Improving Child Welfare
Episode 7 Alex Adams—Main Street Idaho Podcast Season 3
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The newly elected Director of the Idaho Health & Welfare Department, Alex Adams, is our special guest for episode 7 of the Main Street Idaho Podcast. As the former Budget Chief for Governor Little, Adams lends his background leading the zero-based regulation initiative to discuss how the Idaho Legislature has streamlined regulatory processes. He additionally highlights the immediate steps he's taken as the new director to improve child welfare for adoptions and foster care.
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Welcome to the Idaho Main Street podcast where we talk about the issues that matter to
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[Music]
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you welcome to the Idaho Main Street podcast we are fortunate today uh to have a fantastic guest somebody who has
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a great reputation throughout the state former budget chief for governor little and recently named director of the idah
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Health and Welfare Department none other than Alex Adams Mr Adams thanks for joining us glad to be here thanks for
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having me we were just reminiscent on uh we met at a you know a rambunctious and
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exciting party reorganization meeting where neither of us uh needed to be there and we got to be like the two
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Muppets that sat up and ate the popcorn and watched the show it's been a it's been a fun Journey
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working with you over the years yeah we've come a long way from then uh you know you've got a reputation not just in
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boisee but throughout the state as somebody who's a doer and I'm excited to get into a lot of the accomplishments
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that been able to have your fingerprints on certainly you know your boss Governor little uh you worked for him it was his
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leadership but but your fingerprints when we talk about the governor's Legacy we'll be on a lot of it and I think the
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biggest one we always hear about is the way that Idaho became the least regulated state in the nation talk us
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through how that came to be I I imagine it wasn't just a a one light bulb moment that you all sat down and said hey maybe
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we should cut all this government red tape but but give us some insight to how we got to that point yeah I mean it it's
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talking about Journeys I mean that also has been uh quite the journey and something that evolved over time so I
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mean kind of my background prior to becoming the budget director for the governor I used to just be a simple pharmacist you know dad Grandpa Great
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Grandpa all pharmacists I pursued the the pharmacy profession and you know Pharmacy's one of the most regulated
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professions at the state level so I always say you know all you have to do is read your 100 or so pages of Pharmacy
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law and suddenly you'll have libertarian tendencies because you know many of them
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don't make sense you know in a lot of States you know they get as granulars detailing how many square feet you have
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to have per employee and things like that so my first job in state government was running the Board of Pharmacy and we
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took our law book from a 100 pages of regulations down to about 25 and in so
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doing you know demonstrated that if you cut regulations if you get government out of the way good jobs follow and
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there's no uh you can do so without having any public uh safety issues so we
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got rid of you know 75% of our regulations at the Board of Pharmacy and then we started to see Amazon moved some
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of their Central operations to the state CVS moved some of their Central operations to the state uh we had
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pharmacies including you know in Eastern and Rural Idaho uh open Tel pharmacies
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to expand access to communities that had never had pharmacies uh for quite some time and you know kind of became one of
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those success stories for regulatory reform so uh fast forward new governor gets
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elected in Fall of 2018 and uh when he asked me to run the
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the Budget Shop one of the conversations we had was federally uh the the federal budget shop OMD the office management
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budget oversees both budget and regulation so we started the conversation about could there be more
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of a regulatory role for the budget job similar to what has happened uh
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federally and if you remember the governor's first state of the state speech um he announced that regulatory
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reform was going to be one of the priorities of his administration and he uh announced that he would be doing an
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executive order uh with a two to one regulatory cut any new regulation had to
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be offset by a cut in two regulations kiring what the Trump administration had
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done the year prior and my recollection this might be you Wishful revisionist
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history is that was the loudest Applause line of that entire State of the State so um probably a
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selfs serving recollection but uh uh it was one of the first things he did it
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was one of his first executive orders that he signed upon taking uh his his governorship so it was a deliberate um
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approach and wanted to replicate frankly what we had done at the Board of Pharmacy across All State agencies I
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don't know that uh anyone thought it would become what it did but uh that's that's where some of us becomes happy
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accident so Idaho under its administrative procedures act had a
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provision that all regulations have to be renewed by the legislature annually so usually at the end of every
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legislative session there's kind of a throwaway bill that was run saying every regulation that precedes this date uh
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continues for the next year and uh for one reason or another in 2019 um the legislature did not pass
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that going home bill so every regulation sunset on June 30th of 2019 so that kind of took the governor's
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uh preconceived notion about regulatory reform in the executive order that he issued and frankly put it on steroids
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and it flipped the script in a way that was really healthy rather than having to look at regulations and find those that
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we thought didn't make sense and then go through a process to get them off the books every regulation was going to die
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by default and then agencies had to expend effort justifying what they
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wanted to keep flipping that burden of proof was an absolute GameChanger no longer did energy and effort have to be
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expended deciding what to cut now energy and effort had to be expended deciding
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what to keep and suddenly drawers of regulations were no longer necessary I
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mean things as flippant or silly as a dress code for Deputy State veterinarians or female kickboxing
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uniforms or a chapter of regulations on snails that didn't exist in our state suddenly we didn't need those and um
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Governor said you know this is a healthy process you know let's flip that script permanently and he set up you know an
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orderly process through a new executive order called zerob based regulation and here we are yeah here we are and the the
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idea of flipping that burden of proof I think is is fascinating uh for those of us that you know weren't in the room
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where it happened but if it were easy I think governors in past would have done
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it I I I think maybe you you might have simplified a little bit how difficult actually was it to be able to sift out
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these are necessary regulations we need to hold on to and then these ones uh we might be able to let slip you know
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everybody's definition of necessity differs slightly so you know I think
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what what the governor did really well is he set up different accountability mechanisms So within each agency he made
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each agency designate a rules review officer because there's a lot of agencies my current one included that
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has many different divisions you've got a division of Public Health a division of Medicaid a division of public or
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Behavioral Health and child welfare and you want a singular person who has
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responsibility across all of those to kind of be that neutral checkpoint on what really is necessary versus what is
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not I would say the first year was probably the easiest because I mean
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agencies in Idaho have been issuing regulations since you know 50s 60s and
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there had been a lot that just accumulated over time and clearly were not necessary but nobody took the time
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and energy to take them off the books so yeah there's there's a say that I've adapted for regulations it's regulations
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rise like rockets but fall like feathers it's a lot easier to add them than it is to take them off because of that I mean
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some of the the silly ones I mentioned earlier we had you know a lottery game show that uh was envisioned in the 80s
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but never aired you know just a lot of things like that all of those came off the books on June 30th 2019 so that
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first cut was the deepest to borrow a song title I mean I think Governor got rid of 1,800 pages of regulations that
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first year now again most of those were Silly most of those were unnecessary so you could debate how much incrementally
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Freer was Idaho by getting those off of the books what I think it did is it got
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the fluff away and put a a brighter Spotlight on what remains and when you put a brighter Spotlight on
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what remained and then you chunk it up like zero based regulation did where 20%
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of all rules sunset in any given year and the agency has to go through the process of
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rejuso Reform that we've seen a lot of work went into uh reforming our
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occupational licensing Rags we're now top 15 in the country in terms of Occupational licensing we pushed hard on
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our Charter regulations we're now top 10 in Charter School regulations in the country so I think clearing away the
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fluff getting rid of the filler putting a brighter Spotlight on what remains created an orderly process uh by which
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regulations can now be properly vetted and discussed with the public and all necessary stakeholders moving forward U
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it's worked so well you know I've got this chart where again it shows about uh
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you know from from 96 uh to 2018 average was about 100 pages regulations being
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added Statewide then you take 1,800 pages off we had a moratorium here and
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then zerob based regulation we're cutting you know two to 300 Pages annually now under this and regulation
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is at the lowest level in recorded Idaho history and what's crazy too is there's you know some national groups that
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publish like regulatory indexes and Idaho keeps widening our Gap we're already the least regulated State and we
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keep going down other states are generally growing just at lower Paces but the gap of our deregulation is widen
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and what what's you know probably the most important thing to note and this is a testament to how Governor L set up the
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process there's no documented instances where regulation has been removed that
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uh led to Patient harm you occasionally see snark online where you know an incident happen somewhere in the state
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and somebody says that's because we're the least regulated State the incidents that they're referring to had no overlap
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generally with uh state regulations so I mean I think uh the way zbr was set up
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uh did it the right way for the right reasons and it's paying off dividends and you know I attribute that to some of
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the draw of businesses reloca Idaho remote workers wanting to live in a low regulatory State the cost of doing
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business here the friction of doing business here and I I think it's had a very positive feedback loop yeah and I I
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appreciate the the context there that you know a lazy Governor could just cut every regulation and we would see really
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some probably dangerous side effects of as you mentioned patient harm uh but the
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goal of this was to lighten the heavy hand of government you referenced It generally the positive effects of it can
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you give us some specifics as you talk about what kind of businesses came in you referenced when it came to the the
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work on the pharmacy and the these businesses coming what have you seen overall as some of the effects of what
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the governor's done with cutting the red tape yeah so uh what's interesting about regulations I mean you know I'll I'll
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give you a preamble to answering your specific question every regulation has to be authorized by a statute so
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legislature passes statutes and then agencies promulgate rules to fill in the details of those statutes so rarely are
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you going to hit a home run or a grand slam through deregulatory generally you're hitting Texas League signals and
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occasionally double if you will so I mean you almost have to go chapter by chapter you know agency by agency so
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I'll tell you some of the singles or the the the doubles that i' I've seen child care my agent regulates child care we
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used to have a ratio of 8 to1 for non-infants we expanded it to 9 to1 for non-infants study after study nationally
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shown there'd be no safety issues for non-infants but what it did is with a
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stroke of a pen we have 6 to 700 daycare Statewide that adds six to 700 seats to
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daycare Statewide for no additional investment the state put0 and0 cents in
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and conceivably could expand daycare seats 6 to 700 Statewide
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any of your listeners have kids they know the weight list and the challenge of finding suitable daycare so I would
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contend that that that created opportunities that didn't exist otherwise quite a bit with telea health quite a bit with h physician assistant
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to physician ratios uh quite a bit to make it easier for retired nurses to come back to the profession just given
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you know some of the the burnout that we saw during covid if you go to a athletic event at boisey State and have enjoyed a
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beer while while cheering on the Broncos that was a regulation there used to be a regulation prohibiting alcohol sales at
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those types of events and now it's probably one of the more popular things to do with those events so you know just
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you know expanded use of technology for hunting and fishing and you know things like that so um what was really
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impressive with how Governor little unveiled this is ultimately the governor
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is not uh adopting regulations regulatory Authority is vested in the agencies and often boards and getting
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the agencies and the boards uh to build this into their DNA and make this part of their agency ethos and you know him
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to reinforce it through cabinet meetings and through uh uh his staff reinforcing
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it as they met with agency heads it's uh what I I made a chart one time I should
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dig it out but you know there's about 60 agencies naho that had rule making Authority they could issue
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regulations um from 2012 to 2018 uh only like five agencies out of
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those 60 had a net reduction in regulations through that time and I will proudly say the Board of Pharmacy which
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I ran was one of those after the implementation of zero based regulation
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every single agency in the state cut regulations on the net and they've sustained it over the five and a half
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years the governor has been in office every single agency um so there's not one that has added regulations since
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this Governor's been in office in fact the average state wies about a 3 uh2 33%
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cut um it varies some agencies get 100% of their regulations I was one of those agencies at dfm and then when I ran the
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charter commission we get 100% uh there's other agencies I think the low is like 18 to 20% Then you look at those
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agencies like oh yeah that makes sense 18% cut at the board of sex offender management yeah that makes sense we
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don't want to let cut a lot of regulations a 20% cut at the Department of Environmental Quality that makes
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sense you know they do some uh pretty important things with air and water quality and we don't want to seed our
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Authority back to the EPA in their ham-handed ways so you know what what's really cool is every agency took it
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seriously made a meaningful difference gave a good story to tell within their Industries but did so responsibly
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working with the public working with the regulated Community working with the stakeholders to make sure that safety
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issues did not materialized yeah you've got to be thrilled looking back at how that process played out
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I Source you know some of the stuff behind me is you know the big pair of scissors uh demonstrating our cut so but
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you know the the coolest thing is if you talk to any of these agencies or you talk to the governor I mean a lot of the
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philosophy is and we're still just getting started we've got two more years left to zero based regulation then the
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legislature ins sconed it and law to make it a permanent process moving forward so I think you'll see that trend
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line continue to to chip downward love it yeah and our small business owners listening will be excited by that um I
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guess uh now I just recently learned Alex where the term red tape comes from are you familiar with it uh didn't they
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used to buy government documents and red tape it's exactly it yeah and so the the
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the term is to get to the heart of the government problem and get it get the get the bureaucracy out of the way is
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you cut the red tape to get into the documents a fun fact for the day now then you not only were involved in a lot
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of regul deregulation and you communicated very well the by product of that for the average idahoan but you're
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involved in a significant number of legislative priorities and issues and we don't have the time to get into a lot of
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them but needless to say a large part of your job working for the governor was dealing with the legislature
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particularly jfac anything that had anything to do with funding you you kind of to lend your voice too you were you
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know in the the metaphorical room where it happens you were cutting deals and trading horses and you were involved in
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a lot of really big things that weren't necessarily uh that couldn't have
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happened unless you made them happen talk us through the philosophy of what it's like working across an ideological
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Spectrum in the legislature with very different personalities knowing that you needed for the governor to be able to
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cut deals and get the get the ball across the Finish Line yeah I mean I I
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would say I I had an easy job because my boss Governor little uh was a budget guy
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by by heart I mean he would always talk about um he intered for jfac our joint finance and Appropriations Committee in
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the 1970s and he would talk about how we had to calculate budget documents and fund shifts and all those things by hand back
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then so he knew the budget in and out perhaps better than anyone in the state
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which made it a lot easier for me to to do my job um we would know coming into a
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session what his priorities would be and he also knew like the governor also had
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been in and around the legislature for years interned for it in the 70s his dad served in the body he served in the body
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he presided over the Senate as lieutenant governor he knew that the way to get things done was to work together
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and not presume uh to have uh all of the answers so we would generally come into
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the session with a concept like this last session Governor wanted to make a big uh investment in school facilities
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he announced over a billion dollars in funding for school facilities you know and we didn't come in with a bill
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pre-draft if we would have had our own school facilities Bill and say this is the bill and only this is the bill we would not
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have been successful what the governor did really well is he would outline general concepts of things that were
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important for the state and they were generally in tune with what uh the electorate wanted and therefore the
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legislature was interested in and he would also limit how many asks we had in any given session because he knows you
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can only do a couple big things in any legislative session so he would outline
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big Concepts and the dollar amounts and fit those within a structurally balanced
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budget where we wouldn't be taking on debt we wouldn't uh be making short-term moves and uh then gave his staff the
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latitude to work with the legislature but then would involve himself in a very Hands-On manner working with legislators
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uh working on uh you know uh statutory language and things like that so I I
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would say my job was Made Easy by uh by my boss and I was fortun
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to have somebody who is that uh ingrained in in the budget process
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what's something about the working with the legislature that most of our listeners probably wouldn't
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understand how committed they are I mean I I I think you know uh there's a
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tendency you know for some of the Oddities to to attract headlines I if you think of some of the headlines this
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last session I mean how many things did you read about cannibalism and whatnot but you know if if you're in the
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legislative Arena if you're going to legislative hearings daily you're going to find a lot of committed folks who are
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public servants at heart who are there to do the right things for the right reasons and you know too much of the
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reporting is on the horse race aspect of it or The Oddities aspect of it and not
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enough about the day-to-day stuff I mean there were so many good bills that passed in recent years that you know
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frankly never got the coverage they deserved I remember tax credits for child care and you know things like that
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that people probably don't know really happen but um there's a lot of solution oriented problem solvers and um we were
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fortunate to work with many of them to to get some good things done for the people of Idaho yeah that's I love that
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message we we talk a lot on the podcast of the damages of only covering like the
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salacious the loud the you know because that draws eyes and attention and that's what but sometimes the boring stuff is
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the most important stuffff and you kind of lend it there so love love hearing that let's talk about the new gig you
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got named as the Director of the Department of Health and Welfare for those that don't know this is a very
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large operation you're running over there over 3,000 employees a budget of what over five and a half billion
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dollars is that right yeah exactly right so h i mean talk to us how you felt when you first uh I assume the governor
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approached you on it yeah I mean um my background was Healthcare as I said I started my career as a pharmacist so in
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many ways this is Back to the Future for me um I I saw an opportunity here I
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don't think any Department in the state well there's no Department as big in terms of size or budget uh but it's also
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an agency that touches so many lives often at their most vulnerable time of need we run child welfare we run
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Medicaid we run food stamps we run um you know programs to help people with
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car repair and other things that you just wouldn't expect uh through Department uh of of Health and Welfare
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and you know these programs need to work they need to work well and um I I
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thought I might be uniquely positioned to make a difference just giv kind of my background experience in state
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government getting things done as well as kind of the the health care interest and and passion well you didn't waste
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much time I mean it was day one uh you got to work you lived up to the reputation as a doer uh you immediately
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came in and there were some positions uh 100 plus positions that were vacant that you recognized as redundant and
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unnecessary and so you cut cut those positions but um more importantly you started doing some work with adoptions
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and Foster uh that I think drew a lot of well-deserved positive attention anybody who's dealt with foster homes or
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adoptions it they view it from a different lens but not enough people have dealt with it so I think it's
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important for for you to help those that are not aware of what's going on in Idaho with uh Foster hor shortages or
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the adoption costs walk us through what you've already done and what you plan on doing then
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yeah well um because of an agency of this size um if you try to do everything
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you're not going to do everything well I mean a lot of what I've I've tried to do is I said in addition to my start doing
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list I want all my Deputy directors and division administrators to have stopped doing list so that we can take off
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things that are less important less necessary because I want my team to spend a disproportionate of time energy
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and focus on improving child welfare so uh and that's child welfare broadly uh
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but in terms of where I started adoption and Foster Care was the initial focus on day one uh hour one minute one I waved
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all fees for adoption uh through the department I don't want there to be any barriers to adoption of children in the
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custody of the department and knowing what uh adoptive parents go through I didn't want application fees I didn't
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want home study fees I didn't want there to be any barriers to entry to somebody who wants to open their home and their
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heart uh to a child in need and then foster care um we have about 1,400 kids
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in foster care and 1100 K uh families to take care of them um simply put we need
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more Foster families uh so we've engaged in what I kind of call the colon Powell
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shock and awe approach to have a total agency focus on improving uh foster care
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we cut red tape and Licensing and got rid of some of the silliness we used to have a rule about having a 4 foot fence
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around bodies of water if you're going to be a foster parent makes sense for Pools and Hot Tubs how many rural Idaho
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properties have you driven by a 4- foot fence along the entire irrigation or Canal so we got rid of a lot of that uh
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we worked with Governor little to do paid family leave for foster parents um
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we uh are doing Innovative Partnerships like we're sending out free parks passes
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through generous contribution from region Blue Shield and Idaho businesses for the outdoor to get uh opportunities
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for family bonding for foster family and just kind of recreate you know a traditional family environment and since
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I started when I started we had about 74 Foster families for every 100 foster kids as of Monday this week we're at 85
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Foster families for every hundred foster kids so things are moving in the right direction but we've got a long way to go
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um I don't want to give the impression that we're doing this alone a lot of this has been because of the thoughtful
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oversight of of the legislature part why this was on my radar screen was
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legislative oversight hearings that have happened this year and in recent years legislative oversight reports from the
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office performance evaluation so I think you know to the extent my leadership
25:41
team has had success in this issue is it's because we're standing on the shoulders of a lot of committed passionate legislators who have brought
25:48
this topic to the Forefront and said we can and must do better uh just this this past session I I believe it was
25:55
representative Rael ran a bill designed to address the too many kids that we had in short-term rentals in congregate care
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settings and I would I would be remiss if I didn't say that bill is working the
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number of congregate care kids has gone down precipitously uh since I started because some of the parameters uh that
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were outlined in that bill so I mean this has truly been an area where the legislature uh through oversight and
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through issue attention has done a good job of bringing this issue to the Forefront and me having a leadership
26:27
team that had some ability to execute it within state government with a very supportive Governor cheering us on along
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the way and nudging us along the way is it the fact that you're a father
26:40
have a have a of a child at home does that play a role in in prioritizing the importance of child welfare or is are
26:47
you able to switch hats as clean as some can well without a doubt it plays a role I mean my daughter's five and a half and
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it's really important to her that I reveal the half and and uh she you know
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I look at the opportunities that she has by virtue of what my wife and I do and and the supportive family structure that
27:07
we have and you know frankly the fact that we have local grandparents to watch her during the day or pick her up from
27:12
soccer practice not everybody has that and I'm mindful of that and I want every
27:17
child to be able to grow up in a loving home a supportive home a nurturing home and have the resources that they need to
27:24
develop and grow and be successful and so I I I think you know my focus on
27:29
child welfare is intimately you know connected to my my own family circumstances and um you know I it's not
27:38
lost on me uh that what I want for her I want for every child in the state of
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Idaho I and I I think many parents listening can appreciate that I I recently started studying about you know
27:50
certain presidents of what their intention was when they came into office and how that changed once things happen
27:55
in office I think a great example that is George W who had these great domestic plans and then 911 hits and everything
28:01
changes that's maybe uh somewhat comparable to what happened to your predecessor who uh could not have
28:07
predicted what a pandemic would do to to that department are there things like that that keep you up at night where you
28:14
think okay what knowing how vast the responsibilities of your department are do you are you concerned about what
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could come yeah so you know when I prepared for this job I actually got calls from you know several other state
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uh Health and Welfare equivalent directors uh was able to chat with a former US Secretary of Health and Human
28:35
Service and everyone says come in with your priorities but know that circumstances will always be foisted
28:41
upon you that might take you away from those and you have to work with your Governor your governor's office the
28:46
legislature to determine when do you have to Pivot from those there's no question that covid dominated uh State
28:53
Health and Welfare agencies uh you know from 2020 through 2023 and frankly
28:58
Health and Welfare agencies used to kind of be sleepy backend you know agencies that existed but were not front-facing
29:05
you know highly visible and I think it forever changed how people will look at
29:10
State Health departments and in so doing we have to be mindful of that we have to be mindful of the increased transparency
29:17
on us and the increased accountability that taxpayers deserve uh from us so you
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know while I've focused on child welfare you know one of the things we talk about as a leadership team is what would take
29:29
us off that course what would cause us to pivots I mean you know we've been tracking h5n1 we've been tracking you
29:35
know a lot of the ambient conversations out there and you know making sure that
29:41
um we're following we're responding to appropriate events uh but um we're
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fortunate that we've been able to maintain a high energy a high octane offense on child welfare for the three
29:53
months that I've been here and uh intend to continue that until circumstances
29:58
dictate otherwise yeah and there are many of us who are cheering on from the sidelines
30:04
as we've watched you you know not just in this role but previous roles come in and exercise leadership and advocate for
30:11
causes that we care about is it your preference that those of us who want to see you succeed just uh Advocate through
30:18
our legislators for causes that are important to us or are there outlets where those listening can say okay I
30:25
have some thoughts and some feedbacks that would uh potentially help that department and
30:30
if so is there is there a way we can reach your team certainly reach out to to me and it's just my name at dw.
30:38
idaho.gov I've spent quite a bit of my time the first three months talking to external entities particularly Foster
30:44
families and I my deputy and I estimated that we've personally talked to 10% of
30:50
the Foster families listening to them hearing their issues hearing their concerns because you can't build
30:56
Solutions without hearing from those who are directly affected uh by the problems
31:02
that you're trying to address I mean any and all feedback I welcome you know certainly you know there's a distinction
31:08
between the legislative and executive branches but I would say there's a healthy distinction I mean what we're
31:13
focused on you know frankly has been uh covered by years in legislative oversight hearings and legislative
31:19
oversight reports so I mean certainly um encourage folks to work through their local legislators as well because
31:26
nothing gets an agencies attention quite like a call from a legislator saying hey I heard from a constituent this uh so um
31:34
I think that's why the work you and uh the members of the legislature do is so important because they hold us
31:40
accountable and uh we go to them asking for uh resources and policy changes and
31:48
the more they're hearing from constituents as to the why behind those requests I think it's a healthy
31:54
symbiotic yet distinct uh relationship any chance I can get to get a
31:59
constituent uh spun up and and call in your office is is a good day for me so we'll we'll keep working on that now
32:05
Alex uh one of the traditions we have on the podcast is when when we have a time to do it we love to ask our guests uh
32:12
about a book that they've read in their life that they would recommend everybody and of course we always have to put them on the spot to do so so putting you on
32:18
the spot is there a book that you could recommend that any of our listeners should read in their lifetime well uh my
32:26
wife will jokes I have piles and piles of books I have more books now than I have bookshelves and something about
32:32
reading physical hard copies is still uh so uh important to me I haven't been
32:37
able to switch so I mean um I'll I'll give you a couple just because of how many books I have first you know from a
32:45
leadership standpoint uh what I've been working through with my leadership team is a book called the four disciplines of execution and general premise is you
32:53
know if you try to do everything you're not going to do everything well sharpen your focus this uh have a wildly
32:59
important goal put a disproportionate amount of time and energy towards that and then once you've achieved that let
33:05
that fade into day-to-day work and then pursue the next goal so I think you know
33:10
a lot of hopefully what you're seeing from the Department is US following that Playbook and hopefully following it well and successfully to the betterment of
33:17
public health and safety for idahoans in terms of regulatory philosophy I'd be remiss not to delve into some books
33:24
related to regulatory reform probably the most interesting book for me it's a short read you can even find a
33:29
PDF of it free online it's a book called permissionless Innovation it's by Adam the at the time of writing he was a
33:36
faculty member at uh the marcada center at George Mason University and it talked
33:41
about different philosophies of Regulation and how do you regulate in a fast-paced you know technologically
33:48
changing environment and it talked a lot about allowing permission to be the
33:53
default and uh using courts and others to reconcile some of those safety issues
33:58
and not regulating in advance and preventing good solutions from coming to the marketplace and I think it
34:05
transformed a lot about how I viewed the role of a regulator and what the role of
34:10
permission uh versus prohibition is and um it's really written uh with
34:17
technology regulation in mind but I've been able to apply it to a lot of fields including some of what I currently
34:22
oversee so those are the two books I'd uh I'd recommend and I will immediately
34:28
after hanging up kick myself for not revealing five other books but uh
34:34
um I'm I'm really hoping that those are not the books that you read bedtime for
34:39
your daughter and maybe that does help her fall asleep but that might not be the ideal uh nightly bedtime
34:45
story you know ear early on uh when she was really little you know we would just
34:51
read anything uh to her because I mean you're trying to form vocabulary and just words and I remember my wife Tak a
34:57
picture of me reading a book to her that was literally called how to regulate so as I said uh she's five and a half but
35:05
she's currently cutting regulations at a third grade level so I'm very I love that hey I so I just
35:11
finished uh the anxious generation have you got your hands on that one yet I have not I I recommend it'll it'll scare
35:18
you uh you know it's social media it's technology in the hands of this generation so with a daughter that's
35:25
cutting regulation she might find it interesting so you'll have to pass it on I'll check it out Alex we know how busy
35:31
you are we know how much you're working on not only do we appreciate your time we appreciate everything that you have accomplished in your previous role with
35:37
Governor little and what you're doing now to to help Idaho family so we hope to have you back on as as a lot of these
35:42
priorities that you're focused on come to fruition but until then uh we hope you know how much we appreciate your
35:48
time thanks so much appreciate what you guys do thanks Alex till next time
