As he prepares to exit his 16-year role in Congress as the 3rd District representative from Maryland, John Sarbanes discusses why politics still decides education, environment and all of our futures.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
oysters, bridge, chesapeake bay, talking, day, crab cake, bay, part, nancy, baltimore, crab, worked, country, maryland, barbara mikulski, fix, john sarbanes, congress, eat, congressman
SPEAKERS
John Sarbanes, Nestor Aparicio
Nestor Aparicio 00:00
Welcome home. We are wnst Jazz, Baltimore, Baltimore, positive. We are positively at Faith. These were doing the Maryland grab cake tour. I just brought to you by the Maryland lottery. I have my Raven scratch offs. It’s a $20,000 top prize, which is more than 10. John Martin was on this this week talking about these things. And there’s a whole bunch of entries and ways to win a big trip to New York, as well as tickets for life and cool stuff. There our friends at Jiffy through MultiCare, also powering this up. We’re the middle of the Maryland oyster tour. I’m doing 26 oysters in 26 days. Today is day 13. We are at Faith. Lease Dami is here. She’s gonna bring me fried. Let’s see fried, roasted, baked, char, grilled and raw, and we’re gonna have them all. So you Mr. Chesapeake Bay and Rondo County, third guy, Congressman John Sarbanes, is here the outgoing not running for anything, running for the hills. Maybe he’s where he’s running for the bay. And we talk about the bay. And Danny brought me a couple fried oysters couple years ago, and I ate them right here on the set, or the old location, and I said, I don’t know that I’ve ever had a fried oyster. She’s like, what? And I’m like, well, it’s further down the menu. I’m getting the crab cake, the shrimp, the steak, the chicken, the veggie, the salad. It’s just, I like oysters, but I don’t ever think to order them. They’re never first on the list. I got six on the half the night I was here with you, we had a couple, right? If they’re there, I’ll eat them, but they’re not first. And she’s like, Well, you got to make them first, because they oxygenate the bay, and then when the bay is oxygenated, that’s how the crabs live in the grass, and that’s why we take the shells here, and there’s a recycle booth right there. Shells only, right? And she started to educate me, and, you know, a Schoolhouse Rock guy, John, you know, so the more I learn, the more dangerous I get. But the Bay has been a really important part of I think when I had Martin O’Malley here a couple years ago, he said that was the only thing at the end governor, that’s the thing he’s most proud of, is that the bay is the most important thing going on around here, not just for crabs or crab cakes, economy, just everything about the bay and how unique of water mass it is on the Planet.
John Sarbanes 01:59
No question about that. And my district has always had, it’s always touched a lot of the bay. I mean, I’ve had Annapolis from day one in my district, even when the shape of the district was was changing. I’ve got a lot of the coastline. The Bay coastline is part of the Third District of Maryland. That’s a challenging
Nestor Aparicio 02:19
question. By the way, we have more water coastline than any state in the country. Yeah,
John Sarbanes 02:23
on top of that, when I grew up, growing up as a kid, I used to go down to Salisbury to visit my grandmother, and we would go crabbing in the nanny coke River and so forth. So, you know, I grew up with like the bay in me, and ever since I got to Congress, that’s been a number one priority our delegation from Senator cardinal and down is, you know, we’re champions of the Chesapeake Bay. We take it very seriously. We understand that it’s this natural and national treasure. From an environmental standpoint, it’s also a huge regional driver in terms of the economy. I mean, you think about these various fisheries, everything you’re selling here, everything that’s here that drives a huge part of the economy around it. Tourism around the bay is huge. So I’ve been proud to be part of these efforts to authorize, reauthorize, you know, the Chesapeake Bay Program, the gateways and water trails program, which is a cultural and sort of tourism based effort to pull people towards the Chesapeake Bay. I’m working with Senator Van Han right now in the Chesapeake National Recreation Area, which would create this sort of larger footprint in the National Park Service around the Chesapeake Bay. Anything we can do to keep that elevated as a priority we need to do. And of course, when you’re in places like this, you understand how good it is to eat these things come Absolutely. Talking about oysters. You know this, our delegation has worked really hard to fund restoring these, these reefs and other things for the oysters, because they do, they do clean a lot of the water right
Nestor Aparicio 04:06
down the street, or bno railroad oyster recovery partnership. It’s their Super Bowl next Thursday night, 26 Yeah, broadcasting, having all the farmers on and I’m going to go Schoolhouse Rock on how the oysters bed on top of each other, to grow them healthier, to grow the grasses healthier, to keep the water clean, just every part. And look,
John Sarbanes 04:25
we used crazy cat billions of oysters here, and then it went down. We’re building that back up. We gotta watch out for a lot of these stocks that the crab stock, the oyster stock, the rock fish and so forth. And we, you know, we got issues with some of these invasive species, the blue catfish and what?
Nestor Aparicio 04:42
So we need a snakehead. I haven’t had any snakehead yet, so we
John Sarbanes 04:45
got to be vigilant to make sure we’re doing the right thing for the Chesapeake Bay. Keep it moving forward, protect it, preserve it, enhance it. That’s been a proud part of my legacy and my time in Congress. Our delegation is going to keep pushing that. Forward, and that’s like, absolutely the right thing to do if you’re from this state. No question. I
Nestor Aparicio 05:05
was down in Orlando in March for the NFL owners meetings, and I my phone went off about 330 in the morning. My my web developer, Jessica from Hartford designs. Her husband is a diver with the city, and the city police department was called at two o’clock in the morning when the dolly hit the bridge. Yeah, yeah. We just talked about January six as being something that’s unthinkable, something we never would think about. Talking about or your father, what he would your father came back. My father came back and worked at the point underneath of that bridge every day, and said boat ran into the bridge and knocked it over. What I mean. That seemed inconceivable. And to your thing about AI and faking things, it looked like a deep fake video when I woke up at three in the morning and started seeing it on Twitter, until I put on CNN, the first thing I saw was Johnny o at 530 in the morning on the site with police chiefs and fire chiefs. Where were you that day, and how does that affect a congressman, especially when the bridge is in your water? Let’s be honest. Well,
John Sarbanes 06:05
look, it was a body blow to all of us because it’s, it’s, that’s iconic.
Nestor Aparicio 06:12
I cried. I was in Florida crying, and I couldn’t figure out why I cried. It’s, it’s
John Sarbanes 06:17
because it’s part of you. It’s part of your sense of the city. It’s one of the it’s one of the things that anchors you in Baltimore and in this region. And when that thing, you just see it crumpling. It didn’t crumble. It crumpled like it was paper mache when that when that ship hit it. But you know, in every crisis, there’s opportunity. In every challenge that presents adversity, there’s the opportunity to step up and show what you’re made of, and the partnership, the combination you saw among elected officials at the federal, state and local level, and community people and nonprofit organizations Who stepped into the breach and said, We’re going to build back from this. First we’re going to, you know, we’re going to clear that harbor so we can restore the boat traffic coming in, because we need that for the economy. But then we’re going to go right into this conversation about how that bridge is going to be rebuilt bigger and better,
Nestor Aparicio 07:17
and also the importance of our city and the importance of the port and the importance of our region. And like, we are a big deal, we are important.
John Sarbanes 07:27
We gave us a chance to do a tutorial about exactly that, like, how important the port is for the country. I mean, when we were making our case to our colleagues in Washington that we needed the dollars to flow in from the federal government. We were saying, This is not a local bridge, this is not a regional bridge. This is a national bridge. It’s part of the commerce of our country. And here are the statistics. And you start putting those statistics in front of them, you like, my god, this is amazing.
Nestor Aparicio 07:59
You want a car in Missouri fix our bridge in Maryland, right? Exactly
John Sarbanes 08:02
right. Yeah, exactly right. So the fact now I have never seen, and most people who’ve been in in the business of salvaging have never seen before, the cooperation you have from all of these different federal agencies, they came together and cleared that channel in 11 weeks. I mean, on the first day, most people would have said, this is whatever.
Nestor Aparicio 08:30
Well, that Norfolk, or these other areas would just usurp the business, and it might take so long that we won’t get that business back.
John Sarbanes 08:41
Baltimore was like, not so fast. I like, we can get this done, and we’re going to get back to business. And we did. I give the governor a lot of credit. He was, he was sort of leading the team at the state level. The mayor, I think, did a terrific job stepping up and showing this was a prior. Everybody understood that, like whatever else you’re working on, you got to put that aside. Bipartisan, right? I mean, it was bipartisan. Say that it was bipartisan. Absolutely it wasn’t a Democratic or a Republican bridge. No, it wasn’t. And the people going across it are just Americans. When you’re driving over the bridge, you’re not going, I’m driving over a bridge as a Democrat or as a Republican, you’re just an American trying to get to your job or your family or whatever it is. So I think as tragic as it was, and we lost six individuals, obviously, in that tragedy, the opportunity it gave us to show like our True Metal as a city and a state is a legacy we’re going to carry forward and we’re going to build on. I was out at Fort McHenry the other day for defenders day. It was beautiful night, by the way, and the fireworks
Nestor Aparicio 09:50
came from, yes, okay, the fireworks went up. And I’m like, what was that? Okay, the
John Sarbanes 09:54
superintendent was drawing an analogy between, you know, the Battle of Baltimore in 18. 1814 where we pushed back on the British they were coming from DC. They burned the capital, and here was our our city, on the front line. And we stood up and we fought back, and we leaned in and he and he, so he made the connection. That’s exactly what we did when this bridge fell. And of course, what’s the bridge that fell? Was a Francis Scott Key Bridge, you know. So it’s all. It all is connected.
Nestor Aparicio 10:25
John Sarbanes is here. He’s a good congressman from the third district. He is not running for election, not running for anything today, except running for the hills. Davey gave him a crab cake, and I tried to get him to eat it here, and he’s like, no, no, no. If I eat that before I get it home to my wife, I won’t have a wife, so there better be a deuce there for the crab case, you mentioned. Nancy Grasmick, you dropped some and I do appreciate the fact that you had this life before service, but I would have thought even part of that was setting up this life of service that your father had now that it’s all over, you dropped. Nancy Grasmick talked about your background in education. Nancy Grasmick said, like one of the kindest things ever to me last time I saw her and as a journalist, because I was, I was a student of John Steadman, and her and her husband were very close with John Steadman and Mary Lee education in the country, and the fact that we can’t agree on that less than most year I had Meghan McCorkle from Enoch Pratt talking about burning books and stuff like that. Just education in the country and the importance, and we can’t even get on the same page about what a good education is in this country. I know you put a lot of work into it. I would think that’s an area you’re going to wind up coming back to before
John Sarbanes 11:38
it’s all over. There’s no question and civics education, which is basically, you know, teach our young people what their history is, what this country’s been through, the challenges it’s overcome, so they understand it. You don’t have to do that in a partisan way. There’s some basic facts that we hold in common, and if you share that with the next generation, they’re in a position, they have a foundation that they can kind of build their life trajectory on, that has a certain amount of patriotism to it as well, right? I mean, if you understand the history of the country where we’ve come from, how we’ve pushed through adversity, crisis over, over the course of, you know, 250th 250 years, or we’re coming up on that anniversary. That’s part of who you are as an American. So we have to teach those, those what I call civics as a life skill, in my view, and it starts with good education and Nancy. Grazie. I worked with her for seven years when she was state superintendent. She’s got more energy than anybody to this day one or she starts at like 530 in the morning. By the end of the day, she’s got more energy than when she started, because she’s pulling it out of everybody she’s coming into contact with. And when I worked for her, I was working on Baltimore City school issues, it was when there was this partnership between the school system and the State Board education. So I said, Nancy, you know, we’re gonna have to stay in communication on things. I need a regular time every week where I know I can, I can get your ear for maybe 2030, minutes. So she she looked at her calendar, she said, I give you 7am Wednesday mornings. So every morning, every Wednesday morning for seven years, at seven o’clock in the morning, I would meet with Nancy Grasmick and talk about a mentor.
Nestor Aparicio 13:29
You were more awake at 731 Yeah.
John Sarbanes 13:32
I mean, I learned more from her than just about I’ve had two nancies in my life that have been incredibly impactful on me. One was Nancy Grasmick, the other was Nancy Pelosi, and they’re both these role models of people that are tireless, who, when they get power, understand powers to you to use not to advantage yourself, but to pull the community forward. You do it for other people, and both of them have that kind of service commitment in spades. And they both made of
Nestor Aparicio 14:10
a different era, when women of that era, and we’ll throw Barbara Mikulski right on in there, right? Absolutely. I mean women of incredible courage. Barbara Mikulski, daughter of, of a baker in Highland town. Nancy Pelosi, totally different, yeah, daughter of the mayor, right? And the mayor’s mayor, right? Like
John Sarbanes 14:29
they had to, they have a grit and a determination, and they’ve had to keep breaking through these barriers. And when you break through a barrier, you learn, yeah, you learn, hey, I can, I can break through the next barrier, and they just keep on going. But every time, like I say, all three of those, as you just mentioned, every time they break a barrier, they know they’re not breaking it for themselves. They’re breaking it for other people. What do people need
Nestor Aparicio 14:56
to know about Nancy Pelosi? Because I don’t have many people on the show who really. Know her well, you know Ted venetoulis now that he’s gone, God bless him, and the banner and all that, but people that really know Nancy from before she went to San Francisco when she was a girl here, you’d have to be 75 or 80 to be of that era, but you’ve had two decades where she’s this decorated person the other side of the country, but I’m sure she’s got to shine to you, because she’s got a Baltimore thing when she comes on the show with me, she got a Baltimore thing when
John Sarbanes 15:24
I represent in Baltimore. I represented where she grew up, and so I had to make sure I did a good job with those constituents. She checked in on you. You know, she’d be throwing me off my committee or something like that. But she’s, first of all, she’s absolutely tireless, another one of these people that goes all day long, never misses a step. Number two, she’s got a deep compassion for people. I mean, her heart is gigantic. But number three, she understands that you got to figure out a way to take the heart and the head, put them together and get things done. Like it’s not enough just to care about something. If you have the power to change it, to make the situation better, you have a responsibility to go do that. So every day, when she gets up in the morning, she’s thinking about, how do I move things forward for children. I mean, she talks about children all the time, an agenda to improve the lives of children. That’s what motivates her 100% of the time. She’s tough as nails, but all that toughness is going to work to improve the lives of children in this country and their families. That’s basically, it’s, it’s simple, and if you get up with that, and you, and you, you stay focused on that, you can have a huge impact. And clearly she has, I’ve only got
Nestor Aparicio 16:52
two minutes left. But how do we fix Congress? Yeah, everybody ask that question. That is that? Is that, that is, you know, really, yeah, so Congress is, I said I had Sarbanes olisi told him to fix it. Is what they give me. The Congress is
John Sarbanes 17:07
full of people who represent, each of them, 770,000 Americans. And a lot of times those Americans are sending their representatives to Washington with the mandate, go fight, not go work together, go fight. So I think the way you fix Congress is you you step back out into the country, into communities, and you say, let’s start talking to each other
Nestor Aparicio 17:36
at this level. So I don’t have to go there and fight that right, or want to go there well, or
John Sarbanes 17:41
when you so that when you send somebody to Washington, you’re sending them with a collective message of, go get good things done for us. Don’t go up there with a baseball bat. But a lot of times, because people are like this out in the country, that just translates to us being that way in Washington. So we have to fix this back at the grassroots level we got to we got to start talking to each other again. We got to bridge these gaps. And, you know, we have divides inside families now, politically, we’ve got to find some kind of way to repair that. If we can’t do that, there’s no amount of tinkering or solutions you can throw at the problem in Washington that’s going to fix it. In fact, we’ve had all these, like, you know, all these groups come in who are used to, like, doing mediation, and they all come in and they’re like, we’re going to fix we’re going to show you how to fix this place. And, like, six weeks later, they they leave, and they’re like, We can’t do it.
Nestor Aparicio 18:39
Well, if you don’t want a solution, I mean, and listen, then next time I have you on, you’ll just be a citizen, and you can talk some issue if you want, but we got a party that really is anti government. So when you send someone who doesn’t like government to DC, you’re absolutely right. You’re they’re only there to be obstructionists. They’re really not there to be and it’s not about kissing and making nice, but they are not there to get a solution. They are there to
John Sarbanes 19:04
they don’t believe. They don’t believe in the institution fundamentally. And that’s not a good starting point if you want to get things done. And unfortunately, that’s where a lot of these folks are. We can build back from it. I’m optimistic. We can find the best of ourselves and turn that into the way our politics and government, believe,
Nestor Aparicio 19:22
I don’t know. I’d be able to go on any of us if we didn’t have a belief that this is going to get better and we can make it better, then that’s why we’re here. Go eat your crab cake. All right, what are you going to do when you’re done? I mean, a little vacation January, Italy, like danger. I
John Sarbanes 19:35
got to make a living, so I got to figure out something to do. You got a good job? Yeah. So I’m not eating macaroni and cheese and ramen every day, but you
Nestor Aparicio 19:43
can keep me square. I need a lawyer around that knows all
John Sarbanes 19:47
the schools pay me $1 give me a scratch off, and that’ll be my compensation.
Nestor Aparicio 19:51
January 5. You’ll get a scratch off when he’s no longer serving. John Sarbanes series, our good congressman from the third district. That’s Anne Arundel County, Hartford Howard County, all the way up. I call it the route 100 straight on up part of Carroll County, correct? Tiny little bit of Carroll County, just a little bit Mount Airy. Up in that air in that area. We’re doing the oyster tour down here as well. It’s all brought to you by the Maryland lottery, conjunction with Jiffy Lube, MultiCare, our friends at curio wellness as well as Liberty pure solutions have me eating these oysters. Liberty, pure solutions keeps my water clean and the oysters keep the bay clean. So that’s the way it works. My thanks to Congressman Johnson. Thank you. Enjoy yourself when you’re done, to breathe a little bit when you’re done, and then come back and kick ass and help people. Amen. All right. All right. His favorite crab cake in the world’s right here at Faith leaves if you never have one. And sometimes I talk to people that don’t know, get on down here and have a good time. We’re gonna be a Costas next Friday. We’re gonna be at Pizza John’s. Yes, they have a crab cake at Pizza. John, it’s pretty good too. We’re gonna be down there on the 11th. I’ve invited Dutch. We’ll see if Dutch get That’s his favorite pizza, trying to feed Dutch before he gets out as well. So the Mari crab cake was back out on the road. My birthday is October 14, Luke as well. So the october 11 will serve as our collective birthday experience. Hopefully the Orioles will still play baseball on october 11. He’s John. I’m Nestor. We’re back for more here. James Bond from the Living classrooms foundation will join us as well as Damian. We’re going to eat eat oysters in our next segment. I can’t wait. Stay with us. We’re faithless. You.
