Adem Bunkeddeko on How To Finance Campaigns, and More

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. This is Larry Lessig, and this is another episode of the podcast, Another Way. This is our fourth season, and in this season, as I've described, our objective is to talk to candidates for Congress, both the House and the Senate, as well as members of the media, to get a sense of the fight for fundamental reform in the congressional branch, which, of course is the critical branch. If we're ever to achieve anything significant, as well as in the media, to understand what's holding the media back, why don't they get the central role that reform would play in remaking the capacity of this democracy? We're having these conversations, of course, in the middle of an incredible crisis. It's hard to stay focused. It's hard to keep attention to these issues. And I'm the first to say that there's every chance in the world that the issues that are at the forefront of our debate right now, the issues of Black Lives Matters, the fight about the pandemic, the struggle over the authoritarian impulses inside of our democracy, those issues are obviously the most important things to be thinking about at this moment. But in addition to those critically important issues, which of course have rallied so many, we have to think about the more fundamental struggle which has made this democracy fail. That's the point that has made this democracy fail. Because where we are right now is the product of that failure, that failure. And it's a failure that comes from our giving up on the core ideal of what democracy was to be about, a commitment to making sure that everyone has an equal role inside this democracy. Obviously, the inequality of race, that the struggle over black life matters is profound. And. And it's so disheartening that so many years into the arc of the life of this republic, still we are fighting about this. And I don't think that there's any more important issue to solve if we're going to achieve the ideal of a democracy. If not here there is equality, then nowhere can there be equality. But it's this equality, which is the common theme that runs through the full range of these struggles and represents the fight. We have to find a way to succeed, to achieve the ideals of equality now in the political races that are leading up to this incredible election in 2020. Of course, the President has signaled very clearly that he doesn't give a damn about draining the swamp. Washington is as filled in swampish, brackish water as it has ever been. Every major agency is headed by people who are just lobbyists from the agency, from the industries that are being regulated. It's astonishing. And we have a recovery fund, the PPP Fund, which has spent upwards to a trillion dollars to benefit people in the middle of this crisis. We're having a fight right now. We're having a fight about whether $500 billion will be accounted for. $500 billion. The Treasury Secretary says the people who've received this money will not be named because he says this is, quote, proprietary information. Proprietary information. We're not talking about the trade secrets of Amazon. We're talking about government funds being given to private individuals and corporations under a program that expressly said that if you take these funds, your identity will. Will be subject to being discovered. Yet it's being hidden. Why? Because I'm certain, I am so completely certain that if we could unpack the $500 billion that was handed out by this administration, we would discover certain kinds of people seem to get more people who were obsequious, supplicant and respectful of this administration. Exactly. The corruption that Donald Trump said he would end. So it's clear Donald Trump is not going to be a candidate who is pressing for this reform. It's also clear that Joe Biden has found his voice here again. You know, Joe Biden, at the very beginning of his time in Congress, well, not actually the beginning, but at a time that was still pretty young in the 1990s, was a big supporter of public funding of congressional elections. He's been a big supporter of reform. And he's come back, he's made a commitment. Great work done by people at N Citizens United to get him to commit has led to him committing to fundamental reform in the first period, hundred days, let's say, of his administration. So there's a real chance that he will lead off his administration trying to get us the democracy we know we need. Now, the challenge is Congress, because the President can propose whatever he wants. If we don't have a Congress that can pass it, it doesn't matter. The President has no power to issue an edict to end corruption in American politics. That itself would be a corruption of American politics. What the President needs to do is to get a Congress to pass a bill, which means the House and the Senate. Now, the House has passed such a bill. Nancy Pelosi delivered on her promise and passed HR1 the beginning of 2019, an extraordinary success. The most ambitious reform proposal for democracy reform since the Voting Rights act of 1965. Many are cynical. Many say that they only were able to pass it because they knew it would never go anywhere in the Senate. Maybe, but we'll hold them, will hold them to account. The question is going to be the Senate, because at the center of that question is the dark lord of American politics, the dark lord, Mitch McConnell. Because Mitch McConnell has made it his career, his purpose, his whole vision of American politics to guarantee that money has its voice and only money has its voice. He thinks of Citizens United as one of the greatest decisions of the United States Supreme Court. He has worked hard to make sure that the fec, the agency charged with enforcing campaign finance laws, is basically crippled, unable to do anything. His appointees are the people he's assured who have been appointed from the Republican Party, have committed not to do anything to enforce these laws. They don't believe in the laws. They don't believe in the laws. They believe this should be a completely unregulated field. And as an unregulated field, people should do whatever the hell they want, which means that people with money exert the influence that they want. None of that changes if we don't displace the majority leader. And if we do displace the majority leader, then there is a real shot if we can elect a majority in Congress who are committed, fundamentally committed, to fixing this democracy first, fundamentally committed as a member of Congress to, on day one, co sponsor fundamental reform, and fundamentally committed to supporting the efforts to get this reform enacted in the first hundred days of the next Congress. So that's what we're exploring here. It's a hopeful exploration. It assumes the Republic survives the next six months. And there are many who are wondering whether our republic survives the next six months. But I'm hopeful we survive the next six months and then we look forward to the next fight to give us a democracy that we can be proud to hand off to our kids. And so today we're going to talk to one of the candidates pressing for this fight. Adam Boncadeko is a friend of a dear friend of mine in this fight, Zephyr. Teachout Zephyr and he have written an article together supporting vouchers. As you'll hear in the course of this interview, he is running for Congress in a district that's the center of Brooklyn. And though he's running in the primary against a very well established member of Congress, Democratic Representative Yvette Clark, who was first elected, as you'll hear, in 2006, in 2018, Adam came within 1,000 votes of beating her. So he is a young, committed reformer. And you're going to hear that he has a background that gives him a taste for why Reform is so critical because his background is the promise and recognizes the failure of the American dream, the promise, because as you'll hear, he comes from the story of America. But he's lived his life fighting to bring that story, that dream, that hope, that American ideal to everybody in America and those who wish to be part of. Part of that American dream. Welcome, Adam. So, Adam, thank you so much for joining us. You have had an extraordinary background, and I want to start by helping people understand a little bit about where you come from. Your parents had an even more extraordinary background. So why don't you tell us a little bit of that story, beginning with them?

Sure. Thanks for having me. Yeah. No, my story really starts with two folks who ordinarily aren't with me when I have conversations like this is my parents. My father came to this country in September of 1980, fleeing a civil war that had started to break out in Uganda. He came trying to seek a better life and didn't have status at the time and found himself at a detention center over in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He was able to get his petition for asylum granted through legal aid, with the help of legal aid, and then worked a number of odd jobs, worked McDonald's, janitor, security guard, you name it, he did it. And then saved up enough money to bring my mom over, who lived through the civil war in Ugand, which was pretty brutal. My grandmother, in fact, lived in a forest for a number of years as a result. And so this country means a lot to us because it gave us everything when it didn't owe us anything at all. And so I grew up in New York City, was born and raised there. I'm one of six. And so tiny little one bedroom apartment, had aunts, uncles, the whole bit kind of piled up into our kind of one bedroom apartment. But as my parents got GEDs and they sought further education like my dad, he eventually got his bachelor's degree from John Jay College at City University. Took him about 15 years. My mom went to community college but didn't finish because she had to raise us. And so education has been such a powerful force in our lives. And it's the reason I was able to go from a public school to private school and then eventually Haverford College and Harvard Business School. So I've tried to spend my career trying to repay back not only their sacrifice, but the sacrifice of many who helped me get here.

So when I was growing up, the idea of the American dream is exactly what you just described. People coming to this country, fleeing to this country with an idea. You know, your parent, your father came when Ronald Reagan was trying to be president and he was trying to be president with the city on the hill as the metaphor for the United States. And so you've obviously seen that struggle and you've seen the hope that it offers. But what's striking about your career is that though you, you know, had this opportunity that would have been offered after something like the Harvard Business School, you've spent a significant chunk of your efforts in basically trying to organize people who should have benefited from the American dream. So what led you to go back and become something like a grassroots organizer or a person who's trying to do that kind of work?

Yeah, great question. My mom asks that all the time. She's like, we came here with nothing and none of our kids seem to want to make any money. And you know, look, I think the irony of that is that they're their inspiration as they sort of, sort of made their way in here in this country and in New York they found work as social workers. And so to me, I know people often think about sort of our sort of family story as a kind of Horatio Alger or sort of American dream, as you pointed out. But in many ways I think it's becoming the exception. And so not only my parents influence, but also sort of the environment around me really kind of, it kind of makes you have to reckon with what's going on and sort of, to me at least, deep introspection as to kind of why is this the case. You know, I was not, I would say I wasn't the smartest person in my class. I wouldn't say I was the most talented, most capable, most hardworking, all of that. But yet the. Out of all of my peers, as I known from small, as being a small child, I'm the only one who's gone on to do what I've done. And so there's something fundamentally off about that. And I mean, you see it in our kind of body politic and we can unpack a variety of reasons why that's the case. But I think for me, that's what drew me into public service. It's what drew me into organizing. It's what drew me into, you know, trying to make a difference in the world in which we live in. Because I know many that could, I suppose many folks come to me and say, well, you could just kind of be rich and not worry about it all. But I said, you know, it's hard to do, at least for me personally.

So. But when you Know, in this arc, kids are born into a context they don't know anything about, whether that context is normal or appropriate or. Or wealthy or not. It's just their family context. When do you remember recognizing that this American dream was not actually a dream for many Americans or many people who wanted to become Americans? And when did you remember? When do you remember thinking that you wanted to focus your life or your work on trying to make that dream real?

Ah, that's a great question. I think, to me, it started to sort of come into focus at, I think, in a particular inflection point. When I was, you know, for a long time, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a doctor. You know, I wanted to be a physician, a brain surgeon. Well, in large part because my mom loved doctors, and I was sort of keen on doing something that would make her happy. But then as you start to kind of grow into adolescence and in large part, rewind just a bit, not only was that the case that she wanted me to do that, I was also fascinated by science. I was fascinated by how things were organized, at least in the natural world. But then kind of, as you get to, you know, 14, 15, I started to kind of want to understand how was the world around me actually organized and why was this the case? Why was it the case that it was often black and brown folks that were with me in school that often didn't have as much as, let's say, the sort of white peers that we might know of or see on tv? And so those sorts of questions started to come into play even more than, I would say, typical. And I think for me, that was probably the first sort of point of departure on that. And that's where I started to really ask some searing questions around why was this the case? And so my interest started to gravitate toward history, started to gravitate toward economics, and started to gravitate toward politics, philosophy. And so as I got older, those interests and, you know, you try to find a life in which your values, your interests, your skills all intersect. And I started to realize the intersection was with sort of public service and organizing and working in trying to make a difference in the world. And so I think it was about 15, but I wouldn't say politics was at 15. I was more of, I want to do something about this. And at that point, that's where I think it was unclear what doing something was. It was about saying, okay, it can't simply just be a life of money or sort of status.

So then was this an arc of hope throughout? Or have there been moments where it seemed like this struggle is just too great, that we're not going to answer this promise? Or as Dr. King would have put it, cash this check to generations who we've made this promise to. Are you a hopeful sort in this fight?

I am. It's hard for me not to. I really take it from my father. I mean, this is a man who came here, didn't know anybody, didn't have very much English he could speak, you know, grinded it out as a janitor, as a McDonald's fry guy, as a security guard, all on the premise that, you know, life is going to be better. And he had very good reason to believe so. I mean, had he stayed in Uganda, life could have ended. And so, for me, I think about my family's journey, and I just put it in perspective with sort of the struggles that I go through and struggles that I see. And, you know, to me, life is never a straight line. There's always a struggle. And so part of what motivates and what inspires and sort of challenges is the challenge itself. How do we kind of unlock this puzzle that we've been trying to figure out for generations as to how we create a better society? And so, for me, while I think some folks get exhausted by it or get exhausted by thinking about it, there's a kind of desire that if we can just try something a bit more imaginative, maybe we can get it right. But it's not to say that it's easy by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think it's a worthwhile endeavor because for those who do, you know, are able to crack it just even a bit more, there's enormous potential that will benefit generations to come.

Tell us a little bit about the organizations or the entities you've been working with in this period of time when you're trying to make this dream, this dream real for more Americans or want to be Americans.

Yeah, look, I think for me, it's interesting. I think I started off right after college as a organizer at the Working Families Party. And that meant trying to help candidates in causes I thought were going to make a difference in the lives of folks, again, who were like my parents, but folks who are often at the margins of society. And some of it is successful, some of it's not. Sometimes your candidates win, sometimes your causes lose. And so for me, I think in that context, it was, okay, you know, we're not going to bat a thousand here, but, you know, if you can get a few singles Doubles, to use a baseball analogy, we can do some meaningful work that, you know, again, building on top of the work that was already laid before. I think of it in a different situation in Bed Stuy Restoration Corporation, where you're trying to figure out how do we create a network of supports that's going to help folks, single moms in particular, you know, provide, keep their kids out of trouble. And that's harder, that's more nebulous. It's trying to, in many ways, herd cats. One stakeholder has a different idea, another stakeholder has a different idea. And so trying, in many ways, it's a frustrating work, right, because you're trying to get people to see the perspective or the goal that in theory should make sense to everyone, but in practice doesn't always necessarily play out that way. And so that's an important lesson in sort of understanding, at least for me, how change can be stymied. But also if you can understand why it's being stymied, then maybe we can start to understand how it can be unlocked.

Okay, so I came to know of you and your campaign through a mutual friend, Zephyr Teachout, who thinks of you as an extraordinary candidate and also potential member of Congress. But for our purposes here, reformer, because what unites the work that Zephyr and I have done has been a commitment to finding reform as a, as a opportunity for our republic. And so I want to introduce this part of the conversation a little bit by really the extraordinary story of 2018, where you came incredibly close to being the next AOC in the stories. So you're running in a district in Brooklyn which includes much of Brooklyn, and that's a district which in 2016, 84% voted for Clinton. But you were challenging an incumbent who's, you know, obviously a well liked person, has been a member of Congress since 2007, and she had beaten primary challengers before overwhelmingly, I think the one before you, something like 75 points, but you were just 1,000 votes behind her in 2018. So tell us. So first of all, introduce Yvette Clark. Who is she? In the Democratic Party. And what made your campaign so compelling against hers?

Yes, Ms. Clark, Representative Clark is a member of, I would call a political dynasty slash machine here in central Brooklyn. And the Clarks, her mother being Dr. Clark, Una Clark, was a former city council member, one of the first, I believe, Caribbean born women to serve in the city council. And so as Dr. Clark, sort of, and you know, as the child of black immigrants, it's hard not to know the Clarks, they are pretty well known family here in Brooklyn and throughout the city. And, you know, Dr. Clark is known as sort of a tough, tough lady and really created, I believe, a machine that enabled not only her daughter to succeed her in city council, but to win a congressional seat. And so from that point forward, once she's won, I think it became more about not results, but sort of deference from all of the sort of local players. And for good reason. I think Dr. Clark earned her reputation for being a tough political fighter. And so I think folks were wary of challenging Ms. Clark because they were afraid of her mother and also didn't see it as a worthwhile proposition. In other words, this sounds like political suicide. And I took a different sort of take on it, which was I did not believe that Ms. Clark was doing the job. And in large part she wasn't doing the job because of the way she was able to, you know, win the seat which was her mother sort of protected her from sort of really the basic accountability from, you know, as a member. I mean, Ms. Clark was not a productive legislative member. She was not someone who was present in the community. She was not someone who I thought was really doing the work that was necessary. And I wasn't alone in this thought. In our community, especially in a high needs district like this, we have one of the largest proportions of public housing in this district. We are the epicenter of the nation's housing crisis in this district. We have got enormous challenges on immigration in this district. A number of folks from Haiti who came here under TPS are worried about whether or not loved ones are going to be deported or picked up by ice. And so I just thought, to me, you know, while I have respect for, in a personal sense for the Clarks, you gotta be held accountable. Otherwise it's hard for us to really bring about reform if we're not, you know, if we're giving folks a free pass, especially in a district that I think deserved someone who's working just as hard as the folks in this district, work for their own families. So that's, I think, a bit of the sort of context around it now, why I believe folks gravitated toward our message of change and reform and bold leadership was in large part because back to the needs I said of this district on housing, on immigration, on education, on criminal justice, all of it. I mean, this was. These were seriously pressing issues. And now on top of it, with COVID and the protests we've seen, we. I believe we're at a tipping point in which we had to. We've got to have a better and much stronger leadership in Washington.

So she follows the pattern of many incumbents in that most of her money is raised from PAC money. I think something like 68% in this cycle is coming from PAC money. You've outraised her the vast majority. 70% of your money is coming from donations that are $200 or less. And you've taken a commitment not to take money from corporate PACs. So how do you find that message resonating? Or what's the effect of that message? Or if you had to pitch this as a strategy to the candidates who are challenging at least incumbents, what would the argument be?

I would say, look, corporate PACs, and we can get into how they help prop up machines just generally. But I think people are fed up with the status quo. I think people are tired of seeing, again, a staleness in our politics that enables folks to not be held accountable. And so, because I think people are tired of it, I think they're willing to support those who are willing to challenge that system in a meaningful way. I think that's why we were able to build the support we've been able to build, in large part because people are fed up with sort of special interests sort of hijacking and maintaining a structure that, again, doesn't help anybody but the special interests. And so for me, I think it's always been one, a real badge of honor in many ways, because I think it speaks to the fact that people in our community are tired of money sort of eroding the gears, corroding the gears of our politics. And they're willing to obviously put their money where their mouth is and say, enough's enough.

So what's striking, though, is that what you've described is almost a laziness or an inattentiveness that comes from raising money from these corporate PACs, who, in a district like yours, are obviously not within your district. They're people from across the country who are trying to secure influence and access inside of Congress. You've pushed with Zephyr, an idea that's been very close to my own heart for a long time, the idea of vouchers. So the idea of vouchers would be everybody's given a voucher, just like everybody's given a vote, and they can assign parts of their voucher, all of their voucher, to candidates who they're trying to support. Now, what's interesting about that idea, related to what you just said, is that if everybody had to raise their Money through vouchers. You couldn't afford to be lackadaisical or oblivious to what was important to people in your district. You needed to keep that. You need to keep them engaged if they're gonna continue to give you their money. So is that what brought you to the place that you thought vouchers were an essential part of how we could change this corrupted democracy?

Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. I think part of what, to me, at least I'll put it to you this way. I think about how do we create meaningful public policy? As just one question, then the problem here is it's not only an issue of policy. It's also culture, folks. There is a culture of special interests that tend to say, okay, look, I give you a check, you don't worry about it, blah, blah, blah. And part of it, what we're trying, I believe the democracy vouchers and why I've been such a big proponent is because culture is hard to change. You're giving the incentive for it to change. You're disincentivizing bad behavior. And so if folks, to your point, have to go out into the sort of marketplace of ideas we can call it and actually tell folks, hey, these are my ideas. This is what I believe in. This is why I ought to be reelected, or this is my record, and this is the things that I believe in and you should reelect me. That, I think, creates an environment in which we're holding people accountable and we're creating a far more competitive dynamic. Now, I know a lot of people are like, why do we need to waste money on primaries and this and that, but it really gets to sort of, how do we create change? And if we're not sort of trying to, if we're allowing for a kind of calcification of sort of our electeds or sort of the people who represent us, then it's hard to imagine how we're going to change a calcified system. And so for me, I just think it gives you a greater touch point to not only the people on the ground whom you're hoping to serve, but it also starts to address the culture we need to shift away from, okay, letting it be just solely focused on just money, but actually having a debate about the ideas that we should be moving forward.

This is really a great point because the dynamic you're describing, if it's expressed through this ongoing raising of money through vouchers, means that the discipline of elections is not just once every two years, but it's perpetual. If you constantly are in your district, and you're trying to persuade people in your district you should be the congressperson, and you're persuading them by talking to them about ideas which inspire them. Then you know who you got to answer to. And the dynamic that, you know, I think when people hear it, they can't believe it. People on this podcast have heard it so many times that they probably hear it in their sleep. But the dynamic of a world where members of Congress spend anywhere between 30 and 70% of their time raising money, but raising money from this tiny fraction of the 1%, no more than about 150,000Americans are giving money at a level that would inspire anybody to give them a telephone call. It can't help but be that you become detached, unaware, oblivious, and, as you're putting it, not responsive and not able to bring about the change that the district is demanding.

Yeah, I think to me, it's that dynamism that you constantly, that constant churn, that constant. It keeps things fresh or keeps things sort of dynamic. And when things start to stop being dynamic or you allow for it to again, calcify, I just think it's hard to imagine how we're going to create meaningful reform. Now, if you're in the House, it's, you know, Ms. Clark is a vote that you can rely on and so on and so forth. So I guess in that sense, it's not the point. But I just don't imagine that the folks who founded Republic were imagining that we would have a far more, again, spirited and dynamic debate about the ideas that should be moving forward in the country. And if we can eliminate the money component to it, I think we are going to be able to push forward on a lot of big issues of the day.

So you, in being so successful in raising the money so far, what are the techniques you're using, especially in the middle of this pandemic?

Well, I think for me, it's a couple of things. One, I believe it's our message, it's our vision. But I do often, because folks, candidates often have come to me and asked sort of how to go about it, and I often reflect back on the system as currently constructed. Setting aside the idea on democracy, vouchers. Vouchers is just terrible. I mean, it's a system in which if you don't have, if you don't know certain folks or you can't reach certain people, it's hard to raise money, or if you don't have a national organization around you and the like, it's and in. In this sort of dynamic, unless you raise money, you're not taken seriously. And so it's hard to be. And not being taken seriously, it's hard to win. And so for me, even given sort of the competitive disadvantage that we're at with Ms. Clark, I believed reaching out to, you know, at least in that initial go around, you know, my friends, you know, my classmates, and saying, hey, I'd like to do this now. Not everybody has the pleasure or the opportunity to go to Haverford College or Harvard Business School. And so what does that mean about our politics? Does that mean working class folks like myself who, again, don't have that opportunity shouldn't be in our politics? And so I'm also a big fan of campaign finance reform and having public matching funds for House and Senate races because I think it'll enable us to allow for more folks to again be in this sort of debate of ideas. We have a matching system here in the city, in New York City, around municipal elections. So for mayor, a comptroller, public advocate, and city council members, they get matching funds. And I think to me, you know, aside from the ability to not only again have a message that I believe resonates with many in our district, you know, I think it's tough to run for office and it shouldn't be that way. And I think we are losing out on amazing talent as a result of it.

Yeah, I mean, the people who are naturally suited to be able to become politicians are either people who are wealthy or people who are in occupations where they're close to people who are wealthy, so lawyers and people who are actually working in professional classes. And of course, that obviously discriminates against people who, for example, are stay at home moms or fathers and also people of color, obviously. So Zephyr has been a big advocate of public funding, whether through vouchers or matching funds or both, as much to assure equal access to the opportunity to be a representative as it is to reduce the amount of time you have to spend raising money. Because we ought to have a system which can be reflective, perfectly reflective of our nation. But the way we fund campaigns means it can't. It'll be reflective of lawyers, which, of course, the vast majority are lawyers, and, you know, typically white male lawyers, which, of course, you know, is the dominant form or pattern of representatives right now.

Absolutely. And I think again, to me it's, you know, what kind of democracy do we want to have? Also what kind of politics do we want to have? Is that. I mean, if you aren't on the phones begging people for money six, seven hours a day, you therefore aren't able to be an effective member of Congress. I just don't think that equates. Right. And so it means that for are in total alignment on that in that we are leaving enormous swaths of potential off the table in public life because of this barrier around money. And that just shouldn't be the case.

Yeah. And when I first wrote my first book on this was Republic Loss, which I published in, I think it was 2011. But I met John Sarbanes, who of course, is the member of Congress who has done the most to try to bring about public funding of congressional elections. And he was the real engine behind H R1, which Congress passed and Nancy Pelosi promised they would pass it, and they passed it in the beginning of 2019. But John Sarbanes, when I met him in 2011, said to me, you know, I've had lunch at that point. He'd been in Congress about six years. He said, I've had lunch with other members of Congress maybe five or six times in the whole time I've been here. And he said, the reason for that is if you have time to have lunch, you have time to raise money, and nobody would waste time on lunch when they could be raising money. So it's not just the time. And you're right, the potential. I mean, a lot of really talented people we send to Washington to turn them into low paid fundraisers, but it's also the collegiality. You know, it used to be you'd go to Washington, you'd move your family, you know, basically live with these other members of Congress. Your families would hang out together, you would get to know each other, and you'd get to know each other across the political spectrum. You wouldn't just hang with Republicans or hang with Democrats. But now there's no opportunity for that because we've turned these members into these constantly responsive fundraisers. And of course, raising money from an extremely small class of people. I mean, your platform Restoring Democracy section is a little bit low on the list, but Zephyr said I should forgive you for that. But you've got a bunch of ideas in here. And one of them we've been talking about, of course, my obsession, the money one, the voting rights one, of course, is also astonishing that we still need to be fighting about the equal freedom or equal access to voting. And of course, in a state like New York, it's not the case that the state is working hard to make it hard For Democrats, which means primarily people of color from voting. But a state like Georgia, what this manifests as is a complete political gamesmanship to make sure that the party not in power can't get into power because we. We don't have a commitment to equality in this dimension either.

Yeah, I mean, it's. You know, I will say this. I mean, you know, my parents often bring it up, and they bring up this point in terms of frustration that we're still talking about the same issues that I was a child, you know, my dad. Tensions. We're still talking about the same issues around voting, about equality, and obviously taking it in the voting context. But, you know, I think on the federal level, I mean, I'd be curious to get your take on this. It's clear that, you know, the Supreme Court is in a conservative bent, not keen on improving voting rights, and struck down, obviously, portions of the Voting Rights act in relation to this. And so part of my view has been we've got to organize. Now, Stacey Abrams was running in Georgia at this time and trying to obviously register and make sure folks were coming out to vote. But I'm curious to know if. Where do you think the remedy might be? I believe it's electorally in that we've got to organize and obviously win elections in places that historically Democrats haven't won in order to bring about real reform on voting restrictions. Because obviously this is. And let me be frank, New York wasn't that great for a long time neither. We just have early voting starting for the second time here. And absent and vote by mail isn't really a thing. And so there's some sort of machinery, politics that are embedded in that. But for me, I viewed it, unless we start to again organize and win electorally, it's gonna be hard to imagine because of the role of the Judiciary. Right now, McConnell is putting out conservative justices, like, every other day. And so for me, unless we start to take kind of the reins of the executive and the legislatures, it's gonna be hard to imagine how we fight back against this. But I'm hopeful we can.

Yeah, you're certainly right. I mean, I think it's been a big mistake, especially of liberals, that they've spent so many years thinking that that success is getting five justices on the Supreme Court to agree with you, when the real way to get success in a democracy is to get a majority of people voting to agree with you. So I agree we got to fight and fight in the streets to get these measures of equality passed. But I do think that It's a strategic mistake that people are making here. I mean, let me be clear. I think it's outrageous, outrageous that the Supreme Court is resisting equality on the basis of race in the context of the Voting Rights act and other areas too. I mean, I think the Court is filled with judges who think we've been fighting this fight for racial equality long enough and we've kind of achieved it. I mean, that was the astonishing opinion that Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the case that struck down much of the Voting Rights act that, you know, sure, 60 years ago we had inequality on the basis of race in America, but most of that's gone. So there's no reason for all of these race based remedies to try to achieve equality. I think that's outrageous. But I'm also very pragmatic. I mean, that's the Court and the Court's not going away. So is there another way to achieve equality? And the part that nobody has yet pushed, but I think is completely open is that the Constitution expressly gives the Congress the power to regulate congressional elections to achieve the values which Congress believes it should achieve. And so if you focused under that provision of the Constitution, Article 1, Section 4, and you said we should be assuring equality on the basis of partisan opportunity. So if we could get the rules written to say, in a Republican state you can't write the rules to make it hard for Democrats to vote, and in a Democratic state, you can't write the rules to make it hard for Republicans to vote. So this is inequality on the basis of politics. I don't see how the Supreme Court strikes that down, because the Supreme Court has expressly said over and over that these election clauses give Congress plenary power to structure congressional elections in a way that fits with their judgment about what's appropriate. And if we said that, then of course the consequence of that is that 95% of racial discrimination gets eliminated. Because of course most of the racial discrimination is perfectly coordinated with partisan discrimination.

Yeah, no, I hadn't appreciated that lens of thinking about it. And I think it's in large part because I'm not trained as a lawyer.

Lucky you.

I got to stay at a Holiday Inn once but didn't get a degree. But I do think to your point, I think that's actually worthwhile mention. But I just wanted to just bring back that point you had mentioned about on our side, winning seemed to have gotten just five justices on the Supreme Court. And it reminded me of George Goles. He had an interview in the Nation and I thought he brought up something that I've conceptually always thought about over time through organizing and through sort of my own arc, which is, I suppose, as progressives, as Democrats, we have always thought about rulers as opposed to rules. Which gets to your second point about sort of the Congress in its power to regulate elections, and the other side has figured out that it's about rules. Hence McConnell and sort of Senate Republicans, their big push to get judges and the whole bit. And I said, you know, part of me has been trying to think through sort of the ecosystem of our sort of party and progressivism and the activism. And in many ways, we are disinterested in the rules. We are very interested in the rulers, and rulers are important, but rulers merely serve as figureheads for the rules. And the real work is how do you. How are you able to push toward reforming the rules? And that's work that is hard, it's tedious, it's thankless. It's not exactly at a protest. It's not exactly at, you know, and it's not exactly Instagramable. And that, I think, is the kind of work that if we are to make the next transition or the next leap forward, I think we're going to have to start to come to terms with how do we pursue the rules.

It's so hard because it's not sexy.

It's not. It's not. But I hold imagine I'm a little bit more imaginative. I think we can make it appealing. I think we can make it sexy. I think we can make it attractive. But I do think it does require some political imagination and talent to get us there.

Yeah, I completely agree. I mean, you know, I've been in this field maybe for a dozen years now, and, you know, when I, at the very beginning would say something like, you know, it's not that the issue you care about, whether climate change or health care or the minimum wage, it's not that that issue is not the most important issue, or if. More importantly, it's not that my issue, reform, is the most important issue. It's just my issue is the first issue. It's the issue we got to get if we're going to get anything else out there. And when I began saying that 10 years ago, it was hard for people to get it. But what's hopeful for me is that we're at a moment where more and more people get it. More and more people see that if we don't fix the broken democracy, we're not going to get anything out of this democracy, because they've so completely captured it. And so this is why what you're doing in this campaign is critical, because we got to find ways to make it attractive to excite people around it, to make it so that they want to rally to people who are promising fundamental reform first. Because if we don't get that, then the game will continue to be rigged, as the game has been rigged.

Yeah, I think there's. To me, it's. And the way I describe it is it's intersectional. Right. So your issue, in fact, is the same issue as my issue. So when I talk about housing and folks talk about reform, it's hard to get housing done if we're not talking about reform. It's hard to get climate done if we're not talking about reform. And so I think part of. And I don't have all the answers to this, and I think this speaks to what our politics has generally been missing is experimentation, sort of that, I think is another dynamic. And talking about the calcification and sort of the debate about ideas and the like and the uncompetitiveness of sort of our politics is, you know, I think if you are able to push forward in that meaningful way, I think you can get so much done and the imagination is there. And part of what I think it's tough to do, but is worthwhile. I think of FDR a lot. If something didn't work, try something else. If something doesn't work, try something else. And when it does work, then keep doing it and build on it and work it out. But we have become so stale in our politics. We don't experiment at all. I mean, it's just. It's kind of amazing. And the funny thing, I was talking to my parents about this, and they were the ones who were just like, yeah, you know, you see all this sort of innovation, and I know these are buzzwords now, disruption and the like and tech. But, you know, what about in government? What about in our democracy?

It's so important.

And that to me, the imagination lies in sort of. And I do think it requires, again, some political talent and some unique things to occur. But I think if you're able to get that wheel turning, man, there's a lot of things that I think we can really do in this country.

Yeah, you think of the efficiency that has been brought to so much of our life, and if we could just take 1/10 of that and bring it to government and to the way we run our democracy.

I also think it's part of, you know, in many ways, and this is just my view is that back to sort of we're not getting the best sort of we're leaving out a lot of talented folks. And in government, I think that's been a general theme for a long time. And that, you know, people that I'm sure you've known through your sort of background in education, people I've known don't think it's worthwhile to choose public service. They just think it's frustrating, it's a dead end, like it's pointless. And some folks that I know that have amazing capability, amazing imaginations that I think would be amazing public servants, they're just like, yeah, I don't see the point. And so part of it is, you know, getting out of that catch 22. I think if we can get out of it, then I think we can be able to really tap into something special.

Yeah, no, that's completely true. I mean, you know, also because politics is so ugly, you know, if you've got a family, the last thing in the world you want to imagine is I've got a 10 year old daughter and two kids are older than she. But the idea of running and seeing some attack ad against me and my 10 year old daughter, seeing it, it's like the level has fallen so that what sane person really gets in it? Now, I'm not saying you're insane, Adam, but. So I want to talk about one more, one more idea you've got and then we're going to let you go. Because I know you've got a really busy schedule here, but talking about reform and this is something that is not an issue that's been around forever. So your parents would be excited. It's a new issue to be fighting about. You're in the middle of a really competitive primary this time. I mean, I guess you showed people that incumbent was not invulnerable. So you've attracted a lot of people through the chum into the future field. If there were rank choice voting in the New York Democratic primary, we could learn a lot more about who people really support or who could actually get the support of a majority of the Democrats to be the nominee. What have you found? I know this is an issue you support, but what have you found as you have tried to talk about how this would work or how we could get this kind of reform passed?

I think it depends on who you're talking to. I think there are some in our community who are like, it's a no brainer, I get it. And I think there are Others who sort of are just used to kind of voting in a typical fashion. Some find it slightly confusing. And so I think it runs the spectrum. I think in our case or in the view here, while we do have a, we have some other folks in the race and it's mostly a one on one, I do think it would give to your point, we'd learn a lot more about back to competition and back to the debate about ideas about where people are and what people are thinking about and kind of give us a sense of like, okay, I actually think it would improve because we have it on the municipal level. We haven't seen it play out yet. It's gonna play out in our 21 mayoral race and in our city council races. But it also gives a sense of politics isn't binary. And I think a lot of times we are stuck in these binaries like you're either this or that. And in some cases back to your attack ad. You're either a monster or a her. You're either the worst human being I've ever met in my entire life or you're the second coming of Jesus. And what I think ranked choice voting would actually give us a sense of is actually it's not as binary as you think it is. And to me, that window would also improve whoever is elected in that to actually, you know, incorporate ideas that may have not necessarily been on the top of their radar screen into their own agenda or platform. Right back to sort of, we're actually jousting or having a debate about sort of what folks actually want. And that concept I think is a little tougher to speak about in practical terms because I think people are just, you know, people are used to certain things. It's just like, hey, I've been. It's either for this person or this person. Why are we going through all the sort of hoops?

Yeah, I mean, one of your competitor opponents who I guess was an Andrew Yang supporter and is a UBI advocate, you know, Andrew Yang was a perfect example of this in the, in the primary. If we had had ranked choice voting in the Democratic primary. I loved Andrew Yang. I mean, he wasn't. I was really trying to push Elizabeth Warren, but I thought Andrew Yang was an extraordinary candidate. And I think the idea of UBI is really critical. We've got to make this a central part of the Democratic debate because it is the future in so many ways. If there had been ranked choice voting and every single candidate was thinking, how do I make sure that I get the number two vote votes of the Andrew Yang supporters, his idea could have moved into the center of the debate much more quickly or much more effectively. But as it was, if you're running winner take all and you're Joe Biden or. Yeah, it's like, I don't care about Andrew Yang's views, but he's gonna lose, so why am I gonna try to incorporate it? So I think that this is really critical to the point you began with, which is if we're gonna have a politics where we're trying to get people to be persuadable on the basis of real ideas, as opposed to just party labels or tribal marks, we got to encourage ideas. And ranked choice voting in this context especially, could be really powerful. To encourage ideas.

Yeah, I mean, all of these, at least as I've always thought about it, the ideas on especially democracy reform are about enhancing the debate of our democracy, because if the debate dies in our democracy, in effect, our democracy is dying, is dead. And I think for many, that's why I talk about the intersectionality of sort of, you know, person A's favorite issue versus person B's favorite issue is even if person A, take, for instance, on housing, if that's your issue. And we're not having an engaged debate about sort of whether or not we should be fully funding public housing, whether we should be doing building more affordable housing, the government should be playing a role in building more affordable housing. Eminent domain. We're losing the ability to actually solve the ideas, solve the problems that we're trying to address. And back to political imagination. My hope, it's incumbent on political actors to not only get sort of the substantive parts of the debate right, but to get the style elements right as well in order to, again, move the political imagination forward. And that's not easy, and I don't have all the answers to that. So I look forward to listening to the next podcast to get them.

We'll have all the answers in the next podcast, so stay tuned. Adam, I'm so grateful that you would take time to talk to us, and good luck in carrying this message of reform. I know from the excitement I've seen and people who've seen you, especially again, Zephyr, that you're going to be an incredible champion for what we know has to happen. So good luck on the campaign.

No, thank you so much. Appreciate it again, Professor Lessig.

Okay, that's our latest interview with a candidate we're working hard on the members of the media. I'm hopeful we find one soon. Got lots interested, but you Know they're busy. There's so much to talk about, you know, gotta write an article about every tweet of the president, and that's a very difficult task. These podcasts are produced by EqualCitizens. Us. You've heard this before. You can find us on the web@equalcitizens.us. find the podcast @equalcitizens.us. another way. There's a place there to share the podcast. Please share the podcast and please give us ideas for who we should go to next. I got a list. We're scheduling them, hopefully before I disappear with my family this summer. But we want to make sure we get as many as we can. And anyone you know, who you hear, who you see, who you know is pressing this issue, please let us know. As I've said before, these ideas are discussed in my book. They don't represent us. You can find that everywhere. A lot of copies left. So please pick them up, share them. If you like them, let me know. If you have ideas to how to reform or change the book, let alone the democracy, let me know because we'll have another addition as we go into the paperback. Thank you again for listening and thanks for your support of equal Citizens. You'll be getting from us a missive about the extraordinary fight we've just gotten ourselves into about voting rights. Here's a little bit about that fight. So the last real amendment to the Constitution, one which there was a real fight for contemporaneous to its being passed, was the 26th Amendment. There's a 27th, but we'll put that to one side for a second. But the 26th Amendment, which was the amendment which basically bans discrimination on the basis of age when it comes to voting. Okay? So in many states, eight states across the United States, state legislatures have begun to adopt rules to make it easier for some people to vote than for others. So, for example, they'll adopt rules to give automatic vote at home opportunities to older people, but not to younger people. Now, you might say older people do need an opportunity to vote at home. Sure. But everybody needs an opportunity to vote at home. The pandemic doesn't discriminate. And so when you ask, why does a state make it easier for one class to vote versus another class? Let me give you a clue. It's a word that begins with the letter P. Partisan. And the next word also begins with P. Politics. Partisan politics. So in a red state, when it turns out they're making it easier for older people to vote, that means they're making it easier for Republicans to vote, which means they're making it easier for their side to win by making it harder for the other side to compete. Well, we've looked at this and we've concluded in a white paper we've released with a bunch of other really wonderful reform organizations, we've concluded this violates the 26th amendment because the 26th amendment's commitment was you can't discriminate on the basis of age in giving the right to vote. And so we've begun an action to bring this test in the courts. There's one case already in Texas. We've got a bunch of other cases brewing across the country that will try to make it clear that states can't discriminate on the basis of age when they make their voting systems more accessible, especially in light of the upcoming pandemic. You'll hear lots more about this, especially as we begin to bring the cases. There's been an early success at the Texas level, which then the Fifth Circuit, the reviewing court, stayed in a completely ridiculous, really ridiculous opinion. But I'm really confident that we'll make it clear that this violation of the Constitution should not be allowed to muddy this next election. You'll hear more about this. We'll connect with you on the web, through email and through this podcast about it. So this is Larry Lessig. Thank you so much again. And until the next one of these, stay safe.