Episode 37: Reckoning with #MeToo

How to talk to your crazy uncle about the #TrumpTaxScam at Thanksgiving, what we can learn from last week’s big wins for Dems as we look ahead to 2018 and 2020, and EEOC Commissioner Chai Feldblum on the tipping point we’ve reached on workplace sexual harassment. Subscribe to Off-Kilter on iTunes.

On the heels of last week’s tidal wave of wins for Dems, what can we learn as we look ahead to the 2018 midterms and beyond? Michael Blake, an assemblyman who represents the Bronx in New York’s state assembly — and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee — joins to discuss. Next, sexual harassment and sexual assault have been all over the headlines following a broad range of accusations against famed producer Harvey Weinstein (among many others), spurring a deeply charged national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace — and what can be done about it. Rebecca speaks with Chai Feldblum, a commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the government agency charged with processing workplace sexual harassment claims. But first, following the House’s passage of the #TrumpTaxScam this week, Rebecca speaks with Chad Bolt of Indivisible to get the latest — and for tips on how to talk to your family about it at Thanksgiving.

This week’s guests:

• Chad Bolt, Policy Manager at Indivisible Guide
• Michael Blake, State Assemblyman from New York and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee
• Chai Feldblum, Commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

For more on this week’s topics:

• Find everything you need to get involved with Indivisible and fight the #TrumpTaxScam at trumptaxscam.org.
• Learn more about how the tax fight has now officially become the healthcare fight — and lots more about what’s at stake.
• To learn more on sexual harassment in the workplace, read EEOC’s study — and to learn more about how to prevent it, check out the EEOC’s Harassment Prevention and Respectful Workplaces Training.
• Have you experienced sexual harassment in the workplace? Report it using the EEOC’s Public Complaint Portal.
• Follow Michael Blake on Twitter
• Follow Chai Feldblum on Twitter
• Follow Chad Bolt on Twitter
• The Merriam-Webster definition of “Sticky Wicket”

This program aired on November 17, 2017

Transcript of show:

REBECCA VALLAS (HOST): Welcome to Off Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host, Rebecca Vallas. On the heels of last week’s tidal wave of wins for Democrats, what can we learn as we look ahead to the 2018 midterms and beyond? Michael Blake, an assemblyman who represents the Bronx in New York State Assembly and also serves as Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee joins with his thoughts. Next, with sexual harassment back in the headlines following Harvey Weinstein and more, I speak with Chai Fledblum, commissioner with the EEOC about the epidemic of sexual harassment in the work place and what we can do to stop it. But first I spoke with Chad Bolt of Indivisible to get the latest on the Trump tax scam moving through congress and some tips on how to talk about it to your crazy uncle at Thanksgiving. Let’s take a listen.

You probably know Chad and you probably already follow Chad on Twitter but what is your handle Chad so people can follow you?

CHAD BOLT: @Chadderr C H A D D E R R.

VALLAS: It’s not the easiest thing to remember or to spell but there it is.

BOLT: Well look, the original [@]chadder with only one ‘R’ beat me to it so I had to get the double ‘R’.

VALLAS: And if I knew who he was I would have some words for him.

BOLT: You know, he doesn’t even tweet anymore.

VALLAS: Oh, see how it is!

BOLT: I know, I know.

VALLAS: So we are here talking about the Trump tax scam. There have been some timely developments in just the last 24 hours. The House actually passed their version of the bill and I’ve got Chad here as something of a ringer to help us understand what was in that bill that they passed and where things go so maybe that’s a good place to start, Chad. What was in the bill that the House just passed and give us a little bit of a refresher.

BOLT: Yeah, absolutely. So the top line here is that the House bill was heavily tilted toward folks at the tops. Big tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations paid for ultimately by the rest of us. So it wasn’t just the big tax cuts that benefitted the rich over everyone else but it was actually, it actually actively hurts many in the middle class and that’s because it repeals such a laundry list of deductions that folks rely on. Things like the medical deduction, the student loan interest deduction, much of the state and local tax deduction, these are all gone and replaced so called by the so called doubled standard deduction. Which we know is not really doubled and it wiped out by other changes that are made in the bill so it really, it really is a scam.

VALLAS: And it sounds wonky, right, so I’m going to stop there because people’s eyes start to glaze over when they hear things like standard deduction. When I was in law school I, on purpose, did not take federal income tax.

BOLT: I don’t blame you.

VALLAS: Because I was like you know what, even among all of the law school curriculum that sounds really boring and I’m not going to take it and I think a lot of people probably feel that way so they’re going, “Oh my god, the standard deduction.” This is why people use TurboTax so they don’t have to hear these kinds of terms. But this matters and it’s important to understand this stuff because at the end of the day what we ended up seeing from the bill considering all of the deductions they wiped out for middle class and lower income families is that 36 million middle class families in this country would actually see their taxes go up under this plan while we watch millionaires, billionaires and wealthy corporations see their taxes slashed massively.

BOLT: Yeah, that’s exactly right and it just underscores what a scam this is. That shouldn’t come as a big surprise to folks because it’s being sold by Trump who has a decades long career of selling scams. This is the latest, says it’s for the middle class but nonpartisan analysis shows that’s just not who is going to benefit from this.

VALLAS: That’s right and I should have said, I should cite my sources, right, as a good wonk. I’m getting hack-ier by the day Chad. So 36 million middle class families, that’s not even people that’s families seeing a tax increase under this House bill. That’s actually by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. It’s analysis based on their numbers. So this isn’t one party or the other putting those kinds of numbers out.

BOLT: That’s exactly right and we actually saw 13 Republicans defect on this. It was a somewhat close vote in the House. And that’s because they have big concerns about how deeply hurt the middle class constituents of theirs will be in districts in New York, New Jersey and California because of the repeal of the state and local tax deduction. This hits middle class families really hard and you even saw Republicans coming out to vote against it in not insignificant numbers in the House.

VALLAS: It’s not a small thing that 13 Republicans actually voted against this bill, especially recognizing that this isn’t even going to be the version that eventually gets signed into law if the Senate is able to pass it. So part of what I think is important to also kind of marinate on for a second is the process here. When it came to healthcare, people really were up in arms, including people like John McCain that it wasn’t regular order that congress was going through. That they were really kind of in the caricature of a smoke filled back room writing the bill under cover of night and maybe of the people who were actually in congress voting on health care repeal was, they didn’t even know what was in the bill and that a repeated criticism. The same thing is happening here and actually we’ve seen that play out just this week, literally the night before members of congress were going to vote on this bill they changed a whole bunch of stuff.

BOLT: That’s exactly right. So Republicans are moving really really fast on this because they want this bill see as little daylight as possible because they know the more people get to take a look at it, the more they’re going to hate it. It’s already deeply unpopular which is why they want to get it through lickity split. So we’ve been talking about the House bill which passed yesterday but the Senate was busy moving on this too, the Senate Finance Committee was dealing with their version of the bill in committee and just like you said, Rebecca, we saw a number of different versions of the bill get considered in committee. In fact, the markup started Monday, on Tuesday, Tuesday night we actually saw an entirely different version of the bill almost with major, major changes in it in what we’re calling the Tuesday night massacre.

VALLAS: Hat tip, Seth Hanlon, that’s right; Tuesday night massacre. Tell your friends.

BOLT: It was, it was a Tuesday night massacre, major changes to the bill that make it somehow even worse than it was already. It was always a bill with secret healthcare cuts in it. And the tax fight always had been the tax fight but it became explicitly official on Tuesday night because Republicans and then added repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate to the tax bill. So, what will that do? We know based on nonpartisan analysis from the Congressional Budget Office that it will lead to 13 million more people uninsured and it will jack premiums up an extra 10%. So why to Republicans want to do this? It’s two things. One, they have an insatiable appetite to repeal the Affordable Care Act and every opportunity that they can.

VALLAS: They’re not done trying. They’ve failed at every juncture so far because the American people have said no and put their foot down, their collective feet down. But they’re not done yet, they’re trying to do it here.

BOLT: Yep, and they will not give up on this until they’re no longer in office. The second thing, and this is perhaps even more, the more despicable part is that repealing the individual mandate actually helps them with their math. It buys them about an addition $300 billion. That’s money that right now is going out the door to help low income people afford their health insurance. By repealing the mandate, Republicans are able to take that $300 billion and give it to corporations in faster and bigger tax cuts.

VALLAS: It’s literally reaching into people’s pockets, taking their money and giving it to wealthy corporations. That is what repeal of the individual mandate does. Now you mentioned that they’ve got math problems. I’m curious to hear you talk a little bit about where you think things are headed from here, pretty much all the attention has been on the House because they were the ones who moved the bill sooner, they were the ones who voted on it this week. Now they’ve passed it so they’ve done what they need to do. But meanwhile as you describe, the Senate has quietly been moving forward their own version and transforming the tax fight into the healthcare fight. What do we expect to see next, recognizing that congress is going out into recess for Thanksgiving?

BOLT: Exactly, so in case you went to bed at a regular hour last night —

VALLAS: And how dare anyone in 2017 go to bed at a regular hour and not expect something to happen.

BOLT: If Congress is in session, it’s never safe to go to bed at a regular hour.

VALLAS: It’s never safe.

BOLT: So the Senate Finance Committee passed the bill out of committee late last night after another last minute set of changes. So now it’s official out of committee and it will go to the senate floor probably immediately after coming back from Thanskgiving. So Congress is out, both the House and Senate is out for Thanksgiving next week but as soon as we get back, Monday the 27th, that’s the soonest that they could have the first procedural vote in the Senate called a motion to proceed.

VALLAS: And I remember this from health care. It was that big vote where all eyes were on John McCain. Was he going to vote up or down on letting there be a vote on the health care bill. They have to do the same thing here with the tax vote.

BOLT: That’s exactly right. So we can expect this same sequence as we saw over the summer with Trumpcare. So could be as soon as Monday when we get back from Thanksgiving which makes it so important that we talk, that we get on the phones with our members of congress’s office right now. Especially your senators, to tell them how opposed you are to the Trump tax scam because they’re going to try to do this lickity split once we get back from Thanksgiving.

VALLAS: So Chad, a lot of us are going to spending Thanksgiving with friends, with family and particularly if it’s family, maybe some of us, I’m thinking about myself, are going to be at Thanksgiving dinners where we are hanging out with people who might not know a ton about what’s in the Trump tax scam or who might actually, and maybe we all have a crazy uncle, maybe it’s not just me. Maybe we have a crazy uncle who is going to ask some questions about isn’t this actually a good thing or isn’t Trump actually giving a Christmas present to the middle class like he promised. Do you have any tips for how we might talking to our friends and family at Thanksgiving about what’s going on here?

BOLT: Yes so I’ve given a lot of thought to this because I think I’m in the same boat as you and many others. So how to talk to your family about the Trump tax scam. So I think one thing that everybody can agree on, no matter what your political stripe is, is that the president should not personally benefit from policies he’s pushing through Congress, especially if he hasn’t disclosed, fully disclosed the extent to which he’ll benefit. Of course we know he hasn’t released his tax returns and so that has tremendous bearing on the investigation into his ties to Russia. I think there’s a lot we’ll learn if we’re able to see his tax returns on that front. But also he stands to benefit in an unprecedented way from this tax bill that’s moving through congress. And I think we can all agree that we deserve to know just by how much. So, a couple things here. We were able to see his 2005 tax return. And we know that he paid $38 million in taxes that year. $31 million of which was because of something called the alternative minimum tax.

VALLAS: Which sounds wonky but stay tuned this is important.

BOLT: Right so alternative minimum tax, it’s a part of the tax code that basically ensures that the wealthy can’t exploit their way into pay little or no taxes. And so surprise, surprise Donald Trump wants to repeal the alternative minimum tax and that’s a key pillar of the tax scam moving through congress. If it weren’t for the alternative minimum tax we know from his 2005 return he would’ve paid something like 3 or 4%, an effective rate of 3 or 4% in taxes. Way less than he really owes.

VALLAS: By the alternative minimum tax, the AMT as sometimes it’s called is there to sort of be that catch all to make sure that ultra rich people like Donald Trump don’t get away with basically no tax.

BOLT: That’s exactly right. And the other thing is what they’re doing to the estate tax. They are double the amount of income that’s exempt from the estate tax and I should say from the outset that the estate tax effects only the wealthiest .02% of families.

VALLAS: Super, super, super, super rich people like Donald Trump and that’s why I think of the estate tax either repeal or massive cuts depending on whether you’re talking about the House bill or the Senate bill, I think about this as the Ivanka loophole.

BOLT: Yes, that’s exactly right because Ivanka stands to benefit so, I almost said ‘bigly’.

VALLAS: I think that’s the right word here Chad, I think we should reclaim ‘bigly’ or we never had it so I guess we [are] claiming it.

[LAUGHTER]

BOLT: That’s exactly right so she stands to benefit ‘bigly’ from this windfall. If you want ot make a phone call you can text TAXSCAM to 97779.

VALLAS: 97779.

BOLT: Exactly. And it will connect you with your senator’s office so that you can make a call right now and then once you’re done talking to your first senator you can call again and it will connect you to your other senator.

VALLAS: That’s awesome.

BOLT: To make sure you’ve got both bases covered. If you want to find your nearest Indivisible group go to Indivisible.org you can find your nearest group. You can also search for you nearest event happening. And the thing that we’re doing next is a national day of action. It’s actually going to be a day of sit-ins in Senators’ district offices on Monday November 27th. That’s the first day that they’re back after Thanksgiving and it’s the soonest that they could have a first procedural vote on the bill on the Senate floor.

VALLAS: You can find my full conversation with Chad about the Trump tax scam and how to talk about it at Thanksgiving on Facebook on Facebook.com/offkilter show. Don’t go away more Off Kilter after the break, I’m Rebecca Vallas.

[MUSIC]

You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. On the heels of last week’s tidal wave of wins for Democrats, what can we learn as we look ahead to the 2018 midterms and beyond? To answer this question I’m joined by Michael Blake. He’s an assemblyman who represents the 79th district of New York, the Bronx and he was elected earlier this year as vice chair of the Democratic National Committee. He was also a member of President Obama’s core team on the ground in Iowa who helped catapult him into the White House. Mr. Blake thank you so much for joining the show.

MICAEL BLAKE: Thank you for having me.

VALLAS: So just to kick off a little bit you have an amazing story yourself. And so before we even talk nuts and bolts I think it’s helpful for the listeners to have a sense of how you got to where you are, particularly in a time where there’s all of this attention around activists such as the indivisible folks who are now sort of stepping off of the sidelines and actually running for office themselves.

BLAKE: Well you know my family’s story is probably the baseline of how I was able to be here; my mother and father, Jamaican, the son of Jamaican immigrants. My mom came to the States and for 40 years worked in a manufacturing plant in Englewood, New Jersey. My daddy for 28 years mopped hospital room floors, member of 1199 SEIU in the Bronx. I’m named after Jamaican politicians.

VALLAS: I didn’t know that part.

BLAKE: So Michael and Alexander come from Michael Manning and Alexander Bustamante and I was born on Christmas Day so I was going to either be a preacher or be a politician, I guess when I ran out the gate.

VALLAS: And you’re a little bit of both.

BLAKE: We’ve been doing both, right? So grew up in the Bronx, born and raised, the most diverse county in America according to the Census and it’s a place that is home. It’s always been home. I’ve always thought about it in that way. We regularly have been trying to never forget where we came from. My mama was homeless in Jamaica, came here as I mentioned, my oldest brother just retired after 30 years of service in the army as a sergeant first class. I have two other brothers who were previously incarcerated and turned their lives around. So we are one of those stories that show it’s possible. And went to P.S. 7918 [INAUDIBLE] Clinton public school. Went to Northwestern University which I am very excited that my institution is the number one chosen school in the country again. Number 11 in academics, we’re ranked in basketball, we’re ranked in football, not that I’m paying attention right now to what’s going on to my alma mater.

VALLAS: Thought you were going to start with the sports there, but you actually —

BLAKE: Want to give you a little bit of everything right there. [LAUGHTER] And I’ve seen it all. I was born with a heart murmur, I was in ICU for close to a month. I had a near fatal car accident in 2001, fell asleep at the wheel, wasn’t for the hands of God and my luggage in the car I’d probably go over the cliff in the Pennsylvania. And when you do all that, it led to graduating from school but in 2004 after graduating I was working at [a] TV station. In 2005 I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to help people and I started applying for many jobs, took an internship with state senator Jeff Schoenberg, woman walked in and said if you don’t help me I’m gonna lose my house. And that was another reminder of why we do what we do. And I applied for many jobs, was going to be working for Unite Here as their political director. Couldn’t afford the pay cut, I was still just making out of school but a wonderful man named Henry Tamerind was president of Unite Here, he said my son is the deputy political director for Senator Obama and they’re starting a training program and because he was kind enough to remember me I learned about that training program and so I bring it full circle. The motto of our family is from no house in Jamaica to the black house in Northwestern to the White House in D.C. to the statehouse in Albany to be able to come back home and now being about to represent my hometown, it shows that anything truly is possible.

VALLAS: And you weren’t actually a trained politico who got involved in that campaign. I mean as you just mentioned and it’s a brief note along telling your story but I find it to be incredibly compelling because it’s so different from most other people’s stories who sit in elected office. You were actually part of a training program for people who had not been involved in politics.

BLAKE: And it stays with me all the time. I tell people we have the rule of five P’s: proper preparation prevents poor performance. If you want to get better when it comes to academics you have to obviously study and get focused there. You want to be better when it comes to athletics you have to be trained and do your preparation. It should be no different in politics. And so that opened up all other doors. And it gives me a continual appreciation to focus and help the next generation. If I would not have had that chance I’m not here right now.

VALLAS: So I ask you to share that story because the real reason I have you here and that I’ve been so excited to talk to you is there’s been a lot of getting out the balloons and the champagne as of last week. Dems are kind of like we’re back, we got our mojo back we know what to do. And I kind of want to ask the question do we and are we learning the right lessons not just from 2016 but what should we be learning from last week that actually did propel us to success? Was it just anti-Trumpism and a backlash to what we’re seeing in the White House or was it actually Dems doing something right for a change and is that something that we can use to inform actual success moving forward in a long term way in 2018 and 2020?

BLAKE: Well we first have to push and challenge the premise that Dems have not been doing things right. The reality is there was an anomaly of an election that happened last year that Donald Trump and many of the Republicans didn’t even think they were going to win and in large parts there were steps that should’ve been taken to do it differently but you had victories that happened last year. Roy Cooper in North Carolina is an example. Kim Foxx out in Cook County in Illinois, the fact that Joe Arpaio was no longer a sheriff. Things were happening. This year is the continuation of that. People have been only seemingly talking about the special election races and the congressional races. They were indeed red seats. Those are going to be seats that are going to be difficult to win anyway which we lost them by 3 points in seats that have been held by Republicans for 37 years. Look at what has been happening throughout the year this year. In that election night November this year was just a culmination of more progress. The fact that we’ve had four pickups in Oklahoma in deep red seats shows that things have been happening and this new vision of what we’re doing in every zip code counts from the school board to the oval office is working at the Democratic National Committee.

VALLAS: I take all those points but what is it that we’re doing right what we can learn from?

BLAKE: Well I’m going to get to that. [LAUGHTER] We can’t ignore that things have been happening because I think to the question if we’re looking at election night as the first time we’ve been doing things we’re missing that something has been happening. The fact that we won in Iowa, that Phil Miller won that seat that was plus 20 Trump last year that he won by plus 10. The fact that we won out in Long Island, Christine Pellegrino, it shows things are happening to move the needle there. And so what is happening? DNC, Democratic National Committee, largest initial investment in state parties that have ever happened in our party in our history. $10,000 a month to all the different state parties to help them focus on organizing and training and mobilizing these communities all of the time. Don’t just show up and talk to black folks four weeks before an election. Don’t just talk to women and make it seem like the only conversation women want to have is only on choice. We want to talk about choice, yes, we want to talk about everything else, pay equity, et cetera. Don’t just talk to the Latino community and say we only want to talk about the wall. Yes, that’s important to talk about, let’s talk about conversations as a whole. So what do we mean by all of this?

The steps that are being taken; number one, additional funding and resources to the state parties which has not been happening before. Number two, making sure that direct organizing on the ground has been happening. Look at Virginia where we had forty organizers on college campuses that otherwise wasn’t happening there. Number three being much more direct of our messaging. To your question earlier, it cannot just be Trump is bad. People know Trump is bad. We had to tell them why we’re good. We had to tell them we’re fighting for jobs, we’re fighting for health care, we’re fighting for opportunities and then lastly is creating that culture that we want people to be running everywhere, all the time. Virginia, again, is [a] perfect example. Justin Fairfax elected lieutenant governor shows that we’re building the bench. In New Jersey the fact that you have Sheila Oliver, building the bench. Vi Lyles, first black female mayor in Charlotte, Seattle; first lesbian mayor that they’ve had, first female mayor that they’ve had since the 1920s.

Things are happening now and it’s because we’re investing on the ground and in order for us to get to the next level we need people to keep supporting us, follow us @TheDemocrats, follow me @MrMikeBlake, you can see how we’re building this out. This is showing the new momentum in the new DNC.

VALLAS: So as we think about the look ahead. So all your points are taken, this is not just something that started with this past week, right, and in Virginia I think is where probably people have focused the most. This is part of a trend that we’ve been seeing and it’s a good trend and it’s something we want to see continue. I know I want to see it continue but a sticking point for a lot of people and something that feels like a false dichotomy that we have, we as progressives are having a hard time dealing with right now and finding a way forward on is the issue of are we going after those white working class voters that people are still obsessed with in the wake of the 2016 presidential or are we going after quote, ‘our base’ which is sort of code for not white working class voters and people of color in urban areas is sort of the implication there. I don’t view those as separate goals and I view the obsession with that division as something that’s a huge problem. How do we get past that, what’s your answer when people ask that question?

BLAKE: We have to do both and. So first, white people are not the only people that want jobs. So the notion of we’re only going to talk about the white working class, everybody wants a job. Simultaneously, we didn’t win as Democrats last year because of a whole bunch of other reasons. Lowest union household turnout since 1980 for a Democratic candidate, white women voted for Donald Trump by a 9 point margin. Black turnout was lower in large part in the south because of many black voters fairly or unfairly felt that the Clintons are the reason that many people are incarcerated because of the crime bill. We cannot ignore those dynamics that exist there. And so it has to be a ‘both and’. It has be that in a lot of communities in the Midwest that there are white voters that felt like we’re not fighting for them and standing up for them, especially outside of urban areas where the Democratic party too often was not having conversations in rural communities, not having conversations in the broader community and that ethos. But also in the urban community, in the black community, in the Latino community, in the Native American community, in the Asian community we have to also double and triple down as well. We cannot just assume people are going to vote for the base just because you’re a dem. When you look at why things have been making that shift, making that shift because you have to have a focus in all aspects. You cannot just say we’re going to hope that people show up in targeted zip codes and that’s how we’re going to win elections, that’s not how this thing works.

And so people had to feel invested. People had to see that they saw people that looked like them and represent them in those different opportunities and so we’re very clear on this. And we will not be a Democratic party at all that is just focusing on one or the other. That’s not who we are. That’s how we think about things. That’s not the vision that we have. It is not just about diversity, it is about inclusion. It’s about representation, it’s saying very clearly all parties have to be at the table. You don’t have to be Muslim to stand up for the Muslim community. You have to be a person with disabilities to stand up for a person with disabilities. You don’t have to be LGBTQ to stand; if anyone of us are attacked, all of us are attacked and we got to think about it in that way while similarly we have to put the resources in.

So what does that practically mean? That means that you’re not just engaging the Latino community only in Florida and realizing that the Latino community in Florida is different than the Latino community in Colorado. That means that you have to be engaging black voters in rural areas because they’re not all living in urban areas. So we’re going into both and. And this year was a perfect indication of the approach that we had and the success that we had. You’re not winning in Oklahoma, you’re not winning in Florida, you’re not winning in North Carolina, you’re not winning in the state of Washington unless it’s a both and approach and this is our responsibility going into next year. Because we cannot have a mindset where the only level of success is do we win congressional seats? It has to be are we winning everything at all levels and you’re only able to do that if you’re doing both and.

VALLAS: The other sticky wicket that seems not to go away —

BLAKE: What exactly is a sticky wicket?

VALLAS: You know your guess is as good as mine because man is it an idiom that I’ve never actually had explained to me.

BLAKE: I just wanted to make sure I understood with where I was going with my answer.

VALLAS: It’s a hard problem.

BLAKE: Got it, OK.

VALLAS: A hard problem, is that, I’m looking at other folks in the room, yes we have clearance? We have clearance from my producer Will, OK, hard problem.

BLAKE: Appreciate it.

VALLAS: So another of these now defined sticky wickets for progressives and for Democrats has been not being able to get past the 2016 primary. There’s a lot of talk of unity and then there’s a lot of not putting our money where our mouth is and that’s not me pointing fingers at any particular side. I think there’s this continued obsession including by many in the media with oh, we’ve still got the Bernie versus Hillary stuff. How do we get past that in a way that expands the tent and that actually plants the seeds for success in 2018 and 2020?

BLAKE: People have to feel heard and respected. There has to be a scenario where you have to appreciate the different viewpoints. There’s always been a more liberal wing of the party, same way Republicans have a more conservative wing of the party. That’s good, that’s a welcoming thing. And we can’t be afraid to have those very difficult conversations that are necessary. The premise is that many people feel their voices were not being heard, they were not being engaged in that. And so the way we move forward is by recognizing that that’s real and appreciating that that’s real. That people will feel you know what, what changes need to be done and so what are we doing? Unity reform commission has been established, recommendations will be decided upon early in the year, how do you make changes when it comes to the calendar of primary and caucuses? What do you have to do to make sure that super delegates are more in line with the voters itself while ensuring that diversity and inclusion is still being represented in that way? Making sure that we find ways you know, Chairman Perez, our first Latino chair ever in the DNC, one of the concrete steps we’ve set that the primary calendar for debates in 2020 will be announced even before you know candidates. That’s a concrete step of the things that you have to be doing to bring people together.

Look, at the end of the day all families going to have differences. That’s good, that’s a good thing, that’s going to push you to have some real conversations. What we cannot have right now is this notion of a litmus test of who is the better Democrat. And essentially telling someone well because you don’t agree with my 100% of the time then all of the sudden I’m not going to be with you. There’s deeper issues that exist that create those different dynamics and I would rather be with someone who I disagree with 15 to 20% of the time than dealing with the Republicans who I disagree with 95% of the time with everything that’s happening.

It’s not just a emotional dynamic, it’s a policy dynamic itself. Last thing, when we thing about how we’re building those bridges let’s look at the tactical things and practical things that we’ve been doing at the party. The first action that Tom Perez took as chair was to appoint Keith Ellison as Deputy Chair. Right out the gate, sends a message of how serious are we in terms of moving the ball forward in that manner such as like a Symone Sanders as a DNC member. How do you, again in the Unity Reform Commission as I mentioned, pieces to show that we’re serious about this. We all did a tour, I did it with Senator Sanders, did two events with Senator Sanders across the country to say we have to build this together. And it is not saying that you have to agree on every single thing it’s just that people want to know that they’re heard and respected. And when we see what we’re going into in terms of now in 2018 especially, it’s the reality that us continuing to fight with each other is distracting us from the ultimate goal. How are we getting more people elected, how are we getting more people a part of the process, how are we reshaping the dynamics? For all the young people especially Senator Sanders supporters, what I say to you, millennials will be the largest voting block in this country next year in 2018. We have an opportunity to change the game if we decide how to come together but we have to listen to each other on the specific pieces that people want to see.

VALLAS: I’ve been speaking with Assemblyman Michael Blake of the 79th district of New York, he is also the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee and a former member of President Obama’s team on the ground in Iowa. Assemblyman, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation and I appreciate what you’re doing and I hope that we can get to all the places that you just outlined because they’re where we need to go.

BLAKE: I really appreciate that. Follow me @MrMikeBlake so I can give you more opinions about sticky wickets.

VALLAS: That’s what we need.

BLAKE: And everything else that we got to do.

VALLAS: And maybe better definitions if you’re listening, we’d love a better definition of sticky wickets, you can tweet [@MrMikeBlake] and you can tag [@OffKilterShow] as well.

BLAKE: Oh, of course and shout out to everybody at Center for American Progress and everything that’s been happening. Much love to everybody.

VALLAS: Don’t go away more Off Kilter after the break, I’m Rebecca Vallas.

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You’re listening to Off Kilter, I’m Rebecca Vallas. Sexual harassment and sexual assault had been all over the headlines following a broad range of accusations against famed producer Harvey Weinstein, plus a growing number of other Hollywood household names including actor Kevin Spacey and most recent comedian Louie C.K., and of course all of this comes in the wake of Bill O’Reilly’s departure, shall we call it, from Fox News following allegations against him as well. The silver lining if one can call it that is that this tidal waves has spurred a deeply charged national conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace and most importantly what can be done about it. With me to discuss is Chai Feldblum, she’s a commissioner at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, EEOC, that’s always very hard to say, the government agency charged, among other things, with processing workplace sexual harassment claims. Commissioner, thank you so much for joining the show.

CHAI FELDBLUM: It’s a pleasure to be here.

VALLAS: So just to kick us off here, the national conversation around sexual assault, sexual harassment has mostly centered around celebrities, some of whom I just named up at the top. But sexual harassment in the workplace is harrowingly common and actually this is something the EEOC looked into in a recent report putting some numbers of this. According to the EEOC, between 25% and 85% of women report having experienced sexual harassment in the workplace but this is a huge range. Why don’t we have a better handle on what that figure looks like?

FELBLUM: Well the national surveys actually just, slight correction, just 25% to 60%.

VALLAS: OK.

FELBLUM: Although there are some studies that take it up. But even 25% to 60% is a huge range. One of the things we tried to figure out is what was in that range? And it’s very interesting. When an employer, an academic, sends out a survey to women and says have you ever experienced sexual harassment over the course of your career, 25%% of women, one out of four say yes. But those surveys don’t define sexual harassment. They just say, have you experienced sexual harassment? The better surveys send out a list of behaviors; have you over the course of your career ever experienced any of these behaviors? And the behaviors in these surveys that have to do with sexual advances or sexual attention, somebody touching you inappropriately, someone asking you for dates continuously, when women get that survey, 40% of women say they have experienced those unwelcome behaviors. So right there you see that women are experiencing behaviors that they don’t call sexual harassment. Now the one that’s most accurate are the surveys that have not only those behaviors but other unwelcome behaviors that are simply degrading to women. Use of pornography or simply that women don’t belong in the workplace. That gives you 60% figure, over 1 out of 2. So when you combine what the researchers call the come ons and the put downs, 60% of women experience sex based harassment. That is not ok in our country.

VALLAS: I mean I would agree full stop, but we can’t leave it there. We have to talk more about kind of where we go with this information. One of the kind of pieces of this that also contributes in my opinion but also in the opinion of the EEOC to these kind of wide ranges but also what are perhaps under counting of what actually happens is that a lot of women don’t come forward and that’s because they’re afraid of retaliation. Your report also looked at that and the rates of retaliation following up a report of sexual harassment are staggeringly high.

FELBLUM: Yes, I think it wasn’t that much of a surprise to me and my colleague, then commissioner Victoria Lipnic, we did this together, that so many people don’t file legal claims. Even then the fact that 15%, 15% ever walk through our doors at the EEOC with a complaint. Even more sobering is that up to 70% of people never even complain interally. Not to a manager, not to a union, not to HR. they are silenced and they’re silenced because of fear, fear of retaliation, either professionally or socially, fear of not being believed, nothing happening and that fear unfortunately is well justified because the surveys show that people who do report often get retaliated against. So hey, you’re a reasonable woman and you see what happened to some other woman who reported and it wasn’t a good scene because she got retaliated against, you’re not going to step forward when something happens to you.

VALLAS: Now it’s interesting because there’s been sort of a groundswell of research, of conversation around this set of issues in the wake of particularly the Harvey Weinstein allegations. And one of the observations that some experts have made in this conversation is that when people do come forward and particularly women, it’s usually when others are also coming forward. There’s sort of a, the tidal wave is not accidental. You see someone else come forward, you feel more comfortable. But does that sort of have two sides of the coin? You mentioned that how these claims get handled has a huge effect on whether other people are going to come forward.

FELBLUM: Yes, you know people have been asking me recently, do I feel this is a tipping point? And I say we need two tipping points. The first tipping point is breaking the silence, is the coming forward. And I think we are beginning to see that because there is some sense of strength or safety in numbers. But the second tipping point has to be action. What are we going to do about this and the key factor there is what are employers now doing when some women are feeling strong enough or, let’s be clear, angry enough to come forward because how employers react, how they respond in this moment, that’s going to be the key to whether they can change the workplace culture in their organization.

VALLAS: And there’s how employers react and I want to get into some of the solutions, how we can actually solve this problem in just a bit. But there’s also a piece of this that’s how the public reacts. And particularly in the case of coming forward when the person who is sexually harassing or sexually assaulting you or has done so in the past is a public figure. Is there also a tipping point we need to reach when it comes to the culture around whether boys will be boys or whether it’s no, this is unacceptable in this country full stop.

FELBLUM: The only way we’re going to change this, the only way we’re really going to stop harassment in the workplace is if we change the culture in the workplace about what is OK and what is not. And the workplace is not separated from society. So we have to change this in terms of societal culture. What is good about what we’re seeing? And I also don’t, can never use the term silver lining because it’s just so painful when you see what’s going on.

VALLAS: I sort of “icked” myself out by saying that in the intro, right, it feels like it is but maybe we can’t even call it that.

FELBLUM: Well, let’s just call it something that helps us get through this first tipping point. Because we have to change the general culture and I think that we are now having a conversation about types of behaviors that women do not experience as welcome. That they experience as intimidating and it’s not just the actual sexual assault or demand for sexual favors. Women are coming forward with the fact that if you continue to stand really close to me that makes me uncomfortable. If you tell me I look sexy in that dress, that doesn’t feel good. And the thing is a lot of men might feel well what’s the problem with that? My wife loves it when I tell her she looks sexy? And it’s like you know, thank you for sharing you can go home and continue to feel like it’s fine to say that to anybody not just your wife, we’re telling you now in the workplace that’s not something you say to a coworker. So yes, we have this moment now of possibly societal change that will affect workplace culture, how do we get there?

VALLAS: Now we’ve talked exclusively up until this moment about women. Women facing sexual harassment in the workplace and that’s similar to the conversation around rape and sexual assault. Almost always is discussed only in terms of women as the victims and men as the perpetrators. I myself as a woman in the workplace have experience probably more than I can count incidents of sexual harassment in all of these cases it has been men. But that isn’t the face of sexual harassment and that is something that your report but also personally have looked into. I’m finding this particularly in this moment to be connected to what I felt and what many others in the media felt was a different reaction and a different tone when the accusations against Kevin Spacey came to light because they were by men. What do we know about sexual harassment against men in the workplace?

FELBLUM: So two things. Number one, about 16% of our complaints about sexual harassment come from men. Now some of that might be men being harassed by other men, a few and I’ve seen cases of men being harassed by women. And by the way, harassment is not just from a supervisor to a subordinate. A lot of harassment is from coworkers. And one of the cases was a coworker that kept asking this guy for a date and would say no.

VALLAS: That’s one of my own personal experiences as well and actually in that case it was a woman so it can take a lot of different forms.

FELBLUM: It can take a lot of different forms. A lot of the cases actually do have to deal with men harassing other men and then there is a second layer of shame in terms of coming forward. So I think we need to understand as a country that harassment sexual harassment happens to both women and men and that actually harassment happens on bases, races, religion, disability and that’s something our report focused on. However, what I have discovered in terms of talking to people that sometimes it’s just useful to start with the sexual harassment against women, somehow that brings people into the conversation and then it is our obligation to push forward and say if we can change the workplace culture, if employers and employees take the steps to take workplace culture so that harassment doesn’t happen, unwelcome behavior doesn’t happen it will help everyone.

VALLAS: Sort of the curb cuts mentality when you’re fighting for rights for one frequently marginalized community it can actually have widespread benefits.

FELBLUM: Absolutely, it’s what we call in disability rights universal design. If you make it work for people with disabilities a lot of other people will benefit.

VALLAS: So let’s talk about solutions. Let’s talk about how we get there. The EEOC’s report looks into a number of different current solutions or solutions people think have been solutions, I think sort of, hesitate to call them solutions because part of what you find is that the trainings that annual sexual harassment training that everyone knows, everyone groans about when they see it on the schedule or see the email come from HR. You look at that and you say well those actually haven’t been very successful as prevention tools. Really they’re sort of management covering their ass, saying let’s limit some liability that’s why those get held, that’s really what they do. What do you think could work and are we seeing anything already in place or in use in the workplace that actually does work as a prevention tool?

FELBLUM: So this is what I feel is one of the real contributions of our report. That we took the motto of James Baldwin, that “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” So the first half of the report is really about what’s going on. The second is about how do we change it? With no illusions about how difficult it is to change. Training is absolutely important but it’s only important as essential step four of a five step comprehensive process. So don’t take from the report that training isn’t essential, it’s just what type of training and where is it in the comprehensive effort?

VALLAS: And that it can’t be the only thing we do.

FELDBLUM: It so cannot be the only thing you do. If it’s the only thing you do and nothing right is happening people will groan and it will reinforce their cynicism. So where do you do it? I remember often hearing it start at the top and I often felt like that’s very helpful. I mean like thank you for sharing what does that mean? And that’s what our report drilled down on. So it does start at the top. It starts with leadership feeling a sense of urgency of wanting to find out if there’s harassment in their workplace and stopping it. Has to start with the leaders caring about stopping it and communicating that in words step one. Step two, employees hear leaders say lots of things. Employees have to believe that leaders are authentic. That they mean what they say. OK, step three how do leaders do that? Number one, they make it a point to find out what’s going on in their workplace. If they see our report that says 70% of people are not even coming forward how are they going to find out if they have a problem? Our recommendation is that they do an anonymous survey that doesn’t ask have you experienced sexual harassment or other forms of harassment, that list the behaviors. Have you experienced any of this? Educate themselves. Two put into place the policies. Here’s the policy of what we will not accept, don’t spend a lot of legalese about what’s illegal. No, this is what we will not except, here’s how you report it. Have a reporting and investigation system that works. And then most importantly, accountability. You can say all the words you want but if people don’t see action they will not believe that you are authentic, the harassment will continue.

VALLAS: So I’m going to come back at you with a little bit of the devil’s advocate but also meaning it because all of that sounds great. If we could just get all of those things to happen then boom, we would have way less sexual harassment in the workplace. It makes sense intuitively. But even getting to step one feels like I don’t even know how we get there when we’ve, in many cases, got senior leadership at, we saw this at Fox News, we’ve seen this now throughout Hollywood, people actually knowing and being totally aware of what’s going on but sweeping it under the rug and using tools like mandatory confidential arbitration which sounds like legal gobblety gook right I apologize I don’t know how often on this show of being a recovering lawyer but it means literally legally being able to sweep it under the rug when that’s the instinct of people who in senior positions are aware of what’s going on. How do we even get to that five step process that you talked about?

FELDBLUM: See here is where I think we are at a tipping point. I really think so because the incentives for top leaders may now be changing. Especially for what we call in the report the superstar harassers. Someone of high value to the company, the leadership often made the cost benefit analysis that it was more costly to take the complaint seriously and get rid of the person then to simply pay off the people making the complaints. I think that leaders are now realizing that might not be a smart cost benefit analysis. And that it is worth it for them to start taking this complaints seriously. I remember hearing from some people, well I’m not going to go to HR, HR is not your friend. HR is just working for the company and I say they sure are working for the company and you know what to protect the company they need to take complaints seriously and I’m talking about through the entire level of the organization. So it’s almost like we’re going to flip what helps the company. Move it away from that short term cost benefit analysis of what will help the company is to sweep it under the rug to what will help the company is to stop something before it goes out of control.

VALLAS: And is that a function of policy change that we have yet to see and that we need to see or is that more rooted in the culture change that we’re watching happen as we speak because accusers are being believed and because this tidal wave is happening right now?

FELDBLUM: I believe it is absolutely an attitudinal cultural change not a policy change. they have all had their policies for years, especially the big companies. It’s about changing the incentives. And I will tell you if a leadership of a company, for profit, non-profit, actually holds people accountable and people in the organization see that someone has been disciplined even up to and including termination, that will send ripples through the organization. And accountability is with regard to two groups of people. One group is the smaller group, the people who are actually engaging in the harassment, regardless of their value. The other group that needs to be kept, the other group that needs to be help accountable are the front line supervisors, the managers who hear the complaints because their reaction often is to belittle the person, see whether they were at blame. “Let’s talk about what you were doing in this interaction.” If they are now rewarded for actually taking a complaint seriously and going through whatever the policy says as opposed to sweeping it under the rug we will start seeing a difference.

VALLAS: I mean I have to admit when I saw the word middle managers appear in your report I sort of was going whoa, didn’t expect to see that phrase but that is actually a big part of what you recommend is that that front line, that sort of first line of defense is critical in terms of the people who come forward and at what rates but also then the eventual response. So I sort of have to zoom out for a minute and also reflect on the fact that how these very public cases play out matter a lot. So in a very big way we have a lot of women a lot of people coming forward because they have seen other people leave, because they have seen swift action taken. The fact that Bill O’Reilly finally did leave Fox News under various terms, the fact that Louie C.K. lost a bunch of contracts, Kevin Spacey was going to get killed off of House of Cards it looks like, these are things that are very visible means a lot to people who maybe wouldn’t have come forward otherwise. But this is also happening in the context of sort of a somewhat different conversation on the political front. We’re talking mostly about Hollywood but there are allegations I think about Roy Moore right now running for Senate in Alabama who still hasn’t stepped aside and there still isn’t even a full rebuke on the part of the Republican party actually lots coming to his defense. And that wasn’t workplace but still a person in a position of power and people who have been victimized and haven’t wanted to come forward. I’m curious if this type of culture change is something you think is possible with the current political climate.

FELDBLUM: Oh, I definitely think it’s possible. I think we’re seeing. I think we’re seeing it. I think what we have are thousands, really hundreds of thousands of women who have accepted this over the years and are just resigned. And I think what we’re seeing now, for every twenty women inside an organization that experienced harassment there’s at least one or two who are now energized enough to come forward. And this doesn’t make it into the news but I think what is beginning to happen in organization after organization is for the first time those complaints are being taken seriously. And by the way, the high value person can exist all the way through an organization. So if you’re a manager of ten people and one person is bringing in let’s say sales and there’s a complaint against that person, your incentive for years has been to downplay the complaint. You don’t want to lose that high value person because it will show up in your production. I think now and again we have no way to necessarily know it for sure but my gut is that those managers are now realizing it’s not going to be a smart move to not do something even against someone who is quote, unquote, high value. I will tell you since the Weinstein story broke we have had a four fold increase in hits to our website for information about harassment.

VALLAS: That’s amazing.

FELDBLUM: Right, now most of those people are still probably not doing anything but all you need is some critical mass of people and I think because of the public conversation women are talking to each other or anyone who has been harassed and they are supporting each other and now going forward either for the first or re-upping a complaint that they can say remember when I was here a year ago and nothing has happened?

VALLAS: And of course the social media phenomenon, #MeToo brought a lot of visibility to how widespread this has been with lots of women sort of coming out for the first time and people coming out for the first time.

FELDBLUM: Right and the #MeToo hashtag thing has been so important for anyone who wants to follow me on twitter @ChaiFeldblum.

VALLAS: And they should because you’re funny and you’re interesting.

FELDBLUM: Well one of the things I did was saying using #MeToo I hope some people will feel safe enough to come to the EEOC and then a link to how to file a charge.

VALLAS: Well since you just mentioned that where should people go if they want more information or if they actually are looking to file a complaint?

FELDBLUM: So what we just rolled out really about two weeks ago is an online portal that people can use to get information and then to schedule an interview to see if they want to file a charge. We are not letting people file charges online, which is very important because once a charge is filed the employers gets the copy of the charge so we want to have a chance to counsel people. But you go on the website, head to ‘file a charge’ you know, charging party portal and it will take you through a series of very simple questions that will let you know whether you even potentially have a claim and then lets you electronically finally schedule electronically, having things to schedule electronically all the time.

VALLAS: My groceries, my wine delivery.

FELDBLUM: Exactly! And EEOC has not been able to do that because we’ve been an agency starved for resources for years but we made the decision about two years ago we are directed some of those resources into the electronic systems.

VALLAS: And that’s EEOC.gov

FELDBLUM: And that’s EEOC.gov

VALLAS: Fabulous, we’ll make sure that a link to that portal is also part of this week’s syllabus. Chai Feldblum is a commissioner with the EEOC, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. There, I got it right the second time. Thank you so much for joining the show and we’ll also make sure that the link to the report itself is available as part of our nerd heaven syllabus.

FELDBLUM: Thank you so much and I just want to say how glad I am that we have this podcast and you’re getting this information out to people. That is awesome.

VALLAS: Well thank you for being here. It’s always fun to have you on and we’ll have you back soon I am sure.

FELDBLUM: Thank you.

VALLAS: And that does it for this week’s episode of Off Kilter, powered by the Center for American Progress Action Fund. I’m your host, Rebecca Vallas, the show is produced each week by Will Urquhart. Find us on Facebook and Twitter @offkiltershow and you can find us on the airwaves on the Progressive Voices Network and the WeAct Radio Network or anytime as a podcast on iTunes. See you next week.