finally tonight former Congressman Tom malinowski has been laying low since losing his re-election bid this November to now representative Tom Kane Jr and as he weighs whether to try and reclaim the seat malinowski is eyeing another way to make an impact on Democracy by converting his campaign arm into a political action committee that await into public school culture wars malinowski's districts for democracy pack is planning to counter efforts by conservative groups that became active during last year's School Board elections I recently asked him about his new Mission so we've seen a tremendous amount of Interest money time being poured into school board candidates and the elections which were typically pretty sleepy now you yourself with an arm of quite a bit of money are getting involved what's your hope here what are you planning to do well thank thank you Brianna look we we've got the best public school system in the country here in New Jersey it's something we're proud of it's something we spend a lot of money on uh I'm interested in protecting it I believe very strongly I think most new jerseyans believe that for our public schools to remain great kids have to have the freedom to learn and teachers have to have the freedom to teach without politics without political intimidation and unfortunately we're seeing in the last couple of years this National kind of Mega right-wing movement that's been trying to take over education in States like Florida and Texas and Virginia come to New Jersey promoting censorship of books taking books out of libraries putting enormous pressures on teachers in some of our school districts to not talk about sensitive subjects subjects having to do with race and more difficult parts of our country's past any mention whatsoever of LGBT families and I I most high school students I talk to are against it most parents I talk to are concerned about it but the the folks who want to defend our our traditions of academic freedom in New Jersey just haven't been that organized so we're trying to change that so would you essentially be looking to counter groups like moms for liber NJ project these are more right-wing conservative groups that really came on the scene in the last couple of years specifically for the content curriculum books as you mentioned that are being brought into public schools you know look at groups like moms for Liberty and what they've done around the country you know that they've promoted Banning books about the Holocaust they've promoted Banning books about African-American Sports Heroes like Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson because those books might touch upon the racial discrimination that that those uh those wonderful American Heroes experienced in in their lives in Florida they banned a bunch of math books because they had little uh sideline biographies of African-American mathematicians it's just crazy stuff and to have that imported into New Jersey is something that I think really does threaten the quality of public education in our state and I want to highlight it I want to make sure that any school board member who's elected on that platform is held accountable and I want to make sure that we have good people I don't care if they're Republicans or Democrats running for school boards running for local office dedicated to freedom of speech and protecting our Public Schools what do you see as your role and the use of this money is it going to be to level the playing field to hand pick those candidates or just to give them the money to be able to run in a state like New Jersey where we know you know it now costs a lot of money yeah this is look it actually doesn't and shouldn't cost a lot of money to run School Board races um and I don't want to change that but we have a lot of local folks mostly moms and dads who are concerned about this wave of censorship that's that's sweeping across the country and coming to New Jersey they're organizing themselves I don't have to do that what I can do is is is to be a convener a facilitator yes to to raise a modest amount of of money so that people who stand up and say I'm going to run for a local office I'm going to run for school board have the support that they need but the energy is all from the bottom up it's not coming from from me or anybody like me what is making this your calling now I mean you're known for policy your your work within human rights why dive into what's really become a culture War because I want to stop the culture War I want to keep the cultural Wars out of our schools out of Education you know New Jersey we have a tradition of non-partisan School Board elections I want to keep that way ironically we have we have school board members in in parts of my former congressional district who are happen to be Republicans they don't run as Republicans but they happen to be and they've been targeted they've been threatened by these extreme right-wing groups um so I I'm doing it because I care about education because I care about the quality of our democracy because I want our kids in this age of Q Anon and conspiracy theories and election lies I want our kids to to continue to learn how to think critic quickly and independently so for all those reasons I just doing what I can alongside many many other people to stand up for uh I think what are still the the uh the principles that most new jerseyans believe in what happens next do you have to wait for approval from the FEC to convert your pack to use any of that money how does this sort of unfold moving forward so what we've already done that and um I know there may be folks out there who see the word pack and uh and they know how much money we have to spend in our Congressional race so they think it's like millions of dollars um I'll tell you I ended up with exactly zero dollars and zero cents at the end of my congressional race um I I kept my promise to the folks who supported me that I would I would spend everything that they gave me to try to win that race so we're starting from the beginning but I do have a very very large and committed group of people who came together around my congressional races as volunteers and as donors and who care about this and we're gonna try to use that Resource as best as we can so it's really using that Network reporting I've seen talking about your pack having some nine million dollars like you mentioned it's more so the network of people of folks that you have gained throughout your work and being able to work together in that way not necessarily with the financial means yeah just so just to be clear nine million dollars was how much we spent was the absurdly high figure that we spent in the last company yes uh and you know we can have a whole nother conversation about campaign Finance reform and how much money goes into these Congressional races which is obscene um but that's that was raised that was that was spent we're not starting with nine million dollars we were starting with with nothing but we more importantly are starting with thousands of people who care about the quality of American democracy who care about protecting the Integrity of public education in New Jersey and across this country that is a priceless resource and and I'm going to do everything I can to mobilize it for this cause former Congressman Tom malinowski good to talk to you thank you so much for your time sir thank you anytime [Music]