Keynote by Abel Chavez

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:26]panels and sessions ahead of us today.

[00:00:29]Um, as a quick introduction, I'm Juliana. I'm an impacts and outcomes associate here at the International Organization of Youth. Um I'm also a thirdyear global studies.

[00:24:50]Let's say the primary.

[00:25:04]There should be two primates for if it's your if it's your primary residence, your the house that you're going to live in. Gotcha. If it's your primary residence and it's the house you're going to live in, then this primary for you will be different. So you'll have a different fund for people that are going to buy their houses for themselves, not for not for investment. So we'll make the prime rate for banks, for single family, for people that are buying homes 3%.

[00:25:33]And that way they can out compete these large corporations. And then on top of that, so we would make the down payment instead of 10%, you can make it 2%. So that way you don't have to come in and buy this house uh with you don't have to have, you know, $80,000 down to buy a house. You can come in with like $15,000 savings or $20,000 savings and now your rent is lower and your down payment is lower and now you can actually buy a house and now you can actually compete with Wall Street. So that's that's my idea on that. What's the other >> director policy?

[00:26:13]Yes.

[00:26:14]And then smart foreign policy. Um I don't I I don't like war. I don't think we should be in war. I don't know why we're always in war, but that leads me also to the campaign finance. So a lot of the times there are other entities that are paying for our elections. Um and that's why I don't take any money from foreign lobbies or or corporations.

[00:26:40]I don't take any money from anyone that might influence my vote and tell me, you know, what to do or who to invade um or who to attack. And so the first thing we have to do is diplomacy first. We need to send we need to send people to negotiate with other countries, not send war machines out to to do our bidding and and dethrone empires. This is insane what we're doing. It costs a lot of money from our taxpayer dollars to do things that we don't even want just so that other entities can be happy with with what we do for them. We're doing other countries bidding for them.

[00:27:24]And then last but not least, that leads to campaign finance reform. So we there's this thing called Citizens United. Does anyone know what Citizens United is?

[00:27:38]Uh I believe it was the Supreme Court ruling that decided that money is a form of speech. Is that right? And so when a corporation spends dollar on a campaign that's free.

[00:27:52]>> Exactly. Exactly. So basically they said corporations are people and therefore they can donate whatever they want and they can donate unlimited amounts of money to a campaign. And basically that opened up the door to anybody to just to steamroll any election and to make to to essentially create this like evil country, this evil empire, this that that that can possibly happen. Like what's happening right now is that corporations are dominating our politics. That's terrible. That's not what we want. We don't want corporations and we we want foreign lobbies to dominate our politics. And so, um, we need to end Citizens United.

[00:28:36]And so, one of my plans is to to codify a law that says that corporations are not people and that corporations cannot donate in any amount of any form, in any way to campaigns. And then there needs to be limits on campaigns right now. And I'll tell you, this congressional run in >> I think we're at like >> 500,000. We are. Yeah, >> we're at 500,000.

[00:29:02]>> Oh.

[00:29:02]>> And we did a grassroots, all grassroots, 100%. But the people and everybody else that we're running against, >> I think we're at like 10 million.

[00:29:11]>> Yeah.

[00:29:11]>> And everybody's getting money from foreign countries, corporations, all these. And and by the way, we're within like two points striking distance. So, we're going to do this. We're going to do this grassroots, right? We're going to we're going to win this election. Um but um so we have to end that and then we have we have to have term limits. People can't be in politics for 50 years. Come on. Like at some point you're no longer working for people. At some point you're no longer with your constituents. There are literally people that were carried off in stretchers in Congress last year.

[00:29:50]There's people that were unable to speak that were carried off in Congress. How are those people representing us? They're like 90 years old something. I'm sorry if you can't speak, if you can't articulate things anymore, you shouldn't be in you shouldn't be making laws for people anymore. Um, it's one of the most important jobs in the world to create policy for all the people in the world.

[00:30:19]And for some reason, the people that can't do them are are in charge. So, it's insane to me. Um, so we need to have term limits. My proposal is to have two four-year terms for Congress. And then if you did a great job, great. Now you have two four-year terms for Senate.

[00:30:37]And if you did a great job, great. Then you can run for president or something.

[00:30:40]That's it. And that's 24 years. It's pretty that's pretty long career. It should be enough.

[00:30:47]Um, and so I think that's that's it. Do you guys have any questions for me?

[00:30:56]>> Yes.

[00:31:00]>> Thank you for your speech. I completely agree with what you're saying. Um uh it was estimated that around nearly 10 billion dollars was spent on the 2024 US election from all um like campaigners including congressional and presidential outside parties advertisements whereas in the UK 2024 election it was just under 100 million and that's because we have a policy where per constituency in the UK which is like the state for example Each political party can only spend £54,000.

[00:31:37]Do you think America should replicate having a rule like that where you can only spend a cap of money for each constituency?

[00:31:44]>> Definitely. Definitely. I I do 100% agree with that. So, right now, like like our our election system, the the one that we're running in, it's like like I said, we're at 10$10 million something like that, like for the whole race. But I think there should be a cap.

[00:31:59]Like the the the sad part is the minimum wage for our country is like $7, right?

[00:32:07]725.

[00:32:08]>> Um and the maximum donation that you can give to a congressional candidate is $7,000. That means a person, a poor person, a person that's getting minimum wage would have to work almost a,000 hours in order to make the same influence that a rich person can make in one second.

[00:32:27]And I actually heard this from uh one of the person one of the people I'm running against. Not going to say who it is, but like one of the people I'm running against was like I'm not really scared of anything. Like he's like this other person can't win. They only raised like $350,000. And he was like laughing and I was like okay. Um but then he's like you know what I'm really scared of? I'm scared of this other person's money.

[00:32:51]They're they're able to because I'm running against billionaires, right? So he's like they are he's like in one day they they can they can make $10 million in sitting in their bank account just off the interest. That's he's like that's what I'm really scared of. And I'm like and that's crazy that you can just throw that money in. So definitely we need to have limits. Um I think for Congress it should be like a million dollars max.

[00:33:19]>> Yeah. Congressional candidates actually spend more than presidential candidates.

[00:33:24]>> Yeah. 1.8 for presidential and 3.6 for >> Yeah, it's insane, right? Like it doesn't make any sense.

[00:33:33]>> US hunger for couple decades.

[00:33:38]>> I mean, doesn't it make more sense to actually speak to the people that you're serving? Um, and I also think that only the people that live in your constituency should be able to donate to you because why would you have someone in like Wall Street donating to you like if you're in California? Like there's obviously a disconnect there and there's obviously something going on that has nothing to do with the people that you're supposed to be serving. Um, but yeah, so um, any more questions?

[00:34:07]>> Yes.

[00:34:08]Um yeah I think many people here are not American citizens.

[00:34:16]>> Yeah.

[00:34:18]>> No and even so yeah we have a lot of people come from other countries here and even like I for example living here citizen green card I cannot hold at all.

[00:34:29]Whereas like Belgium and like in Belgium at least when you're like registered in a city you don't need to be a citizen or whatever. At least you can vote for local councils. I'm wondering if so two questions. What can foreign people do?

[00:34:47]Is it like oh yes right I support your policy. What can we do? And is that something you would want to change on a local level that like people without green cards for US citizens at least like local >> um yeah for if you're if you're living in an area then you should be represented um if you as long as you have um like some type of legal residency then you should be able to vote and and do you know um be a part of the system that you that you're living in and yeah so I definitely I think that's important. And as far as this campaign goes, um, >> do you need me to open slides?

[00:35:28]>> Yeah, you go to the last slide.

[00:35:29]>> Very last slide.

[00:35:30]>> Yeah. As far as this specific campaign goes.

[00:35:34]>> Okay. Oh, wrong.

[00:35:37]>> How much time do we have left?

[00:35:38]>> Oh, last question.

[00:35:39]>> Last question.

[00:35:41]>> Um, yeah, you can go to um volunteer at able for congress.com. You can go on my Instagram. my my I'm gonna say Facebook because it needs to have Facebook, but also there's Tik Tok able for Congress.com. And I'll leave you guys with one last thing really quick. Could you go to the elephant?

[00:36:00]>> Oh, that one here.

[00:36:01]>> Yeah. Okay. So, just really quick, I'll just tell you this. Okay. So, when a baby elephant is introduced to a circus, it's tied uh with a chain to a little post. And the post is actually the wooden steak is actually not that strong.

[00:36:18]many of the times. But the baby elephant cries and cries and cries and cries and cries and eventually it gives up and it it believes that this chain is going to keep it chained up for the rest of its life. And so even when it's a large strong adult elephant, when it's in the when it's in the circus, they put it back into into the chain and it doesn't resist anymore. And as a as an adult elephant, you can easily break that chain. And so I implore all of you to think as you become adults, you can break these chains, but you cannot be you cannot be held down by by this belief that you won't be able to do anything.

[00:37:06]The baby elephant has the the power to break the chains and get out, but it's only restricted by its own mind. You have the power to change the world.

[00:37:15]Don't let yourself be changed. Thank you so much.

[00:37:27]>> Thank you so much for a wonderful presentation. I hope you all feel just as mobile as I do. But we'll be moving on to our next event after a quick break. Please meet us here at 11 for our very first panel.

[00:37:55]Yeah, I There we go. Uh so if you go to this website for Congress This is not Yeah. Yeah.

[00:38:47]>> So I can start.

[00:39:14]>> Oh, interesting question. So u the way that US does housing is that uh like let's say in a parking and landlord builds these highrises and they have to have a certain amount of apartments to be affordable and that's subsidized by tax. So the owner of that building and then also does housing for those first time buyers and what able wants to do is because the district in the US is large corporations are able to buy housing and place for normal people.

[00:40:01]Yeah. Um, what's are you delegate of or where did anyone see a guy can actually walk around and talk if he's high right now?

[00:40:26]No. So, I'm sorry. I'm being Where did Able go? Oh, he's actually No, that's not Where'd he go?