Kirsten Gillibrand
U.S. Senator for the State of New York
It really instilled in me the importance of engaging with the broader global community, that we need to know who our neighbors are, we need to know what other countries do and feel and how they see the world. And that's how you can create peace long term.
Summary
This week on Leadership Matters, Alan was joined by Kirsten Gillibrand, the junior U.S. Senator from the state of New York.
Over the course of their conversation, Alan and Kirsten discussed her upbringing in upstate New York, her academic studies, her legal career and entry into politics, her leadership on Capitol Hill, her thoughts on the current state of U.S. policy (including the Equal Rights Amendment/ERA), and the lessons in leadership she’s learned along the way.
Mentions & Resources in this Episode
Guest Bio
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand doesn’t shy away from a big fight.
In just her first term in the Senate, Kirsten led the effort to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, which banned LGBTQ people from serving openly in the military. And she passed the historic 9/11 health bill, which ensured that first responders and 9/11 survivors got the health care they deserved. More recently, she passed major legislation to give benefits to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits overseas, passed the first-ever federal law making domestic gun trafficking a crime, and reformed the military justice system on behalf of our nation’s service members.
She also wrote and passed the STOCK Act to ban members of Congress and their families from insider trading. And she was the first member of Congress ever to post a daily report listing her official meetings, earmark requests, and personal financial disclosures online for public consumption.
As a working mother, Senator Gillibrand continues to put the challenges that working families face front and center. That’s why she’s currently leading the fight to provide every working person in America with paid leave.
She is chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, and she also serves on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate Agriculture Committee, and Senate Aging Committee.
Senator Gillibrand’s home is in Albany, New York, where she grew up. She and her husband Jonathan have two boys, Theo and Henry, and a labradoodle, Maple.
Transcript
Alan Fleischmann
I'm joined today by a true trailblazer in politics and leadership, someone who has demonstrated an unrivaled ability not only to speak her mind, but to listen to her colleagues and her constituents.
Kirsten Gillibrand is the junior U.S. senator for the state of New York and a public service champion. Prior to becoming a senator, Kirsten served in the United States House of Representatives after flipping a deeply red district in 2008. Since then, her policy focuses have included fighting for dairy pricing reform on behalf of New York farmers, increasing nutrition assistance for children, seniors and veterans, and ensuring health care for first responders, among so many more important initiatives. Prior to running for office, she was an accomplished attorney, clerking for a federal judge and working at firms like Davis, Polk and Wardell, and Bois, Schiller and Flexner. Kirsten is a dedicated leader. The senator is someone I consider to be a good friend and I am so excited to have her on the show today to discuss her background and her incredible journey and even her lessons in leadership that we can share with each and every one of you.
Senator, welcome to leadership matters. It is such a pleasure to have you on.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Thank you, Alan. It's a pleasure to be on, how are you?
Alan Fleischmann
I am well. And I'm very, very excited to have this. You know, I get to see you in lots of great places where you show your leadership and your humanity, and what I love about you is that there are people who are passive, and there are people who are aggressive, and there are people who are passive aggressive. You're great at being a great listener, and you're great at being a great champion, and there's not a passive-aggressive bone in your body. So it's always wonderful to have you on and I know that you're getting you on even just for a little bit is a big thing.
Tell us a little bit about you. For those who don't know you, I mean, many we do, but for those who don't know, you come from an amazing family as well. tell us a little bit of I think your grandmother and your mother in particular. But tell us a little bit of your family background, where you're from, and let's just dive into where you think the world is after that. But I want them to know about you and you as a young person looking at the world, you at Dartmouth, and then get a sense of what drew you to public service.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Well, I grew up in upstate New York, in sort of a rural area outside of Albany. And I really got my love and interest in public service and politics from my grandmother. When I was a young girl, she was larger than life, she worked on local Democratic campaigns. She started her career as a secretary in the state legislature in Albany at age 18. And of course, in those early days, she noticed all the legislators were men and all the support staff were women. And she wanted to find a way to get the women engaged, so she founded a women's Democratic Club. And she taught those ladies and they learned together how to run campaigns, how to do canvassing and knock on doors for candidates they liked, how to organize and raise money. She learned all the things about politics and just gave me that vision, and she was a role model for me. If you care about your community, if you care about your city or state, one of the ways you can contribute is to focus on public service and who represents you. So, she was a great role model.
My mom was a great role model too because she was also a trailblazer. She went to law school at a time when very few women worked outside the home. And she, in fact, she had her crim-law final on the day she gave birth to my brother, so she had to postpone it by a day and take it from her hospital room. But I loved watching my mother as a young girl because she was very confident and could always represent people who wouldn't have access to a lawyer. She helped people adopt children, she helped them buy their first home, she helped businesses. She just really showed me that being an advocate is something really important and that there's a lot of situations where it's hard for people to speak for themselves. And so, the combination of these two women really gave me a roadmap about how to have an impact and how to help others with your voice and through advocacy.
Alan Fleischmann
Encouraged to speak up or their responsibility to speak up, that’s the hallmark of the greatest role models as well.
And then you went to the Emma Willard School.
Kirsten Gillibrand
I did.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit about that – any mentors in there and was that a great experience for you?
Kirstin Gillibrand
Well, I really liked Emma Willard because I was, you know, as a high schooler, I really appreciated the all-girls environment. It allowed me to focus on my own development, my own academics, I wasn't insecure about how I looked on any given day because I wasn't paying attention. And it allowed me to fully form myself and my character and my goals in a setting where I just didn't feel insecure about anything. That allowed me to be an athlete. I played on a soccer team and a tennis team. I was captain my senior year for tennis. And I learned a lot from sports about how to compete and how not to be afraid to lose. There's a 25% increase for women of whether they'll run for office if they played sports in high school or college, because they get this confidence that you can run the race and win or lose, it's worth running. And I learned that certainly in high school playing sports. Emma Willard also taught me that you should define yourself based on, you know, who you are, what you believe, what good you want to put into the world and how you're going to impact the world around you. That was sort of the mantra or raison d'être for the founder, Emma Willard herself, as a woman who believed women needed education so that they could have the impact on the world that they wanted.
Alan Fleischmann
And were there great mentors along the way in there with other teachers?
Kirsten Gillibrand
I had one teacher, Mrs. Handelman, who was my government teacher, and she taught us how to read the New York Times. She taught us how to be critical thinkers. And I just, I always loved her because she instilled in us a belief that being part of the world and being knowledgeable about the world was really important.
Alan Fleischmann
I love that. And then what made you decide Dartmouth was a great next step for you?
Kirsten Gillibrand
So I just really liked the vibe when I visited, it was a very low-key campus. I liked the fact that girls wore sweatpants and sweaters and there was no makeup or jewelry or purses to be found. And that was my speed. So, I really thought I could fit in here and it was perfect for me. I loved being in New Hampshire in the middle of beautiful wilderness. I was quite an outdoorsy person and I winded up playing on the tennis team when I got there. But I was quickly recruited by Aggie Kurtz, who is the squash coach, and she wanted to teach me how to play squash, and I jumped at the chance. And I wind up playing four years on varsity squash because of her. And she was the one who really dared me to push myself and to challenge myself, at least athletically. And I've really used that life lesson to translate into my political career and into life in general that it's so important for me to do big things, do hard things, don't be afraid of losing, don't be afraid of falling on your face. And those lessons really stick with me.
It made me fearless when I ran for Congress the first time even though it was a two-to-one Republican district. It made me able to run for president and not worry whether I could win or lose, but just I wanted to put my ideas out there. So those life lessons were important.
The other life lesson I learned at Dartmouth was they had a wonderful Foreign Study Program. So I traveled all through China. I studied in Taiwan, and I was in Asia for seven months as a student. And it really instilled in me the importance of engaging with the broader global community, that we need to know who our neighbors are, we need to know what other countries do and feel and how they see the world. And that's how you can create peace long term.
Alan Fleischmann
And you were in both Beijing and Taiwan, right?
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yep.
Alan Fleischmann
Wow. That wasn't too common at that point I would imagine
Kirsten Gillibrand
And I learned Mandarin. I was pretty fluid by the time I came back. I don't remember much, but my Chinese name is Lu Tian Na. And I just approved the ballot in New York that they will put Lu Tian Na on the ballot for people who speak Mandarin, that they will know my Chinese name.
Alan Fleischmann
A big victory, that's a very cool.
Kirsten Gillibrand
I thought it was cool.
Alan Fleischmann
That is very cool. And while you were at Dartmouth, you also interned for Senator Al D'Amato.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yes, I was an intern in his office. I was in the Albany office. I did not get to meet him during that summer. But I did constituent mail, and so my job was to write letters back to constituents, which I thought was fantastic. And I loved the chance to sort of see how a regional Senate office works. It definitely instilled in me the interest in public service at a very young age.
Alan Fleischmann
That's very cool. I know you went to UCLA School of Law, which must have been a great experience. what made you go to law school? you then practice law, obviously, that's the platform that we're gonna jump into public service again, But once you're at public service lens that led you to law?
Kirstin Gillibrand
So, it was really my mom. I loved how she could be an advocate for anyone and be effective. I thought that was a skill that you can use for any career, any discipline that you want to focus it on. I wanted to be able to be a strong advocate. And so, I thought law school was the perfect place to do that. And so I valued my three years in law school. I thought it gave me a great deal of resilience and a great deal of training to be tough in listening when people say and then tough in questioning to get to the truth of issues. And so I became a much better debater and I also became a much better questioner for hearings, because of my legal training.
Alan Fleischmann
And did you go into UCLA with the idea that you wanted to practice law or you weren't sure?
Kirsten Gillibrand
I definitely wanted to practice law and I winded up practicing law 15 years before I ran for office. I was a partner at Bois Schiller in New York City, I was a securities lawyer, I moved to our upstate office for the last few years of my career. And I really appreciated the training that I received and the rigor in which these cases in New York City, these hugely important, complex commercial litigation cases, it made me a very thorough reviewer of facts and information, to get to the bottom of an issue so that I could better represent that client.
Alan Fleischmann
And you also did a lot of pro bono work to write when you were.
Kirstin Gillibrand
I loved pro bono work. I got to represent tenants who had lead paint in their homes. I got to represent women who needed divorces because their spouses were violent. I got to help a church write a new policy for sexual harassment and sexual assault. So, I really got to do very thoughtful, interesting cases that I thought were meaningful at the time.
Alan Fleischmann
Were you becoming active in politics at that point, was that when you got involved with women's Leadership Council?
Kirstin Gillibrand
That’s when I started getting involved. It was funny, I was at a Dartmouth reunion and this one young woman who was just maybe a year or two older than me spoke at the reunion about working in - she was working in the White House. And I think was she was part of the Clinton administration, and I was so impressed. I thought, wow, I would love to be working in the Clinton administration, how do I get that job? And so I was so impressed with her that I said, I gotta get involved in politics. And so when I got back to New York, I immediately called my girlfriend who knew people in politics in New York, I said, “How do I get involved?” And she recommended that I join a club called the Women's Leadership Forum, and that got me focused on how to raise money for presidential candidates.
Alan Fleischmann
And that's when they turned to the DNC and the whole thing. But was there a spark, was there a grandmother or mother message, That said, you know, it's your time, Or was it more like you just became more and more involved?
Kirstin Gillibrand
No, I just, I just knew that I wanted to sort of follow in my grandmother's footsteps. But I didn't know how in a city like New York City. I didn't know the right people. I didn't know the committees and the clubs, I didn't know who was in charge. And so I needed advice. And so this one friend said, join this new group, It's an arm of the DNC and they're raising money for presidential candidates. And I did, and I was the youngest member by about 30 or 40 years. And I really learned a lot from these older women who knew what they were doing and had been around the block many times. And I felt like I had the best mentors ever as part of the WLF. And so one of my jobs as the WF was to create a partnering Junior organization, which we call the Women's Leadership Forum Network. And so I got women under 40, to join the WLF and get involved in presidential campaigns and raise money. And we wind up putting together an amazing committee of young women and we all went to the convention together and had a great time that election cycle. It was really quite something. It was John Kerry's year. And so we were all in Boston, it was a lot of fun.
Alan Fleischmann
Then you did move to Washington there, right? You moved to Washington, to be special counsel to HUD?
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yes, I did. When I got offered, when I decided – so when I was practicing law, I really felt that at some point, I needed to move into public service. And I tried lots of ways to get into public service and kept failing. So, failure is very instructive. I first applied to the U.S. Attorney's Office and did not get an offer in the Eastern or Southern District. And then I applied to a bunch of charities like the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation and the Ford Foundation. I didn't even get an interview. And then Hillary Clinton said she was running for Senate, so I tried to work on her campaign full-time, I could not get a paid position – I had no experience. And then I went to an event and Andrew Cuomo was speaking about public service and why it was so important and why being a Democrat mattered. And so I went up to him after his speeches and said, well Mr. Secretary, he was secretary of HUD at the time, I said, I would love to do public service. I'm a seventh-year associate at Davis Polk. I don't know how to get from A to B, and Andrew at the time just said, well, will you move to Washington? I said, of course, I'll move to Washington. And he said, well, you come down and you interview with me. And I did and I got the job. And so two weeks later, I left Davis Polk and moved to Washington and took a job as his special counsel.
Alan Fleischmann
That’s an amazing story, it just says so many things about you can only get something if you ask.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yeah, you do.
Alan Fleischmann
It says a lot about him for actually realizing that there was something in you quickly, but two weeks, two weeks changed your life. Amazing. And then you did that for how long?
Kirsten Gillibrand
Well, it was the end of the Clinton administration and there was only seven months left. And because of Bush v. Gore, the change in administration, and there were no more appointed positions, so I only got to stay for seven months. When I got back to New York. I then talked to my fiancé at the time, my now husband, and said, well, you know, what do you think about full-time public service? What do you think about maybe we could run for office someday? And sure enough, he said, sure. And so over the next few years, I got ready to run. And then I ran. I ran from upstate New York where I'm from.\
Alan Fleischmann
You did work in the U.S. Senate campaign for Hillary Clinton before that?
Kirstin Gillibrand
Oh, yeah, as a volunteer. Yeah, I've worked on the whole campaign. I raised a lot of money. I raised money from young women. I met Hillary many times, she was such an important role model.
Alan Fleischmann
And when you ran for Congress, it really was like, I'm sure people just ignored the fact that you were running because it was such a red district.
Kirstin Gillibrand
They said, this will be a nice opportunity, but we'll see you back at the firm in a few months. Like no one thought I could possibly win. Literally, my mother was the only person who thought I could win. But I wanted to try and it was a two-to-one Republican district. My pollsters said that I couldn't win. He said there's more cows than Democrats in your district, you can't win. And I still ran and we did. We had a strong campaign, we had a lot of money, stayed on message, talked about why we needed our troops out of Iraq at the time – that was a very important grassroots priority that I thought was really meaningful. That we needed Oversight and Accountability over George Bush. I was for Medicare for all, I wanted people to buy in at a price they could afford to provide competition to the private insurers. So, despite a two-to-one Republican district, these were pretty progressive ideas and people liked me, so I won anyway.
Alan Fleischmann
Did your predecessor just take it for granted?
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yeah, he made fun of me. He told me I was just another pretty face.
Alan Fleischmann
Oh, wow, that was nice. And you were working your butt off, going door to door.
Kirsten Gillibrand
He was so mean and rude. It just made me relevant. He should have ignored me, if he ignored me he probably would have done better. And then I ran for reelection two years later. And during that first congressional term, I was pregnant with my second child, Henry. So I was running around the district with an infant and a toddler. And my opponent ran lots of negative ads. He spent like, millions of dollars on negative ads and people just didn't believe him, because they didn't believe these negative ads against a young mom with an infant and a toddler. So, I won by 24 points. It was a landslide.
Alan Fleischmann
And as a district, has it continued to be a blue district or is it…
Kirsten Gillibrand
No, no, it was never blue. It was always red. And then we had one Democrat win it right afterward, but then it got redistributed and changed, the lines got changed, and now my old district is part of three different districts. And the reddest part is the northern part of New York State, and that's held by Republican Elise Stefanik.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, there you go. And then you ran – did you always want to run for statewide office? Was that something you wanted to do?
Kirstin Gillibrand
No, I really never imagined it. It wasn't until Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State. And the governor was gonna have to appoint someone, and I talked to my husband and I said, you know, should I put my name in for consideration? And he said, well, can you help more people in the Senate than in the house? I said, yeah, I'd be representing 20 million people, not 600,000 people. And he said, well, we're only in this to help people, so you should. And so I said, okay, and I did. And then, you know, miracles do happen. The governor picked me.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. So I just thought, I love this idea, the theme here is gumption With humility. I mean, the idea like, I should do something, which is a great, humble message, that we all have a purpose to serve. But then you actually did something with it and actually said, you know, let me put my hat in the ring. That's amazing. And then you won.
Kirstin Gillibrand
Yeah, I got appointed and then I ran a special election two years later, and then had to run two years after that to earn a full term. Hillary's, I had to finish her term and then earn a full term. And then I ran again in 2018 and won another full term. So I'm now up for election in 2024. This November, asking voters to support me again to be their senator for six more years.
Alan Fleischmann
And was your husband, Johnny, was Jonathan right that you get to serve a lot more people?
Kirsten Gillibrand
Absolutely.
Alan Fleischmann
In your case you don’t just serve New York, but you serve really the country when you speak in building initiatives.
Kirstin Gillibrand
And as a senator, you can work on any issue at any time, and you don't have to be even on the committee of jurisdiction. When I helped to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell I wasn't even on the Armed Services Committee yet. But I knew I wanted to do that because I met with service members who that rule crippled them and just destroyed their lives, and they couldn't acknowledge their loved ones. And I felt so convicted that this had to change, and it motivated me and that was one of the first bills I got passed. So the Senate, you do and can help many more people. You don't have to wait till you're a senior-senior member to actually write legislation and pass legislation. In my first term I helped repeal Don't Ask Don’t Tell and I helped pass the 9/11 health bill. And those were both my efforts that led to those.
Alan Fleischmann
You also did something which is actually, you know, I don't think you'll realize you were the first, and it seems so like “a ha” moment when you hear about it, but it wasn't. You know, you were the first leader to actually bring government transparency to real life. Right? You actually were the first member of Congress who published your own official, daily scheduled meetings. Am I right? You know, your earmarks, your personal financial disclosure forms were online. I mean, you really - the Sunshine Report, right away, you really just said, you know, everything about me you should know, or the things that matter most. I'm serving you, as your Senator, you need to know. And you did that when you were in the House too, right? This idea of transparency.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yeah, I still do it now. I think transparency is the greatest disinfectant. It's why I passed a law mandating that people have to disclose their stock trades, because they were engaging in insider trading. That law’s been in place for 10 years, and they're still engaging in insider trading. The SEC isn't enforcing it. They're not prosecuting people. It's very rare. And so now I'm working with Josh Hawley, very conservative Republican, on banning stock trading by members of Congress, their families and the administration and senior members of the administration. So, in Congress, one out of three members are trading, one out of seven aren’t disclosing and they have a 17.5% higher return rate than the S&P 500. So, I can promise you, they are definitely trading on nonpublic information.
Alan Fleischmann
And then your efforts have been obviously to stop that, and create what government should have been.
Kirstin Gillibrand
I think transparency is important.
Alan Fleischmann
Yeah, I like that too. Also, I think it'd be good. You know, you don't hear a lot about bipartisanship anymore. It's not something people talk about, but you do and you really work hard in it. You know, you're a strong Democrat, you very proudly are a Democrat, you campaign as a Democrat, you lead as a Democrat, but you're also someone who works across the aisle. You don't look at party politics when it comes to issues the same as maybe some of your colleagues. Tell us a couple of examples of, you know, these partnerships that you forge.
Kirsten Gillibrand
They're meaningful, and they're everyone. So I just passed a huge bill with a bunch of people to give veterans health care who were exposed to burn pits, all the toxins that are released at these burn pits in Iraq, Afghanistan, all across the globe. My original co-author was Marco Rubio. I just passed a bill I've been working on for 10 years, which was to ban gun trafficking, making it a federal crime. I worked on that bill with John Cornyn.
Lindsey Graham and I paired up and we passed a bill that allows people who are being assaulted or harassed in the workplace to sue in a court of law and not have to sign a nondisclosure agreement. That was a bill Gretchen Carlson asked us to work on and Lindsay and I got it done, passed unanimously. We're now working together on age discrimination, same principle that you could sue at a court of law and not sign a nondisclosure agreement, because our employment contracts that we sign, almost all of them, make you go to arbitration. They don't let you sue in court. And so we're trying to make all these carve-outs to say you can sue in a court and I would like to do it for everybody, but Lindsay won't agree to everybody. So first we do sexual violence and assault and harassment. And now he's agreed on age, but he won't do all the other people and won't do all the other circumstances. So sometimes you have to do one step as opposed to five steps. And that's fine, because at least if you're taking one step in the right direction every year, over time, you will get it all done.
So I work with everybody. I mean, I really, really do. I even work with Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz and I are working on a northern border bill right now for a lot of terrorists. People from the terror watch lists are coming across the northern border, so we're working on that legislation now. So regardless of how conservative somebody is, I can find some common ground.
Joni Ernst and I managed to change how the military addresses sexual violence and sexual assault. Groundbreaking to have the only female veteran who's a sexual assault survivor in this Senate pair up with me on that. It made all the difference. When we finished advocating, we had over I think we had 65 co-sponsors. So very meaningful bipartisan support.
And now I'm working on blockchain and cryptocurrency with Cynthia Lummis, you know, very conservative senator from Wyoming. So, I pretty much work with everybody and find something we can do on a common basis.
Alan Fleischmann
Tell us a little bit about the Equal Rights Amendment and your fight with that, the ERA. Because when you told me about that, I was blown away, it invigorated me. I went home to tell my daughters, you talked about that with them as well. I mean, that's not getting people out to vote, and that seems like an issue people need to get out for.
Kirstin Gillibrand
People don’t really know what's happening with the Equal Rights Amendment. We all believe we should have one, we don't know what the status is. Well, it's a lot farther along than people think. And we're on the cusp of having it.
The Constitution, Article Five of the Constitution, requires two things and two things only. You have to pass your amendment by two-thirds of the House and Senate that was completed for the ERA in the 70s. The second thing you have to do is you have to get it ratified by three-quarters of the states. The 38th state, which is the three-quarters of the states, was Virginia, and they actually ratified in 2020. Now what should have happened at that moment, it should have gone to the archivist and the archivist should have signed and published it, making it the 28th Amendment. However, at the time, Trump was president, and so he didn't want it signed and published. So he directed his Office of Legal Counsel to issue a memo saying that it was invalid because it took too long. Well, there's no requirement that constitutional amendments need to be done in a short period of time. They cited a 1921 Supreme Court case that has since been invalidated. Because the 27th Amendment took 203 years to become the 27th amendment. So there's no timeliness or shortness. And it doesn't matter that there was a seven-year timeframe in the preamble when it was first written in the 70s because there's no constitutional basis to say you could set a timeline, number one, and number two, if you did, if you were able to set a timeline, having it in the preamble is not adequate. It's not constitutionally operative. You'd have to actually put it in the amendment itself, which we have done in the past.
So this is our argument. So, I'm calling on the archivist right now to sign and publish the ERA. She has all the authority she needs to, she should just go ahead and do it. And I'm sure we'll have a lot of litigation. But I'd much rather Democrats be fighting for equality and Republicans be saying women don't deserve equality and should be unequal. I think that's a fight we will win. So I would like to make it very clear for voters.
And the final point is that equal rights amendments are used for reproductive rights. So, in New Mexico and Connecticut, they had equal rights amendments in their constitutions that on a state basis, they sued for women on Medicare needing abortions that they were eligible to get an abortion if they needed it, because all male reproductive care was covered by Medicare and Medicaid, but not all female reproductive care. And those two courts ruled it's fundamentally unequal and invalid under the ERAs of their states. So if we had a national Era, you could overturn Dobbs, because obviously, Dobbs says women of reproductive years do not have a right to privacy. And red states have said, that means you don't have privacy in the mail so you can't get medicine like with mifepristone. You don't have a right to privacy to travel across state lines, like the parents who had a 10-year-old girl who was raped tried to do and got arrested and prosecuted. Or, like the mom who was talking to her daughter on Facebook about her reproductive care. All those cases have ended up in court. And I believe if you had an Equal Rights Amendment, they would all be ruled as invalid because men have a right to travel across lines. Men have a right to privacy in the mail. Men have a right to privacy and conversations on Facebook with their loved ones, and women don't. So, I think it'd be ruled in violation of an Equal Rights Amendment.
Alan Fleischmann
That's amazing. Because you know, when you describe it, and obviously we're doing it here, too, it's not only relevant, it's urgent.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Urgent! That’s the greatest strength we have. And it's just waiting to be signed and published. We just need to give this archivist the encouragement she needs to do it. It's in her purview. It's an administerial role. She doesn't need to think about anything, she just should do it.
Alan Fleischmann
This is not about optics, this is about genuine substance, it is really quite critical. And it's, you know, we're getting young people to vote this year, no matter who you vote for, it will be the biggest challenge. I imagine this issue could be a great one that actually gets people to get out there and understand that they have a thing to fight for. So that's another thing too.
Any words of wisdom. I know we’ve got you in a small on a tight timeframe, any words of wisdom to young people in particular about politics right now? I mean, we're heading into an election year you're running for reelection. We've got presidential candidates, we don't know which ones yet fully. But what would be your message to young people right now, because a lot of them are saying they're not going to vote.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Yes. Well, I think a lot of young people are disappointed about different issues right now, whether it's the Middle East or the environment or reproductive rights. All I would suggest is that their voices matter and what they believe and how they see the world and the change they want to make, none of that's going to be reflected if they're not voting. And so, they need to look at both candidates and say, who represents more of my values, who has my back, who's going to protect my health, who's going to give me an opportunity to have a planet that's going to exist, you know, for my grandchildren and their grandchildren. Like, they really have to think long and hard about being heard. And it's important in our democracy to protest and to be heard. And it's really important to vote, so I would just encourage them to please vote.
Alan Fleischmann
You've been listening to leadership matters on SiriusXM. I'm your host, Alan Fleischmann. We've had 30 minutes with the great senator of New York, Senator Gillibrand, who is a friend and she's a leader, and she's fighting for us every day, whether you live in New York State or you live anywhere in this country. So I just wanna say thank you for joining us. You've been amazing.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Thank you, Alan. What a delight.
Alan Fleischmann
We’re looking forward to much more. Any time you want to come back on and talk a little bit or share an initiative or just challenge us –
Kirsten Gillibrand
I’d love to.
Alan Fleischmann
We’d love to have you back on.
Kirsten Gillibrand
We’ll set something up for one of my big legislative pushes. Maybe paid leave, maybe something else like that.
Alan Fleischmann
I look forward to it, let’s do it.
Kirsten Gillibrand
Thank you, Alan. Take care.
Alan Fleischmann
You too.