Office of Senator Joseph Cao

[Joseph Cao]

[The Representative’s victory speech in Bloomington–Normal was followed up by a trip up to Chicago to continue campaigning with Mayor Hernandez. Several speeches were delivered in Morgan Park as part of Federalist volunteers’ focus on GOTV efforts in the Southwest Side, one of which is reprinted below for public release.]

Good afternoon, Morgan Park! And thanks to the Mayor once again for stressing what we need this weekend at the municipal elections. This is Chicago’s chance to determine the course of the next six months for your family, your friends, your neighbors; make sure you’ve got a good handle on what the candidates stand for and what they’ve done so far.

As a matter of fact I wanted to speak about something of the sort this afternoon. The Mayor’s work as a community activist before assuming office last November, as I’ve said before, informs every facet of what this administration does – including the very concerted reinvestment in the South, Southwest, and West Sides’ struggling communities. Here in Morgan Park, home to the first worldwide community service operation as undertaken by Rotary International over a century ago, we know very well the reputation we have to live up to. It resonates more than ever – this community, at the edge of Chicago, was passed over for far too long and the shuttering of the local Target was emblematic of that neglect that people here felt.

But in the process of drawing up plans for rejuvenating this neighborhood in concert with some of the community leaders who are here with us today, the mayor found unexpected help from Governor Gaviotti’s plan for several extra healthcare centers to be operated by the state of Illinois. It seems that the city council is very taken with the idea of establishing one of those new healthcare centers in the shuttered Target here in Morgan Park, as are many of the community leaders. If this goes through with the council when they convene for their next session, this will be a big win for everyone: Morgan Park, the city, and Illinois as a whole. Most importantly, it is a win for the people: we are in the process of being able to expand our safety net for the people who most need it here on the Southwest Side, and employ approximately a thousand deserving folks who need the work.

These priorities are a turnaround for Morgan Park as they’ve been for so many other neighborhoods in recent months. The tears of sorrow that many here cried when the Target shuttered will hopefully be replaced by tears of joy when the new center opens and infuses new life and new earnings into this community. We intend to continue with that work, to continue making sure every neighborhood in Chicago gets what they need and is able to join the rest of the city in climbing out of the problems they’re in, but we need your help just once this weekend at the ballot box. There are volunteers at the back to help you check your registration and where your nearest polling station is, so make sure to check with them and bring your friends and family to vote this weekend for a better and brighter Chicago. Thank you, Morgan Park! Stay safe, and go vote!

[Joseph Cao]

[The Representative’s final speech of the day before heading back to Nyman for Speakership duties came in Garfield Ridge, where he addressed a limited audience required to show proof of vaccination or arrive masked.]

I couldn’t be happier to be here with you all in Garfield Ridge today. And, as I said earlier in my victory speech, I’m so proud of all of you for turning out for elections this past weekend, no matter who you voted for – and I hope every one of you comes out again this weekend in support of a mayor who has fought for you all.

By a certain measure that is more or less the bare minimum of what a leader should do to fulfil their duties to their constituents, of course. That ought to be the case both in words and in actions. But it seems some can’t even manage that. Elsewhere in Lincoln we have a campaign that boils down to an attempt to divide people up by partisan affiliation, to place a black mark on everyone who does not vote for the favored party, hand in glove with reports of private statements regarding Federalist supporters that totally contradict whatever claims of benevolence might be being made out on the campaign trail.

That is, in a word, ridiculous. Ask Mayor Hernandez whether any part of Chicago or its policies over the past seven months have been predicated in this kind of nakedly partisan claptrap. The LeClaire Courts redevelopment doesn’t care what party you voted for. The immigrant-owned banh mi restaurant out on Archer, one of the best in the city by the way, doesn’t check your political affiliation before serving you. The leaking faucet or broken-down elevator does not magically fix itself if you profess your undying loyalty to a certain party. We don’t do that here – not in Chicago, not with the Federalist Party.

But neither are we about to bow to the rumblings of a desire for revenge on the right, for a hard-edged politics that refuses to recognize the legitimacy of the other party to engage in the political discourse. I have heard that the only way forward is for this party to engage in the same nakedly partisan claptrap. Now I never attended kindergarten, or any form of formal education until the age of thirteen for that matter, but I am reliably informed that this is a tactic well-employed by kindergarteners. As a general rule of thumb, I am not about to approach politics the same way a kindergartener would, but unfortunately the continued misunderstandings and nursing of grudges and slinging of insults seem to be dragging our politics in that direction.

Garfield Ridge got its name from the cliff left behind during a glacial retreat that sculpted the land Chicago now stands on, and until recently it was overlooked as a residential area. Whatever happens to our politics, the cliff we obviously walked up to the edge of over the past few days, I intend to continue making a case for my party and my own willingness to hew stones of hope for the Atlasian people out of the mountains of despair crowding our political scene today. Mayor Hernandez and other like-minded leaders across this nation speak to the success it can find, the political home it can provide even in the most inhospitable of places; we will not give up and we will not give in. My thanks once again, Garfield Ridge, and please welcome the Mayor for a few words!

[Joseph Cao]

[Continuing the northern campaign swing, which now took a more westerly direction, Representative Cao returned to the Shreveport area for a public fundraiser with the gubernatorial candidate and area Federalist luminaries before attending an outdoor event in the Queensborough neighborhood. The speech he gave to a limited and COVID-compliant audience is reprinted below.]

Shreveport! Thanks for having us here today. It’s a great honor to be back after spending a good deal of time with you all last November, and it is my hope that the good work our Federalist candidates have done over the past seven months is reflected in the results when you all go to the polls this weekend.

I do have to say, too, that Shreveport has changed substantially for the better since I last stopped by. For a long time both the council and Shreveport’s citizens have been painfully aware of the longstanding issues with blight and upkeep in several areas of town. It’s been a source of complaints from citizens on and off, but especially since the pandemic forced us all back into our homes and neighborhoods. And with good reason: people want to take pride in where they live! It’s not too much to expect that living in places affected by this lack of upkeep does something to your self-esteem, as one of our residents recently said. It affects the community’s morale. Blight is an attractor for stress and draws criminal activity to the very neighborhoods that need the most help in fighting it off.

It has therefore not been too much of a stretch to expect that cleaning up these areas, taking better care of properties and lots that don’t have owners to provide upkeep, combating the overgrowth and neglect that springs up in these areas can get people to help take more pride in their communities. When residents are involved in this job they can get some change done for themselves and their neighbors – a worthwhile investment to anyone. But someone had to get the ball rolling on that; who better for the job than city leadership and the newly-elected Federalists on the city council?

So it is that your councilwoman here in Queensborough, who is now running for state House, spearheaded a systematic and stringent plan targeting especially overrun neighborhoods for a more involved cleanup. To my knowledge they’ve been extremely successful in engaging the community so far. In the wake of the spring cleanup a few months ago we’ve been able to see the improvements that have been made: a distinct reduction in litter and waste out on public grounds, a comprehensive report from property standards inspectors with recommendations on which violations to focus on fixing, plans for future community sweeps to continue the process of citizen-led revitalization that begun this past year, and so on.

Little things like this – however broad they may be in their action plans and long-term strategy – are one of the best ways Shreveport can move forward. We can build all the developments and bring in all the job opportunities we want, but at the end of the day it is the people that make Shreveport and it is the people who will determine where this city goes. We need the people’s help; if you elect Ken Pham and your local Federalist legislative candidates next week, we will do what this administration hasn’t, what other parties haven’t: we’ll listen to you the people and bring all of you up together for a brighter future for Louisiana. Thank you, folks; go vote!

[Joseph Cao]

[Travelling southward, Representative Cao arrived in Logansport to join a state Senate candidate on one of the most energetic local campaigns of the election season. A short speech, reproduced below, was delivered to an audience whose attendees were required either to mask up or show proof of vaccination.]

Glad to be here in Logansport this afternoon. Let’s keep in mind what this election is about: a future for Louisianans, a future for communities like Logansport and the others across this state. Hopefully what you’ve just heard from the next Governor of Louisiana is a reflection of what we need at the top levels of government here.

We are conscious here in western Louisiana of what has been accomplished in the past and the heights that must now be aspired to. Logansport sits at the north end of one of the largest manmade reservoirs in the South, built just over fifty years ago on the Texas border. Right at the south end, of course, is a dam and hydroelectric generation plant that produces enough electricity to power a mid-sized city, and all along the lakeshore are opportunities for wildlife observation, for commerce, for outdoor recreation of all kinds. And it was built with no federal aid whatsoever, as your state Senate candidate never fails to point out; he’s one of Logansport’s and DeSoto Parish’s greatest boosters and can do a great deal for this area in the state legislature.

It is worth looking at what the reservoir means for us today beyond a surface-level view of the opportunities and whatnot. What needs to be made clear is that these were not the only reasons Texas and Louisiana came to an agreement to build it: people downstream in the Sabine watershed had suffered some of the worst floods in the two states’ shared history and that is saying something when Louisiana is involved. There are big problems remaining today that need to be solved, many of them just as severe for modern Louisianans as the flooding threat to western and southwestern portions of this state in times past. And where is the Governor in all this? Seven months ago he campaigned on his common affiliation with his Texan counterpart; how has that cooperation developed? Wherever it’s gone, it certainly hasn’t taken any form that can help the Louisianan people. Party affiliation doesn’t carry you too far if you’re not willing to fight for your constituents, as other states across Atlasia have demonstrated.

There is someone here today who wants to fight for all of Louisiana, however. To lead the people of this state in grasping new opportunities as well as building on the opportunities that past achievements like the Toledo Bend reservoir have afforded us. Nobody else wants to come here to the backwoods and hear the needs of the people, but the Federalists down to the last man have always shown up and listened and fought for you in the legislature, stood up for what the sidelined men and women of Louisiana need, and brought the change that has been sorely needed here just as we’ve done in Nashville and in the halls of Congress in Nyman. And led by the next Governor of Louisiana, they are ready to get the needs of Logansport and communities like it brought into Baton Rouge. That is Ken Pham, ladies and gentlemen, but he can’t do it on his own: there are public servants all across this state, right here in Logansport, who have fought for you as well. Please welcome one of them: your next state representative!

[Joseph Cao]

[The northwestern swing continued in Northwestern University and the Natchitoches area, where Representative Cao rejoined the gubernatorial ticket and several state legislative candidates in a varied show of policy and rhetoric focused on everything from transportation to the Red River. The Representative was tasked with introducing the gubernatorial candidate and did so in the speech reproduced below.]

All right, folks. My thanks to the state representative for some of the most important plans we’ll hear today. I couldn’t go through with this northwestern campaign plan without paying a visit here to Northwestern, and it seems from her comprehensive plan to help students and faculty here that the state representative feels the same way.

It struck me on the way in just how much of Natchitoches’ history was affected by the change in the Red River’s course. For all of the stuff I said about the Toledo Bend over in Logansport, there are times when humans must still accommodate whatever wishes nature has; I’m sure that will come as no surprise in this state, of course. Yet Natchitoches was built on the commerce and the resources that the Red River brought – after the river left it high and dry, it took a long time for the city to climb back with the tourism and the assets that Northwestern and the old town districts brought it. People continue to make use of the lake and the fishing and all the rest of it, but visiting the fisheries over on the other side of town still leaves you wondering what other paths Natchitoches might have taken without the Red River changing course.

But the important thing is that Natchitoches has found a way back. That is due in no small part to the efforts of your local leaders in being among the loudest voices for further infrastructure reinvestment, not just on the highway that has replaced the Red River as the conduit for commerce but in your local roads and buildings. Thanks to the Federalist voices in city leadership, we’ve kept a focus on what has become known as the Safe Streets program to ease the problems faced by overburdened communities: cleaning up feeder roads with help from local community helpers, improving and replacing faulty street lighting, and taking a targeted approach to removing the rotten crutches that have forced people here to languish and crime to proliferate. With the councilwoman in higher office – as she’ll remind you in a bit, she’s running a tight race for the state Senate – we can keep up the pressure from the people of Natchitoches on fixing local problems and getting better opportunities for revitalization of this city and others like it across north-central Louisiana.

All this focuses our attention back to the future that Natchitoches faces. You’ve been left high and dry by the change in course that Governor Bouisseau has taken almost as soon as he stepped into the Governor’s office. And it isn’t just you: urban and rural areas alike, Shreveport and St. Martin Parish, the Delta and Acadiana, New Orleans and all the smaller communities of Louisiana have been overlooked and underserved. Like all these places, Natchitoches has an opportunity to right the course this month: not by changing the course of that red river – recent events have clearly shown that the Governor is personally impervious to criticism and he’s being punished for it – but by bringing a new direction; a new highway bringing the opportunities that were taken away when the river jumped its course. The state representative has fought hard for education; the prospective state senator has been fighting hard for relieving the pressure that faulty infrastructure has dumped on our vulnerable communities here in the city. They’re just two of the public servants the Federalist Party is proud to support this month.

At the top, of course, is a public servant whose life has been driven by public service and helping the poor and those in need; a perfect complement to the legislative energy that our candidates have demonstrated here in Natchitoches. A public servant with what it takes to fix the injustice done to Louisianans with the changing of the river’s course. There’s a river of opportunity that the Federalists are willing to work toward on behalf of Louisiana and its people, and none are better placed to harness it than the next speaker here, who I am honored to invite up here now: ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Ken Pham, the next Governor of the Pelican State!

[Joseph Cao]

[In between joining Federalist volunteers to canvass the Northwest Side and continue GOTV efforts, the mayor and Representative Cao dropped in at an afternoon function organized by the United Methodist Church in Edison Park. The following speech was given to a limited audience indoors, all of whom were wearing masks.]

Well, thank you for having us. Glad to be here in Edison Park this afternoon. Ah, the mic isn’t working? Pity. I’ll make do then, and if anyone can’t hear me please ask me to speak louder. Thank you.

As I was saying, I do want to thank the pastor for inviting us here today. Not just because it’s of the highest importance that you all come out as citizens and do your civic duty this month; all that aside, everyone here at today’s function has had a priority above and beyond that. The church here, others across Chicago, religious functions of all faiths in general have been one of the most important facets of Chicago life even if they get overlooked in place of more secular landmarks. They have helped to hold neighborhoods and families together and, as here, give some people the common purpose and drive that raises leaders for each community.

It is easy, perhaps, to say this in Edison Park considering its history: this very church is one of the earliest-established in the city, first established by the founder’s son and has run continuously since then. The pillars of this community have largely been raised here. This is a remarkably stable and continuous neighborhood purely from a faith-based standpoint and that has informed its other characteristics as well. An outlier in Chicago, all told. It’s much harder for the rest of the city and its considerably less staid history, but that is all the more reason for the vision which Mayor Hernandez has pursued.

You’ll know from prior meetings the mayor has had with your community that these are quite heavily based in the same roots as the religious activities that are carried out not just here in Edison Park, as they’ve been for a century and a quarter, but of all faiths in all neighborhoods within this city. The religious faiths observed by Chicagoans vary widely, but as a matter of course – from the rabbi on Archer Avenue to the imam in Bronzeville to our Buddhist and Taoist friends by the lakeshore – they exert many of the same influences that the church does here and elsewhere. They’ve all been advocates for changes we’ve needed to see in Chicago; in their teachings, moreover, they have been the guiding light on our nation’s principles of equality and justice at least since the Founders gathered in Philly – that city of brotherly love, that homage to this very form of community spirit – and signed a piece of paper that enshrined those principles in our collective memory.

That is merely one of the legacies they’ve left; far more important in our daily goings-about, in making sure those principles are acted out rather than being confined to paper, are the countless people who act them out in their own lives. That includes the Mayor, who has made sure religious leaders are consulted in their capacities as pillars of their community. We want to be sure that Chicago continues following the guiding light of these principles, for which our faiths have guided the way here in Edison Park and all across our city; here to explain just how that has been done, please welcome Mayor Hernandez for a few words!

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao travelled alongside the gubernatorial ticket across central Louisiana; on a return to the Alexandria metropolitan area, he was tasked with giving the opening speech at an outdoor rally in Pineville where participants were either masked or verifiably vaccinated.]

Hey there, Pineville! Glad to be here with you all, and thank you once again for humoring us out here – some of you still masked up, no less. But it’s good to see everyone doing their best to keep COVID at bay as we come out the other end of the pandemic all the same.

We’re also coming to a new period in the halls of power. I had the pleasure of meeting with a couple of my current and incoming Federalist colleagues yesterday, including your Senator-elect, former Delegate DTC, considering he made a stop here in Pineville a month or so ago and gave many of you here his word about what he wanted to do in the Senate, as well as Representative and incoming Senator Jimmy. I’m happy to say the discussion of our priorities for the upcoming legislative session, which my office is working on sifting through before it goes up on my website as always, went pretty well. It is important that you all at least know what we in Congress, folks like me who will continue serving all Atlasians, are getting up to.

As far as those priorities go, you know where I stand – and you can rest assured that the same goes for my colleagues in the new Senate. We maintain that while crime is a major threat to the overall health of communities like Pineville, there are many flaws in our justice system that negatively impact those put through it just as much as their communities. That should come as no surprise to Rapides Parish; you’ll know firsthand that far from helping people escape their prior misdeeds, the enforcement of justice locks many people out of the opportunities they need to truly reform. Areas like transportation and commercial ownership and work status are absolutely affected by it and continue to be to this day.

Which is why I was very gratified to hear your state representative’s bill make its way past both houses a few days ago. In some ways it is a remarkable analogue of Jimmy’s recent bill which has just made its way through the House; the federal bill will remove barriers for former petty criminals, people whose past faults should not preclude them from fair participation in society given the obvious distinctions between their offences and other considerably more dangerous crimes. The bill advanced by your state representative is a much-needed update to Louisiana’s past statute on their working status and the opportunities available to them, based on a careful study of the holes which the pandemic has highlighted in that statute for all to see; I want to highlight as well that these were very much community-driven results, things that affect all Louisianans from the Delta to the Sabine and everywhere in between.

It is this quiet legislation, this quiet attention to communities which people like your state representative serve across this great state, which people like Jimmy and DTC are prepared to bring to our new Congress – which the Federalist Party has stood for throughout its history, and always will in both word and deed – that Louisiana stands to benefit from in the coming term just as surely as this state has been wrecked by the past seven months of a governor who couldn’t be bothered to care. We are ready to govern for Pineville, for Rapides Parish, for all of Louisiana; here to explain how he and Ken will do that as a team, it is my pleasure to join you all in welcoming the next Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, Frank Fisher!

[Joseph Cao]

[Further along in the afternoon and downriver, Representative Cao was asked to introduce the gubernatorial candidate at an event in Bunkie which was livestreamed on Federalist websites and social media.]

Bunkie! It’s great to be here. Thanks to the state Senate candidate for that excellent speech, the exact kind of fire in the belly our communities need fighting on their behalf in the legislature. Listen, folks, we are not taking a single thing for granted in this race – we’re going to put our message out there as much as we can. It will be up to people like you all across this state to make the final decision, and we can’t tell you how to do that, despite what others seem to think.

We couldn’t be more proud of the work you’ve done here in the parish to keep your fellow citizens safe. And rest assured, as far as the rest of Louisiana goes, there are many others in the same boat – all the more reason this needs to be prioritized by a Governor and a legislature that won’t touch the problem beyond activating the state guard every time a hurricane passes us by. Ken here, as he will tell you shortly, knows firsthand the magnitude of the flooding problem faced by Bunkie and other communities; growing up in New Orleans one nasty flood away from being washed out to the Gulf can do that to a person.

But it is precisely because of the scale of that problem that Ken and the rest of the good folks in the Louisiana Federalist Party have staked out their position. It is not a problem that can be solved alone by a governor or a group of people holed up in Baton Rouge. There is a constant need for our parishes and our communities and towns to keep their wits about them on the ground and to grasp what their communities need during these recurring times of crisis. People like your state Senate candidate are a good way of bringing that kind of community-oriented service to the legislature where it’s sorely needed, but that can’t be all. Ken Pham, if he is elected, will do what Governor Bouisseau hasn’t done and keep the parishes and communities of this state in the loop on the flooding problem, on the natural disasters that Louisiana suffers, and on everything we face as a state. He will depend on them as much as they depend on him.

We are banking on this to work because we’ve seen what this kind of sustained community feedback can do for places like Bunkie. The constant flooding here has led to the construction of levees to protect you all, and they have obviously needed equally constant upkeep; we’re all aware of past occurrences, however, of levees which proved counterproductive because of bad planning and the resultant havoc wreaked on the underwater geography which piled extra pressure on our defences. Communities’ response to such events has shaped the Federalist Party’s stance on our work down at the Gulf and all along the Mississippi: defences against flooding which must take into account the health of underwater ecosystems and their topographies as reported by both community feedback and the best available surveying. It’s a policy evident even in the Southern Chamber’s legislation for a dam up in Missouri. This kind of infrastructure holds many people’s lives in its hands; there’s no excuse for getting it wrong.

Governor Bouisseau can waffle around with putting the status of our wildlife above all else; this party will focus on keeping Louisianans safe by paying attention to the same forces of nature that both sustain and batter us – on protecting our flora, fauna, and citizens. We’ll see which vision Louisianans need at the ballot box. We are very pleased to now be able to welcome the best person in this state to articulate that vision that carries the Federalist Party this month: the next Governor of Louisiana. Ken Pham, everybody! Come on up!

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao gave the concluding speech reprinted below to cap a long day of campaigning alongside the mayor, which included a public fundraiser in the Loop and a town hall organized by the South Loop’s community leaders. Participants at all events were either masked or carrying proof of vaccination.]

Thanks for having us here in the South Loop. And my thanks once again to the Mayor for that exemplary speech and the policies that have been a great boon to this community – whatever the media or others might say, we are totally focused on serving the people of Chicago. The increasing number of people who have been vaccinated as we’ve seen over the past month of keeping in touch with you all is just one example of that.

I would like to thank the local leaders as well for being one of the most forthcoming of communities in our policing reform efforts over Mayor Hernandez’s tenure. It has been a pleasure, as was recently demonstrated at the town hall with some of you, to work with a neighborhood with this level of initiative and willingness to mobilize the community; naturally, though, that has roots in the history that the South Loop holds as one of Chicago’s oldest and most established neighborhoods.

The community-driven neighborhood watch that you folks recently came up with is one of many excellent ideas which reflect that history. It is gratifying to see the community take the lead alongside the mayor and other city leaders in trying to resolve the crime and policing problem, especially when that occurs through a means that the city is not well equipped to attempt. I’m referring, of course, to that neighborhood watch proposal. There is much that members of the community can do to create an environment within the bounds of their neighborhood to keep the seeds of crime from being sown, beyond simply asking for more police presence given its potential to backfire.

In this we’re of course grateful to all the leaders who made this line of thinking possible, including past leaders like former Presidents Yankee and Fhtagn who were very aware of the potential in taking a community approach to policing and signed legislation to that effect. If the mayor and I have been able to follow in their footsteps, the mayor with all this local effort to reform police operations and I with my recent sponsorship of one of Senator Spark’s many police reform bills, it is because all of us hold to the primary Federalist principle of giving communities and individuals the autonomy they need to settle on solutions that work best for them. We’re not fans of the one-size-fits-all governing approach that Chicago has suffered from in its past.

Furthermore, as the mayor has said before, policing works best when the community is able to communicate what it needs to the police and law enforcement, who in turn are able to communicate what they need to the people who they’re trying to protect on the ground. It goes nicely with our reform efforts at the city level, in keeping the job of policing closer to its originally intended function of protecting their community by ensuring that officers know and respect their community well. We’ve been trying get this city’s law enforcement in a position to be able to carry out their end of that communication. What is being proposed here in the South Loop, over at the edges of this city and across the South Side, gives the mayor and I hope that this communication process can be strengthened and develop into something that will keep each and every Chicagoan safe.

We made a promise to Chicago seven months ago when Mayor Hernandez was first elected: that come rain or shine, good or bad fortunes, the mayor would bring Chicagoans across this city back into the loop of governing. We’re glad to see the South Loop find and develop a way to protect itself in concert with the city rather than being directed to do so; to see Chicagoans and our fellow citizens stand up for what they need. That will continue as long as Mayor Hernandez is in office, because the record of this mayoralty speaks for itself here in the South Loop and all across this great city. Thank you, Chicago; thank you all for coming, and go vote!

[Joseph Cao]

[The Representative joined several state legislative candidates in Acadiana for a final push before the election, and delivered the following speech in rather overcast weather conditions to a limited audience. The speech was livestreamed on Federalist websites and social media.]

Glad to be here, Sulphur. We are days away from the election, from getting out an incumbent in the legislature who’s become a byword for this administration’s unwillingness to listen to Louisianans, and it is of the utmost importance that every one of you makes sure to educate yourselves, go out, and cast your vote. I trust the Federalist candidate has made herself clear over the past few weeks on the priorities she has and on her track record of protecting her fellow citizens; there is no doubt in my mind that she will be an infinitely better state Senator in making sure the voices of the people here in Sulphur and all across this parish are heard and acted on.

We know this urgency for Sulphur because of what this community has been through over the past several months, ever since last year’s hurricanes which sent the quality of the water supply spiralling downward. Residents of Sulphur, the folks gathered here today, have one of the worst-quality water supplies in this state – even the minority who can afford to install their own water systems in their homes aren’t safe. It’s got higher-than-average manganese and iron levels, there’s sediment in it, it’s odorous, it discolors people’s skin and clothes and basically anything that’s washed in it. People have reported adverse health effects even after boiling it. And it’s still deemed safe for drinking by this administration!

The City Council is all the way behind raising the standards for health assessment, of course, as any sensible person would be given these facts on the ground. Louisiana last updated these health guidelines over two decades ago. We’ve learned much more about public health in the intervening time, including how it manifests in places like Sulphur and its fellow communities. They don’t get enough attention as they quietly try to recover from the natural disasters that hit them; disaster relief, contrary to what past administrations have done, has to extend beyond just throwing water bottles and aluminum blankets at evacuees for the two weeks after a hurricane tears through and upends entire parishes. The effects of natural disasters; of hurricanes; of the gradually rising seas which have drowned many miles of Acadiana’s coast cannot be ignored if our communities and people are ever to recover.

That’s why Ken Pham has pledged to raise the standards not just for water quality, but for a myriad of other indicators in Louisianans’ living standards. He knows from previous disaster work in New Orleans and St. Charles that the work never stops in ensuring that every person in Louisiana has access to clean water, adequate shelter, and a means of livelihood. Things begin with acknowledging the problem in Sulphur and in other places, with doing what this administration has stubbornly not done; those of us in positions of power have a duty to those we serve. And your state Senate candidate has made it a point to get the next administration’s backing, whoever it’s led by, to install new water filter systems in all communities – including Sulphur – as just the first step in a plan to ensure our public utilities perform up to their expectations and to those of the people. It is a uniquely Louisianan problem, but that means all the more incentive to fix it.

More than that, we need your help: not just in continuing to highlight the problems with your communities, not just in raising hell with your public servants and local officials and getting their support as the City Council has done, as your next state Senator has done, and as Ken Pham has done, but backing that with your votes up and down the ballot this week. Make sure your voice is heard at all levels of government; only then is there a way for the issues to be tackled from all levels of government. And with Ken Pham and Frank Fisher in office and a Federalist majority in the legislature, you bet we’ll find a way to tackle them. Thank you once again, Sulphur, and it is my great privilege to welcome your next state Senator!

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao joined the Mayor in Bridgeport for a final rally before voting day which drew many local Federalist leaders in attendance alongside a limited and COVID-restricted audience. He was tasked with delivering the closing speech; like the others in the event it was livestreamed on Federalist websites and social media.]

Good evening! Good evening, folks, and thank you for coming.

I could not be more proud of the campaign that Mayor Hernandez has ran, and of the many passionate defenses of this administration’s policies that have been made. Last November all eyes in our region turned to Chicago as one of the biggest test cases for recovery from the pandemic, from the economic downturn, and from all the little regional and local ills that plague this great city. And in the intervening months it has become clear, abundantly clear, that the leading city of this bellwether region of our beloved nation elected one of the best leaders it could possibly have hoped for. In all our history we have not been locked down by circumstances, but rather have risen above them and shown our fellow citizens all across the nation what potential we hold.

Mayor Hernandez’s tenure has broken new ground on the housing problem and reforming our law enforcement. It’s continued to establish Chicago as a leading market for innovation and environmental development. Throughout all this the Mayor has made sure to pay close attention to the living conditions of every Chicagoan and worked to improve the prospects of our poor and struggling fellow Atlasians. It couldn’t have been done without the willing help and work in concert with too many people to count here, the aldermen and community leaders on down to all the thousands of people who this administration has done its best to accommodate. We Federalists here in the Land of Lincoln take governing of the people, by the people, and for the people very seriously. It should come as no surprise that that is exactly what Mayor Hernandez has done.

And I don’t think any community exemplifies this better than Bridgeport, the First Neighborhood, the heart of Chicago’s past and a blueprint for how to get our most vulnerable communities across to the future. Bridgeport knows firsthand the pros and cons of the old politics that sustained over seven decades’ worth of mayors. As many other Chicagoans will testify, the cons of an inflexible partisan machine have often outweighed the pros, and the growing pains Chicago sustained all through the twentieth century will also speak to that reality. Bridgeport has changed, however; it’s seen a great deal in the intervening decades and we now know it as a united community, a melting pot of dozens of nationalities and ethnicities that don’t owe their allegiance to any particular party or machine. And with you good folks’ support, with the support of your fellow Chicagoans, we have proved firsthand – thanks to Mayor Hernandez – that we can move past that; Bridgeport can get the pros without the cons in a more responsive administration which respects the wishes of Chicago’s inhabitants without imposing its own views on them.

It therefore remains for you good folks in the coming day or so to take the stage all for yourself – no mayor in the picture, no aldermen, certainly no party leaders or apparatchiks. The voting booth is the Atlasian citizen’s time to shine all for themselves. So the efforts that so many of you, volunteers and ordinary citizens alike, have made to bring this city’s voice out to the polls to register as loudly and clearly as it possibly can must be commended to help make this a reality. When you go into that voting booth, remember Chicago’s past and the last seven months of its present under a mayor that has run one of the most community-oriented administrations in the city’s history, one that takes pains to sustain each neighborhood and helps them do so for the people living in them. We have a path to the future, one which the rest of Lincoln and all of Atlasia is looking to as an example. It will soon be up to the people of Chicago to choose this city’s path.

When you vote, vote on behalf of a future for your kids and your neighbors; for a Chicago that will continue to make Atlasia proud of what it has done and what it can still do. Thank you very, very much, Bridgeport. Please vote and stay safe. Good night.

[Joseph Cao]

[Representative Cao stopped in Gretna on the final day of campaigning to help an old family acquaintance and promising state House candidate carry out one last push on the GOTV front; in concert with that, the two joined the gubernatorial candidate at a short rally in Gretna at which participants were either masked or in possession of proof of vaccination.]

Well, it’s been a minute. Good afternoon, Gretna! I couldn’t be happier to finally make my way back to a community that has supported me as it has supported many others in their bids for public service. But of course you will all know that firsthand, because one of them is right here today and he’s running for Governor.

Let me take you all back a few years. We know the pain that New Orleans and this whole area and its people went through back in 2005 when Katrina hit us. We lost a great deal. But we pulled through that loss, emerging on the other side bloodied but unbowed, because of what we did back then in our communities: coming together to help each other, the able giving aid to those who needed it most. We ensured that our voices were heard, here in Gretna, in its aftermath when the disaster became not the natural one but the one caused by an incompetent state government.

Many dedicated servants have emerged from that, and so did I. The legislature and the parish governments here are proof positive of that. Ken, as he will remember, was the voice behind this local community’s push for change and better administration, a push that begun with a landfill I argued against. From there we have managed to raise this community up into a voice for the voiceless, a community that is not going to be left behind again, and a community that has thoroughly demonstrated in its actions that it will extend the same opportunity to all who are hurting or in need of the same help that we were back then.

And aren’t we, once again, smarting from the inaction of an incompetent state government? Labor campaigned with a great deal of honey last November and look where their raw partisanship has gotten them. Our communities still need help – help that should be expressed not just in words out on the campaign trail, but in the actions of the parish president and the mayor and the councilwoman here who’s running for the state House, in their attempts to lower the tax burden for our burgeoning small businesses and their owners, for the fishermen who make their only living out on the Gulf, and giving the attention to our rising coastal levels that this administration has paid less than lip service to. This community isn’t new to any of these problems, and we have made inroads in solving them on what levels we can. Now it’s time to bring this all the way up to the top where the rest of the state can join in.

Disaster relief is never easy – there are people are still struggling with the effects of Katrina to this day – but the lessons of what can be done if it’s carried out correctly are a vision worth pursuing. Certainly Louisiana has had more than its fair share of suffering from incompetently performed relief. It’s time to change that, and the initiative for that lies not just with the next Governor, but with a legislature of people who have fought for their communities just as hard. Please welcome one of them now, Gretna: your next state representative!

[Joseph Cao]

[The Representative joined Frank Fisher in the French Quarter to assist local volunteers in getting people to the polls; their efforts concluded in the late afternoon with a series of speeches livestreamed on Federalist websites and social media.]

I’ve gone over this before, but all of us here today know the stakes of this election. We have an administration in office that has, by and large, failed the people of Louisiana because it has not demonstrated that it cares about any of them – urban or rural. We are here because we believe there is hope for a better administration which will actually work for the people rather than simply paying lip service to them, because at its heart this is an issue of whether our Governor and our legislature want to fulfil their role as duly-elected public servants. We believe they can actually care. Those of us up here onstage certainly believe the Federalists are in a position to demonstrate what we have said over and over in the past few weeks.

That is why Ken here, and the legislative candidates up and down this state, and the Federalist Party of Louisiana have not engaged in pointless gotchas on the campaign trail just to send up other parties. I don’t doubt it is fun to do so. But a party serious about governing is not going to spend its capital out in this rarefied partisan atmosphere in this fashion. We don’t need to depend on rhetorical devices to prove that we care; what our legislators have done, the quietly effected change which has been accomplished by our candidates in their various local offices, matters more than whatever complaining is done out on the campaign trail. The mark of what a party has to offer lies in what it has done in private more than what it says in public.

We in the Federalist Party certainly know which of those is more important for voters as we draw the curtains on another legislative session, in which many of our own legislators did exemplary work on everything from farming loans to Main Street investment grants to broadband installation to drinking water. The word of a single man in Baton Rouge is not going to change the quiet community work that our legislators have been effecting on behalf of their constituents; we know this because there is already a man in Baton Rouge whose entire record stands against that. Louisianans aren’t political naïfs. They know when their pols are pulling a fast one on them and that applies regardless of party. So we believe in granting them that basic respect out here on the campaign trail as well as in government.

That is the reason why I don’t put much stock in whatever polls or confidences are being trumpeted anywhere here – the people of Louisiana know well what an unheeding partisan trifecta has done for them these past months. The answer to that is – nothing! Get rid of the partisanship for partisanship’s sake, as candidates up and down the ballot have pleaded this month, and the battlefield clears. We aren’t finding any solutions for the people of Louisiana otherwise. And the Federalist governing philosophy is not one to get drunk on its own abilities as this administration has done. We’re more than aware that government is only as strong as the people it serves and legislated accordingly. That lies behind the Federalist commitment, too, to making sure other parties get the fair hearing they deserve, rather than being shut down over and over as they’ve been with Labor running the legislative show; the ideas they bring to the table are as necessary to Louisianans’ wellbeing as any others.

As much as others on the campaign trail might disagree, we here in the Federalist Party are not about to abandon conciliation. It is the only way for politics to become the art of the possible – all that is possible for the struggling single mom in Shreveport and the young unemployed man in New Orleans and the Acadiana family trapped by rising floodwaters. Atlascare and police reform and countless other achievements on the federal and regional levels have been the result of that willingness to seek accommodation rather than giving no quarter. Because of what these have done for Atlasians, because of what can still be done, we are not going to let what is possible for the people of Louisiana get run into a corner by the need to breathe partisan fumes on the campaign trail.

Different needs – the people’s needs, as articulated by people with a far better local understanding of Louisianans’ needs than mine – are taking precedence here in the Federalist Party, and you bet they will do just that in office as well. But enough from me about that. He can do it better than I, so kindly welcome your next Lieutenant Governor, Frank Fisher, up here for a few words!

[Joseph Cao]

Outdoor rally in New Orleans, Louisiana alongside gubernatorial ticket, Southern Delegate Abdullah, and other Federalist luminaries

Thanks to the next Governor of Louisiana for, once again, giving us exactly what needs to be heard during this election season. My thanks to all of you here as well for showing up this evening. I couldn’t be more proud of the work that has been done over the past months by all you wonderful folks. Certainly I trust you will all have that opportunity in the coming months as well.

We have spoken about innumerable issues this election, and certainly it will soon fall to the thousands of communities in Louisiana to assess which party has made the best case to each of them. But I believe it is important that the people of Louisiana are as best-equipped as they can possibly be before exercising their fundamental civic duty. We need to know exactly what the need is this election, where we stand, why we’ve gotten here, and how we can get out of it; we run the risk, otherwise, of running round and round in a political train engine that tears itself to pieces, proposing policy after policy that uses up the precious resource of good governance. Goodness knows there’s a shortage of it in the Governor’s office at the moment.

When we here in the Feds get called one of the big parties it is often meant as a pejorative. I for one, however, take pride in this party of ours that has continuously survived for the longest time period among all major parties on the scene today, with the legislative record to show for it at both the federal and regional levels, and I suspect the rest of the party feels the same way. We’ve survived and we are here today in front of you all because the voters know what we stand for and always have: we fight for the autonomy in politics that our communities deserve, in the rights we possess as individuals and as regions with all the policy that follows on from that basic foundation. We can stand on our own without being propped up by a much larger party or fighting for the kingmaker’s privilege. As a giant of Louisianan politics once alluded to, that fundamental opportunity for the individual is what Louisiana needed then and needs now; it is an opportunity which the Federalist Party, an individual- and community-oriented party of long standing, is well-equipped to tackle.

As we have stressed before, however, being able to stand on our own two feet does not mean we are about to ignore the rest of the body politic. Governor Bouisseau made the mistake of pushing aside everyone who did not vote for him, consistent with the way he and his party handlers from out west campaigned last November. Can it be any clearer that the people of Louisiana regardless of partisan affiliation have suffered because of it? That’s a mistake we can’t afford to make again. Neither Ken Pham nor Frank Fisher nor any of our candidates have entertained the notion that we alone can fix things. Why would we? We’re limited in our ability and capacity. We know very well that other parties have solutions and ideas of their own; we aren’t too proud, as Governor Bouisseau has been, to admit when the people need those ideas. And it is a privilege of our governing model and political philosophy that uniquely among the players on the political scene today, we can recognize that fact without surrendering our values as a party.

So here’s where we stand today: the last seven months have made it beyond obvious that simple partisanship topped off with bluster and braggadocio does not work as a governing philosophy. And the lives of Louisianans are far too important to continue this path of mucking things up. There is one party on the ballot which has not gone all in on the my-way-or-the-highway politics that has all but driven this state off the cliff. There is one party which has the governing philosophy needed to accommodate the wide range of solutions which Louisianans and their state legislators have to offer. There is one party with the presence to accommodate all this with the skill and basic governing competence that we really, really need right now, without getting our state bogged down in ill-afforded partisan squabbling once again. There is exactly one party which has consistently demonstrated this in its words and actions over the past seven months, on the campaign trail these past weeks, and is ready to back that up in the coming term. That is the Federalist Party, ladies and gentlemen, and that is the party I firmly believe you will all consider as you go out to vote for the party that has made the best case to you.

Please go out and do your civic duty if you haven’t already – your families need your voice to be heard; your communities need your voice to be heard; this state needs your voice to be heard. Thank you all, Louisiana. Thank you, New Orleans! Stay safe, everyone, and good night.

[Joseph Cao]

Hey, folks. While we move over to the new Senate, this is about as good an opportunity as any to stop and recognize an office that has run five years and thirty Congresses, and as the last Speaker of the House – at least until we change our minds again – I would not be doing my position justice if I did otherwise.

The Speakers have often done exceptional work. Obviously Yankee set the gold standard, and I’m glad to have recognized that in my own small way with the Ten Commandments; but the Peritagn duo, Jimmy, YE, and Thumb also helped keep the House running at the top of its game for two years between them. Aside from Clark’s status as the inaugural holder of this office, it should be a source of Atlasian pride that the People’s House has chosen Speakers of all major ideological camps to assume this post – running the gamut from Fhtagn to Ninja to Elcaspar and MB. While we will soon be vacating this chamber, I’m hoping my returning fellow congressmen will continue to ensure the Senate reflects this same sensitivity to the people’s needs.

I’ve cleaned and polished the Speaker’s gavel and will be presenting it in its box to Senator Yankee before swearing-in later. Hopefully it finds a use – either for its intended purpose sometime in the near or distant future, or as a reminder to the Atlasian people of what the People’s House has accomplished for this nation.

Wishing everyone the best,



(and for the last time)
People’s Speaker of the House of Representatives

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Well put Mr. Cao. And thanks for your service.

[Joseph Cao]

Couple of reposts for posterity.

Memphis, Tennessee

All right, everyone. Thank you for coming out this morning, Memphis! Thanks for having us, and thank you to the state Senate candidate who kindly invited me here. I've been called the Congressman from Little Egypt one too many times, I guess, and someone finally decided to ship me down here to see some pyramids.

There is another institution that's as old as the pyramids, which is just as much of a base provider of support for the people of Memphis, and Tennessee, and the South, and Atlasia in general. You won't need me to tell you that that is the family. Families are the first point of contact for most all of us coming into the wider circles that ripple across the nation. Their efforts or the absence of their efforts shape successive generations of this nation's citizens. And more to the point, the effects felt by our families here in Memphis and other places like it are inescapable in the dealings of a place like Nyman or Nashville or even the city hall here. As a wise man down south once said, you don't get a good handle on anyone's lives – certainly not to the extent needed if you are to legislate for them or represent them – without standing in their skin and walking around in it. Nobody begins to get that handle unless they can dedicate themselves to understanding the shapes of families, the holes left behind when they separate and the people who fall through the cracks, and the many others who still struggle inside and outside of those first relationships.

I want to be very clear about this. The administration which Governor Monson has overseen these past seven months stands absolutely firm in its dedication to that understanding. They know well the importance of supporting new families and their continued mission of survival and growth, as many of our fellow politicos do. Just ask your Senators Yankee and Spark about that. But beyond that, I think there is a tendency for government to get blinkered by these nice parts of the picture, forgetting that those arrangements we deem successful don't tell the full story. That pyramid has a wide base, a base that covers families whole and broken, coasting and struggling and lost, many who need more help but aren't in a position to ask for it themselves. And our understanding isn't complete without them.

The Governor and the legislators by his side have made clear through their actions the necessity of attending to these folks, the orphans and widows and widowers and divorcees and deeply scarred children and parents left behind by the forces that tear these same institutions apart. Certainly the state Senate candidate here with us this morning will shortly be able to tell you all about her own contributions and the paid family leave extension proposal currently working its way through the city council. COVID-19's economic effects haven't quite stopped and as she will be able to explain, this is a proposal that will take a massive load off Memphis's citizens as they deal with the aftershocks. This care for one's fellow man is evident throughout our state, going down through all levels of government, and I'm glad that the public-minded citizens of Memphis are taking notice of what can be done here in the city and over in Nashville.

We in the government are only one part of a society full of moving parts, and not a very efficient one at that. Government shouldn't pretend to have all the answers – nobody has all the answers – but this state and its people are going to be caught at the other end of the downswing if we, or any one of those other moving parts, waver from our commitment to these principles. I hope that in the coming weeks the public servants of Tennessee will continue to further explain the breadth and depth of their dedication to protecting all this state's people, those in families and those without, but for the time being it isn't my place to talk about those further. Please welcome your next state senator, Amber Coleman!

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Good afternoon, Pine Bluff! I couldn't be more pleased to be here with you all and I trust you feel the same way about braving this August heat to get to know your candidates. So I'll keep my own remarks brief.

It's back-to-school time for Arkansan families and their kids and there must needs be a reckoning for the policies that have been in force over the past school year. I am going to skip all the sound and fury that you folks must have heard while stuck in that political football that others were kicking around this time last year – those in the Tulsa media market have seen it up close and personal. Let me instead get straight to the point. Suffice it to say that the actual effects that our kids and parents have experienced this past year have flown severely under the radar; with COVID nearly in the rearview mirror, it is the Arkansas Federalist Party's position that that needs to change, and they have the legislative activity to show for it.

Schools across this state need a cohesive plan for lifting some of the obvious drags on our kids' learning and comprehension that were put in place during COVID's worst and least understood period, and which Governor Chapman hasn't touched since assuming office as the pandemic began its downswing although he has had all that time to do so. And it is perhaps all very easy to just ask the districts to decide for themselves and call it a day. I’ve seen some local operatives all too eager to paint that sort of strawman as some sort of clever political attack on our party. But have we seen the state of our districts? Dumping this all-important series of calls on them at the busiest time of the year is not going to go well.

No, our children's educational and development prospects are not an area where state government can kick up its heels and let others do the work. Not when the Governor possesses tools to help fix the problem rather than prolonging it or kicking it away. We have the vaccination data, the state of our school districts’ funds and organization, and the all-important line to Nashville. There is a very straightforward plan that might be followed, with a better way to oversee the whole picture and make recommendations to individual school districts via a statewide task force that already exists, which you can find on our gubernatorial candidate's platform. What are we doing with all that useful stuff? If the state of the school board meeting I just dropped into earlier today in Watson Chapel is any indication, not much at all.

As I invite its architect up here to elaborate on our proposed system, let me just say one thing that has been hovering around most of our minds – certainly the minds of the Federalist legislators whose good legislative efforts have run aground on the breakers of a stubbornly partisan governor's office. If our Governor is unable or unwilling to use the data and compilations and advice available to anyone in his position, we in the Federalist Party would like to borrow them for a time. We are not beginning the school year over again with a plan designed for last year's battle; we need one for the present and for our kids’ futures. On that note, let me invite you all to join me in welcoming Senator Jay Hammersmith, the next Governor of Arkansas!

Houston, Texas

Houston! Thanks, everyone, for waiting. Thank you for coming, and happy Friday! I'll take my chances with today being the 13th. If there's any bad luck to come I think the welcome you've given us this evening more than makes up for it.

This city is on the move – out of COVID, out of the economic straits that left thousands out on their ear, into a future with enough potential to lift up everyone who lives here and calls Houston home, if we can commit to continuing Mayor Ferrera’s dedication to leaving nobody behind. Houstonians have seen more than their fair share of getting displaced by new four-lane highways, but the highway this administration has been building over the past several months through their community-driven policies strives to do the opposite: keeping everyone together and able to enjoy the fruits of their amazing city.

It should be stressed that this is not the kind of “I alone can fix it” we hear too often in political circles. Nobody alone can fix it and Houston is no different; even the mayor of Texas' premier city knows it precisely because other fellow Texans and Southerners and Atlasians take a keen interest in its affairs. So she's worked with whoever she can. Governor Bryant and the legislature like to ham it up for the campaign trail, but as far as Mayor Ferrera herself is concerned there's no need for that. Houston thrives on differences. It was built by people who held their mutual differences in kind and named for someone who very much knew the stakes that those differences gave rise to. And so, today, in the year of our Dave 2021, do we.

Those differences are obvious even to the average citizen, as are their fruit: the policies of a successful push for better housing, a smaller carbon footprint in municipal services, and an increased spotlight on the city's own innovations both economic and industrial which have brought innumerable benefits to Texan workers. The city leadership holds a great number of cards in its hands with which to help Houstonians. In this next round of Houston's own city-wide hold'em, Mayor Ferrera is not going to back down from continuing to play those cards. Here to tell you all about how she's been doing that in Houston so far, please welcome the mayor herself!

[Joseph Cao]

[Along with Governor Monson, who he was tasked to introduce, the Senator joined some state legislative candidates in Brentwood to assist and highlight local Federalist GOTV efforts. All activities, including the speech below, were carried out with COVID vulnerabilities in mind.]

Good to see you all here today, Brentwood! The heat is something else, and I have no doubt many of you have places to be this weekend, so I’ll keep this brief.

I guess the first thing on my mind is to thank everyone we’ve seen on the road so far. Not just the Governor, and not just the people who have been running for the legislature in this neck of the woods. Senator Scott was in Nyman yesterday the same time I was and we had a nice cordial chat about legislative business, and although I suspect he’d disagree somewhat, I intend to keep our side of the campaign here an equally civil one and applaud the instances where he’s done the same. Not that there aren’t some instances where the people of Tennessee deserve to see the record set straight.

One thing first: Labor is surely correct when its leaders talk about coming together. That is indisputably something we need, nowhere more so than here at the local level where so much of your policy is decided. But where I disagree, and where your Governor and the state representatives and senators who have been fighting for Brentwood in the legislature disagree, is with where our friends across the aisle are coming from.

I will take the vote I just cast in the Senate, which our august PPT talked about earlier this afternoon. It’s unsurprising that I supported that bill when my voting history has been consistently for a reasonable application of government resources, a theme I have highlighted from my very first campaign. The other Senators who voted for it no doubt have different reasons for their stance – the activists at ground level who have pushed for the bill no doubt have reasons of their own for having thrown their support behind it. There are plenty of them in Atlasia and more than enough room for all the varying viewpoints that are represented in the Senate.

That’s the kind of coming together we need more of: people beginning from different positions and backgrounds who can find common ground. Good policy comes from just this kind of widely differing background. That's the governing approach that Governor Monson and the legislature have favored in a state where inviting everyone to the table has had to be a fact of political life. But it certainly will not be continued with a Labor-led state government that relies on national arguments for its viability – which says plenty about where its priorities in office will lie.

Tennessee voters are looking for leaders who will pay attention to the specific needs of their communities, as Governor Monson has done: he’s focused on the issues which this state's citizens have faced and brought solutions to the table which are tailored for the communities he serves. And the people of Tennessee will get to decide the best option for their state government: one focused on adding yet another voice to the national position, or one where they can keep building on the progress they make when the  national and regional and state governments are able to find common ground from differing positions. Thanks for the time, Brentwood, and please join me in welcoming Governor Andrew Monson for a few remarks!

[Joseph Cao]

[Continuing the day's campaign, Senator Cao and an assortment of state legislative candidates from the area took the time to stump in west-central Tennessee. The following speech was delivered to a masked and/or vaccinated audience in Waverly.]

Waverly! Thank you, once again, for having us. And we’re happy as always to see so many of you vaccinated – the more the merrier!

We must also thank the state senator, of course, for inviting us here to talk about a pressing issue. Flooding has been a recurrent threat in recent weeks thanks to severe rainfall; it’s always places like Waverly that get hit the hardest. Our first responders do a fine job in limiting the damages and injuries, of course, but they can’t be the last resort when faced with recurring threats like this. And unlike hurricanes or earthquakes, the public servants you elect have had the capabilities to do something about those. The municipal council has been enormously helpful in mitigating the threat of excess stormwater, crucially by planning and overseeing the restoration of streams that will flow and capture that excess during flash flooding conditions. And the state Senator here, together with the Governor, in turn has been up at the state Capitol pushing for funds for more such efforts and a statewide coordination of natural barriers against floodwaters.

Furthermore, the legislature and Governor Monson have had one overarching goal, underneath all the policy nitty-gritty they've brought to you over the past six months, beyond the natural restoration and the attention to the Tennessee Valley and the protections for homes and small businesses that have helped so many in this part of the state. For all its faults, our political landscape is still one where people like you can reach across communities and recognize the worth that everyone holds. It matters still that this state has problems and solutions to those problems that cannot just be solved with what works at other levels of government. The Federalist goal here, in accordance with our founding and history, has been to take those basic separations into account so as to maintain a civic environment wholly within the control of Tennesseeans, in which those problems and those solutions can be best considered.

We Federalists don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we do recognize what works about those lines that lie between the local and the regional and the federal: they give the people of Tennessee the best way to work out policies that work for everyone – not just partisans on either side. A party that blurs those lines and conflates what matters to your community and what doesn’t is not a party that will be a good steward for the people it wants to serve. That way lies a flattening of the political landscape and a breakdown of what has worked for addressing the specific issues each community faces.

Nobody benefits when those boundaries are broken, least of all you, the people in the path of those floodwaters. And we will work just as hard to protect the people of Tennessee from those politically driven floodwaters as we’ve done with the physical ones. That is a word that every Federalist up and down this state can be counted on to keep, not least the man who has been out here on the front lines with you all and done something to address the issue: your state senator, Silas Baumgartner!

[Joseph Cao]

[Mr. Cao joined the Governor and several state legislative candidates at an outdoor rally, subject to vaccination conditions, to close off the day’s campaigning.]

Good evening, Oak Ridge – I know everyone here with us today has been vaccinated, the folks back at the entrance have seen to that, and for that I must thank you all sincerely. Following the science can sound overused, what with the actual science-following many of you carry out at work. But it really does matter for each and every citizen to continue to recognize the efficacy of our vaccines and the lives they save.

The state representative has had much to say; I won’t rehash everything that she’s told you about. But keeping with my opening remarks, I want to focus in on the telehealth initiative she got through the legislature three months ago which has further boosted eastern Tennessee’s healthcare infrastructure. Thanks to that bill we’ve seen the opening of new rural clinics with the capabilities for remote consulting and diagnosis, including via landline, which the facilities at Oak Ridge have made possible. It is all part of the thriving sense of community that the Atomic City has built and taken the initiative in trying to assist other communities around them. We owe much to those little uniquenesses both in technology and in community spirit that stand as a beacon for the future of East Tennessee.

Those uniquenesses are worth preserving: as the representative demonstrated, they save lives and get communities back on track. In aiming to preserve them the partnership between local and federal agencies is a necessary but delicate one and we’re glad, we in the Senate, of the opportunity to work with people like Representative Piper here who have had the vision to guide their communities in implementing better health services where they’re most needed. It wouldn’t have been possible without the work that community partners like the Baptist Association put in; work from the ground up has been the driving force behind the realization of these and many other bills that help ordinary Tennesseeans. And if Joan here and her fellow state legislators and Governor Monson are reelected, they are more than ready to carry on that important work of keeping the people of Tennessee on an equal footing with their state and regional and federal governments.

That’s a promise we make to the people of Oak Ridge and all the other Tennesseans watching this evening. Others on the campaign trail have decided the best course of action is to make us radioactive and tear down the men and women who deserve none of the attacks they’ve been getting – we won’t do that. Radioactivity may mean one thing to the rest of the country, but here in Oak Ridge we know quite well the little uniqueness it has led to and the scientific immortality it’s given the great state of Tennessee!

Uniquenesses are worth preserving, whether physical or political or in the lives of all our citizens. Thanks, Oak Ridge, for hearing me. Please join me now in welcoming the state Senator!

[Joseph Cao]

[An early-morning gathering in Sharpstown saw Mr. Cao join the Mayor to stump for the upcoming election and headline GOTV efforts in western parts of the city. The speech the Senator delivered to a masked and/or vaccinated crowd is reprinted below.]

Thank you, Sharpstown. And good morning! I’ve seen Mayor Ferrera’s idea of a lovely morning and if it includes so many of you keeping each other safe with the vaccination and continued mask-wearing in its absence, I must say I’m inclined to agree with her.

Sharpstown’s seen a bit of a controversy with the rules update that its civic association has been going through with the community, and while I won’t weigh in on the nitty-gritty of it – the Mayor will have plenty of time to treat it with the justice it deserves later – I do want to briefly outline how things have shaken out in the context of some wider trends that Houston has seen. And it also seems prudent to give everyone a framework within which they can think about this and hopefully reach a solution, as ongoing a process as that might be.

Set aside the little details for a moment. At the core of things there was a basic fear from the people it would affect, you folks here in Sharpstown, of adverse consequences from the conversion to a homeowners’ association: the annual fees, for instance, and the threat of foreclosure that was introduced by the change. And when people made noise about these, there was a protracted process that ended with checks on those powers being added to the language of the new rules. Regardless of the amount of making the political personal that went down during this process, people were willing to accommodate for those with less physical or financial capabilities in their thought process. Even in the heated debate that comes over people’s ability to stay in their homes, you get the resolution you did thanks to the willingness of people on both sides of the divide to listen and act on what they heard.

We still need to listen. It gets thankless at times – scratch that, most of the time nowadays – and people often don’t listen back. I would know; Nyman hammers that into your brain sooner or later. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue trying. It especially doesn’t give us carte blanche to go in the opposite direction and continue driving wedges between our fellow citizens: that goes for local activists here in Houston and the people who piled into Texas to campaign and, yes, the Southern Governor. Listen to your neighbors, open channels with them, keep making sure you have the facts and don’t pound the table if you don’t have them. We have an increasing shortage of officials willing to keep to that, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still recognize those who do.

Mayor Ferrera knows quite well the importance of the trust Houston placed in her. And in the face of attempts to poison the trust between Houston’s citizens and turn a serious election into a proxy monkey-knife fight, we will continue as Federalists in the goal of repaying that trust and aiming in everything we do for this city to create a more welcoming Houston and a better physical and political environment for all of you. Please join me now, Sharpstown, in welcoming the Mayor. Come on up, Mayor Ferrera!

[Joseph Cao]

[Moving through northwestern neighborhoods of the city, the campaign swing with Mayor Ferrera made a stop in Inwood Forest to talk about a pet issue of the mayor’s. Mr. Cao introduced the mayor at a COVID-compliant event with remarks of his own along the same theme.]

Before I say anything else, I want to thank every candidate in the race who has done something to lower the temperature of the race, build bridges and keep a positive tone. It means a lot to me and, I’m sure, to many of the proud Houstonians who will head to the polls soon; we want to keep this city a welcoming one for all its disparate communities.

There’s plenty we can do to help those communities and one way is to invest directly into them with their input. Take the initiative the Mayor’s taken up to build opportunities in underserved and underresourced communities around which their residents can build further improvements to their community life and livelihoods. It is a rather new project compared to the other initiatives the Mayor has been pursuing, but it’s the initial communities of focus like Inwood Forest that it’s meant to help the most; happily, Inwood Forest and others like it appear to be taking very well to the opportunity thus far.

People need to have homes and neighborhoods where they can feel secure. It’s another thing altogether, however, to stimulate the rather more intangible sense of pride in each and every one of Houston’s communities. Like Inwood Forest, many of them have been left at the physical and economic margins of the city; what we want to do, and are working towards with the collaboration of people like you and the local civic association, is get communities’ input on what they most need to create more dynamic and close-knit neighborhoods. The vocational center being planned right now is going to provide small business resources and job-training opportunities. And as with others in the planning stage with other neighborhoods across this city, they will also provide residents with a community area and the amenities Inwood Forest most needs.

Of course, much of this operates according to the classic Federalist mantra of the autonomy which communities need if the people living in them are to see a better life and better livelihoods. We’re not about to forget the importance of Inwood Forest and others like it to the myriad opportunities that Houston has provided and will provide, and in our efforts to help everyone share in it we view the concerted involvement of these communities as key. Mayor Ferrera will continue to give the people of Houston an equal voice and a say in how best to make improvements to this beautiful city – if you likewise give your say in the mayoral election. Thank you all, remember to go vote, and please welcome the Mayor of Houston!

[Joseph Cao]

[While Federalist volunteers continued their work in Houston’s eastern neighborhoods to finish the past three weeks’ GOTV efforts, Senator Cao and the Mayor assisted in efforts in Houston's Third Ward and addressed some of the residents’ pressing concerns. The speech reprinted below was delivered to a vaccinated and/or masked audience at an outdoor livestreamed event.]

Thanks to the Mayor for that excellent speech. And thank you, Houston, for having us here!

I don’t think I am exaggerating when I say that you folks here in the Third Ward have consistently been in the Mayor’s thoughts. Eastern Houston needs every bit of help it can get: homes all across this part of Houston have flooded before, have been hit by rolling blackouts before, have braved extreme summers and winters before, and undoubtedly will again. We all understand this very well, the Mayor included. And the threat that Houston faces from this is something that demands mayoral action faster and sooner than almost anywhere else in our country. If anyone thinks a Federalist isn’t equipped to face that kind of threat down and protect the people under their watch, they’d be mistaken – that’s exactly what Mayor Ferrera has done.

The people who live in harm’s way every time a hurricane runs up the Gulf or a cold front parks itself over the South need to know how they’ll be kept safe in situations like these. As these get more common, it becomes even more imperative that the response to them is as targeted as possible: Houston officials work with what forecasts they have of these things and need to make a judgement of how severe the threat will be to get the proportionate response. This isn’t an easy job, but thanks to an overhaul of Harris County’s emergency operation plans – which the Mayor undertook in consultation with state officials – we are past the old binary of evacuating the entire city or leaving everyone to stay put while remembering the lessons of previous unsuccessful evacuations. The Third Ward, especially, is always at rather higher risk of these events and so the need to pay attention to our municipal and state weather reports cannot be stressed enough.

There’s also the component of housing and infrastructure to consider. Every winter storm or summer flood that hits is going to leave thousands of homes damaged in some way. Again, this has been moving forward with the ongoing review of our city’s building codes and their resiliency and risk of damage from these weather events, and attention paid in particular to providing stormwater systems with greater drainage capacity. City leadership is already coordinating with state officials, once again, to find funds and manpower for the next step of fixing high-risk sections of Houston and that is an ongoing project that, for the sakes of Houstonian lives and livelihoods, I hope will be continued by whoever steps into the mayor’s office next month.

Houston is going to judge Mayor Ferrera based on what she has done while in office, as a public servant accountable to you all, and on no other metric; once again it is imperative that the people of this city know quite clearly the role they are playing here, and not fall for the misdirection which other campaigners have engaged in regarding this important question. We’ve been accountable to you and we will tell you where we stand – and the rest we leave up to Houston to decide. Win or lose we’ll stand with a present and future that protects you all. Go cast your vote, folks, and thank you all.

[Joseph Cao]

[In the afternoon, a state representative was observed at an event hosted by the Tennessee College of Applied Technology in the company of an exhausted Senator Cao, who gave the following speech to another COVID-compliant audience.]

It’s great to see everyone out here in Shelbyville this afternoon. Special thanks to the good folks of the local technical college who invited the state representative and I here, and I am of course very happy to see that everyone’s continuing to keep themselves safe from COVID. Keep those vaccinations going if you haven’t gotten them yet!

I’m happy to be here for reasons beyond that, though. This is ground zero for some of our nation’s most important work, work which I was beyond pleased to be able to bring to the federal level with my recent bill. The folks on the ground here will see much of the cybersecurity legislation implemented under their watch; none more keenly, I’m sure, than Shelbyville and its long-running specialized IT program and databases which provided the impetus for the cyber reporting system established by my bill.

Cybersecurity has become an economic and national security issue all its own, so places like TCAT are and remain invaluable for training students and bringing people from all sectors of the cybersecurity field into contact with them. By giving trainees hands-on work on the frontlines of the cyber industry and access to the pipeline of industry openings which their newfound skills open up for them, places like these are creating jobs and anchoring communities and breathing new life into the critical infrastructure upon which our nation runs. It’s unsurprising that the program was launched in response to that very issue.

In fact, the infrastructure here at TCAT is critical in more ways than one. Brian here would know. He’s one of the youngest members of the state House thanks to having cut his teeth at this very program as a TCAT alumnus, living proof that technical and community colleges don’t put you behind in the world. And beyond his focus on national and state cyber infrastructure (the subject of a bill he’s still working on, I’ve heard) he wants to get national employers to start thinking the same way. For huge numbers of Tennesseans and Southerners these colleges are the most viable path towards a good career. Their caliber rivals those of the more big-name colleges in areas like these, where up-and-comers can find their way into the future that Brian and his classmates faced and bring new jobs and opportunities to their communities.

Other programs like it are going to be the backbone of Tennessee’s future workforce and we in the Federalist Party are more than happy to have folks like Brian lead the charge for this new economy. Look at Governor Monson’s track record on education funding and the work he’s done to help our kids keep learning – look at Brian and his fellow legislators and the steps they’re taking to bring all Tennesseans along for the ride. It’s a record that can continue to help each and every person in Tennessee if you come out and get them back in office. Thanks for the time, Shelbyville; please now welcome the man himself, your alumnus and state representative, Brian Agnew!

[Joseph Cao]

[On a final stop before heading to Nyman, Mr. Cao joined the Governor and some state legislators at an evening outdoor rally in Johnson City which was subject to vaccination requirements and, in their absence, audience masking. His speech is reprinted below for public release.]

I want to thank the Governor for his excellent speech, first of all, and thank you all here in Johnson City for having us. Being here all the way at the end of the state with you all, and seeing so many of you vaccinated, is a rather good way to cap off the day. If media reports of your achievements in the culinary and performance arts are accurate, I couldn’t think of a better place to be this evening.

The going’s been pretty tough this past year. But people here don’t give up easily when the going gets tough, as the Tri-Cities Independent Restaurant Group has demonstrated. COVID did an especially big number on the dining industry; here in this part of the state, as with others all over Atlasia, it’s been a long slope back up from the dire straits we saw at the height of the pandemic. Recovery’s lagged more than it ought to for the small business owners here in Tennessee. In such times restaurants need to get in touch with their elected officials at all levels of government, and likewise all levels of government need a handle on the issues faced by restaurateurs and small business owners more broadly.

So what happens when neither party knows where to look or what to look for? Those here in the Tri-Cities are nothing if not eager to get the ball rolling and join hands to keep each other afloat, as several dozen of them did this time last year when they formed a coalition to tackle some of the more pressing issues and loop in elected officials to help do the same. Thanks to their well-publicized efforts to share knowledge of the common issues they’re facing, Representative Mikalatos here has been able to do just that, with a special focus on a group that often gets passed over when talking about the restaurant industry.

In his work with the group and the subsequent legislation which he brought onto the House floor this past spring, Mark has paid special attention to the thousands of employees who are represented under the group but don’t necessarily get a say in what happens. Employee retention and recruitment’s been a big issue during the pandemic; coming together as a group has allowed the Tri-Cities restaurateurs to experiment with new ways to create better conditions for staff and help build careers out of the specialized jobs they’re often called upon to do. It’s tips like these that have convinced our state legislature to pass Mark’s bill, which also includes some suggestions to alleviate other problems faced by the restaurant owners – I’m sure many of you will recall the spirited debate over changing the liquor tax. The ways across the issue that have come up in the course of that debate will naturally be of great interest to restaurant owners here in Johnson City and all across the state.

Tennessee knows the value of elected officials who respond to their constituents’ concerns and repay the concern in kind – as Mark has done; as your state Senator Brown has done; as Governor Monson has done. It’s up to you folks now to make a judgement about the kind of leadership you want to see for your family, your friends, your neighbors and your state over the next six months. Thank you for listening, folks, and here’s Mark Mikalatos for a few remarks of his own. Please give him a warm welcome!