One-on-one with Tom Perez: DNC Chair talks to NPI about rebuilding the Democratic Party

Edi­tor’s Note: On Tues­day, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Com­mit­tee Chair­man Tom Perez paid a vis­it to the Pacif­ic North­west, stop­ping in Seat­tle to keynote Dow Con­stan­ti­ne’s annu­al Fil­ing Week lun­cheon and head­line an event for the Wash­ing­ton State Democ­rats on Bea­con Hill. Pri­or to that event, Chair­man Perez kind­ly sat down for a few min­utes to talk to NPI founder Andrew Vil­leneuve (a mem­ber of the Wash­ing­ton State Demo­c­ra­t­ic Cen­tral Com­mit­tee) about the work the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty is doing to recov­er from the cat­a­stroph­ic 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion. The fol­low­ing is a tran­script of that conversation. 

NPI’S ANDREW VILLENEUVE: It’s good to see you. I caught your press con­fer­ence ear­li­er at the West­in. I guess the main thing I’ve been want­i­ng to ask you — because I’ve been fol­low­ing your cam­paign, your work with Kei­th, doing the Democ­rats Live, and all those good things — [is] what do you think the par­ty needs to do to get back into the good graces of rur­al voters?

What issues do we need to run on to appeal to them?

TOM PEREZ: First of all, we need to be phys­i­cal­ly present, okay? And we have to make house calls every­where and [have a] every zip code strat­e­gy. We have to speak to people’s hopes, fears, and dreams. I’ve spent a lot of time in rur­al Amer­i­ca, and folks want eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty for them­selves and for their family.

They want eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty. They want to make sure that the Amer­i­can dream is avail­able to them, that they don’t have to watch their chil­dren go off and move hun­dreds of miles away. That’s often the lament of today’s gen­er­a­tion. They want to make sure that we’re address­ing the issues that are front and center.

I mean, the opi­oid epi­dem­ic touch­es every zip code across Amer­i­ca, but there are rur­al pock­ets where it’s been dec­i­mat­ing. When we lead with our val­ues, as the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, and when we’re phys­i­cal­ly present fight­ing for folks… we don’t win every fight. But when folks know that we’re on their side, fight­ing for fair wages, fight­ing for good jobs, fight­ing to make sure that the health clin­ic that the Repub­li­cans are try­ing to close because they’re engaged in this absolute­ly asi­nine effort to repeal the [Patient Pro­tec­tion and] Afford­able Care Act that would dec­i­mate rur­al Amer­i­ca, that’s why we’re there.

ANDREW VILLENEUVE: Thanks, and with respect to the fram­ing of issues, can you give a cou­ple of exam­ples of how you’d like to see Democ­rats go on offense as opposed to play defense — where the Repub­li­cans come after us and then we defend things that we might have done in the past, like the Patient Pro­tec­tion Act?

TOM PEREZ: Well, I think when we talk about what we stand for, we stand for good jobs, right? We stand for path­ways to mid­dle class oppor­tu­ni­ty for every­one. We stand for health­care secu­ri­ty for every­one and we’re proud of it.

We want to expand cov­er­age for peo­ple. We don’t want to make it hard­er for peo­ple to get cov­er­age. And I think one of the gifts — strike that word — one of the aspects of Don­ald Trump’s pres­i­den­cy is it has enabled us, in very clear terms, to tell peo­ple the dif­fer­ences between Repub­li­cans and Democrats.

Because I’ve heard from a lot of peo­ple, “I don’t know the dif­fer­ences any­more.” I think peo­ple are start­ing to see the dif­fer­ences very stark­ly, because they see a pres­i­dent who wants to cut access to health­care; the Democ­rats want to expand access to health­care. We want to make sure we’re invest­ing in edu­ca­tion, and they have a bud­get that cuts fund­ing for edu­ca­tion. We want to retain those rur­al hos­pi­tals and clin­ics and they have a bud­get that would cut that. So, I think when we’re lead­ing, again, specif­i­cal­ly with our val­ues and what we’re fight­ing for, and we’re clear about it, and we’re present in every com­mu­ni­ty, that’s how we succeed.

ANDREW VILLENEUVE: Excel­lent. Well, I think it’s imper­a­tive that we retake on the states we lost in 2016. And I’m just curi­ous, in clos­ing, if you have any thoughts about how we do that. I mean, we lost in Michi­gan, Wis­con­sin. I know that there was some vot­er sup­pres­sion going on there that hurt, but what is the plan to get those states back into the Demo­c­ra­t­ic fold?

TOM PEREZ: The plan is, first of all, get­ting back to the basics: hav­ing a twelve month-a-year orga­niz­ing pres­ence so we’re talk­ing to everybody.

You can’t show up at a church every fourth [Sun­day in] Octo­ber and call that an orga­niz­ing strat­e­gy. That’s step num­ber one.

Hav­ing all of the build­ing blocks of a strong orga­ni­za­tion, not just orga­niz­ing, but mak­ing sure that when you recruit can­di­dates, you can train candidates.

Mak­ing sure that we have a vot­er file that is state of the art and enables orga­niz­ers to be effi­cient. Mak­ing sure that we have effec­tive part­ner­ships, because suc­cess is about build­ing strong par­ties and build­ing strong part­ner­ships with our friends in labor, with Planned Par­ent­hood, with faith com­mu­ni­ties, and oth­er key stake­hold­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty. And all too fre­quent­ly, we’ve been bowl­ing alone, and we need to be part of a very strong partnership.

And, then mak­ing sure we have a clear mes­sage, a mes­sage of opti­mism, of oppor­tu­ni­ty, a mes­sage that’s based on facts — not lying to people.

ANDREW VILLENEUVE: And science?

TOM PEREZ: Sci­ence mat­ters! And facts mat­ter. And health­care mat­ters. And edu­ca­tion mat­ters. We need a Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion, for instance, that believes in pub­lic edu­ca­tion. That would be nice.

I think when we do all these things, I’m con­vinced that none of these chal­lenges, and the chal­lenges are unde­ni­ably sig­nif­i­cant, but they’re all fix­able. I see the ener­gy out there — and one of our basic chal­lenges is to take this almost unprece­dent­ed ener­gy and activism, and trans­late it into results at the bal­lot box.

ANDREW VILLENEUVE: So maybe through bal­lot measures?

TOM PEREZ: That’s one way.

And Wash­ing­ton State has led the way. Ari­zona, last cycle, had a bal­lot ini­tia­tive on earned sick leave and min­i­mum wage. And you see oth­er bal­lot mea­sures relat­ing to cli­mate and things of that nature. Wash­ing­ton State has a remark­able and rich tra­di­tion of cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion. And I think the rest of the nation can learn quite a bit from what Wash­ing­ton State has been able to do.

They have debunked the myth that if you raise the min­i­mum wage, it’s a job killer. They’ve had among the high­est min­i­mum wages in the coun­try for the last fif­teen [to] twen­ty years, and job growth here has been among the best in the coun­try. So Wash­ing­ton State is real­ly… has exer­cised leadership.

The grass­roots lead­er­ship is one of the rea­sons I came out here so often when I was the labor sec­re­tary. I want­ed the nation to see that you can pay peo­ple a fair wage and still have a very sol­id busi­ness cli­mate. You can treat your work­ers and your share­hold­ers well. It’s not an “either/or”. You can build effec­tive con­sti­tu­tion­al polic­ing. That’s not an “either/or”. You can do these things.…and you’ve shown it to the nation. That’s why… again, there’s a lot of lead­er­ship here, in action.

ANDREW VILLENEUVE:  Well, thank you so much for com­ing out here to the region. We appre­ci­ate your valu­able time. We hope you’ll come back.

TOM PEREZ: My plea­sure. Great. Ear­ly and often!