Edit 16 Jan: I answered a few more questions and will try to get to the rest tomorrow! Also, here's my Ballotpedia link if you want a list of the bills I sponsored. Note that a bill which legalized syringe service programs isn't listed because of the way bills with more than 10 sponsors are processed on the back end of our legislative services office's software.
Edit 11 Jan: I see that I got some more questions after I signed off at the end of the day on Saturday; I can't answer them right now, but I'm going to try to get them all answered by the end of this week.
Hi everyone! Aaron Gertler asked me to come do an AMA, and today is the day!
When I decided to run for New Hampshire state office in 2014, I was an ideological anarchist. I moved to a different part of my city, filed to run as a Democrat, campaigned, and won my primary.
My election to the State House became virtually assured at that point, and I decided it was finally time to read a series of blog posts I'd heard about called the Sequences. It suddenly felt real to me, that I'd have a tiny bit of power over other people's lives, and I wanted to be sure my head was on straight: that good arguments convinced me and bad arguments failed to convince me.
Reading and internalizing the material caused me to realize none of my confidence was justified and that I'd have to start over from scratch to build a new world view and new political beliefs. When I was sworn into office that December, I didn't have much except lots of confusion, a desire to do the best I could with the small opportunity I had in front of me, and knowledge of a community centered around something called "effective altruism."
My first term ended in 2016 and I won my re-election campaign on the same day Trump defeated Clinton. I spoke at EA Global in 2017 and 2018, the recordings of which are available upon request.
I decided not to run for a third term in 2018 for many reasons, one of them that I was earning a yearly salary of $100 as a State Rep!
Ask Me Anything!
No, not this one. I don't think there was anything I wanted to say that would have been harmful enough to turn the Eye of Sauron(*) upon me.
Nah, any stress would have been a tertiary effect from...
This was the big one. I was already a black sheep when I got voted into office; I had negative amounts of political capital within my party. I had to focus a ton of energy into being likable, which largely means seeming similar to your target audience, and choosing my battles very carefully, which means keeping my mouth shut by default.
No. I spent the last 9 months of my final year planning on becoming a lobbyist, which meant I had to maintain my reputation up in Concord.
One other thing that would have kept me from "going out with a bang" was that I was very aware of my status as the only EA-identified elected official in the world. I knew my actions could potentially reflect back on the movement and affect other people who wanted to run for office in the future.
That status also ties back into the motivation of keeping my options open; I didn't (and don't) know what the future holds, and I don't know what will be needed of me.
I think this is due to a few different things...
(*) Edit to clarify for a friend's question: the Eye of Sauron in this metaphor would be the party structure deciding to find a primary challenger, not the voters themselves.