I just discovered a new podcast, Two Broads Talking Politics. They have been interviewing some PA candidates in the last few months. One of them was Katie Muth, who appeared on the June 25th, 2018 episode (episode 87). Danielle Friel Otten was the other guest. Each interview took about 20 minutes. To post these notes in a more timely fashion I am doing one at a time. Katie Muth was the first guest so this post is the notes from that segment.
As always, this is not intended to be a verbatim transcript. These are just notes, and any errors are my own and should not, in any way, be attributed to the candidate. I encourage everyone to listen to the podcast for themselves.
Hi, I’m Gary from Youngstown, Ohio and you are listening to
Two Broads Talking Politics, two Midwestern moms talking about politics and
activism with expert guests.
Hi everyone this is Kelly and today I’m here with Katie Muth
who is running for PA state senate in district 44. Can you tell us who you are and why you decided
to run?
I grew up in Western PA, outside the suburbs of Pittsburgh.
My mom’s family was from there. My dad’s family is from Latrobe nearby. I grew up with humble means but I had great
parents so we didn’t know any better.
Unfortunately, I lost my mom when I was 11. She had a brain aneurysm so my brother and I
were raised by a single dad. One of the
reasons I wanted to run is that most of the public resources that allowed my
dad to raise us on a single income, like social security benefits, public
schools, public libraries. We couldn’t afford cable tv so the public library
was where we went for a reward. I used
planned parenthood. My grandmom used Meals
on Wheels and many of these public programs that help people get by or get to the
next level are on the shopping block at the federal or state level. I went to Penn State on student loans and Pell
grants, as did my brother. Penn State is
a great school and my dad couldn’t afford it on a single income. I got a degree in athletic training and
sports medicine, as did my husband and that opened my eyes to gender barriers. It is hard for a woman to get a job get a job
with a high profile team or a job with health benefits. My husband works in the same field and makes
twice what I do. I was the first female
athletic training student to get an internship with the NFL and it wasn’t that
long ago; this helped me realize the inequity.
Higher level sports operative like government, on power and money. I worked on the Hilary Clinton campaign as a Fellow. After the election I waited anxiously to see
what would happen. It came to this
moment that you can’t wait for someone to save you. It’s you.
I started an Indivisible group, which is doing a great job and still
meets monthly. I stepped up to run after
meeting Art Haywood. Met some great
folks. I realized you don’t have to be a
lawyer; I have a masters degree in sports training. My experience with health care. Kids I knew in public schools, couldn’t
afford to get knee replacements or even tennis shoes. That’s why things are the way they are -- we
have a government that it is a pay to play system. To know that you come in to this, you come in
to this as hard working middle class candidates, without a lot of money. Pay to play.
Your opponent is the incumbent first elected in 2002 and has
been in office a long time. It looks
like in recent cycles he’s won by large margins. In primary you were running unopposed but you
had nearly the same number of votes as the incumbent.
It is interesting, I had 123 fewer total votes than the
incumbent. The district is the most
gerrymandered senate district in the state. I have parts of three counties. In Berks Count I only had three
municipalities. I only knocked on doors
there one weekend. After the primary we
looked at the votes. Everywhere we
knocked on doors we had higher vote totals.
We pulled this together knowing we were coming after incumbents, that
had been elected mostly in tea party years.
In 2010 and 2014 the Dem vote totals don’t look so hot. In 2017 the district woke up and Democrats
were elected in local seats, some of which had never elected Democrats before, row
offices, my town of Royersford elected its first female mayor. My Indivisible group had a lot of these
candidates in our group. We got out and
knocked on doors and really got out the vote and now the district looks purple. We called out a lot of these incumbents that
just sit back and collect a paycheck. I
hope I am voted out if I don’t have anything to show for being in office; if
you’ve been in office that long you should make a real impact. Now we’re on our 4th weekend of persuasion
campaigning. People want this new energy
and view government as ineffective. It’s
a movement not a one cycle thing. I’m
proud of this. Of course it is going to
be hard. I’m 34 and short and small and
people look at you and say “that’s so sweet, you’re running for office.” It took a long time for everyone to take you
seriously. I’ve been doing this for a
year, but people know who you are and it’s a people powered campaign. I’m proud of all the people working to help
get me and others elected.
Looks like you have a large number of strong
endorsements. What kinds of endorsements
and what that means
I’ve been really lucky to earn this support, very grateful
to have these endorsements. Named a
champion by Bold Progressives. II went
to candidate training last year. Got a
lot of advice. When they named me a
champion and went back this year.
Reinforced what I thought, run a people-powered campaign. Endorsed by Planned Parenthood’s PAC, Run for
Something, Equality PA [blogger’s note – this is not the entire list]. Sister
District projects, groups in Calif and Hawaii have written postcards, made
phone calls. Amazing, people bring
handwritten post cards to the polls.
Endorsed by PA NOW, and RepresentPAC, which contributes to women
candidates, and I’m humbled that that support.
As a newbie people think you don’t have what it takes but they see these
endorsements and get respect. Especially
Planned parenthood as I’ve relied on their resources. My opponent has some labor support; the GOP
has the majority in the House and Senate.
Labor unions are held hostage to avoid retaliation when a Democrat runs
against a Republican incumbent. One of
only two candidates not endorsed by state AFL-CIO. I don’t look at it as a setback but a
different path to victory.
PA used to be a blue state until 2016 but has had rep
majority in state house and senate for awhile.
You mentioned gerrymandered.
What’s going in PA. Recent case
on congressional seats. What’s going on
in with state level?
Did have some success in congressional lines, thanks to a Democratic
state supreme court. People think it is
fixed but not on state level. We are
very gerrymandered, not a fair process.
Majority party has control. Census
in 2020. Many legislation pieces have
come through this session, SB 22 was a bipartisan effort with the help of the Fair
District group, worked on this bill for over a year. And so 72 hours before the bill was to be
voted on the majority party hijacked the bill and gutted it, so it now had no
independent commission to draw district boundaries but now had lines for geographic
boundaries for electing statewide judges.
It was a retaliation for the state supreme court ruling. Saw great bill go to garbage. I would like to say we’re in a good place but
one thing I’ve learned is that when you’re dealing with people who don’t care
about doing the right thing you can’t negotiate with them. If people are willing to rig the system so
they always win it’s very difficult to have any collaborate effort. I feel bad for all the people who worked on
this for a very long time. Their voices
weren’t heard nor were the rest of Pennsylvanians. This is a blatant example of what we are dealing
with in Harrisburg. That’s
unacceptable. November has to be a
success. We are being represented by
people who don’t care. That’s dangerous.
Anything else we should now?
I’m one of many amazing candidates this cycle running people
powered campaigns, trying to get the money out of politics, get rid of pay to
play. I think that we’re making a
statement here. We stepped up to run
knowing there would be intense scrutiny.
We’re here to make change happen.
If everyone puts in their time and talents and treasure we can win. Everyone that listed can hopefully persuade
one more person to get involved or give a dollar or vote. It’s such a different slate of candidates. If we keep working hard we can make this
happen. We have small donations from 48 states, none from N or S
Dakota.