Rohit Malhotra, Candidate for Fulton County Commissioner (District 4)

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1:01Every election is important. In case folks may not understand, break down what the Fulti County Board of Commissioners in District 4, what it does. Yep, absolutely. Again, thank you, huge fan of you, huge fan of this show. Again, my name is Rohit Mahodra. I'm running for Vultin County Commission for District 4. George is a really interesting place when you study the South and you study government in the South. And my background is in public policy and local governance. Georgia has 159 counties. And the largest county is Fulton County, which covers the capital city, but also covers a number of other cities that are instrumental to the entire state. The Fulton County governance manages a $1.5 billion budget for over 1 million people in the services and programs that it manages are really important.

2:01They are the programs and services that you deal with on the best day of your life, or sometimes the worst day of your life, from health care to our courts or our justice system, arts and culture and our libraries. And then what you've seen most recently in the news is our elections. So county government in particularly in a place like Georgia is it's consequential. And there are only seven people elected to a county commission, to this county commission in Fulton County. And it's very rare that you have a seat that opens up. And so, you know, I'm running for a seat where I'm trying to bring some fresh new new leadership into a really important and consequential government. And were you on the Atlanta City Council for eight years? No, I was not. So I have been in public service my whole life. So people who often thought that I've been elected. I've been running an organization called the Center for Civic Innovation that focuses on local governance for the past almost 15 years.

3:01Oh, gosh, I gotcha. I think I was thinking of somebody else. What's her name? Marcy Overstreet? I think I was thinking of her. Yep. That's the person I ran again for a City Council president. Yep. Right, right, exactly. Exactly. So this is your first time on the show. Tell us a little bit about your journey. I believe you went to Harvard as well, but your journey into activism, into politics. I believe you did some work with the Obama administration as well. If I have that right, so give us a little bit of your journey and your walk. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I'm the I'm the kid of immigrant parents who came here, with a dollar in a dream. And this is usually where the Bollywood story turns into a Hollywood story of like, everything worked out and they were killing it. And now they're doing great. But the truth is for a lot of families, including mine, they come to this country or they've been in this country and they struggle. They struggle and they sacrifice and they lose a lot.

4:07And I represent a generation that's going to likely, and our lives poorer than our parents did. And that is a reflection of institutions and systems that have failed so many people. And I've seen it with my own family. My parents not only lost, you know, struggled financially. They lost their childhood. They experienced a lot of things that they had to just put put under the rug that it would be trying to create a world that's better for their children and to raise a family here. And so for me, everything for me starts with how I was raised and who I was raised by. And my parents raised me just outside of Atlanta. This is a city that has given me so much, has poured so much into who I am and what I believe in how I view the world. And I see so many families who are just like my parents who work multiple jobs,

5:11try to survive, try to get by. And the systems that are around them continuously fail them. Atlanta, for example, it is the center of our civil rights movement almost every movement throughout this country's history has come through Georgia has come through Atlanta. And yet it is today also the most unequal city in the United States. It has the lowest upward mobility with the highest inequality. And people are stuck. So, you know, I view that not as a social problem. I view that as a policy problem. I think this is the failure of institutions that are intended to break through these exact issues. And so my background is in public policy. I'm an organizer by trade. I was a national innovation fellow in the Obama administration and was there during term one as well, where a lot of our work was on the ground where we were talking to communities.

6:13And for a lot of them, they were excited about the fact that we elected someone on hope and change. But they didn't feel it. They didn't see it. And I think what you're seeing right now in politics particularly is the rise of people who were raised in that political moment. And, you know, that for us foundationally showed us that yes, like people want something to believe in. But they also need to like feel it and see it in their own lives in very tactical ways. I went to the Harvard Kennedy School to focus on municipal governance and thought, you know, I would be back in DC. But my family is here. My friends are here. The people who I grew up around and the people I love and the places I love, it's all here. So I came back home and I founded an organization called the Center for Civic Innovation that is focused on strengthening local government by, you know, making the information

7:13easier and more accessible for people to understand about municipal budgets and about legislation that's happening at the local level. So they can use that information to drive greater change. I've worked with over 150 grassroots organizations in Atlanta, in and around Atlanta that are designing interventions that inform and influence what public policy could and should look like. And so my drive to run for office is comes from a frustration as a researcher, an organizer, someone who is deeply embedded in public policy. The frustration is like, I don't want my work to die in a cabinet. I don't want it to like to just be something that we publish and then it goes away. Good public policy is only as good as, you know, the willingness and the courage to implement it and to drive it. And so that's why I jumped in. And I just think we need more nerds in local government. And I think we need people who understand how local public policy work to, to drive our budgets and our legislation.

8:13If you like YouTube, you'll love YouTube Premium. It's destroying athlete, creator, and YouTube Maxter. YouTube Premium enhances how I use YouTube with awesome features like offline downloads, so I can download my favorite training videos before I hit the gym. So no Wi-Fi doesn't turn leg day into loading day. Plus, I get ad-free videos, background play, and so much more. YouTube Premium is like YouTube got some extra gains. Try YouTube Premium for two months free at youtube.com slash premium. Trial eligibility varies, terms apply, cancel anytime. There's a fire inside you you can't ignore. Stand still, not a chance. You're a lifelong learner who's come this far. Now we are here to help you keep going further. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit Capella.edu to learn more. In case folks may not understand because I think part of getting people to turn out to vote is make sure they understand the process. Why is the November 3rd election considered a special election? Yeah, so in county government,

9:14people are elected on staggered terms. So this specific seat is actually not up for election until 2028. But the person who occupied this seat over the course of the past couple years is a woman named Mo Ivory. And Mo Ivory is now the Democratic nominee for Fulton County Chair. She decided to run for chair against the person who has been there. They incumbent and she was successful and is the likely chair of Fulton County, which is exciting. There's new fresh blood coming into into county government. But her seat is now, she has to by law vacate her seat. So the remainder of her term needs to be filled. And because there's still two years before that term is up, the state calls a special election. And so we are on the November ballot. It's the only big local government race that people have on district four's ballot.

10:20So it'll be the very last thing on the ballot. But we got to make sure everyone gets all the way down there. So you mentioned that you did run for Atlanta City Council President in 2025. And now you're seeking the commission seat. What did that campaign teach you about yourself and the kind of public server you want to be? And is there anything you, is there anything that you feel like you're doing differently this time? Man, I lived a lifetime in the past year. And I wasn't even in 2025, the idea of running for office was also a foreign concept. Like you think if you do the work, you put your head down, you understand local government that you can translate that into good politics. But politics and public policy are two different institutions, and two different frames of thinking and two different bodies of work. And they don't translate to one another because so much of politics is a social sport.

11:22And what I learned particularly about myself is that I am best when I am rooted in the very, with the very people I am doing this work for, working class folks who need government to work, not just want it to work, but need it to work. But also that this is so much a better of a process when it is joyful and rooted in grace and rooted in giving people something to believe in, not just something to fight up against. That is so core to what we are building. You know, we had the second highest voter turnout in Atlanta history last year. I went up again against a political machine that threw everything at me. Spent millions of dollars. And it was tough to watch a city that I grew up in, make me have to force a narrative of why,

12:25you know, I belong here sometimes, right? Because that is what politics does is it makes people question their, whether they belong in a political fight. And you know, if you spend time on the ground, if you spend time with community and with people, you are so much more rooted in your purpose. You are so much rooted in like this is so much bigger than elections. This is about, you know, the moral compass of us as people. And so I feel so much clearer. I understand this process so much better. We lost by a percentage point. And what it showed me is that, you know, we can win. That like people who believe in a moral, smart, grounded, principled, progressive politic, like we are winning. And I think the way that is building in the South is, you know, I think the rest of the country

13:27might look at it and say, oh, it's delayed or it's not happening as fast. I think it is building here in a way that is going to have a rippling effect and we'll have a long lasting effect as anything in the South has always had. So I'm excited about what we're building and I've learned more than I could ever imagine. And I've ended that campaign with more people in my life than I started it with. And that network, that community has only grown, which is, is making this race super exciting for us too. Thank you for listening to Clay Kane extended. If you want to hear more, tune into my show on Series XM Urban View, channel 1226 from 12PM to 3PM. You know the deal, y'all. I never really gone. You've never been one to settle. Stand down or stand still. You're a lifelong learner. Energize by excellence. There's a fire inside you. You can't ignore. You've got competition

14:32to outrun, momentum to build on, and your own high standards to meet. Stop now? Not a chance. At Capella University, we help you catch what you're chasing because you've always had the drive. Now go earn the degree. Capella University, what can't you do? Visit Capella.edu to learn more.