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Friday, Mar 29, 2024

New Congresswoman’s Voice

In a mid-term election that shifted the balance of power in the House of Representatives, Katie Hill became the first Democrat to win California’s 25th District congressional seat in more than two decades. Hill defeated two-term Republican congressman Steve Knight to represent the district, which comprises the cities of Santa Clarita, Simi Valley, Palmdale and Lancaster as well as the northern edge of the San Fernando Valley. Hill, 31, was previously executive director of People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH, a Los Angeles nonprofit that was instrumental in passing housing bond initiative Measure HHH in 2016. During her congressional campaign, she stood out as a younger, female voice for the Democratic Party, an image bolstered in part by a behind-the-scenes HBO documentary about her election bid. And while she ran on a largely progressive platform, Hill also positioned herself as an advocate for small businesses and economic development. She spoke with the Business Journal about her policy goals, the challenges facing a woman running for office and her hobbies in the Santa Clarita Valley. Question: Why did you make helping small businesses a feature of your campaign platform? Answer: Small businesses are one of the largest employers in the entire country and we have so many here in our district. My sister is a small business owner; she owns a body art studio called Revenant in Santa Clarita. It’s something that I feel is a huge part of the overarching part of my platform, which is rebuilding the middle class. How do you plan to help small businesses in Congress? The first thing we need to is look at the tax code. One of the parts that I found particularly frustrating with the Republican tax plan that was passed was that the majority of the benefits went to large corporations and people with a very high income level or net worth. There were some benefits to small businesses, but it was completely disproportionate. One of the things that I’d like to do is solicit feedback from small business owners and basically hold a forum with local chambers to get some feedback – legislatively or from a rules perspective or policy wise. To ask, “What things would you like to see changed that would make operating a business better, easier and more profitable?” And then figuring out as I adjust my role in Congress, depending on what committees I’m on, figuring out what I can do to help fulfill those promises, whether that means partnering with more experienced lawmakers who have been there for a long time or figuring out what bills are going to be passed so I can get riders attached that would benefit small businesses here in the community. Specifically, would you like to see some of the business deductions that were rolled back by the tax plan reinstated? That was a big part of it. I think the tax plan as a whole needs to be revisited. It’s going to be tough in this Congress when the Senate and (President Donald) Trump believe that’s their greatest accomplishment so far. But what we can do and should do right now is look at our proposed alternatives — to go through the process of soliciting feedback from the community in a way that I think this last tax plan just didn’t. That we can start laying the groundwork for something that can ultimately replace it. Is this an issue where you can find bipartisan support? There are absolutely tweaks that can happen now that I need more familiarity with, but I do think helping small businesses in general is one area that can very easily get bipartisan support. Frankly, that’s what I’m looking at legislatively in this first term, and arguably far beyond. It’s going to take bipartisanship to get anything passed. You support public-private partnerships to spur economic development. What would you like to see in those programs? We’re looking at infrastructure packages and aerospace investments. But I’m part of the Democratic Party that doesn’t believe that government should be doing everything. We need to provide the resources but the government’s role should be providing the funding and stepping back and letting the local communities figure out how to do it. A big part of that are these public-private partnerships that can be so valuable. I’ve been part of them on the nonprofit side (with PATH), and I’ve seen them work countless times. We should look at that for whatever our major initiatives might be, whether it’s transportation, infrastructure or building workforce programs in community colleges. How do you plan to address housing affordability both in your district and nationwide? A lot of that will come with tax changes. One of the challenges that we face is that the low-income housing tax credit program was virtually eliminated because of the Republican tax plan. Providing funding doesn’t mean you need to come in and develop housing — not that the government has the capacity to do that — but to provide the resources for it. You can pair it with state and local resources and allow developers to invest in affordable housing. What other ways? When we think of housing affordability, we have to think of it in as an entire spectrum. We need to take measures to make buying a home more affordable and more accessible for people, whether that’s with tax credits for first-time home buyers or different kinds of lending opportunities. One of the challenges is that my generation doesn’t even think of owning a home as a possibility. Tackling that problem and really figuring out how to work on it systematically and from a long-term perspective is going to be crucial. I have expertise in this area that does not currently exist in Washington to a large degree. I’m going to figure out what caucus I can join, regardless of what committee I end up on, to help work on this issue. Many people feel the main barriers to local development are zoning and environmental restrictions. Is there anything you can do to address those issues? Being on the housing development side (with PATH), that was a real challenge for us, particularly the environmental impact reviews and zoning requirements. I know that working with each individual city is going to be a big part of it. What I can do is I can listen to the concerns that developers have on this. To ask, “How can I use my position as a member of Congress and my relationships with state and local government officials to look at some of those areas?” One thing that I foresee being challenging is going to be on the environmental side. That’s honestly going to be a test for me politically, but it’s something that I think has to happen. You’ve come out as a strong supporter of renewable energy. What would you tell a business owner who is skeptical about government efforts to promote renewable energy? We have to look at the bigger picture areas where we can have the biggest impact. That’s not going to be these (smaller) regulatory pieces that I think have relatively little impact but can be pretty damaging in terms of long-term goals. I would much rather see us focus on getting to 100 percent clean renewable energy by a set deadline, like what we have here in California. A big part of that is going to be on the infrastructure side – renewable energy investment and making sure that we’re building that out quickly. We need to make a smart transition from fossil fuels and then figure out exactly how that impacts businesses and what role the federal government needs to play in helping facilitate that. Economically, that’s going to be a big advantage for our district. We already have a lot of the infrastructure in play in terms of solar and wind and that’s something that we can absolutely build upon. You won support from many union and labor groups during the campaign. Many of our readers feel labor has an outsized political power and makes it difficult to do business. Why do you support unions and how do you plan to work with them? The whole conversation around why unions have more power within elected government has grown over the years in large part due to successful marketing on the part of anti-labor groups. We should look back at what the purpose of labor unions is and where they came from: to give workers a voice when a single worker by themselves can’t stand up and demand something from a large corporation or a larger player. Collectively, there are ways of trying to get better wages, better benefits, better treatment in general on behalf of all workers. There has also been a growing divide as there has been with so many issues across the country. But most unions and most businesses have a lot more in common. So how do we start to reconcile those, and as someone who’s both pro-business and pro-union, I need to ask, “How can I help facilitate that?” How else do you plan to build consensus with business? I will be joining the New Democrat Coalition, which is the pro-business pro-innovation side of the Democratic Party. With the New Democrats, we want to figure out how we can make sure that workers have a say and advocate for their benefits – but at the same time, make sure that companies have an ability to continue to grow. We want to ensure that a pro-business voice is heard in shaping Democratic policy moving forward. In many ways, the group is for people who represent districts like this one, where we need to have an agenda that’s somewhere in the middle. Why did you decide to run for office? I had worked hard on the issues of homelessness and housing for most of my career. We’d been working for years on getting Prop HHH passed, which was on the November of 2016 ballot. But instead of being able to celebrate that victory, it became clear that so much of our work could be completely undermined (by the Trump administration and Republicans in Congress). I was looking for ways that I could be involved, and I felt that I was the right candidate at the right time to try and flip this district. I decided that if we passed Measure H in March, then I would announce. The next day was International Women’s Day, and that’s when I announced my candidacy. What were some of the challenges you faced as a woman running for office? I’ve spoken about it before, but I felt like I hadn’t experienced a whole lot of sexism in my life leading up to this point. But then as soon as you enter politics, it’s like a whole other world — being told that you can’t do something because you’re a woman or the feeling of being patronized or the focus on your appearance. That came into stark visibility throughout the course of this campaign. What should be done to address this sexism or prejudice? In terms of what we need to do, I strongly believe that parity on all levels has to be a goal. It has to be something that we’re intentionally working toward. It’s something that we need to work toward in government in terms of intentionally electing women. It’s also something we need to work for on corporate boards, in the nonprofit sector, in the entertainment industry and across every single industry. Part of what I can do is call it to attention. I can hopefully be a role model or an example of what’s possible. And that’s not just me, that’s the 30-something women that have been elected in this election bringing us up to the largest number of women ever in Congress. Who are some of your mentors? I’ve been really lucky in terms of developing mentors throughout the course of this campaign and also previously in my career. Joel Roberts, chief executive of PATH, I’ve seen as a mentor for ages. (Former Los Angeles City Councilmember and City Controller) Wendy Greuel has been a huge help for me from early on in the campaign. I’ve had tons of support from the California delegation, but also from women across the country. The existing members have been so incredibly supportive and there are countless opportunities for mentorship. You live and grew up in Santa Clarita. What are some of your hobbies? Rock climbing is my big hobby. But I haven’t done it much lately, that’s for sure. We have a little farm but tending to that has become my husband’s responsibility entirely throughout this campaign. I’m also an avid equestrian and an outdoors person. We would go camping and backpacking all the time. It’s funny – it’s so hard to think of these hobbies anymore because we’ve been so remote, but I look forward to having opportunities to do them again.

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