Beto O’Rourke on Fixing Our Democracy First [06-26-19]

This is Larry Lessig and this is the third season of the podcast Another Way and this season subtitled POTUS 1. We are exploring the issue of reform in the 2020 presidential elections. We've been interviewing both presidential candidates and the experts and activists in the field who are working to make reform happened. And we're gonna have a podcast about every major candidate in this race, either with that candidate or about that candidate, depending on whether the candidate's scheduler can find time to talk to us this week. The candidate is Beto o', Rourke, former congressman from El Paso, Texas, a Texan who, despite Ted Cruz's slander, has been named Beto since he was a toddler. We have the photos. I can prove it. And I should say before this podcast gets going, that he is a friend. As you'll hear at the top of this interview, I've known Beto since before he went to Congress and I was a super strong supporter of Beto when he ran for Senate. And though I've not yet, and I won't be endorsing any candidate in this race and at least until the choice is perfectly clear, I am in the business of endorsing ideas. And that's what this podcast is about. The ideas of for reform. And the question for this podcast is whether the reform ideas that Beto is pushing deserve the support of the reform community. Stay tuned to hear. This podcast is brought to you by EqualCitizens US. Each week we talk about a sponsor. It's a metaphorical sponsor. We're not getting any money from anybody but a sponsor who is another reform organization in the field. We've got so many extraordinary groups working for reform and our objective in this part of these podcasts is to make people aware of these other groups and to bring them in if they want to get connected. This week the group is Take Back Our Republic. Take Back Our Republic is the leading campaign finance reform organization for political conservatives. Since 2015, Take Back has actively engaged with grassroots issue oriented groups that support traditional conservative constitutional principles and reject special interest corruption of federal, state and local government. Takeback believes that American greatness is rooted in the values and hard work of the American people. Natural not corporate persons bestowed by their creator with the natural right to self government. I've been so encouraged to see the incredible energy that Take Back has rallied. It's convinced me of something that I so desperately want to believe. And the 2018 election cycle proved that the issues of reform are not partisan. They are not Republican and they are not Democrat. They are issues for all citizens, including those on the very right. So that's the introduction. This is our podcast. We'll now turn to Beto. Welcome, Beto, to our podcast, this POTUS one. So what I've just done is explain in the introduction to this podcast that I'm so honored to call you a friend. I just looked up the first day we met, which turns out to be December 12, 2012. And I remember we met then for a reason very close to the subject of this podcast. I mean, you've met a million people over the last decade, But I don't know if you recall that meeting, but do you remember that meeting when we first talked about these issues?

I do, I do. And do you mind if I recount how I found you in the first place?

Please.

So I had been elected to Congress through a hard fought primary campaign and run against a sitting Democrat who'd been there for 16 years and heavily outspent us and won that primary, which was dispositive. We knew we were going to win the general election. And a surprising thing happened. We had, I think, raised something close to $400,000 in that race, which is, as you know, nothing in a congressional race, had received only one PAC check. One PAC check. It was unsolicited. It was from the Marijuana Policy Project. Really good folks who liked our work on drug law and drug war issues. And after I got elected, the PAC checks just started flooding in, which at first I thought was just a great thing. This is cool. I didn't have to call, didn't have to ask for it. These people just missed, really, really like me. Then as I got to know some of my future colleagues and began to learn how Congress worked, I understood that there was this extraordinary expectation for me and other members to raise a ton of money through these same PACs who, who, it turns out, have business before our committees of jurisdiction and issues that they want us to vote on, of course, with them. And all this was new to me, unsettling to me. And I did this Google search that said, how do you raise money ethically for Congress? And your name came up and this really incredible video of you explaining how our campaign finance system worked. And though I had been, you know, part of it, you know, running for Congress, I don't think I could see the forest for the trees. And in that video, you really explained the two elections that take place, the first one being for money and financial support that allows you to contend in the second election for votes. And so really you have people pursuing wealthy people, corporations and special interests to try to get into elected office in the first place. And that's just totally at odds with how I thought our democracy worked or was supposed to work or would work, and recognize that so much of the dysfunction that you see out of Congress and in our government today is a direct result of that. So I got your number, called you, and you were kind enough to sit down with me and kind of give me a larger overview of this challenge. And then kindly, you introduced me to some of my future colleagues who were. Were actually working on this issue. One of them being John Sarbanes, who recently had a big success in the house by getting HR1 passed. So that's how we came to meet. And I remember that meeting very, very well, and I'm grateful for it.

Yeah, I was so hopeful after that meeting because I'd spent so much time, it felt like just hitting my head against the wall and getting such little engagement or reaction from members. And to see the commitment that you were so clearly gonna make to this issue was really reassuring. And then when you stepped up and decided you had to run for the Senate after Donald Trump won, and you said you just needed to do what seemed to everybody to be impossible, the idea of taking on Ted Cruz. Very early in that campaign, you marked yourself as a different kind of candidate by saying you were gonna swear off all PAC contributions. Now, tell me a little bit about that, how that. Like, how did that decision come about and. And how did people react to it when you began talking about it in the hundreds of counties that you visited across Texas?

So when I first got into Congress, you know, asked to be on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, which is one of the last places that anyone wants to go. Not because other members of Congress don't think that veterans are important or that we don't have huge challenges in the va. It's just the last place you can go to raise campaign because there are no corporations or special interests served. There are no PACs who are really participating. And on the good side, it means there's a lot of work for those who asked to be on that committee. And we were able to get some things done. But it spoke to me about how at odds our institutions are with the real demands and needs in our country. That experience, and then initially taking PAC money when I was a member of Congress, and then understanding that there was this implicit understanding that you would provide access to those who sent you a PAC check, and I remember voting during the farm bill against a carve out for sugar beet farmers just didn't make sense. It wasn't a good use of taxpayer money. And I remember I got a call from my fundraiser, and she said, hey, I guess it's fine for you to vote against that, but the sugar beet pack sent you a big check. You should at least call them and explain or. Or apologize. And at that moment, I remember that that was kind of my epiphany. I was like, this is corruption by another word, or it's legalized, and yet it's wrong, and I'm not going to have any part in this. And so when in 2016, 2017, we made that decision to run in the 2018 Senate race in Texas, I had already stopped taking PAC money for some years, but it made what was going to be a really steep climb seem even more difficult or even suicidal to people. The fact that we weren't going to take PAC money and just leave millions of dollars on the table. But I just so strongly believe that the way that we finance campaigns is directly connected to how screwed up our government is, that I couldn't in good conscience run for this office and say, you know what? I'm going to take PAC money now to be able to get to this position of power, and then once there, I'll change the rules so that it's fair and it works for everyone. I think that there's a real desire on the part of people. Well, on my part, just to make sure that we're walking the talk and we don't wait till we're in power to do the right thing. So it was a long way coming, but that's how I made the decision not to take PAC money in that Senate race.

So most of the political experts will tell you that this issue just doesn't matter to people, and that's why they don't advise their clients to put this issue out in front. When you decided to swear off PAC money in that Senate race, how did people react to it? How did the voters react to it?

This may be one of the most powerful outcomes that I was lucky enough to be a part of in not taking PAC money. It sent the message and it was received by people that there was no corporation or special interest or center of power that was going to persuade me or have access to me or decide the outcome of this election. It was open to everybody to participate. Roll up your sleeves, knock on doors, make phone calls, or send in your five or ten or fifteen bucks. And people did. And it really resonated. And it resonated not just amongst Democrats who religiously vote during midterms. It really resonated with young people, many of whom just don't subscribe to a political party. Just know that this system is, to employ an overused word, but it's one that rings true. It's rigged, and it's rigged in favor of those who can pay for access and outcomes. It resonated with Republicans, and it resonated with independents. And at the end of the day, we didn't win the race, but we got as close as any Democrat has come. In fact, one more vote than any Democrat had ever won in the history of the state of Texas. We won independence for the first time in decades. Half a million Republicans voted for us, who also voted for the Republican for governor. And I'll tell you, it was in no small part due to the fact that we did not take PAC money because they understand how captured our institutions have become. And whatever the policy issue most important to them, they. They recognize we're not going to be able to achieve it unless we have office holders who are free from that kind of influence. And then, oh, by the way, we also raised $80 million over the course of that campaign, which is more than any Senate candidate has ever raised in the history of the country. Again, I would say not despite, but because we didn't take PAC money. Folks knew that their five bucks really counted, and so they were willing to contribute and ask their friends to contribute as well. And. And I don't know the direct relation on this one, but over the course of that campaign, several sitting US Senators also swore off taking PAC money. And perhaps it was because they knew it was the right thing to do. They just felt like if they were to do it, it might compromise their ability to get reelected. I think we were able to demonstrate in Texas, it doesn't compromise your ability. It improves your ability to get elected or reelected. So this stuff works. And to your. To your point, it is, in fact, really popular. The only place it's probably not popular today is inside of Congress. Although, again, that's changing as well.

Yeah, I think it's a part of your character that you seem to leap on the basis of something you believe is right. You don't do a lot of measuring before you leap. So what was distinctive about that Senate run is that I don't know whether this is true all the way to the end, but early on you were like, I'm not taking any polls. Why would I take any polls? I'm just doing what I think is right. And then this, too. I think everybody would have told you it was a terrible mistake. I was desperately hoping you were right in that gamble, that America would rally. And of course, all of us were surprised by just how much people rallied to the idea of a candidate who was walking the talk of uncorrupted politics.

Yeah, I tell you, it was really powerful. And I mentioned this briefly earlier, but young people, they tell me the only reason I'm here, I'm not into the Democratic Party, I'm not into the Republican Party, I'm not into parties. That's so 20th century. But I am into this democracy working. And I just. They have the most acute, the most sensitive BS detector available, and they. They know better than most adults how rigged this thing is. And they've made an informed, conscious, rational decision not to participate on that basis. So anyone who dismisses them as lazy or cynical or uninterested or apathetic has got it all wrong. In fact, they're really wise to how broken the system is, and they have made this intelligent conclusion that there's no use participating if they're not going to be able to compete on a level playing field. That act of not taking PAC money and not polling and not playing by the conventional playbook, I think was really engaging for young people who knew that we were campaigning by town hall meetings. So anyone come, ask any question, level any criticism, raise any idea, and those young people, as you know we're doing that they're perfectly willing to lead. And in fact, they are the leaders on climate, on gun violence, on health care, on protecting dreamers from deportation, and ensuring that they're here as U.S. citizens. They just want to make sure that if they're going to commit not to a candidate, but even just to this process, that it's real and that it's honest and that their contribution is going to make a difference. And in our campaign, they felt that because it was true. And so folks who'd been written off or forgotten or never engaged in the first place found a home in this campaign. And that space and capacity was created in part by making sure that corporations and special interests and PACs were not at the table. So I think what many people saw as a handicap or a deficiency at the outset really became this extraordinary feature of the campaign that drew people in. And again, I think in some way changed how politics is done nationally and certainly in Texas, we had ranked 50th dead last in voter turnout before 2018. And the turnout we saw in part because of the campaign we ran eclipsed all other midterm election Turnouts, young people up, I think 500% in early voting. And those 38 electoral college votes in Texas, which have not been won by a Democrat since Carter did it in Senate, those are unlocked and it'll force people to compete in Texas, which is gonna be great for our state and I think great for our democracy.

Okay, so that evening on election day in 2018, I think it's the night before, you had this incredible rally. It was, I think, one of the most moving and powerful statements of your campaign. That defeat must have felt so difficult because you could, I imagine, feel how far you had moved the world, but just barely missing the mark. At that point, you must have begun to think about what this would look like next and if you decided to take this step to be president, how you might leverage this kind of energy and this kind of hope about an uncorrupted campaign into a campaign for the president. But was that something that you hit on early after that election, or was that something that didn't come until months later?

Yeah, you know, it really took a little while for this to come in into focus, despite the power and the joy that was present in that campaign, because of all the people who made it their campaign. And really, Amy and I felt very much like we got to be part of something. This extraordinary movement that took shape and then took hold of Texas. Losing when we had come so close was just really, really tough. And some part of me just really felt like I had let down a lot of people who had allowed themselves to believe that this was possible and we were gonna make it so. And yet, as the days passed, as I heard from people who had volunteered or held pop up offices or canvassed for us, folks, folks who've been part of this extraordinary movement, I realized that in some way, we really had won something much bigger and that was restoring some part of our democracy that had been lost to us before. And the fact that folks from every walk of life, in every community and every part of the 254 counties in Texas could participate and their participation would. Would make a difference. And I began to think about how that kind of movement that's not defined by differences even amongst party, and certainly not geography or anything else, is really what it would take to defeat someone like Donald Trump. And even more importantly, what it would take to bring this country together again around historic challenges like climate, where there are 10 years left to us to enact the most historic change this country's ever seen, or our economy or healthcare or immigration, or gun violence. There's a Reason that this stuff hasn't changed in decades, and there's a reason for the dysfunction. And, yeah, part of it is hyper partisanship. But a lot of it has to do with something that you've been incredibly eloquent on and really, again, helped to bring me up to speed on. And that is the fact that in many ways, we've lost our democracy and our institutions to those who can pay to control them. And until we free ourselves from that control, until we have a movement of people, not PACs, we're never going to get to the big things that we should be able to achieve. We're never going to really live to our full potential and promise. And really, it was at that point that I began to think about how extraordinary the movement that we were a part of in Texas really was and what that could represent for our country and how if we were to run for president, that would need to be at the heart of our campaign. The only way for us to rise to the challenge of this moment is for all of us to be involved, and the only way to get all of us involved is for this democracy to work.

So what I've been really proud of in watching your campaign develop is the slow rolling out of very serious policy proposals. I mean, you know, like my friend Andrew Yang has a million proposals on his website. They're all a couple paragraphs long, and they're all smart and thought out, but not with the careful detail that I think that you've begun to demonstrate with the climate proposal, the immigration proposal. And of course, the one that I'm focused on is the. Is the democracy proposal. So here's how I want to kind of set up thinking about this really impressive set of ideas that you've put together. You know, obviously, we all agree that our government, at least our federal government, doesn't represent us. And broadly speaking, you could say there are two obvious reasons why it wouldn't represent us. The first obvious reason why is focusing on voters, that the people who vote in America don't happen to be all of Americans or a representative sample of Americans is a whole bunch of people who are just disenfranchised. And the second reason why our government might not represent us focuses on the representatives, and how the representatives are focused on interests or entities other than the people in general. So what's striking about your proposal or your plan is that it's really very heavily focused on the first part of that problem. Really, really focused on how do we get every qualified American to have at least the chance, an equal Chance to vote. And you have this incredibly bold idea to increase voter registration by 50 million voters and raise turnout to a historic 65% by 2024. And that of course, you know, 50 million voters in a world where we have just 140 million voters is a huge number. But I wonder what led you to think that this was the most important end of the problem to grab and to wrestle?

I think about how we've ended up where we are greatest level of wealth and income inequality since the last Gilded Age. The fact that there's been scientific and even to a large degree political consensus on climate going back decades, and yet there's been no urgency connected to the fact that the shot clock has got 10 years on it to for us to avert the most catastrophic horrors that we can possibly imagine, or that we've been talking about immigration reform for 30 years and have made really no meaningful movement on that either. The fact that the Centers for Disease Control was prevented by law from even studying gun violence in a country that loses nearly 40,000 people to gun deaths every year. You know, part of it is for sure, it's the PACs. It's the perpetual election of members of Congress. It's those same members who choose their own districts, their own voters, instead of the other way around. But it's also to your point, the fact that not everybody is reflected or represented in our democracy. It's really hard in many states to register to vote. It's really difficult for those who've been criminally justice involved to ever meaningfully participate in their democracy again. It's tough for Americans who move in a very mobile country from one state to the other to make sure that they're in the right precinct and the right place on election day. So to bring in more than 50 million additional Americans into our democracy means bringing in their genius, their perspective, their background, their experiences in life to bear on these challenges and opportunities that we face. And I'm confident that when we do, the urgency that might have been lacking on some of these issues or the solutions that we have been waiting for will be present in their voices and in their votes. And so through automatic voter registration, including pre registering 16 and 17 year old high school students, so the minute they're 18 and there's an election, they're ready to vote. And again, I'm confident having listened to so many of them, and you may know this better than I do, they're there. They're as informed as anyone, as passionate as anyone. They just need to know that their vote is going to count as much as anyone having same day voter registration to ensure when there's any confusion about your registration or the polling site, that you can register right there and vote on election day. And then making sure that the more than 4 million people who, during their history with the criminal justice system may have been written out of our democracy are drawn back in. That's a powerful new force. And listen, it's not a force for the Democratic Party. It's not a force for the Republican Party, a force for this country and our future and making sure that we really do live up to our ideals. So that's why that's the first pillar of this, is bringing more people in. And then we get to removing barriers and then we get to restoring faith in the elections that we hold. But yeah, Larry, that's why we picked that as the first and perhaps most important part of this. Everyone needs to be reflected. Every voice heard needs to be. Every vote counted.

Every one of these proposals, I think is fantastic. I was surprised, although I love the idea in this section talking about increasing participation that you talk about floating a constitutional amendment to create term limits both for Congress and the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court idea is especially brilliant because it is one of the worst features of our court that these justices hang on for so long and so make every single appointment a critical issue of national urgency. So I love these. But what's striking about the proposal to amend the Constitution for term limits is it would seem that there would be other amendments so tightly connected to the voting participation issue that would also be included, like, for example, a voting rights amendment that creates, for the first time in America, a constitutional right to vote, which of course, we don't have right now, or an amendment to deal with Citizens United. So I'm interested about, you know, why term limits is there, but you wouldn't see voting rights or Citizens United as something that we ought to be rallying an amendment to.

So this is why I love talking to you and listening to you and also why I hold town hall meetings all over the country. I'm the last person to believe that I've got all of the answers or that our proposals cannot be improved. They're bold. They, they're comprehensive. But there is so much more that we can do in every single one of these. And you just pointed out two great additions. As you know, ever since Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law, Voting Rights act has been a bipartisan success story until recently, as the Supreme Court basically stripped out some of its most important protections as Republicans and Democrats, I'm sure, did this in the past, but as Republicans are now using race as a proxy in redistricting and voter ID laws to maximize partisan advantage, and as we've lost a bipartisan path forward on Voting Rights Act, I love the idea of this being enshrined in the Constitution. By that same token, after the 2010 decision Citizens United, which essentially said that money is speech, corporations are people, therefore corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money to affect, and I would argue to purchase the outcomes of elections and then legislation. The only real answer to that is to constitutionally define who is a person in this country and who enjoys First Amendment protections and to make it clear that corporations cannot buy this kind of influence and access and outcomes. Otherwise you'll have a democracy that is one in name only. And that's, that's what we are very quickly sliding towards right now. So I really like these two additional ideas, and I think they should be included in the next version of this proposal, because I think you're going to have to have those constitutional safeguards for a democracy. You may have a great succession of enlightened presidents and members of Congress and extraordinary legislation that by statute defines some of these issues. But unless you have that everlasting protection within the Constitution, this democracy can be corrupted again. And I think we need to be vigilant against that. So I like those ideas. I like how we're improving this proposal on the fly over the course of this interview. But those are two really good ideas that I want to include.

Yeah, but I, you know, to push a little bit in the opposite direction. What I liked about your proposal is that it didn't hang everything on constitutional reform, because you and I both know the idea that our Congress is going to propose an amendment to the Constitution and 3/4 of the states are going to adopt it is, is really dreaming right now. But I fear that too many in the Democratic Party are just pointing to this aspiration of a constitutional fix without really doing the hard work to show what are the actual legislative changes we could make tomorrow that would get us a better functioning democracy. So I think these are great additions, but let's focus on the legislative changes that you've really powerfully suggested. So, number one, you said increase participation. We've done that. Number two, remove barriers. There's an interesting ambiguity in what you've described, and I think it's very important to unpack. So one section of what you described talks about, you know, law geeks. This is very familiar, but it should be more familiar. You say, amending Section 2 of the Voting Rights act to make it clear that even seemingly race neutral election regulations are unlawful when they result in disproportionate impact on racial minorities. So that's one way of thinking about the problem of barriers to our democracy that focuses on race. But in another part, in the very same proposal, you say, quote, no longer will politically motivated officials be able to suppress the vote by imposing draconian voter IDs, laws, strategically closing polling sites, or purging voter rolls. So I wonder which you see it is. Is it that there's a bunch of racists, or is it there's a bunch of partisans who are trying to rig the system against the other party? Or is it both? What really is accounting for these insane barriers that we see states imposing to make it harder for people to participate in the political process?

It's always difficult to determine motive in something like this, and we'll use Texas as an example. So we ranked 50th in voter turnout by design. This wasn't an accident, and it's not because we love democracy less than the people of Massachusetts. It is that based on the color of your skin or your ethnicity, you were drawn out of a congressional district to diminish the power of your vote. And you add to that voter ID laws that disproportionately dissuade people of color and those of lower incomes who very often can't afford you do not have the official ID laid out in the statute prevent them from being able to vote. Now, was the motive to disenfranchise African Americans and Mexican Americans in Texas, or was the motive to extend partisan advantage for Republicans who are already in power? What we're saying in this is it almost does not matter because the impact is disproportionately felt by communities of color. And it's not just me saying that. In 2017, the courts found that to be the case in Texas as well in Georgia. Stacey Abrams would be the governor of that state right now if the Secretary of State had not been allowed to, under their voting rules, to purge hundreds of thousands of names from the voter rolls, and also to be the Secretary of State, the referee in the same election in which he was contending an election marred by very long lines at some voting locations, confusion about which polling site was open, which one was closed. The fact that both of these took place in Southern states of the former Confederacy is no accident and part of the reason that we need a new Voting Rights act to protect access to the ballot box and as we say, even if the motive, even if the motive was determined not to specifically harm communities of color, if it does intentionally or not, that is material to the Department of Justice being able to enforce the law and to protect voters to make sure that they can fully participate in our elections. This is a continuing vestige of post reconstruction America, of the effort to suppress voters, especially in the South. But we see this in other parts of the country as well, from being able to participate in our democracy. So we want to protect everyone's access to the polls.

Yeah, and I'm all for pursuing the Voting Rights act reform. What I'm afraid of is this Supreme Court who seems so keen to police over eager race related regulations. And so I wonder whether you shouldn't try to do both changes at the same time. One principle is under the 14th amendment and it says, you know, race based or race motivated or race consequential burdens need to be removed. That's the kind of Section 2 of the Voting Rights act strategy. But I would think that under the Constitution, directly under Article 1, Section 4, which is where Congress has the power to regulate elections for Congress, I would think under that provision you'd be able to say, look, if you are imposing a burden that is harming the minority party in your district, you're Republicans and you're trying to screw Democrats, or you're Democrats and you're trying to screw Republicans. That inequality itself is enough to complain about. And you don't even have to worry about the color of anybody's skin. It's just if you're rigging the system against equal access to the freedom to vote, then we ought to have an interest, a national interest in regulating that, at least for federal elections. And it would seem that if we did both of them together, then even this Supreme Court would find it too difficult to intervene and strike that important kind of legislation.

Yeah, I like that idea because it's, it defines voting rights in the broadest terms possible. And make sure that you're safeguarding against a racial dynamic in gerrymandering or voter roll suppression or voter id, but that you're also protecting against partisan advantage secured through these same measures. Again, neutral as to whether Democrats or Republicans are doing this. And I think the goal being restore faith in our democracy. Know that your vote is going to count for just as much as anyone else's, regardless of the color of your skin or regardless of your political party. Ultimately, I think this is also connected to how we draw those districts and making sure that politicians, office holders are not in the room when those decisions are made. And I've got to tell you, I've, I've been in some of those conversations with my colleagues from the Texas delegation when I was a member of Congress who I think for the best of intentions and reasons were talking about how to position themselves ourselves in these suits against Republicans to define how districts were drawn. But inevitably, invariably some of your self interest is going to be reflected in those decisions that you make and the trade offs that you agree to your ability to maintain that purchase on power based on how that district is drawn. You should never have eyes on those maps. It should be citizen led. There should be some as objective as possible means to draw those districts and determine the boundaries. And I think in so doing you again find another way to restore faith and greater participation. We ask in our plan that we get to as a country a 65% voter participation level. You're going to have to restore a lot more confidence in our democracy. And in part it is doing away through that gerrymandering, racial, partisan or otherwise.

Yeah, this is the part of the plan that's most important to me, the rebuild confidence. Before we get to that though, I want to ask about two things that you don't really talk about in the plan. First, what is your thought in the Electoral College? And secondly, have you thought about the idea of ranked choice voting either for the presidency itself so we don't get third party candidates skewing the result against the majority will or even for Congress like Maine did in the last election?

Yeah. So on the Electoral College this has come up a lot in, in our town halls. And my immediate response after 2016 and I was trying to explain to our youngest son Henry, now 8 years old, how the person with 3 million fewer votes was the winner in the election. I said this just isn't right. But the more I learned about the origin of the Electoral College connected to the three fifths compromise that counted African Americans in this country slaves as partial people for purposes of apportionment in the House of Representatives. And this same logic extended to the number of Electoral College votes that were awarded to the various states. The very roots of this, the origin, the foundation, are racist and are firmly connected to this country's original sin. And so on that basis alone, it is hard for me to find any way to support the Electoral College going forward. I'm confident that without it, national candidates would be forced to campaign in more parts of the country that today are essentially written off. Especially in those states that are war award their electoral College votes on a winner take all basis. A compromise that I actually like a lot that addresses at least part of this would be states having the requirement of awarding their electoral college votes proportionate on the popular vote in that state, which would then force a Republican or allow a Republican to campaign in Massachusetts to try to win some of those votes, or a Democrat to campaign in South Carolina to try to win some of those votes. It would allow every state to truly have a seat at the table. And it's something that makes a lot of sense to me to engage more Americans in those national elections, especially those who live in states that after the primaries are settled or really just afterthoughts. Your other question was, remind me, Larry, on the second question.

This is the ranked choice voting rank choice voting.

So as I spend more time in Iowa, I'm learning that that caucus is in many ways a ranked choice voting exercise right now. So as I travel the state holding these town halls, not only am I trying to gain your commitment to caucus for me on election night, I'm trying to, if you're not gonna caucus for me, to choose me as your second or maybe even third choice. Because the way that caucus works, if your first choice candidate does not reach a certain threshold, you're then forced to pick another candidate. And it really encourages, I don't know if this is the right word for it, but a greater degree of civility. It discourages dumping on the other candidates in the race because you may want to win their supporters at the end of the day. And I hope what it does force us to do is to focus on the issues and the ways that we distinguish ourselves based on the policies that we want to pursue and the means by which we will pursue them. So from my limited experience so far campaigning across Iowa, I really like it and think that it may hold an answer to the kind of divisiveness that marks so many of our other elections. I'd want to learn more about it, but so far my experience has been really positive.

That's good. I mean, it is an important part of the short term solution to the problem of the Electoral college. Because, you know, think of the election in 2000 where George Bush wins Florida by some 230 votes, but Ralph Nader has gotten 96,000 votes. So of the 96,000 votes, the vast majority of those people would have made Al Gore their second choice over George Bush. And so the 530 votes that George Bush won by would have converted into many, many thousand votes that he would have lost by that that election was decided because of the stupid way that Florida wanted to count their votes. And if we counted according to ranked choice, we could avoid these elections of presidents who don't actually stand for the majority of Americans. They just happen to be the plurality victor who happens to have won in the right electoral college state. So this is something I'd really commend that you guys think about a little bit more. But let's now turn to the part, of course, that's in my blank. So in the rebuilding confidence on our democracy, you talk about gerrymandering, which is fantastic. You talk about accuracy of the census, which, of course, who could be against accuracy of the census, except, of course, our current Supreme Court, possibly, and certainly the administration. You talk about election security. And there again, who could be against that, except for the dark lord of the Senate, Mitch McConnell. But the one part that's really exciting in this election cycle is the number of people in the category of getting money out of politics who are talking about, effectively public funding campaigns. And you have articulated, you're one of the four or five who've articulated a clear proposal for trying to change the way campaigns are funded. And under your proposal, at least how it's described, you say you want to, quote, support low dollar contributions by providing a match for contributions up to $500 and to make them tax deductible. Now, of course, that would be a much better system than what we got right now. But what I'm not quite sure of is why you stop with something like that. Because what we know is that matches of that size up to $500 don't tend to bring a wider diversity of people into the elections. Instead, they become kind of effective ways of subsidizing rich people to give money to campaigns. And that some of the other ideas, either smaller matches the way New York City does, or my favorite idea of democracy dollars or democracy vouchers, as Seattle does, would be a much more effective way to bring a wider range of people into the project of funding campaigns. And therefore, going back to the very first framing that I said make it so representatives had a keener interest in focusing on a wide range of citizens the way you did in your Senate race, rather than the tiny fraction of the 1% who give them large contributions to help fund their campaigns. So I'm wondering, is this just, again, like we're on the evolution of trying to work this out, or do you have a strong reason why you stop on the way to paradise? Far from paradise, in my view of the matter.

No, there's no strong reason for this. I think the principle and the idea that there is great public value and great public interest in fixing our democracy and so there will be a public investment to make it possible and to free candidates from a dependence on wealthy donors and corporations and political action committees. That's the idea. And we are certainly, I'm certainly open to finding a far more effective way to do it. I mean, ideally, and it sounds like what you just described could help us to get there. Ideally, you're bringing in the largest cross section of America into our democracy and not just to the ballot box, but into knocking on doors, making phone calls, and then making low dollar contributions that in the aggregate, and then with the match, allow folks who do not come from wealth, who don't have an old boys network which they can tap into, who might not have been able to over their lifetime develop relationships with the wealthiest. They still have a level playing field on which to compete. And again, I think it elevates the discourse, the ideas, the policy and the means. The method that someone proposes to get to those things versus the amount of hours you're willing to put in on call time, making calls to wealthy donors, or the incentive provided right now in Congress, which is to ease that path to those donations by not voting against the interests of those donations or actively pursuing policy for them which may be contrary to the national interest or the consumer interest. So that was the idea. And yes, if there's a way to get more people in, we want to do that. So very open to making improvements to that part of it.

Yeah, because what's inspirational about your locus is that, you know, you come from El Paso. One of the heroes of the democracy movement, Dr. Lawrence Nixon, came from El Paso. And Nixon was an African American who every election from 1910 to 1922 would walk the mile or so to his polling place, pay his poll tax and then vote. But in 1923, Texas passed the white primary rule that said you had to be a white to vote in the Democratic primary. So he shows up in 1924 and the election official says, you know, Dr. Nixon, I can't let you vote. And he said, I know you can't let me vote, but I have to try. And he challenged the white primary to twice it went to the Supreme Court. He won twice. It'd take another 10 years or 12 years before the Supreme Court would finally fix that problem. But what he was attacking was exactly what you talked about at the beginning. These two elections. One election where you had to please a certain elite in order to be allowed to run with the rest of the people. And the reason it's so critical to open up funding to everybody is that the system we have right now is not a white primary, it's a kind of greenback primary. Right? So right now what Congress does, spending 30 to 70% of their time is to suck up to the richest people in America. They need to get their approval before they get to run. And this is the critical, in my view, the critical corruption. Because as you felt at the very beginning of your time in Congress when they would send you checks and expect something in response, you can't be representing the people if you're constantly worried about pleasing the people in the greenback primary. And that's why I think in the end this is the most important, important part and I'd really encourage and happy to help your team think about the way to do this in the most aggressive way possible. Okay, so here's where we're going to pull it to the end because I just have one more critical framing question to ask about this. So you've put together, even with the quibbles that I've raised, a really important package of fundamental reform. And on the model of HR1, it is fundamental and would fix a whole bunch of problems at the same time. And that's exactly what we need. But what HR1 did is it said not only do we need this reform, we need it first, we need to pass it first. Because we recognize if we don't pass this reform, nothing else is possible. So when I listen to these candidates, especially my colleague Elizabeth Warren, who I've loved and been a strong supporter of forever, when I listen to her talk about the 10,000 brilliant ideas, every plan she has for fixing America, I always come back to this moment where I say, well, what's the plan for making these plans possible? What's the thing you're gonna do first to make it possible to get single payer healthcare or climate change legislation or real reform of taxes that helps the average American? And so that, it seems to me, is about committing to making these changes first. Some of your colleagues in this race have done that. Mayor Pete has said he's going to make democracy reform the first thing he does. Senator Gillibrand has said democracy reform is the first thing she does. So that's the question. You're a committed fundamental reformer. Are you a committed fundamental reformer first? Are we going to fix democracy first in Abetto administration so that we can then have a fighting chance to get climate change, to get single payer healthcare to get all the other fantastic advances that you're talking about through this Congress.

Yes, and I think it's in the way you just described it. It's fundamental to being able to get any other change that you want to accomplish. The biggest of them that we proposed confronting climate change before it's too late, mobilizing $5 trillion over the next 10 years, changing fundamental aspects of our economy, our way of life for the better, and creating extraordinary economic opportunity in the process. Bringing rural communities to the table as full partners to provide environmental services, for example, or ensuring that those communities, very often lower income and communities of color that are on the front lines of climate change are fortified against those changes going forward and are first in this economy in reaping the benefits of the changes that we're making. That kind of wholesale change is not going to be possible with politics as usual or democracy as broken as it is right now. So you're absolutely right. You make these fixes and they themselves are fundamental and comprehensive. And then you're able to do everything else that we've described, including many of the great proposals made by other candidates who are in this race. But maybe just an additional wrinkle on this, I don't know that you can even wait until January of 2021 to do this. And it's part of the reason I talked about the importance of walking the talk from, from the outset. And you know, beyond having a campaign run on people and not PACs, it's also, you know, one of the core tenets of democracy, at least in my opinion, is accountability. And one of the greatest forums to do that is a town hall meeting, being accountable to people now, bringing them together, never doing so on the basis of party affiliation or any other difference. And then at every stop along the campaign trail, talking about democracy being fundamental to making these changes. So setting the expectation with people now on the trail that for us to do any of these other things, we're going to have to come together just the way we did in this room, but as a country, and to do that, we're going to have to bring more people in, remove barriers and restore confidence in our democracy. So, yes, it's fundamental to my campaign. It's fundamental to the case that I make the way that I've served in public office, the way that I've campaigned before and the way that we're conducting this campaign right now for the presidency.

Well, you've convinced me about the walking the talk. I was never convinced that was really as important as getting the right policy once you're elected. But you've convinced me I was wrong. You're right. You've got to demonstrate. You got to demonstrate because that's what inspires people. But I think the second part of this, the part that just drives me crazy, is when these politicians are allowed to get away with this fantasy politics, you know, talking about all these things they're gonna do without talking about making it possible to do them. Like I love this metaphor of, you know, imagine a family sitting in a car arguing about like where they're gonna go for the weekend. You know, are they gonna go to the mountains, are they gonna go to the beach, are they gonna go to the city? And then you kind of zoom out and you see the car has four flat tires and somebody has stolen the battery. Like that is America, right where we have this debate. So you're gonna have this week where you're gonna have 20 candidates talking about all the genius ideas for fixing America, but we've got four flat tires and somebody has stolen the battery. And unless we have somebody up there saying, look, we need to fix democracy first. We need to make America aware we're gonna fix democracy. We need to rally America. Cuz they will rally to the idea that we will fix democracy first. How do I know that? Cuz you did it. You raised $80 million from Americans who were dreaming not just that you might beat Ted Cruz. I mean, that's motivation perhaps enough, but more importantly because here was someone talking about restoring an ideal that we were taught as children is the ideal of America. And unless we get that articulated clearly, people are not gonna wake up to the hopefulness that I think you're trying to talk about in this campaign. So I really, I'm grateful you've taken what we call the POTUS one pledge. You' given us fundamental reform that you talk about as something that will happen first. And I am so hopeful that in this first debate you can make it clear on that stage that you are the person who is talking about what has to happen first if we're gonna make any of the things that we Democrats want to happen happen in any realistic way. Beto, I'm so grateful. I know you're incredibly busy. I have a lot of people who wanna hear from you. I'm so grateful that you would take time to talk to me on this podcast.

I'm grateful for the opportunity to do it, and again, grateful for the fact that I had a chance to meet you before I was ever sworn into my seat in Congress to really understand this from the outset. And so your contributions to this debate and the fact that it's a priority for me in this campaign, I can't thank you enough and look forward to continuing the conversation and being able to lead the charge on democracy reform being central to any other change that we want to see in this country.

Wonderful. Good luck in the debates. I look forward to seeing how this develops. Thank you so much again, Beto.

Thank you. Really grateful.

So that's the end of this episode of the podcast Another Way. Stay tuned next week for another episode that will focus on another critical area of reform. This is Larry Lessig. You can find these podcasts at Equal Citizens us. There's a form there for you to criticize or suggest or to give feedback that will help us understand how best to present these issues. And please use the forums there to spread this podcast broadly so that more people can be exposed to these ideas. Thanks very much.