Stated Podcast: Andrew Gillum
Season 2, Episode 5 of Stated, a podcast by the DLCC
Coming off the heels of his electrifying 2018 run, Jessica talks with Andrew Gillum, the former Mayor of Tallahassee and Florida gubernatorial candidate. In a notoriously red state, Mayor Gillum ran an inspirational race and came within 0.5 percent of retaking the Governor’s Mansion. Hear more about his campaign, gerrymandering, and what’s next for the Sunshine State below.
This interview was first published on June 18, 2019 and as been edited for length and clarity. Subscribe to Stated on your favorite podcast app.
The interview began with a hotly-debated issue: gerrymandering. Time and time again, Republicans have exploited their advantage to rig and redraw electoral maps. This drew a comparison in Florida:
Andrew Gillum: Listen, they don’t just play to win—they play for keeps… And the truth is that it makes no sense how in a state like Florida, I can come within 0.4% of winning—yet the Florida legislature in its district, particularly in the House, are so disproportionately more Republican. That is a function of people choosing their voters rather than the voters choosing their elected officials.
And that’s what happens in these decennial censuses, where these maps are drawn politically which only serve to disenfranchise. It is an unfortunate gift that keeps on giving, and that’s the process we have to disrupt.
In 2018, Floridians voted overwhelmingly for Amendment 4, which would return felons their right to vote. However, Republicans have been ignoring the will of the voters and making re-enfranchisement more difficult.
Jessica: …Republicans in the state legislature reacted by putting up a roadblock, essentially instituting a poll tax and rolling back the will of the voters…
Gillum: …What Floridians said in an overwhelming way was that we are not going to be a state that judges people forever by their worst day. We decided that we were going to be a forgiving state — that we were a state that gives people second chances. To get back out into our communities… again, contributing members to society.
And of course, the Republicans leading our legislature, in the House and Senate, and the Governor’s office decided — simply looking at the politics of this — that they were not going to do everything that they could to implement the will of the people through Amendment 4.
Seeing a lack of infrastructure in Florida, Mayor Gillum set an ambitious goal of registering and engaging 1 million citizens by the 2020 election. He has channeled his time and talents into confronting a core problem: organizing an unorganized state.
Andrew Gillum: I don’t believe Florida is a red state, I don’t think we are a purple state — I think we are an unorganized state. And so the best thing that I figured I could do is to put my time, energy, effort, and resources into helping organize our state.
My hope is that by registering and engaging a million voters — people who did not participate in the last election, people who weren’t eligible because they didn’t have the right to vote at that time… we do the work to turn them out so that we flip Florida blue.
From imperfect signatures to not fully bubbling in a ballot, Republicans have used unfair advantages to hand themselves majorities. In a time of rampant voter suppression deployed by the GOP, Mayor Gillum believes it’s time to protect the accountability of our elections.
Andrew Gillum: This shouldn’t be a novel idea, but it’s one that I hold: what we ultimately want to see happen, after these elections have occurred and take place, that the person inaugurated is the one who actually won. The one who actually got the majority of the votes. The one that actually reflects, through their election, the democratic process as we understand it in this country.
If we can’t guarantee that, we might as well be Russia, for all intents and purposes. We might as well have an anointed king rather than the democratic process where we have democratic participation that reflects the will of the people.
Jessica and Mayor Gillum then ended their discussion with a big question: Do you have a seat at the table, or are you on the menu?
Andrew Gillum: I heard someone else put it this way later on, “If you’re not at the table, that means you’re likely on the menu.” So my encouragement on the trail was to get off the menu. It’s time for us to pull our own seat at the table — and if they won’t have us, then let’s build our own table that we all get to sit at.
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