Ep13 Christian Bishop - How a Tech Entrepreneur Is Fixing Nevada Politics From the Ground Up

Christian Bishop  0:00  
What I am first is I'm an American, I'm a husband, I'm a father, right, just like you trying to provide for my family, lead the right way in my household, for my teams, for my companies and businesses. And then I hope that these things identify me way more than a political party. I want to actually talk issues with people and talk about things that impact their daily lives, and educate me and open my eyes to something that I haven't considered based on what you've been through. And I think too many people parrot party talking points, and I have a big problem with that. I just can't logically justify how anybody agrees 100% with anybody.

Scott Groves  0:35  
Welcome to Henderson. HQ, this is the podcast where you get all the stories behind the businesses that make our community tick. Don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Hey, Henderson, HQ, it's Scott groves. Today we interview my friend Christian bishop, who just announced that he will be running for State Assembly, which I found out all kinds of stuff about how that works, how they affect our day to day life, what his views are on growing the state, and whether you're a democrat or republican or a disenfranchised libertarian in the middle. This is a podcast that wasn't particularly political, but talks a lot about how the State Assembly, the city council of Henderson, how all of these things Interplay together and affect our daily life here in Henderson. So very informational podcast and get to know Christian, see if he's the type of guy you'd want to vote for. Hey, ladies and gentlemen. Scott groves with the Henderson HQ newsletter, podcast, YouTube channel, all that stuff. I'm here with my friend Christian bishop, which I gotta tell you, man, I was hesitant to do this interview because Christian is running for political office, and one of the things that we decided when we did the newsletter was like, no crime, no politics. We're gonna keep this super apolitical. But one Christian has become a friend since moving here to Henderson. And two, what I liked about him is about the first six times that I met him, just through talking to him, I couldn't tell which party that he belonged to or was going to be running for which I think in, like, our hyper divided political environment, you can usually ask one question to somebody and know exactly where they stand politically. I liked that about you. So I'm like, Hey, man, when you decided to run for state assembly, like, let's have you on let's talk about your views. Because what really bothers me about politics is everybody will complain all day long about Trump or Biden or Pelosi or Schumer or whatever, and it's like, yeah, you don't even know who your State Assemblyman is. And that affects your day to day, your life in the city much more, infinitely more, than whatever the president are doing, or Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, or whatnot. So give us the Reader's Digest version of you moving to Vegas and why you would ever want to run for political office in this climate.

Christian Bishop  2:32  
Well, glad to be here with Henderson. HQ Scott, thanks for having me, my man. Audience, so you know he's officially sold out with these political podcasts. Yeah, today is official. So you sell out. Man. Look, even Joe, does it? Even Rogan gets political folks on. So I look, I think it's important to be able to have the conversation with folks, even if they disagree with you or agree with you either. But I think it's too important for our daily lives to get into the conversation, hopefully be able to do something about it. It's ultimately why I'm running. You know, I've been an entrepreneur throughout my career, like you, solving problems, building businesses, teams, bringing people together. We do this every day, right? And you look at the big impact that our legislator and our politicians have in our lives and our children's lives and the direction of things, and it's it gets to a point of what choice do I really have but to step up? You know, where you put your head in the sound and just complain. So, you know, ultimately, we decide to step up. I'm

Scott Groves  3:26  
really good at the complaining part. I don't know, I don't know if I ever want to step up and run for office, but I'm real good at the complaining

Christian Bishop  3:31  
part. You just get annoyed enough, you know, you never know. And an opportunity kind of comes up, you know, for me, I ran for state senate last cycle, you know, we lost, got about 35% of the vote

Scott Groves  3:41  
for and by the way, was that your first your first ever political run for Senate? Yeah, they were pretty, that's pretty high aspirations,

Christian Bishop  3:47  
right? Yeah, State Senate, State Senate. So it's a, you know, it is a step up there. But, you know, we didn't do, you know, didn't do bad. And now we're building on that. Our assembly district here in Henderson is half that senate district. So we have the ability to continue on our work, where we got these votes and name ID, where we built relationships, and in Nevada, you got to door knock these districts, so you're at people's homes, meeting them, knocking on doors, canvassing, building relationships, and asking, you know, important questions,

Scott Groves  4:14  
are you to put yourself up at the mall and just like, stand there and orate like old tool politics? Yeah,

Christian Bishop  4:18  
exactly. Just preach. No, look, we do that actually during early voting. So when the polls open up, that sounds like there was polling stations all around the city. So we actually do have teams out there, but we're passing out lit and just connecting with folks and answering questions. But, man, just to back up, back to what you asked a little bit earlier. My background for me, I started my, you know, my career at tech and media. Before that, my mom, single mom, four kids, my dad wasn't quite in my life. Eventually, he stepped up, got in my life, and I had opportunity to be able to go to military boarding school because I met my step mom, which was like my guardian angel, came back to LA, went to college, majored in business, worked two jobs through school, ended up, eventually started. Running a couple businesses. Went through the ups and downs of that journey. 26 years old, I get into reality television, get my heart broken in front of all my friends and family on the batch for enemies, ABC shows, another bad idea of mine, go through these experiences on a couple of different shows, living that LA life of your 10 seconds of relevance, pivot and have the opportunity to get into something I'm really passionate about, which is more on the tech side, which is video games and eSports. Building eSports arena studio in LA massive soundstage broadcast trucks ended up getting recruited eventually to come be the commissioner of a league and a studio here and open it up at the ARIA now, right when you pull up on the strip with MGM and get involved in that project. I had a great time. Sold a company, a media company in 2019 was able to buy real estate around the country, start my family, you know, and went back to school, got my MBA at UNLV, jumped into law school at Syracuse Law and had three kids, and was able to support my wife through nursing school.

Scott Groves  6:02  
You don't look old enough to have done all that. From from bachelor to, like everybody that goes on. The Bachelor wants to be an aspiring actor. You're like, Okay, I have my 15 minutes of fame. We're good. Back to college, started a tech media company, sold the tech media company. It blows my mind. I saw a stat. Maybe you'll know about this that like video what's spent on video games for creation, distribution, everything like dwarfs what is spent on movies and TV? Is that true? Yeah, it's

Christian Bishop  6:28  
100 billion. So 100 billion in video games is bigger than TV, music and film combined. So it's a massive industry. I mean, look at your look at your bank statement. Look at your kids, right? So whether or not it's Roblox money, you know, micro transactions that are being spent on in game, cosmetics and this intellectual property around IP that we grew up on. You've got baby Yoda sitting right there, Star Wars, and you got the games. That's a video game from Mike Tyson right there. That's a popular boxing game that you did first out. Like, got it all around you. And we grew up conditioned to these things, and then naturally, our kids do, and I love it, you know, for me, I, you know, I hate bullies. I grew up not necessarily fitting in with any particular group. So video games, for me, gave me an opportunity to adventure, have stories and build friends, you know, friendships around the world with all different kinds of people from different cultural backgrounds. And I love that, and I love that about video games. So for me, continuing in my career, so

Scott Groves  7:23  
I have a little bit of an addictive personality, and by a little bit, I mean a massive addictive personality. So in the army, I, like, blew out my ankle. And the one video game I've played in my entire life was the very first Diablo and I played for, I think, like, eight days straight, like, I didn't sleep, I didn't do anything. And I have such an addictive tendency to things like that that I've never played a video game since because I'm like, I'll be the guy that, just like, lives in an apartment, loses my wife and kids because I'm sitting there on Battlefront, Star Gate, whatever. So yeah, video games are not a big part of my life. So when you were telling me about the eSports company you built, I was kind of just in awe, because, like, that's not my world at all. And I didn't know what the market opportunity was there. What do you what did you learn? Because this is like, a big talking point in politics, right? Like, oh, he's an entrepreneur. He can fix things. And then some people say, Oh, he's an entrepreneur. He has no clue. What do you think you learned in entrepreneurship that will help in government?

Christian Bishop  8:13  
Yeah, so I think it's a digging deep and peeling back the layers of problems that we come across. For me, another way I think about that is unintended consequences of a decision, and ultimately, you see things being voted on, things being funded, that have significant impacts on millions of people's lives. That takes critical thinking and really start to think through what is the impact and unintended consequence of that decision? How is this going to impact millions of people, your constituents and the folks are looking to you to have a make a decision, and sometimes one that's not even popular because but if you do the work and you're trying to make it, you'd hopefully serve your constituents with people that put you in office the right way, and so they trust you. And sometimes they may not agree with you initially, but you have the opportunity of the future and seeing how that plays out, where it's like, oh, actually, you did make a good decision. And that strength and convey strength and conviction, I think, is important too, is sometimes it's doing what you think believe to be right, doing the work to be well researched and prepared, be able to have some thought and critical thinking behind why you made a decision, and then let it play out, and then be able to have the strength to kind of see that through. So, you know, it's a it's tough, and it's not easy to stand in the flames, you know, and put yourself there. That's what we do.

Scott Groves  9:25  
Give us a little bit of education. Because, again, I think most people focus on federal politics, which doesn't affect a whole lot in their life, maybe inflation right now. But like, tell us where district 29 is, and then tell us, like, what does the state assembly do? Like, what level of decisions are they making that affects people's lives like boots on the ground in Henderson?

Christian Bishop  9:44  
Yeah. So 8029 Assembly District. 29 is through Green Valley, which is on the west side of our district, up above sunset Mall. To the east is boulder highway, and the 215 freeway is essentially our district. I'm given a couple throughout Henderson and a couple of districts. We have, you know, multiple city council members as well, which handled the municipality side to the operations of the City of Henderson. Right? Those are city council members and Mayor Romero, right, who run that. And then the city staff at City Hall and on Water Street, not too far from here, right, that we count on to run our city. Then you have, you know, the police department. Here's about all these different folks on public services. You have your school district right that oversees CSD, so you have trustees, you have your Board of Regents, and your folks working at the collegiate level for our academic system. But then the laws that impact and govern our civil business operations and criminal sides of things as well. For example, traffic tickets here in Nevada were decriminalized. Now it's a civil penalty. So if you get a traffic ticket, you used to be able to, you know, have actual criminal consequences to this recently, that was changed where you have it's now a civil matter. It's a big deal for a lot of folks that we're getting locked up and having problems. I'm going to agree or disagree with it, but that was done at the legislator, which is about passing bills and legislation that ultimately gets signed or vetoed by the governor to become law, generally, one of the first things that the legislator deals with is passing the budget for our school system. So you're talking about over 53% of our annual budget goes to education every year. And for a state like Nevada that has no income tax, and, you know, state income tax at that and still is developing economy that needs to diversify its revenue streams. That's it, a big deal. You know, majority of that money that goes so a lot of that business initially, is getting education where it needs to be for our system, which is a hot topic item. And on top of my, everyone's mind, as we all know, where we rank as a state in education. Where do we ring? Because I think I know, but I don't know. It's pretty rough. Yeah, real like 43rd 40/43 44th Yeah. So it's really tough. You know, it's in Henderson in particular. It's a developing, booming conversation around charter schools. We've got about 18 charter schools, and then the city limits, a big grant was just awarded to opportunity 180 I believe, about 53 million to develop additional charter schools and expand. But we're growing, and particularly in this City of Henderson, really quickly, really fast. That's a big deal. And charter schools, in some cases, are able to mobilize a bit faster and get schools up to solve some problems for our growing communities a bit quicker. But legislator addresses all this could be business issues. Could be where we're applying economic development funds as well. You think about marijuana, that's a popular topic for a lot of people. And what was changed there that was done at the legislature, where funds were supposed to flow to our school system, or if we bring out something like the lottery to the state, you think a state like California, you know, it's got a big lottery system that's really popular, that casinos probably won't be happy with. That smart guy. Scott, yeah, that's a nuance. Yeah, yeah, yes.

Scott Groves  12:50  
Talk a little bit about that because, you know, it's funny. I've talked so far on this podcast to like 1213, different business owners, and I talked to hundreds from the newsletter, the sales coaching I'm doing and all of them have said, universally, the same thing, opening a business Henderson. Super easy, super cooperative. The city council, all the people that work for the city are amazing at helping usher you through the process of like, okay, let's figure out what license you need. Let's get everything signed up. And like, like, they are super pro business in Henderson. And then you go over to either Las Vegas proper or Clark County, and nobody wants to talk badly about them, because they have to deal with these people. But it's like, it's a little harder over there. But to me, I'm like, Well, wait a minute, aren't the state laws just the state laws, like, why would it be harder in this municipality versus this municipality? So when I'm thinking about, like, a business opening in Henderson, what does the city council control versus, like, what the state legislator approves, or the State Assembly, sorry, approves, or the laws that they set out. So, like, how does that work? Because it seems like, wouldn't you only need one or the other? Like, what are the decisions being made the state level? And then filter down to the city level? Because it's really funny, when I talk to business owners, they're like, Henderson is the best to work with Clark County, not as much.

Christian Bishop  13:59  
Yeah. Another interesting point. You can kind of compare it to the federal and state relationship, where you have federal guidelines and bounded by the Constitution, dollars that are deployed from the feds and given to states to then enact and given to government agencies at the state level to then deploy for different things, housing. You look at snap different issues as well that come up. And then it's similar experience with a state that's providing rules and guidelines and law to the municipalities and how they operate. For example, if you have a project that's over a certain dollar amount, could be about $100,000 has to be prevailing wage. You know that you're going to have to pay a prevailing wage on it. It's going to have to be at a certain dollar amount and a rate that's enacted by law and state law. So municipalities have an opportunity based on how they award grants or projects for if you're going to paint the sidewalks, you're going to do an art project for different levels. So there's rules that get put into place at the state level that municipalities have to operate within in certain guidelines that comes from your state. So it's a working part. Ownership. Certainly, I think some municipalities like the ability to operate as they see fit, and do their thing within the rules and be good partners with the state and be good partners with the school district. They work with ECSD, same thing. They have to be good partners. And there's, of course, a tug and pull there, but I think it's ultimately, can be healthy, but you got to be good operators. And if you look at Clark County in particular, he's also the ones that actually govern the strip. And so you think of f1 and some of these big projects that have happened that completely have changed operations, especially for business owners. You see that being litigated actively right now from small business owners and what that's done to their business and others that have benefited greatly to that. But actually rolls up to Clark County, the whole entire strip, which is majority of the revenue that comes from that. So it's just from an operating footprint. It's a totally different ball game. When you're actually talking Clark County, those county commissioners are some of the, you know, most powerful politicians in the state, because of what they oversee, you know, right? And what that impacts overseeing the strip.

Scott Groves  16:01  
So conceptually, am I thinking about this correctly? You brought up the marijuana dispensaries, right? So the state assembly might say, Okay, it's now legal to have a dispensary in the state of Nevada, and it has to be this far away from a school and yada yada. And then it's up to Henderson to say, Okay, we will or will not issue permits for this particular business in this particular area, like, how is that interplay? Maybe we can talk about the dispensary and then talk about education, because I know that's a big topic on everybody's mind.

Christian Bishop  16:28  
Then sometimes there'll be guidelines, and they may defer to municipalities to issue licenses or use language like you may, right? It may be authorized and available. So soft language there, sauce, the government get

Scott Groves  16:39  
out of jail card, right there. You may, but we're gonna leave that decision to somebody else.

Christian Bishop  16:42  
Is a lawyer. The lawyers, right? So it's soft language that opens up the opportunity for things. Another sensitive one, Airbnb licenses, right as well. That's another big one is certain number of feet, similar to marijuana. You know this Henderson, we don't have a lot of dispensaries, so that has been changed as a city. Airbnb, you can get a license, but can't be within a certain number of feet within another one has to go through a licensing process. That's another one. So you get given guidelines and parameters, and then the municipalities have to be the operators, because this is a big, big one, and you're going to Texas here soon. Texas is like a hands off legislator. You know, they meet very rarely, so it's a very hands off state that doesn't give their legislator necessarily a ton of power. That's like, we're gonna run our lives and stay out of our lives. Government Nevada meets every two years, and the legislator is an office is in called into session for only three to four months. So all this business has to get done in the state of Nevada, this growing state, every two years in a three to four month timeline. Everything has to get done and passed. So it's also condensed. Remember, education comes first. It's a first part of that as well, which is, like, mission critical, you know, to get that done. So everything else is there, not you, if you could pass a law, pass a bill, but who's going to enforce it? Right? Who's, who are your partners that you're going to see will put these things into practice and make sure these things get done. I always say, for me and I talk to folks, it's not just about me winning an election, but I want to be an effective legislator. I want to be able to get things done and actually make an impact. You got to be a good partner. You got to work with your municipalities. You got to work with your government agencies and your different folks that are going to be putting this into action as well. You could have power of the pen, but there's a lot of time when you're out of session as well,

Scott Groves  18:23  
right? So just understanding the relationship here, if you are the state assembly representative for district 29 in Henderson, like it's part of your job to meet with the Henderson city council, they give you their complaints, concerns, suggestions, and then you effectively are their advocates at the state level. Is that? How is that? The interplay, theoretically,

Christian Bishop  18:42  
really interesting question. There's some separation, you know, of your different governing bodies to the point of, like I mentioned a little bit earlier, is when it comes to city business in the municipality, they're going to operate and run things that way they'd like to. And you come to the legislator, they're going to work through their process as well. And it's just one assembly is one side. You also have the Senate. You know, Henderson has Senator Carrie Buck as our senator, SD five in Henderson. So even if you pass something and you have the votes on the assembly, it then has to go to the Senate side, where Kerry and the senators vote on it. So you have to get it passed on both sides of the legislator, and then it goes to the governor. So it's a partnership, very much as a partnership with the city. I aspire to be a good working partner to the city, the mayor and the city council members. I would like to be a legislator that they can say like, Hey, what are our priorities? The city does that. The city has lobbyists that work for them. They have people in government affairs that go up to Carson City when they're in session and they make their case. You know, hey, we want to support for example, one thing that was done with charter schools is municipalities wanted the ability to be able to charter charter schools and give them the ability to launch them on their own. That was lobbied and pushed heavily by the City of Henderson. We're big supporters of that. That's something that they lobbied for to get done with their legislators, you know, make sure that that got done. And ultimately, the governor supported that. Yeah, so it's I aspire to be a good working part partner with the city. Sometimes you may always be aligned, but sometimes you may not. So

Scott Groves  20:08  
tell me a little bit about, like, the issues that are most pressing, that are coming up. Like, when voters talk to you, and I'll tell you where my bias is here. Like, I'm, like, a registered, hardcore libertarian. I pretty much hate all government, all government, all policies, all licensing. I'm just like, whatever. Just leave everybody alone and let them figure it out themselves. So I'm like, probably the worst person to give this interview, because I'd be like, well, just don't do that, just don't do that, just don't do that. Like, I remember seeing something where there's a news report where it's like, this is the most ineffective Congress ever. They've only passed 3200 laws, and I'm like, they should pass zero laws like that. That's where my bias comes from politically. But when you talk to your average Henderson area district 29 voter, like, what are their hot button items? And like, where do you stand on those? Yeah, so 8029 is unique.

Christian Bishop  20:51  
We have a lot of working class folks. A third of voters are 18 to 39 as well. So young families, working class folks, everyday people that are doing their best to pay their bills, you know, their utilities, they're trying to buy their first home with interest rates you mentioned a little earlier, skyrocketing. We just got, what? Two fed cuts, I think that we just got, yeah, hopefully, yeah, hopefully a little bit more, right? We'll see what happens in the mortgage bond market. But folks are trying to buy their first homes. You know, people are trying to pay their bills. Economic development and daily cost of living is has gone up significantly, even groceries, right? You see that continue to be talked about economic developments at the forefront of my my campaign and my platform, or what I care personally, care a lot about trying to grow the pot and diversify our economy and high paying jobs for folks. That pairs with number two, education is you need to have a developed workforce of people that are educated, that have the skills and the hard skills at that to attract these industries and these companies and these jobs that are coming here, whether or not it's you know, engineering, aerospace manufacturing, whatever we decide to do to diversify towards you, got to have the workforce that's educated and prepared for that. Diversifying from hospitality and legacy Nevada and legacy Las Vegas. That's number two for me. And the number three, I think public safety is incredibly important for folks that want to be safe. It's a growing state. There's a lot that goes on here, especially by the strip Henderson. We're our own little suburb, but we care a lot. You know, safety. You know, there's accidents and things that are happening with kids that are getting hit by cars. Traffic's crazy. Road construction and development. You know, there's a constantly a thing, you know, cones everywhere,

Scott Groves  22:29  
everywhere. The most viewed article on our Henderson HQ website is the Boulder City construction. And I'm like, oh, it's going to be done relatively soon, because I'm used to LA where, you know, construction project takes 17 years. And the way that I got flamed over saying this was going to be done relatively soon, they were like, do you know it's going to be another year? I'm like to go live in Los Angeles. This project would take 17 years. So talking about those three economic development, education, public safety, you know, whether it's the party line or your take or something, that's maybe been, like, a little controversial. Can you give me, like, one policy idea in each of those three that you think the state assembly can help push through to make things better?

Christian Bishop  23:07  
Yeah, it's a great question. On the economic development side, I'd like to support small business owners and see what we can do to help people launch business, get access to capital and financing and mechanisms as well working with our credit unions. So what can we do to support that, whether I was working with the treasurer's office staying bonds, what can we do to diversify and be a little bit more strategic, to actually help folks stand up opportunities with their businesses, get the education that they need as well? So there's opportunities there to actually expand and grow that's a bit important for me, that I want to look into, and how we're going to structure that package up with the bill. That's the real work that has to get done, and who our business partners are going to be. Are we working with the chambers of commerce is empowering them with programs? Are we pairing with our universities, our graduates and young people there with business concepts? That's where it has to get figured out. But I like to do more there. I come from that background, as I mentioned, as an entrepreneur, I've seen the challenge and growth of getting access accountable, independent of just small bit SBA loans and that process of personally guaranteed and which I think are brick and mortar and traditional businesses kind of lean towards that. But what else can we do there to get creative is big for me. It's

Scott Groves  24:13  
funny not to cut you off there, but you and I just had lunch with a young man, 19 years old, who started his own trash hauling business, and, like, I want to invest in his business, because this kid's gonna be a millionaire. I was so impressed by him. We're gonna have him on the podcast. And what's crazy to me is this guy's out there working his ass off. I think he already has revenue over $100,000 in his business. He's got people working for him. He's insured. He's doing all the right things at 19 for him to go get a business loan to expand his business and get extra trash haulers. Zero banks will give that guy money. But if he wanted to go to college to get a degree in underwater basket weaving, those institutions will let him go $250,000 into debt tomorrow, without even thinking about it, to basically go party for four to six years at college and maybe get a degree that qualify. Him for something great, or qualifies him to be a barista. And so it's crazy to me that that guy doesn't have some type of local access to capital to be like, here's my business plan, here's my revenue. I want to expand to four hauling trucks. I have one. Like, is he the type of person that you have in mind? Because you and I took a real interest to this kid, and we're super impressed with him.

Christian Bishop  25:17  
Yeah, I think Julian's perfect example of this, right? Not only could he get a loan very quickly, right, but he also, through fast forward, can get grants handed over to him to get subsidized loans, have the interest covered or unsubsidized really quickly. To your point, I have loans. I've got hundreds of 1000s of loans for my education background that I have to manage and deal with, right, which is a burden for a long time that you can't BK, you can't bankrupt out of your settled that for life, that you're managing that. But I completely agree. I think that's a perfect use case and example of someone that's worth investing to that that on the job, training and education that he's developed, you know, is certainly working its way towards a rural business education and business degree, you know, versus a classroom,

Scott Groves  25:59  
he's, he's a he's a hell of a kid. I can't wait to have him on talk about education, because I'll be fully honest, when my wife and I came here, we were not interested in public schools anywhere in America. And then we looked at some private schools, and none of them quite fit our bill. So we opened our own school, because we're crazy and we're entrepreneurs. So we have a small micro school with about 25 students, but I would love for everybody, because, you know, if we went to, like, a would probably grow by 200 people tomorrow, because there's a lot of kids that want to come but unfortunately, their parents can't afford $10,000 a year, and it kind of pains my wife and I. It's like, oh, we built this thing that we think is great, but we can't give access to it to everybody. Like, I wish that this bucket of opportunity over here was better for other people that can't afford private school. So do you think the answer is charter school? Do you think it's some type of accountability within the school, like what is needed to make Vegas education better? Because the last thing I'll say on this, I can't use his name, unfortunately, because he would kill me, but I know a business owner that owns a fairly sizable company in LA, they're looking to move out. They're evaluating three or four different states, and one of the reasons why Vegas just isn't the slam dunk easy choice is because they're like, oh, I don't know if all of our employees will want to move here and put their kids into public school. So then can I afford to pay my employees enough to have their kids go to private school, or are there charter options? So I know education also kind of ties into the economic development of like, attracting larger companies with employees that have certain standards for their kids education. Like, how do we fix education in Nevada? So we're not ranked 45th and we're

Christian Bishop  27:33  
ranked fifth. Yeah, you've got a lot of smart a lot of smart, hard work and people working on solving that exact problem. To me, it's not just about early education, which I do care a lot about. My kids were in programs as they were one years old, right? So, like, even before, preschool developing and what that looks like. So I want to be able to support programs there for kids and for parents too, so they have options to them that there's more public support there and then through their standard education program, whether or not it's kindergarten through high school, and it's not just college, but also from the trade school standpoint too. So like this third party learning concept and opportunity, even homeschool options, a school like yours and your wife, which you've worked through To each their own, that works for every individual. It could be, you know, some cultural differences. It could be just perspective on how you want to raise your child. Could be learning disabilities, whatever, I'd ideally like to find a way to be supportive of all of these concepts and opportunities across the board. I believe we do have the money. I believe in abundance, right? So I believe the United States. Believe in the state of Nevada, there's a ton of money being, you know, generated off there's a great, significant amount of revenue being generated. Are we holding people accountable? I think is a great question, you know, and I definitely believe in accountability, and that's across the board, whether it's educators, administrators, parents, right, kids, let's do that. Not sure standardized testing is the is the clear, you know, answer to some of these things, you know, as I think that's a little bit different. I think you can teach specifically to standardized testing and teaching how to work through a test, like I went through the LSAT and how charity and specifically studying for that test. And through my life, I've experienced that. But I'd like to find a way to be supportive and be able to give people options to do that while supporting our public school systems I think is important. You know, I think our Collegiate system makes sense for a lot of kids and stuff as well, but also, like our trade schools, working with our union partners and laborers and those folks and stuff that run great programs for kids that want to directly, want to jump directly into a trade, yeah, you know as well. Or it's like, what about like our vets, people that come back from service, right, who served six years, came back from being deployed, want an option as well. How can we continue to be supportive there of creating opportunities too? Is important to me. So I like to be able to invest in people there. I think education is critical. This is

Scott Groves  29:46  
particularly relevant to me not to like pigeonhole my nine year old, but it's just become very, I don't know, self evident to me that he's probably going to do a job where he works with his hands. And doesn't mean he can't be a great business owner. Or own a plumbing company one day instead of be a plumber or not that being a plumber, you can make amazing money these days, but I just, I have this innate feeling that, like my kid's gonna end up working with his hands because he's much like me. He could care less about school. He reads, like, technically below grade level, but he's super outgoing, and I can give him this little band saw thing that's got, like, a safety bit on it for cutting cardboard, leave him outside for four hours with a bunch of like, Amazon empty boxes, and he'll be building castles, and he'll be doing this. And the other day, he was home, and then I was on a coaching call, and all of a sudden I heard the power tools, and I was like, oh shit, what are you doing out there? He's like, Don't worry, Dad, I know I can't use the Sawzall, but I just got the drill and all this stuff. So for for me, for him, like, trade school seems super important as an option, right? And furthermore, I dated this girl in my 20s. She was in Germany, and she told me that in Germany, it's like, you can pick a path wherever you want to go, but they do around 15 or 16 give you some standardized tests and some evaluations where it's like, maybe you go the, you know, office worker job. Maybe you're going to go into the doctor, lawyer, engineer path, or maybe you're just better suited for trade school. And they start offering that around 15 years old, so that when you get out of whatever they call it secondary school there in Germany, you have a skill and you have, like, a trade where you can make a living. What might that look like in Henderson and on a broader scale, in Nevada, if we started to identify people like, Hey, I get it. You don't want to go to college, or maybe you don't have the app. Maybe you don't have the aptitude to sit through four years of a liberal arts degree, which I still think can be very important. Like, let's get you on a path to where you're making 5070, 100 grand a year in the trades, versus sitting around a 22 year old watching YouTube and not knowing what you want

Christian Bishop  31:37  
to do. It kind of reminds me of I went through ROTC as a kid, and I think through that program, you work through high schools, right? And you look through the education system, that partnership to have that fluid option in place, so that these groups that exist, your trade schools, your trade unions, these different groups that are already there, so that they can have access to CCSD, the school system, what red tape needs to be addressed if it's there, what program needs to be additionally supported, of who's going to fund the bill, right? Who pay for this, and how the kids going to get there, or where they're going to get do you have to, what you need to be able to I used to have a wood shop, for example, in school. Those are, like, gone, like, who has that anymore? Like, doing, like, carpentry, wood style work and things like that. Liability certainly comes into question,

Scott Groves  32:20  
right? I think I was the last one to take wood and metal shop at Roosevelt Junior High in Glendale, and I think I was the last class to go through auto shop at Glendale high school before we moved up to the desert. And those just aren't even gone anymore. Like, forget about the fact of like, getting a trade in, like, one semester of wood shop. But it like sparked an interest in a lot of kids. Like, Oh, maybe this is something that I could do, working with my hands and making a living out of this. So yeah, how do we bring that back, like Home Ec and all that stuff? I

Christian Bishop  32:45  
think it's great. Look you and I have talked a little bit about AI. I'm sure it's been a popular subject on the pod podcast already that's come up. But you look at what's shifting to tech and computers, content creation, AI and the job market and how that's shifting, I think an obvious one that's going to continue to be clear as working class jobs with your hands, right? So these are your trades, your trades, folks, these jobs are going to continue to be critically important, like, who's doing the work, who's building things, who's fixing things, who's solving problems. I know entrepreneurs are the HVAC guys that are super successful for yeah, there's, like, all these tons of companies, or a lot of people don't want to do these jobs, and some that are more creative around metal work and doing things like this, but I think there's going to be actually tremendous opportunity for folks that are great at what they do, and then can develop those entrepreneurial skills as well and just be good operators and be important. So I think it's something to lean into and not away from. And I think it's exposure, giving kids and people an opportunity to just be exposed to it. That's what I try to do as a follow tried to, as a father, expose my kids the opportunities and let their, you know, curiosity kind of lead them to where they want to be. And then I pay attention to, like, Okay, what's resonating with them? What are they picking up on? And I think we can try to work through something similar, you know, with with a lot of folks throughout Nevada,

Scott Groves  33:57  
you know, public safety obviously top of my what's going on in the meta nationally. One of the reasons we moved to Henderson, it was one of our top picks, because of the safety here and the police force, I think, does a pretty awesome job. I just happened to be at the night out event, and there was a large constituents of police officers there that were not happy because they're still in, like, contract negotiations and all kinds of stuff going on with the City of Henderson. Does the state have a lot to do with public safety? Or is it kind of like that's the city budget and they have to make the decisions that they have to make? Or is there some interplay between state funding and city funding and whatnot? Or is that all on the city that the current police officers in Henderson are a little upset and disgruntled.

Christian Bishop  34:41  
Good question about the find funding mechanism for law enforcement. I'm not sure how much of the funding flows through some like our property taxes, funds a lot of our services. So why not? It's fire department. I imagine meaningful portion of that comes from property taxes in the municipality as well, and then managed through the city. Who doesn't? Negotiation, definitely city council, in the mayor's office and their teams who do that. But similar, like we mentioned before, the legislator enacts laws, though that impact them. And this is just Henderson, but you know, what about Metro, right? And and these other experienced what are people that operate our jails? There's like eight different unions that operate within our law enforcement organization. What about the schools that have officers at them as well. So like these are all just different departments and groups and teams, laws that come into place, working with prosecutors, the DAS, the public defenders and everybody that's having to operate in our judicial system as well. It's all interconnected, and legislator clearly plays a big part over all of this. There's a way to be helpful. I think there's a way to be supportive, you know, for sure, in solving some of these problems. And where does this come at? You know, especially something as litigious, you know, as law enforcement, there's a lot that comes down ill and costs and mechanisms that impact things from the consequence standpoint, too. So how do we protect people? How do we make people feel safe as well, on both sides of things, right? Either, if it's something as serious and significant as a wrongful conviction, something as, you know, serious on the other end, where you've got officers that are that would fear for their safety, they pull somebody over, and something happens, right? Like there's sigils and things that happen in Nevada and Vegas, where officers are losing their lives and they go out serving every single day. Super serious. You know, one of my friends, Mindy, she's running for office. She lost her husband that way, you know, many years ago. So, you know, we got to support people that are putting themselves out there every single day on the front lines, whether or not it's our veterans, law enforcement folks, that they can do their best work as well, so that they're mentally where they need to be. It's one of the things I appreciate about the sheriff. That's one of the things he launched, was a mental wellness center where he's got law enforcement officers that are using that on the daily and he re appropriated funds from roles that weren't filled to be able to staff that. And from a mental health standpoint, you know, officers would take care of that, and haven't had a suicide in over two years since it's been opened. That's impactful, measurable impact, in my opinion, yeah, that makes a difference in everybody's lives.

Scott Groves  37:02  
You know, going back to your entrepreneur conversation, I think in general, at all levels of government, the answer always just kind of seems to be like, more we just need more funding. We just need a little bit more money here. We just need more laws there. We just need more staffing here. How many of the problems you think, like the state assembly can work on where, yeah, maybe we need more revenue. That's a reality. But also maybe it's just like redeploying resources. Like, I love what you said about the sheriff saying, like, hey, we can redeploy some positions to this thing over here. Maybe we don't have to hire a dozen new $100,000 a year employees, but we can redeploy some of the money and whatnot. Like, if you had to guess a percentage, and it's totally unfair question, like, is 50% of the problem more revenue, and 50% is just redeploying what we have? Is it like 9010 you know, like when it comes to the accountability and looking at things through the lens of a business, you know, you and I and our businesses, we only have so much money to spend because we only so much revenue coming in. So how do we, like, appropriately allocate resources? I guess, is the question I'm asking, or what percentage of the problems can be fixed by reallocation versus like, we need

Christian Bishop  38:05  
more. There has to be significant bloat and waste, right? I think if you look at it from a business perspective, I remember, like, the 8020 rule, right? 80% of the work is being done by 20% of the workforce. You're, you know, your top performers and folks, and I think we've all been impacted and seen people that have been underwhelming employees, whether or not it's been at the DMV or other services that he's just like, this is rough. You know, how'd you get this job? You don't like what you do? Do you it's affecting their experience. So I think there's a lot of opportunity for development there. You kind of goes back to what I mentioned a little bit earlier, though, from a legislator's perspective, you've got to work with your operating partners, and I think that's like, what are we doing to find great talent that are operators? You know, if you look at CCSD, example, massive budget, right? Our school system, we just had a new superintendent that got changed over that ends up being a national search, and that's a tough job to hire for, but they're critical. You know, she's she's mission critical to the operation of this massive budget, running any CSD in this system. And you hope that you do a good job at the highest level, finding good leadership at the top, empowering them, being critical when it matters to get to hire right. And then by guiding that process, if you can hope that they make those tough decisions, to then work through their org chart and their staffing to identify bloat, identify waste, and be smart. You know, I like to be able to play a part in doing that through a variety of levels in our government where you can make an impact. And I think that's like the interesting thing too, about serving. You know, it's not just your time as a legislator, but you end up finding yourself on a lot of different boards and committees too, where you are hiring you know the executive director in an organization, while you're serving on that board, or that particular group that then makes those decisions, and you're providing oversight in a particular vertical as well. So you find your. Yourself filling up a lot of your free time too, right, continuing to serve and different boards and organizations and groups where you can make

Scott Groves  40:07  
an impact. So that was good. Next question, right? Because you said the State Assembly, or the the overall legislator, only meets three or four months every two years, like, what do you do in the rest of the time? Right? Like, if you get elected to this position, or, I should say, when you get elected to this position, because I like you, position, because I like you, what do you do the rest of time? Is it just like out amongst the people seeing what their concerns are, so you can bring those issues back every two years? Or is it this other kind of charitable or service work where you're serving on boards and other committees and kind of getting pulled in a million different directions? Because I imagine, once you're on State Assembly, everybody wants you in their kind of like ecosystem of making decisions, right? Because maybe you have influence or something like that.

Christian Bishop  40:47  
No, no shortage of of things to invest your time in and problems to try to solve and attempt to solve. There's no shortage of them, right? Even now, I'm sitting on five different boards even before then, and it's just constantly working to try to solve problems and address things you're in interim committees. So for example, address the snap funding. The interim committee legislators funded and provided temporary funding through the state budget to be able to fill in some of those shortfalls for SNAP funding. Now that was happened through interim committee. So there are when emergencies arise. Legislators do need to be able to mobilize outside just the accession so you're kind of on call for the emergency stuff. Yeah, and there's people that are assigned in these interim committees, in these positions, and remember, so many different committees, right? Whether or not it's education, Ways and Means. You know, on the education, on the tech side, judicial, labor and commerce, there's all these different groups and committees, and ideally, legislators are being assigned to committees that align with their skill sets. You know, if you're an educator or experience in education, maybe education makes sense for you. If you're an attorney, maybe judicial makes more sense for you. If you're an entrepreneur or have a finance background, okay, maybe ways and means or Commerce and Labor can make more sense for you. So ideally, you're getting aligned, and that's what a diverse body of representatives should be able to give you is they give you different skill sets of perspective. So ideally, you land closer to truth. Ideally, if you have quality candidates that all bring diverse backgrounds, but yeah, they end up getting assigned to these committees on the interim. And it's also a part time role. By the way, you only make 9000 a year, so when you make those a whole year, yeah, when you're and that's when you're in session, so you're making about seven bucks an hour, that's hour. Cost your money seven way less, way less now the hours you don't even count. Man, you don't even count the hours. It didn't count the time you know that goes into it. And as an assembly person, you also campaign, and you have to run for office every two years, so you're essentially always campaigning in a way, you know. And how many state assembly

Scott Groves  42:44  
members, roughly, are there in Nevada? Like, do you know how many districts

Christian Bishop  42:47  
there are? Yeah, so in Southern Nevada, you're talking, I'll be like, probably, like 26 ish, you know, roughly, I think Reno area has like, six or seven up there as well, you know, so it's a pretty big body. It's ultimately double the senators. So every senator has two assembly districts. I think roughly, you're talking 20, maybe 23 senators, maybe 46 districts total, roughly, no, don't quote me on that, guys.

Scott Groves  43:14  
No, but, but, you know, when we think about the federal level, it's so crazy divided and write down party lines where it's like, I would presume, if you could give half these people truth serum, they would break from their party for certain things that they believe in. One of the things I like about Nevada is we're pretty much a purple state, right? We might have a blue legislator and a red governor, or a blue governor and a red legislator and whatnot. Have you seen or have I'm sure you've done some research on is it as partisan in Nevada as it is in the rest of the world, or is it a little bit more pragmatic, because we're pretty much like 5050, I was, I was arguing with my friend. We were the only state in the union that voted like for Trump at the national level, for a lot of Democrats in the state level, for protection of abortion rights at the state level, like so the fact that we're kind of a purple state and pretty equally divided, do you find the state legislator being more cooperative, or is it kind of like the federal where it's just split down the middle? If you're blue, you vote blue. If you're red, you vote you vote red. It

Christian Bishop  44:15  
certainly it's a big It depends. Nevada is certainly purple. We're both from California, right? So we both, you have a lot of people that are coming from California with different politics, but generally you have more Democrats that are coming from California. Or you could actually argue that is it people that are frustrated leaving Democrat policies in California, coming to Nevada and moving, you know? So there's an argument there. And non partisans are the biggest growing group in Nevada, actually, so that are just frustrated or not aligning with any particular party. So that's a fascinating change to see that's happening. We're still purple. Henderson is certainly more conservative and Republican as a community as it stands, and you'll see that, you know, the rural areas are more Republican as well, and more conservative close. Our county is supposed to be like the blue wall and like Democrat, you know, grouping. And it was for the first time in a long time, almost like two decades. Nevada did go to Trump and went red, but it hasn't that's been pretty safely blue for many, many years and counted on as a battleground state by Democrats, which is testament to, I think, this changing tide that's going on with folks that that's happening. I hope I could be a bipartisan legislator. You know? I certainly would like to be, and be able to work with people on both sides of the aisle, but I think there is I've, you know, I mentioned I ran once, right? Scott, so I've had to become more mature politically and change and learn and grow about the reality of politics, and there still are some real partisan issues that are very partisan. One of the issues, one of the reasons why this is especially in Nevada, it's a big union state. Your union partners, it's like the backbone of the Democrat party. It's a big, big deal. Special interests across the board, in the lobby corps, play a critical part in elections and legislating and Carson City. You know, they play that special interest that's money in politics, right? A massive part in all of this, which forces, in some cases, partis partisan decisions to be made as well, which undermines an elected official's ability to be truly, fully free thinking, you know, in some ways, which is challenging. So you've had to kind of grow up and evolve through that. And I think in some cases, you may make concessions on things, ideally, ones that are never going to go against the people in your constituents that elected you and put you in office to, you know, to represent them. You know, well,

Scott Groves  46:41  
I'll tell you just not to cut you off again, because I feel like you keep cutting you off. But one of the reasons I was willing to interview and have this be our first political conversation on the podcast, not that we are like a big reach or anything, is because when I went to your website, Christian bishop.com when I went to your website, it was literally like he a slot machine. I didn't know if it was going to come up that you were running as a Republican or Democrat, because the make sense conversations you and I have had about business, little bit of politics, little bit about, like, what's best for the community. I really couldn't tell i i would not have been surprised if you were, like, a more level headed, in my opinion, putting words in my mouth, in somebody else's mouth, level headed Democrat, or if you were just a little bit more of a liberal conservative, because you were from California, and when it came up that you're running under, you know the DNC, I was like, Okay, that makes sense, but not in, like, the partisan way I would expect. Because, like I said, we started the podcast with most human beings. I can ask them one question, and based on their answer, I know exactly what all their other political beliefs are, which is a real shame. So shout out to being the first Democrat that I've had on the podcast.

Christian Bishop  47:46  
Thank you. Look, I appreciate it, Scott. I what I am first is I'm an American, or I'm a husband, I'm a father, right? Just like you trying to provide for my family, lead the right way in my household, for my teams, for my companies and businesses. And then I hope that these things identify me way more than a political party. That's what I really hope. And there's a reason for that, right? My website, it's intentional, right? As I want to actually talk issues with people and talk about things that impact their daily lives, and get into the meat and potatoes of a conversation and listen about why someone feels somewhere, some way they do, and why? Why is that your perspective and educate me and open my eyes to something that I haven't considered based on what you've been through in your life and your family and your day to day challenges as well. And I think too many people parrot party talking points, and I have a big problem with that. I just can't logically justify how anybody agrees 100% with anybody you know, period.

Scott Groves  48:41  
You my wife and I don't agree on things on it. I said, the chances that me and some random Republican or libertarian in Ohio are going to agree on everything is the most crazy, like purity test. It's just, it's bonkers

Christian Bishop  48:54  
impossible. It's impossible, and they don't know you exist, and you never had a conversation with them either, right? So it's like, that's another thing I might be but you can't pick up the phone and talk to these people. You can with me. These people. You can with me, right? So you can, we can chat. We can have a conversation. Your voice will carry with me. Like, you could testify on a bill that I'm working on that we say, let's address something with entrepreneurship or trade schools, or let's bring back what, what shops and auto body shops, and say, like, let's talk about that from your experience. And you could, we could work together on legislation and actually make a difference. And I may carry the bill, but I need you and 15 others to testify with us and talk about why our community this and why this is important to our kids. It's a team sport. Very much so. So I try to actually be a bridge builder and have these conversations with folks, and also, practically speaking, I think that that's what it takes to win as the effective legislator, especially in a place like Henderson, with a state like Nevada that is becoming more and more purple and is changing with a big, nonpartisan, growing base and with a huge group of people that are disenfranchised from politics, you know, just like yourself, right? It's obnoxious and it's annoying, and I think you'll continue to have poor participation. In politics, and you'll have, like, very extreme vocal, loud people that are on either side, parroting stuff that are almost like this vocal minority that's like, Wait, I don't even really care about that. I care about these, the board things over here. You know that are factored by game of life. I don't know how this became

Scott Groves  50:20  
the vocal minority on each side of the political divide talking about the issues that affect such a small percentage of the populace. Somehow that gets all the air in the room. And sometimes, trust me, I I feed into it. Sometimes I am not without sin on this topic, but I'm like, How is this the thing that we're fighting over? You know, it just it blows my mind. So I would be remiss if I didn't get back to the fact that they pay you a whopping $9,000 to be part of the State Assembly, which obviously means you still have to run your business. You still have to do all of the things in your life to, like, pay the bills. I know your mortgage is not that cheap. How did you talk your family into this? They're like, Hey guys, I'm gonna give up a bunch of my time to make the state better, and I'm gonna make a whole $9,000 which I'm guessing you can make a lot more money than that working in eSports. What was the conversation with your wife and your

Christian Bishop  51:10  
family? Yeah, my wife certainly doesn't know about the money. We had never talked about the money. So sorry, honey. I let you know on this podcast. We invested over six figures into our first Senate race, you know, last year. So we broke some fundraising records, raising without special interest money as well, with everyday folks on both sides of the aisle, business owners, people I built a relationship with who invested in our campaign. I matched those dollars, one for one myself. I said, if I'm asking people to put their hard earned money into my campaign, I'll match it with my family as well. So we have invested significantly in these races, and we'll continue to do so. We never talked about the money my wife when we our current seat this one, we're running for 8029 the current assembly member is running for State Treasurer now, after one term. So he did two years, and then he said, I'm running for State Treasurer. Wasn't planned, and we couldn't have it was his first time, so we didn't think it would be available as well. So wasn't necessarily planning on running, until he announced, I'm not coming back. So this popped up and she told me to run. She's like, we have unfinished business, and we have work to do. So she's a nurse, right? So she works in nursing hospital. She's we talk about issues that she faces every day, whether or not it's, you know, number of patients to per nurse ratios, and what that affects on care. She sees the decisions being made that are life or death every day for patients and decisions that boil down, that we talk about, that I get a behind the scenes perspective on of you know, things that are done in our medical system, from administrators, doctors, staff and things as well. And she's passionate, you know, about service and care as well. And you know, she wants me to run, and as I've shifted my career from, you know, corporate America and entrepreneurship and some of this stuff, it's, yeah, I think about my kids and what I could do to make an impact and the second stage of my life. So

Scott Groves  52:50  
I gotta ask, I want to keep this short so people listen to the whole thing. But if you were pick a we'll just say you had a magic wand where you're the governor or whatever, if you could fix one thing in Henderson, and then one thing in the state of Nevada, just based on how you see the world, what would you fix at like, the city level in Henderson, and then at the state level, what's something that you'd really like to see change in Nevada and in

Christian Bishop  53:14  
Henderson? Oh, man, it's a powerful, exciting question. I want to just word them and, like, squeeze three things into this. But go ahead, sweet later, let's talk about some things, like, one unique about Nevada. Do you know who owns most of the land in Nevada? Federal government, yeah, over like, 90%

Scott Groves  53:35  
Yeah. I just, I just was telling this to somebody the other day. I'm like, yeah. BLM, Bureau of Land Management. They own something like, yeah, 85 90% of all the land in Nevada. Yeah, that's why there's only, like, three cities in Nevada, Reno, no offense, everybody else, but Las Vegas, Clark County, Reno and, like, Carson City. That's pretty much your only major population centers. So yeah, the Feds own most of what you see driving up the 15 until you get to

Christian Bishop  53:59  
Utah. It's nuts, right? And resources at that, right that are controlled, and some lease back, right? Miners and operators that get access to some of these things and but that's, that's something that you can definitely look to address, and getting access to federal lands, you know, when we think about, you know, the growing reality of Las Vegas, that's critical and super important. It's something I have my eye on, certainly, but there's work that's been done there. And our Congress folks and our senators, you know, they've gotten access to land, and there's some development stuff. But the second one to that is water. You know, I'd like to see the Colorado River deal, you know, renegotiated in infrastructure at the Colorado River up north, and the army of corps engineers doing some real work there, because the water levels have diminished blatantly, and we got a really bad deal 50 plus years ago where we have a fraction of our water supply, majority going to California. You California? Stilling our water? Yes, and Arizona. And with why we recycle, we're so great with recycling our water is we pump it back into Lake Mead so we can pull it. Out again, you know? So we just do this game of recycling. So we're never technically pulling more than our supply, because we put it back in and then we re pump and recirculate. But like, our water supply needs to be addressed. That's significant, especially the more you continue to grow. And it's not just renegotiating the deal, but that's why I mentioned, you know, the addressing it from an engineering perspective, and what do we need to do to get more access to water as a more pumps? What needs to be done there as well? And I'm a big believer, you know, and alternative energy too. And what can we do to, you know, to continue to get access to more affordable energy at scale, especially if we're talking about expanding data centers and technology, and especially if I'm interested in diversifying industries from a manufacturing whether or not it's aerospace standpoint, some of these things that are done, we see our utility bills, right? You look at transport bills. So what can we do, whether or not, you know, taking advantage of things like fission and other science, right? Could be nuclear components of these micro outlets that they have, that you can install, that can actually power cities that are a little bit safer or less socially charged, I suppose. But what can we do to be a bit more forward thinking? Started thinking of decades down the road of getting in rural infrastructure to address some things that are there, and that's, I think, like the infrastructural reality of expanding and diversifying the economy and industries as well. You know, it's like water utilities, right? Energy, like this is

Scott Groves  56:27  
the boring stuff that makes a state more productive. It's like, because everything starts with power. Like, if you don't have enough power to run the data centers, you can't bring in the higher paying jobs. You don't higher paying jobs, you won't have families that care more about education. I mean, it's just like, it's this circular thing where, like, this is really the boring stuff that affects us at a micro level, and everybody wants to complain about what the federal government's doing on some protest. So I appreciate that about you,

Christian Bishop  56:51  
by the way. And land, right? People need homes to live in, and then affordable, you know, homes at bat, right? And, and you can, of course, build that layer back and really dig into that when I talk about rates and building costs and cost of labor and permits and building speeds, and what does that get done? And so then you could really dive into that if you want as well, but those are, like, top line things that I think through that are pretty important, nice.

Scott Groves  57:17  
What did I forget to ask you about running for State Assembly?

Christian Bishop  57:21  
What did you forget to ask me? You forgot to ask me how you could be supportive to my campaigns? How could you be supportive to the Christian bishops or get you out here? We're gonna get you. We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna make some content. Scott, we're gonna continue to make some content. We're gonna collaborate on both written and, I think, video content like this too, but also written. What can we do to get stuff out there? Whether or not the digital SEO world continue to get the message out there, let's get you door knocking and canvassing a bit. You're good looking. People will like you at the doors.

Scott Groves  57:50  
Know about that? We're scared. Get my wife out there. Get my wife and kids out there. She can Canvas.

Christian Bishop  57:55  
Canvassing is brutal, but we'll do some events, you know. And of course, we'd love some of her hard earned money as well for a donation scout. So that would be helpful. Perfect. When is the election? So we have two so most likely, we'll probably get a primary from from a Democrat. I'll probably get a Democrat primary in June. We'll see and who actually announces and registers. No one has yet. And then a general election in November. November November 5. Got it well, so November

Scott Groves  58:22  
5 of next year. This is, this is a year long process for you to help the state to make $9,000 a year. You are, you are a better

Christian Bishop  58:30  
man than me. It never was about me. It's never about that died only. I'm spending way more than that. You know, that's like. So it's not really about that. I'm sure you've served you

Scott Groves  58:41  
in the army. Yeah, I made in 2000 when I got out. My day to get out of the army was September 11, 2000 so I got out a year before all hell broke loose, almost reenlisted, and then didn't. But gonna say, your RE up, right? Yeah, I almost, I almost did. And probably, like, that's one of the one of the regrets is that I should have but yeah, I think in

Unknown Speaker  59:03  
2000 I think I made $14,800

Scott Groves  59:07  
or something like that. $16,800

Christian Bishop  59:09  
something like that. I think we got 1200 bucks, you want.

Scott Groves  59:12  
Or I was like an e4 and I lived on base. I didn't get any, like, housing allowance, I wasn't married or anything. I was, I was like the perfect soldier. I lived in a barracks unit with three other guys and made nothing and drank a lot of beer, and was like, ready to go blow stuff up. But, yeah, it's true. That's true. I'm glad there are people like you that have the time, energy, desire to serve and yeah, I'll get out there and do some events for you. So I like everything that you're saying. I like the message. I think, I think you are one of those real people that can be bipartisan, regardless of what letters are on the website, but, man, thanks for coming in. We're gonna have you on again, but as we get closer to kind of solidify whatever the issues are in October of next year,

Christian Bishop  59:53  
yeah, that's, that's the thing too, right? You know, has a world change, you know, over the next six months, and what does things look like, and what's important? Constituents, especially at the doors, because I'll start canvassing next year, not canvassing yet. So you mentioned it earlier, like when you're talking to people, that's the best part about canvassing is you get to hear that and have these conversations at the door with folks about, like, what they care about. Love it. Remind everybody else one more time where to find you. Christian bishop.com, you can exist on my socials. Thanks, Scott.

Scott Groves  1:00:19  
Perfect Man, thanks. Hey, it's Scott groves with the Henderson HQ podcast. I hope you got something out of that episode. If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to the podcast. It really helps the show grow. And by the way, if you are a business owner, or you know, a business owner who has an interesting product, service or just an interesting backstory, please, please get in touch with us. Email us at the Henderson hq@gmail.com we would love to interview you, because that's what this show is all about. It's about building community, supporting local, individually owned businesses, and just making Henderson a great place to live. And don't forget, go to Henderson hq.com and make sure you sign up for our newsletter. We send out a once a week newsletter, no spam, about the most interesting local businesses, hot spots, restaurants, community events. Thanks for watching the show. Really appreciate you.