Interview with Representative David Muradian

David Muradian Jr. is a representative of the Republican Party in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He is currently entering his 4th term as a representative. I had the privilege of interviewing him on November 30th, 2020. Throughout the interview, he talked about his inspirations for getting involved in politics, as well as his career path.

Q: How would you describe your responsibilities as a representative?

A: “So, responsibilities during covid-19 are completely different from what they were normally. Typically we get invited to public meetings and events in the district and also in Boston, but now with everyone being socially distanced everything has turned to zoom. That doesn’t mean my duties stop. Come March when the governor decided that we were going to scale back everything (shut down), millions of people in the commonwealth filed for unemployment. So, one of the biggest things was that they got their unemployment benefits. So that really spiked up in how busy we were and once when that started to level down a little bit, they set up something called P.U.A. which is for the self-employed workers because they don’t pay into typical unemployment but they also needed a hand in trying to survive this pandemic. So that made our job a lot more hectic.”

Q: Why did you decide to become a representative?

A: “Growing up I had no interest in politics I went to Worcester State and I went for education with a...(inaudible due to lag) because I had an interest in it and communications because I thought it would be fairly broad and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. Throughout my time I bartended and waited tables to make sure I didn’t have student loans or at least a big amount of student loans. I did that for about a year after graduating until the opportunity to interview in my predecessor's office presented itself. The gentleman before me was named George Petterson. He was losing his staffer and my cousin knew the staffer and had a good relationship with her and so she (his cousin) said: "Hey Dave I don’t know if politics interest you but he’s your local representative." So, I looked into him and I agreed with a lot of the stances he took so I said ‘you know what if for nothing else it will be a ‘real interview’ experience. I took the interview on a Friday. He then later called me and offered me the position of legislative aid so I took the job and to me, it was just a job. Until in 2011, I helped a lot of people, and that feeling of actually helping people made me take it a lot more seriously. Then in 2014, George didn’t run so I decided to throw my hat in the ring and I was very successful as I just had an election and I am going into my 4th term.”

Q: Did you have any other interests before politics?

A: “I really enjoyed the restaurant industry because it gave me an opportunity to let my personality come out especially with bartending where the interactions with people are very personal. So, while I was trying to find my field for my major, I thought bartending would be a wonderful opportunity and even growing in the restaurant field. Then when I started with George and there ended up being some form of a public relations spot for an industry. I love golf quite a bit so I looked into that but I didn’t follow it to an interview because of how much I loved what I was doing with George at the time. I kind of fell into it and I feel like it molded me to who I am today.