Mondaire Jones on Reforming Democracy From Congress

This is Larry Lessig, and today we launch what we're calling the fourth season. Who knows what seasons are here, really, in a podcast world, but the fourth season of the podcast another way. Our third season was focused on the presidential campaign. We, working with groups like Represent Us and Citizens United, were trying desperately to get every major candidate to pledge to fundamental reform, reform that they would promise to introduce and pass within the first hundred days of their administration. In this season, we're going to continue to focus on fundamental reform, but we focus on it in light of the success that we have to recognize that has occurred in the presidential fight. Not success that I take credit for. We take credit for alone. There are so many people who've been pushing this movement, but we had a part of it called the Post One Project, which was a riff off of HR1. HR1 was the incredible package of fundamental reform which Nancy Pelosi promised to pass if the Democrats took control of the House, and she did pass. And that reform would have public funding for congressional elections. It would have gerrymandering reform. It would have a promise to restore the Voting Rights act, and it had fundamental ethics reform packaged together. The leader of that whole effort, John Sarbanes, had been fighting for a decade to make it possible for Congress to pass that reform. And the first action of the last Congress was to enact that reform. That was incredible success. And we decided to take that idea and leverage it into a campaign in the presidential campaign. And every major candidate committed to fundamental reform in the first hundred days, including finally after the campaign for the Democratic nomination was effectively over. Joe Biden, who with Let America Vote and End Citizens United, announced that he too, would promise to push HR1 like reform in the first hundred days in office. This is a huge victory, a huge victory. When I tried to become a candidate in 2016 by making fundamental reform the first priority. Because I believe that unless we got the country to recognize why this reform was so essential that nothing else could happen. Most thought it was just a crazy idea, or at least me being a candidate was a crazy idea. That. That issue, I was told that issue, that issue could never be an election priority. It just never could be. Because Americans don't care about process. They care about substance. But it turns out that skepticism wasn't entirely correct. Because in 2020, basically everyone, except, of course, the president, has committed to fundamental reform. Or in Trump speak, we could say everyone except Donald Trump, has committed to draining the swamp. A swamp, of course, which is much thicker and deeper now, four years into this administration. But that was the fight for the presidency, and we're declaring victory and moving on. In this season, we're going to focus on fundamental reform, but this time through the eyes of the two other critical branches that we need if we're going to achieve that reform, Congress. And no, I don't want to talk about the judiciary. I want to talk about the other branch as the fourth branch, the media for Congress. We're going to speak to candidates who've made reform a priority in their campaign, not just candidates who've checked off the right box. We're seeing many of those, and we're excited about that because, of course, the important thing is on day one to get this legislation passed. But we want to talk to candidates who speak about reform as essential to making it possible to achieve anything else, people who get the idea that this is not necessarily the most important issue, but that it is the first issue, the issue we have to succeed in rectifying or passing legislation to address if we're going to achieve any of the other important reforms or changes that we want. We want to hear them describe how they came to that recognition and how they plan to convince voters that that recognition is right and that they need to support candidates who commit to fundamental reform if they care, if they want, if they believe that anything else is going to be possible. We also eventually want to talk to the media because the depressing part to the POTUS one story is not the resistance we got from candidates. It was really astonishing to see how quickly every one of those candidates came around to recognizing that if they didn't get fundamental reform, nothing else was going to happen. The candidates got it. What was so depressing was the media, because of course, in the debates that we saw for the Democratic nomination for president, we had basically one question that talked about Democratic reform. Here we had a field of candidates who were talking about reform as fundamental, but the media couldn't even mention it, couldn't even raise it, couldn't even talk about it, Thought of it as a completely irrelevant issue, like what color will the wallpaper be in the Teddy Roosevelt Room in the White House? We want to talk to the media and try to understand why they don't get it, why they don't see this as essential, or at least talk about it as essential, so that the public recognizes why it's essential and can begin to pick candidates on the basis of who's going to get it right. So that's our plan. No doubt there will be special episodes that don't quite fit in this. Reformers season. But if you want to hear how reform will happen, if you want to hear how it's going to be possible for reform to happen, you've turned to the right season of the Right podcast. Okay. Our first candidate in this season is an extraordinary person. He's a Democrat running in the Democratic primary in the 17th district of New York. He's running in a district that is currently represented by a woman, a leader in Congress who first went to Congress before the Berlin Wall fell. Congressman Nita Lowy. The district is in the suburbs of New York City. You'll hear it's a district which has had most of the political power in Rockland, I'm sorry, in Westchester. But it also includes parts of Rockland county, which is a much less wealthy part of the suburbs around New York City. The district is 60% whites, 98% urban, median income $100,000. Our candidate today is not white. He grew up never making $100,000 a year. He does come from the city, but he's openly gay candidates indeed, he would be the first openly gay African American elected to Congress. Mondaire Jones mondaire is a 33 year old former litigator in the Westchester County Law Department and former Department of Justice staffer in the Obama administration. He's a resident of South Nyack, a product of East Ramapo. He's raised in Section 8 housing, which is housing that's supported by the federal government to guarantee access to housing, and grew up on food stamps and a family supported in part by food stamps in the village of Spring Valley by a mother who was a single mother who still needed to work multiple jobs to provide for their family. It's an extraordinary background which then he changed that trajectory by moving west, far west. He got into Stanford University and then to the Harvard Law School. He was here when I was teaching, since I've been teaching at Harvard, though I didn't know him when he was a law student here. He's a co founder of the nonprofit Rising Leaders, previously served on the NAACP's National Board of Directors and on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union. So you're going to hear, not surprisingly, Mondaire is a progressive. His campaign describes him as one fighting for bold solutions to the biggest problems. A green New Deal, Medicare for all tuition, free public college and college debt forgiveness, a restoration of the salt deduction for families in Rockland and and Westchester. Those, of course, are important issues. They are issues that are close to my own heart. But the reason why it's important for us to Talk to him is not necessarily the particular issues he would fight for. It's because of the issue he's fighting for that would make those other issues and solutions possible. And that's to fight to change the corrupting influence of money inside of this democracy. He's in the middle of a very big primary battle. An open seat inspires lots of candidates. So there are eight candidates. You'll hear who he's running against. But though he's running in a primary, he has inspired many to step up who usually would not step up. And we'll hear a little bit about those endorsements in the course of this interview. So with that, let's turn to Mondaire. So, Montair Jones, thank you so much for being the first candidate we interview in this new series focused on reformers. So tell us a little bit about how you thought you would be able to run for Congress. You're just about 33 years old right now. How did you think you'd be able to run for Congress in a district like the district you're in right now?

Yeah. Professor, thank you for the opportunity to interview with you. When I was growing up, I never imagined that somebody like me could be in Congress. You know, I grew up poor, black and gay, in a working class community. And I was raised by a young single mom who still had to work multiple jobs, by the way, to be able to provide for our family. And in fact, there's never been an openly gay black member of Congress in the 244 year history of the United States. So it was only in recent years when I have made the observation that a number of folks in our political process are not waiting their turns. They're not waiting for some local Democratic committee to authorize them to run for anything. Instead, they're giving voters a choice. And in this case, it is a choice. For the first time in 31 years, my member of Congress, Congresswoman Nita Lowey, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, took office in January of 1989.

Yeah, it's a little striking to imagine somebody who went to Congress before the Berlin Wall fell, but she's now stepped down. And this is an open seat that you're going to run. The district is an interesting district. It's in Westchester County. 60% white, 98% urban, median income $100,000. You're not white. I take it you've never made $100,000 a year.

I will say there was. There was a period when I was a corporate lawyer.

Oh, that's the saving grace here, right I mean you obviously, as I've described in the introduction, you've been trained as a lawyer, you've had an incredible education. You got into Stanford and Harvard. I didn't get into either. So I'm a great admirer of your success here. But you spent most of your life not in the median normal place for the people inside your district. So this is a quite, quite a striking statement to take on and try to become the candidate here. And candidate, the obvious open primary is going to attract lots of other people who are running against you. Tell us a little bit about who those people are.

Since Thursday October 10th, which is when Congresswoman Loey announced her retirement, this has become a very crowded race. We had thought that in advance of the June 23 Democratic primary in this safely blue district that a number of folks would have dropped off, so to speak, that they would not have qualified for the ballot. But in the midst of COVID Governor Cuomo, understandably, and I think this was the right call, reduced the threshold of signatures required to appear on the ballot. And so there will still be eight people whose names appear on the ballot on June 23. My primary opponent, no pun intended, is a state senator named David Carlucci, who was part of a group of rogue Democrats who broke away from the Democratic Conference in the state Senate in New York and caucused instead with Republicans in exchange for committee chairmanships and stipends. They call themselves the Independent Democratic Conference. Six of the eight of those members were defeated in their 2018 primary challenges, but mine narrowly survived and now he wants a promotion to Congress. I also have a billionaire's son. He is self funding many millions of dollars to purchase this congressional seat. And you can at a minimum have near universal name ID when you spend that kind of money. He's been on television 14 weeks out from the primary, which is extraordinary to be spending over $100,000 a week leading up to the June 23rd primary. But I'm really proud to have out fundraised even without accepting corporate PAC money and even without self funding. I couldn't do it if I wanted to, frankly. The vast majority of the field, and we are doing that with 80% of our contributions having come from so called small dollar contributors, folks who contribute at the $200 or less or lower level.

And these people are from all across the country or are they primarily inside your district?

The son of the billionaire moved back from Los Angeles to Chappaqua just a few months ago and there was an article saying that he wasn't even registered to vote. At the time he declared his candidacy for Congress?

No. So that's interesting. I had realized that about the opponents, but I mean, you're donors, so that's extraordinary to be able to claim that kind of success in fundraising. I know you've been, you know, wildly successful in getting people excited outside of the district. I take it even Elizabeth Warren and Congresswoman Presley have endorsed you even in the face of a primaries, which is an extraordinary thing. But so the money you've raised, has it come from all across the country or has it been primarily inside the district?

It has been largely within the district, but it has come from all across the country. My, the contributions that I am most excited about are the $5 contributions from the Pizza Hut delivery driver in California or Wisconsin or Ohio. I mean, that is so meaningful to me because I know that for them that $5 is likely more significant as a percentage of their budget than the $2800 max out donation from someone who is wealthy and who is taking an interest in my campaign.

Yeah, I mean, and it's of course incredibly important to get those $5 contributions if you're going to build excitement inside the district about your campaign. This is the dynamic that people like Congressman Sarbanes has been pushing and when in his efforts to push small dollar funding that when you raise small contributions, but you also raise as an army of people who wanna make sure that you succeed. So that's gonna be essential in your game to win. But then how is the game gonna play? So what is the primary status? What will happen to actually collect votes to determine which of you is gonna be the nominee?

In the midst of COVID Governor Cuomo used his emergency powers to allow for no excuse absentee voting. It's not nearly the same as automatic vote by mail. Folks are going to receive an absentee ballot request form, postage prepaid, which they are then having to submit. In turn, they will receive a ballot that they can then cast by mail. So it is still a multi step procedure. And the reason we don't have automatic vote by mail in part is because there is this peculiarity in the New York State Constitution that makes it debatable at best whether we can do automatic vote by mail without changing the Constitution.

Yeah, so from the state level, that's certainly a question in many states. But this is actually why Congress needs to step up and exercise its power under the Constitution to guarantee automatic vote by mail for at least members of Congress, which Congress plainly has that power. It's a real disaster that the Democrats haven't succeeded in making this the critical point of agreements if they're gonna have any success in the fall. But then. So this means your campaign is gonna have to assure that your potential supporters have received this option to vote by mail and then have mailed that in and then gotten their ballots and then processed their ballots. It's a lot of steps you're going to have to take.

It is. It is. It is quite an undertaking. Now, I should also say that folks will still, as of now, have the option of going in person and casting their vote. And we also have early voting as of last year. But there are a lot of people who feel uncomfortable going in person, as you might imagine. And so if they don't vote by mail, they're not going to vote at all. And that is what we are trying to account for as we, as we implement our strategy. Our mail strategy involves looking at the folks who have requested absentee ballots and incorporating them into our original universe of people who are likely to vote. And also, so you're going to get

real time information about who's actually requested the ballots and who hasn't requested the ballots.

On a weekly basis, the Westchester County Board of Elections and the Rockland County Board of Elections will disseminate to the campaigns the list of names of people who have requested absentee ballots.

So that's an opportunity because obviously you can go into districts where you know you have support and make sure that those people have actually made the request that's necessary here.

And in my case, we are competing for every vote out there. So literally, anyone who requests an absentee ballot is going to get mailed from me.

Yeah. Okay, so. But what made you interesting to us, or interesting for this season of our podcast is not all the extraordinary things we've talked about so far. Your incredible career, your passion for leadership, your ability to rally, really an extraordinary range of people across the country to your cause. But what drew me to you is something that I read on your website. So your website says, for our entire lives, the government has served the interests of corporations and the super rich at the expense of working people. And then you say, until we fix the root of the problem, nothing else worthwhile will get done. So tell me about that root. What is the root here?

The root is the influence of the super rich and corporations in our politics. It is, as you well know from the extraordinary work that you yourself have done as an academic, an extraordinary amount of influence. It is an outsized influence. It is an influence that is aided and abetted by a system of campaign Finance. That makes no sense if you want us to be as small d Democratic as we possibly can in what is supposed to be a democracy, the United States of America. And I see it now in my own primary where certain of my opponents have already taken money from corporations, which is unusual, frankly, because most corporations tend not to want to play in primaries. They typically don't want to offend somebody. They don't want to be on the wrong side of the whoever gets elected to Congress. And I see it in the reporting has indicated as much influencing the kind of votes that they take if they are state legislators, as two of my rivals are in this race. And so we have to root out that cause. And so much of the stuff that we are talking about, the kind of big bold policy solutions that I advocate as a progressive minded person cannot be implemented if we continue to have people in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, who are beholden to corporations.

So tell me how that beholdenness gets built. Like what is the dynamic that you've seen or that you understand happens that make it so that someone who's taking money from the oil companies just can't think beyond the oil companies.

Let's start with the process of fundraising under our campaign finance system. I am really good at fundraising, but I hate it. I spend 90% of my day on the phone dialing for dollars.

Wow.

And that does not stop when you get elected to Congress. I remember speaking to a member of Congress who was literally on his way to do call time. He's a freshman member of Congress, but of course senior members of Congress do call time throughout the day. It is, I think, something that is surprising to the average American, but it is a real thing. And when you're having these conversations, as I do, you can imagine that the people who are able to give generously to you are folks who are not having the same conversations with you that the essential worker, let's say, is having. I get a lot of pushback on Medicare for all, student debt forgiveness. How are you going to pay for a Green New Deal? Which from my perspective if we don't do we pay for with our lives. But you know, that's the kind of resistance. But these are policies that are very popular among the American people. And so there is this distortion now where the people who you are spending most of your day talking to, people who are funding your campaign are. There is a real risk having an influence over you that is disproportionate and out of line with the median American view on any number of policy issues. Because if you don't theoretically meet them where they are in terms of your own policies, you won't be viable in an election for Congress.

So many people say that they're able as they spends, you know, for my work, I found just people doing 30 to 70%. It's, you know, a little bit terrifying 10 years later to see that it's climbed to 90%. But there are many people who say, look, I understand that what they want, I understand what they believe I should do, but I can be independent of that. I don't have to do what they say and I can make my own decision without fearing that, you know, I'm going to lose a thousand dollar contribution from some realtor in, in the suburbs. So what would you say to that person? Why is that not true?

It's not true because we have a finite period of time to intake information. And if we are largely only hearing from people who have the same view, but happens to be a view that is not a mainstream view, that is not representative of the people you represent, you're seeking to represent, or that you actually represent, or the American people generally, then you are going to slowly but surely make compromises and adjustments to the way you think about things. Because again, your time is limited in terms of, in terms of the information that you can intake and the people with whom you interact. And so if you were spending the vast majority of your time interacting with people who are hostile to these ideas that are popular with the American people, and that frankly would be beneficial to the American people broadly, then you are not going to be as effective a champion. In fact, you're not going to be as willing a champion for those kinds of policy proposals.

So is that because the people are corrupt or because they're human? Is this like because they are lying about what they're doing or is it they're just lying to themselves about what they can do?

I think it is mostly that people are human. There's quite a bit of corruption as well. But I think the average person doesn't see what's happening before it starts happening. Right. So are you going to, with finite time, spend an hour on the phone talking to the person who can only give you $100 when you're trying to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars in an FEC quarter? Or are you gonna spend time having those substantive discussions with someone who's gonna give you a $2800 max out check? Or if you're taking corporate PAC money, which I'm not, a $5,000 max out check. And those are the meetings that you're gonna take as a member of Congress when you get elected. And of course, there's no guarantee that you're gonna vote the way these people want you to vote for. But it is to say that if you're only meeting with one kind of person, then that person is going to have disproportionate influence over the way you think about things. The kind of information that you obtain, the anecdotal evidence that is presented to you, and before you know it, you are shifting your views in a way that I think is not representative of the American people's views.

Yeah, I think that's incredibly important to recognize how it is just the natural psychological reaction to people doing you favors that you begin to bend in the direction of the people who do you favors. If you didn't, you'd be pathological. That would be. You know, we'd be worried about you if you didn't have that reaction, because that's what every normal human does. But there's another dimension to it, too. So I sort of tell the story of imagining a congresswoman who cares deeply about single moms who need support so that they can work, childcare support, and also who cares about copyright, cares about defending the interests of copyright holders. That person, you know, has two really important things that she cares about. But when she goes to Congress, only one of those two things is actually gonna reward her in fundraising. Right. So she's gonna. She doesn't have to compromise her views at all. She can say, yes, I support better healthcare for. Or better child support for single moms, but I also support taking care of copyright. And yet we know that she's gonna be bending her attention towards the thing she believes that happens to have money behind it, because that's what it's going to take to be able to fund her campaign. Does that seem true to you?

Absolutely. It is a prioritization. It doesn't even have to be a position shift, which is another dimension to this problem that we had where we don't have a system of campaign finance that is Democratic, small D Democratic. Now, I support a voucher system, of course, but, you know, matching dollars is also, in the short term, if that's the best that Congress can do, that would be a dramatic improvement upon the status quo.

So tell me why you support vouchers?

I support vouchers because even under a matching system, like what we have in New York City, for example, neighboring New York City, because I'm seeking to represent the suburbs of New York City, it is still requiring people who have means to invest in your campaign to some extent. And so a lot of folks, in fact, the vast majority of Americans don't have much disposable income to begin with. And so for them to make the decision to give to a candidate in a political system where they feel typically that politicians are not really fighting in their best interests anyway, and there's quite a bit of evidence to buy into that idea. Why, if they didn't already have significant money, would they use their last few dollars to donate to a candidate who they don't know personally? And in my case, I'm a first time candidate, so even harder for me, instead of paying for the cost of health care or food or child care or any number of things that would be more important as an immediate need to the average person. A voucher system, by contrast, is a system where a government provides you with a set budget, a set number of dollars that you yourself can then use to invest in candidates. And that is the most democratic of the options available to us.

Yeah. So your Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, when she was a candidate for president, proposed the most ambitious voucher program. She said that you should get $200 for every federal race. So, you know, in some years you'd get $600 in vouchers because you have a congressperson, a senator and a president, but at least you'd get 200 because everybody has at least a congressperson running every time there's a federal election. And so she embraced this idea fundamentally because as she described it, the only way to get every American committed in this fundraising stage is to make it so every American can participate in that fundraising stage. So this is a really important idea. I'm sure you've heard Seattle's experience with this.

Yes. And can I just say one other thing? It also directly impacts the kind of person who can run for Congress. I mentioned to you that I grew up poor in section 8 housing and all food stamps, you know, and through the grace of an entire community, I was able to make it to Stanford University to work in the Obama administration and then to attend Harvard Law School. I've got to tell you, I would not be able to raise the kind of money that I'm raising right now were it not for having gone to Harvard Law School in Stanford and having connection and being connected, you know, friendship wise, relationally with people who do have money to donate to me, people who are corporate lawyers or elsewhere on Wall Street. And of course, I myself practice corporate law for a number of years. And that has placed within my orbit people who are of good conscience and want to give money to a candidate like myself. And I'm so grateful for them because they are doing that very generously. But it shouldn't be that you have to go to Harvard Law School or be a former corporate lawyer to raise over a million dollars. To be a successful candidate for that should be unacceptable in a democratic society. And we have to change that.

Yeah, and we see that in the actual people who get to go to Congress or to the United States Senate. Obviously women are disabled relative to men because men are more likely to be in the positions that you were describing of like being in a white collar environment where you've got lots of people with resources who can support you. That's why Zephyr teachout, another great New Yorker, says that public funding of elections is a fundamentally sex equality issue. It's about making it possible for people to be representatives without having a certain sex. So that's an important part of it. But it's also there's great work demonstrating how there's basically no more blue collar workers in Congress. It used to be that you would get blue collar workers who could get to Congress because their union or their locality supported them and helped them move up. But now given you've got these races where you need to raise money, tons of money in order to compete or to be taken seriously by even the Democratic National Committee or the Congressional Campaign Committee who will ask as a, as a first question, how much money can you raise? And if you can't raise a half a million dollars, they don't want to have anything to do with you. I mean, they might like your policies, they might like you, they might think you're the next Barack Obama. But that's not the question. The question is can you raise the money? So we filter people, and that filter obviously filters people on the basis of their economic past, their sex and how. I think as a Democrat, how could we, we as Democrats ever allow a system that filtered on the basis of these criteria, which we all know should not judge or determine who gets to be our representatives.

And of course there are racial implications as well. Right? I mean, it just makes it so much harder for candidates of color, black and Hispanic candidates in particular, to be successful because disproportionately members of those communities, myself included, don't have access to, to capital. You know, the kinds of well heeled networks that are going to be required in most instances under the current way of financing campaigns in order to be successful. And so we absolutely have to change this. And there are real policy implications to what we have going on right now as well. The kinds of people who can run for Congress. You know, we would not be talking about a Green New Deal were it not for voters in nearby New York's 14th congressional district. Elevating a young bartender to the halls of Congress. And she wasn't able to self fund. She wasn't connected to a lot of people who had money.

So how would it be different? How would you raise money? Let's imagine Kirsten Gillibrand's idea had been enacted. So every one of the voters in Your district has $200 that they could in theory give you to help fund your campaign campaigns. So what would you do differently? How would you raise money?

I would be spending a lot more time doing sort of the grassroots fundraising. You know, it's funny. And in the midst of COVID it would be hard. In the midst of COVID we would be advertising much more broadly to the community because anyone would be able to participate in fundraising. You know, I'd be in. Again, let's imagine Covid weren't happening. I'd be in churches and inviting people to fundraisers. I'd be elsewhere in the community instead of researching who has given in the past at a level that is significant enough to justify having conversations with.

Yeah, so that dynamic would change the way people would connect to your campaign. They would be influencing you through the fundraising process. And that leads some people to be cynical or skeptical because, you know, I've heard it said, okay, you're just talking about a different group of people who are using the influence of money to drive the agenda of a member of Congress. Why is it any better?

Why is it. Why is a voucher system any better than the status quo?

Well, yeah, I mean, it's still money being used to drive an agenda. Why is it better to have a voucher agenda as opposed to a thousand dollar cocktail party agenda?

Because the problem is less about money and more about who has the money. The problem is that when everyone is able to participate, when literally everybody in America is able to participate, that's a good thing. Because people who are able to give $200 are still folks who I think have the kinds of policy perspectives and views and positions that are representative of the median American. But when you only have a system where the wealthy are able to, or the wealthy or the moderately wealthy are able to contribute to campaigns. And that is the distortion.

Yeah, I think that's so important to get people to recognize because, you know, typically there's a kind of sloppiness when people talk about money in politics. They'll say things like, let's get money out of politics. But the real problem as you've described it, I think you've described it really powerfully and effectively, the real problem is the fundraising. It's the dynamic of the fundraising. And if you're raising money from everybody, there's a lot of money in that system. You're not getting money out of politics. Money is in politics, but it's Democratic, small D Democratic money. And as opposed to aristocratic money or like special interest money or swamp money. The point is, if you raise money the way you're describing, then we have a Democratic influence in a democratic process that helps us get a candidate who is actually someone who represents the district as opposed to the funders in that district. Really critical point, powerfully made. So here's the next kind of question that I want to push you a little bit on. So you've got a very competitive primary and what that means is in principle, you could have a winner who is winning with a tiny fraction of popular support. I know you've talked a little bit about it, but I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about your views on something like ranked choice voting in a context like this.

There is no better example of a place where we need ranked choice voting in America than my current primary. As I mentioned to you, I've got an eight way race. There is a state senator who, according to my polls before we had started our mail program, and you know, we haven't gone on television yet, we'll be doing that in less than a week from, from when this is being recorded, who is number one in the polls and how is it that someone who is well known to have spent most of his career in the state senate, literally up until the year 2019 after he narrowly survived his primary challenge caucusing with the other party. How is it that someone like that can be ahead in the polls? And it is because of a system where we don't have ranked choice voting, where you can win with 25% of the vote in this process primary, we don't even have a runoff situation, which would be a step closer at least to ranked choice voting. And so you have a lot of people in this race who are not wanting to vote for their first choice candidate necessarily because they feel like they have to identify somehow, they have to suss out who is the most viable to defeat the state senator in this race. And so they're not even voting their hearts, which is totally, you know, not Democratic.

So how do you find it easy to explain to people? Because I'd love to hear you explain it because you've been doing such a fantastic job in explaining these ideas already. Do you find it hard to explain to people exactly how that system would work? I mean, if I said to you, I don't get it, well, how would that make a primary better given there are eight candidates? What's the way you explain what it would do?

I would say that a system of ranked choice voting is the most small d democratic rule way of conducting an election because it is the only mechanism that would ensure that a majority of people prefer you over the other candidate.

How does it do that?

It does that when you know, the person who gets a plurality of the votes doesn't still receive a majority of the vote count. Folks get to choose their second choice. And then we take a look. Okay, when everyone has cast their second choice vote, does that person still have. Is there any candidate who gets to a majority of the vote? Okay, if not, then folks will cast their third choice vote. And so folks are literally ranking, as the name suggests, who gets to serve them in Congress. And people at the end of an election will be more satisfied because the person who ultimately is, in my case, the nominee will have more support even than, say, the person who got a plurality of the vote if you just stopped it and didn't do ranked choice voting.

So that way, as I've heard it described, we guarantee that the person who ultimately wins is a person that a majority at least could live with, as opposed to the current system where the person who ultimately wins could be a person who 75% of the Democratic base hates, like, would never support, but just turns out that he has or she has enough support to win in a field of eight. That seems to be the point here. Right?

Let me elaborate even further about how ridiculous what's going on is. This state senator has not raised significant money, meaning he doesn't have support even from folks in the district who would be inclined to contribute. And more important than that is not campaigning in the majority of the district. My district is 45% Rockland County, 55% Westchester county, parts of Central and Northern Westchester. And there are debates that he has skipped. There are events that he has skipped. He is not responsive to questions that are posed to him by activists and other people in the community who have questions about his record and what he would do to assure them that he would caucus with Democrats in the House of Representatives. His position, his approach has been to essentially try to coast by because he feels like he can get by with 25% of the vote in a crowded field where folks in Westchester, let's say, are splitting up the vote, because there are six candidates from Westchester and I'm the only other person from Rockland County.

So his strategy might actually make sense for him, but it doesn't make sense for Democrats, democracy or the Democrats. I mean, I take it there's no chance a Republican could prevail in this district.

Not someone who runs as a Republican.

Yeah, yeah. So as you've taken. Obviously, you can't take this message out on the road. This is the problem in the middle of a Covid crisis like this. I mean, it would be extraordinary to be able to go to neighborhoods and have rallies or give talks which pointed out this fact to people and got them to rally to support you. So what do you do as an alternative to kind of to bring them around to recognize that this, the leading candidate is a kind of turncoat Democrat?

Yeah, My focus has been positive messaging about my campaign. And there are activists who have folks who say, I don't care who you're supporting, it just can't be this person. And let's educate the electorate about his past in the state Senate. And that is what's going to have to be successful. And as I run a positive campaign, talking about myself, my story, what I represent, what I'm fighting for. And by the way, I do think that when voters are given a choice between myself and any of the other candidates, that they will choose me. But it is a question of getting the. Marshaling the resources to get our message out to every Democratic voter in the district. And that continues to be a challenge because of money.

So it's not just the state senator you're primarily fighting against. Adam Schleifer's, I guess he's the son of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals founder and CEO. So he has pretty close tie to money too. Right. Not just his own extraordinary wealth, but also the wealth of pharmaceutical companies eager to see another supporter of pharmaceuticals inside of Congress.

It is another extraordinary aspect of this campaign where someone, as I mentioned earlier, moves back to the district after decades of away and spends millions of dollars self funds. Millions of dollars to be on to be running television ads 14 weeks out from the Democratic primary on June 23rd, to be sending multiple mail pieces on a weekly basis throughout the district beginning months before the Democratic primary. These are extraordinary expenditures. They are unusual in our politics. But when you have the kind of infinite wealth that his family has. You are able to do that and you can rise in the polls when people only think that there is one or two candidate running. Right. So if you've only ever heard of Adam Schleifer or David Carlucci, then you choose between those two. Now, thankfully, we've marshaled the resources to get our message out to every Democratic voter and we continue to do so. We continue to fundraise. But as I'm sure you know, most people only decide who they're voting for in the final couple of weeks before an election anyway. But name ID is a powerful thing in politics.

Yeah. So are you able to rally people to the idea that this is a corrupt system and we need somebody to fight the corrupt system? I mean, not necessarily calling your opponents corrupt, I mean that you don't have to think that they're violating any law or that they're not themselves ethical people. But the point is they're benefiting from this corrupt system. And unless we rally people to recognize the corruption in the system, we're never going to build the movement necessary to change that system and displace this kind of corruption. Do you find people react to that or respond to that?

It is one of the cruel ironies of this system that so many activists are so focused on preventing a turncoat Democrat from getting a nomination in this district that they are willing to also support a candidate who is literally trying to purchase a congressional seat, who frankly, I don't believe is any, would be any more responsive to Democratic voters. If that's the way you're going to get your election, you know, if you don't have to do it in the traditional way of interacting with voters and, and winning over their support through substantive policy discussions, but rather an onslaught of mail pieces and television ads. I have my serious doubts about whether you would be responsive to the electorate as a member of Congress.

So how has the Democratic Party reacted to your campaign? I mean, you've got a lot of great people who've endorsed you, but has the party itself supported you? I mean, helped you or given you access in a way that makes it possible?

I've got a lot of support from people in the party locally and nationally, but it is an eight way race and we've got a popular perfectly fine assembly member who's a friend of mine running against me. And so, you know, there's a lot of, lot of Westchester establishment Democratic support coalescing behind him. And you know, for me you got a lot of folks in the party in Rockland County. And also I've gotten support in Westchester among. You know, I've been on one of the approved candidates that some of the Democratic committees have done, instead of endorsing one candidate. So very honored to be competing wells in both Westchester and in Rockland Counties. But there is a split because there are so many candidates in this race. And, of course, I've also been endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus pac, the Equality pac, which is the political action committee of the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus. A number of members of Congress in their individual capacities. You mentioned two of them. Senator Elizabeth Warren and Ayanna Pressley, but also Congressmember Cicillini and Jayapal Pocan, Deb Haaland. And also, by the time that this probably airs, people will know that Ro Khanna has endorsed me.

Oh, that's great. Yeah, Ro's really fantastic. That's a really great endorsement. Well, so let's think of a little bit about the difference between Rockland and Westchester here. So what's the turnout difference, or what's the voting difference between Rockland and Westchester?

There's never been a congressional primary in the 31 years that Congresswoman Lowey has run for Congress, so it's hard to predict turnout. We do have 2018 data from the contested gubernatorial primary between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon. In that case, Rockland county comprised 43% of the congressional district. In terms of voter turnout. There was also a contested state Senate seat. My member of the state Senate was being primary and narrowly, as I mentioned, survived that primary. So that could account for the higher voter turnout there. If you are a state legislator in New York, you have to give up your seat to run for Congress. And so we've got, on the Rockland county side, that senator that I mentioned has to go for his seat. So there's an open seat. A number of candidates running for that state Senate seat that's gonna boost turnout. You've got that assembly member who I mentioned from Westchester, from White Plains, which is in Westchester, running. He has to give up that seat. So that's a highly contested assembly seat. You've got a highly contested race for district attorney in Westchester County. Mimi Rocca is going up against the incumbent, Tony Scarpino. And of course, many people may know Mimi Rokos from television. So there's gonna be. And then, of course, we are all spending millions of dollars to get the message out to folks about this primary date. So it's gonna be extraordinary turnout is my prediction.

You're the leading candidate in Rockland Right. Is that clear?

My state senator is from Rockland.

Oh, I see.

Make the argument now, of course, the largest share of voters is undecided. Even in my poll from February, you know, 43% were undecided. So. And one thing that I've got going for me is that when people hear my story, they move decisively from undecided to supportive of me. Of course, we phone bank. We make over 5,000 phone calls every single day. We eclipse what other candidates are doing. I have a digital organizing director who comes to us from the Elizabeth Warren campaign. She was a deputy for digital in Iowa, and she led the digital operation in Wisconsin. And so she's my digital organizing director, and she's been phenomenal. I'm so proud of what we're doing. We do targeted text messaging to different demographics. We collect data every single day. I mean, this is really a time to be innovative in the midst of campaign, in the midst of COVID and campaigning digitally.

So what is the most hopeful aspect of the campaign as you look forward? Like, what's the reason why you're gonna win?

We are going to win because we've got people. We've got an actual reason for running, unlike the folks we're used to seeing in our politics. I'm not running because someone always told me I'd be a member of Congress when I was growing up. I'm running to be a champion for working people. And I recognize that it's not enough to get rid of Donald Trump, that things were really bad before Donald Trump got elected as well. And that is resonating with people all throughout the district and all throughout this country. And there is no candidate. I can say this sincerely. There is no candidate about whom people are more excited. And that excitement is being leveraged every single day to get our message out. You see it in the volunteerism of hundreds of volunteers who, you know, dozens of whom are phone banking others are doing other things that are helpful in getting our message out and persuading voters. And we've still got four and a half weeks left.

Mondaire, I'm so grateful you would take some time in the middle of what must be an incredibly intense campaign to talk to us. I was hoping we wouldn't mention Donald Trump throughout the whole of this conversation because I feel that people are too confused about what's really killing our democracy. I mean, obviously we've got to get rid of the president by electing another president. But even if we get another president, the fight you're talking about here to make it Possible for people to participate in a democracy equally as equal citizens is the most important fight that there is. And so we are honored to be able to talk to you first among the candidates who are pushing the idea that, quote, until we fix the root of the problem, nothing else worthwhile will get done. That is the message that we have to have recognized across the country. So good luck in this campaign. We'll be rooting for you and watching you as you spread this message and learning from you about how to make people understand why this is so critical. I'm grateful for your time.

Thank you so much. It's such an honor to participate. Like I told you before, I've long admired your work. And of course, if any of your listeners would like to, please visit mondaireforcongress.com M O N D A I R E f o r congress.com we're going

to list that off of our website as well. And I'm grateful. Thanks very much. Okay, so that's the first of these interviews of reformers running for Congress or for the United States Senate. We got a list of people. Not very long, not long enough yet. But if you know someone who you think is making reform central, send us a note. We are keen not to focus on people who are on the right side of the issue because, of course, in the Democratic Party, at least that's a majority of the people in Congress. We're looking for the people who are convincing voters that this is the issue that must be fought for first. We want to find the voice and the way that that argument is articulated by candidates who are actually meeting people in the course of a political campaign, people who have political put reform on the line. So if you know who those people are, or if you've heard them speak, or if they've reached out to you to try to raise money from you because they're reformers, then please let us know and we'll see if it makes sense for us to talk to them next. This is Larry Lessig. These podcasts are produced by equalcitizens.us. you can find us on the web at equalcitizens us and find the podcast at equalcitizens us. Anotherway. There's a place there to share the podcast and to give us your feedback and your ideas. Please do both. It's the only distraction I genuinely enjoy in the course of my day to read these comments and feedback and whether or not we think that politics can happen silently reading on screens. What I know is nothing happens unless ideas are shared and they're shared best if they're shared person to person. So if you know other people who you think also agree that we need to change the corrupt system of our democracy, if we're going to have a democracy, then you need to share this with them. You need to bring them into the conversation because we want to build the most active and intelligent group group of reformers. We can not Harvard intelligent. I'm not excited about every bit of Harvard intelligence, but I mean intelligence in a practical sense. I mean people who have experienced the fight of convincing people of this issue and who can explain it so that others can follow in their footsteps. People with a practical intelligence about the pragmatic nature of of what it's going to take to win. Many of the ideas discussed in this season of another way, like the last season are also discussed in the book I published last year. They don't represent us. You can download this book from hc.com representus that's HC for HarperCollins. We're going to have a follow on to that book, a kind of book club that we will be announcing for Democracy Books. So stay tuned and sign up to our list if you're not on our list so that you can learn about that book club. Next week we'll be back with another candidate and I am eager to continue this conversation. Thank you so much for the support you have given us and thank you so much to those of you who reached out to me in the course of the the last couple weeks, both because of my own personal losses in my family and also because of the struggle and the fight to make this case. This argument to the Supreme Court I recorded yesterday. I'm not sure whether my team will allow it to be released. The introduction to the arguments that were presented to the court. We are releasing the audio of those arguments with the introduction by me and my extraordinary co counsel, Jason Harrow. But I am so grateful. I can't tell you how meaningful it is to receive the missives from so many people who have been in this fight and know we will be in this fight until we've won. We will be in this fight until we've won. Those words are so terrifying and so empowering because many people don't think we're going to win. They're wrong. But many people don't think we're going to win. They wonder why do we continue fighting? One of my closest friends from my days at EFF wrote me and said, you need to move on. It's never going to happen. Never going to happen. I'M never going to move on. This issue will be with me until my last breath. But hopefully we'll fix this before I take my last breath. Thanks so much for tuning in. See you next week. This is Larry Lessig.