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 the Senate. And experience as a senator, as you know, the senator has a lot more prestige and more comfortable for years rather than every two years running. And so I wouldn't have tasted the as a senator experience if I was not defeated the fourth term. I didn't know. Welcome to another episode of coffees. Please welcome Senator Steven Choi. Thank you Joseph for your invitation and the nice introduction. Looks like you have the little bit of a study on me. We did a little bit of study and got to meet you a couple times. Thank you for the nice words. God bless you and God bless your service. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 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Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you I try to make up a little bit of exercise. I don't have much time. I try 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 months of time during the time I spend a quite a bit of time on the gym. But now I don't have that time. So I live in a very nice neighborhood with a healer. So I walk and jog back for my health and do some stretches and take one of the style stretches as well because I have done some take one though when I was young. And I try to maintain my body. And then take care of some personal stuff. And then get to my office. And usually some weird, depending upon schedule, I may have to get up earlier. But I try to get to my office if no particular schedule. 11 o'clock, 12 o'clock usually I come there and follow my schedule, whatever. I'm scheduled to follow today. And then my staff members will prepare me and I'm going to go on what to do. So that is my routine. I mean, you're keeping so busy at your age. I don't know how old you are. It seems like you're timeless. But 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. And that's what they did. And even though with my political background experience on all local levels up to assembly, and they chose somebody else, a younger person, and invested that money on him. And it turned out in the primary election, there were 11 people, seven Democrats and four Republicans. And he was near the bottom. And eventually I bubbled up to number two against the sitting incumbent, the Democrat senators. And I was a former assembly member. And as you know, California election rule is the top two. People will compete in the general election. And they turned out to be Democratic candidate and the Republican candidate. And the Republican candidate happened to be me. So they had no choice not to support me because those Democratic candidates were Republican. So they ended up supporting me a little bit for the general election. So I made it. And the sitting incumbent by the Republican, beating the sitting incumbent Democrat in the Senate took for the first time in 44 years. Wow. So they called me Miracle Senator. In financial situation at all, in election campaign, that's what they say. Money is everything. And it is important that you've got to have a money to campaign. But I was not a near, near competitor to sitting incumbent because personally, I raised less than $100,000. And 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. And I saved it. And it became the basis for the Senate raise. And one of the interviewers of the endorsement for Republican candidate, which went to endorse by Orange County Republican Party. And one of the member guys, he was focusing targeting me. And not general people will know that kind of details. And he attacked me for, why did you not spend your $60,000? And you didn't get elected. He didn't make any sense. He didn't know what was going on. So anyway, that was my basis. And less than $50,000, I raised a total less than $100,000 against my opponent, Democratic incumbent, had a total in the middle, not even the last $11,000,000. Wow. And so, money was $100,000 of us, $11,000,000. It's not a game. So, supposedly, I should be, you know, the long time, you know, so much for the percentage, I should have been defeated. Yeah, I should have wiped out. But I beat him. So nobody supported me. No organizations, no, not even my party, as I said. And no lobbyists, et cetera. So it was a price to shock. 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 landslide? I'm glad you asked that question as a fellow Christian, as I understand you, I also Christian. God has nothing that is impossible as a person of faith. Only tool I had was that I was praying to you, will not to be afraid and to be brave and then I prayed. And he delivered that miracle. To me, that was America, you know, miracles of people who 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 you know, 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? Yeah, my story of $50. I had, I went up on arrival here because I studied out with that story because it was true. And in fact, I left my country of South Korea right after my military service right after college. And I was an artillery officer. And they didn't pay us much, so I didn't have much money to save. And living for America, I had to just clean up my bank account. And that turned out to be $100. So 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 was studied at the market gave me. But there was no direct flight to Hawaii from Korea. So we had to go to Japan in the spent night and the flight to Hawaii by Pan Am. And my friends went to a shop and everybody's for buying a camera. And he said, oh, you can have a camera to take pictures to have some memories. And so I invested my $50 at the buy camera. That's the reason, by the time I arrived in Hawaii, I had only $50 left. That was the story we began. So from there, my journey began in America. It was remarkable how I survived. And my education for my master's degree in the PhD and ended up helping a professor from there. I was led into politics and here I am. So you were a professor, what did you teach? My degree was a library and information science from the University of Pittsburgh. So USC Dean, I met her Dr. Matabolos was in the American Library Association Convention and my dean was introducing me as a doctoral student. And I don't know why the dean was impressed by me. And after several months, she called me, I come to US here and I teach for us. So that led my way to Southern California. And when did your career in politics start? That was after teaching USC five years, I moved to Orange County and I thought that the UCI for about three years. At the time, the subject changed it because originally my job to America was a Korean language instructor and the cultural instructor for Peace Corps members who were assigned to Korea. So teaching Korean language was also my interest and became a vocation wherever I go, I studied Korean language school. And so I proposed to UCI to open up a Korean language class. And that idea didn't go anywhere. It asked me to bring a million dollars to start a program. And if you guarantee my teaching position after I set the class up, and no, we cannot guarantee it. I don't know why I should try to bring it to million dollars. Anyway, I stopped at that foot. And about three years later, somebody called me, come and teach you. There's a Korean language class and learned that when Professor was a visiting professor from Southern National University, and he returned and they suddenly had no professor to teach. So they thought about me and called me to teach us. So I thought there. So because of that, the teaching experience at UCI and USC, including my landlord, the people around me, Captain asked me to run for school board in Irvine. And that was about for two years. No, I don't know anything about the school board is about what they do. No politics, I'm not interested in. And I was studying my own business called the Dr. Choi's Academy. And then I resisted for two years. And eventually ended up becoming a candidate because I was a misled. There are two positions, no one is applying. Put your name in and you may get elected without having to go through any campaign. In the real election. And it ended up with a ten candidates or two positions when incumbent going after home, and one opens it. And one opens it nine opposite of competing. And I was the only non-cocation, only Asian with the accent. And the different, I guess, upon a views, visual minority and the language minority with the accent, everything. As a ethosarial 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. 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. And that is probably one of the records as well. Very few defeats and continuous election. So I joke and also plus reality. Still trading the water to get up the political pond. And people keep on pushing me back into the, that means people keep on electing me when I run. If you don't win, I mean, you are forced to retire from the politics, right? But they keep on electing me. So I'm still happily serving my supporters and constituents. You know, I always wondered, you're in a position, financial, where you don't need to work. And obviously politics probably doesn't pay much. What is it that drew you to politics? Like, why are you putting yourself through all, all, you know, all this hassle at your age, at your, 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 points. Nobody will try to become a politician for money. Because when I started, it was about $300 or $400 for the school board after insurance deduction or whatever deductions. Sometimes I deposit $4.90. So it's not a big pay. You know, no. Even, oh, my city councilor mayors are much better off than other places. But that was a little bit better than in comparison to other cities. So 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 time I ran. I served there eight years on the city council. And then you can serve only two terms consecutively at that time, the law, the ordinance of the city. And then I ran for mayor. Then I got elected, the re-election I got re-elected. So I served as a mayor in 2012 to 2016 until I got elected to state assembly. In the 68th district. So now it was not intended, but it turned out to be every step of local government school board, city council mayor assembly and senate. I think this has been a long record for anyone. The minority, one on minority, even professional politicians who like in congress with no term limitations, that they forever serve until, you know, over 90 years old. I never intended to serve this long. But as you can see, my memory is a job and I'm physically unfit. And people still desire me to serve them and keep on electing me. So if this continues or why not? And the question, so why are we serving in the difficult process of becoming 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. And right now, four years after four years, if I have served until 2028, I would have served for 10 years. And the state regulation is that I shall serve only up to 12 years. So I will have a two years left to serve in the state legislature. But the senate term is for four years. So they would not let me run for two years because it's the last four years. But anyway, that's a different story. I have served as a minority and serving my city and 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 is assembly said 80 members. And in their all kinds of background, people come. And quite a few minorities, I don't see them now. But when I studied, everything that I did was for the first time. You the first minority elected to the school board, to the city, etc., etc., as Asian, as Korean, you know, background. Looking back, this is the 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 were born here will be a second generation. What if you came up on your five? You will become 1.5 generation. So if you came when you're five, you become 1.5. Almost native, but you have a deeper, your parental relationship in the root in the country of appearance. So my children will be one second generation, but they tend to. I guess saturated and quinted with the Korean culture, what we do. Like eating kimchi in Korean food, Korean food, and. Well, everybody likes Bok-O-Gi and kimchi now. That's a staple food in many diets. 100 days of the baby is under the survival celebration we call peggyl. And so looking back, whether you. Nobody will plan, hey, I'm going to be a model 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. All look as different story. Who is supposedly first generation American, with an even different shape and a different accent. He keeps on, you know, running and keeps on winning and keeps on serving the community for a long time. So I send unspoken message to children and immigration population that once you have chosen America as your home country, become assimilated and contribute. Okay, don't stay outside in the periphery and complain and looking up what that's what they are doing and 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 to and I understand. Yeah, among themselves and even churches or Korean speaking. So that's the reason as I said a while ago. That my category is a hyphen, the Korean hyphen American. So I go to two churches, even Korean church or church and then I go to American church. So I got to understand both world because I cannot abandon my roots and my culture. So I have some relationship built also built and also they have certain expectations of me. So 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. So if you in my church, I go to American church, Mariel's church in Irvine, in the nearby. You put course that's the bottle line. It's still in the jurisdiction of the Irvine. In there, now I see a lot of non Anglo-Sex and white people are coming. I've been going there for seven or eight years. Now I see the very rapid change of non-cocation minorities are starting to attend there. And if you go there, they have a program called the RULID. And they assemble you with the similar background age group, whatever, and to do a Bible study and the introduction to church, you'll believe that discussions and share the relationship and then after that nine months programs. And that's over. They put you into something called a life group becomes a lifetime friend. And we continue beating regularly every week, every two weeks depending upon that group. And we keep on doing group studies together and through the group studies, we share meals, work to rest together, so maintain our relationship. So I have more friends, I guess, close friends, among non-Korean and non-Korean. And I'm in the non-Korean life group of nice. And my wife only had two non-cocations in there. So I learned and tried to simulate and mingle with non-Korean people as well. So that's what I tried to tell Korean Americans, my friends, and also especially young people. Just to get involved in your community and 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. And this is a much better country and now rather than take advantage of the 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. And so you naturally become a role model and that's the advice I try to tell my second generation. And among people who may have some ambition and politics, because typically that's what they call it. How did you get into politics? Why did you get into politics? So I guess that's the reason I kept on running, because I gave a good vision and hope to non-Korean 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 half immigrant. So 1.5 did you get into politics? Yeah, because I was born there and I came and I was five. That's why I asked you specifically. So what am I considered? You know, it's still imperative. Warren Buffett says the most important, real estate you can invest in is the real estate in between your two years. So this is the most important real estate to invest in. My mother was a super hero to me. She kept on emphasizing my village where I grew up. It was a small farming village. But in that village alone, we are wealthy family with a 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 an analogy to your brain, which nobody can steal. Yeah. But if you don't have an knowledge, wisdom in your head, then somebody smarter than you are could steal your land. That is a very true. Still true to this day? It's still true. So that's an investment. My politics was based upon my education background. If I didn't have a PhD, you actually wouldn't have invited me to teach at the graduate school. That was a graduate school. And if I didn't have any teaching experience, nobody around me, including my land load, where I started my type of choice academy. He became a good friend, walkie-wre, I don't know, walkie-wre. You are listening to me one after another. But he was one of the visionaries and believing in me, kept on encouraging me, run for school, but I will support you. And he turned out to be a democrat. But he didn't support me, too. I don't know if he's still a democrat, but you know. And all of this, my educational background, teaching background, impress some other people, encouraging me to run into politics. We need a person like you with educational background for our school. And so still, I'm in education committee in the Senate. What you've been listening to is in the bad part of a American dream. We make the American dream come alive. Exactly. Supporting, you know, all ownership. Home ownership, affordable home, all kinds of problems that we are facing. I mean, you gotta make it happen. The mortgage is available for first time on buyers. Credit income. I mean, and building good credit, which is very important for lenders like you. So that is some message you can tell to have a good, to build a good credit. That means you gotta become a good person. Yeah. And to become a good person, you gotta respect the God. That's right. But Bible teaches you how to become a good, good person. So I think your business can be a vessel for God's truth. Telling such a, you know, basis for human being to be nice, respecting the God and providing the means for them, how to become, how to build a good credit. And I can trust you. I can loan my money, which will be, you know, always a basis for home loans. Yeah. Right. And they can buy, starting home, my district director, he started his first home. And I don't know whether he got the mortgage, you know, from new or somebody else or with a good rate or not. I think that you are doing wonderful, doing wonderful work for achieving American, American dreams of the home buyers. We're doing, we're doing God's work. That's our, 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 where there's a lot of discussion about the portable mortgage from Trump. There's discussion about the 50 year mortgages from Trump. We were just having discussion before we got in the podcast like, you know, we would need to hit a 50 year mortgage, a portable mortgage, a reduction in housing and lower interest rate to make housing affordable. I don't know what you know or what tricks, you know, 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, I know everybody looks, looks at the yearless later 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. And now everything on the bill when we vote is based upon the majority vote. The thing is they keep on talking about the affordable housing, meaning that our local housing to build the local housing, you've got to encourage builders. Builders are there out there, not as a charity project, but they are out there to make money. But they need to know the basics of the economy and business world to encourage them and make money, to make them easier to develop. So it's the last regulations. More regulations is every step, but they try to get the permission. That costs money. On the name of fees, they charge. And 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 major, I was told to get a permit for one side. It'll cost $54,000, put them in the loan. And that is already almost like a house. A affordable means to me $100,000 or $200,000 will be affordable means right now. But right now, that's not the reality. Cost of living goes up, inflation goes up. It's what the Southern California average house is, what, 98,000? 98,000. 98,000, $980,000. That is not affordable. That's average. Yeah, that's about $6,500 payment to buy. Yeah, that means you need to make a couple hundred thousand dollars to break even. Now, who can make that kind of a monthly payment for housing alone and the left over? That should be by your standard, I understand, should be less than one third, right? Yes. And also should be less than one third because you have other things or the expenses you got to live on. So the lessening the regulations, a lot to hear that, lessen regulations people. You heard it first, lessen them, especially the build. And give the incentives. If you build the mohomes or will give you some incentives, tax reduction, tax credits for certain things, if you develop more than 50% of your entire building project you are doing will give you 50% of your expenses, tax credits, such as so for developers to be incentivized, incentivized to build more homes or rather than charging the more tax, after more tax, not what they call millionaires tax, if you become the rich, they will have to pay more tax, 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 were spent 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 more increasing. It's increasing. That's increasing every day in Southern California. That's going to increase more because housing is so expensive, everything is 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 financial education, you know, how to manage your money and many ways they can become independent. And focusing upon education for them to study and stay in schools, they could 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 your state senator? Well, that's a broad question. As far as my American dream is concerned, I think I have already achieved them. So happy. Every moment I open my eyes, I'm grateful to my Lord who has led me to this level achieving a American dream and a personal satisfaction. And I'm happy that looking back, it was not my goal to become wealthy, famous, become a politician. It turned out to be, 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 fourth term assembly and then I got defeated by a couple of bigger democratic people who came to my district because that was the better chance for two. And that was the time when I was very despaired. That maybe very sad ending as a losing record. But I didn't know what that meant to me was sad for that time. But now that God had a different reason, He has prepared another door. He gave me chance to run for state senate and experience as a senator. And as you know, the senator has a lot more prestige and more comfortable four years, rather than every two years and running. And so I wouldn't have tasted the senator experience if I was not defeated the fourth term. I didn't know at the time why I lost. But now God had a different purpose. And that created, like I said in the beginning, a small miracle, but to me, it's a very very, you know, I think the majority people who know about my story, there was a big, big miracle with that kind of small campaign money and less than a hundred thousand dollars raised. How did you win the 11 million dollar candidate? So teaching young people and people who aim for American dreams and even become politicians. However, whatever the vision you may have is that follow the will of God, what the good opportunities, He has prepared that He will lead you to that goal. And that's what the looking back has happened to my life. I love that. Last question. Sure. When you're in front of the pearly gates, what do you think God's going to tell you? Job well done. And I would say thank you, sir. I'm going to go to the service. I look forward to seeing what you're going to do as state senator. I wish you much prosperity and made the Lord always protect and shine over every decision you make. Oh, thank you for that 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 one and blessings which I never beg for, but looking back at that was what exactly He had his purpose in me and the doors and the destination already decided decided. So 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, birthday. And that is not as many religions. They celebrate as a holiday, but this particular Christmas day is a celebration of Jesus's birthday. So with the decision upon us, the people will experience the happiness that the meeting up 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 would be achieved on earth. And that's what our ultimate desire. So, it's so worth it. So, I would like to wish everybody God bless you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you so much Joseph. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.