Maxwell Frost, 1st Gen Z member of Congress, on young people’s role in politics

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• Geoff Bennett:

  This week's midterm election saw a handful of historic firsts, New York, Massachusetts and Arkansas each elected their first female governors while Massachusetts and Oregon both saw the first openly lesbian governors elected in U.S. history. And Maryland, Wes Moore became the first black Governor ever in that state. And in New Hampshire, the first trans man was elected to a state legislature. Add to that, the first member of Generation Z ever elected to Congress won his election on Tuesday in Florida's 10th Congressional District, the winner, Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat joins us now. Thanks for being with us.

• Maxwell Frost:

  Of course, thank you so much for having me.

• Geoff Bennett:

  So, what do you see as the significance of your win? The average age of a U.S. House member is 58, you were 25? What does that mean big picture?

  Rep.-Elect Maxwell Frost, (D) Florida: Well, you know, I didn't decide to run to be the First Gen Z member of Congress, right? I decided to run to really represent my district, Central Florida. I see problems. We you know, we are living in an increasingly divided time right now. And we have this far right movement that has been really on the rise in Florida.

  However, we know that Gen Z, and millennials make up about a third of the country. We don't represent anywhere near a third of government. And I think it's important that we have young people at the table. Look, I'm not one of these people that say we need to take out all the old folks and just have young people. It needs to be diverse, right, in age, in race, in gender, in economic status and experience. And this is just part of that bigger puzzle.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Well, on that point, running for office, as you well know, by now, it's a commitment, it's a sacrifice. At night, you drove for Uber to make ends meet since you weren't making money as a candidate. And that reality really rules out entire classes of people who might want to run for office, but just can't make it work, can't afford to do it.

• Maxwell Frost:

  You know, what it really showcased for me is the fact that it is an inaccessible thing to run in the first place. Like you mentioned, you know, I had to start driving Uber about three months into my election, to really pay for my food, pay for my bills. But I'll tell you this, there were some pretty low points, especially for me financially during this campaign. And I would say in January or February, if I had kids and I had people were depending on me financially, I would have had to drop out of the race. And we see that happen across the country.

  And so, there's a lot of bold ideas out there on how we can make this more accessible. I think publicly funded elections are something that should be implemented and looked at, that's a North Star. Because we have to give our candidates the ability to spend as much time with the constituents as possible, because we need more working-class families represented in the halls of Congress and across the country in local and municipal governments.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Your decision to run was driven in part by the issue of guns, gun control. Tell me more about that.

• Maxwell Frost:

  Well, I got involved in this fight and in politics 10 years ago, after the mass shooting that happened in Sandy Hook. I'm a band nerd. I went to an arts high school and middle school before every jazz band concert. I played jazz drums. My best friends and I would go across the street to this restaurant, loaded up on a ton of junk food. And I remember a night specifically because we were there eating before a show. And there was a silence that fell across the entire restaurant.

  We looked around, we finally looked up at the television screens and we saw somebody walked into an Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, murdered 20 children and six teachers. This had a huge impact on me, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I couldn't play right at the show that night. And I ended up going to D.C. for the memorial. And that's what I had my call to action.

  After the vigil I was sitting across from Matthew Soto, he lost his sister Vicki in that shooting and just seeing a 16-year-old with the demeanor of a 60-year-old, talking about his sister was murdered for just going to school that morning, changed my life forever. And that's where I dedicated the rest of my life to fighting for a world where no one would have to feel that pain that I saw Matthew's eyes. And 10 years later, we're still losing 100 people a day due to gun violence. So, there's a lot of work that needs to be done.

• Geoff Bennett:

  What issues do you intend to focus on come January, when you're sworn in?

• Maxwell Frost:

  I'd say the economy is top of mind. And especially affordable housing is a huge crisis in Central Florida right now. And people are being pushed out of their city. And so, there's things that the federal government can do to allocate funds to build affordable housing to ensure municipal and county governments have the resources they need to really ensure people have a place to live.

  Other things are ensuring that we're, you know, bringing up wages to drivable wage, ensuring every one of our people have health care. There's a lot of work we have to do. But at the end of the day, I want people to have the resources they need to tap into the great opportunity this country has. Because the opportunity is there. But what we forget is that you need resources to be able to tap into it. You need to have your basic necessities met and I think in a country where we have so much, we can work to do that for all of our people.

• Geoff Bennett:

  Congressman-elect, Maxwell Frost of Florida, thanks so much for being with us.

• Maxwell Frost:

  Thank you so much for having me.