Transcript of From $50 to the State Senate | Faith & the American Dream ft. Senator Steven Choi

He has prepared another door. He gave me a chance to run for state senate and experience as a senator. As you know, a senator has a lot more prestige and more comfortable, four years rather than every two years running. I wouldn't have had tasted as a senator experience if I was not defeated the fourth term. I didn't know.

Welcome to another Another episode of Coffees. Please welcome Senator Stephen Choy.

Thank you, Joseph, for your invitation and a nice introduction. Looks like you have done a little bit of study on me.

We did a little bit of study and got to meet you a couple of times. Yeah.

Thank you for the nice words.

God bless you and God bless your service. You're a man of faith and a man that continues to help so many countless others. God bless your service.

Thank you. With the Christmas coming, Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas.

Blessings to everybody, all the listeners.

Thank you so much. Let's dive into it. I always like to see how people start their day. What's your morning routine?

I try to vacate my morning time as much as possible. I tell my scheduler, Don't book me up anything in the morning because I have some my personal stuff I need to take care of, but particularly as As soon as I get up, my date... I tried to get up early, somewhere five o'clock, 5: 30. On the bed itself, I tried to open up my day with the Bible verses. This is my fourth time reading Korean Bible and then English Bible, Korean Bible, English Bible. Now in I'm going to English Bible right now, I'm reading for the fourth time. A minimum of two chapters of a book, right now, we're back to Genesis. It's quite interesting to read, especially I visited Israel right after the session this year in September. It was 14th to June 19th. It was eye-opening for me. Some geographic area names that I've been reading in the Bible. In reality, having seen the location names, and the whole Samaria, it hits me in Real time in reading the Bible. That's my first encounter in the morning. Then I tried to make up a little bit of exercise. I don't have much time.

I I tried to go to gym and spend a couple hours a day, and I had a select time between two elections from assembly time and when I was announcing my candidacy for the Senate, I had a little bit of a couple of months of time. During the time, I spent quite a bit of time in the gym, but now I don't have that time. I live in a very nice neighborhood with hills. I walk and jog back for my health and do some stretches, and Taekwondo style stretches as well because I have done some Taekwondo when I was young, and I tried to maintain my body. Then take care of some personal stuff, and then get to my office. Usually, somewhere, depending upon schedule, I may have to get up earlier, but I try to get to my office. If no particular schedule, 11: 00, 12: 00. Usually, I come there in the I followed my schedule, whatever that I'm scheduled to follow today. Then my staff members will prepare me, where to go, what to do. That is my routine.

I mean, you're keeping Being so busy at your age, I don't know how old you are. It seems like you're timeless.

I'm very old. Speaking of age, I was abandoned by my own party because of my age. You are too old. We're going to recruit some young blood. That's what they did. Even though with my political background experience on all local levels up to assembly, they chose somebody else, a younger person, and invested that money on him. It turned out in the primary election, there were 11 people, seven Democrats and the four Republicans, and he was near the bottom. Eventually, I bubbled up to number two against sitting incumbent Democrat senators. I was a former assembly member. As you know, California election rule is the top two. People will compete in the general election. They turned out to be Democratic candidate and a Republican candidate. The Republican candidate happened to be me. They had no choice to to not to support me because there was a Democratic candidate versus a Republican. They ended up, they supported me a little bit for the general election. I made it. I ended up beating the sitting incumbent by the Republican, sitting incumbent Democrat in the Senate took for the first time in 44 years. Wow. They called me miracle senator in financial situation at all.

In election, in campaign, that's what they I say money is everything, right? It is important. You got to have a money to campaign. But I was not a near competitor to sitting incumbent because personally, I raised less than $100,000. Then also $60,000 was saved from my assembly raise because I saw the last planned mail campaign, which cost about $40,000, $50,000. I said, Don't spend it. There's no chance. Even if I send another flyer, it's not going to make it. Then I saved it and it became the basis for the Senate race. One of the interviewers of the endorsement for Republican candidate, which went to endorse by Orange County Republican Party, One of the member guys, he was focused in targeting me. Not general people will know that details. He attacked me for, Why did you not spend your $60,000 and you didn't get elected? It didn't make any sense. He didn't know what was going on. Anyway, that was my basis. Less than $50,000, I raised a total of less than $100,000 against my opponent, Democratic incumbent, had a total in the middle, not even the last, $11 million. Wow. Money-wise, $100,000 versus $11 million, it's not a game.

Supposedly, I should be, the long time, so much for the percentage, I should have been defeated.

Yeah, I should have been wiped out.

But I beat him, so nobody supported me. No organizations, not even my party, as I said, and no lobbies, et cetera. People were surprised, shocked.

What do you think the catalyst was for you to win that election? If you didn't have the support from your party, you didn't have money to win, what is it that allowed you to win by a landsline?

I'm glad you asked that question as a fellow Christian, as I understand you are also a Christian. God has nothing that is impossible. As a person of faith, the only tool I had was that I was praying to your will not to be afraid and to be brave. And then I prayed, and he delivered that miracle. To me, that was a miracle. One of the miracles that people may not believe in.

Now, I want to go back. I want to go back to when you came to America. I mean, a lot of people say they came to America with five bucks in their pocket. You came to America with 50 bucks in your pocket. It could have been 100, but the story goes $50. Now, what do you remember about those early days that really drove you forward when you came to America? What is it that really inspired you as an immigrant?

My story of a $50. I went up on arrival here because I started out with that story, which was true. In fact, I left my country of South Korea right after my military service, right after college. Then I was an artillery officer. They didn't pay us much, so I didn't have much money to save. Leaving for America, I had to just clean up my bank account. That turned out to be $100. I took $100, and then at that time, there was no even direct flight from Korea to... At that time, my destination was Hawaii because that was the place where my first job started that the market gave me. But there was no direct flight to Hawaii from Korea. We had to go to Japan and to spend the a night and fly to Hawaii by Pan Am. My friends went to a shop, and everybody's for buying camera. He says, Oh, you're going to have a camera to take pictures to have some memories. I invested my $50 to buy a camera. That's the reason by the time I arrived in Hawaii, I had only $50 left. That was the story of where it began.

From there, my journey began in America. It was remarkable how I survived and my education for my master's degree and a PhD, and ended up being a professor. From there, I was led into politics, and here I am.

You were a professor. What did you teach?

My degree was a library and information science from University of Pittsburgh. Okay. So, USC, a dean, I met her, Dr. Matabose, was in the American Library Association Convention in Chicago, and my dean was introducing me as a doctoral student. I don't know why the dean was impressed by me. After several months, she called me, I come to USA and teach for us. That led my way to Southern California.

When did your career in politics start?

That was after teaching I was in USA for five years, I moved to Orange County and taught at UCI for about three years. At the time, the subject changed because originally my job to America was a Korean language instructor and a cultural instructor for Peace Corps members who were assigned to Korea. Teaching Korean language was my interest and became evocation. Wherever I go, I started a Korean language school. I proposed to UCI to open up a Korean language class, and that idea didn't go anywhere. He asked me to bring a million dollars to start a program. If you guarantee my teaching position after I set the class up, and no, we cannot guarantee, then why should I try to raise a million dollars? Anyway, I stopped at that foot. And about three years later, somebody called me, Come and teach. There's a Korean language class. And learned that One professor who was a visiting professor from several national university, and he returned, and they suddenly had no professor to teach. They thought about me and called me to teach, so I took there. Because of that teaching experience at UCI and USA, including my landlord, the people around me, kept asking me to run for school board in Irvine.

That was for two years. No, I don't know anything about what the school board is, about what they do. No politics, I'm not interested in. I was studying my own business called the Dr. Choice Academy. Then I resisted for two years and eventually ended up becoming a candidate because I I was misled. There are two positions, nobody's applying. Put your name in and you may get elected without having to go through any campaign in a real election.

Is that what happened?

It ended up with 10 candidates for two positions, one incumbent going after her own seat and one open seat. One open seat, nine of us competing. I was the only non-caucasian, only Asian with the accent and different, I guess, point of views, visual Minority in the language, minority with the accent, everything as an adversarial situation. But surprisingly enough, I didn't know How to campaign or anything, but I got elected. That was 1998 for the first time. That was my door opening.

Into politics.

Into politics.

You've been in politics for a long time.

Ever since 1998.

Yeah, we're going on almost three decades.

Yes, close to it, about 27 years right now. That is probably one of the records as well. Very few defeats as a continuous election. I joke, and then also plus reality, I'm still trading the order to get up the political pond. People keep on pushing me back. That means people keep on electing me. When I run, if you don't win, you are forced to retire from the politics. But they keep on re-electing me. So still, I am happily serving my supporters and the constituents.

I always wondered, you're in a position financially where you don't need to work. And obviously, politics probably doesn't pay much. What is it that drew you to politics? Why are you putting yourself through all this hassle at your age, in your financial position, and not having to do it? What is it that draws you to climbing the political ladder?

I think you are making good point. Nobody will try to become a politician for money, because when I I got it, what's it, about $300 or $400 for the school board after insurance deduction or whatever deductions, sometimes I deposit $4. 90.

It's not big pay.

No. Even Irvine City Council mayors are much better off than other places. That was a little bit better than in comparison to other cities. It was decent enough, but I served in the school board for six years before I started as a city council, which was 2004 for the first I ran. I served there eight years on the city council. Then you can serve only two terms consecutively at that time, the law, the ordinance of the city. Then I ran for mayor. Then I got elected. The re-election, I got re-elected. I served as a mayor 2012 to 2016 until I They got elected to the state assembly in the 68th district. It was not intended, but it turned out to be every step of local government, the school board, city council, mayor, assembly, and senate. I think this has been a long record for anyone, either minority or non-minority, even professional politicians who, like in Congress with no term limitations, they forever serve until over 90 years old. I never intended to serve this long. But as you can see, my memory is sharp and I'm physically unfit, and people still desire me to serve and keep on electing me.

So if this condition continues, why not? And your question, why are we serving in that difficult process of becoming a politician? It is very difficult. This year is the only comfortable time I'm not campaigning for re-election. Up to assembly, every two years, you have to run two times, primary and the general election. But the Senate is for four years. Right now, after four years, if I have served until 2028, I would have served for 10 years. The state regulation is that I shall serve only up to 12 years. I will have a two years left to serve in the state legislature, but the senate term is four years. They would not let me run to serve for two years because it's less than four years. But anyway, that's a different story. Having served as a minority and serving my city and the entire region for assembly was about roughly 50,000 people in the Senate. I have over a million people in my district. That's a double because senators are 40 members and this assembly is 80 members. In there, now, all kinds of background people come. Quite a few now minorities, I do see that now.

But when I started, Everything that I did was for the first time. You're the first minority got elected to the school board, to the city, et cetera, et cetera, as Asian, as a Korean, background, background. Looking back, this is for the first-generation immigrants, particularly, because the first-generation means that you are over 18 years old by the time you arrive. That's the category we term them as a first generation. My children who are born here will be second generation.

What if you came over when you were five?

You will become 1. 5 generation. If you came when you're five, then you become 1. 5, almost native, but you have a deeper parental relationship in the root in the country of parents. My children will be second generation, but they tend to, I guess, are saturated and acquainted with the Korean culture of what we do, like eating kimchi in the Korean food, the Korean bulgogi.

Well, everybody likes bulgogi and kimchi now. That's still a staple food in many diets.

Yeah, 100 days of the baby, 100 days of the survival celebration, we call it. And so looking back, nobody will plan, Hey, I'm going to be a role model for my Korean Americans or immigrants. But you turn out to be role model for that group, not only for Korean Americans, but for Asians, for the wider spectrum for immigrants. Oh, look at Stephen Chouh, who is supposedly first-generation American with an even different shape and a different accent. He keeps on running and keeps on winning and keeps on serving the community for a long time. I send an unspriced token message to children and the immigration population that once you have chosen America as your home country, become assimilated and contribute. Don't stay outside in the periphery and complain and looking up, but that's what they are doing in that they should do. Be involved. Become the builder. You can become the leader of the community, contributor of the community, rather than standing outside and complain about it. And living in your own bubble as, for example, Korean-American bubble. Korean-americans tend toClean to each other, yeah. Yeah, among themselves. Even churches are all Korean-speaking. That's the reason, as I said a while ago, that my category is the hyphen, the Korean hyphen American.

I go to two churches even. Korean Church and American church. Korean church, and then I go to American church. I got to understand both the world because I cannot abandon my roots and my culture. I want to have some relationship built also built, and then also they have certain expectations of me. I try to maintain and continue my relationship. At the same time, I'm an American. I want to learn what Americans believe in, what Americans talk about. I want to have American friends. In my church, I go to American Church, Marion's Church in Irvine, in the nearby New Port Coast. That's the border line. It's still in the jurisdiction of the Irvine. In there now, I see A lot of non-anglosexon white people are coming. I've been going there for seven, eight years. Now I see the very rapid change of non-caucasian minorities are starting to attend there. If you go there, they have a program called the Rooted. They assemble you with the similar background, age group, whatever, and to do Bible study and the introduction to church, your belief, the discussions, and share the relationship. Then after that nine months program, when that's over, they put you into something called a life group, becomes a lifetime friend, and we continue meeting regularly, either every week, every We get to hang out for two weeks, depending upon that group.

We keep on doing group studies together. Through the group studies, we share meals, go to restaurants together, so maintain our relationship. I have more friends, I guess, close friends among-So you're in a life group, too? Non- Koreans. I'm in a non- Korean life group. My wife There are only two non-caucasians in there. I learned and tried to assimilate and to mingle with a non- Korean people as well. That's what I tried to tell Korean Americans, my friends, and also especially young people, just to get involved in your community. You are living in the United States and with a lot of good benefits and a lot of difficulties that you have faced in your home country. This is a much better country. Now, rather than taking advantage of the establishment establishment, whatever the good benefits that America offers, you need to think about how as an immigrant, you can contribute to make your community better, America better. You naturally become a role model. That's the advice I tried to tell my second generation and among people who may have some ambition in politics because typically that's what they question, How did you get into Why did you get into politics?

I guess that's the reason I kept on running because I gave good vision and hope to non- Koreans, all the immigrants.

I love that. I love that. Being an immigrant myself, I totally relate. I guess I always considered myself a first-generation immigrant. I just learned I'm a first-generation-and-a-a-half immigrant.

So 1. 5 generations.

Yeah, because I I was born there and I came when I was five. That's why I asked you specifically. So what am I considered? It's still imperative. Warren Buffett says the most important real estate you can invest in is the real estate in between your two ears. So this is the most important real estate to invest in.

My mother was a superhero to me. She kept on emphasizing, My village where I grew up was a small farming village, but in that village alone, we were wealthy family with lots of land. What she said was that, I don't plan to inherit my land to you. I would rather sell them and put the knowledge to your brain, which nobody can steal. But if you don't have a knowledge, wisdom in your head, then somebody smarter than you are could steal your That is very true.

Still true to this day. Still true.

Invest in your- My politics was based upon my education background. If I didn't have a PhD, USD wouldn't have invited me to teach at the graduate school. That was a graduate school. If I didn't have any teaching experience, nobody around me, including my landlord, where I He started my Dr. Shoes Academy, he became a good friend, Wacky Ray. I don't know, Waki, you are listening to me, why not? But he was one of the visionaries and believing in me, kept on encouraging me, Run for a school, but I will support you. And he turned out to be a Democrat, but he did support me, too.

I don't know if he's still a Democrat.

All of this my educational background, teaching background, impressed some other people, encouraging me to run into politics. We need a person like you with an educational background for our school. Still, I'm in the Education Committee in the Senate. Your business is in the bedrock of American dream.

We make the American dream come alive. Exactly.

Supporting homeownership. Home ownership, affordable home, all kinds of problems that we are facing. You got to make it happen. The mortgage is available for first-time home buyers.

Low credit income?

I mean. Yeah, and building good credit, which is very important for lenders like you. That is some message you can tell. To have a good to build a good credit, that means you got to become a good person. To become a good person, you got to respect God. That's right. God, the Bible teaches you how to become a good person. I think your business can be...

A vessel for God's truth.

Telling such a basis for human being to be nice, respecting the God and providing the means for them how to build a good credit, and I can trust you, I can loan my money, which will be always a basis for home loans. Yeah. And they can buy Starting Home, my district director, he started his first home. I don't know whether he got the mortgage from you or somebody else with a good rate or not. I think that you are doing doing wonderful work for achieving my American dreams for the boom buyers.

We're doing God's work. That's our number one pillar. Serve and do God's work first and foremost. The money always follows. I mean, if you know of anything, I know there's a lot of discussion about the portable mortgages from Trump. There's a discussion about the 50-year mortgages from Trump. We were just having a discussion before we got on the podcast. We would need to hit a 50-year mortgage, a portable mortgage, a reduction in housing, a lower interest rate to make housing affordable. I don't know what you know or what tricks that Sacramento or government has up their sleeve to make housing affordable again, but it seems like a very daunting task, quite scary, and candidly, almost borderline impossible.

I know everybody looks at the legislators in Sacramento. Unfortunately, I'm a Republican. What I'm saying is that, Unfortunately, means we are in the super minority group. In California.

In California.

And that means We have no power. We are only 25% of 40 people. Everything on the bill when we vote is based upon the majority vote. The thing is, they keep on talking about affordable housing, meaning that low-cost housing. To build a low-cost housing, you got to encourage builders. Builders, they are out there, not as a charity project, they are out there to make money. But they need to know the basics of economy and business world. To encourage them and to make money to make them easier to develop a home is that there are less regulations. More regulation is every step, but they try to get the permission. That cost money under the name of a fee they charge, the fees.

The fees to build are crazy, and the regulations are borderline impossible for a lot of these builders to build within affordable housing. It's impossible because it's so expensive.

Years ago, not my data is not updated, but when I was a mayor, I was told to get a permit for one site. It'll cost $54,000 for me, the loan. When that is already almost like- That's like a house. Affordable means to me $100,000, $200,000 will be affordable means right now. But right now, that's not the reality. Cost of living goes up, inflation goes up. What the Southern California average house is, what, $980,000? $980,000. That is not affordable, even average.

Yeah, that's about $6,500 payment to buy, which means you need to make a couple of $100,000 to break even.

Now, who can make that Now, monthly payment for housing a loan and the leftover, that should be, by your standard, I understand, should be less than one-third, right? Housing costs should be less than one-third because you have other things, other expenses you got to live on. The lessening the regulations.

I love to hear that. Lesson regulations, people. You heard it first. We're going to lessen them, especially to build.

Yeah. Give the incentives. If you build more homes, we'll give you some incentives, tax deduction, tax credits for certain things. If you develop more than 50% of your entire building project you are doing, we'll give you 50% of your expenses of tax credit, such as for developers to be incentivized to build more homes rather than charging them more tax after more tax, not what they call a millionaire's tax. If you become richer, they will have to pay more tax. That's what they are planning to do and developing more tax, more regulations after regulations. That is not the approach. I mean, you have heard about the 26 billion something dollars was spent the last five or seven years under the name of helping reducing, reduction of homeless people. But after that huge amount of tax money is the homeless people getting reduced or increasing?

It's increasing.

That's increasing every day in a sudden California.

It's going to increase more because housing is so expensive. Everything's so expensive.

So this is a very complicated issue. That's a very simplified comment I'm making. But if I were the governor, I would start a long-range plan Start from the young ages and the financial education, how to manage your money, and many ways they can become independent and focusing upon education for them to study and to stay in schools, become a good person.

I love that. I have a couple last questions before we wrap up here. This one's about goals. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself and a family goal that you have for the family, as well as a goal that you have while you're state senator?

Well, that's a broad question. As far as my American dream is concerned, I think I have already achieved. I'm so happy. Every The moment I open my eyes, I'm grateful to my Lord who has led me to this level, achieving American dream in the personal satisfaction. I'm happy that Looking back, it was not my goal to become wealthy or famous, to become a politician. Turned out to be, I didn't I didn't know where I was going. I was not aiming to become a senator. It turned out to be a senator. When I ran for a fourth-term assembly, and then I got defeated by a copybigger democratic person who moved to my district because that was the better chance for her to win. That was the time when I was very dispaired. That may be very sad ending as a losing record. But I didn't know what that meant to me. It was sad for that time. But now God had a different reason. He has prepared another door. He gave me a chance to run for, say, Senate and experience as a senator. As you know, a senator has a lot more prestige and more comfortable for years rather than every two years running.

I wouldn't have had a taste I did as a senator experience if I was not defeated the fourth term. I didn't know at that time why I lost. But now God has different purpose, and that created, like I said in the beginning, a small miracle. But to me, that's a very... I think the majority people who know about my story, that was a big miracle with that small campaign money in less than $100,000 raise. How did you win the $11 million candidate? Teaching young people and people who aim for American dreams and even become a politician, whatever the vision you may have is that follow the will of God, what the good opportunities he has prepared, he will lead you to that goal. And that's what the looking back, that has happened to my life.

I love that. Last question. Sure. When you're in front of the curly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you?

Job well done. I would say, Thank you, sir. God bless you, Senator Joy. God bless.

God bless your service. I look forward to seeing what you're going to do as state senator. I wish you much prosperity and may the Lord always protect and shine over every decision you make.

Thank you for that It's a great opportunity to share my experience a little bit. As a fellow Christians, I'm happy to share my experience of how God let me to this point with the abundant blessings which I never beg for. But looking back, that was what exactly he had his purpose in me and the doors and the destination already decided. I will close by saying that all the people with the Christmas coming, and we need to understand what the Christmas is. This is a celebration of our savior, Lord Jesus Christ's birthday. And not as many religions, they celebrate as a holiday, but this particular Christmas Day is a celebration of Jesus' birth. With the season upon us, the people will experience the happiness, the meaning of Jesus coming to this world to savers, and in the conflict of so many different conflicts that we are witnessing in the world. I hope that peace can be achieved. I'm sure he has his goal someday that peace will be achieved on Earth. That's what our ultimate desire. So peace on Earth is what I would like to wish everybody.

Bless you. Thank you so much for coming on today's show.

Thank you so much, Joseph.