Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, and welcome to meet the candidates. I'm Carrie Steele.
I'm the midday host on iHeartRadio's Coast three point five
in Los Angeles, and joining me today California State assembly
member representing the forty third district or now is it
forty four? Now it's forty four, Okay, but you were
elected to the forty third district. Laura Friedman is with
us today. Welcome to meet the candidates. Miss Freedman.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Thank you for having me call me Laura.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Please, I'm happy to thank you. And we should start
by clarifying this is meet the candidates. You are the
Democratic candidate running for US House of Representatives in California's
thirtieth congressional district. I want to be accurate. That's absolutely awesome. Okay,
So you are representing several LA communities, Silver Lake, Burbank, Glendale, Hollywood,
(00:48):
parts of several other communities. I don't want to gloss
over that. I want to make sure.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah, Sunland to Hunga, West Hollywood, mid City, Larchmont, all
of those areas. So from West Hollywood through the LA
base and then Glendeale, Burbank and Sunland to Hounga.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Before a career in politics a film producer. Was it
two thousand and nine when you became a member of
the Glendale City Council that you kind of shifted careers.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah. I came to Los Angeles in nineteen ninety two.
I moved into the thirtieth District in ninety two, And
before that, I was living in New York City working
for HBO and other film companies. And I moved out
because I got a job at Paramount Pictures. So I
worked in the industry for over twenty years, worked my
way up from being a script reader and an assistant
to being an executive, a development executive, and a producer.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Well that's fascinating, and I'm sure a lot of people
listening would think, why why that shift? You went from
the bright lights of Hollywood to well, what can sometimes
be the dark side of politics. So what inspired you
to just make that change? Because even the most virtuous people,
because it's kind of can be conceived as a thankless vocation.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
So I was. I moved to Glendale in two thousand.
We bought our house, our person only house in Glendale,
and I had been doing a lot of volunteer advocacy
around LA and I volunteered to be on a city
commission in Glendale, you know, a non paid volunteer commission job,
and it got me watching my new city more closely
and being very interested in how it was developing, how
(02:16):
people were living, was it meeting people's basic needs. And
I thought that one day in the future, when I
was done with my career, I would run for city council.
And I was diagnosed in my thirties unexpectedly with breast
cancer and went through a year of treatment and decided
that well, I realized that you can't wait if you
want to do something in life. You don't know how
much time you're going to have. No one's guaranteed eighty
(02:37):
years or seventy years, and you need to, you know,
seize the moment, as they say. So I decided that
year to run for council and became I believe, only
the fifth woman to serve on Glendale's council in over
one hundred years of the city's history. So after I
did that, I was hooked, and so I continued doing
my work. But when the seat opened up into that oh,
and I forgot to say the most important thing that
(02:57):
I was able to We were able to become a
family through adoption. I lost my ability to have a
child through my cancer treatment, but we went through many
years going through the foster care system and it's a
whole other story, but we adopted a child, and I
see all of my work through the lens of what
she's inheriting. She's eleven years old now. When the seat
opened up in twenty sixteen, I said, you know, we
(03:18):
all want to protect our kids. In the way that
I feel I can make the biggest difference is by
going into the state legislature. Ran for that seat and
have been there for eight years, and very very proud
of the record that I've had in sustainability, on pushing
back against climate change, on making our communities more resilient
to wildfire, and primarily working on housing, which is the
biggest issue we have locally.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
So you talked about some of your more proud moments
as you began your career in politics, but it can
still be rough, and I feel like you put a
target on your back as I shared, I was interested
in politics, but I don't know that I could face
some of I guess the cruelties that come with it.
So share with us some of your other wins where
(04:00):
you go. That's why I do this.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
People can be really cruel, and unfortunately, we've lost a
lot of the stability that I think we used to
have of being able to politely and disagree with each other.
People seem to go from zero to one hundred and
a second, and that's unfortunate because there's a lot of
important policy we should be able to have reasonable discussions about.
I'd say some of my proudest moments we're having Republicans
(04:25):
stand up and speak in favor of some of my
most controversial legislation. Some of the biggest bills that I've
been able to get done were done on a bipartisan basis.
Bills around housing and opening up more avenues to build housing,
legislation around banning toxic chemicals from personal care products like
makeup and shampoo, getting p foss out of children's clothing
(04:45):
that's a cancer causing chemical that's polluting our water, that's
been routinely used to soak children's clothing, To have Republicans
stand up and say, I don't want fiberglass in my mattress.
I don't want my kids chemical clothing soaked in chemicals.
I don't want to have dangerous chemicals in my skin lotion,
and to be able to have bipartisan support for things
(05:06):
that people thought were difficult or even impossible. That makes
me proud and it makes me hopeful that if I
can do it in California, maybe I can bring a
little of that to the federal government. So I got
a lot of goals for Congress, and I just can't
wait to get there.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Bravo, Laura Friedman. Thank you so much for your time today,
and good luck in your race running for US House
of Representatives in California's thirtieth congressional district. Thank you so
much for your time. Thank you