WILMINGTON, Del. – In case you missed it, U.S. Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) joined Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for an interview on the Andy Beshear Podcast. They discussed Senator Coons’ background and how his faith informs his Democratic values and public service, as well as his work with the bipartisan Senate Chicken Caucus. Senator Coons appeared on the fourth episode of Governor Beshear’s podcast. He is only the second elected official to be interviewed on the show.
You can watch and listen here.
Key excerpts:
On serving in local government
Beshear: So, when you got into politics, you got in at the local level, and local politics is hard. I mean, everybody knows where you live!
CAC: It’s mean, it’s tough. The smaller the yard, the meaner the dog.
Beshear: And so, I’m wondering, how did your experiences there either prepare you for the U.S. Senate, or how different are they?
CAC: Well, so, in between the non-profit work I did and going into local government, I spent eight years for a global manufacturing company that’s headquartered here in Delaware, and I gradually got more involved – more engaged – with the Democratic party here in Delaware and was recruited to run for County Council President, partly because there was a real ethics meltdown going on in county government, and my master’s in divinity school really focused on ethics, and I had worked as an ethics officer – an ethics trainer at the company I worked for. When I was County Council President, I wrote a new ethics code and was involved in a number of public integrity and ethics issues. I represented half a million people, and our county here, New Castle County, is mostly unincorporated, so the county government provides police, fire, paramedics, land use, sewer, zoning, housing, and libraries for about 400,000 people, and it was a very challenging environment, a great learning opportunity. My wife and I had infant twins who were born in ’99, I was elected in 2000, and our youngest child was born in 2001, so as a brand-new County Council President with one staff person representing roughly half a million people…
Beshear: With three kids!
CAC: I had three kids under two years old, and I had two full-time jobs because I was still the in-house lawyer for that manufacturing company. It was crazy. I barely remember the first four years I was elected. But to your point, representing local government in the community where I grew up was both wonderful, because I had a chance to really have an impact on the people I’d grown up with and to have an impact on housing and libraries, paramedic and police response time, and disaster preparedness and all of that stuff—but you know people, and they know you and they know how to get you, and they know your mom, and they know your brother-in-law, you know? They know you. That’s what’s great about local government, and that’s what’s hard about local government.
On faith
Beshear: I know that it hurts you as a Senator who has sworn to uphold the Constitution, but also as a person of faith. So many of the teachings in our Bible seem to be impacted, and impacted negatively, by these actions. You think about the fishes and the loaves and cutting SNAP benefits. You think about the parable, the Good Samaritan, picking up that person who’s different from you and not kicking them while they’re down. So, how do you bring your faith to this job? How does it help you make decisions? And maybe how does it keep you going when things are tough?
CAC: Well, thank you for the question. Because it’s harder—it’s been harder this year than it’s ever been for me. Actually, looking out my window right now, I can see my church, First and Central Presbyterian, here in Wilmington. And I try, I’ve got something on the wall behind me, it’s Micah 6:8, which is one of my favorites, the most concise passages from the Old Testament, and it is a reminder that we are called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. I try to start with humility, to say that everyone I’m interacting with is a child of God, and they may have different understandings or interpretations than I do of what we’re called to do, but if you do justice and love kindness, you’re on the right track. Look, the Bible, the Gospel in particular, is not a political pamphlet. It doesn’t say exactly what we ought to do. It doesn’t say we need more tax cuts, or we need more healthcare, but there are 2,000 specific references to the poor and I think if you look at when Jesus speaks for the very first time, he stands up in his home synagogue and he recites a scripture passage from Isaiah 61—this happens in Luke 4—and where he says, “the spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has anointed me to teach good news to the poor.” If you read that passage, at the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, I think it’s hard to reach the conclusion that He doesn’t want us to principally focus on the outcasts, the widowed, the orphans, those in prison, those who are poor, that that is something we are called to do. Look, I represent a million people, not all of them are people of faith, and not all of them are Christians. Folks from many different backgrounds are part of my state and I try to be mindful of the gap between what I believe, and the scripture that I read, and what may be the common interests of the million people I represent. But, Andy, every faith has the Golden Rule, “Do unto others you’d have them do unto you,” and the things we’ve been talking about—addressing the opioid crisis, helping people with affordable housing, responding to natural disasters, and doing it in a way that puts volunteerism and community service first, that strikes me as being right in line with what the Gospels call us to do.
On the Senate Chicken Caucus
Beshear: Amen. We like to typically end with something a little more fun. I read that you founded the Senate Chicken Caucus. Is that accurate?
CAC: Indeed, I did.
Beshear: You’ve got to tell me, what is the Senate Chicken Caucus? Are we talking about hot chicken?
CAC: So, one of my best friends in the Senate was Johnny Isakson of Georgia, just a great man, a great and generous and fun man. We did a lot of traveling and working together and his home state of Georgia is one of the biggest chicken producers in the country, and Sussex County, Delaware, is one of the biggest counties in chicken production in the country, and one of Johnny’s favorite sayings was “life is about friends and future friends, and you don’t have to agree with each other on everything, you just have to agree with each other on one thing.” And so, as we were getting to know each other, we realized that we had chickens in common, that both Delaware and Georgia really cared about growing our chicken exports and so we went to a number of foreign countries together—South Africa, I remember, in particular—where we were trying to promote American chicken exports, and we were trying to grow markets for the fabulous, healthy, tasty protein that we were growing in Georgia and in Delaware in our chicken farms. Southern Delaware is dominated by chicken agriculture. It really is the center of agriculture in Delaware. We have events every year where we always serve chicken, and it’s a great opportunity for me to work across the aisle with Senators from other states—from Arkansas, and Mississippi, and North Carolina, and Georgia, as Johnny was [from]—and focus on what we have in common in the interests of our rural areas and our agricultural sectors. So, that’s the history of the Chicken Caucus and, yes, it is a little funny, but we had a great time doing chicken wing contests and talking about how we could help promote chicken agriculture in the United States and around the world.