Bonus Episode: A break down about religious freedom in Minnesota with Rep. Harry Niska

[00:00:00] Welcome to The Break Down with Brodkorb and Becky, a weekly podcast that breaks down politics, policy and current affairs. I'm Becky Scherr and I'm Michael Brodkorb. We are here today with a special bonus episode. I want to start by noting the date this episode is being released.

[00:00:28] It is Super Tuesday! Today Minnesota joins 14 other states holding elections in the presidential primary. If you haven't voted already, you can visit eminvotes.gov to find your polling location. Polls are open until 8pm. Our regular episode this week will be coming on Wednesday to recap Super Tuesday.

[00:00:47] So stand by here to break down the results in the 15 states who have polls open today. For this bonus episode, we are pleased to welcome back Rep. Harry Niska. Today, a focus of our conversation will be breaking down a recent committee hearing

[00:01:00] in the Minnesota House of Representatives that took aim at our state's religious communities. We will break down how Rep. Niska's amendment to restore religious exemptions under the Minnesota Human Rights Act spurred a charge debate targeting religious freedoms in our state.

[00:01:16] And we will break down how the committee hearing evolved into insults towards testifiers and an overall disregard and marginalization of Minnesota's religious communities. Thank you for joining us and we hope you enjoy the show. We are pleased to be joined today by Rep. Harry Niska.

[00:01:36] Representative, last week there was a committee hearing that dealt with changes to the Minnesota Human Rights Act. You testified in that committee, you presented an amendment which we'll get to.

[00:01:47] But I wanted to start today by if you could just give listeners and us a little bit of the background of what the change was last year and what was missing from that, which we're here to talk about today. For sure and thank you for coming.

[00:02:00] And I do want to first situate this in the broader picture of what happened last year, which is a ton of stuff was passed at a very high speed. I think I had an interview with you folks where I specifically that was a big theme of that discussion.

[00:02:17] There were a lot of things last year that we as Republicans asked questions about, pointed out problems too and then there were some problems that nobody really even caught last year. Yesterday on the House floor we took the first step in fixing one of those problems

[00:02:32] as it relates to school resource officers. And then there was another emerging problem that I learned about last summer that had to do with the Minnesota Human Rights Act changes that were done last year. Prior to last year, there were references to gender identity

[00:02:50] within the definition of sexual orientation in the Minnesota Human Rights Act. In 1993, the Minnesota was one of the first states to add sexual orientation as a protected classification as a type of protected discrimination status in Minnesota.

[00:03:04] And at the time in 1993 and up until last year, there was a religious exclusion that protected faith communities. So we're talking about synagogues, we're talking about mosques, we're talking about churches, we're talking about schools that are tied to those kinds of faith communities.

[00:03:21] Those were protected from the potential use of that, of the concepts of sexual orientation or other issues that relate to human sexuality, which we recognize there's different faith views on those questions. There were religious exclusions that protected those provisions from being used as a weapon

[00:03:39] against the autonomy of those kinds of faith communities. Last year when the Minnesota Human Rights Act was amended to take gender identity out of the definition of sexual orientation and make it its own separate category or concept within the

[00:03:53] Minnesota Human Rights Act, there was no corresponding change in the religious exclusions to recognize that was also the type of an issue where there are genuine questions, different faith views, where we want to be able to recognize the autonomy of different

[00:04:10] faith communities as it relates to that as well. So that issue was not something that, to be honest, to be transparent. I caught during the last legislative session and it's not one that the faith groups that were following these things really understood at the time either.

[00:04:26] And a faith coalition led by the Catholic Conference, but including a lot of different, bringing together a lot of different faith groups, Muslim, Jewish and Christian faith groups, they brought this to my attention, I think it was last August.

[00:04:41] And they were talking to the department, they were talking to the Democrats. And my position at the time was I will let you take and run with it this for as long as it's more productive for me to be on the sidelines.

[00:04:56] But obviously I was very concerned about this development. I assumed, as I said in the committee on Thursday, that this was just an oversight, that everybody of goodwill, that we, it was my understanding we had a consensus

[00:05:09] around this issue that anti-discrimination laws were not going to be used as a weapon against faith communities. That's been the discussion every time issues around in this have come up, whether we're talking about anti-discrimination law, whether we're talking about the definition of marriage.

[00:05:24] It has always been a consensus based on our fundamental First Amendment religious pluralism, pluralism of thought, pluralism of belief that I think is really foundational to America, to what America is, to our system of government, to our society that we recognize that there are

[00:05:43] questions of faith and deeply held belief that we respect even when the state, perhaps in other areas, regulates a different view. So I was pretty surprised in the committee on Thursday to learn that was not a consensus to the committee because those faith communities asked the Minnesota Department

[00:06:02] of Human Rights to agree to include this in their department policy bill. Every department has agency bills that they bring through the legislature where they have their policy cleanup issues or sometimes policy changes that they want to propose. And so the faith community brought this to the department,

[00:06:20] brought this to the Democratic majority and asked them to include it in their bill. Thursday was the day when the department bill was coming up before the Judiciary Committee. And so that in that department bill was missing this requested change.

[00:06:36] I had offered the change as a standalone bill because it was my understanding that this was missing from the going to be missing from the department's bill. And I've requested a hearing on that. It hasn't currently been scheduled for a hearing.

[00:06:48] I'm skeptical, I guess at the moment that it will ever will be scheduled for a hearing in the Judiciary Committee based on what happened on Thursday. But I so I offered this amendment. There were four faith leaders who came to testify in person.

[00:07:01] One was the president of the Islamic Center of Minnesota. One was the an employee at the Archdiocese of St. Paul in Minneapolis who oversees the inner city Catholic schools that primarily serve poor students and students of color.

[00:07:16] One was the head of school at Southwest Christian School in Chaska. And one was a policy person, a reverend for the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod who is responsible for dealing with public policy questions. And they simply said this is a question of really basic religious autonomy, religious groups

[00:07:35] get to decide matters of faith for themselves. And we've always recognized that these types of questions are matters of faith that religious communities should get to decide for themselves. And not only was that voted down on a straight party line vote,

[00:07:48] the language that was directed at myself, but more importantly, the faith leaders that were there were was pretty shocking. And I think it behooves Minnesotans any Minnesotan who cares about this to watch the entire 30 minute exchange to really understand the way that we have lost

[00:08:06] a really fundamental consensus in the state in a way that is very concerning to me. I'm not one to be alarmist about a lot of things. There are a lot of things that were done last year that I really think are a bad idea from a policy perspective.

[00:08:19] And I have tried to raise concerns about them, especially as it relates to erosion of a First Amendment. But this is really a different line that has been crossed in Minnesota and one that Minnesotans really need to be aware of and concerned about.

[00:08:34] So I want to go back a little bit. As you mentioned, and this is something we've talked a lot about how the state legislature, really the Democrats and the trifecta really pushed

[00:08:43] through a lot. And a lot of things got missed. There were mistakes and we've seen that play out over the last year. So not only though, was this not an oversight? But does it feel,

[00:08:55] obviously you don't know motives, but does it feel like it was purposely hidden or not raised up? Obviously when passing this change last legislative session, they could have said, we are changing this, there is no longer a religious exemption, right? Like they could

[00:09:10] have stood behind that if they had good factual sound reasons for doing that. That didn't happen though, right? This was not discussed, it was hidden. And like you said, it was not made aware until earlier this year. Do you believe that was intentional?

[00:09:25] Yeah, let me break that apart, break that down a little bit. As you referenced and as anyone can see watching the hearing, the chair of the committee who was the author of the omnibus bill that these changes were in, right? So that's an important fact. The author of

[00:09:41] the legislation that actually passed last year said directly in the committee when I said that I thought it was an oversight, that it was not an oversight from her perspective, that she understood that this was a change that was happening. The other thing that I think

[00:09:55] is important for people to think about as they draw conclusions about motives is that the law as it exists today still contains this exclusion as it relates to the question of sexual orientation.

[00:10:08] So my amendment simply puts gender identity and sexual orientation on the same footing in terms of our respect for religious autonomy around those two questions. So as people, I think, watch the way that the Democrats said, they said things like that the amendment to add the words

[00:10:30] gender identity to those religious exclusions. One of the Democrats, the actually author carrying the bill that I was trying to amend said that amendment was hate. That hate came today in the form of that amendment. Two other, that representative also explained what his personal religious

[00:10:49] views were and contrasted them with the religious views of the religious testifiers and said that they were casting stones and their views were inconsistent with his views and that was why he wasn't willing to accept or respect what they were saying. Two other legislators on the

[00:11:05] committee Democrats said that their identities were being questioned, etc., by this change. So I think Minnesotans really have to consider whether the Democrats were saying that, whether they intend for there no longer to be a religious exclusion for questions to sexual orientation

[00:11:24] at some point in time. They haven't done that yet and I don't know the answer to why they haven't done that yet. It doesn't make a lot of logical sense to me why they would

[00:11:32] react in the emotional way that they did while they still are leaving in state law the religious exclusion that is there. But what this does is it really puts religious communities in a difficult position because they're not sure to what extent they

[00:11:47] can actually express their faith views and who they bring in as leaders or other employees or other members of their faith communities. And like I said, this is really a line that has

[00:12:00] not been crossed before in the state of Minnesota in terms of what the expressed view of those in power is towards religious freedom. What is the practical effect of this not being included

[00:12:12] in the Minnesota Human Rights Act? Just give it to us so we can understand this and I have a follow-up based on that but what is the practical effect of this from your standpoint? The most obvious and direct practical effect is that when religious organizations choose not to

[00:12:28] hire people because they think that there's some way in which they don't align with the religious views, the ways that they believe as a community, that they're opened up now to the state of Minnesota through the Department of Human Rights or through the courts in a private

[00:12:44] lawsuit being questioned on whether their views of gender identity somehow played into that decision and whether that is a violation of Minnesota law for them to choose not to hire a librarian, for example, who or a teacher in the classroom or a minister, someone working in

[00:13:03] a church or a mosque or something like that. If they decide that a person doesn't, they don't want to put in a position of leadership because they don't think that's consistent with their religious mission and views, that the state of Minnesota potentially

[00:13:17] is going to come down on them. There is already one investigation happening in the Minnesota Department of Human Rights as it relates to this issue. Practical, like the long-term practical effect I think is that I don't believe that the state of Minnesota's position

[00:13:33] is consistent with the U.S. Constitution and eventually if someone is, does have something enforced against them or if someone does have to bring some sort of a legal challenge saying that what the state of Minnesota is trying to do is unconstitutional,

[00:13:47] I think that challenge will probably win. So then again, we get back into a lot of things we saw last year where the state of Minnesota is trying to do things that get sued, where the

[00:13:58] state gets sued, it gets enjoined in federal court, ends up having to pay someone's legal fees. That's probably from my perspective the best case scenario, which I don't think is a good scenario for anybody except for the lawyers involved who get to make some money

[00:14:11] off of it. But in the meantime, we're in a situation where we do have the state of Minnesota attempting to tell faith communities who they can and cannot have be part of their communities based

[00:14:22] on questions of difficult questions that go directly to pretty serious faith questions about who is the human person, how were we created, what does that mean? I'm not a lawyer, you are,

[00:14:36] and I wanted to ask you this. I did get a couple years ago on Halloween a pocket constitution from my neighbors and I still, I carry it in my bag. But correctly if I'm wrong,

[00:14:44] and you touched on it a little bit, the first sentence of the First Amendment is about Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free expression thereof. So how does in non-lawyer terms and in idiot language so I can understand it,

[00:15:00] explain how Minnesota is now potentially or is in conflict with the US Constitution? It sounds like you might have stayed at a holiday in last night as well, Michael. No, that's a great question. Obviously the 14th Amendment through the 14th Amendment those provisions

[00:15:17] are operative against the state of Minnesota as well. Minnesota itself has some provisions in its state constitution that protect free exercise of religion as well. I don't think those can be squared. I think that Minnesota is plainly stepping over the line in terms of

[00:15:34] probably both establishment of religion expressing a view on metaphysical questions that sort of conflict with the answers that and trying to impose them on different faith communities, but certainly interfering with the free exercise of religion. The US Supreme Court has

[00:15:50] talked about this in the context of faith organizations and faith schools as a ministerial exception. Faith based schools or churches or synagogues, they get to make their choices about who works as a minister in their faith community without the government stepping in and

[00:16:07] saying, no you're doing the wrong thing or you should have hired this person or you don't get to decide that this is an important view that plays into your hiring decisions. And like I said, I think

[00:16:20] the likely outcome at some point from this if we don't fix this year is that there's a lawsuit that eventually the state of Minnesota loses. The process is sometimes the punishment though for

[00:16:32] anyone who's ever been involved in a lawsuit like this, you understand even if you win a lawsuit after two years and paying an attorney and all that kind of stuff, you still haven't really won. You've still really suffered a punishment going through an administrative investigation at the

[00:16:47] Minnesota Department of Human Rights is a punishment in and of itself. And we should really just clarify that again and go back to the consensus we had from 1993 to 2003 that 2023 that questions like this, we recognize different religious views on these questions. We

[00:17:06] recognize that faith groups get to have autonomy about questions like this. We're not talking about businesses right? We're not talking about people out in the free marketplace where anti discrimination law works differently. We're not talking about Hobby Lobby, not to pick

[00:17:20] on Hobby Lobby, right? But this is about churches. It's about synagogues. It's about mosques. It's about organizations like that. And this should be an easy question. And I was really shocked Thursday that it wasn't. I have one statement and then I just a brief follow-up.

[00:17:38] I want to remind our listeners that in his first legislative session last year, Representative Nisga brought up more than once concerns about the legal ramifications of some legislation that was being advanced. And you were proven correct on that. And

[00:17:51] at least one, if not multiple occasions. I guess my other follow-up is if we don't, and by the way, I have to compliment you first of all on tackling this issue. I think your

[00:18:00] arguments that you made in the committee and on social media, the way you described this was incredibly articulate, thoughtful, reasonable, well positioned, and I'll also say very Minnesotan. But can I say to you, if we don't draw a line here, there's not a line that's

[00:18:15] drawn here, where does this issue progress if this isn't the line that we draw on the sand? Yeah, that is the million dollar question right there. I don't know that there, if this is not

[00:18:28] a red alert to anyone who is concerned about state control over thought, belief, really these are fundamental American values. I don't like it when people throw the term on American around in

[00:18:45] politics. And I do it on quite, I guess when we're talking about things that go directly to our sort of fundamental, we have a process where we get to speak, where we get to vote,

[00:19:00] where we try to resolve our disputes nonviolently. And a bedrock part of that really almost like the red line part of that is that we get to have differences of opinion. And the government

[00:19:14] doesn't get to come in and say, no, you're wrong about this sincerely held belief and you're going to get punished for holding that sincerely held belief. And I'm really concerned that's where we are. And I'm concerned that unless the state of Minnesota has a real course correction

[00:19:30] in the next two elections, that red line is going to be gone. And something really important and fundamental about America is at stake. I do want to say there were, there are three laws that were passed last year that are currently enjoined in federal court, which I

[00:19:50] expressed the concerns about that you're talking about. And I think there are more coming, frankly. But it we would have been able to save at least a good amount of lawyer time in the Attorney General's office if Democrats would have taken some of the concerns I raised and

[00:20:04] other Republicans, of course, but I definitely spoke up on a lot of these issues. If those have been taken more seriously, I think we would have been able to do some better work last year. I really genuinely hope that the Senate will do something different. The Judiciary Committee

[00:20:17] and the Senate has a hearing on this tomorrow. I'm concerned based on what I've seen, what I saw on Thursday and what I've seen in social media, that Democrats here in St. Paul have dug

[00:20:28] in on the side of religious organizations asking for autonomy are hateful bigots that need to be run over. But so I'm very concerned about the future of our state as it relates to a lot of

[00:20:42] things, but this is really at a different level. Representative, I really appreciate, I think that's a great breakdown of what happened, what's at stake and what we need to watch out for going forward. I do, one thing that you had mentioned is encouraging people to go watch

[00:20:57] this video, which at Harry Nisga on Twitter, you have an incredible couple threads on this topic and also link to the committee hearing, which I also recommend people go. But I want to make sure we don't gloss over what actually occurred in that room because it was really

[00:21:14] hard to watch. It was really uncomfortable. It was really inappropriate towards members of the faith community, Minnesotans who were there to testify. And regardless of disagreeing on what the subject matter might be, there's a level of respect and acknowledgement that should occur

[00:21:31] in those situations. So could you speak a little bit to how it actually went down and some of the things that you talked about, the hateful bigoted language that was forced or mentioned towards these testifiers or folks on the side of supporting this amendment? And speak a little

[00:21:49] bit to what we heard and also were you surprised about it? Were you surprised that there was so much material from members of the other side of the aisle? I was quite surprised, yes, by some of the

[00:22:01] language that was used both about whether the faith views that were expressed were things that it was even proper to hold, much less express in the state of Minnesota. And some of that was

[00:22:19] directed at me. The legislators on the other side of the table, they exist. They have a right to exist. They are in my faith teaches me that they are children of God worthy of respect worthy of dignity. That's inherent to each one of their beings. But their existence,

[00:22:44] their dignity does not supersede the dignity and existence of anybody else in that room. And the right they have, and I will defend their First Amendment rights to have the views that they

[00:22:58] want to have to express the views that they want to express them. And frankly, they have the First Amendment right to be disrespectful towards other people. We all do. I try to be respectful.

[00:23:08] I don't always succeed. But I will just say that the ways in which they spoke about and judged the motives of the faith leaders was very disappointing to me. I made a point of

[00:23:25] emailing each one of those testifiers afterwards and telling them that as a member of the house, that I was sorry to them for the way that they were treated in that committee. I thought that it was out of line for anyone coming to the state of Minnesota,

[00:23:38] expressing especially a view on a very sensitive topic, but expressing a view on any topic to be treated the way that people in power treated them on Thursday. Simply for asking for an accommodation from the power that's been wielded against them. I thought that was,

[00:23:55] I was very disappointed about that. And I hope that I really hope that that does not replay itself tomorrow on the Senate Judiciary Committee. I am hopeful as well. And I just think it's really important for folks to know that side of it and

[00:24:09] that it did get really, really hard to watch. So thank you so much, Representative. We are so grateful that you are a good champion up at the Capitol on behalf of Minnesotans, on behalf

[00:24:19] of the religious communities, and really working hard here. I think we will watch this play out. We're hopeful that your amendment moves forward to uphold, or I won't speak for Michael, but to uphold our First Amendment rights. And that's something that's very important. And if not,

[00:24:37] I wouldn't be surprised if we see this get elevated to the either Minnesota or Supreme Court, to the challenges that it does pose to the Constitution. Anything else you want to share?

[00:24:45] No, thank you. I appreciate that. And I do want to, obviously there are going to be legal cases about this. I do want to caution people not to just throw everything to the courts and

[00:24:55] expect the courts are going to sort things out. I think that voters need to understand and think pretty seriously about this in the matrix of issues that they vote on and care about. How

[00:25:08] respectful are our leaders and the views of other people? This is part of, I think, a really important necessary course correction that Minnesota needs to take. And you mentioned

[00:25:20] my Twitter or X account. I have, as my, if folks want to go there, the pinned tweet is about a three minute video where I try to summarize the situation and then right below that is a link to

[00:25:33] a thread which is, or I've been trying to collect up as much of this stuff as possible. People do want more resources. So I appreciate it very much. Appreciate you folks for having me

[00:25:43] on. I do, like I said, this is a really important issue to me. It's a really important issue to a lot of Minnesotans of faith. And really, I think it should be an important issue to anyone

[00:25:55] who values freedom of expression, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and autonomy in those areas of your life. Again, thanks for having me on. Appreciate it. Keep up the good fight. Rebecca, we just interviewed Representative Harry Niska about some amendments that he did

[00:26:12] in committee last week. Your take? I know we probably could replay our recap after our last interview. He's just such an incredible person to be up at the Capitol. He's so knowledgeable. He's so articulate on matters,

[00:26:27] issues that matter to Minnesotans. And it's just this is one that's really frustrating to watch it all play out because we talk a lot about on this podcast of having conversations with folks we disagree with and disagreeing without being disagreeable.

[00:26:43] And I understand that faith and anti-discrimination, and this is a very charged topic, but the fact that not only two things. First, I think that it was Shady that last year when this

[00:26:58] change was made, that it was very clearly done on, they tried to keep it under the rug. They didn't come out and have something to stand behind with changing this law. They hoped nobody noticed, nobody noticed. Now that folks noticed, they're saying,

[00:27:13] nope, sorry too bad. But then just the way this committee hearing went down and the way that some of these representatives conducted themselves is really gross and really inappropriate, unbecoming of a member of the state legislature. And I wish it would have been

[00:27:27] different again, even if I'm not saying the outcome, obviously I wish the outcome would have been different, but the way it conducted was really disappointing. Representative Nisga and I have disagreed a few times over the years. He is without a doubt

[00:27:39] one of the most thoughtful, respectful, bake-hearted, caring individuals I think that's at the legislature. He is the least type of, I was really surprised that the vitriol torts him. I think he presented this in an incredibly thoughtful, deliberative, open-minded,

[00:27:56] caring and very Minnesota in way. And I think he is spot on this issue. And I am, it's just amazing to see someone who comes into a committee and is being as thoughtful

[00:28:07] as he is. Even when Representative Nisga and I have disagreed, I don't consider him to ever be an unthoughtful person. I don't think he has a mean bone in his body, but to see the type of

[00:28:15] vitriol that was leveled towards him. And just in response to something that I think the vast majority of Minnesotans would agree with his position. The other point and something that we've talked about before is that this is another example where the Democrats,

[00:28:29] I think, campaigned one way, talked about, didn't talk about changing this issue when they were campaigning and then got there and have done this in a very kind of rushed behind the scenes type of way. I think Representative Nisga's

[00:28:43] line in the sand that he's drawn, it's a line that should be fought. I think he's spot on. And I think if you were to get, there were to be, I cannot think of a debate that would be more difficult for Democrats to have right now

[00:28:56] as to have a Lincoln Douglas style debate between Representative Nisga and whoever else that they wanted to put up against him. Because I guarantee you the Democrats will lose on this issue because Representative Nisga has constructed thoughtful, purposeful, logic, logic-based

[00:29:12] and common sense arguments as to why this is problematic. He presented them in the committee and the members of the committee spoke in very rough way, very rough way towards testifiers and Representative Nisga continued to plow ahead and do what he thought was right. He

[00:29:29] should be complimented, he should be applauded and Minnesotans should understand that he is taking up a very thoughtful, deliberative and well thought out fight. And I hope that he gets more support. I hope the Senate Republicans and other, if there's like-minded Senate Democrats

[00:29:45] that join in this cause, in this fight, we can simultaneously recognize that people have a right to exist and also not allow one person's right to trump anybody else's rights. And I think Representative Nisga articulated it very well in a very Minnesotan way,

[00:30:04] in a very one Minnesota way. And I hope that other legislators of both sides of the aisle start to champion his cause more because I think he's spot on. And I just want to end with two things. One, a reminder or clarification that

[00:30:20] this isn't just a Christian community thing. This is there were Muslim testifiers, there were Jewish testifiers, Catholic, Lutherans across the gamut of folks from the faith community. And again, this isn't for anything other than how they conduct business within their, again,

[00:30:40] like Harry's like Representative Nisga said about the practical applying of this is really with hiring of staff and people who are there to work for the organization, the church, the temple, whatever it might be, folks that are working there who believe and live their mission and values.

[00:31:00] And if we believe that government should not have their hands in everything, this seems like one of those really important distinctions of being able to have that autonomy within their faith community and religious organizations. And so I am glad he's fighting the good fight.

[00:31:16] I do want to have a disclaimer, which maybe I shared last time too. Representative Nisga's wife is one of my best friends. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. I do have a good close

[00:31:25] relationship with the Nisgas and but that aside, you can obviously listen to the passion and the heart behind what he is doing and what he is saying. If you don't go watch the videos, I highly recommend again going and reading this Twitter thread. It explains everything.

[00:31:40] It really highlights the issues that happened that day and what's hopefully going to get fixed. I'm not sure we're overly optimistic about any fixes, but fighting the good fight and where we're glad to have them.

[00:31:52] I should say one more thing, Becky. One of the things that you and I have tried to do over three seasons now, over 50 plus episodes of the breakdown is have thoughtful discussions. I don't like to discuss kind of production stuff on air, but I think it's important

[00:32:04] note that I think we should try to reach out to some folks on the other side and see their willingness to come out. I don't want to play games with whether people come out or not,

[00:32:12] but I do think that if there is an environment that's safe in which to discuss this, I think it would be good to get some of that feedback and hear some additional perspectives. Even though I'm in complete agreement with Representative Nisga, I do think that the

[00:32:26] significance of the changes warrants more discussion. We've heard from one side, a side that I think you and I both agree with, but we would be open to hearing the alternative side and I hope some folks would take us up on that opportunity,

[00:32:38] but that remains to be seen again. Don't want to politicize or play games with invitations or not, but it's something that I think would be a really good thoughtful discussion. Absolutely agree as long as we're happy to have good civil conversation with anybody who

[00:32:53] wants to. I know we've had some dueling side members on different issues in the past, so certainly happy to do so. All right. Thanks Becky for doing this today. You bet. Have a good one.

[00:33:07] I want to thank you for listening to this bonus episode of the Breakdown with Broadcore and Becky. Before we go, social love for your favorite podcast by leaving us a review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or on the platform where you listen. You can also leave a review

[00:33:21] or give us a shout out on our website or across all social media platforms at Media Breakpot. The Breakdown with Broadcore and Becky will return this week. Thank you again for listening.