CCYD Podcast, Episode 3: Will Boyd

[transcript] Welcome to the Count Home County Young Democrats podcast. My name is Koi Bradford and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Will Boyd originally from South Carolina. He's been in Alabama for quite some time now. He is a successful businessman, engineer and politician who is currently running for the Democratic nomination for governor here in the state of Alabama. Very excited to be talking to him and learning more about him, Dr. Boyd. How are you doing today? Fine, Mr. Bradford. How are you today? I'm doing well. Thank you for joining us. You know, last week on this podcast, which is a fairly new podcast. We did have one of your opponents, Doug Jones on here. And so we wanted to give you the same amount of time and opportunity to kind of, you know, make your case to the voters here in Alabama. Why they should choose you for this upcoming primary election technique place here in Alabama. But first things first, I really want to get your opinion on some of the craziness going down in Montgomery right now. As our state has become a center to this redistricting war that's been going back and forth between the Republicans and Democrats all year long. And now we're seeing it here in Alabama. Can you just respond, or I guess, you know, give us your thoughts on, you know, what the Supreme Court has done by lifting the ban on those maps, those, you know, a gerrymandered maps that Alabama was originally using. You know, what kind of, what is this done for the state of Alabama? And, you know, what would be some of the things that you would do to fight back against these redistricting efforts? First of all, again, thank you for allowing me to come on today and join you and other Democrats in Calhoun County. I'm excited anytime I can be in Calhoun with with others in appreciate all the work you're doing. It is just sad what is happening about Montgomery. The fact that we have people who don't want to support every person's voice being heard. The fact that we have a representation of, I'll say, 27% of our people who live in Alabama or African-Americans, but yet their voices are basically being muted because now we are in a position where lines that were unfairly drawn were challenged, as you well know, we had a second majority minority district or congressional area where people could vote in that district. And now, basically with the Supreme Court ruling, what SCOTUS, as you just mentioned, leaves us at a point where we're back to just one. And could possibly have that when taken away. So, as I've seen, even elected officials say today they want to see this a completely Republican state in terms of congressional representation as well as legislative and perhaps even municipal participation. So, that's not the way it should be. I think we want to fight to make sure we have people who are able to represent us well. Number one, so voting is important. May 19th, we want to see if we get out to the polls and vote for people who have your interest at heart. But I've been saying this, don't fear it, face it. We know how people act in certain places. We're in the South, and there are some who want to preserve certain types of ways. They want to limit what certain types of people do. Certain people from different backgrounds are able to say. And let's just be very frank about it. This is all about how people vote. It's a former voter suppression to some. It's a form of making sure that people aren't able to elect people that represent them, the people they desire. And in this constitutional republic, some say democracy, but in this constitutional republic, we deserve to have representation by people who know us, who understand our districts, and they could fight for us. So, what would I do as governor? Again, don't fear it, face it. F-A-C-E. Fight for fairer maps. Fight to make sure you are equally represented. Fight to make sure you have a seat at the table. Someone who represents you. Secondly, A, access to the ballots. Make sure that is open, clear. Do not allow anyone to stop you from voting. Your vote counts. Your vote matters. Your vote is important. One of the things we do every day is we pass out these wheelbills. And these wheelbills actually talk about the fact on the back that not only do you have one voice, but our campaigns are not powered by money, but by people. Their voice counts. Our voice counts. And we need to make sure, again, we have access. The sea is for challenge. When we see that something is wrong challenging. Make sure we have attorneys that are ready, activists that are ready. People that are ready to give them front lines and push back. That's why you have a pellet court. That's why you have courts of appeals. That's why you have people who are able to hear something after some judgment has been handed down. In the meantime, make sure that we go to the ballot box, again, and elect people who will truly represent us. That's the face it for us today. Well, first of all, thank you for laying it down like that, because I think that a lot of people are afraid of what's going to happen to their voting rights and their voice both at the ballots, as well as in Congress and in these different places where their representation is going to be lowered. So, I appreciate you kind of breaking down how the community and us as a whole can address these issues without, you know, fearing it too much. Something I'm really interested in is just your platform in general. You know, what are some of the things that you are going to try to fight for and do here in the state of Alabama if you're elected governor? Of course, we just talked about fairness, making sure that there's access, obviously, to health care, to justice, to jobs. But the three columns or pillars that I normally talk about are expanding the economy number one, making sure there's access to affordable and exceptional health care number two. And then thirdly, it's all about stabilizing the community, again, economy, health care, and community. When we look at those areas, expansion of the economy involves making sure that we have workforce development, that we have people who have the skills to go into the jobs that are coming open. And you know this, Mr. Bradford, but jobs that were there when you started college may not be there now. We know that AI is quickly consuming opportunities for people. At one point in time when I was in this campaign months ago, we were looking at probably 21% of jobs being eaten away in some areas because of AI and now it's even higher. You look at finance and business, a lot of jobs are are quickly being taken away. So we need people who are skilled, people who have opportunities to adjust. We talked about workforce adjustment as well, how that allows people to change careers. Maybe someone is an organized labor working in a coal mine, extracting coal, but today they might be working with pump hydro and new type of energy. So they readjust it for a greener environment. These are things that are required. Not only that, but supporting small and large businesses, making sure they have what it takes to succeed, to do well, not only in Alabama, but to compete nationally and even internationally. So I talk about how we need to make sure we don't just have fields with crops coming where we have commodities that we sell for pennies, so to speak on the dollar. And then we turn around and see other states take it through a processing place to a point of retail. And they keep 90% of the profits while we only keep 10. That's why Alabama remains a welfare state. For every $1 we give the federal government, we want four back. I'm changing that to make us more prosperous. Secondly, with health care, I'm trying to introduce a plan right now that would allow the full expansion of Medicaid to take place in Alabama. It would help almost 300,000 people have health care who don't have it today. It would bring in two billion dollars of new revenue. It would actually create opportunities for 200,000 people to have new jobs in this health care sector or supporting it. And it stops 25 hospitals in Alabama from closing. That is important today. Lastly, the communities. We have infrastructure issues. We have broadband where there's not end of the line opportunities. They're not in a line opportunities for people to have telehealth for people to use the Chromebooks at home with kids, particularly when they're not on the school property. We need to make sure we have telehealth services so they can call into a physician a doctor. We need to make sure infrastructure pipes that are aging are replaced so that we don't have counties right now like we have them with some with black water, some with brown water. And lastly, I'll just cut it off by saying we need to make sure that we are protecting the environment in each and every one of our communities. This is very important on the minds of many young people. So I've tied my economic policy into my environmental policy. And when we do all that, when we fight and make sure we have prison reform and parole as it should be when we fight to make sure that we have people who are entrepreneurial not seeing like HB445 related to the hemp band, their businesses not able to operate. When we fight to make sure in the community our kids have opportunity to fully fund the pre-K schools that are able to do well because we have educational lottery bringing a billion dollars into our state and we have educational equity cross zip codes. That community presents a healthy workforce that is able to turn our economy around so that we're able to do well. Well yeah, and I think every single thing you just said is an important issue here for Alabamaians, for every Alabamaian and I think improvement in all of those sectors is certainly something that everyone wants to see. I'm particularly interested in your stances on education. I know that that's something that you've talked a lot about during this campaign. You just mentioned the possibility of using a lottery to get more money into the budget here for Alabama's education. Can you speak more to that because I think that a lot of people have been wanting a state lottery Alabama's one of I think three or four states in a United States that doesn't have that. So can you speak a little bit more to how you would go about getting that done and why is that so important for Alabama? Sure, I come from a family of educators on an educator myself. I've talked in the higher learning classrooms on a university campus. I've been a dean of student success. Education is important from pre-K all the way through college. When you have Mr. Bradford the opportunity to push forth an educational lottery and you have 800 million to a billion coming into a state like hours. We don't have to worry about that money going out to other states and our kids not being educated right now. Whenever people let's just say desire to participate in a lottery in Alabama and we don't have one, they go to Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee. That money helps to take care of the higher education costs for their students in those neighboring states. And here we are in Alabama with some of us trying to struggle through plus loans, subsidized loans, whatever it may be, you know, borrowing from this person to that person just to get through the college experience. We need that money to stay here. And it's not just for the higher learning side, not for people who want to go to college and the state pays for it through this educational lottery. But on the front end, it fully funds pre-K for all kids under the age of five. It's most important that we do is we have the number one pre-K curriculum in the nation, but only about 40% of Alabama students at that age enjoy it. From a psychological point of view, a developmental point of view, this is when the brain is developing some argue fastest. And yet we have people that aren't learning to read. When I'm in foreign countries, I'm amazed to see kids at the pre-K level who are already able, believe it or not, to speak in multiple languages before they ever reach the point of a kindergarten. So we want to make sure that our reading levels, our math levels are where they need to be. But let's talk about the teachers for a minute. This billion dollars could help make sure teachers are properly compensated. Sometimes people tell me that to move to Alabama from, let's just say Florida, they have to take a $50,000 pay cut to serve as a teacher in Alabama. Now 60,000 is about the household income on average for Alabamians. So when you're talking about bringing a teacher over, you're talking about bringing him or her over into poverty, when they need to come in recognizing that these are the people educating for our future. These are the people who are on the front lines, taking care of our students, teaching them things that they need to be competitive in an inclusive environment in Alabama or any neighboring state. They need to be paid appropriately. And so that's what this would do as well. A public service loan forgiveness program for our teachers, knocking out perhaps $15,000 a year for those teachers, as long as they stay in Alabama and teach. Not just in the critical needs area as I argued in the beginning, but in any county in our state, because we need teachers, as we also need physicians, healthcare professionals all over our state. So this is the way we have to be creative about allowing those dollars to come in. I want to also, though, inject that this revenue coming in from the educational lottery, some would be set aside for mental health as it relates to people who may get caught up in an addiction, fall through the debts. And we want to make sure that we have money there to take care of any challenges they may have as well. And by addictions, I mean, gambling addictions in this case with the lottery. Well, yeah, I mean, that really would cover a lot of different bases for us here in Alabama. And it sounds like a good strategy. I also want to go back to something you said earlier about balancing your economic policy with environmental policy. One issue that I know a lot of young people are concerned about today, and particularly here in Alabama, is the idea of these data centers, these AI data centers that are starting to pop up everywhere. A lot of them are taking up a lot of land and resources, other natural resources, like water to cool the centers. And a lot of young people are concerned about what these centers are going to do to the environment. You know, here in Alabama, I think we have like the highest level of biodiversity of any state. Absolutely. Yes, great wildlife and foruses. So what's something that you would do to sort of balance, you know, obviously you have to engage with AI in some way. But how would you balance that with protecting the environment from the rise of some of these data centers? I slip in to this policy a little bit early, but let me just say we have to tap in our environmental policy into our economic policy. We have to let people know that when people come into Alabama, we want to support people who are pro-technology, but we also want to be pro-environment. So if you're bringing a data center in, we love the fact that from a technological point of you, it is able to do incredible things. It can spit out data in an unimaginable way, right? But what about the water consumption? What about the high electricity demands? These are things that are on the concern on the minds of people who are in their communities. What about the fact that you may be bringing in, let's just say a hundred new workers and you're not even employing from that neighborhood, you bring them in from the outside. So I would love to make sure that we have ways to hold these data centers accountable, letting them know that you have to be economically responsible as you're trying to, of course, environmental responsible as you're trying to be economically prosperous, like I said that way. I would also send teams or delegations out to say, we want to check on your environmental stewardship in other states before you can even begin building here. If you're not doing well, making sure you're taking care of getting the water and electricity costs aren't being passed on to consumers, especially in the neighborhoods that are poor, less affluent, then you can't come here and damage our biodiversity and ride on the backs of the poorest among the poor. We need you to make sure you are responsible with us. So those are the main things that we can do as it relates to data centers. Now I'll tell you, I'm so pro-technology on the other side of it that I'm excited about the chip that is being developed, I believe, by M5, in that we can see the technology coming soon where the equivalent of a data center can sit right on our desktops and we don't need that high demand for electricity and water as we see today. Yes, that would certainly be an improvement to be able to do it with less space and less resources. I'd like to ask you kind of a personal question, but it relates to your political philosophy. I know you are a deeply religious man. You serve in your church and your community in that respect. I believe you have a degree in religious studies theology that as well. I'm curious, you can sit yourself progressive, you remember the Democratic Party, and some people have this impression that somehow being a progressive is somehow an opposition of being religious. I don't personally think that it is, but what would you say to someone who would say, well, you're a progressive? Does that mean you go and get certain things in religion? How do you balance your religious faith on some of your more progressive ideas? Right. I passed a 166-year-old church. I'm a bishop to churches worldwide. I do have an engineering degree in MBA. I do have a PhD in religion, but the other doctorates relate to business and even psychology. That aside, I believe you can be progressive and be a Republican. You can be progressive and be an independent. You can be progressive and be a Democrat. Progressive means that you are forward thinking. It means that you are embracing new ideas. You are willing to have a worldview perspective rather than a limited tunnel vision type of view. Progressive is being progressive is a good thing. If something is not progressive, it dies. From a biological point of view, if you're not growing your stagnant, you're eventually going to die. You're going to become extinct. We need progressive people. When you perform a SWOT analysis, when you perform an analysis of the strengths, the weaknesses, the opportunities and threats, you do that because you progressively want to move to the next place. Continuous improvement is all about making sure that you are fighting to make sure that you do something that makes you better, that you can continue to survive. Being a progressive is not the opposite of somebody who doesn't have values and beliefs. It just means you want to move people forward. Now, the values and beliefs may guide the type of way in which you do it. As a progressive Democrat, I am someone who believes that all people, no matter your background, whether you're religious or an atheist, you should actually work together. You'd be surprised the number of atheists that are on my team. It may shock you to find the number of LGBTQIA plus people who are on my team. It may be surprising to find people are agnostic on my team, maybe surprising to find the number of former Republicans and current independents who are on my team, even Republicans who are on my side. Again, progressive just means you're willing to be open about ideas. I think when you find more people who are, and I hate to say this, but people who are more educated, people who are more open to newer ideas, people who are often younger tend to be or lean more progressive. They want to, again, see something that's better. I think that's a great way of putting it because it's a coalition that you're building of people who have different backgrounds, maybe even different beliefs, but they all have a common goal of moving the state forward, moving the country forward, moving their communities forward. I definitely think that's a great thing that all of us should be striving to do. It's working with one another, including people who may be a little different from us, and they can do it differently from us. I want to end by asking you a little bit of, I thought we had 45 minutes, 25 minutes. We can keep talking if you'd like. It's a good one by. Yeah, it has. It has. It usually does when you have a good conversation. Yes, absolutely. I want to talk a little bit about who would be your opponent, most likely, if you are to win in the primaries this next week, if you become the Democrat nominee for governor in this state, more than likely your Republican opponent would be Tommy Tupperveo. Yes. Now, we know that Tommy Tupperveo has used certain language and the approach that he's put to his campaign is one that feels very divisive. You're very much in the opposition of your talks of unity. How would you go about running a campaign against Tommy Tupperveo, and how would you state your case to the people of Alabama that your vision is the better vision for this state? Thank you for asking the question. At this point in time, yes, it may likely be Tommy Tupperveo. You know, it's ironic to me that a person who's a coach who understands the idea of teamwork is so busy trying to offer rhetoric, words that seemingly counter the idea of unity. Tommy Tupperveo wants to do things that don't necessarily bring our state together. I'm not saying you compromise your beliefs. I'm not saying you don't stand up for what you believe. But right now, we need a governor of Alabama who will bring everyone to the table together. We are struggling. And I hate to use this analogy because it may sound like I'm trying to remover for a second, but bear with me. Right now, because of what's happening in the straight of her moves with Iran, fuel and, I'll just say, fertilizer aren't making it through the straight as fast as they should in ships that move the speed of a person peddling a bicycle, right? Navigating around landmines if possible. That being said, we still have a global price that is set on oil prices. It doesn't matter if we have the ability to extract shale oil or what we have here. It's all set by a global standard. We need a standard in Alabama that says this needs to be a hope state and not a hate state. We need somebody who will set a standard globally, if you would, for our state that will indicate to other businesses that you can come here. Your children can be educated well. There'll be hospitals in every community. You, if you're military or retired military, you won't struggle here. We have places for you to go. We can make sure that we wrap our arms around you. Provide the care you need. These are things that have to be communicated. Mr. Tupperware wants to spend $1.3 billion on building prisons. I want to put that $1.3 billion on our children. He wants cages. I want them on the children. He wanted to block the promotions of top brass of the military. Obviously, jeopardize our operational readiness and our national security. Even left one branch without a commandant for some time, all because of his political views. It's okay to have a political view, but it's not okay to throw the people of the nation under the bus because you are one person that believes one thing. I want to step further and just say, no matter what Mr. Tupperware really believes. People are led to believe his divisive rhetoric is not what we need right now. We want to see, instead of cultural wars in Alabama, people coming together and talking about what we can do to generate revenues that help us move faster, help us do better, make us more competitive. I think the reason why my campaign has been embraced the way it has by white, black, young, old is because people see that genuinely, I may have a set of beliefs, I may have a set of values that I share personally, but when it comes down to serving as governor, I'm not trying to be the pastor of the state, the bishop of the state. I'm trying to serve as the governor, and the governor sets the stage. The governor is like the chief servant. The governor makes sure civil wear is on the table, makes sure glasses that are half full are being refilled. I look at the people who are struggling at the kitchen table, and I say, how can I help this economy grow? How can I make sure that businesses are here that can compete successfully, but also that the residents have equal opportunities in every county? How can I make sure I have money invested in the hospital care, health care, so that the number of uncompensated people or uncompensated care goes down, uninsured people goes down, and ultimately, hospitals are able to operate in the black instead of the rear. How can I look at communities and figure out ways for our kids to succeed, for affordability to be addressed, affordability of houses to be able to rent, the affordability of gas as some in Alabama have to commute over 45 minutes, one way to go to work, and the affordability of childcare. This is why I have bold ideas like saying I would incentivize businesses that offer childcare on their premises, so that single moms, single dads, or families who are struggling in Alabama don't have to worry about healthcare or childcare their businesses offer both to them. These are things that are bold and progressive. Even on the prison side, I want to totally make sure that I overhaul the Alabama Department of Corrections. I have a plan for day one, day 365. I have a plan that's called a PTSD plan, where I want to bring about presumptive pardoning for those who are 55 with non-violent records and have educated themselves. There's a big contrast between me and Mr. Tuberville. I think it's going to lead to my election by landslide in November, and I look forward to having the support of all the people of Alabama, Republicans, Independents, and Democrats, as I move forward. Should another candidate be swapped out, and Tommy Tuberville is not the nominee. I still believe my campaign will be successful because I'm running one again that's really about making sure every Alabama has a fair shot to succeed in our great state. Well lastly, Dr. Boyer, I really appreciate you coming onto our podcast. I do have one more question for you. A lot of people just feel a little bit indifferent. There's this apathy about whether or not their vote is actually going to matter. What would you say to someone to really get them out to the polls? May 19th, the primary here in Alabama. What would you really say to someone to really encourage them to get out there and vote? Your vote matters. Your voice matters. There's nothing more important, more fundamentally important in this constitutional republic than for you to cast a vote for the person to represent you. You can see how some on the left and the right are taking different views about how we should vote in Alabama, where we should vote or who should represent us. But don't let anyone convince you that your vote doesn't matter. Your vote is important. Your vote will help decide who leads, who serves, and therefore you can't sit this one out. People always tell you that this is the most important election. I'm not going to take you that today. I'm going to say get registered and vote in every election from here on out. Alabama struggles. We have yes, a lot of people who are not registered, but we have a lot of people are registered who just don't get out to vote. So please, with all the nonsense, the chaos, with all the turmoil, everything going on in our nation, and even in our state, we need you. I'm going to make it personal. I need you. So please go out, get registered. Too late to do it for this election cycle right here, but go ahead and get prepared for the November election and anyone behind it. And we need you on the front lines fighting with us. Your voice matters. Dr. Will Boyd, I want to thank you so much. This was a great conversation and I wish you all the best luck. This coming Tuesday and going forward. Really thank you for joining us here on this podcast. Thank you so much, Mr. Bradford. It's been a pleasure, sir. All right. Thank you all. This has been the Count Home County Young Democrats podcast. Thank you for listening. Make sure to subscribe to all our pages and we'll see you next time.