Voices for Voices®

With Oregon's Future at Stake, Meet Brittany Jones (Ep. 320)

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 320

Share episode

With Oregon's Future at Stake, Meet Brittany Jones (Ep. 320)

What drives a human trafficking survivor to run for governor? Brittany "BJ" Jones reveals her remarkable journey from military service to gubernatorial candidate in a compelling conversation that showcases her passionate vision for Oregon's future.

Jones, who describes herself as an Oregon native with Patawomeck indigenous heritage, shares how her political awakening came gradually. "When Trump started running for office, it really opened my eyes," she explains, noting that if someone like him could seek high office, citizens needed to pay closer attention to politics. This realization propelled her from a political newcomer to a determined candidate with a clear mission: protecting children's futures.

At the heart of Jones's platform lies a multifaceted approach to child welfare that encompasses school safety, mental health resources, environmental stewardship, and creating safe spaces for all children to express their identities. She speaks with particular urgency about gun violence in schools and the importance of following indigenous leadership in environmental protection. "Our children deserve to have clean water to play in and drink, and forests to be able to explore," she emphasizes, connecting personal parenting experiences to broader policy goals.

Perhaps most surprising is Jones's revelation that she identifies as an introvert who prefers "to just be in my corner with my books and candles." Her candid discussion about navigating campaign life despite this temperament offers a refreshing glimpse into the human side of political candidacy. Running a grassroots campaign while working as a DoorDash driver to maintain flexibility for campaign activities, Jones embodies an authentic approach to politics that contrasts sharply with more polished, established candidates.

Discover how Jones plans to bring meaningful change to Oregon by following her campaign on social media (Facebook: Jones for Governor 2026, TikTok: BJ for Oregon, Instagram: Jones4Governor2026) or through her website. Her story reminds us that political leadership can emerge from unexpected places when driven by genuine passion for creating a better future.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome and Introduction

7:36 Oregon Background and Indigenous Heritage

13:41 Journey into Politics and Future Goals

19:04 Protecting Children's Future

23:35 Indigenous Support and Campaign Process

28:45 Running as an Introvert

24:11 Day in the Life of a Candidate

#OregonFuture #BrittanyJones #PoliticalChange #OregonElections #MeetTheCandidate #VoteSmartOregon #CommunityLeader #SustainableOregon #EmpowermentInPolitics #FutureOfOregon #LocalVoicesMatter #CivicEngagement #ProgressiveLeadership #EnvironmentalPolicyOR #GrassrootsMovement #justiceforsurvivors #justice4survivors #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion #TikTok #Instagram #truth #factoverfictionmatters #transparency #VoiceForChange #HealingTogether #VoicesForVoices320

Support the show

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. I'm your host, founder of Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes. We are grateful to have you with us. We are over 317 episodes and we're going strong, and so I just want to thank all our viewers, our listeners, here in Northeast Ohio, across the United States and over 80 countries, 800 cities across the world, and we couldn't do this without your love and support. So thank you so much for that. If you can do us a huge favor and give us a big thumbs up like, share, follow, subscribe, that would greatly help us. We do have this huge overarching goal of wanting to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond wanting to help 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond and we are well on our way due to you as our viewer and or listener, doesn't matter what platform you use. Thank you so much. Even if you've only tuned in for a second, we greatly appreciate you, your time, your talent, your treasure.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Speaking of treasure and talent, this show, this episode, as well as the following episode, we're going to be doing with an individual who is running not physically running, but running for the governor position in the state of Oregon. Brittany Jones also goes by BJ, so you can correct me as we as we go on. You can correct me as we as we go on. But uh, britney is a? Uh, an individual. Uh, from the research that I've done and mutual acquaintance, a human trafficking survivor is very, very keyed in on not only helping people but especially as it relates to human trafficking, human trafficking survivors, individuals, that if they are doing the human trafficking themselves. She, from my understanding, wants to bring some law and order to the state of Oregon and I'm going to let her share all those details. But I just wanted to say at the beginning welcome, thank you for joining us and thank you, BJ, for joining us on the beginning. Welcome, thank you for joining us and thank you, BJ for joining us on the show, no problem.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

Thank you for having me. This is the first podcast I've been in in a while, so I'm looking forward to it, and it is a very important topic that we're discussing today, especially in the state of Oregon, which I believe we'll be covering that as well especially in the state of Oregon, which I believe we'll be covering that as well.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, absolutely. So maybe we can get started on. Have you lived in Oregon your whole life? Are you a native Oregon? And I know you also have a native indigenous background as well? If you could maybe go into some of that too would be helpful to get us started so I was born and raised in Oregon and I lived here the majority of my life.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

When I was 18 I did join the military, but my younger years were and connected to the indigenous community. I was learning how to jingle, dress, dance. We had ceremony in our home, went to powwows, potlucks and gatherings, and then at one point that stopped because my mom graduated college and ended up having to join the workforce and keep a roof over all of our heads. And I grew up in the Mexican culture with my other part of my family and then as an adult, I reconnected and I am indigenous, but I'm not a part of the any of the tribes in Oregon. I'm Patawamik and that tribe is actually from Virginia, so way on the east coast, and I haven't been able to physically visit them yet, but I am. I do talk to my family over there regularly since reconnecting, but I honestly I've moved away from Oregon quite a few times and I just keep coming back. There's no place. You know, this is home. This is home for me.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, what's Oregon known for as a state? You know, good, bad, indifferent. For instance, for me, being from Ohio, whenever people hear they think of Ohio State, university, sports and even traveling across the country, across the world, let's see hats and then and merchandise on. And not being from Oregon, I'm just, I'm just curious what what's known for. You know, the climate, any background on that? Just to you know. As we, you know, start digging, digging our way or building our way into, to, to your platform.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

Well, honestly, I think if it is known for anything, it is the Oregon ducks, the football teams, you know. However, in my experience in other States, a lot of people don't actually know, even know where Oregon is. Or they say what's Oregon? And I have to be like, well, it's between California and Washington, it's just kind of there. But whenever I talk about Oregon I was like we have desert, forest, coastal, you know, plains. We have a lot of different biomes in Oregon. It's a wonderful place to explore and when you're central in Oregon you can almost get anywhere the coast, the desert within a couple hours.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, yeah, that is definitely distinguishing from almost all of the United States to have such that wide variety of having the coast, as well as the other aspects. Let's see, let's, you're, uh, you're campaigning, you're running for, uh, uh, the governor's seat in the state of Oregon, where you've, uh, you know, lived, your, lived your life and before we get into the platform and what you hope on, hope to do on day one, and you know, the first 60, 90 days, what, what got you even interested in in politics?

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

Um, um, honestly, it was kind of like a gradual, like I remember in the military and my first time voting I kind of opened my eyes a little bit and then when trump started running for office, it really opened my eyes, that you know if anyone like that can run for office, and we really got to start paying attention. And the second time he ran that's when I was like you know what. Well, before that I said I'm gonna put my hat in the ring as soon as I'm old enough, and so I actually ran for president and that was my first time really jumping fully into politics and it was a very steep learning hole. And I also learned that a lot of other people don't understand how the government actually works and so it made me educate myself even more to be able to educate others on that whole process. And I kind of went from zero to 60 pretty quickly and we always planned on running for governor, like my team.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

If I did not get president because I was running unaffiliated, we all know the odds of that. I am running as a Democrat on the state level, which was part of the strategy to get me into office, and then in the future we do plan a presidential run again because, you know, a lot of things are just going downhill. And I have children, many other people have children, and we have to, we have to protect their futures, children, many other people have children, and we have to.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

We have to protect their futures. Can you talk a little bit about what that means, about protecting the, the, the future, what that means to you? You know, I have a, I have a six-year-old daughter and and you have in children as well. Uh, just for just so people understand, like when you say, yeah, we want to protect children, and it's like, okay, well, well, how or what, what are the, the ideas and the thoughts that you, you have around that?

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

it's a really big issue. There's a lot of different avenues you can go. We can start with making schools safer, as well as putting funding into schools, not only for the gun violence that we see today, but for the mental health help of students and faculty and pretty much anyone in America right now at this point could use some help to handle everything that's going on. And then also following indigenous leadership and the lead for environmental stewardship, because our children deserve to have clean water to play in and drink and forests to be able to go and, explore and camp and you know resources to have access to that, that their environment's clean, that they can go to school without fear for their lives, that they can grow up with their freedoms to be able to be who they are, um and without fear of repercussions, like being able to be transgender, being able to be a bipoc child, being able to be look, being able to be a bipoc child, being able to be look different or be different than your peers without being bullied and attacked, especially by adults in politics.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

And making sure making sure all is handled yeah, and it's so.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

It is so important because, uh, from my perspective, all those just hit home Talk about daughter going to first grade and when you drop her off or walk her to school and you have a pickup plan, whether they ride the bus or drive to pick them up, it's always been, I guess, just one of those.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

It's not a guarantee, but we just expect it.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh, okay, yeah, we're going to go pick up our child at the end of the day, or the bus is going to come to drop them off or to pick them up, and then, as you mentioned, with that school violence, it's, it's crazy because it's like, oh my gosh, like this could happen any, literally anywhere, and and it's scary to think about that that you might see them in the morning and then you might not see them again alive.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

But, especially in Oregon, that's something that you want to do, you want to fight for that, you want that to be part of the makeup of yourself, your character, of your platforms, and so I just want to say thank you for being someone that is willing to stand up, because it's hard to stand up, it's easy to, you know, be that, be a bystander and just, you know, let somebody else do that, let somebody else worry about that. Uh, so, in order to to thank you for that, um, how? How, support from the indigenous community, how's that playing a role in running for governor? How? Uh, and I I don't know, I don't know how the process goes like if, if you, if you have to talk to you know the chief or somebody to you know, get their blessing, or can you just go through that process a little bit?

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

so to be able to get like endorsements from tribes, I would have to reach out to council and a lot of natives don't actually participate in american politics. Okay, it's a truth that we have a lot of trust issues with the ongoing genocide, mmiw, the violation of treaties constantly. I'm not endorsed by any tribes at this point in time. I am there's um, I volunteer for indigenous now and and a shooting Shooting Bear has helped guide me a lot in the proper way to reconnect as an adult and she's given me a lot of advice, and she gives me a lot of advice through the campaign as well. But that doesn't mean it's an endorsement. So it's a lot of sitting and listening to elders and making sure that I'm doing what I can to move forward in a good way and to fight for our community in the correct way. That is needed and that, depending on which area and which tribe, which location, that could be completely different from one to the next and with my tribe being all the way in Virginia.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

I'm not an enrolled member. I'm going to say that I've never claimed to be. It's even harder to get support from way over there, especially just for a state. My cousin's really excited that I'm running, but Just moving my camera.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

So there we go.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

So moving forward in the way that I can, being out there for the, for the community, volunteering, I mean mean that's all I can really do and if, if they, if people from the Native community, choose to support me, then they choose to support me. You know, I can just keep doing the best that I can do to fight for our community, in the way that I'm being taught, in the way that I know how yeah, uh, something I've wondered about when you decide that you want to run for office, is there paperwork you have to fill out?

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

How would somebody who's watching and listening that may be inspired by you and say I've always wanted to, and maybe this might be the spark that might have somebody or some buddies want to do that and go? You know where do I start? Like, I want to run but I don't know what to do. High level talk about you know what, what you have to do to just get get the process started so that you are on the ballot and uh, all those legalities, I guess, yeah so, with sorry for like itching my face so much, I was in a protest march to ice last night and there's so much residual tear gas and everything out there that, even though I washed my face and everything, she was not there by the way but

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

I'm still very itchy from it. But, um, yeah, to file to run for office, it's really not as complicated as they make it seem. You have to have a campaign committee set up If you raise or spend over $5,000 at the state level and then, like right now, I have to do a declaration, a candidate declaration, a declaration, candidate declaration. I can't remember the exact name of the form off the top my head, but it is to declare myself as a candidate to get on the ballot. It's just a hundred dollar fee, for governor, okay, and for an incumbent, I believe it's 150 dollars. So it's really a simple process.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

I would say the hardest part is that financial reporting. Yeah, because the fec was on the federal level and then the states. When you're running at a state level level office, it's a different reporting system that I'm still learning. Luckily we haven't really had any donations or anything yet that I have to worry about reporting. So once but once we do. That's going to be a huge learning curve to learn that system for the state of oregon and I'm hoping I have a treasurer before then, because I hate doing that part of the training.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, you want to spend your time doing it yeah.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

So do you have to be an outgoing person or can maybe an introvert? I'm just wondering the type of type of people, because you know, we see people on TV or we hear them on the radio and and I've always just thought like wow, like there's, there's a lot of things you got to do in the public or try, try to do media wise. Um, with this being one of those avenues for you, uh, it is that something that you know, if you were to recommend to somebody who is is looking to to run or have an interest, and they're like but I don't, how am I going to be on, I don't know, a TV show, a podcast, a radio show? And then for you, is it natural for you or has it taken a little bit for you to just, I don't know just kind of work through?

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

I am. I'm an introvert, for sure. I I like to just be in my corner with my books and and candles, and so being around people constantly is can be a bit draining. But I find that when, when it's something that I'm passionate about, an issue that I'm passionate about, that kind of that anxiety goes away. In the moment we had, on the Labor Day protests that we were at in the Salem capital, one of the people that were volunteering to help out. She actually went from person to person to person to person until she found someone that got me on stage. And that was my first speech in front of a huge crowd like that and I repeated myself. I had no speech plan, I repeated myself, but I was proud that I didn't say um or have long pauses.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

So if you are an introvert, you can still run for office if you're passionate about it and it kind of overrides your anxiety. And especially if you have people on your team that are willing to kind of be that battering ram for you, that persistent hey, get her on stage. Hey, do this like, get her out there, Cause I don't like to bother people. I don't. I'm very awkward when I approach people to like like a cold approach hey, I'm, I'm so-and-so, can I get on stage and talk. That's not. That's hey, I'm so-and-so, can I get on stage and talk. That doesn't come natural to me. So if you have a good team that can make up for those aspects and be kind of that force to approach people, then even if you're an introvert, you can run for office.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, excellent, that's great to hear. My psychiatrist says that I'm an introvert and I brought up, I said but we do a lot of shows and different media, tiktoks and all those, and what he had said was he goes, but what about the rest of your day? Like when you're not doing that, like when you're not recording or filming, and what do you do? Like, are you the social butterfly? Are you that type of person where you can walk, walk in and uh, just have a conversation with? And I said, uh, actually no, and and so it was interesting just to learn, because I I just thought that, oh well, I'm an extrovert because of these things. I think it's also key for individuals just to be comfortable in their own skin, whatever that is, and to work for those things. Like you said, you mentioned your team and having them being the battering ram to get to the point where you don't have to do the the cold call, the cold talking, where you can just be able to focus on what you want to focus on and and talk about the issues and the topics that are important to you and that you'd bring if elected.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

And I guess at this point I meant to cover it at the beginning. I just wanted to let all of our viewers, our listeners, no matter where you're at, that any candidate for any office anywhere has an open invitation to come on the show and talk about their platform as well as like BJ's doing. So this isn't an endorsement, so as, wanting to help people, we want to help people everywhere, and so if you're somebody who is running for office is an incumbent, no matter what state. You know, we're based in Ohio, bj's in Oregon, but it all comes that we're all human beings and so we have that connection, no matter where we're at.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

So, again, open invitation to anybody who is running for office, doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on, we give you the same airtime as we're doing here. So I had to make sure I squeezed that in here to make sure that gets gets uh, uh, out there, uh, so what's a? What's a, what's a day in the life of a candidate running for governor in the state of oregon? And uh, just for, like, the average person to know, like, oh, I, oh, I see them on tv or I see an article online or a social media post. Like, what, what does that look? Look like and I know all days probably aren't the same, but just maybe in general, you could touch on that.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

Well, mine's pretty boring. We're very grassroots so we don't have like teams of people running around. I don't have an office to be in every day. What I do is I'm constantly texting with my PR manager, constantly chatting with him. We have a small group of volunteers that we meet up with once a week and we kind of chat and signal and go back and forth about plans and things we can do. But other than that I work all the time.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

I do DoorDash to keep my schedule open and so, like throughout the day I'm able for I'm available for phone calls, meetings, I'm driving to Salem or Eugene or anywhere I need to be at a short like in short notice and then that way I can be available for events. And of course I get my daughter to and from school. She's homesick today, but you know that starts the day off. It's very early in the morning getting up and getting her ready and then I have to be back to pick her up from school and I try to fit meetings in when she's in school rather than than after. But I guess Mondays are the days that everything happens, because that's when the volunteers meet up and we go over everything we've done for the week, and a lot of times it's through, you know, signal or video call, but we're trying to move to in-person meetups just to help build our connection as a team, and so our next one is Monday, and I'm excited for that one.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

Great, we're about ready to close out this particular episode, but before we do that, is there a website or how can people learn more about you as a person and as a candidate?

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

There is a website. It is a free website, so it's like WixsiteBJorg and so it's a little complicated to say. But if you go to Facebook and look for Jones, for Governor 2026, or TikTok is BJ for Oregon, and then Instagram is Jones, the number four, or Governor 2026. Or Governor 2026. And all of those have the link to my website that has platforms, plans of actions, legislation that I've been working on and everything that I want to do as governor is on that website and we are adding more, almost constantly and the election date is itmber 5th of 2026 or uh so the primaries are coming up first and they're in may, so you have to be a democrat to vote in the primaries, and I'm um.

Oregon Governor Candidate, Brittany Jones:

Tina hasn't said if she's running again yet, so I don't know if I'm going up against an incumbent, but in the primaries I think it's may 26 I could be wrong and then after that it is November 5th for the general election okay.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

So, yeah, viewers, listeners again. Please, if you're interested, check out BJ's website. It's going to be building as the days and the minutes and seconds go by, because I have a feeling that this is going to be one of the first of many opportunities that she's going to be able to come on and talk about running for governor of the state of Oregon, and that is in 2026. As you mentioned, the primaries are in May, the general election is in November and again, just want to keep that invitation open. Anybody who is running for office, whether you're an incumbent at large, you're more than welcome to come on our show and share information about you. So we invite you to check out Brittany Jones running for the governor seat in the state of Oregon in 2026.

Voices for VoicesⓇ, Justin Alan Hayes:

We want to thank her for her time. She's so gracious and going to spend another episode with us and in that one we're going to be digging into her platform. You know day one. You know first 30, 60 days we're going to talk about, you know, some hard topic of human trafficking, sex trafficking and some of those topics that really differentiate her from, say, the past. So we invite you to come back. Thank you for all our viewers and listeners here and across the past, so we invite you to come back. Thank you for all our viewers and listeners here and across the world. Thank you, BJ, for joining us on this episode and for joining us on the the following episode, and just we. We thank you for that and we hope that you are our viewers, our listeners, that you continue to be a voice for you or somebody in need and until next time. This is Justin Alan Hayes and I am signing off. We'll see you next time. Thanks, everybody.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Justin Alan Hayes

Host