Full interview: Rep. Janelle Bynum discusses run for Oregon House speaker [0:00-5:00]

Well, I really appreciate the time. I mean, you know, we just, as you know, have a lot of questions and a lot of people are super interested. And you don't often get kind of an inside look at how this process plays out. It's been an education for a lot of people too. We have you was asking, what does the season mean? So I really appreciate the time. So, I mean, first question, just why? Why do you want the position? Why is this something that you are aiming for? Well, I think what's really important is to understand how the halls of power have been led since the founding of the state. It's generally been all white men. And now we've been fortunate enough in the last 20, 25 years to have some diversity in that leadership. And that I think is a good thing because diversity of thought, diversity of leadership gets us to better, you know, results, ultimately. What really compelled me this time is I sat down and I thought about how I wanted to make a difference from this particular position. And one of the things that I see pretty frequently is every time people of color come into the capital, literally or figuratively, they're on their knees. It's not from a position of power. It's not from a position of how can I add to the conversation. It's always, it's always a very, it's from a position of need, deep, deep, deep, deep need. And I felt that I wanted to change that perspective. I wanted to make sure that people always felt that they knew that the capital was their house, that they could make demands of it from a position of strength. And that we could transform our thinking into how can we, how can we deliver more for our communities from a position of strength, rather than relying on whatever, you know, the ways and means chair decides to give us. And I think that just comes from knowing that someone is there, who was friendly to their cause, who understands the needs of communities of color, rural communities, marginalized communities. Some might then think that the position, the issue that you're talking about the most is police accountability and police violence, but I would wager that we would argue that that point applies to sort of all facets. It's everything. I mean, most recently, I've been working on police accountability, but that's just one piece of it. I mean, I've, I've told people who are working on the African American like high school success plan. I think it was HP 2016, if I remember right and it was from 2016 or 2015. And we were trying to figure out how we got more money to invest in high school graduation rates for African American students. And there was this small pot. And I remember telling the gentleman who came in, we're not going to fight over a small pot when this is so vitally important to our communities. Every high school graduate is an important part of how we grow wealth in our community and how we make sure that people can become parents and support their families, right, like if that's what they choose to do. And so, so it's, it's high school graduation, it's housing, it's access to capital for small businesses, everything runs through the speaker's office, everything runs through the Senate president's office. You think the governor is powerful and she is, but everything runs through those two offices. The big question from those who are, and forgive me because I'm describing myself and a lot of my friends that work political nerds and they're wondering, they're really interested in the process and they're wondering why you didn't put yourself forward within your own caucus for this position. What is the answer to that question? The longer I stay in this position, the more I understand the nuances and the more I understand the game. And some of it is about how fair it is and some of it is about how true do you want to be to a process that doesn't produce outcomes that you can feel confident in. I didn't feel confident in the process. I didn't feel that people could completely, could completely understand the issues that I was trying to elevate and throughout all of this what I've learned is that there, there are a number of factors.