by Pichaya Winichakul · January 29, 2015 1:58 PM
Welcome to our ongoing interview series highlighting young elected officials and young candidates. This month we spoke with Ohio State Representative Dan Ramos, who represents Ohio’s 56th House District, which covers western Lorain County. Representative Ramos also currently serves as the Chair of the LaunchProgress Action Fund Board of Directors.
Representative Ramos was first elected in 2010. He is a Lorain native and was the first Hispanic Representative of either caucus in either the House or Senate to serve in a leadership position, serving as Assistant Minority Whip. Representative Ramos says he has always been interested in politics, governance, and government. His interest led him to volunteer for campaigns in his free time and work at the State Legislature, as a Legislative Aide and as a Senior Policy and Budget Analyst, before making a run for office himself.
His boss at the time, who previously represented his current district was reaching their term limit. Running for office to fill the seat “felt like the right thing to do,” he said. “There are things that need to be changed and worked on like college affordability, access to health care. I wanted to work with others to make a real difference.”
Running for office, especially the first time, wasn’t easy. He recalls wanting to meet everybody, “but the legislative district is over 100,000 people. That’s just physically a lot of people to meet.” He spoke about learning to be comfortable in his own skin. He mentioned past experiences working with legislators and candidates, but “being the person in front is different than being the person behind the scenes.”
Now, as a legislator, Representative Ramos is working to bring jobs back to his district and finding ways to re-train people to get new jobs. He is also focusing on making college affordable. “The two issues go hand in hand,” he said. He explained that more jobs now require a college education. If college is not affordable, many people cannot get the education the need to get a job. He also challenged that the extreme cost of higher education is also hindering college-educated people from fully participating in our economy. “If you go $50,000 or $100,000 in debt to go to college, you’re spending the next ten years paying just for that, and you’re not really able to contribute to our economy in other ways.”
As a young elected official, Representative Ramos continues to uplift the voices of other young people because “we bring perspective of the truth right now.” For example, on issues of college affordability he explained, “it’s important to show folks it’s not the way it used to be. It’s not where you can work two months in a mill and raise enough money to send yourself to college. That’s impossible now.” He also said younger people have a unique perspective on other issues like global climate change. Young people can look at this issue differently simply because “we’re planning to build a life here that lasts many decades.”
In talking about young people getting involved in politics and public service, especially in running for office, Representative Ramos advised young people to get to know their city councilmembers, state legislators, and local electeds. “Many of my colleagues are eager to have younger folks involved so they can bring their experiences, bring their leadership, bring their ideas to help us out.”
And just by getting involved and getting to know your legislators, you can have a better idea of what it’s like to run for office and be in office. That’s how he got to where he is today. “This was supposed to be something that I did an hour or two of my time a week when I had it, and it turned into every minute of every day because I fell in love with it.”
To learn more about Representative Ramos, check out his bio here. Get more involved in public service and governance, as Representative Ramos suggests, including opportunities to interact with more young elected officials by joining the LaunchProgress Action Fund listserv.