Apr 30

Apr 30 Episode 495: Layla Zaidane from Millennial Action Project

In conversation with Layla Zaidane, the new President and CEO of the Millennial Action Project. Dedicated to transcending bipartisan divides through the empowerment of young leaders, MAP is ready to enter this new chapter of leadership with Layla at the helm and take on the challenges to our democracy.

Musical credits:

"Are You Listening" from Elephant Shaped Trees by IMUNURI.
Released February 3, 2018.
Composed by André Pilette, with the help of Adam Garcia, Stephanie Leary, and Dan Wilson.
Lyrics written by Stephanie Leary.
Produced by André Pilette and Stephanie Leary.
Mixed by Brett Ryan Stewart of The Sound Shelter in Nashville, TN.
Mastered by Michael Fossenkemper of Turtle Tone Studio in NYC.
Song used with permission by the band.

Episode Transcript

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Teddy 0:00

Hi, I'm Teddy, and you're listening to Layla Zaidane, the President and CEO of Millennial Action Project, on Two Broads Talking Politics. Get your vaccine and wear a mask!

Kelly 0:33

Hi, everyone. I am Kelly. And this is Two Broads Talking Politics. I am on today with Layla Zaidane, who is the president and CEO of the Millennial Action Project. Hi, Layla.

Layla Zaidane 0:44

Hi, thanks for having me.

Kelly 0:46

Yes. Thanks for joining me. So I'm going to start with the most obvious question, which is what is the Millennial Action Project?

Layla Zaidane 0:54

So Millennial Action Project works to train a generation of young elected officials to help our democracy function better. We're working with them to turn them into bridge builders into coalition builders, and ultimately, to pass innovative future oriented legislation that serves our generation and ultimately, really hand our democracy, a better democracy, to the generation behind us. We work with 1600 young elected officials across the country, both in state legislatures and in Congress, primarily through something called the Future Caucus, which is a group of bipartisan elected officials who work together not only to write, introduce and pass legislation, but also really to create a permission structure for them to build relationships across the aisle in the first place. And, you know, I would say our theory of change is that when you can make your generational identity more important than your partisan identity, then you can really start to focus on issues and really start to focus on solving problems and and that really unlocks some solutions that you never would have seen or considered otherwise.

Kelly 2:06

We think of Congress, the House of Representatives as being super dysfunctional, and, you know, completely along partisan lines right now, and everything's broken. Does that caucus, which is bipartisan, do they find that that they can do that, they can make the generational become more important than the the party affiliation? You know, how does that work in practice?

Layla Zaidane 2:28

Yeah, absolutely. And I gotta say, the, the pandemic has been tough, because one of my favorite parts of the job, I'm based here in DC, is actually just going to the hill and getting to introduce people to each other people across the aisle who never would have had the opportunity to meet each other because as a member of Congress, your days are ultra ultra scheduled. And unless it's sort of a, you know, a party event, or maybe a fundraiser that evening, or, you know, a committee meeting is maybe where you would have the opportunity to meet somebody across the aisle, there's not a whole lot of places or times for you to just build those relationships with other people. And so part of my job is, is really creating that reason, that excuse, for them to come together. And and I'll say it's been, it's been really remarkable. To watch them just find ways to think outside the box and to think about who it is they were sent to DC to serve. In this past Congress, so far, we've had about 25 pieces of legislation introduced and a lot of them centering around services for veterans, some related to COVID, as well as things around workforce development and technology. And you see them sort of thinking about who needs my help, and how can I find somebody? How can I reach out to anybody that to help me help them? And I'll also just quickly note, you know, young people, in Congress were super generous, we consider anyone 45 years old and younger, eligible for our caucus.

Kelly 4:06

Apparently, I am a millennial, I love it.

Layla Zaidane 4:11

And relatively speaking, I mean, you do see a shift in how folks who are under that cut off think about governing and and finding solutions compared to some of their older counterparts. And although there's only about 80-85 of them, roughly, in Congress, currently, they represent 86 million people across the country. So So right now, you know, young people in Congress represent about one in four Americans and I think that's a huge opportunity not just to pass some meaningful structural change, but also create some culture change around problem solving and modeling that back in their districts.

Kelly 4:51

So I am 42 and I don't often think of myself as a young person, although I'd love to, but compared to the average age of a member of Congress or a member of a state legislature, it is young. It's really young. So what are the kinds of challenges that millennials or this, you know, sort of group that we're calling millennials, that they face in dealing with people who have maybe been in office for decades and decades, who maybe do feel like this group is sort of young, you know, what, what sorts of challenges do they see?

Layla Zaidane 5:28

Yeah, well, just like in any job, I think there's always sort of a power dynamic, right? When you come in, and you have fresh ideas, and you have ways of sort of shaking things up that you're interested in, that run up against an entrenched political culture that those who currently hold the power are not incentivized to, to change or to share. And I think what's what's kind of interesting about this unique moment that we're in now is that the traditional gatekeepers of power and influence are shifting, right, like people can get their message out in ways that don't require these traditional power structures to be on their side. And I think, when AOC ran, she, she showed, you know, what you can do with Twitter, how you can reach how you can reach an audience without having to rely on newspapers or traditional media outlets. And I think we're all familiar with how certain president also used Twitter to, to kind of cut out through traditional gatekeepers. And I think, you know, what, what, what we see that as is, is sort of an opportunity to leverage not just technology, but shifting ways of connecting with one another. And I think that brings a lot of power into, into the legislature and to Congress into states, when when young people say I have, I have the people behind me, and here's, here's what they're asking me to do. And we see that time and time again, especially on issues like climate change, criminal justice reform, that there is a bipartisan demand an appetite for action, that really empower I think, members to sort of advocate for change in pretty compelling ways. That being said, I do think there's some some challenges in sort of getting millennial representation and more representative sort of bodies in legislatures in the first place. The first is just through campaign finance, right? Like, people have to raise a ton of money to run for office. And that's often a barrier. And and, you know, the second is, in state legislators in particular is like, a lot of them really don't get paid to do this work. So even if you've raised all this money, and you managed to get into the legislature, now you're having to do two or three or four side hustles, just to make ends meet. And if you're a young person, you might have a young family too. So that sort of compounds the challenges. And so we're Millennial Action Project steps in is really to help support these these new members and give them the resources that they might not otherwise have access to, so that they can focus on on their main job, which is really focusing on public policy and solving problems for their constituents.

Kelly 8:24

Are there lessons do you think from, from the ways you've been able to get people who don't necessarily share a party affiliation, who may disagree on some issues, but you are able to connect them and bring them together to talk? Are there ways we can sort of take the lessons from that and extend that beyond just the people who are currently in office to, you know, people who might be thinking about getting involved in, maybe not in an elected office, but getting involved in in politics, in their community in some way, and encourage people to be talking to each other more about issues bringing together ideas?

Layla Zaidane 9:05

Yeah, I think it's such a great question, because the the problem of political polarization is not something that is just limited to our elected leaders. But we're seeing that in just our own interactions and our own unwillingness to, to have uncomfortable conversations with people who we disagree with, or in, in a lot of cases, frankly, even to meet people who we disagree with. Like, well, you know, a lot of our own social networks are very reflective of sort of the choices and values and preferences that we hold. I think there there's a few, a few a few lessons, I think that are transferable. And the first is, as a society, and I think as a country, we're very focused on sort of checking boxes and getting to the end and sort of like diving to Okay, well here's here's Like, what we have to do here is your sort of like the end goal, and this is what we're doing. And a lot of the time, you don't get there unless you've invested in building the relationships and building the infrastructure and building the trust that that has to necessarily precede the action being taken. And so I'll put that in context. Before I worked at Millennial Action Project, I worked at the Center for American Progress at Generation Progress doing youth organizing. And so I have a, I have a field organizers background. And so I very much sort of bring that lens with me into into this work. And, you know, the thing about youth organizing is that you can't use them as an ATM for votes every time an election rolls around, because that is a surefire way to just turn off your electorate and burn them out and send a message that you don't really care about them as a person, you just want them when you have something that you need to accomplish. And so, you know, the the advocacy work that I did at CAP was very much about investing in the infrastructure, investing in the people, investing in their needs, and really strengthening those bonds, so that when it came time to respond to a crisis, or make a really complex, difficult decision, the network was mobilized and was able to not just have trust in each other, but have the skills and trust in me to really work together and get something done. And I think that's the lens in which we organize the Future Caucus members. But I think it's something that can be applied in communities, and in you know, in workplaces and university settings. Like, I think the idea of just not jumping to the end, but really starting at the beginning, almost almost slowing down. And I think I think that allows you to, to be ready to do some of the the urgent and important work that we're trying to sort of like force right now.

Kelly 12:18

Yeah, that's really interesting. I think I if we can, I like that idea of slowing down. I think social media really forces us to speed up everything and, and the idea, and maybe once we're past COVID, and people can get together in person, again, there will be this sort of renewed excitement around having these face to face conversations. And that might be a good opportunity to to really have those conversations.

Layla Zaidane 12:46

Yeah, yeah. And I don't want to give the sense that I'm saying that we should ignore some of the pressing issues that our generation is impacted by right like big, intractable existential issues like, like climate and race and an issues of, of criminal justice, those are problems that, you know, we can't really slow down on those like, we can't not tackle that. But we also have to be calling people in we have to be finding ways to to build to build bonds with with others so that we can, you know, we can we can build the coalitions that we need to tackle these issues, and we're seeing with our network, at least, with the young folks that we work on, that we work with, that they are they are getting results, and especially in state legislatures, we're seeing them, you know, not shy away from some of these pretty tricky and difficult issues.

Kelly 13:46

So I would like to talk about some action items, how can our listeners get involved in the work that the Millennial Action Project is doing? And what are some things that you would like them to be to be thinking about?

Layla Zaidane 14:01

Yeah, well, you can visit us at millennialaction.org. And I always have to remind myself of this when I type it but millennial has two L's and two Ns. As a millennial, you'd think that it would be sort of auto programmed, but it's not. And on our website, you can see the states in which we have future caucuses, and of course, we have members who work in all 50 states. And what I would say is reach out to them, right like this is a network of young people who have said that they want to break down the barriers between our civic institutions and the young people and the constituents who sent them there. And so they've indicated just by them being a part of the future caucus by being part of the math network, they've indicated a willingness to listen and to be open minded and to work with with everyone and to work with you. And so if you're listening to this right now, you know, join, join our email list, find out about events that might be happening virtually or in your state once we can do in person events again, and just plug in to connect with the legislators who I think, are genuinely interested in modeling the highest ideals of public service and solving problems that are urgent to their their constituencies.

Kelly 15:22

So as the group of millennials gets a little bit older, and in fact, we now have Generation Z voting as well, you know, what, what does that look like to think about being sort of the young people and representing the youth vote and then become the the mentors to the next generation?

Layla Zaidane 15:43

Yeah, I think we're at a really exciting time for for youth power. You know, this past election cycle, we tracked a 266% increase in millennial candidates, and Millennials are the second most diverse generation, the most diverse generation is Gen Z. And so we're seeing sort of this pipeline extend of, of young people who are thinking about politics differently, and who are seeing, who are seeing our democracy and who are seen public service as an actual viable way to solve problems and to fix things. And I think that, as as we extend that that pipeline, and as we build more and more of these types of public servants of these types of elected leaders, we're going to reach a tipping point inside Congress inside state legislatures, where, you know, will will no longer be, as you mentioned earlier, right, like swimming up against the current toxic political culture being set by maybe people who who are more loath to let go of some power. They're, this generation of young people is, is taking it, we're taking that power, and then we're setting the culture, we're no longer swimming against it, we're setting it. And so I see as as millennials sort of rise up into leadership roles and to, you know, maybe they become a senator or governor or president. We see more and more young people stepping in. And that's it sort of reimagining what it can look like, what our democracy can look like, who our democracy is for and what it can do.

Kelly 17:29

Is there anything else that you want to make sure we talk about today?

Layla Zaidane 17:32

Yeah, I, you know, I would love to just talk about briefly, I think the the connection between building infrastructure, in terms of connecting young people across difference and just one specific example of a bill or a series of legislation that

was really important to our democracy, which was vote by mail in this most recent election. You know, our, our goal is to not just help legislators pass bipartisan legislation, but to truly, you know, train them to, to build relationships, to be role models, and to build credibility among young people in our civic institutions to solve problems. And when the pandemic hit last year, we knew that our election was was at risk, right? Like, like many people, we saw absentee voting and vote by mail as as one of many solutions to ensure that people could safely vote. And so we were able to because we had invested in sort of the infrastructure and the muscle and the Civic muscle of this group, really rapidly deploy legislators across the country across all of the states that we work in to, you know, pass vote by mail laws in their legislatures. And pretty quickly, we saw some some quick, some quick successes. And then we realized that the problem was not a lack of laws. The problem in a lot of places was a lack of credibility. And in particular, you know, many Republicans being sort of skeptical of the security of absentee voting. And so that's where this trust factor comes in. And we were able to in Wisconsin, in particular, work with our Republican and Democratic legislators to do civic, civic events, film PSAs, do social media Q and A's, really go on the record to assure their constituents that they had a variety of different options to vote safely, including vote by mail, but also voting early voting in person with appropriate PPE. And in post election analysis, we saw that districts represented by a Republican legislator who participated in our work actually had a 5% bump in absentee voting compared to other Republican districts. And so so the work of trust building, you know, which which we had no idea that the pandemic was coming, but doing that work on the front end, made it so that when the pandemic hit and this this issue of vote by mail became such a political sort of football, right, like it was just so split down the middle of what people believe that our, our network was able to say, Oh, no, that's that's actually not a political issue. This is about voting. And we're going to use our voices on our platforms to say so. And so that gives me hope for the future that as more and more of these sort of polarizing issues come to the national consciousness, our network can be leaders in, in sort of lowering the temperature there and de-polarizing it and actually transcending it in order to build credibility in the system, but, you know, build build credibility with their voters.

Kelly 21:00

I love that. What a fantastic example. Well, Layla, thank you so much for speaking with me today. And for the work that Millennial Action project is doing. You know, we tend to be fairly partisan on this show. And so it's good to step back and to think about these places where, where we can be bipartisan, where we can extend the conversation. I think, you know, I feel very strongly that, that the the lack of talking to each other is a real problem right now. And I love this. I love that you're doing this work to build this trust and to encourage these conversations.

Layla Zaidane 21:42

Yeah, absolutely. Kelly. And I'll just say, you know, I think if you are you're a partisan or you are nonpartisan, if you care about any issue, then we need the system to work. And this is about fixing the system, so that any issue that we care about it, climate, criminal justice, you know, democracy reform itself, has a fighting chance of making progress. And so I'm really honored to be doing this work. And I have a lot of hope for the future that we're not too far off from a from a big tipping point where I think progress on these issues is very much in reach.

Kelly 22:19

Excellent. Well, we don't always have hopeful ends to episodes, but that is hopeful and wonderful. So thank you, Layla.

Layla Zaidane 22:26

Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Sonya 22:29

Thank you for listening to Two Broads Talking Politics part of the DemCast Podcast Network. Our theme song is called "Are You Listening?" off of the album Elephant Shaped Trees by the band IMUNURI, and we're using it with permission of the band. Our logo and other original artwork is by Matthew Weflen, and was created for use by this podcast. You can contact us at TwoBroadsTalkingPolitics@gmail.com or on Twitter or Facebook @TwoBroadsTalk. You can find all of our episodes at TwoBroadsTalkingPolitics.com or anywhere podcasts are found.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai