Jon Ossoff's Fight for Georgia and Democracy

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.

This is Larry Lessig. This is another episode of the podcast Another Way. In this season, we're focusing on the the congressional candidates and we'll be talking to members of the press who are bringing about a recognition of the need for fundamental reform of our corrupted system. People who've committed to making this happen and who have made this a central part of their campaign. And I'm honored today to be able to talk to one of the most exciting proponents of reform in this current election season, Jon Ossoff, who is running for Senate in in Georgia against an incumbent who is not an anti corruption incumbent. John Ossif is running against David Perdue, who is a Republican and who is a difficult person to beat. But the latest polls show Jon Ossif within striking distance. And if John can succeed in defeating Perdue, that would be one of the surprises that would almost make certain that the control of the Senate is no longer in Mitch McConnell's hands, whether Mitch McConnell remains in Washington or not. Now, listeners to this podcast know, I believe one of the most important changes that we need is to remove the dark Lord from the control of the United States Senate. And so Ossif is one step in that direction. Jon Ossif is relatively young. He comes from or was born in Atlanta. He served for a while as a congressional staffer and then in 2017 he ran in a special election to become Georgia's congressperson from the 6th congressional district. It was the most expensive congressional election. And the as you'll hear, the election was funded in two radically different ways depending on which side you looked at. On the one hand, on John Ossif's side there was a massive number of small dollar funders and on the Republican side there was a small number of very large super PACs who stepped in to defend and protect the position controlled by the Republicans. Asif has been a managing partner of Insight twi, and that's a company that works to spread documentaries about corruption in foreign countries, producing films about a kind of corruption which is different from the corruption of Washington but obviously related, including films about ISIS war crimes, death squads in East Africa. Jon Ossoff, I'm so grateful you would join us. Fighting corruption is my job. That's the slogan. And it's the slogan that excites me more than anything because I've spent 12 years thinking that getting a Congress that would fight corruption is the job of people trying to change politics. So tell us a little bit about how you came to that. What is it that convinced you that's the way to think about persuading people in Georgia to support you in this challenge of an incumbent senator.

Larry, thank you so much for having me. And my passion is fighting corruption, exposing corruption, investigating corruption. I run a 30 year old media production company called Insight TWI, which produces investigations of corruption, organized crime and war crimes for international news organizations. So to give you an idea of the kind of work we've done in the last few years, we've produced undercover investigations of judicial corruption, of atrocities committed by peacekeeping troops, of human trafficking, death squads, quack doctors, money laundering, war crimes committed by ISIS in northern Iraq, and we specialize in the production of undercover anti corruption and anti organized crimes investigations. And you know, I reflect often, Larry, on the risks that our brave reporters and producers take, often undercover to expose criminality and corruption while in American politics today, you don't need to go undercover to expose corruption. It is hiding in plain sight. And I think that when we talk about corruption, folks often associate that with overt criminality. But what we have in the American political system is legalized and normalized corruption, such that the pay to play nature of our campaign finance system and the way access and power are purchased, we're numb to it because we've actually legalized it.

Yeah. So you had an extraordinary experience in running for Congress, one of the most expensive races running for Congress. I mean, you've obviously been fighting corruption for a long time, but was there something in that experience in particular that made you think that this is the way to focus Georgia voters on what has to happen in Washington?

Well, that experience was remarkable. I mean, it became the most expensive US House race of all, all time in 2017. And the story of that race was a, an army of small dollar grassroots donors, nearly half a million people who contributed to my campaign. I think the average donation was like 21 bucks up against basically four or five GOP super PACs, mostly funded in secret and in unlimited amounts. And, and that was such a juxtaposition, you know, that was, it was an example of how ordinary people banding together can generate the kind of power necessary to counter that dark money. But. And it was a remarkable contrast. But I think the reason that the anti corruption message is breaking through in Georgia is, first of all, it's just true. And everyone knows it, you know, and it doesn't matter your political party, everyone knows the system is rotten. And the key thing is to make sure that I'm explaining how it affects our daily lives, that the outrageous prices of medicine, that the Difficulty accessing health care, the way health insurance companies abuse us, the way polluters are unleashed to destroy our clean air and our clean water, the way the private prison system has infiltrated criminal justice in America. All of this is driven by corruption. And I think it helps break us out of the sort of partisanship of the daily political argument to focus on systemic problems.

Yeah, and what we know from polling is that people on the right as firmly as people on the left, recognize this kind of corruption. And they think that that explains why Congress doesn't work. They believe that Congress is deeply dysfunctional because they can spend no time except time making sure their funders are happy. So I think what's encouraging about the way you're talking about this is it's not just criminals. In fact, there are very few criminals in Congress. It's just ordinary people trying to be a congressperson or a senator who live in a system where the only way they can do it do that is to bend over backwards to keep special interests happy and to make sure that special interests don't set up a super PAC against them.

Yeah, the system incentivizes corrupt behavior, essentially. And post Citizens United, all of these incumbent members of Congress are, you know, constantly have the sword of Damocles dangling there that at any moment some shadowy outside group, funded by whichever interest group or industry or ultra high net worth individual a politician has offended, will come in and spend limitless amounts, you know, slandering that elected official on the airwaves in their home media market. And, you know, it's just out of control. And I think you're absolutely right. It cuts through partisanship. In fact, it's, I think, one of our greatest opportunities to rebuild common ground and shared purpose in this country. In a political atmosphere that's been so destroyed by partisanship, we really can build a, a bipartisan and cross ideological coalition committed to reform, reform of a corrupt system rather than just opposition to the other party.

So I've been saying that as an academic, you've been saying it as a politician or a person trying to get elected into a political system. What has your experience been as you've been out there? And I mean, obviously Covid restricts the ability for you to be out there, but as you've encountered ordinary people who are trying to understand why they should vote for you for Senate as opposed to the incumbent.

Well, I think that ordinary people get it. It's common knowledge and common sense that the United States federal government does not serve the public interest. It serves narrow private interests who can afford access and who can dispatch legions of lobbyists and dump money into electoral politics. And what I found is that we're building support across the state and supporters are coming from all walks of life, all regions, urban, suburban, rural areas. Longtime lifelong Republicans, lifelong Democrats, lifelong independents. Because I'm speaking so consistently and so plain spokenly about what everyone knows to be true, but so few acknowledge in public, which includes, by the way, Larry, acknowledging that this taints both political parties. It's a systemic problem and it's why government doesn't work for ordinary people and it's why the public interest isn't served by public policy.

Okay, so what's striking about the way you've done this is you're right. I mean, I've looked at your ads and you are incredibly consistent. The slogan is a powerful one. Fighting corruption is my job. But frankly, you're not very specific about what we're going to do about it. I mean, you yourself have adopted the principle you're not going to take corporate PAC money, which people can argue about whether that's effective or not. But when you. If you could imagine what changes there would be, assuming we're not going to get a Supreme Court that reverses Citizens United tomorrow, what changes do you think we can adopt? Like, what could we do in 2021 that makes it so that in 2022 we're not facing the same kind of corrupt system in the way politics gets run?

Well, Larry, first I want to just respectfully push back a little bit on the idea that I'm not offering in our campaigns, advertising and outreach already some specific and actionable points. I mean, we're running ads in Georgia talking about banning corporate PACs, banning dark money from politics. I'm not sure how many federal campaigns there are in the country the last few years. I'm sure a few that have made those centerpieces of their campaign platforms and also have linked those initiatives to how we can do real good for people in their daily lives. Lowering drug prices, cracking down on abuses by insurance companies that are a thorn in the side of so many families. But expanding the conversation since we have the time and the space in a podcast format to do that. First of all, I think we need to lower the cap on individual contributions to federal campaigns. I think we should ban corporate pacts altogether. I think we need either a constitutional amendment or a Supreme Court composed such that Citizens United is overturned. Obviously that's a heavy lift and a long term project, but we can't lose sight of it because it's One of the most destructive Supreme Court decisions in the history of our republic. We need to truly and finally close the revolving door. And by that I mean no senior executive branch appointments for folks who have been lobbying, no lobbying for former members of Congress, no honoraria for sitting members of Congress. You know, we have right now, what is the EPA is run by a formal coal lobbyist. DOD is run by a former Raytheon lobbyist. And on and on and on. It's so blatant. And at the same time, you know, this sort of broader anti corruption pro democracy agenda also needs to expand voting rights and enhance the power of ordinary people and individuals to influence the outcomes of elections that determine who represents them. That means a real effort to reform the redistricting process so that nonpartisan commissions draw district lines so that representation reflects the true composition of of states and congressional districts. That means a new Voting Rights act to ensure that it's a federal crime for state or local election authorities to maliciously abuse their power to disenfranchise their own citizens. I mean, I could go on, I want to hear from you what else you'd like to discuss. But there's legislative initiatives that can and should swiftly be passed. And then there's those longer term campaigns like overturning Citizens United. But one of the reasons I'm optimistic we can get that done is when you think about the Citizens United decision, dark money in politics, unlimited secret spending, who's for it? I mean, we go ask someone on the street, hey, do you think that corporations should be able to spend limitless amounts in secret on politics? No one's for it. We just need the organization and resources to mount a national campaign to generate the public will necessary to do something about it.

Yeah, but what I mean is striking about your strategy is you're as consistent in talking and in your ads about this issue as anybody. But your webpage, for example, doesn't have a corruption issue page. There isn't like here's the five things I'm going to do around corruption. Or at least the page that I'm looking at lists a bunch of issues, but not this one. And what's striking about your enumeration of the particular issues is you're not talking about what is probably the hardest one to talk about and in my view the most important to have, which is the core of HR1, public funding for congressional campaigns. And so I wonder, in your experience, you know, you're an experienced politician, how you find talking about that issue helps or hurts the cause of getting people to understand what we can do to address corruption.

I don't think it's top of mind for, for a lot of voters. And I think that the challenge that advocates of public financing have to overcome is skepticism about the use of taxpayer dollars for electioneering communications. And I think that one of the things that HR1 does brilliantly is that it's fees and fines assessed from corporate bad actors that go into a pool of resources to help match small dollar contributions. And I think that that's brilliant policy and I'm a strong supporter of HR1.

So you agree HR1 should be one of the first things that Nancy Pelosi brings in the House. And if you're in the Senate, if you're in the Senate, then there's very high chance that that means the Democrats control the Senate. And Chuck Schumer should pick that up as well and give it to Joe Biden to sign.

On day one. On day one, and you know, within minutes of being sworn in, should I be elected, I'll be a co sponsor of the Senate Companion bill.

Excellent. Now, the one issue that is inside that bill that has, you know, in the 26, 2020 presidential campaign become quite, quite engaged on is like, what kind of public funding makes sense. I mean, I agree with you. It's important to emphasize where the money comes from. But the standard formula of HR1 is matching funds. So if you're willing to give $100, it's worth $700 to a campaign. But first with Andrew Yang and then with Kirsten Gillibrand and then finally with Bernie, presidential campaigns came around to recognizing that maybe the Seattle model is a better way of addressing it, which is basically to give vouchers to everybody. And the way I like to talk about that is, look, it's your money that the government has, so let's rebate a voucher to you. The first hundred dollars in taxes you spend come back to you in a voucher, and you can use that to help fund campaigns. So you can take tear off. Like in Seattle, they have coupons. You basically tear it off and you give it to a campaign. And so therefore everybody has an easy ability to help fund campaigns. Not just that 3% who feel they have the money to write a check for $100 to a campaign for Senate or president or anything like that. I wonder, is that a debate that you feel like you've thought about or something that you have a strong feeling about, or should we. Do you agree we should be thinking more about experiments to see whether vouchers are a Better model for engaging people and how we fund these campaigns.

Well, I'm all for experimentation with policy, and I know that's been implemented at the municipal level in a few places. I also tend to favor simplicity in public policy, particularly if it's going to be implemented at vast scale, such as federal campaign finance and election law. And truthfully, Larry, I need a lot more information about what the implications of that have been, where it's been tested, how it would be rolled out nationally, whether it could really be done effectively in order to take a position one way or the other on some specific legislation. I think that the, the principle is that the campaign finance system should reflect the same values as one person, one vote. Money should not yield political power. And I don't think there's a silver bullet policy here. I think there's probably 10 different ways we could talk about campaign finance reform, all of which. And all of which in some combination would help us reduce the extent to which now it's so transactional and there's such a direct link between financial power and political power as it has always been, but now to such a dramatic extent because of the corruption of our campaign finance system. So open to having a conversation about a voucher system. Certainly a supporter of the matching funds system that's outlined in HR1. And looking forward, Larry, in the Senate to getting into the nitty gritty on this and leading on it in a way that's informed by robust research and analysis and leading experts and looking around the world at what has worked elsewhere.

Yeah, because so John Sarbanes has been really great about including NHR1, a test pilot around vouchers. But I think the reason to anticipate this debate is really important because people on our side, not people opposed to well functioning representative democracy, but people who support it, are increasingly developing an argument against matching fund public funding. And the argument is basically Ezra Klein makes this argument that small dollar campaigns are more polarized campaigns, that the people who are willing to give money are people at the extreme of either the left or the right. And matching fund systems just amplify that polarization. And I think it's important to get ahead of that debate because the one kind of public funding that could dampen down this polarizing effect is the public funding of vouchers, where you, you know, if I've got the money and I can't do anything else with it, why not figure out which of the campaigns I ought to be giving it to? Just like I figure out who's gonna get my vote and So I think that encouraging that might be a way to foreclose, you know, the resistance to this fundamental change that we can see brewing already. And obviously the lobbyists are looking for the best excuse they have to convince Democrats not to do what Democrats have promised to do.

So I think that Ezra's critique is valid and, you know, it is the case, and we see this in particular on, you know, the Trump campaign, that sometimes the most inflammatory communications are what generate the most, you know, small dollar support, because it's a sort of die hard partisans who maybe are most subscribed and tuned in. I think that Ezra's critique is valid. However, I don't think that that is the principle or even one of probably the top 10 drivers of political polarization in America and in the campaign finance system. It's the correlation between resources and political power that's the fundamental problem that's perverting the policy making process in the electoral system so that politicians aren't incentivized to serve the public, they're incentivized to serve their donors. And all of the discussion and discourse on this is healthy and good. But I am confident that reducing individual giving limits, getting dark money and corporate PAC money out of a system, and providing some matching funds for small dollar donors is a step in a better direction than what we have now.

Yeah, you're certainly right about that. And it's great to see that you're talking about the other reforms too, which I think are essential. And I want to talk about one that's particular to Georgia, and that's the reforms that end the suppression of the vote. Now, the thing that's puzzling to me is, you know, I. A lot of family that lived in Georgia live in Georgia. I've known a lot of Georgians. And so, and I, you know, have no reason to doubt the integrity or the good faith of Georgians. But the process that we see for suppressing the vote seems so in plain sight, as you put it, when we are referring to the corruption of the political funding system. And I just, you know, you know something about why this is. Why is it or how is it that somebody can go to bed at night and sleep knowing that what they're trying to do is to make it hard for people to participate? Like, what is the justification for it other than the crass partisan justification that obviously we see ruling in the question of whether Donald Trump will get to appoint a Supreme Court justice?

There is no ethical justification for it. It's simply the ruthless exercise of power for partisan ends. And while it is shocking, it should not shock us that it continues because it's not new. And it manifests in many ways, ranging from legislation that's deliberately intended to disenfranchise and to empower state executive branch authorities to implement those statutes in a maximalist way that has partisan effects that everyone is aware of. We've seen. And, you know, this was. It was a North Carolina case, but, you know, US Appellate court talking about how black voters are targeted with surgical precision. This is, you know, I think it's William Barber, who has rightly called us Jim Crow, esquire. This is continuity from the last five or six decades. This is continuity from the last three or four centuries. And having lost Congressman Lewis this year in Georgia, and to reflect upon the fact that it was 55 years ago he had his skull fractured leading a march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge demanding voting rights, and still we haven't secured the right to vote in the South. It's a travesty. And that is why the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice needs to be empowered by a new Voting Rights act, not just to restore the preclearance provisions that were struck down in the Shelby county decision, but also to bring criminal prosecution where it can be demonstrated that a state election official has maliciously used their power to disenfranchise their own citizens. The other part of the puzzle is what I would refer to as malign neglect of county election authorities who lack the resources, expertise, manpower, and in many cases will, to ensure that there's sufficient capacity at polling places. Which is why we see these five, seven, nine hour lines or the total incapacity that we've seen in the sort of processing of some absentee ballot applications. And, you know, that has this grotesque effect of disenfranchising tens of thousands.

So we saw in the Stacey Abrams race a really astonishing level of suppression. And obviously, you know, it's plausible she clearly would have won if there weren't. That suppression give us a reason to be hopeful in 2020, we're not going to see a repeat in Georgia, not just with your race, but also in the presidential race.

Well, in Georgia today, there are more resources, more legal expertise, more legal firepower, more effective efforts by voting rights and civil rights groups, more litigation by the Democratic Party, more public awareness of the threats to the franchise, which empowers people to protect their own voting rights and educate themselves. More press scrutiny on this than ever before. It's not a question of completely solving the problem, because, as I said, it takes many forms. It's a question of mitigation and focusing those mitigation efforts where they have the highest impact. Because in a game of inches, this death by a thousand cuts, voter suppression by these various techniques can be decisive. And what gives me confidence is that first of all, there is all of this effort, effective effort, well resourced effort, effort informed by expertise to mitigate this problem. And second of all, what we've seen, and this is really where Stacey Abrams led a paradigm shift. What we recognize now is that when people are informed that someone is trying to take away their sacred, hard fought voting rights, they are just galvanized in their determination to exercise them. And that's why we're seeing record shattering turnout in Georgia in this year's primary in June. And I know everyone listening saw the appalling images of lines around the block and the horror stories of people waiting six. I waited five hours to vote. Despite all of that, 1.2 million Democratic primary voters cast their ballots. That is double two years ago when it was about 550,000. It's almost quadruple 2016 when it was 300 something thousand. So by effectively mitigating these efforts, by consistently ensuring that there's pressure and scrutiny and journalism, and before we run out of time, I want to talk about where I think journalism comes into this broader discussion. By applying pressure, by shining a light on it, by effectively litigating, and by continuing our organizing and turnout efforts, we can overcome it.

Well, you've given me the time you promised and I'm grateful for it, but I'd love to hear your view on where journalism should go.

Well, I think that this is, you know, we were talking about polarization and we're talking about corruption and our underinvestment in this country in independent public interest journalism and public media has contributed to the growth of corruption and the political polarization as sources of information are increasingly partisan and where the fiduciary obligation to the shareholder overrides the journalistic obligation to the truth and the public interest. And you know, a well functioning democracy requires that the electorate has access to the truth to understand what's really happening in our country and in our world, to understand how power really operates in our politics, our society and our economy. And that is why we need a renewed effort in this country to ensure that there is robust, independent public interest journalism that is accountable to the truth and the people and not just to the shareholder, where sensationalism and partisanship means that sometimes media are not incentivized to play it straight.

Yeah, I Agree. I mean, when we live in a world where the business model of media is to break democracy, it is no surprise that democracy doesn't work. And I fear that you're right, both at cable and also in the Internet platform space. Like the incentives are to turn us into crazy tribal members who hate the other side.

And that's where, that's where, you know, and it was as you mentioned, Ezra Klein's critique of matching funds for small dollar donors. I mean that's like where I think we've really seen that dynamic that he's identifying as a risk on campaign finance reform play out is on cables.

Yes.

And it's not just Fox.

No, that's right. You can see the splits, the partisan split in cable. You can see the effect on the news feed and Facebook. You see all of these places where we're turned into these tribal crazies. And I don't know how we fight back about that against that. Jon Ossif, I'm grateful for your time. I wish you luck in spreading this message because I with you think we don't have a democracy until we find a way to fight this corruption and more people like you or a couple more people like you in the United States Senate. And we'll have a real shot in doing it in 2021. So good luck in your campaign.

Thank you, Larry. Thank you for your scholarship and your advocacy. And folks listening. Electjohn electjohn.com in fact, we're rolling out some more on our anti corruption policies in the next few days. So grateful for the time and be well.

Thank you. Thanks very much. That's my interview with Jon Ossoff. What's striking about his views, I think is the practicality of using this message to win an election. I pushed him a little bit on how transparent his website is about the particular solutions we all know we need, in particular public funding. And it's hard, he recognizes, to get people to see that public funding is something other than the slogan the Republicans use, welfare for politicians. And it's something about empowering ordinary citizens. And so I think we have a lot to learn from the strategy he's deploying to get people into the cause of fighting this corruption in a way that makes it possible for that cause to win. Clearly this is a incredibly well read and sophisticated candidate who is within striking distance of an extraordinary upset in the red state of Georgia, which after Stacey Abrams very close call and a victory here we would have to at least call an increasingly purple state in the American firmament. Thank you so much for listening. Please stay tuned for the next in this series of interviews with people who want to make a difference in the fight against corruption in Washington. I'm Larry Lessig. These podcasts are produced by EqualCitizens US. You can find us on the web at EqualCitizens US and find these podcasts at EqualCitizens US. Anotherway. Please share these podcasts or this series because we need to get more into the movement that recognizes the movement that would make this reform possible. I am so hopeful that a year from now we can say we elected a Congress and a president committed to making reform happen, and it happened in the first hundred days of 2021. Jon Ossoff has committed to that in the Senate and we have a president who's committed to that in his campaign and we have Nancy Pelosi who has committed to make it happen in the new version of HR1. Stay tuned for more good news, let's hope, and for an election that makes everything possible. Thanks very much,

Sam.