“When we talk about diversity, this is not just about having aesthetic differences represented in our elected officials,”: Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta

Representative Malcolm Kenyatta, (D) Pennsylvania, joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the next steps for the country and the Biden administration.

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ADAM SHAPIRO: We want to also look at another part of the future. And to do that, we're inviting into the stream Malcolm Kenyatta. He is a state representative for the 181st District in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. You might be familiar with him, because he was extremely vocal in the opposition to his colleagues on the other side of the aisle who were trying to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election.

So let's bring in and welcome Malcolm Kenyatta. And I just have to ask you, when we talked about inviting you to the program, there was unanimity on our staff that you represent, in some ways, the future of the Democratic Party. It's a lot of pressure riding on you right now. But what's your overall reaction to what we're witnessing?

MALCOLM KENYATTA: You know what, it's-- I don't-- I don't really see it as pressure at all. There are so many people from districts like mine, communities-- so many people from communities like mine, who are asking a simple question and who want a simple question answered. And I think the president started to lay that out today.

He talked about, in different terms, but really under the same umbrella, of this idea of building back better, of dealing with the pandemic, of getting schools safely reopened, as one of your guests just mentioned, of getting relief immediately to small businesses that make up our Main Streets and our Elm Streets. And so I think that that is the priority for everybody right now, and it should be the priority for our leaders in Washington.

In Harrisburg where I work, there's still divided government. And so unfortunately, the Republican majority in the legislature is still pushing these same lies about the election. But I think the American people are ready to move on, and they're ready now for us to start having conversations about them and about what their families need in this incredibly challenging time.

KRISTIN MYERS: You know, we've been talking a lot about the future of the Republican Party. But I'm curious to know your thoughts on the future of the Democratic Party. As Adam's saying, you are probably going to be one of the leaders of the party going forward.

What do you think the Democrat Party is-- the Democratic Party is going to look like over the course of the next four years? How does the Democratic Party bring in some of those voters out there that feel as if they are disenfranchised or feel left out in the cold? And should the Democratic Party include some of those voices, like some of those Trump voters, for example?

MALCOLM KENYATTA: I think every-- every election, and certainly, I think, at the core of what the Democratic Party is going to put forward as our question in every single election, is who government works for, who government should work for, and really what should government work on. And I think at the end of the day, government doesn't often work for working people, because not enough working people work in government.

It's not lost on me that when President Biden was sworn in today, he's one of the first presidents that actually went to a state university for college. He comes from a working town in Scranton, and he understands what working people and working families are really struggling with and dealing with. The former president talked a lot about what he was going to do for working people, but obviously he didn't produce a lot.

I think that Joe Biden is somebody who understands what it means to have to work two and three job, what it means to be on the edge of the middle class every single day worrying about whether or not you're going to fall over. He understands what folks who are dealing with deep poverty, what they're dealing with.

And so the Democratic Party, at its core, has to be the party for working people, has to be the party that focuses on communities like mine here in North Philly, where folks are working two and three jobs, where we have not raised the minimum wage beyond $7.25 in 13 years, where you have so many essential workers who are still begging for hazard pay and who are still waiting to get the COVID-19 vaccination, a process that under the previous administration was moving very slowly.

And so I think the future of the Democratic Party is all about centering the needs, the concerns of working people and making sure that they are at the core of our policy conversations. Listen, when we lift up working people, we lift up our entire economy. And that is what I think this administration is going to be all about, and what the future of the Democratic Party is about, and certainly what I'm going to be talking about.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Also, inclusion. I mean, the coalition that Stacey Abrams put together to bring victory in Georgia, I would imagine you would agree cannot be a one-off, that people of color and communities of color-- and I heard it said, and I thought it was rather poignant, that for a great many Americans democracy has really only been about 55, 56 years old. How do you get these people back to the polls in two years, in four years?

MALCOLM KENYATTA: Well, I think it's certainly about our message, which I just talked about in some detail. But it is also about who the messengers are. There's a certain lived experience that comes with being a person of color, comes with being a woman, comes with being LGBTQ. There's a certain experience that you get. And that experience is going to be deeply instrumental, not just from the perspective of, you know, it looks good to have people of color, but from a perspective of policy.

It is really, really key when we're talking about how do we deal with the fact that COVID-19 has impacted Black Americans more than anybody else, brown Americans more broadly? How do we deal with the fact that student loan debt is disproportionately held by Black women? How do we deal with the fact that minimum wage jobs are disproportionately held by Latino women and women of color, in general?

And so when we talk about diversity, this is not just about having aesthetic differences represented in our elected officials. It is about the lived experience that they bring to the table as we debate and craft policy that hopefully will move our communities forward. There are a lot of people who run for office with a bunch of credentials. And credentials are good, but credentials aren't necessarily experience.

The president talked about folks who are laying in bed at night looking up at the ceiling worried about whether or not they're going to be able to keep their job, whether or not they're going to be able to provide for their families. It's that type of experience that we need in government, people who really understand what it looks like when government doesn't work for you. And we have to put forward people who can bring the solutions from the perspective of folks who are most impacted.

And so I do think you're going to see more Black candidates running, more women running, more LGBTQ candidates running for office. And again, this is not about tepid tolerance. This is not about diversity for diversity's sake. This is about how we actually craft policy that includes the voices, and perspectives, and lived experience of everybody at the table.

That's how we do things that actually get bipartisan support and actually stand the test of time, that we have all the stakeholders in the room. And for too long, Congress has not looked like a place where all the stakeholders have been in the room. For too long, Congress, over half of them, have been millionaires.

We have to change that if we're going to actually deal with the issues that people talk about when they're campaigning. If people care about working people, care about working issues, then they need to be encouraging and supporting working people when they step up and run for office. And I think when they do, they're going to win.

KRISTIN MYERS: That is such an important point that we have been talking about. Representation absolutely matters. And I'm also hopeful, as just that you're saying, that prediction that you've made, that we're going to be seeing more Black, female, LGBTQI candidates coming forward in the coming years to run for office. Malcolm Kenyatta, state representative for the 181st District in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, thanks for joining us today.

MALCOLM KENYATTA: Always a pleasure. Thank you.