Recapping Republican Candidate Bill Weld's Pledge to Fix Democracy First [11-01-19]

Welcome To Another Way Season 3 Subtitle POTUS 1 I'm Jason Harrow and I'm joined by Adam Eichen. Hey Adam.

Hey Jason.

How are you doing today?

I'm good, how are you?

I'm great. And indeed we're going to talk about some good news. So regular listeners may know that we are from Equal Citizens Us, a nonprofit started by Larry Lessig, an anti corruption advocate. And Larry often appears in this feed talking to presidential candidates, talking to politicians, talking to activists about how important it is to put solving corruption and fixing democracy at the top of our political agenda. And we held a live in person event in Nashua, New Hampshire with Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld, our first Republican candidate. As you know, Adam, we've invited others, including the President. President has not returned our calls, but he is still of course welcome to come on this feed or do a live event or something. But it was really encouraging to talk to a Republican candidate about many of these issues, the issues we talk frequently about on this podcast, which are everything from, you know, taking big money out of politics, that's really key. Restoring voting rights, improving the way our democracy works on many axes in a non partisan way. So before we get to the discussion of this Weld event and listeners, we're not going to bring you the audio because again, it was a live in person event from Nashua, New Hampshire. We didn't capture super pristine podcast quality audio for you, unfortunately. You can view the webcast@facebook.com equal citizens. It's also on YouTube. We'll put the YouTube link in the show notes. So those are great resources to go if you want. If people are really clamoring for the audio of the Weld event in this feed, please email us ideasqualcitizensus and we'll see what we can do to clean it up. But if not, we're gonna recap it here, give you the highlights and also you can go to Facebook and view the Facebook livestream. So before we do that, we should say again, we're from Equal Citizens us. You can check out our platform there and you can also become a member, a patron of this very podcast@patreon.com/citizens Adam, as you know, we've got some really fun stuff coming up. We just started this Patreon thing. We haven't done any like ask me anything or special episodes yet, but they are coming. So people should get in line to be a patron. Correct? Would you if you were a listener? Adam?

Oh, absolutely. Jason. As you know, we have so Many fun ideas planned for this podcast, and we really need all the support we can get to keep this podcast not only going, but growing. So I'm really excited for that.

Indeed. Okay, so speaking of excitement, let's get to the meat of this. Of this episode. Adam, you were there live, in person. You were in the front row watching Larry Lessig talk to former Massachusetts governor and current. Former Libertarian vice presidential candidate and current Republican primary challenger. I think he's polling in a few states over 10% against the President. Unclear if every state is gonna, of course, have a primary, but he is, you know, he's been on national outlets. He is making a serious attempt to challenge the president from the middle. We should say he is more centrist than the president. But that said, he is a tried and true lifelong Republican, and he was willing to talk to us about these issues. So, Adam, you were there. What happened?

I mean, it was one of those events, Jason, where I really didn't know what to expect. I mean, this wasn't kind of a staged event where we knew exactly what was gonna happen. We knew his responses to the questions that Larry was gonna ask. So you. You know, we all went into it not knowing whether or not there was going to be serious disagreement or agreement on some things. And, you know, Jason, as you know, what we found actually was more surprising than anything we could have hoped for, which was that the former governor actually endorsed virtually our entire platform. As Larry was asking questions, we kept wondering when there was going to be a point of contention, but really, at no point during the entire discussion did he disagree with Larry. And I would say that he again endorsed our entire platform. And I want to take the listeners through some of the claims that he made, some of the positions that he took, because I think they're quite remarkable. And in some respects, they're further than many Democratic candidates are willing to go right now. So that's certainly an interesting fact, and it complicates some of the ideas that Republicans can't support democracy reform. So I'll foreground the conversation by just saying that this was a really important moment, I think, for, you know, for the reform community to kind of really boast that the movement is big enough for both liberals and conservatives.

Yeah, I agree. And, Adam, I want you to go down the top couple of areas that you saw and what he said, but I just want to underscore that he was remarkably blunt and in a lot of his responses. And maybe that's his personality, or maybe it's just the fact that he's Kind of a Republican. He can come from the inside. And a lot of the talk can sometimes feel a little complicated for people. And Elizabeth Warren's really very robust anti corruption plan, which we talked about on this podcast previously, is many points long and multiple long medium posts. Weld kind of got right to it and was able to call a spade a spade. So why don't you get, you say your favorite parts of this blunt talk that Governor Wilt gave us. Right.

And I should say, Jason, that, you know, a lot of this, as you said it was, you know, Larry would ask the question, do you support this? And he would just say, sure, yeah, absolutely, why not? You know, I mean, it was those kind of responses that are both encouraging. But, you know, as another preface to this conversation, I would love to see it in writing, too. I would love ideally to see these positions on his webpage or for him to talk about some of these positions more on the campaign trail so that it doesn't seem like this was just trying to please Larry. I'm not saying that that was what he was doing, but, you know, the more the merrier in some respect in terms of how much he can talk about this. So, you know, a couple of the things that I really want to highlight that I was shocked, first and foremost was the former governor came out in favor of Democracy Dollars, the public financing voucher program that at Equal Citizens we love. It's different from a matching system where small dollar donations are matched at a given rate, where this is what they use. In Seattle, they give every registered voter, actually every eligible voter, Democracy Dollars, a voucher. In Seattle, it's four $25 vouchers. Weld wasn't clear what exact number he would support, but he said that he'd be actually very actively supportive of a voucher system. And that's a very radical change in the way we fund our elections. We've spoken a lot about vouchers on this podcast before, so longtime listeners will be familiar with it. And so he joins right now in the campaign, Andrew Yang, Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard who support these vouchers. So again, he took a position that a lot of the folks on kind of the left leaning part of the Democratic Party support, which I think would surprise many people to see a Republican also support them too. A couple other things, Jason. He came out in favor of independent redistricting commissions to end gerrymandering. Again, that's a major, a major reform proposal that we support. He came out in favor of restoring the Voting Rights Act A critical piece of voting rights legislation that had been gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013. He's very much against kind of aggressive voter purges. So he would support federal, federal legislation to regulate voter purging. That's when states like Georgia will be very aggressive in removing certain registered voters from the rolls, often under dubious pretenses, like in Ohio, where they remove them because they haven't voted in a certain number of election cycles, or if their name is somewhat similar to another name. You know, that kind of cross check policy can produce a lot of false positives of quote, unquote, double registrations. You know, in the past, we knew going in he supports ranked choice voting, but it's amazing to see a Republican support ranked choice voting. We love to see it because ranked choice voting should be something that we all can support. And here's something that really excited me is that, you know, when he was asked whether he supports restoring voting rights to those convicted of a felony, you know, a lot of these felon disenfranchisement laws have roots in Jim Crow and before them, and as a means of keeping African Americans from the polls, not only did he take the certainly support the line that most Democrats right now support, which is that we should absolutely restore the right to vote post incarceration or post sentencing. He was a little unclear about when, but he also came out and said that he'd also maybe be open to restoring voting rights to those currently incarcerated, depending upon what they were convicted of. So for violent offenses or murder charges, they seem to think that, like, that would not warrant restoration of voting rights, but for other types of felonies it would. And again, that's a very surprising answer because the only person who's been willing to go, the only candidate who's been willing to go so far as to extend the right to vote to those currently incarcerated is Bernie Sanders. I personally love that. I think it's amazing. I don't believe the right to vote should be taken away. And so to see a Republican presidential candidate agree with that, I think is, or at least agree in part, is quite remarkable. And when the governor was governor of Massachusetts, Massachusetts did allow those currently incarcerated to vote. So he's not unfamiliar with this type of democracy reform. So those are kind of the key points. A couple others. Jason, I don't know if you want to hop in before I jump into a couple other thoughts.

Yeah, sure. So I, you know, you, you had mentioned, I think you used the word left with back to democracy vouchers, democracy dollars, which as you said, we like. I think that this shows, Adam, and a lot of the way he phrased it shows, right, that this is really not a right left partisan issue. This is a right left partisan issue at the highest levels of federal politics. But at the levels of citizenry, at the level of common sense, it is not right. I think that people of all parties want cleaner elections. And Weld, throughout you talked about his specific policy positions, which were really in line with a lot of what we're pushing. But I wanted to sort of draw out a theme which is that the parties ought to compete to get more votes, right? More votes from anyone and be the most appealing party. And I think that was Weld's theme overall. And you know, I watched from my apartment in Los Angeles. I wasn't there in Nashua, New Hampshire, for instance, with mouth agape in some ways when he talked about felons being able to vote. And he was really thoughtful and would consider having even certain felons be able to vote while they're in prison. I viewed that as coming from that same place, which is why, you know, he, unlike, I think some members of the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell probably primary among them, he doesn't think that there are, there's no one who's going to vote for Republicans if you give them the right platform. Right. And I think that there are many politicians at the local level, there are many citizens who think that, and we've just got to keep this movement going. And listeners, I hope you're with us too, to explain that this really is a bipartisan, non partisan type of task. It's about getting the field such that everyone can compete for votes fairly, not be beholden to special interests and be open minded about what the right policies are and win on that debate and not win on having the rules be in your favor, not having, you know, basically not banking on the referee, you know, making a call in your favor, or I guess to extend the analogy to big money, having the referee bought off and in your pocket or something. And there's too many, especially on the right, but also on the left for sure, folks that think about it in a polarized way and think about winning elections in terms of gaming the system. And that was not Weld's vision.

Right. And this is something that I flagged to talk about, which is that he really went hard after Republicans for voter suppression. It was a constant theme, as you said. I mean, he went so far as to say that, you know, criticizing that some members of his party would openly support a Poll tax, if that was possible, like bringing that back. You know, he wasn't mincing words there. And he said that, you know, explicitly. I'm trying to do the opposite here. And that's, again, really encouraging because I agree, I think that there are some members of the Republican Party who would bring back a poll tax. And indeed, they're trying to do that in some places in a modified way, like in Florida, trying to gut Amendment 4, which restored the right to vote for those who had completed their sentence after being incarcerated for a felony by requiring them to pay their fines, fees, and restitution before getting the right to vote back. And he also, and I thought this was another really courageous thing, is that he criticized New Hampshire Republicans for in 2018, they passed a anti voter. Voter suppression measure. Sorry, anti student voter suppression measure. And he said that's unacceptable, too, that the Republicans in New Hampshire have been trying to game the system. And he opposes that. And I think that is a principled stance, and it made me happy to hear that. And he also went really hard after President Trump for false claims of voter fraud. I mean, we know this, Jason. There is no widespread voter fraud in the United States. There's been no study that has proven that. In fact, there have been numerous studies that have proved that there is no widespread voter fraud. And indeed, even one of the chief people claim that there's voter fraud, former Secretary of State of Kansas Kris Kobach, he tried to prove it and couldn't prove it. And so Bill Weld called a spade a spade and said, you know what? This party or people who claim that are wrong. And that's a very important thing to. For a Republican to say, because I think that is a real myth in the United States that there is voter fraud. And the more principled politicians on both sides of the aisle who are explicit in their rejection of that claim is not only important for reform, but it's critical for the health of our democracy. By spreading lies about voter fraud, that is undermining the very perception of integrity of our elections. And that is something that is just unsustainable. So I was very pleased to hear him say that.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, all of that's right. And of course, the other key thing he said, and this is sort of overarching as well, is that he would prioritize reform. He would put it first. Right. You know, Larry asked him, is this something you want to do on the first day so that it unlocks the government's ability to really do much more, much more productively and provide solutions. And he said, I hope it's already written. Of course we shouldn't start writing it on day one. We should have it written and ready to rock. And I think that that's a really a great endorsement and indeed bumps him up to the a A range, even Adam. And so I want to ask you, we now have our first Republican on the board with an A plus on these scores. Right. And so he's leading the pack. And so I want to ask you two questions. One is one, what does that do to sort of the Republican field? And now that we have an actual Republican who is an A plus on democracy issues, wants to prioritize reform first, wants to get big money out of politics, wants to restore voting rights. And we have a president who, you know, it doesn't seem like he's followed through on really any of his promises to drain the swamp. Right. But who did sort of run as an anti corruption, anti establishment. Every other politician is bought and paid for by big corporations candidates. So there's clearly some energy on the right for this. On the left, we of course have the HR one was passed, which is a comprehensive package of reform passed by the House Democrats. We have several Democrats that are also joining Weld at A plus and A. We're working with others to try and push them to get everyone in the AA range. So what does this mean for the 2020 election and beyond?

Well, I think, you know, as you say, there is a clear lane in both parties to be running on a pro democracy, anti corruption platform to drain the swamp, if you will, to say the system is rigged, but also to provide solutions to unlock the potential of democracy in the United States. And so what this means is that, you know, we need to get more candidates to support these things, find unity on them. But also, you know, I think the key thing here is I also don't us to suggest that, you know, I think that there are, there are some who would say we need to do everything we can. In other words, start from a place of need to find, you know, Republican politicians who will find anything to compromise on, like any part of our platform. Let's try and find a compromise and find people to, you know, work with us on this. But what this shows is something a little bit different. It's a slightly different nuance. It's saying that there are Republicans who want to go as far as, you know, the Democrats on this issue to unlock our democracy, to fix our democracy first, that we don't need to water down these proposals to say, okay, well, we can't get one person, one vote. We can maybe get one person two votes instead of one person, five votes. Right. In other words, what this suggests to me is that we don't need to come at the position of bipartisan compromise from a, let's water down our proposals to ensure a better democracy and then maybe we'll find Republicans who support. But rather what we should be doing is finding those Republicans who agree in the principles of democracy, getting them a platform and working to establish a nonpartisan movement and help that grow to bring on other people who are on the fence. In other words, I see this as validation that we don't have to water down what, you know, you and I fight for, Jason, every day to try and get that, you know, elusive bipartisan compromise. I think that folks are ready for that compromise. We just have to, you know, find the maybe few and far between Republican politicians. But then, as you said, Weld's made clear, and I thought this was actually one of the most poignant points because it's something that I think about a lot, which is that, you know, Larry asked him, you know, well, you know, everyone agrees on this stuff. And Weld countered and said, I don't think the Republican Party necessarily agrees on this. And Larry said, okay, but what about Republican voters? Could we get 70% of all voters to support these, you know, these, these policies? And Weld said, absolutely. And so kind of what you were saying, that Weld explicitly recognizes there is a difference between elite level versus grassroots level Republican support. And I think finding a few elite level Republicans and then growing the grassroots Republican base to support these efforts to drain the swamp will, I believe, put us in a good position to push reforms that aren't watered down, if that makes sense.

Yeah, no, I think that makes sense and I agree with a lot of it. I want to be clear, that doesn't mean that there's no space for compromise. That doesn't mean that every Republican is going to agree with Governor Rald. Indeed, it doesn't mean every Democrat will, and it doesn't mean that every Democrat agrees with each other. Right. We have been talking internally about some of these issues. We start, we lead at the top with vouchers. Other proposals, including HR1, use matching funds, which are a little different system of public financing of campaigns. Right. And those have probably gotten some more congressional support and more presidential candidate support than vouchers. These are good arguments to be had. But let's have the argument and start from a place of let's not game the system let's make democracy more robust and more fair and more equal and then let's see where we can get right. I agree with you. We shouldn't say, well here's one little teeny piece that we can break off that either is just so broken or we'll give you a bone. Cuz we can sort of split up the winnings, right? Some Democrats will benefit in 50% measure and Republicans will win up, will benefit in 50% measure. It's not about that because it's not about who's gonna win the next election. It's about the next decade. It's about the next century of having a robust democracy. And so we want people to think beyond partisan terms and come at it from that just base level fairness and common sense and healthy, safe, secure democracy. So it is great to know that there are Republicans and Democrats and independents and lots and lots of voters that do come at it from that place.

Okay, and very quickly, Jason, I just should say there was a sizable audience. There were about 40 or 50 people there and many independents and Republicans. And again, they really resonated with what Weld was saying. In other words, this again just under, you know, underscores this, this idea that on the grassroots level there's a lot of support. And again, just to be clear, when I say, you know, don't need to compromise, I'm not saying no flexibility in terms of policy, but it, you know, kind of towards your point of just saying there are a lot of different policies out there that have maximum effect and we just, we just can't bargain that away before we even get to the table.

Yeah, I think that's right. So, okay, thanks again to everyone who helped organize this. Thanks to the Weld campaign, if they're listening, Governor, thank you again. But put it on your website. You don't need to go create Elizabeth Warren or Andrew Yang. We don't need a 77 point plan. But really highlighting this on the website would also go a long way. In the meantime, we'll keep it on our POTUS 1 website, equal citizens US POTUS 1, where you can see what he said. You can watch for yourself facebook.com/citizens. Okay, before we go, Adam, we've got a new tradition of knowledge drops, just little bits of recent news and information about fixing democracy first. Your first stop, Adam.

All right, so this week the state court in North Carolina essentially struck down the congressional maps in that state in a huge, huge, huge victory against gerrymandering there. And in fact the map, the Congress congressional map in North Carolina is one of the most gerrymandered maps in the country. And so this is a huge win for fair maps. And it shows that even in the wake of the Supreme Court, there is still room for litigation, but it just goes through the state courts instead of the federal courts. So there's ample reason to celebrate democracy in North Carolina this week.

Indeed, that is worth toasting. And it does show that, you know, state courts may end up filling this gap that Chief Justice John Roberts has said the federal courts will not fill. Okay. My knowledge drop, though, is from the wonderful Rick Hassan. Rick maintains the Election Law blog and he usually posts about all kinds of court cases. Well, it's a quite wide ranging blog, lots related to court decisions and the legal aspect of election law. But he also post about campaign finance and he's quite interested in this and one of the best sort of philosophizers of what's wrong with the current system. And he posted an excerpt from a Washington Post article because the Washington Post got a recording of a conference that a bunch of payday lenders held recently. And it's basically kind of making plain what we've all known for a really long time, Adam, which is that even if you supposedly support independent groups, everyone in the administration, all the politicians, knows who's actually supporting it and it does buy you access, right? So this leader is saying things like, I've gone to an administrative official, Ronna McDaniel, and I've said, ronna, I need help on something. Sorry. This is the chair of the Republican national committee, Ronna McDaniel. And then this leader says she's been able to call over to the White House and say, hey, we have one of our large givers. They need an audience, they need to be heard, and you need to listen to them. So that's why it's important. Again, this is like an actual chain of someone saying, I am giving a lot of money. I can therefore call the head of the rnc, because I'm giving a lot of money to the head of the rnc. The RNC head can literally call to the White House and say, hey, we've got large check writers that need a meeting, have political interests, right? And these are, you know, payday lenders. Their interests are quite venal about being able to operate these sort of semi discredited businesses in certain ways. And that's what they're buying, right? Everyone knows that. That's why people finance super PACs. That's why make these donations. And yet it's rarely laid this plain and Then Rick concludes with one single sentence, not even offering commentary, but he. One single sentence from Citizens United, from Justice Kennedy's 2010 opinion. He says, quote, ingratiation and access in any event, are not corruption. So he's basically saying Kennedy thought about this. He said, we have phone calls saying, I just wrote a large check, I need a meeting at the White House. But that's not corruption. So if that doesn't prove the lie to that sentence, I'm not quite sure what does. It's yet another data point, but I just thought it was a wonderful data point and wonderfully understated by Rick at the election law blog. Adam, I know you think a lot about corruption. That's about as blatant an example as I think even you've seen.

Yeah, I mean, it's also just one of these, you know, as you say, just another example of why the whole. Well, if it's, if it's independent expenditure, only if these are just independent groups and they're not coordinating with the campaigns, you know, that's fine because there's no way that they'll ever be able to prove one thing or another or they won't be communicating. So they can't, you know, be a team. But, you know, all these people in D.C. know each other. They all have, at least if they don't know each other, they know somebody who knows the other person. And again, it just, it proves that even with super PACs, right. The, you know, the, the myth that this is not corruption is just so plain. And you, and you have to have lived in D.C. a really long time and spend a lot of time with those who, you know, the donor class to truly believe that. In other words, I think most Americans see right through that. And, you know, this also comes. The Biden campaign is kind of revoking a bit its criticism of potential super PACs or a super PAC supporting it. Obviously they can't coordinate. But before there was a really hard line against Super PACs, and now it seems like the Biden campaign is pulling away from that a bit. And again, I think that, you know, it's just a little out of touch. I think most Americans really recoil at the idea of spending unlimited, non disclosed money. And that's something Weld said over and over again. I guess, to bring it back to the top of this podcast is that over and over again, when Weld was talking about his biggest problems with our campaign finance system, he said, under no circumstances should the words unlimited and non disclosed be used to describe a phenomenon in our campaign finance system. And I think Jason, both you and I can agree to that because we do know that that kind of spending is corrupting, period, regardless of what Kennedy argued in Citizens United. Because that's just the reality that's played out. It's not just legal theory anymore. It's straight up reality.

I think that's right And I would say it's exhibit A of how the system works. But unfortunately it's exhibit zzzzzzz. Right. Because there's lot examples. Right. Okay. So let's leave it there with the knowledge drops again listeners. Patreon.com/equals is where you can support this podcast. Couple bucks a month goes a long way. You'll get access to Ask Me Anythings and other cool features in coming months. Equal Citizens US is our website and facebook.com Equal Citizens is where you can live stream or stream the formerly live Excellent Bill Weldevant. Okay, Adam, I'll talk to you soon.

Talk to you soon.