Episode 4 - Congressman

Today we interview Jim Himes, Congressman of the 4th Congressional District of Connecticut. We learn about many things such as problems that are happening currently.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hello, welcome to the careers for kids podcast where kids learn careers.

(00:07):
This is Maxwell Valencia.
And this is Henry Morrison.
Today, we have Jim Himes, a Congressman of the 4th Congressional District of Connecticut.
Hello, Congressman Himes.
Thank you for letting us interview.
Also first of all, I'd like to mention I've been to your office when I was six years old
when my family turned Washington DC.
It was such a nice office.

(00:28):
Oh, that's great.
Well, I'm delighted to hear that.
And thank you so much for having me on your podcast today.
Really excited to be chatting with you guys.
Thank you too for letting us interview.
And a first question is, tell us what you currently do right now.
Like what's your job and like?
Sure, sure.
So my job is best explained not by the word congressman, but represent by by the word

(00:51):
representative, right?
That's sort of the other thing that I get called from time to time.
And that kind of tells you what I do.
I like my four hundred and thirty four colleagues.
I represent people in the House of Representatives in Washington, D.C.
And what that means is, you know, I really need to spend a lot of time with my constituents

(01:14):
to understand how they feel about the issues, because of course we deal with all kinds of
issues, everything from the war in Ukraine, the Social Security, the debt ceiling, all
these things are in the news almost every day.
And so my job is to to vote in favor of those things that I think the seven hundred and
fifty thousand or so people that I represent a lot would want me to vote in favor of.

(01:37):
OK, yeah, I heard about the debt ceiling and many different things like I even made like
a skit of the debt ceiling.
It was like a funny skit I made.
So it's like I like it's really cool.
I like it to represent these things.
I like.
Yeah.
I think the debt ceiling is I know you guys later on wanted to ask about things that are

(01:58):
frustrating.
You know, some of the things that we do don't really help advance the cause of America very
well, you know, whether it's health care or education or what have you.
The debt ceiling, sadly, is an example of that.
But fortunately, we got you know, we got through it two weeks ago.
And so, you know, my hope is now we can turn our attention to, you know, things that make
more of a difference for people at the, you know, as we say, at the kitchen table, like,

(02:20):
you know, the cost of education, the cost of housing, all that kind of stuff.
Yes.
Good luck.
Hopefully, hopefully you do well with it.
So tell me more about your career and how did you get to this position?
How did you?
Yeah.
So, you know, I didn't start in politics and I usually recommend to young people that they,

(02:40):
you know, not not necessarily get, you know, jump right out of school into into politics.
And the reason I feel that way is that, you know, if you think about our government, our
government is about things like regulating the banking sector or, you know, making decisions
for military funding, all that kind of stuff.
And I really think it helps to have some experience out there in the world, whether it's in banking,

(03:03):
in my case, because I wrote out of graduate school, I went to work for a bank for 12 years,
or it could be anything.
It could be, you know, spending time in the military or or being a, you know, a lawyer
or whatever.
But to answer your question, you know, I started out in business for about 12 years and I very
much enjoyed that career.

(03:23):
I again, I worked at a bank and then I spent five years in the nonprofit world working
with an organization that tries to build affordable housing in communities that don't have enough
affordable housing.
And then in 2007, I decided that I would sort of run with a dream that I'd had for a little
while, which was to get involved in public policy, you know, in helping to craft the

(03:46):
rules that that make our society run hopefully well.
So I kind of got into politics pretty I was probably gosh, I don't know, 40, 43 or years
old or something when I first got into politics.
It sounds like you've been doing this for a long time.
You said like that's that's that's longer than I've been around.
Well, it feels like a long time some sometimes but no, I've actually I guess at this point

(04:10):
in my career, I've done politics for longer than anything else.
But as I said, I did spend a long time in the private sector and in the nonprofit sector,
which I like I said, I recommend that people do.
What are some of your experiences from like that, just from all of your, all of your careers
over time?
What are your experiences?
Yeah, so I mean, everybody's gonna have different experiences depending on what they want to

(04:35):
do, but I guess I have two experiences that I would highlight because I think they're
valuable to younger people.
Number one, sometimes people get really stressed out, you know, when they're a little older
than you guys are like right now, it doesn't matter too much whether you have no idea whatsoever
what you want to do in the future because you guys are pretty young.
But of course, you know, as kids get into high school and into college, they start to

(04:58):
feel a lot of pressure to, you know, decide what they want to be.
And one piece of advice I give young people because I felt it myself is, you know, that
period when you're, you know, thinking about college or in college or just out of college,
it's a time of experimentation, right?
You can try things.
And in fact, even though in our very kind of achievement oriented society, everybody's

(05:19):
like, Oh, am I going to succeed?
When you're younger, succeeding really means trying things and figuring stuff out.
And if you try something and you don't like it, great, move on to the next thing.
So that's a piece of advice that I try to give people.
It's pretty hard to make a mistake.
I mean, you obviously don't want to do anything bad, you know, but it's pretty hard to make
a mistake in your career trajectory, you know, when you're a young person.

(05:41):
So I often say, look, when you're young, the magic is in learning as much as you can, trying
things, gathering skills, you know, and those skills can be everything from writing well
to learning to speak another language.
That's something that's going to be a lot more important down the road for Americans
to have, you know, to have more than one language, because of course, our world is becoming more

(06:03):
integrated with itself.
So you know, I as I think back on myself, I if you told me when I was 18 that I was
going to be in Congress when I was in my mid fifties, I might not have been totally shocked,
but I would have said, Wow, how did that happen?
You know, which is a way of saying I didn't necessarily have a plan to get here.

(06:23):
I just sort of had these general hopes and interests that ultimately resulted in me being
in this job.
I get it.
Like, and also about your job, what part of the job did you enjoy the most and dislike
the most?
Well, there's a lot of things I enjoy about my job.
I think the two things I would put at the top of the list is I really do like hearing

(06:46):
from my constituents, you know, and in fact, if you ever wanted to be in government in
an elected office, whether it's senator, congressman or governor or local school board or, you
know, local mayor for selectmen, as we call them here in Connecticut, that's a pretty
critical thing.
You know, really enjoying hearing people's stories, hearing what they feel and what they

(07:07):
fear and want.
That's a pretty key part of any elected officials job.
And I really enjoy that.
And I'll tell you something that may strike you as strange, too, but I actually most enjoy
that when I'm talking to somebody who disagrees with me, right?
I find that I don't, you know, it's fun to talk to people that you agree with, but you

(07:28):
don't necessarily learn a lot.
But when I'm talking to somebody who disagrees with me and they make a really good argument,
I just love that because it sort of opens your mind and it makes you think in new ways.
So in some ways, I would say, number one, you know, talking to and listening to my constituents,
you know, number two, I would say I just love policy.

(07:49):
Now policy is kind of a big word that means lots of different things.
It can mean everything from, you know, how much should we be supporting the Ukrainians
in their war against Russia to, you know, what can we do to make it easier for young
people, less expensive for young people to go to college?
To how can we build better highways?
You know, we live in an area of the world, as you guys know, where we spend way too much
time in traffic.

(08:10):
So I really, really enjoy thinking about the policy that addresses the challenges in those
areas in terms of what I like least.
I kind of alluded to this before, you know, things like the debt ceiling, where we create
a lot of uncertainty and anger and foolishness in ways that don't really help the country.

(08:33):
And that's an attribute of politics.
You know, we live in an age where politics is much angrier than it was 20 or 30 or 40
years ago.
And so there's just a lot of people using very angry language.
And when I hear that, I sort of think, man, that's a dangerous thing for our democracy,
where we should disagree with each other.

(08:54):
Absolutely, we should disagree with each other.
But we should do it in civil fashion in a way that we learn from each other.
Remember what I just said about how I love talking to people who disagree with me, you
know, when we disagree, we should regard it as an opportunity, not as an indication that,
you know, somebody is screwed up or wrong or evil or whatever.

(09:15):
That stuff, I must say, that really angry politics drives me kind of crazy.
Oh, yeah, I get how that drives you crazy.
Like I like sometimes like, I'm like, I'm, people get like angry at me sometimes, and
I don't like it.
Yeah, you just see it on the news.
Like, I'm not involved in politics.

(09:35):
And I don't Maxwell here is.
But like, it just like, when you see something about this on the news, and all the other
fighting and other language, and just everything that's going on, it's just kind of sad that
this is what politics has come to.
That makes any sense.
Yeah, it makes absolute sense.
I mean, you know, it has, it has a lot of effects, right?

(09:57):
It turns people off.
People say, why would I want to get involved in that when it's so angry and people are
shouting at each other?
And that's bad in a democracy, people shouldn't be turned off from participating, they should
be turned on to participate.
And on the extremes, and you know, I was one of the harder things in the last couple of
years, you know, I was in the Capitol when it was attacked on January 6 2021.

(10:21):
And on the extreme enough angry rhetoric, enough crazy shouting at each other can lead
to violence.
And that's obviously something that we don't ever want to see in our society.
Oh, yeah, we didn't.
I wouldn't like to see violence in our society.
So was this like a dream job you thought about when you were a kid?
Like, did you like, think about it?

(10:42):
Like, I mean, did you ever like consider this job when you were a kid?
Well, I'm not sure I really when I was your age or even older in college, I'm not sure
that I thought, oh, I'm going to run for elected office.
I sort of thought, oh, man, that would be a hassle.
I'll have to like shake millions of hands.
And, you know, I'd much rather be like, you know, in government in a position where, you

(11:07):
know, I don't know, maybe you work for the Department of Commerce or the Department of
Justice, but you don't have to go out there and get elected.
So it was pretty late in life that I thought, hey, it might be kind of cool to win elected
office for a whole bunch of reasons that we can get into if you want.
But including, by the way, what I was telling you earlier about the opportunity to talk
to people and listen to their stories, you know, that's really a critical part of any

(11:29):
elected office.
So I think if you'd asked me when I was your age, someday, do you imagine yourself working
in the government?
I would have said, yeah, but probably not on the elected route.
You know, I don't want to kiss babies and shake hands and all that stuff.
So, you know, that idea kind of came to me much later in life.
Yeah.

(11:50):
And like, who were your idols when you were young?
Like, who inspired you to like do things?
And like, it doesn't necessarily have to be a business.
Basically, who inspired you to help change the world?
Like you were saying, it's more like something that affects people.
What inspired you to do that?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, so asking about heroes and idols, I would tell you, I'm a lot older than you guys

(12:14):
are.
So I was three and four years old when American astronauts first landed on the moon.
And I vaguely remember it because I was really young.
But I remember being really young and just being so amazed that astronauts had actually
landed on the moon.
You know, today that seems like a normal thing.

(12:34):
But back then, that was just, you know, that was just incredible.
And so my one of my early heroes was the first man to walk on the moon, whose name was Armstrong.
Yeah, and so partly motivated and enchanted with him.
I thought, oh, man, I want to be a scientist or a pilot or I'd love to be an astronaut.

(12:55):
I think that was my first my first interest.
Now, mind you, I was six or seven years old.
So I have gone through a lot of different ideas and heroes.
But my earliest memory of a hero was Armstrong and those astronauts who landed on the moon
in 1969.
Yeah.
Like that would be if I were like you, like in the time where like people landed on the

(13:19):
moon, I'd be like so inspired, like so shocked.
Like that was that was that was the huge thing of that decade.
Yeah.
No, it sure was.
And you know, we were talking a little bit about political conflict that came in the
middle.
You guys have no ability to remember this because you're way too young.
That came in the middle of another episode in which the country was really divided over

(13:42):
the war in Vietnam.
You know, if you read about it in the history books, you see that there were, you know,
really angry riots and really, really a lot of division in the country over that war.
So here in the middle of that very divisive war, you have this incredible event where
the whole world watches a man for the first time walk on the moon.
And it was a really in a divided time.

(14:04):
It was a really optimistic thing.
We'd say, wow, if you can get to the moon, you can do anything.
You know, so the context in which that occurred was pretty interesting, too.
Yes.
Yeah.
Like, why did you pick this job?
I mean, I know it was to help and like help change, like help provide change and stuff
and like add difference to the country.

(14:27):
And I don't I mean, just have an effect, just have an effect on the world.
But other than that, why did you pick this job?
Well, I picked it.
And maybe this is another little piece of advice for you.
I think one of the critical things that a happy person should do is really ask themselves

(14:47):
what do I love to do?
Right.
Not what do I have to do?
Because, of course, our life is filled with things that we have to do.
We have to do our homework.
Oh, you know, we have to apply to college.
We have to do our chores.
And sometimes I feel like we don't really in a quiet moment look inside ourselves and
say, what do I love to do?
Because what you love to do should inform to some extent what you have to do.

(15:12):
Right.
And so what do I mean by that?
I think that over time, you know, I was in business and there were things I loved about
business and then I was in the nonprofit world.
There were things I loved about that.
But over time, I realized that I really loved thinking about policy, these things that we've
been talking about, you know, everything from, you know, how do we ensure a good retirement

(15:32):
for our senior citizens to how big should our military be and where should we use it
to our highways?
I love thinking about that stuff.
And so in the back of my mind, I always thought, you know, someday I want to work in this area.
I'd love to get paid to think about, you know, policy stuff.
And then over time, I also grew and this was a little bit of a shift, as I told you before,

(15:55):
to actually really enjoy hearing people's stories and people's, you know, hopes and
concerns and anxieties.
And when you put those two things together, a love of policy and interest in talking to
people, it's not too big a jump to say, oh, well, did you ever think about elected office?
And you know, we should clarify one thing, right?

(16:15):
I mean, as you guys both know, my job, there's only 435 of them in the United States, right?
So it's not like, you know, there's thousands and thousands and thousands of opportunities.
But the truth is, there's thousands and thousands of opportunities to run for different kinds
of offices, right?
It doesn't just need to be Congress.
A lot of the impact that impacts our communities is made by our mayors, is made by our boards

(16:39):
of education, which control our school systems.
And so we shouldn't limit ourselves to just talking about Congress, because of course,
you know, Senate plus House is 535 people.
But there's almost always opportunities for people to get involved in politics and elected
office at the local or at the state level as well.

(17:00):
Okay, so like, what was like the most like biggest highlight of your entire career?
Like what would you like, like you'd be really happy about or like something like that?
Like what would you be really like, what was a high in your career and what was a low in
your career and what were like highlights of your career?
Like, was it like your biggest?

(17:21):
So let me let me tell you sort of from the standpoint of the job and then personally,
from the standpoint of the job over the years, we've fixed some big problems.
I got elected in 09.
You guys were probably just getting bored around that time or not even yet bored.
I got I first went to Congress in 09 and the economy was in terrible, terrible shape because

(17:45):
the banking sector had just completely exploded.
And people were getting thrown out of work.
And we did a whole lot of work to this.
This is a little this is something that is going to be like thrilling to many people.
But anyone who was alive in 09 will remember how terrible the economy was.
Millions of people out of work, lots of people lost their houses for very complicated reasons.

(18:07):
But one of those reasons was that our banking system, our financial system was really unstable.
And because I'd been a banker, I got to spend a year working on new laws and new rules that
we sort of repotted our financial system, created new regulations.
And ever since then, since 2010, our financial system, our banks have been very stable, very

(18:33):
stable, even though we went through a pandemic with covid.
So I'm very proud of that.
And that sounds sort of boring.
And it is kind of boring.
But when it goes wrong, it really goes wrong.
The other thing, by the way, I would highlight this was super controversial back in 2009
and 2010 when we did it.
But we passed something called the Affordable Care Act.
And it was very controversial.

(18:54):
People were really angry on both sides.
But today, as we look at the what people used to call Obamacare, we discover that it's provided
health insurance for probably 20 million Americans or so.
And again, health insurance, that probably doesn't mean a lot to younger people.
But to families that are out there that worry about getting medical bills that they can't
pay, it's really transformative.

(19:15):
So being in a position to help make those changes that kind of make for a more stable,
better country, that's that's clearly the highlight.
Now, by the way, I should say, you know, a couple of times I've gotten to fly with the
president on Air Force One.
That's pretty cool.
But that's just me.
Right.
So even though that's pretty cool for me, or I get to do fun stuff like, you know, visit

(19:40):
aircraft carriers.
And I love that stuff.
But that obviously doesn't have an impact on my constituents all that much.
But those are the fun.
You know, those I would highlight those two things as really the pleasures of the job.
You know, and we've talked a little bit about so I won't I won't beat this dead horse.
But the hard honestly, the low points in the job come when the politics get very personal,

(20:03):
you know, rather than my saying, you know, hey, Henry, I disagree with you, but I respect
where you're coming from.
I say, oh, Henry, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
Oh, yeah.
There's a real difference there.
Right.
And sadly, today, our politics often turn into people being very personally, you know,
attacking each other personally, rather than respecting each other and interacting in a

(20:25):
civil fashion.
When it gets really ugly that way, I it sort of breaks my heart.
Oh, yeah.
So what are like, what are the biggest challenges that you think can be solved by our generation?
Gen Z.
Yeah, that that you would want us to solve for you.

(20:45):
Yeah.
Well, you know, I, I, I'm a real optimist, you know, and I think your generation is going
to probably finish the work of addressing one of the huge challenges that we have in
the world, which is climate change, you know.
When I was young, there was a big argument over whether it was even real.

(21:07):
And that argument is largely over, but we have a big argument over what to do about
it.
Right.
And, you know, it's it's not that we have a bad argument because people are bad or evil.
We have a bad argument because we're still in a world where our cars use gasoline and
gasoline, of course, contributes burning gasoline contributes to climate change.

(21:28):
We still live in a world where we burn a lot of coal and oil for the electricity that keeps
us warm in the winter and we're we're working to trip to transition to a more responsible
and sustainable energy system.
And you guys are going to need to finish that because it'll be the technological innovations
and the and the changes that you make that finish that off because it's not going to

(21:53):
happen overnight.
So I think that may be the big challenge for your generation to figure out how finally
to get a sustainable with respect to making sure that we don't destabilize the climate
or other aspects of the planet.
Yeah, I mean, yeah, because with how the with how fast tech is advancing now with like,

(22:13):
like, so like, yeah, but like, just like other things like tech is getting more advanced
and everything is getting crazier and crazier.
But I think that could definitely be used because a lot of it's already being used for
good, but it's not making as much of an impact as I would like it to.

(22:34):
So yes, it could definitely help us with climate change, the technological advancements in
our generation.
And I think that could definitely help us out there.
I could really help us.
Okay.
Yeah, no doubt.
Let's say someone wants to follow your career as like a representative in your footsteps.
What would you tell him or her?

(22:58):
Well, the advice I would give somebody who wants to be in Congress or any other elected
office, maybe the advice I would give somebody your age is two pieces of advice.
Number one, follow the issues like when I was your age, believe it or not, and this
was a little nerdy, but when I was your age, I read the newspaper a lot because I was just

(23:21):
kind of interested in the issues that we've been talking about.
And someday, if you ever want to be a congressman or a mayor or a state representative, if you've
spent years reading about the issues, and by the issues, I mean everything from how
we adequately handle traffic to how we pay for our schools to whether we should be helping

(23:44):
Ukraine more or less.
If you've been reading about that stuff and thinking about it for years, you'll be in
a really good position to be, like I said, a congressman or a mayor or a board of education
member.
So, advice number one would be...
Okay, so my advice to young people who are thinking about going into public policy, I

(24:05):
would say two things.
Number one, do what I did.
This is kind of nerdy, but when I was really young, I read the newspaper, I was interested
in the issues, and so I learned a lot even when I was very young about all of the issues
that we're talking about.
How you run schools, how cities succeed or fail, how economies succeed or fail, what

(24:26):
we've been successful at from a foreign policy standpoint.
If you're interested in that stuff, learn as much as you can, because it'll be really
handy for you when you ultimately get involved in something in a more professional way.
So that would be idea number one.
Idea number two is, if you're interested in public policy or elected office or any form
of government, it's never too early to get involved, right?

(24:48):
You could, today, you could get your parents to take you to a board of education meeting
in whatever town you live in, and you may not understand everything, but you'll understand
some of it, or you can tune in and watch the debates in the United States Senate or the
United States House of Representatives.
And as you get older, there will be lots of ways to get involved.
I keep talking about boards of education because sometimes boards of education have student

(25:12):
members on those boards, and so those would be my two pieces of advice for somebody who's
thinking about being in public service, which is really, it's never too early to study the
issues, read about them on the paper, watch them on the news, and number two, get involved.
Get involved in one way or the other, and use that involvement to figure out what you
like to do.
Yep, and even if you don't know much about it, or like, as you said, you don't understand

(25:35):
it over time, if you're really interested in that, you will grow to understand it.
Yeah, you will.
Precisely.
The only way to learn about something is to kind of dive into the pool and learn it, you
know?
Yep.
So what is your life advice for kids listening to this podcast?
What is your life advice?
I'm so interested in what do you think your life advice is, since you've lived for a long

(25:58):
time, you must have lots of advice.
Well, so let me just summarize some of the thoughts that I've given you, and then I'll
add one more to it.
So I said get involved.
Our democracy really relies on people being involved in whatever way they want to get
involved.
You can be getting involved by serving on the volunteer ambulance squad in your town,
and you'll learn some stuff.

(26:19):
You could get involved by being a member of the Board of Education, or running for mayor,
or whatever it is.
So number one, get involved.
Number two, don't stop learning.
You know, one of the cool things about being young today is that you can learn just by
the device that we're talking about right now, right?
When I wanted to learn something when I was your age, I had to, you know, walk a half
mile to the library and look up books and ask if they had this magazine.

(26:42):
Now you've got the ability to learn literally at 11 o'clock at night when you don't have
anything else to do.
And then, like I said before, don't worry too much as you get older if you haven't figured
out exactly what you want to do.
It took me, I was, you know, I love this job, but it took me until I was in my 40s to realize

(27:03):
that I might actually want to do the job and to decide to run for it.
And then lastly, the piece of advice that I haven't talked about yet, but I'll mention,
one of the things I've discovered in my life is that, you know, it helps to have good educational
credentials, right?
You want to do well in school because that'll tell employers that you're a hard worker and

(27:24):
stuff.
But one of the things that we don't appreciate enough is how valuable our friends are.
And I don't just mean friends, but I mean our connections, right?
So as I look back over my career, which is now almost 35 years old, at really critical
moments, I was able to use my connections and friendships to meet other people, to learn

(27:44):
about other jobs, to get recommendations.
And so sometimes when we're studying really hard, we forget that one of the really critical
elements of success out there is maintaining friendships and connections, what we adults
call sort of social networks and social capital.
Those things can be just as important as, you know, how well you do in school or where

(28:08):
your degree is from.
So it's never too early to start building more relationships and, you know, building
friendships that will last over many, many years.
Thank you so much, Congressman, for allowing us to interview you.
I'm very sure more kids will be inspired to take a path of public service because of this
interview.

(28:28):
Okay, thank you.
And I also think you just got a really good message across here.
Yes, you gave even me a message.
And well, everyone, thanks for listening to the careers for kids podcast.
Hope you enjoyed the episode and we will see you in the next episode.
Bye.