our topic on the show and women and politics have you noticed that the average american specially women are becoming more and more engaged in the political process and activism in general in fact there is a record setting weight of women candidates and women are only holding office i think this is a great thing and look forward to introducing you to my guests assemblywoman joanne downey stay with us because positive energy starts right now so hey i'm here with joanne downie welcome joanne to positive energy thank you so i'm very happy to be here i am so happy you're here so you're a former deputy state attorney general and currently an attorney in private practice and and assemblywoman representing eleventh district here in new jersey right and in addition and perhaps the most important thing is that we are old high school buddies yes go for a whole township class of nineteen eighty four yeah yeah in fact you reminded me we go all the way back to grammar school together so we'll have a girl chat girl chat later on wonderful but now i'm really eager to talk to more about what you're doing and about women and politics in general so why did you become interested in and get started in local government politics well i'm going to try not to be too long because it is a long story generally throughout my life i've i basically felt like i was never helping enough so i went to school became a lawyer and thought ok if i could do this then maybe i'll feel like i'm helping and doing what i can do to help other people well you know i became a lawyer i started on the defense and so i basically did medical malpractise defense i went to an insurance companies like it would get more trial skills because you really have to do that you have to get to a place if i could be a prosecutor which was my original an emission and they were i had a hiring freeze at the time that the next place liberty neutral which would or another insurance company because they just kind of throw you out there so i gained a lot of experience and then i wound up working for the attorney general's office but in between there i decided i was going to take a run for political office i decided to run in my town south brunswick so i ran the publican so funny enough it was a completely different race for me because i had grown up in real township as you know yes and my dad was in the state police and when i registered at eighteen i thought that because i was for small businesses because i was really hard on crime in because you know i just generally felt like my parents are republican i guess that's what i am i registered that way so when i ran in south brunswick i loved it first of all love walking door to door meeting people and trying to get to know all the different issues trying to see if i could help them i love learning more about the town and like i said the people most important but then i realized something you know i lost ok because it was a very democratic town in a democratic county middlesex county i just realized how much i enjoyed politics but really getting to know help people and also realize i was not a republican i was running with all the old woman well you know was right with all these older white men and they were so fixed in their views and did not want to hear from me this younger you know woman who's an attorney they just want to be on the take it you know it wasn't for the alpha having at least a woman on the ticket and so i was very you know that when i just realize i'm really more on the other side because i really even though i believe in all the things i said to you and i'm conservative in terms of wanting to save money and help our economy make sure that we can all afford to live here i also care about all these things that on the other side they really were pushing rights for women family and children issues you know high gun violence issues all kinds of other things that were really important to me so then i made the switch and i continued on with my education i want to put a tourney general's office i was still trying to figure out how to help more i want getting my masters in social work so i wound up finishing it i started it at the when i was at the a g s office the attorney general's office while i was actually prosecuting abuse neglect cases for children and terminating parental rights and i went to school at night rocker's and then my husband got into brown so we moved through a dial and i finished my my work at boston university schools of still work and started a treatment program for children and families there which i loved and waited to get my bar lawyer still trying to do more and it was until i got involved with mom accounting democrats that all this on the opportunity arose where the person didn't go pal who's now our state senator with us over in the eleventh district he asked me what do you want out of joining i said to help and do whatever i can to fix her and he goes well you know what do you want to run for state assembly and i'm like what you can and there was an opening because somebody could not do it yes me do it i didn't think twice i ran and the rest is history i didn't even think about winning i just got to know people and here i am and i love it i'm so proud of you we need more women and women like you so let's talk a little bit about that women in politics because in your view you're on the inside how are things changing for women in politics is it getting easier here are the doors opening more and i've read that more women are entering politics are in office currently and are candidates so can you speak to that yeah absolutely because remember i was telling you in south brunswick way back in the one nine hundred ninety s there weren't that many and it really was a struggle so i the reason why i see a bigger difference now you know by the way it's a very short small number we only have even in the legislature twenty percent of the legislators are women so that is honestly a terrible figure when i look at that i think oh my gosh we really have a lot better to go we really do but there now ever since the two thousand sixteen election we are very happy to say that there are over forty but i think it's five hundred seventy women who are running now for all different offices and that is so inspiring because you know when they woke up and they said you know what we can do better we can put we want our of you know we want to help more and we're not going to stand for it and i don't believe in looking in pointing the finger elsewhere everybody else can make the changes people are taking their finger and saying how can i mean when you look at me how can i get involved and this these are women from all different walks of life doing all different kinds of things whether they're in education whether they're doctors lawyers other professions or whether they're in labor and that's what i love they're just people from all different areas of life so that's great so with that what do you hope is the future of how that's going to make a difference and the long view of politics potentially well i am a mother of two little girls and they are we're little girls names shivani is a and there's a who is going to be seven in a few weeks and they are my life they're so i mean freedom in gaelic and she is she fits her name to a t if you can keep up after this girl interest because i know i have a really hard she's the only girl on her baseball team and she plays baseball and i learned that my kids my little girls have never been held feel like you have to do this as a girl so they are like they love their superheroes and that's not just wonder woman they love that man and they love superman and they love all the different ones you know and they just want to be who they are they like to build things they don't like to play with dolls as much and i love the fact that they're they get to express their spirit their creativity in their own way and i'm hoping that for more women we become more more strong and i try to then terms of mentoring young women so i go to a lot of different events i'm going to one this weekend with the girl scouts and other people over at rutgers to try to again just kind of promote that and inspire them and let them know that they can do whatever they want to do and to not let anybody especially men put them down to make them think they're not worth exactly what they're worth which is more than what they could think of we have to teach them to ask for higher salaries because they don't know that so that's why we're behind women really are behind  that's why the pay act that we have to sign that was just signed into law by governor murphy on april twenty fourth i was a proud prime sponsor of that bill and i just feel so good about it because the next bill the salary history bill where you can't ask for a prior history work history in terms of the value what they were making at that last job because it perpetuates that particular kind of thing where women will continue to make less by the time they get to nolde or age they're more impoverished and families have suffered too so we're going to do more to increase their self esteem we have to help young women all the time and push them higher and help each other yeah because when women are in power positions we need to acknowledge that we need to say you have a great idea and push for pick them up and move them for because that is a man of god and women have to do a better to learn to do things that are just going to strengthen women and their morale and look at that asks for more after what they're worth because a lot of times we feel like we have to be perfect where man doesn't feel like he has to be one hundred percent perfect he just goes for he just does it women feel like if we don't know every single little thing then that means that maybe we're not qualified for something or maybe we can't do this job as well but if they actually got into that position they've paid a little bit until they got there they would see wow you know what i'm doing a really great job because women have this knack of handling multiple thing really well they're doing it yes every average woman every day absolutely well i love that you're helping it's such a bigger picture in terms of what's happening in helping women find their voice and being such a great example for that on top of being so passionate and now you're in a position of power where you can literally make a difference and introduce things so i really i'm just like inspired by that i know you're inspired by your daughters and i know that your daughters are inspired by you and i'm sure that means that they will do wonderful things so you know for the average purchase person watching what can they do to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors as well as those in need and what do you think about activism because i know i can speak to i've become more more of an activist this past year or so well it's different for everybody and it's basically you don't like to push people to the like the furthest level you want to say you know what to do what you feel you can do because you don't discourage people they want to say hey you know and here so many start out with something that is close dear to your heart but closer to like where you're maybe it's like you know you want to be  volunteering for just the p t o maybe you want to be on the board of ed maybe want to run for council but maybe just want to volunteer for like you know one of the organizations in your town but whatever it is meant to do it because that little piece every piece makes a difference and if we get those people who care and all these different levels hopefully we'll get to a better place overall because you know unfortunately see a lot of people are just to get to a point especially when they get to point the power where they're just kind of ok with what they're doing in the role little world sometimes and we don't want that we want to continue the complacent now where they feel helpless or they don't want to really tune out they check out yes and you really want people to continue to have that passion be active write engaged and talk about it and then take action imagine if everyone did that everyone whatever you're most passionate about whatever wherever you love whatever you're most interested in that you've got out and tried to you know exactly  i've been you know what i had a woman come to me to talk about basically families with children who are disabled and it was the other day and you know it was really unbelievable to me to hear about this woman here she's thinking you know i do so much and yet she's talking to me about how she has a child who has down's syndrome with seizures terrible seizure disorder on top of that who and her daughter's been in a coma numerous times how she's in a group home where they don't take care of her provider the right medication there and they're  people who aren't really well educated on how to help the disabled we don't even know how to cook a hamburger and we'll leave something there and then the people who are disabled don't know better not just eat something that's not cooked right and she's telling me about this and how she doesn't sleep because she's going to stay with her daughter and i'm thinking wow how do you do all of this and really just trying to hook up people so she's passionate she actually said to me she would continue to look for governor christie when he was in office to find him so he would understand how important it was to make sure that we do something about the people who work with these with these boards are able to you start attending that when you're writing things that are nearest and dearest exactly what affects your family because that's when you know the best and that passion comes through and that's how you influence other people that showing by example by sharing your story because otherwise how would i know that i'm very fortunate that i don't have a thank god in my life you know you're going to knock i was going to go to the no i feel very i'm blessed with my two little ones and to think about this poor mom going through what she does i mean we need people like her to speak about it so that we can help her but that's the thing she's doing her part and then i hope they're up with the what a caucus we have in mamma county she actually went to the meeting hugo she was in cherry hill and then she'll hook up and try to help in the exchange information on resources and things like that happen that's the kind of thing when on and on it goes exactly on and on and goes you know more connected just to be more connected and know that none of us are alone and they're rightly our resources out there absolutely  can reach out i can really see how your masters in social work though does that influence what you do it informs it in some way and at the same time you would have been an amazing social worker but this is like just taking it to the next level where you can really really really make a difference well that's what i'm hoping and that's the thing and i really just hope that i can continue to do that for as long as i can and no matter what i do but you know it's really funny because we did honor the social workers the national association so i workers i did give them a resolution not that long ago within the last month because i wanted them to know how important they were and all that wasn't what was about it was just a resolution to thank them and making sure that you know people recognize it and it's a just a nice framed resolution that they can hang up and know that people realize that they do so much for the community in every so many ways it reminds me of be helpful for some people out there to say just a brief definition of what an assembly what the responsibilities of an assembly woman are well you know it's kind of like anything else you make you make it what you want to make out of it ok so the thing is that the baseline of it is that you're representing how many people in your district so i represent eighteen towns and i love doing that and what i can do with that is i go to trenton and so on a basic level there one hundred twenty legislators there eighty assembly people there are forty senators and of course you have a governor so when you have a bill that's introduced they have to go through the committees on both sides and with that they both at the pass the bills have to pass both houses before they finally go to the governor so think about that like we have to go vote on bills will create bills that we know when we know people need certain things to happen and that aren't covered here or correct situations like we're trying to fix the medical marijuana staci right now and that was because of the child you know in a family with their story being out there jake hoenig and we want to clone and fought to become you know of course the law here and that would increase the amount of elses per month to from two ounces to four ounces and now allowed to have oils but that's the kind of thing so i heard about it because my niece heard about it and they you know anyone can get to the governor she said i do sent it to me i sent it to the governor then he had an executive order done within a couple of days sadly little boy died at seven years old before we could have him be part of that but these are the kinds of things we get to do to help people so that's what we do in your life in your lives here that chain link in between really representing the people and what they need and what they need and  hello well between school funding that's when you know all other things we have that are so expensive here it's difficult but all people keep plugging away but the thing is we all do constituent services that a lot of people don't realize so my office see we're in a very competitive district so we're not directly democratic i'm a democrat so i was the first democrat along with my family made to get elected in twenty five years in two thousand and fifteen and that was a big deal in a republican area in mama county so the thing is that we work hard every single day to make sure people know before they were being health we have great legislative aide when you call our office they talk to you they help you with medicaid they help you with  disability questions they help hook you up to different other services within the state and we get things done we have the princess prom project we're trying to make sure chill you know young women who don't have can now come in a shop in our place we have so many gallons and we have  shoes you know kind of accessories that people be really generous enough to donate we actually have a whole thing tomorrow where people can come in from ten to three and go over there over at our ocean township office and just so they're they can be excited and every young woman should be able to go to prom and have what she needs but these are the kinds of things that you do on every day basis and these are the people work for me i wonderful wonderfully like aaron and gordon and i have tom little who's our great legislative aide who helped with the actual drafting of bills with us and follows them and we have aaron who's amazing with constituent services and i s but all these people like all your shout outs and mad because they're all also you know and these are because i want people know there are real other people working with us to make everybody you know get to where they need to be it doesn't not just us we rely a whole lot of people to get the things done and we're really proud of them and i'm proud of what we've been able to do now is having elected in two thousand seventeen yeah congratulate yeah just to see you doing everything you do really it doesn't fire man i think it's awesome to know that you're doing then i really know that it's very rewarding for you and i know that you really are making a difference and if i say another fact by the way which is great my first election i only won by two that's what i'm really proud of because again we want to as women you know we want to mention that back to make sure people understand what you know i mean find you amazing women absolutely in on this show we call that positive energy yes so i feel it's the positive energy that you have so that's that's about all the time we have so thank you so much thank you for the work that you are doing in the world they way and downy things you do a lot to what you do in your world to make people feel better and at ease with all their general lives wish i could do we're wrapping up another inspiring show i truly hope that you will embrace your own half observant i know cause that means something to you to gather wheat and change the world banking