Alexandria Robins and Gary Kalman

00:01 Hi, my name is Alexandria Robins. I am 25 years old can't believe that today is December 5th, 2018. We are in open gov Hub in Washington DC. I am here with Gary Kalman who is the director of the fact Coalition and we have known each other for several years now working in the transparency space.

00:31 And I'm Gary Kalman. I'm 55 years old. Today's date is December 5th 2018. We're here in Washington DC and I'm here with Allie Alexandria. But you work for several of the same organizations and sort of followed each other on some of the same issues around transparency and accountability.

00:57 So take that thing started that you mentioned that we worked for several of the same organizations, but which will get into but I wanted to sort of rewind and look back to your childhood experience. Why did you decide to come to this space? And what inspires you to do the work that you do?

01:25 2 way to talk about your day and I'm thinking back know that I had a moment, but I will say that there's a couple of things.

01:38 One of which is the story I remember which I was home sick when I was 11 and watching TV cuz that's what you do when you're in 11 year old and the TV program was interrupted and on came the president United States and that was when Richard Nixon resigned and everybody had very summer looking faces and

02:05 And I didn't really fully understand what was happening other than it seemed like a really big deal talk to my parents about it afterwards and it just seemed and over the years, you know is we look back on it, you know, we've been today in the world we live in and live in that it does seem like that was a turning point for the country in some ways that we became a more started jaded cynical country about our governments, you know, we've moved on from the JFK.

02:42 Camelot. Couples with Vietnam and civil rights movement and a bunch of things going on, but that's what is a Capstone that people actually

02:54 A different way to look back on that. I also think.

03:04 And he grew up.

03:09 Really that experience as it would anyone really impacted him. But I remember it was less about the poverty that he lived through and more about the Injustice that a bunch of people did something that crashed the economy and impacted his family.

03:26 And then the government came in when Roosevelt came in and help keep them alive. And so that sort of commitment to a wait a minute good honest responsible government actually can people live keeps me going.

03:42 How much you how did you stumble into this? Yeah, I wouldn't say that I stumbled into it and I actually think that my

03:54 Experience coming to this work as a little bit more personal in the sense that it wasn't such a bright childhood. Happy story for me. My mom actually worked for and run back in the day. I have a very distinct memory when I was about seven years old. My mom approached me and said honey. I don't have a job. My my company has gone underwater and we are in a serious financial situation and I didn't think a whole lot of it, of course because what is a child know when they're seven years old about bankruptcy, but I quickly learned when one day sort of out of the blue the

04:38 Alpharetta County Police Department sheriff came up to our door not rather rather seriously and in his hand he had some papers and I said Mom what it what are those and she said honey. Those are the papers that tell us we have to leave our house.

05:00 Unfortunately, this was something that I had no control over right as a 7 year olds. I remember feeling just so hopeless about the situation that I even ran upstairs to go and grab my piggy bank to try and you know give it to my mom so that she could pay for mortgage.

05:27 And of course no 7 year olds have enough money to to make up that difference in that that pervasive feeling of hopelessness was something that I never wanted anyone else to feel like and I think that is what brings me to this work everyday is that I think we have a real opportunity to make an impact in people's lives and I've made it my mission to make sure that no other little kid has to feel that same hopelessness.

05:57 So a little bit of a satyr story but is a very real it is a very real story and I learned that you know, and Ron say hi and red years later smartest guys in the room and I understood that there were these real big corporate influences that impacted everyday people. I mean our house was foreclosed on and it was not my mother's fault. She was just a poor soul who was encouraged to invest all of her 401k and retirement savings into Enron stock, right and she was done for after that financially and I thought that was just so sickening and now here we are working on corporate transparency issues and it feels very full circle for me.

06:49 And I think is you know, when I talk to people about corporate transparency, is it illegal for 2 hours at me? And in his second of all like whatever okay, but what really at its core is about fighting poverty that the kind of shenanigans that go around that corporations moving money all over the globe or corrupt individuals moving the money all over the globe is draining wealth from especially developing well and so is your look at it is going. Oh, no. I meant I didn't want to live in that property right and no one should

07:24 Exactly, you know.

07:28 I know you work for Elizabeth Warren show Senator Elizabeth Warren. We have to be well, yes, but then I I that was only in the volunteer position that I actually worked in her.

07:53 Areas of focus when she was in our professor was in bankruptcy. So I have to ask you was in the accident that you came across her or you remember that story of your childhood and said of this woman is actually understands what the differences are between, you know living and then tough economic time. No, I think that her message absolutely resonated with me and that's why I was attracted to her initially. I think that it's an interesting story. Actually when I when I was working in her office, I had a really sad experience that still I think it brings me back to this work. There was a family who it was a family is just a mother father and a daughter who is 5 years old.

08:46 They had come into the office on a Friday at 5 p.m. And if you know anything about Congressional offices, they try to close down on a Friday at 5, and I was the only one left in the office.

09:00 And this mother comes up to the front window and is just crying saying she has nowhere to go. What is she going to do? She has just a little bit of gas in her car. I couldn't place them anywhere because at that point all the shelters are closed for the night.

09:20 And I just stood there and I was like I will stand here for as long as you need me to stand here in solidarity with you. I can't do anything for you, but I will listen to you and I will do whatever I can on Monday morning to try and find you housing.

09:37 And of course she was very thankful for that. But I saw myself so much in that little girl, you know that 5 year old who had no place to go and even someone as powerful as Senator Warren couldn't help them in that exact moment, but that didn't mean that you couldn't show humility that you couldn't be there physically present with them.

09:57 And then on Monday, we got them housing. So, you know it ended up working out and I hope they're doing so well now but I think that yeah that that that experience in her office has really changed me and continues to bring me to this work.

10:14 But I wanted to Circle back because we've talked about it a little bit about our work now and in the past but we also share a lot of experience shared experiences about being an organizer. I think both of us identify as being an organizer a community organizer first and sort of a policy person second and I want to hear more about your experiences when you were part of a collective Action Group trying to make a social change effort and what your what your first entry into the space look like

10:53 So my first century was when I was in college and I got connected with a campus group.

11:07 And we was looking at various things and and that was sort of the real growth of you know think globally act locally is everybody was into what can we do in the town of Worcester, Massachusetts where I went to college

11:25 And Worcester was sort of struggling old industrial Town. We're going to factory reset stop. There was some hospitals and universities that employ a bunch of people, but otherwise I'm and

11:41 We went to this community meeting at one point and heard the stories of this woman whose child had his or asthma or some something happened where she had to take the kids to the hospital and it turned out it's because you went to the local park and the kid was playing in the grass.

12:06 And the city had just spray they sprayed the trees in the foliage to keep them off the power lines instead of cutting them, but I didn't tell anybody if they sprayed and they didn't tell him that it was toxic chemicals and didn't tell him that kids can have reactions and should we launch the campaign to not even to stop spraying it was just to say, oh the city should put up sign cuz parents have a right to know right whether or not your taxi come and

12:41 I thought of this will be fun cuz this will take his couple of weeks who's going to jack to just putting up signs and letting parents know that their kitchen roll around in Grass, you know when after a few days or a week or whatever it was. I think it washed away.

12:56 And yet the power company's it would be more expensive to hire people to cut down the branches than it would to just go and spray the stuff universally the chemical companies obviously made money on the chemical in campaign on city council something just to let families know. I was just outrageous to me. And so there's been a number of these stories were people would just almost not believe you when you say I'll come on everybody's the ongoing surprise of my life and continues to be my naivete even though I've been doing this stuff for 30 years is that they're still people that have ject to some of these unbelievably common sense.

13:57 Yeah, absolutely. And you know it as a community organizer myself. I feel like there's so much more work left to be done in that space and I feel like we have so many great public leaders are now calling for you. No more organized efforts in actual communities of impact. I mean, I I remember my second day ever canvassing knocking on doors.

14:27 I'm sure you've had similar experiences like this, but I had stayed up really late the night before in classic fashion putting and data at late at night and we're running an office of 45 people trying to get everybody organized for the day the next day. I was so tired in the morning. I question whether or not I would get out of bed because I was just exhausted.

14:56 And I went out on Turf that day.

15:02 Started knocking on the doors and I

15:06 You know when up to a guy's house and night. I knocked my very polite.

15:12 Canvassing knock

15:15 This this older older man. He must have been in his 70s, you know, just really not not not a friendly Millennial person. I was expecting that day and he just immediately starts railing into me and is screaming you are never going to make change by knocking on these doors and get off my yard in you. Just saying everything that came to his mind that was rude and and not welcoming.

15:47 And we have the saying and canvassing heart of a golden retriever Mind of a goldfish. And I never knew how that phrase could be so Trill because when you get a a person that is not as nice as you would like, you have to sort of pick yourself back up and you got to go to the next door and you have to carry on and I could have let that really really my whole night but I didn't and I ended up raising $1,000 that night and I think as an organizer we have these moments where we think.

16:27 I'm only knocking on this one person's door, but it's a collective thing. I mean, we had 40 organizers going out everyday and knocking on doors and speaking to people and having these conversations. So is there any field story that you would like to tell where you might have been out for the night and had an interesting experience? So I think everybody who's done the sort of Grassroots organizing going out and talking to individuals has had those kinds of moments right where you just think what why am I doing this, Nobody cares?

17:09 United the story I would remember most was I had a one summer which was a good summer and I was directing one of these offices and we have number canvassers and I was going out myself and we're raising money for an environmental campaign in Michigan at Ann Arbor. So is a bunch of great students, you know on their summer break and we had a great time and the actual like organizing and team experience was terrific but going out and knocking on doors every day that summer I didn't number and I just was not doing very well and

17:50 Wasn't getting a lot of support not raising a lot of money and I was getting very frustrated towards the end of the summer. I remember 99 a woman's door. I don't know. She's probably in her 40s.

18:12 And she says well, this is really interesting and we were outside. I'm sorry. We were on her driveway. She just come home and she

18:27 I said to me well, you know, what? Why don't you leave some literature? I'm on my way in. But I have a bunch of stuff to do and I will mail you a contribution.

18:39 And normally right you're supposed to go. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Here. It is you walk away. And for some reason I just let you know what you're telling me this all summer long. If you want to give and you actually are concerned you should do it now and she's new. I promise I will mail it in. I'm just not prepared to do the same and I argued with her a little bit back and forth in a way that you're never supposed to argue.

19:13 And I walked away from the door going once again, somebody just blew me off.

19:19 3 Days Later week later whenever it was his check comes in and as you know, most of these contributions, you know, 25 $30.

19:32 I almost fell off my chair and it was from this woman from the same street and everything.

19:39 It's sort of respect yourself before you a little bit of face that you don't like how this stuff is hard. But eventually you're going to find the folks that really want to get involved in there going to be supportive and Zoe this stuff. It it it made it feel like it was worthwhile. Help me keep going and it is I think that you mentioned the number of the people that you eat weed estimated how many doors you had knocked on and your life and it was something like what 50,000 something like that going a hundred $50 a night.

20:18 And then you multiply that by 6 days a week.

20:23 So forth for months at a time, I mean that's a lot for several years and a lot of people that you've talked to a lot of a lot of Americans all over the country. And that's that's something that I feel like our collective experience. Our shared experience is really valuable that we've gotten to talk to all kinds of different people up and down the political Spectrum.

20:47 Your ass a little tongue-in-cheek, although not entirely, you know people talk about whether or not we should have mandatory public service that you know or between college and high school and college you should you know, take Gap year and do some public service order. I feel like you know, if people if every kid went and knocked spent one summer knocking on doors in some geographic area of the country that is not their own that is would be a better country that people would get you just have a far greater understanding of who people are and where they're coming from and it just changes your perspective. I think and gives you insight into people that otherwise I never let you know I grew up on the you know,

21:37 Northeast, Northeast Osborne in the Bronx, right? We moved to Connecticut and went to school in Massachusetts, and I'm now in Washington DC so

21:48 Clearly I am not somebody who has spent deep time in either the South or the Midwest and yet the five or six years that I spent in, Michigan, Ohio.

22:02 Missouri had a profound impact on the way in which I think I do my work now and you come from Georgia so bad and now you're up here and went to school at Harvard. So you actually do have in addition to whatever additional organizing you done. But you're also life experiences for ASP. And I think what we would say is geographic diversity if that's true. I actually you know this but I went and worked on the elections this November in behalf of Stacey Abrams who unfortunately lost her lost her bid for governor, and I hadn't actually been in Georgia for over a year. And to be honest with you. I hadn't actually done a ton of canvassing in Georgia previously.

22:49 So when I got to Georgia at 4 to show up for this for these canvassing shift size I said, you know send me anywhere send me anywhere across the state and I'll go and I'll I'll do put in the hard work and they said well, we really need people in rural Georgia to go and knock on these doors and I'm sure you know this but when you're in rural, Georgia, the doors can be quite far apart from each other. You have to drive between the doors and those experiences that I had on Turf were no different than the doors that I had knocked on. I mean the people were not that different than the people I met in Massachusetts people. I met in Ohio the people I met in Nevada, I mean at the core of the messages that were all Americans trying to do our best in life and and get to where we want to go but

23:44 I do obviously love Georgia. I mean, it's my home state, so I have an affinity for it, but

23:50 I want to talk to talk about.

23:54 The current work that you're doing with fact, should we Define that? Yeah, so fact is the financial accountability and corporate transparency coalition.

24:07 A little bit of a mouthful but we do a lot of different work. Can you talk a little bit about the issues that were working on and know that we do tax and we work on the corporation transparency stuff.

24:18 Rachel I think that you know, this is where when I started to think back about what motivates and is and we all want to write say the best of our better Angels drive us to make the world a better place, but I think to some degree it's a mix if I'm going to be really honest. It's a mix of yeah, I want to make the world a better place, but I'm also driven a little bit by a lot of people are by being pissed off or angry at some of the Injustice has that you seen a different people come at different ways. And I think that that has it does feel like today's environment. Everybody is angry at each other but

25:01 The Nixon stuff and then after that I worked a lot of campaign Finance reform and you know Catholics and government lobbying reform. So how I come to this work is sort of an extension of that and what fact does it with the Coalition primary if you will is taking a look at the secret Financial flows and it will take all illicit Financial flows around the world with a lot of money and it's the big problem did many problems but one of the problems is that there are corrupt folks leaders of countries and people that have access to public funds.

25:48 They'll take them because there's not a lot of transparency in these countries is countries where they don't put the budgets on the internet. They don't know what's you know, nobody knows what's coming in or going out and so stealing a billion dollars is not that hard the hard part is what do you do with it? Where do you put it? And so the secret structures with a call Anonymous companies? This is companies. We don't actually have to name that you want it so you can set up something you can put it in you can put it in the name of your cat and which I did. Well, there's a funny video right on YouTube you go on right and you type in Delaware shell company and Suki the cat it is

26:31 A 3-minute video or whatever of this woman registering company and they work at trying to put on video because it's totally legal anyway, so you would imagine that if you're allowed that kind of secrecy that those entities are going to be exploited. And I remember when I went to Panama when I first took this job the International anti-corruption Conference, which by the way the internet International anti-corruption Conference being placed in Panama the same year as the Panama papers came out the leak that exposed a bunch of anonymous companies and how people were stashing money all over the place.

27:20 But I remember listening to the story of two to Alex and is the guy from Equatorial Guinea who now, I think was in Georgia. The matter fact, I think is based in Atlanta and he tells the story of how he got involved in this economic Justice work because his sister,

27:42 I had a complication with her pregnancy serious complication but something that required medical attention and they went to the local Health Center, but there was no doctor that was.

27:56 On call that day because there wasn't enough money in the medical system to make sure that all the health centers were staff with doctors on a daily basis. So I think they traveled around whatever and so what ended up being a minor complication that could have easily been fixed. She ended up dying. It is unbelievably tragic story that you just can't listen to him. Tell it without crying and he has testified in front of a number of committees and bodies about you know, what happened and says that let's be clear. This was a death caused by corruption because at the same time stories were coming out that the son of the president of Equatorial Guinea had stolen millions and millions of dollars bought a

28:44 Mansion in Malibu a jet Michael Jackson's glove and a memorabilia auction all while the country had no access to healthcare. So that's what we do. We try and move policies are going to unmask him out of his companies and stop and easy vehicle for hiding money right here in the United States and we work together in that Coalition. So Global witness, the organization that I work for is most famously known for breaking the story about blood diamonds. Most people have seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. We apparently had a great interaction with Leonardo DiCaprio the time about his role in the movie, which is exciting. He actually provide have that to lose that it's a great story that its Global witness on the map.

29:44 Just a real exposure of Human Rights abuses did DiCaprio actually know anything about blood diamonds.

29:54 I mean, I don't know if you knew anything about it before but he's quite an environmentalist. So I assume that he has had some Savvy about this I asked I don't know if his activism started before and rewrite the script and Sonoma got somebody she's having a big philanthropist and environmental space. I'd be funny. Anyway, I digress so we focus really on the life cycle of corruption. So how people get spends and store their money.

30:37 And we are team primarily the antique Russian team looks at a wide range of tools used by the criminal in the corrupt all across the world to launder their funds. So Anonymous companies are a perfect example as you already mentioned, but we also talked about Golden Visas. So this is the opportunity for people to buy their way into a citizenship. So if you gained a coveted Bulgarian citizenship friend, since you're able to travel freely all throughout Europe without many questions asked so this is a common tool used by Russian oligarchs for example to find a safe haven for themselves in their money.

31:26 But I had and I think that we talked about these stories of that Sky Rise in Manhattan and dilligard. There's an oligarch that has a house there pasta in Washington D.C. Across the street from Vernon Jordan and other famous people like one of these stories and you do you begin to recognize when you look around the world and you know, when I talk to friends and family about some of the work I do and I go transparency everybody's for transparency, but it's kind of

32:11 Go to support that's an inch a mile wide and an inch deep cuz I don't really get a sense, you know that it has the kinds of impactor is driving the kinds of problems that we see around the world. And so I don't know. How do you when you have those conversations? How do you get him Satan real actually, this is one of our core problems like this is a fundamental problem. And if we fix this then we can start looking at fixing some of the other environmental and economic Injustice problems. You do that. How do you explain that to your friends and family that this isn't just over transparencies a nice thing and everybody thinks it's you know, it's funny that you use the word answer because I think corruption is now that term has become such a bread-and-butter kitchen table issue. Like everybody has a story about corruption and it is

33:11 A local story to you know, we were talking a few minutes ago about those the Georgia elections and famously the secretary of state of Georgia the time Brian Kemp. He is in charge of approving the different voter rolls, right and I you know, the jury is still out on whether or not he actually had certain conflict of interest, but it's clear to a lot of people in Georgia on his face that that is a corrupt act for you to both simultaneously run for a position while being charged of the same boats that are essentially going to elect you into office. So, I don't know if that answers your question, but I think that everybody sort of knows what corruption is it's now up to us as the organizers in the activist in the policy folks to actually put that definition to use in a way that is consumed.

34:11 I also read that corruption people are beginning to realize it so it could just be the way of talking about it. So that's helpful, but

34:30 When I was down there I also as well as at this hotel that was not right next to the conference center. So we had to take a little shuttle bus back and forth and then we would lose a few of us that were staying in the hotel. So we all get up in the morning and get a conference started pretty early actually. Like I'm so we would wake up and get up get coffee at the coffee shop and then get on the bus and I was sitting there since women and activist from Guatemala. And it was right after the election the 2016 election and she said so tell me how are things we were shocked that this guy could win and I said, well, you know, he'd just been elected but there's already stories about whether or not he's going to sell his business interests and whether there's conflicts in eons is Hotel.

35:30 It's also but it's building that's also being leased or he's leasing space from you know, the federal government and all these.

35:41 All the stories were coming out in wondering what was going to happen between with a conflict of interest and I finish after about five minutes and she just looks at me and goes welcome to my Inn right there. I'm like, I was thinking stepped into it is a truly different experience that we're having this country night saying corruption is something that we always used to think o that happens in those foreign lands in those other countries and you know, the quote-unquote Banana Republic store. What have you and yeah, we are we're addressing some of these issues here today.

36:20 Absolutely. And as our final sort of question, what do you see as the biggest success that you've ever had in your work?

36:30 And what is our challenge as a society as somebody as groups who want to get rid of this corruption problem? What is our biggest challenge?

36:43 Well, I think the

36:46 The biggest challenge especially for the interruption folks which I think I do think is one of our major challenges right now. I mean a functioning government, you know, people have disagreements over, you know, we change presidents and we change Administration and Congress changes hands and policies change. The policies can be revised but the core belief in government that it's actually an agent can be an agent for good in the Democratic underpinnings of that like we abide by Court decisions. We make RI with them and we may criticize them in very harsh terms but we abide by them. And so if we lose that that's when Society start slipping and I think the greatest danger we face is that the overall cynicism and the tribalism that we're currently experiencing could lead to the erosion of

37:42 Innocor Democratic principles the United States with highest compliance right with taxation. We stop at stop lights in the middle of Iowa rate in a cornfield with Crossroads at midnight because we just were rule of law country and people need to appreciate that. That's how we get in the car me the functions in a society that functions and if we start going if we start losing that I I I think that we run into two dangers. I I am however optimistic that the Democratic institutions are resilient and we will actually we will survive and we will Thrive so I'm not an alarmist on this but I do think it's something we need to pay attention to a very serious threat if nothing else.

38:34 When that I have no doubt, we will we will get through and we will persevere and I think I think when we come out the other side that we will be stronger for it. I'm so in.

38:48 I have no I was like, I don't know. We don't know. I I think that this conversation has been very full circle because now we're saying so many people come out and say the organizing is important. We need to have these conversations publicly and out in the open as we all like to say in the transparency space sunlight is the best disinfectant. So thank you for letting me interview Gary. I always like talking to you about these things and I guess that's that.