Today on the show, I'm chatting to Minnesota state Senator Erin Maye Quade, who is also the Special Projects Advisor at Gender Justice. 

She’s the third black woman ever elected to the Minnesota legislature, and when she was elected representative in 2016, she was the only Democrat to flip a State house seat from red to blue. She also made national headlines in her last campaign for, incredibly, giving a speech while in labor.

The senator shares her organizing origin story, as well as tells the story of how now Attorney General Keith Ellison gave her the initial nudge to run for office. Plus, why she sees ADHD as her super power, why she feels our political labels aren’t always helpful and why working in customer service jobs were the single best thing that prepared her to serve as a state legislator. 

We also unpack the historic legislative season in Minnesota, and her plans to “regulate the heck out of Artificial Intelligence.”

Connect with Senator Erin Maye Quade

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ErinMayeQuade 


• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erinmayequade/ 

Connect with the show

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ConnectRequest


• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/connectionrequest/


• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@connectionrequest


• TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@connectionrequest


• Email: connect@shrugcontent.com

Connect with Joel

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/joelleeman


• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jleeman/


• Instagram: https://instagram.com/joelleeman

About Connection Request

Connection Request is a podcast about career journeys, produced by Shrug Content. Hosted by Joel Leeman, a producer and strategist who has spent the past 10 years making media for the Internet, the show profiles a variety of fascinating people, digging into how they spend their waking hours, what they’ve learned along the way, how they make decisions, and why they do what they do. In Season 1 we hear from a drummer turned coffee entrepreneur, a journalist who popularized the term “doomscrolling,” an executive who’s plotting her next chapter, and much more. Listen wherever you get your podcasts: https://www.shrugcontent.com/connection-request