The New Politics Podcast

After seven years and 44 episodes, New Politics podcast host Dr. Max Klau is heading off to his next adventure. In this farewell episode, Max is joined by New Politics Founder Emily Cherniack for a conversation about the early days of the organization, the impact it's had on American politics, and their hopes for the future of this work.

Tiahna Pantovich is an army vet, clinical social worker, lifelong activist, and founder of VetsxHBCU, an organization that supports veterans at our nation's more than 100 historically black colleges and universities.    The daughter of immigrants from the former nation of Yugoslavia, she enlisted in the Army after graduating high school.  In this episode, she talks about her journey to becoming an outspoken advocate for sexual assault survivors in the military and how she continues to serve as both a clinical social worker and an activist with aspirations to serve through politics in the years ahead.  

In this episode, Andre Carroll talks about his unlikely path to politics in his home city of Philadelphia.  Since his father was incarcerated and his mother struggled with drug addiction, Andre was raised by his Grandmother.  He went on to graduate from college and got deeply involved in Philadelphia politics, serving as campaign staff for a Mayoral candidate and for multiple City Council candidates.  In 2022, he decided to enter the arena himself and ran for a seat in the Pennsylvania state legislature to represent the district where he grew up.  He lost that race, but earned 43% of the vote and raised more than $95,000 dollars.  And now in 2023, he is at it again!  Andre just launched his second campaign for the State Legislature and is hoping to harness the momentum he built on his first campaign to win the seat.  

Learn more and support his campaign here:

https://www.andredcarroll.com/

Cristina Flores is a lifelong servant leader who currently serves as our Director of Partnerships & Growth here at the New Politics Academy. In this episode, Cristina talks about her experiences serving as an AmeriCorps member and then on the staff of Literacy First in Austin Texas.  She also describes our work with Partners, how our partnerships are mutually beneficial, and how organizations interested in partnering with us can connect.  It's a great window into this important aspect of our work to bring more servant leaders into politics.

Meet Gideon Culman, one of the facilitators of our Answering the Call program. As a facilitator, Gideon has helped many servant leaders reflect deeply on their own sense of mission and calling.  He is a certified Master Coach and is the founder and president of K Street Coaching, an executive coaching firm based in Washington, DC. 

In this episode, he talks about his path to becoming a coach and his experiences with holding space for servant leaders in our ATC program.  He also talks about how conversations with his most recent ATC group inspired him to jump into the arena himself to run for a local school committee!

Ed Han is a first-generation immigrant; his family moved to the U.S. from Korea when Ed was two years old. He went on to become a school teacher, a federal prosecutor, a member of the Air Force Reserves, and a university professor. Now, he's decided to enter the arena to represent District 44 in the California State Legislature, where he hopes to represent the town where he grew up.

In this episode, Ed talks about his lifelong commitment to service, path to politics, and how his experience with New Politics programming has influenced his journey. Since we recording this during AAPI Heritage month in 2023, he talks about what it is like running for office as an Asian American, and what he hopes the country is reflecting on this month.

This interview happened on the eighth day of Ed's campaign for the state legislature in California, so he is fresh to the campaign trail in this conversation. He is an amazing servant leader and we are thrilled to lift up his voice on today's episode!

On this episode we meet Derrell Frazier, the lifelong Baltimore resident who grew up as the child of incarcerated parents and went on to run a highly successful campaign for city-wide office. Derrell talks about his early years being raised by a grandmother also raising nine other kids, the mentor who changed his life in middle school, and the many ways that he has found to serve the people of Baltimore over the years.

In 2022, he threw his hat in the ring for a seat on the State Central Committee and found himself in a race with more than 20 other candidates; the top eight vote-getters would win seats on the committee. As a first-time candidate, Derrell came in 10th, just missing the cut to join the board.  It was a remarkable outcome for a first-time candidate, and Derrell is clear that he is just getting started.

Emily Cherniack is the visionary Founder and Executive Director of New Politics and the New Politics Leadership Academy. A lifelong servant leader, she did a year of service with City Year in Boston and has been serving ever since. When her mentor, City Year co-founder Alan Khazei ran for Senate in Massachusetts in 2009, she joined his campaign and had her first experience of politics. After seeing how challenging it was for a candidate from the world of service to succeed in politics, she was inspired to start an organization to bring more servant leaders into politics and help them succeed.

In this episode, talks about why she first joined City Year, why she founded New Politics, and what she has learned from her journey. Also, because this is Women's History Month, she talks about her experiences as a woman in the combative world of politics, and how she handles being a Founder, Executive Director as well as a mother to two young children.

Emily is a remarkable servant leader, and her story is the story of our organization. We're excited to (finally!) lift up her voice on our podcast!

Meet Angelo Pascuiti is a former Marine Corps sniper and Reconnaissance Team Leader who is currently involved in an effort to rethink the way the Marine Corps trains its new Marines.  He’s also an alum of our Answering the Call program who has become an outspoken champion of our work.  In this conversation, Angelo talks about how his own life has been shaped by his experiences in the Marine Corps, and why he believes our politics could be transformed if more servant leaders were in elected office.  

Jennifer Marshall is best known as the actress who plays Max's mother on Stranger Things, the smash hit on Netflix.  She's also a Navy vet, a mother of four, a licensed private investigator, and an alum of our Answering the Call program.  She joins us on today’s podcast to talk about her journey from service to Hollywood and how she manages to stay grounded as a servant leader in the world of entertainment.  She also talks about the cancer journey she has been on for the past two years.  She's a remarkable servant leader who is finding ways to use her platform as an actress to support military veterans in the entertainment business and beyond.

In this episode, she references the great work done by the Hunter Seven Foundation (https://hunterseven.org/), an organization working to support veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic environments during their service.  

Phillip Jones is a Naval Academy graduate and Marine.  He grew up in Newport News, Virginia, and dreamed of serving his home community by running for Mayor.  In the 2022 election cycle, the opportunity appeared and Phillip jumped into the race.  He ran a great campaign and won the election, becoming the youngest Mayor ever in that city (Phillip is 33 years old).

In this episode, Phillip talks about what it was like being the son of two Air Force pilots, why he chose to serve as well, and what is was like seeking to serve again through politics.   He also talks about how his journey has been influenced by New Politics Leadership Academy programs. 

On this episode we highlight Ashely Dickerson, one of our Answering the Call facilitators who is an alum of FOUR AmeriCorps programs.  Ashely grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and participated in her first AmeriCorps program in college. That program was called the Breakthrough Collaborative, and it involved providing academic support to young people in schools.  She went on to do another year of education-focused service with City Year San Antonio, and then followed that up with a year of service with Public Allies in Phoenix.  Finally, she spent a year working on education policy with AmeriCorps VISTA.  Today, she is works as a Program Manager for Foster Ed Arizona, a program that supports foster youth.  She has also facilitated multiple Answering the Call programs, and in that capacity is helping other servant leaders get clear about their own desire to serve again through politics.

Ashely is an amazing servant leader, and we're excited to lift up her voice and experience on today's show!

John Walters is an Air Force Vet turned leadership coach who serves as a facilitator for our Answering the Call program.  In this episode, he talks about his decision to serve and tells us a bit about his work with the Personnel Recover Agency.  As a Training Manager with that agency, he teaches solders how to handle the pressures of isolation and separation, whether that involves finding oneself along behind enemy lines or taken into captivity by enemy forces.  He talks about his decision to become a certified Goldman Emotional Intelligence Coach, and why he finds it so meaningful to serve as a facilitator for our Answering the Call program.  

John is a remarkable servant leader, and we're exciting to highlight his story on this episode of the podcast.

This episode features interviews with Rene Foster and Janet Newsome, both Navy vets deeply involved in the Women's Veteran's Leadership Program run by TMC.  They talk about their own service journeys, explain the work being done by TMC, and discuss why TMC is happy to partner with New Politics in promoting our programs to the veterans in their community.

To learn more about TMC, visit https://www.missioncontinues.org/.

Zach Maurin in a City Year alum who has gone on to spend most of his professional life fighting to expand national service opportunities here in the United States.  As the co-founder of ServeNext, he got Presidential candidates campaigning in New Hampshire to publicly support the cause of national service.  Later, he served as the Executive Director of Service Nation as well as Service Year Alliance, two organizations dedicated to advancing the cause of national service.  

Today, he is the co-founder of Storied Hats, a purpose-driven apparel company that creates baseball hats that are sustainably made and are free from corporate logos.  He also serves as a board member for the New Politics Leadership Academy.

In this episode, Zach talks about how his time at City Year impacted his life and shares stories from his lifelong effort to make national service a civic rite of passage for young people here in the U.S.  

Sal Ramirez grew up as the fourth of seven children in a big Mexican family in East Los Angeles.  After completing undergrad at UC Santa Barbara, he decided to enroll in the Peace Corps and served as a Secondary School Health Educator in Khazakistan.  He was supposed to stay for two years, but the program was shut down after his first year due to widespread political instability in that country.  

He returned to the U.S., completed a Masters in Public Policy at Brandeis, and launched a career in the non-profit sector back in California. In 2022, he found a unique way to serve again through politics:  He campaigned to serve as the honorary mayor of his hometown of Carmichael, California by raising funds for local non-profits.  He ended up raising the most money of all the candidates and stepped into the role of Honorary Mayor, a year-long post in which he has found a way to contribute in substantive ways to policy debates impacting his community.

In this episode, Sal talks about his service journey, his experience as a proud member of the LGBTQIA+ plus community, and his experiences serving as an honorary mayor.  

Rachel Bailit is an actor and acting coach who teaches at the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theater and Film Institute in LA.  She's appeared in movies like "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" with Jim Carrey, and on TV shows like "The Conan O'Brian Show", "Desperate Housewives", "NYPD Blue" and "General Hospital".  Recently, though, Rachel has begun to coaching and teaching in a different context.  She is working with political candidates helping them to develop their presence and communicate with power and authenticity.  In this episode, we explore the work of helping candidates find their voice and connect powerfully with others, and we discuss how the art and skill of acting relates to the challenges of running for office.  

Learn more about Rachel here:  www. rachelbailitteaching.com.

John Scianimanico began his service journey as a Teach for America corps member in Huntsville, Alabama.  He went on to complete an internship at the White House, served as a Regional Organizing Director on Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign, and currently works on education policy in the state of Connecticut.  He also recently joined the Navy reserves, adding military service to the lost list of service commitments he has made over the years.  

On this episode, John talks about where his commitment to service comes from, and shares tales from his adventures teaching with TFA, working on a presidential campaign, and serving in the White House and at the state level.  

Kathryn York is a Teach for America alum who entered the arena in 2019 to run for a State Representative seat in Mississippi.  She lost that race but jumped right back onto the campaign trail to run for school board in 2020;  that time she won. 

In this episode Kathryn talks about her lifelong commitment to service, her experiences teaching in rural Mississippi and then later in London, England, and why she got into politics.  She discusses her experiences campaigning as a Democrat in a red district in Mississippi and explains how she involved her young children in her campaign travels.  She also describes how she is making a difference as a member of the Water Valley, Mississippi School Board. 

Kathryn is an amazing servant leader and we are thrilled to lift up her voice on this episode!

Meet Shaquan Boykin, the lifelong Brooklyn resident who recently ran and won an election to become District Leader for her community of Fort Green.

Shaquana has an incredible story. After entering the foster care system as a teenager, she went on to receive her associates degree and bachelors degree, and also completed an AmeriCorps year with the program Public Allies.  When Shaquana decided to run for office to become a District Leader, she didn’t just win an election, she changed the game; she not only beat an established incumbent; she increased voter turnout nearly 400%.

In this conversation, Shaquana talks about her experiences growing up and entering the foster care system in Brooklyn, what she learned from her service experiences, and why she chose to enter the political arena.  She also shares her perspective on what this Black History Month 2022 means to her and what she hopes America is thinking about and reflecting on at this complicated moment for the nation.

Dr. David Myles is a medical doctor, Navy vet, and father currently serving his first term as a City Counselor in Rockville, MD.  In this episode, he talks about his decision to become a pediatrician, his service in the Navy doing humanitarian medical work, and now his experiences as a politician. He is also African American, and describes his experience being stopped by police while knocking on doors during his campaign. Since our conversation happened in the days before Martin Luthor King Jr. Day in 2022, Dr. Myles shares his reflections on the state of MLKs dream at this complicated moment for our country.

He is an amazing servant leader and we are thrilled to lift up his voice on this episode!

Juana Matias is a first-generation American who moved with her family to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic when she was five years old.  She went on to become the first Latina ever elected to the serve in the Massachusetts State House, and in 2018 ran for Congress in a crowded field of candidates vying to fill the seat that opened up when long-term Congresswoman Niki Tsongas announced that she was not running for re-election.  Juana ultimately lost that race, but she greatly outperformed expectations by coming in third out of thirteen candidates.  Along the way, she demonstrated that a woman of color from a working-class background could be a viable Congressional candidate here in Massachusetts.

Juana is a trailblazer and amazing servant leader, and in this episode she discusses her path to politics, how she stayed resilience while daily challenging assumptions about what is possible for a woman of color in politics, and how she stays so powerfully grounded in her purpose.

Jess Lieberman spent the last two and half years working as a Senior Campaign Advisor here at New Politics.  In that role, she spent her days advising many of the servant leaders in our network as they ran for office at every level from school board to Congress.  

Jess began her professional life as a lawyer, until 2016 when she got involved in a friend's political campaign in her hometown of Somerville, MA.  She loved the experience, and that led to the choice to leave the law to pursue a Masters of Public Administration at Harvard, and then she went on to run campaigns for state senator and liutenant governor candidates here in Massachusetts.  In 2019, she joined the team here at New Politics and began advising our candidates.

On this episode, Jess discusses her own path to politics, what she has learned through years of advising servant leader candidates, and how Leslie Knope from Parks and Rec has been a source of inspiration!  

In honor of Veteran's Day 2021, we invited four of the veterans in our community to reflect on what this day means to them and what they hope it means to their fellow Americans.  On this episode, we hear from Elis Salamone, a vet who served for 27 years including tours with the Army and later the Air Force;  Mary Tobin, a West Point graduate who served ten years in the Army including 2 tours in Iraq;  Nathan Jester, a Naval Academy graduate who went on to serve for seven years as a Marine Corps infantry officer;  and Dan Moy, a 27 year Air Force vet. All four of these remarkable servant leaders have served as facilitators in our Answering the Call program, and we are excited to lift up their voices and perspectives on this special episode dedicated to reflecting on the meaning of Veterans Day 2021.  

Adam DeMarco is a West Point grad and army veteran who served multiple combat tours in Iraq during his five years of active duty in the Army.  After the 2016 election, he felt called to serve again through politics, and entered the arena to run for Congress in 2018, ultimately losing the primary to John Sarbanes.  In the years since leaving the Army, Adam has stayed involved with the National Guard, and was serving as a liaison between the National Guard and the Park Police in Lafayette Square outside the White House on June 1st, 2020.  That was the day that the Park Police used force on peaceful protesters to clear a path for the President to take a photo holding a bible in front of a church on the other side of the square.  Deeply disturbed by what he saw, Adam became the whistleblower who testified before congress to challenge the administration’s version of events.

In this episode, Adam talks about what he learned about leadership from the Army and what it was like trying to lead with integrity as a political candidate, and he shares his advice on how to cultivate the courage and integrity that led him to step out as a whistleblower.

Meet Rebecca Perkins Kwoka, the first openly LGBTQ+ candidate elected to a state-level seat in New Hampshire. Her state-level win came after two terms on the Portsmouth City Council, where she was a fierce advocate for workforce and affordable housing issues.

Rebecca has a fascinating background. She grew up in Exeter New Hampshire, where her family owned the local Dairy Queen. Rebecca grew up working there, and continued working there up to 30 hours a week even when she was enrolled at Phillips Exeter Academy, the elite private school in town.  She went on to serve in the Peace Corps in Senegal, where she spent two years supporting small businesses, before getting a law degree.

In this interview, Rebecca talks about her unique upbringing, what she learned about leadership from her time in the Peace Corps, and what it was like to be the first openly LGBTQ+ woman elected to the New Hampshire State Senate.

Aaron Bos-Lun is an alum of both City Year and Teach for America who is currently the Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Trail Lawyers Association.  In recent years, Aaron has dedicated his energies to serving through politics. He has worked on multiple political campaigns, serving as a strategist and operative for Shannon del Prado, Dr. Nancy Lawther, Representative Dotie Joseph, Congresswoman Donna Shalayla, and his own mother, Michelle Bos-Lun, who ran successfully to become a State Representative in Vermont.  He also served on the LGBTQ Victory Fund Campaign Board, helping to elect LGBTQ candidates in all 50 states.

In this episode, we discuss his family's long history of involvement in service to the nation, his personal experiences launching a Gay-Straight Alliance and then coming out as gay to his students as a teacher at a Miami high school, and how his service experiences have informed his approach to politics. 

Aaron is a remarkable servant leader, and we are excited to lift up his voice and his experiences on this Pride month episode of our podcast.  

Meet Beach Pace: West Point grad, Army vet, and non-profit CEO who currently serves as a member of the Hillsboro City Council in Hillsboro, Oregon.  Beach served in the Ordinance Branch of the U.S. Army, where she led teams that defused bombs around the world, and she was involved in State Department security operations for the U.S. President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and other senior political leaders.

After her military service, Beach spent nine years in the corporate sector, where she led high-performing sales teams in the Pharmaceutical industry.  She then transitioned into the social change sector, becoming the Executive Director of City Year San Jose, an AmeriCorps program focused on keeping students in high-need schools in school and on track to graduate.  She currently serves as the CEO of Big Brothers, Big Sisters of Columbia Northwest.  

Beach is a proud member of the LGBTQAI+ community, and in this discussion talks about what it was like to serve in the military in the era of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", and what it's like to run for political office as a Queer woman.  

Beach is amazing servant leader, and we’re thrilled to lift up her voice on this Pride month episode of our podcast.

Meet Sri Preston Kulkarni, the Foreign Service Officer who ran twice for Congress in Texas’s 22nd district in the 2018 and 2020 election cycles. Sri has an amazing background: his father was an immigrant from India, and his mother is a descendent of Sam Houston, the first individual to represent Texas in the U.S. Senate back in 1846 and the man for whom the city of Houston in named.  Sri speaks six languages, has served as a Foreign Service Officer in Iraq, Israel, Russia, Taiwan, and Jamaica, and ran Congressional campaigns that communicated with voters in more than 20 languages.  

Sri's mix of deep southern roots, South Asian Heritage, and fierce commitment to serve the nation make him a unique and inspiring servant leader.  In this discussion, we talk about his challenging childhood, what he learned by representing America in some of the toughest spots around the globe, and why he chose to enter the arena after more than a decade of international service.  He also talks about the challenges and opportunities of entering the arena as an Asian American at this critical moment for the nation.

Sri has a fascinating story and a deep passion for service, and we're excited to lift up his voice and experience on this episode of the podcast!

Meet Tiffani Skyhammountry, our Director of Development here are New Politics.  Prior to joining our team, Tiffani served as the National Finance Manager for both Representative Joe Kennedy III here in MA, and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of NY, so she has years of experience in the world of politics.

Tiffani's parents immigrated to the U.S. from Thailand and Laos, and she grew up in a working class community in Arlington, Virginia.  She also identifies as Queer and Non-Binary, and her path through politics has involved integrating all of those identities while working with and around some of the most powerful elected officials in the nation.  Tiffani also volunteers with the Asian American Women's Political Initiative, so she is very involved in supporting other Asian American women who feel called to enter the arena.

This AAPI Heritage Month, we are excited to lift up Tiffani's voice and experience to highlight the many ways that the AAPI community is contributing to our civic life at this critical moment.  

Dr. Jennifer Lawless is the Commonwealth Professor of Politics at the University of Virginia, and she's a nationally recognized expert on women's involvement in American politics.  She's more than just a scholar, though: She's a former candidate herself who ran for Congress in Maryland in 2006.  On this episode she is joined by Emily Cherniack, the Founder and Executive Director of New Politics, making her first appearance on the podcast.  Emily has recruited and supported hundreds of political candidates, and in 2018 was named to the Politico 50 list as one of the 50 "thinkers, doers and dreamers driving politics."  In this episode inspired by Women's History Month, Dr. Lawless and Emily discuss the paths that brought them to politics, what they have learned from their experiences, and what it means to be a woman involved in politics today.   

Meet Elizabeth Beck:  Army vet, lawyer, and single mom who stepped into the arena in the 2020 cycle to run for seat in the Texas State House.  She ran a powerful and hard-hitting campaign, but ended up losing in what was a tough election cycle for many downballot democrats.  Just a few months later, though, she is back in the arena running for a seat on the Fort Worth city council.  In this episode, Elizabeth discusses her difficult childhood, what she learned from her eight years in the military, and how she made the decision to run negative ads against her opponent.  Since this episode will be airing during Woman's History Month, she also talks about what it was like to be a woman in the army and a female candidate, and what she hopes our nation is reflecting on during Women's History Month this year.  

Dr. Debbie Harrington served in the U.S. Army for 25 years, and then went on to complete a Doctorate of Education in Innovation and Organizational Leadership from Wilmington University in Delaware. She's also a wife and mother of three adult children who ran to represent Delaware's 8th district in the state legislature in the 2020 election cycle.  In this interview. Dr. Harrington explains what she learned about service by being one of nine children, how her military service informed her campaign, and what it was like to be a Black woman running for elected office in Delaware through the pandemic and racial unrest of 2020.

Meet Claudette Williams, an Army vet who served for 30 years before entering politics.  As a single mother of three, Claudette was called to active duty after 9/11 and was deployed for more than a year.  With the help of family and friends, she was able to find the necessary care for her kids, but she sacrificed some of the most formative years of their childhood in order to serve the nation in uniform.  After retiring from the military in 2014, she felt called to continue to serve through politics, first on the borough council of her town in northeast Pennsylvania, and then in the 2020 cycle she ran to represent district 176 in the Pennsylvania state legislature.  She lost, but ran a powerful campaign and learned a lot along the way.

In this episode, Claudette talks about where her commitment to service comes from and what she learned from her time in the military.  She also discusses what it was like to run as woman of color in suburban and rural Pennsylvania during the tumultuous year of 2020.

Matt Wilhelm currently serves as a State Representative in New Hampshire’s 42nd District.  Matt is an alumnus of the AmeriCorps program City Year New Hampshire, where he served as a team leader supporting AmeriCorps members working in high-need schools in Manchester. He went on to found ServeNext, an organization that helped to make national service a priority in the first-in-the-nation primary leading up to the 2008 presidential election, and also helped to launch Calling All Crowes, an organization that engages musicians and their fans in service projects across the nation. Following the 2016 election, Matt felt the call to enter politics and ran successfully for a seat in the state legislature, where, at age 37, he is one of the youngest elected officials in the Granite State.

In this episode, he talks about how his service experiences with City Year informed his decision to enter politics, and what it's like to try to live and lead with integrity in politics at this critical moment for the country.

At the end of the interview, he lifts up https://girlswork.org/, an organization empowering girls by teaching them STEM-related skills.  

Maura Sullivan is a Marine Corps vet and former business executive who served as the Assistant Secretary of Veteran Affairs in the Obama administration.  She had aspirations to run for office someday, but thought that day would be far in the future when she decided in 2016 to move to New Hampshire with plans to settle down and grow some roots. When NH Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter unexpectedly announced her retirement in 2017, Maura decided to jump in the race.  Although she lost the primary, she came in a strong second place and learned a great deal about the journey from service to politics.

In this episode, Maura discusses how her service with the Marines shaped her character, what she learned from her time in the Obama administration, and why it is important to have more servant leaders in politics today.

At the end of the episode, she lifts up the New Hampshire Women's Foundation, an organization focused on bringing more women into politics. Learn more at https://nhwomensfoundation.org/.

Meet Pat Ryan:  West Point grad, Army veteran, tech entrepreneur, and dad.  After the 2016 election, he felt called to serve again through politics, and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in upstate New York, where he lost in the primary to Antonio Delgado, who went on to win the seat.  Just months later, he jumped right back into the arena to run for County Executive in Ulster County, where his family has lived for five generations.  He won that race, and in the early months of his time in office found himself at the front lines of responding to a global pandemic.

In this interview, Pat talks about how his military experience informs his political leadership and what it is like trying to serve his constituents as they respond to COVID-19.

At the end of this interview, he lifts up an organization called Project Resilience that is doing great work to address food insecurity in Ulster County; learn more about it at https://covid19.ulstercountyny.gov/project-resilience/

Before entering politics, Chris Shays served in the Peace Corps in Fiji along with his wife Betsi from 1968 to 1970.  At the age of 29, he ran and won a seat in the Connecticut House of Representatives as a Republican in 1975.  Twelve years later, he won a seat in Congress, where he represented the 4th congressional district for 21 years, from 1987 through 2008.  When he lost his seat in 2008, he was last Republican serving in any state in New England. 

In this episode, Congressman Shays shares some amazing stories from his time with the Peace Corps in Fiji.  He also talks about the time he spent a week in jail as a congressman as a result of protesting judicial corruption, and about the time he stayed overnight in the notorious Cabrini Green housing projects in Chicago to understand the reality there before a Congressional hearing.  He ends the interview by sharing his thoughts on the current state of our politics. 

New Politics Podcast Trailer featuring Dan Helmer of the VA House of Delegates.