How a Rabbi in Pennsylvania Is Fixing Democracy [09-26-19]

You are listening to the third season of the podcast Another Way. This is Adam Eichen, campaign's manager for Equal Citizens. Today we will be speaking with Rabbi Michael Pollock, co founder and executive director of the Pennsylvania based democracy group March on Harrisburg today. To say that I'm excited for this conversation would be a profound understatement, as not only do I respect Michael deeply and I've worked alongside him frequently over the past two and a half years, but I'm proud to call him a dear friend. I even sometimes refer to him as my democracy rabbi. And for those who are thinking or envisioning a sage elder rabbi on the other end of this call, I want to take a moment to paint the picture. Michael is wise. Well beyond his years, certainly, but Michael, how old are you?

I am now 29.

29 years old.

He's been telling me that. I'm 30.

There you go. But, but he has an old spirit. But this, this is a young rabbi who is very much in the weeds and on the front lines of the democracy movement. And Michael has built, in my view, one of the most impressive grassroots anti corruption movements in the country. With virtually no funding or organizational assistance. He's taken a state which was off the map for democracy reformers and really put it back on the map. And he and his other members have devoted hundreds of hours developing an infrastructure, recruiting volunteers, coordinating press, lobbying legislators, and engaging in direct action, all for democracy reform. And they've meticulously spread its membership to all corners of the commonwealth, from Erie to Scranton to Pittsburgh, an essential recipe for, for success in a state like Pennsylvania. March on Harrisburg, as far as I'm concerned, is a model for Americans across the country as far as how we can organize to actually achieve a better democracy, even in the most unlikely of places, those where traditional reform organizations have declared unwinnable. So I'm eager to dive right into this conversation to explore a bit for our listeners what March on Harrisburg does, how it's organized, but also to dive in, into Michael's trajectory in terms of how he became a rabbi and how he has decided to dedicate his life to this movement as a spiritual leader. So, Michael, welcome.

Thank you very much. That was quite a glowing introduction. I hope one day to switch seats with you on this podcast and give you a similar introduction.

So, okay, our listeners are probably thinking, a rabbi leading the charge for democracy reform. Why? How did that happen, Michael?

Oh, man. It's easier for me to think about it as how could that not happen? You know, being a rabbi, I'm A student of Jewish tradition, a student of history, and a student of the holy text that we've accumulated over a couple thousand years. And some of the wisdom that we've come up with over the past few thousand years is that when you have a society that is foundationally corrupt, that is systemically corrupt, then it's fall apart and it's going to turn on itself, it's going to be vulnerable, it's not going to last, it's going to collapse. And seeing that wisdom in the past and kind of mapping it onto the present day, you see that we really have no choice but to fight for democracy. We really have no choice but to fight against indifference in order to create a better world. And if we don't, we're done for. We're toast. You know, it was about 50 years ago or so, you know, during the last kind of tumultuous era in US history, when Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said that the strik feature of our time is not the presence of anxiety, but the overwhelming inadequacy of our anxiety, that we do not have a full recognition of what's at stake with what we're doing here. And I feel that that applies very much to this moment in time as well, that there is an anxiety in the air for sure, and it's a good anxiety and it's a healthy anxiety, because anxiety is the healthy response to a world gone mad, to a world full of absurdity. But it does not nearly go far enough. Because what's at stake right now, in this moment in time, is it's so much more than just healthcare. It's so much more than just climate change even. It's so much more than democracy bills. It's this idea that we're either going to. That there's two roads in front of us right now. We're either going to walk down the road of fascism, or we're going to walk down the road of love. And those are the choices in front of us. And if we choose wrong, it's really bad. It is really, really bad. It's civil war, it's failed state, it's revolution, whatever you want to call it, that ends with. With a whole lot of bloodshed and a whole lot of suffering. So at this moment in time, my identity as a rabbi, my identity as just a human being, my identity as a Jewish person, are all kind of pushing in the direction of got to do everything we possibly can so that we walk down the road of love and democracy, and we don't walk down the Road of fascism and hate.

But let's now, let's take it a couple years earlier, back In, I think, 2009, before you decided to become a rabbi, before you went down that path, when you were interning for the. Was it the DNC or D? Triple C?

Dnc.

The dnc. And so describe a bit about building, though, and describe a bit about that experience and why and how this issue of money and politics and democracy reform was brought to your attention in the first place.

So I grew up in a good democratic bubble. You know, most of the neighbors, most of the people I knew were all voting blue. And we kind of had this idea, especially during the Bush years, that if we just elect Democrats, we're all gonna be singing Kumbaya around the campfire, that life will be great as soon as we flip the White House and flip the Congress and all that. And in the summer of 2009, we had done that, right? Democrats had the White House, they had Congress. It was time to do good in the world and to repair the world. And I went in as an intern, and they put me into the fundraising department of the dnc. And I saw how the stated rhetoric of politicians and the political elites and the Democratic Party Party did not match what they were doing in response to the big money that was coming in. So, for example, President Obama was pushing the public option, if you can remember in 2009, that was a big sticking point of his in the debate over the Affordable Care act, was we're going to have a public option. Well, the check started coming in from Independence, Blue Cross, from Aetna, from all the big insurance companies, and the public option just disappears. And that was that. Same thing happened with the big giveaway to Big Pharma. You know, how they have forced us through law, through the most corrupt law, to not be able to negotiate drug prices on behalf of Medicare and Medicaid. That whole thing went out the window, too, as soon as Billy Towson, the mega lobbyist with Big Pharma, showed up with his army of lobbyists from former Senator Max Baucus office. And they just toss around money, they toss around bribes, and the policies change. And so I saw this happen from the inside and realized, wow, I thought we voted for the good guys, but here we are. It's just the system. The system just suffocates all good ideas. It just doesn't let things actually happen. When I saw this, I became incredibly disillusioned. I thought, wow, what now? What are we doing now? How do we actually solve the problems that are confronting us. And I got a little depressed and disillusioned. And it took me a few years to kind of realize that there's something I could actually do about this instead of just tossing my hands up in the air and turning my back on politics and democracy.

So you really did see how the sausage was made inside Washington, D.C. and it's fair to say that it wasn't very kosher, now, was it, Michael?

Oh, my God. So the guy I just referenced, Billy Towson, who's a former representative from Louisiana who pushed through the big pharma giveaways before he retired and became a big pharma lobbyist. I remember he was on 60 Minutes right around when that happened. And he's just sitting there telling the reporter again and again, you don't want to see how the sausage is made. You don't want to see how the sausage is made, which is the most ridiculous thing to say in a democracy, that you don't want to see how laws are made. That's the exact point of democracy, is that we do get to see, we do get to be participatory in making laws. There is transparency. Yeah. Adam, the sausage is not kosher. It's not kosher in many ways. One way it's not kosher is that there's bribery at the core of it. Bribery is what drives our political system. Campaign spending, gifts, independent expenditures, all of these things. The money in politics just drives. Drives the corruption, drives the policy bastardization. You know, it's what's ruining us. And I mean, Jewish tradition, the Bible, Talmud, the whole thing is very, very clear that bribery is wrong. You know, it says in the Talmud, whoever takes a bribe brings great wrath into this world. And that. That's. It's as plain as day, because when you take a bribe, you're no longer seeing the person in front of you. You're now part of a smaller group. It's you. And the bribe givers and the bribe takers are a small group to the indifference of everybody else. Bribes make people blind. They make people deaf so that they can't hear the people. And what that results in is indifference. And that corruption fueled indifference creates so, so much suffering in our. In our times. So, yeah, anything that causes that amount of suffering is certainly not kosher. The political system is not kosher.

And, Michael, what's. What's your favorite quote from. Is that you. That you like to recount all the time about corruption and bribery?

We spent way too much time together in the car. My favorite quote, your Rule Isaiah, chapter 1, verse 23, it says, Your rulers are rebels, partners with thieves. They chase after bribes. The widow and the orphan's cause does not come before them. And that's the political system we live in. Our rulers are rebels. They partner with thieves. People who. We used to call them privateers or profiteers, people who are just in the system to extract wealth without really doing anything, and they're thieves. And because of that, because our politicians hang out with these people all the time. They don't see the widow and the orphan. They don't see the immigrant, they don't see the returning citizen coming out of jail. They don't see the sick person, they don't see the elderly, the student. They just don't see us. We have so many ways to describe this phenomenon. Sometimes we call it the bubble, or we call it the swamp, or we call it the Beltway mentality. It's all just a way of saying that our political class is not interacting. It's not communicating with the people. The people are not interacting or communicating with our political elite.

Right. And so I think that's the key, that when you're saying bribery, I mean, yeah, there are certain circumstances where it's quid pro quo, where it's, I'll give you the money and you do something in return in terms of legislation. But really what we're talking about is a system that has distorted incentives. In other words, that people that politicians who are in the bubble in this system are not actually able to incentivize the public good, but rather that they're the people who have their ears. The people that they spend the most time with are those who have the most money. And I think that that's a very important thing. And long listeners of this podcast will know that that's a real core framing of Equal Citizens and the work of Lawrence Lessig for the past decade. But, Michael, I want to dig a little bit deeper before we move on to the work that you're doing in Pennsylvania in terms of how does being a rabbi actually affect your role as an advocate? You know, is. Is there a particular scholar. I know you mentioned Heschel that drives your work, and of course, I'm begging this question, because I know you are, but I want you to describe a bit for our listeners about how being a spiritual leader has actually guided you in this effort, both for good or bad, because we really don't have many spiritual leaders in this democracy movement. I think that we have some. I think that you are working towards expanding the number of Folks like that who are involved, but, you know, talk a little bit about what it's like being a rabbi fighting for democracy on the ground.

It definitely puts me into a unique position, which I definitely like to be in. First off, I get to be incredibly nonpartisan, which I am to my core. I'm very nonpartisan. And March On Harrisburg will never endorse any candidates or parties or anything like that. And I get to be nonpartisan because I get to stand on a moral platform. I'm not interested in the hungry for power games that are constantly going on. I just don't care. It's so far beneath the level that we need to be playing on. So I get to kind of have that higher perspective, which is very nice. And really, it helps keep me sane as well. Also, the role of faith in the democracy movement is essential. If you don't have faith, you're not going to even get involved because the odds are so stacked against us. I mean, these fights that we're fighting are impossible fights. And every expert has said these are impossible fights. There's no way you can win. It's absolutely impossible. Why are you even trying? You have to give up. So having a faith that anything is possible is really powerful. Having a faith in what Dr. King said that you can make a way out of, no way is what keeps me going. If I didn't have faith, I wouldn't be able to do this work. It's not the most rational faith, of course. Faith usually is irrational. It's slightly delusional faith, and I can reckon with that. It is slightly delusional to take on these fights, to go tilting at windmills, but we're winning.

But for our listeners, Michael, I want to dig a bit into that in terms of what you're describing, in terms of faith. It's not really a traditional kind of faith in God or faith in a deity, but what you're really describing is almost faith in man, woman, humankind.

Right.

I mean, that's really what you're getting here. Is that what the spiritual faith that you have, I think it's fair to say, from the conversations I've had, is really a faith in humanity to coalesce and come together to achieve remarkable things.

Absolutely. I love the Dr. King quote when he said, faith is taking the first step when you can't see the rest of the staircase. So that's what I mean by faith. It's being able to step out on a limb and to trust in the goodness of humanity and to trust in the goodness of the world. It's that faith that says that if we come together and do our part, not only will we be able to succeed if we come together, but I also do believe that there is this emergent force that comes to bear when people join together, that there's something either that emerges from it or is part of it. It's hard to describe. But I do have a faith that the universe wants us to exist, that life loves life, and that there is a force out there that joins with our power when we join together to build our power. And that's what we've seen. I mean, Adam, you've been along for a lot of steps along the March on Harrisburg journey, and there have been miracles. I mean, there have been things that have happened that you just how the hell did that happen? It's because we all came together. It's because we fought. And then something beautiful emerges from that. And to have faith that that something beautiful will be there at the end of the road is necessary.

Right? And certainly that we have no possibility of winning if we don't even try. And so just by coming together and fighting for democracy, we inevitably create these circumstances just by pure probability that eventually there are moments where things go our way. And I think that, you know, you've demonstrated that in Pennsylvania and I think that groups across the country have demonstrated that, that, that, you know, we miss 100% of the shots we don't take, to use that quote. But, but I do think you're absolutely right, Michael. And I want to now move into what you're doing in Pennsylvania because you know that this is all a great conversation in the abstract. But for our listeners, I want to be very clear that what Michael, you have done in Pennsylvania is the embodiment of this. You have created something out of nothing together, like minded individuals and even individuals who aren't like minded, but those who can coalesce around the idea that our democracy is broken and that we must fix it if we have any chance at a livable future, at a future that we collectively want. I mean, I think often of, you know, my colleague Francis Moore Lepe, who, who always poses the question, why are we together creating a world that nobody wants? And I think this is a situation where, you know, we're going to consistently, we're going to keep down that path of a world that nobody wants until we fix this democracy. But so you and I met originally, Michael, in 2016 at Democracy Spring and that we, we, we marched 140 miles together from Philadelphia to D.C. we accompanied over 1200 people getting arrested, of which you were one. And all of this was for democracy reform, for getting money out of politics, for ensuring the right to vote. It was this, probably the, the largest, certainly the largest mobilization for democracy or form in recent history. And that's where you and I originally met. And March on Harrisburg, the idea for it came out of democracy spring in 2016. Now you're not affiliated with Democracy Spring anymore. In fact, Democracy Spring doesn't exist. It just folded shot. But your theory of change is a little different. So Democracy Spring, the idea was get a bunch of people, march a long way, 140 miles, show commitment, and then engage in direct action on the Capitol steps to show politicians that you were willing to sacrifice for that reform and to elevate it to media coverage. I mean, pretty classic social movement ideas. Talk a little bit about your theory of change that what you took from Democracy Spring and what you're bringing to Pennsylvania in terms of lobbying, marching and direct action.

So let me rewind a little while and tell a story, if I may, in the tradition of our types of conversations that we have. So the core of March on Harrisburg is nonviolent conflict resolution. That's what we do. And that's the idea, that's the philosophy that permeates all of our tactics. Lobbying, marching, nonviolence, organizing, all of this. It comes from nonviolent conflict resolution. And the model for that. There's a scene in the book of Exodus where right after the golden calf, God is furious, God is pissed off. How dare the people choose material idolatry over the divine? How dare they? And God says, I'm done, it's over, I'm leaving. You're gonna go the rest of the way through the desert without me? I'm not going to be with you anymore. God is that angry. And Moses says, no, no, you're coming with us. You're coming with us or we're not going to. And Moses holds a sit in, you know, a non violent direct action and demands a face to face with God, demands a meeting with God. And so the next morning, Moses walks up the mountain. And the way the story is told is that God sees Moses face. They come Tanim Alpanim, and God forgives Moses at that point. And then God passes in front of Moses. So all Moses sees is God's back. But the idea is that when you have a conflict, you need to work it out. You need to encounter each other, you need to force the encounter, you need to get in each other's faces. Because when A person sees the face of another person, what they can see is suffering. And the natural response to that suffering is service. The philosopher Emmanuel Levinas once said that when you see the face of the other, you are ordered and ordained to service. So the essence of nonviolent conflict resolution is that face to face encounter, to put your suffering up front and say, we need to be together, we need to stay together. Nobody's going anywhere without the other, and this is going to work. And when that happens, it works. Miracles happen. And so the essence of March on Harrisburg and our tactics is that nonviolent conflict resolution between we the people and our elected officials. Our elected officials have been unfaithful to us. They've been cheating on us. They've been hanging out with special interests. They've been following the dictates and demands of party bosses and big donors and lobbyists and ad specialists and independent expenditure organizers and all those people. And they need to be faithful to us, to we the people. The foundation of democracy is that close, close relationship between we the people and our elected officials. So what we've done in Pennsylvania is just take that theory of face to face encounter and just mapped it into every one of our tactics. So when we go in and we lobby, we sit in front of elected officials, and we're incredibly blunt and honest with them. We sometimes will lead in meetings with, I don't trust you, and that's not okay. I need to be able to trust you. And in the early 1960s, the Gallup poll said 78% of Americans trusted their government. And today that number is down to 15%. We don't trust you. Let's repair that trust. One way you can earn our trust is by passing a gift ban and stop taking unlimited bribes from lobbyists. Right? So we're going in there and saying, this needs to work. The people and the government need to work together. We cannot be at odds like this. We cannot be hating each other. We can't be violent toward each other. We can't be indifferent toward each other, because this is the relationship that our entire society depends on. And we've. We've had success with this.

Right. So. But I want to push you a bit on this. What distinguishes March on Harrisburg from Democracy Spring? And maybe I'll kind of elucidate what I'm thinking. Right. So. So Democracy Spring was this really novel idea. I mean, very much in. Not novel in the sense it was in the history of civil rights movements and social movements throughout our history, but novel in terms of the democracy movement. Of a real show of faith and show of sacrifice by a long march over 10 days and then direct action. You added this component of lobbying, in other words, and I know that, you know, you and I have talked about this a lot, that you thought one of the strategic downfalls of Democracy Spring is that we showed this sacrifice and we engaged in a sit in. But because we never actually had demands and sat down with lawmakers before making that sacrifice, people had no idea what we were doing. And so when you go into the State House, you May, after the first, your first March, which I joined you for the entire way May 2017, you had already met with what, 230 out of the 250 state politicians before, before engaging in this long show of sacrifice and before you made your demands known publicly.

Absolutely. If you protest somebody without them knowing why, it's just kind of rude. I mean, imagine somebody standing on your street picketing you, and you don't know why they're picketing you. They haven't attempted to negotiate, they haven't tried to resolve the conflict without protest. Protest comes after negotiation. Protest is there to elevate the power dynamic on the side of the protesters so that after you protest, you can then go back to the negotiating table and work your way forward. I mean, that's the essence of what we do. When you, the Democracy Spring protest, you say the word sacrifice and the march was a sacrifice for sure. The protests, I don't think they were. Because the essence of sacrifice. Right. The Hebrew word, the ancient word for sacrifice is Korban. And the root of that word is to draw near to the other, to encounter the other. Sometimes it's used as the word hug, you know, to embrace somebody, to draw close to somebody. And if you're sitting outside on the steps, you're not really drawn close to the Capitol, you're not really drawing yourself close to the senators or the representatives or any of them. They don't know who you are or what you're doing. They don't see you and they don't care and they just go along with their day to day lives and that's it. But if they know who you are, if you've sat down and talked with them and then they see you coming in and protesting, they see your face, you get that encounter, they know what it's about and they react accordingly, they respond accordingly. So every single time that we've done a protest, it's been able to move the ball forward legislatively because we've already laid the groundwork. They already know what we want, they know what our demand is. We are incredibly clear with them. And sometimes we even telegraph our actions in the hopes that they'll preempt us by coming over to our side. And, you know, so we. You can't protest without lobbying. And the lobbying is so, so essential. So we've met with 251 of the 253 state legislators. We've met with the governor a few times. We've met with the lieutenant governor. We've met with. We've met with everybody that we need to meet with. And even with that, you can sit down in meetings and they'll say at the end of the meeting, I'm not going to do it. Nothing's going to happen. And then we're able to say, okay, here's what we do at this point, we're going to start organizing in your district. So just so you know, these six people are going to be in your district causing a ruckus. They're going to be telling your constituents what you're doing and why you aren't doing the right thing. And then we're going to build up, and in a month or three, we're going to protest you. And that might be at your district office, it might be here. Who knows where it's going to be? But we're going to do this so that we have you encounter the truth, so that you can redeem yourself, so that you can make the right choice. Because the world, the choice you're making right now, corrupt politician, is not sustainable for all of humanity. It's not sustainable for Pennsylvania. And it's causing this damage and harm. And then this is the hardest part of it, Adam, is being able to look at a politician when lobbying and have the thought that, corrupt politician, I love you enough that I care about your children enough that I don't want them to live in a corrupt world. And that love needs to go through with the lobbying, the marching, the nonviolence. It has to permeate all of it, where you love even the worst people enough that you want them to live in a better world, and then just forcing the encounter and getting results, Right?

And, you know, you're certainly helped by the fact that you are a rabbi and are capable of that radical love. But, I mean, I do think that we all are capable of that kind of real, radical, deep love of people with whom we very vehemently disagree. And so just to backtrack, I really want to, you know, make this clear to our listeners that your strategy, your strategy is massive. Lobbying, sitting down with politicians, making your demands known, trying to, in all good faith, convince them of the need for something like gerrymandering reform. If they say no, if you can't get enough support, which thus far you have yet to do, that in the sense that politicians are not exactly eager to give up their power. Uh, you engage in usually a long march. You're. You've done two from Philadelphia to D.C. a little over 100. Or, sorry, Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, a little over 100 miles. You've done one from Lancaster, Pennsylvania to Harrisburg. A show of sacrifice, a long march. Build up the media attention, build up the fact that they will know that you are coming and then engage in direct action in Harrisburg, that you will disrupt Harrisburg in the best sense of that word, to raise the issue, to elevate the issue of democracy form such that the politicians and the media can't ignore you. And, you know, this is, I think, the remarkable thing about what you've done and the, you know, and March on Harrisburg as a whole has done, you have really captured the narrative in Pennsylvania, in other words, through your actions. I want to be very clear to the listeners of this podcast, whenever you do an action, whenever March on Harrisburg does an action, everybody now knows to pay attention. All of the state media, all of the politicians, they're all paying attention. They're all thinking, what is March on Harrisburg doing? While you are on that march from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, as the days go by, you know that Harrisburg is collectively thinking, what are they going to do? And that right there is remarkable.

It's absolutely so funny sometimes. I mean, we've. We've marched in. I remember the November march we did from Lancaster, and they actually canceled session before we arrived. They didn't want to be in the building with us because they knew we were about to do something. And they knew they were especially on guard because we had disrupted two town hall meetings by the state government committee chairman, you know, a few weeks before that. So they were really on guard, and they just. They left town. They just abandoned town.

And describe what you did next, Michael, because this is the thing. So again, to really emphasize this to our listeners that you had, this was your second action in Harrisburg. In early 2017, you did a big march from Philadelphia to Harrisburg. It was three days of direct action. You really made a ruckus. It was probably, you know, a real shock to most people in the state Capitol that a group of citizens were this committed to democracy. And so later that year, you announced an action, and the politicians legitimately canceled session because of you. They were so scared of what you would do, the issues that you were going to elevate, that they decided their best course of action to protect their self interest, to protect the stat, the corrupt status quo, was to straight up cancel legislative session so as to prevent you from disrupting them. So what did you do next?

So we went into the empty building and we had a bunch of Where's Waldo? Costumes and we blocked a hallway. And of course, an empty building isn't actually an empty building. Just because they're not in session doesn't mean there aren't people there. So we blocked a hallway with a bunch of people in Where's Waldo? Outfits to make the point of where's our leadership? Where's Tirzai, Where's Dermody, Where's Metcalf? Where are these people? Where are these legislative leaders? They've abandoned us. And then the next week we came back and did a back to back action. When they were there, which was much. We didn't publicize those actions. We organized them very secretly and covertly. And so we were able to kind of catch them off guard the week after, which really gave them the message of, you know, you can run, but you can't hide. You know, you can try to put this off, but we're going to get in your face. We're going to force the encounter with you. And those actions that we did the next week, one of them was we disrupted the Senate State Government Committee hearing because they were refusing to act on gerrymandering. They were refusing to move forward on that at the time. And after we protested, we sat down with the chairman and had a great negotiation for about an hour or so. And we moved the ball forward every time we protest, we move the ball forward every single time. We got a committee hearing out of it, we got a vote out of it, we got something out of it. We get to, you know, knock down a Nazi a little bit. We get to. We always get something out of the protests because they're very much tied in with our lobbying and our legislative strategy. They function as two wings of the same bird.

Right. And again, I think that's super important here, which is that when you engage in this behavior, when you engage in this disruption, you are strategically moving that ball forward because ultimately what you're doing, and especially that Where's Waldo? Action, I mean, I mean, that generated so much positive press coverage because for that action, you were saying, where were they? Why aren't they going to act on a gift ban? So Pennsylvania is one of what, eight states now with no limits on the gifts that you can give to state legislators. In other words, you could buy someone a car and gift it to them. That certainly seems like a bribe. It certainly seems corrupt. And so when you elevate that fact, I mean, the reason why there is no limits on gifts in Pennsylvania is because it's never really, you know, people haven't advocated for it most. When you and I go across Pennsylvania and we describe to people who live there that there are no limits on gifts, there's no one that you and I have encountered who says, no, that's a good thing. The reason the system has been able to persist is because the public just doesn't know. And so when you go in there and get media coverage and elevate this issue, the reason politicians get so scared and the reason why the ball is moved forward is because it's so common sense. They know the writing is on the wall. They know that the more that you elevate this issue, the more the public is going to be angry and the more that the politicians who are blocking progress are going to suffer at the polls. And that's what you're doing. You're. You're raising these issues into the public discourse that. That the vast majority of people in Pennsylvania agree with, and that scares these politicians into acting or at least getting us closer to them acting. Is that fair to say?

Absolutely. Absolutely. And first off, I want to just take everything you just said and say it's a lot of fun. I want that to come through for the listeners, that this work is fun, that we are making progress, that you can see your wins day by day, week by week, month by month, that this is a fun process. It's very hard. You really have to dig in, but it is fun. Let's use Tirzai as an example here, you know, on how he's kind of

come around and Terzai is the speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly.

Yes. And just some background for the listeners. He is not a friend of democracy. His most viral moment came in 2012 when he had just passed a voter ID law, and he's standing in front of the Chamber of Commerce in Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, and he says to them, quote, voter ID to help Governor Romney win the state of Pennsylvania. Done. Right. So this is a guy who's willing to suppress votes to win elections. That's very clear. He. Oh, God. The fundraising numbers came back. He raised. I'm sorry, he spent. No, no, he raised $192 per vote cast in his district. In the last election. So this guy is incredibly at the center of the system of corruption. So we started trying to meet with him about a year and a half ago or so, and he would not meet with us. He would not give us the time of day. 75 constituents of his tried to meet with him. He wouldn't give them the time of day at all. We protested him last summer. We protested him over gerrymandering. He had adjourned session a week early to avoid the subject of gerrymandering and had gone home. So we went to his house. We went to his house in Allegheny county, and with the demand that he come back to Harrisburg and call a special session and deal with gerrymandering, there was a deadline that we were up against at the time, and the protest, we didn't get the special session. He didn't meet our demands. But what he did do was he had six grandmothers arrested on his front yard. Six grandmothers who are constituents of his arrested on this front lawn. And then he went to war with us in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. That whole summer, it was a back and forth of letters to the editor, and he just kept putting his foot in his mouth again and again and again, and it was. It was amazing. It was really something to behold. I mean, he had one of his character witnesses who wrote a letter for him was a fracking lobbyist. I mean, that was the person he had to vouch for his character was a mega lobbyist in Pittsburgh. So we, you know, we really raised the issues with him, and we raised the profile of the issues with him, and then he despised us. And I think he still does behind closed doors. But he was screaming behind closed doors that he will never meet with March on Harrisburg. Never, never, never, never, never, ever, ever meet with March on Harrisburg. He was so, so furious with us. None of our bills will ever pass, and I'll never meet with them. And then he had a close election in November. He only won by a few points. He should have won by a lot. He was panicking about that, and he wants to be governor in 2022. So he's worried politically right now. And so in the spring, we went in to try to meet with him again, and he said, you know, he was just kind of being a little bit all over the place. And he made a joke to one of our volunteers that, you know, maybe they could keep March on Harrisburg in line. And I joked back to him. I said, actually, sir, that's Capitol Police's job to keep us in line. That's not our volunteer's job, that's the police's job. And he understood what I meant by that, which was we're gearing up for a protest, you know, and we're not afraid of you. We're ready to deal with police again, we're ready to go sit in jail again to make this, this point. And he panicked a little bit and he asked to meet the next day. We met the next day. We tried to negotiate. Then they just kind of stalled out over the next few weeks. They weren't acting, they weren't doing what we were asking them to do. So we came in in May after our big march. You know, we marched 115 miles. We came into the Capitol and we dumped $500 and $1 bills, each one of them marked bribe. We dumped them from the House gallery onto the House floor. And Terzai had to cancel session. He had to say, we're recessed for the next 30 minutes. They all cleared out while the police cleaned up the dollar bills. And right after that, Speaker Terzai puts his name onto the gift ban bill. He signs on as a co sponsor. And he's actually been working since then to help with the gift ban. And that would not have happened if it weren't for us forcing the encounter and making it such that Terzai doesn't want to deal with us, he wants us to go away. We would much rather him face the truth, be redeemed, have a personal transformation come out on the other side, realizing that corruption is wrong and he needs to change his ways. I mean, that's the ideal situation. But we'll settle for him just being scared of losing his job. That's good enough for us.

So this gets me into my next question, which is that Pennsylvania currently has a double red legislature. In other words, both houses of the state house are controlled by Republicans and the governor is a Democrat. Most people would look at that situation and in terms of how really elite level Republicans are blocking democracy reform and say Pennsylvania is not a winnable state, we have to wait until reform minded politicians have been elected. But what you're, you just proved in that story, I mean, I mean to be fully clear, March on Harrisburg has yet to officially win the gift ban, has yet to win gerrymandering reform. There's still a long road ahead. But you're showing that progress can be made no matter who is controlling the state house, no matter who is the governor. You're showing that this democracy movement can win in the most unlikely places if enough long term pressure and with A lot of creativity. And really forcing that encounter, as you were talking about, between constituents, the people and political leaders, that progress can be made.

Absolutely. And anything is possible. And I mean, if we can do it in Pennsylvania, we can do it anywhere. You know, we could do it in Mississippi and Georgia. Pennsylvania is the, you know, we came in 45th place in the corruption rankings in 2016. This is the fifth most corrupt state in the country. We're dealing with an incredibly hostile, incredibly anti democracy legislature and we're moving that them. We're doing it, it's working. And that's because we are willing to sacrifice, we're willing to force the encounter, we're willing to dig in. We're incredibly tenacious. I think you nailed it with creativity. That that is essential. Yeah, we're just able to adapt and keep the fight going.

But also what you're able to do and I think is very impressive, is that. So in the beginning of 2018, you and I, along with some other folks, we did a tour of Pennsylvania. We did 20 events in about 30 days. And we had a little roadshow going. It was quite the experience. We went across the state from Erie to Pittsburgh to State College, to, you know, a couple events in Philadelphia. We had a little roadshow, a three hour long presentation about why our democracy was broken, how to fix it and what we can do in Pennsylvania. And I'll never forget there was this one moment, I believe, in York, Pennsylvania, which is a very conservative area, where we had someone wearing a Scott Wagner for governor T shirt and Scott Wagner was the Republican gubernatorial candidate and very, very, very right wing. And I remember my. Michael, I'm sure you remember that I was very worried because I, you know, was. I was skeptical as to whether or not what she would think about our presentation about. It was really a test of whether or not our theory that this movement is nonpartisan, that it could appeal to anybody on the political specific spectrum. Whether or not that was true, and I will never forget that she was in the front row and she was nodding along with us throughout our entire three hour long presentation. In fact, there are a couple times where she was. She verbally said, yes, yes, I agree. And I think what you've done in Pennsylvania is you actually have brought together progressives and conservatives, which is how we're going to win.

Adam, one of the most. I remember that woman. I remember that shirt. And for people who don't know, again, just saying Scott Wagner is right wing, I think is an understatement. This guy is mini Trump. He had A viral moment where he threatened to stomp on the governor's face with golf cleats. I mean, this guy's violent, but yeah. And of course we can win over those, the supporters of people like that, because nobody likes corruption. Every person in the public is against corruption. Nobody goes, yeah, politicians deserve more free stuff from lobbyists. Yeah, I like them getting bought. Nobody says that. And I remember one moment in particular when that really sunk in for me of what we were doing was it was last summer. So that gerrymandering protest at Terzai's house. The week before that, we went to the governor's office in Harrisburg and we set up for an occupation. We brought sleeping bags, we brought everything to make it look like we were there for the long haul and that this was like a summer barbecue type of a situation. And at one point in the governor's office, a right wing representative named Rick Saccoe, who's no longer in office, who was the sponsor of our gift band, who we had worked very closely with on the gift band. He came in with a group of his constituents, a tour group. He was giving them a tour of the Capitol. And he comes into the governor's office again. Remind you, this is the number two conservative in the state of Pennsylvania. The number two conservative, the number two most far right wing person. And he comes in with a group of his neighbors and he says, he explains what we're doing and he says, this is what democracy looks like. This is what America is all about. Wow, I never thought I'd be sitting protesting a Democratic governor when a far right Republican walks in and tells his people, that's how you take on corruption and points to a bunch of raggedy activists as the example. I mean, we have, we've been able to build relationships across every divide. And not just the conservative, liberal progressive divides, but the rural, urban, suburban divides, you know, the racial divides, religious divides. I mean, that's the goal because you have to have a movement that reflects the diversity of Pennsylvania, because that's the essence of democracy. It's inclusion and it's inclusion of everybody in the state. And it's that fundamental recognition that again, this comes back to nonviolent conflict resolution, that nobody is going anywhere. Saccoe isn't moving away. Metcalfe, Scott Wagner, none of these people are moving away. They're not leaving Pennsylvania and neither are we. So we have to stay here and figure out how to get along. We have to act. We have to have a functional enough relationship so that we don't kill each other. And so that we can work together and actually get things done. And that's just at the heart of March on Harrisburg.

Right. And so, okay, so, you know, your main two goals for the past two and a half years have been this gift ban, which again, Pennsylvania has no limits on the gifts that you can give to state politicians. And to kind of put this into context, you don't even have to disclose it if it's a. I think $250 and above. Is that correct? Well.

And if you don't disclose it, you pay a $250 fine. So you can accept a briefcase full of $10,000 of cash and just not report it, pay a small fine and go about your day.

Right. And you know, again, to put how this affects us into perspective, you know, you tell me the story often that there are. There's a mem. There's a what? A member lobbyist for the fracking industry or the natural resource industry for every single member of the State House.

House. The natural gas industry has as 203 registered lobbyists.

Right. And each one of them, we know. We have no, we have no idea exactly how much that they. That given to each politician because it's. Each of these lobbyists likely gives right below the threshold to disclose or may not disclose at all. And so the amount of money from that industry, which. Correct me, correct me if I'm wrong, Michael, but I think the studies show that Pennsylvania produces 1% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Is that correct?

You got it.

And so, you know, it's not a surprise that there's no severance tax. It's not. There's no surprise that Pennsylvania has not taken actual steps to, to mitigate climate change because we have a situation where the. The State House is bought by the natural gas industry. So, so that's an example where, where this lack of gift ban is just ruining the Commonwealth wealth. But, so, so you have the gift ban on one, on one hand, and then you've been fighting for gerrymandering reform on the other hand, through an independent redistricting commission, uh, that didn't make much. I mean, you and Fair Districts Pennsylvania put together a really remarkable fight. Uh, unfortunately, I think it's too late now to, to reform the process for gerrymandering for this next cycle. But, but that will be continuous. But despite that, these have been your two issues. I know you and I know March on Harrisburg, that ultimately what you want to create in this state is a wide platform, an organization that, you know, has 20 policy positions that you want to push in Pennsylvania for the next 10 years. Can you just describe a little bit about that vision?

Absolutely. And the gerrymandering fight, I got to say, it's not over yet. There's still a chance. There's still a chance we can get this right by 20. And even if we can't get the state maps right, we can get the congressional maps right. But it is a long shot, though, I'll grant you that. Yeah. The goal is, I mean, we're trying to get Pennsylvania from the fifth most corrupt state in the country into one of the top five least corrupt states in the country. And that's going to involve, as you said, about 20, 25 bills or so that we need to get through. So these are things like ranked choice voting, automatic voter registration, open primary, same day registration, early voting, public campaign financing, a ballot initiative, disclosure on independent expenditures, and limits on campaign contributions. Gerrymandering reform. Of course, we need to do a good amount around absentee voting and vote by mail. Here in Pennsylvania, we have so many problems with our democracy. We haven't done an electoral code rewrite since 1936. That was the last time we seriously took on our electoral code. And a lot has changed since 1936. But there's things that are happening, right? So we've been pushing gift ban, gerrymandering. We've also been pushing a few voting rights bills. And we're seeing progress. We're seeing things starting to move. We've successfully changed the narrative, you know, along with our allies in the democracy movement in Pennsylvania. Fair districts gets a shout out, you know, League of Women Voters, Common cause, committee of 70. There's a lot of people, Keystone Progress. There's a lot of groups that are pushing in the right direction. But we're starting, we're going to start seeing some wins coming up pretty soon. We're going to get a few voting rights bills through, you know, to the governor's desk in the next few weeks, hopefully, which again, through a double red legislature. Who would have thought you could pass voting rights reform?

And just to be clear, these are, these are like absentee ballot reforms and some like very much needed access rules. Not quite to the degree where we would want it, like same day or automatically democratic registration, but progress, progress.

And those are coming next, right? There's already legislators talking about, okay, once we get this first small package through, what's going to be the next package? We set the agenda. And the agenda is electoral reforms, it's ethics reforms, it's redistricting reform. It's democracy reforms. And because we set that agenda, we're just now in a period where we continue to grow, we continue to apply pressure, we continue to get more creative and we're just going to start seeing win after win after win coming up pretty soon. And we got them where we want them and now we just keep going.

Right. And I think that's the vision, right? It's that, it's that as a movement, while we have short term goals, our vision always has to be long term and quite radical. Radical in the notion of getting to the root of our crisis. And that means a wide swath of reform. We can't be complacent by just winning a gift bag or just winning gerrymandering reform. We have to really attack all of these different issues. And I think that's what, you know, that's why I feel such kinship with you, Michael. I mean, for many reasons, but you know, you recognize that this is a long term fight and we have to win everything. And as we were talking about in the beginning, that requires a leap of faith that that's even possible. But you know, we have to try. There is no alternative. We have to keep pushing for all of these things. And that long term vision, I think is what's going to win. In other words, you and those in March and Harrisburg are committed to seeing this organization and the democracy movement in Pennsylvania thrive for the next decade. And that's how we're going to win. We can't just do a short term battle and then give up and then, you know, you move away. That ultimately we have to engage in both state and federal battles for the long term. And so that gives me my last, gets me to my last question, which is you have a vision for how you would love ideally to scale up march on Harrisburg to other states. How would you do that? What would it look like? What, what is your vision for what a broad state based movement would look like across the country?

Okay, Adam, in the tradition of our conversations, I'm going to answer two questions you didn't ask and move into, into that question. Got it. If that is okay. So first, I mean, we've touched on this throughout, but I just want to name it explicitly in this interview. We have to connect corruption with other issues that affect people's day to day lives. Nobody wakes up in the morning and encounters corruption. They don't wake up in the morning and encounter a lack of democracy. What you encounter is a lack of school funding. You encounter gun violence, pollution and high asthma rates. And Bad health care and all the, you know, in a war economy and constant militarism. And this is what comes out of corruption. This is what comes out of corruption and racism and misogyny and all of these things that keep us from cooperating with each other. And so we have to organize on those fronts as well. So we're a part of the Poor People's campaign, you know, and a huge part of the coordinating team of the Pennsylvania Poor People's Campaign, where we're forming relationships across issues and really trying to build that moral fusion movement that can advance on corruption and democracy. Democracy issues, and simultaneously advance on immigration issues and health care issues and climate issues and all of that. So a key to doing this work is not to stay in our silo. I feel like in the democracy movement, sometimes we have a problem where we're afraid to jump into other issues that might scare us away as controversial or partisan or whatever things we do. But if we stand on those issues from a moral perspective, with a moral footing, organizing, it's okay. You can do moral fusion organizing. There's plenty of representatives in the State House who know that I care a lot about general assistance, a welfare program here in Pennsylvania, but I also care about the gift ban. And they're able to, even if they disagree with me vehemently on general assistance, we can still talk gift ban because we have those relationships. We have that moral platform to operate off of. And another thing that really is key to what March on Harrisburg does, and his key to any expansion in other states, is a willingness to fight. It's a willingness to really dig in. I can't stress this enough. You gotta dig in. You have to be willing to fight here. I live in South Philly, in South Philadelphia, and somebody, a neighbor of mine, was explaining to me the other day what the meaning of going to the mat is. What does it mean to go to the mat? And she said that that phrase comes from. It's a Mafia phrase. Because when there would be wars going on, Mafia wars happening, people who are fighting in those battles, they would go to the mat, meaning they would go to the mattress. And the mattress meant that you were sleeping somewhere else, that you had taken your mattress and you had put it in a factory or in a warehouse or it's somewhere else. You were on the road. You weren't somewhere where people could find you and attack you easily. So when we say going to the Met as March on Harrisburg, we mean, are you willing to live on the road? Are you willing to march 115 miles, are you willing to sit in jail? Are you willing to sacrifice? Are you willing to really be that tenacious and that dug in and that intense? Because that's what it takes to win. That's what it takes to win. You have to go to the mat. You have to be uncomfortable. You have to sacrifice. This might not be a great phrase to toss out on American radio, but something I learned in the Middle east from a Palestinian peace activist. He used to say all the time, this was a nonviolent peace activist. He would say, moderates tend to go away, while extremists tend to go all the way, and we need to be extremists for peace. Right? Moderates tend to go away. Extremists go all the way, and we need to be extremists for peace. We need to be able to wage peace. We need to wage peace with the same scale and ferocity with which we're able to wage war.

Right?

If a country attacked us halfway around the world, we would have half a million soldiers halfway around the world within a few days, ready to dig in for years and years, necessary to fight that fight. We need to approach the democracy fight the same way. We need to have that intensity. We need to be able to dig in and fight. And so what does this look like going to other states? We're ready to expand. We have our manual, you know, we have our tactics all written out from A to Z, how to get this thing up and running from the first meeting through the first set of actions. We can help you out. We can. We can help with consulting. We can get on the phone with you. We can come into your state and do some trainings. We're very happy to do that because we think that our tactics are working. We see the proof that they're working, and we know that there's a need for democracy fights in other states. If people who are listening, we're particularly interested in a few states first, we are not interested in the states where you have a ballot initiative. So about half the country, and it tends to be the newer states, the. The western states in the Southwest and the Northwest have a ballot initiative, which means you can just get a bunch of signatures from voters. It gets on the ballot, they voted into law, that's it. Then the other half of the states, you have to work through a legislature. And that's the type of state Pennsylvania is where we don't get to just vote on legislation. We have to push our legislators to actually legislate. So we are up against the question of how do you convince a corrupt legislature to outlaw their own corruption? Which sounds like an impossible question, which is what we've been talking about the whole time. But we think we have some progress on that. So if you're in a state where you have a corrupt legislature that you have to work through, please reach out to us. Please, please, please get in touch. We're here to help. You know, these are the Southern states, the Mid Atlantic states, a lot of the Northeast. We're here to help elevate, particularly if anyone here is listening from Georgia, love to set up shop in Georgia. There's some problems there. They need the nonviolent looks like. Right.

Well, Michael, I always appreciate talking with you. I hope our listeners did too, that it's, it's not a surprise to me anymore that you've made progress because I think that the, the manner in which you're engaging in this struggle, the, the organizing that you're doing and everyone in March on Harrisburg is doing is, is deep, thorough, long term thinking. And I think, you know, you've sacrificed a lot thus far, but the results have been quite stunning. And so I hope our listeners have enjoyed this conversation. Michael, how can people find March on Harrisburg?

Mohpa.org mohpa.org Follow us on Facebook at Marchon Harrisburg. On Twitter we are @NPacorruption. And on Instagram we're also @NPacorruption. And if you just follow Adam around long enough, you'll follow him back to Pennsylvania. So it's another way to get involved.

Well, I can't wait to figure out when the next time I can head down there is and join you for the next March. I eagerly await having a conversation off record about what next steps are. Michael, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. As always.

Thank you very much for having me. It's always good to talk to you.

This has been another episode of the podcast another way. Thanks so much for joining us. Us.