to stay in our segregated silos and want to
punish people. Yeah, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Any other thoughts on your mind today as we look
at the CVCF and black leadership in particular, and the
need for you guys doing what you do and the
way that you do it in this space, Well.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
You know, we always talk about how exhausting the ALC
week is, but it's been really rejuvenating. You walk down
the halls, people are giving you hugs, people are saying,
I'm checking in on you, Are you okay. There's so
many tears, but there's also so much laughter, And that's
what's filling up my reservoir is that black folks are
(11:35):
still making sure that we are connected to joy and
that we're protecting each other's resiliency. That warms my heart.
This has been a restorative week. I think I told
you that before we started, and we have to continue
to do things like this and recognize that we need
healing time just for ourselves, because we know that everyone
(11:56):
else is looking at us not just to solve our problems,
but to make it easy for them. So I'm like, yo,
we put my all masks all right now and then
we'll get back to you.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, that's so true. We do look at you, guys
and ask you to work some magic for us. So
we appreciate you and your patience as we look to
you and say, please keep your cape on.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Thank you, thank you. Well, we all have we all
have capes.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
To wear, don't we. Yeah, yeah, that's right. So it
has been wonderful talking with you again, Congresswoman. We hope
to see you again next year and keep doing what
you're doing in the style, in the manner in which
you do it.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I'm Andrea Coleman with the Black Information Network at the
Congressional Black Caucuss Foundations fifty fourth Annual Legislative Conference we've
been talking with Congresswoman sydneykom Lagger Dove, who represents California's
thirty seventh congressional district. We'll have more information or more
conversations with our congressional leaders and others coming up.
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