Rep. Ro Khanna Thinks Ending Corruption Is Possible

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. This is Larry Lussig. This is another episode of the podcast, Another Way. As you know, because this is the fourth season and we've said it again and again, our focus in this season is both the candidates for Congress and in the media who might make reform a central issue in this presidential campaign and in this election for Congress. Because as hard as it is to imagine there's going to be a day after this next election, and if that day after this next election is a day when we look at the fact that the Democrats have taken control of Congress and the presidency, the urgent question that will be asked on that day is, will we have the support to pass fundamental reform? Because it will be possible. It will be possible. We've already had the House, because of Nancy Pelosi's leadership, take up HR1, which is the most ambitious reform package passed by the House of Representatives since the Vote Voting Rights act of 1965. They've already done it. And if the Senate is taken over by Democrats, then Charles Schumer, even Charles Schumer, would make sure that the Senate would pass at least HR1, as you'll hear in this podcast, maybe something better. So the focus on that day, when the smoke of these current crises has passed, will be what is going to happen in the first place. And as you know, we've been fighting in the course of the last two years to build a movement at the presidential level first and now at the level of Congress to make sure that the first thing that happens in those first hundred days is the passage of fundamental reform to change the way our corrupted democracy functions. And that reform, as you've heard again and again, is money in politics. It's gerrymandering. It's equal access, equal freedom. To vote is to assure ethics inside of Congress. It's to assure the corrupting influence of money doesn't pervade every aspect of our government. It is to, let's coin a phrase, drain the swamp. That might be familiar to some of you. And so there is a chance we can do that. And the guest that I have the privilege of talking to today will be at the center of that discussion. Rokahana represents the 17th congressional district in California. He's young, he's in his mid-40s. He's someone I've known for almost 20 years. In 2003, he wrote to me when I was the director of the Stanford center for Internet and Society and offered to volunteer to support the work of the center as a lawyer working in Silicon Valley. He ended up helping us launch Creative Commons by helping frame an understanding of the public domain and how the public domain could be supported by creative commons. In 2003 he had the insane idea of running for Congress against then incumbent Tom Lantos. Tom Lantos was extraordinary figure. He was an immigrant from Hungary. He had been serving in Congress forever. And though he was of loyalty, predictable Democratic vote, what was astonishing about Tom Landosh was that he had supported the President in the President's call to go to war in Iraq. And Ro Kahana was so committed to the mistake of that war that he wanted to run a campaign as a 20 something year old lawyer against this incredibly well heeled and well supported and well loved member of of Congress. I love insane ideas. So I was eager to help him and we tried to push as hard as we could, but of course he got crushed. And so then Roe worked as an IP lawyer. In 2009 he was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Commerce focusing on trade. After government, he went back to private practice. But in 2014 he again decided to take on an incumbent, this time Mike Honda. And he challenged Mike in the primary and he lost, not by a lot. And then in 2016 he again challenged Mike Honda. And this time surprising many, he won. And he has become a leader, a progressive voice and a leader for technology in Congress. He was an early supporter of AOC and he has crafted a balance, really important, balanced approach to technological issues in the context of Congress. In 2018 he drafted something called the Internet Bill of Rights, which even Tim Berners Lee, that's Sir Tim Berners Lee, who the founder of the World Wide Web has endorsed. And he's been a leader carrying the importance of technology and innovation across the nation. But of course our reason for talking to Roe is not all of these other extraordinary things that he's done, nor that extraordinary future that he will certainly have. In politics in America, it is the question of reform. In 2017, Roe Co founded the no PAC caucus in Congress. He founded that with two other members of Congress. One we've spoken to Beto O' Rourke and the other Jared Polis, who is now the Governor of Colorado. The three of them refused to take any contributions from political action committees. There are now three others who've joined their ranks, Phil Rowe, Francis Rooney and someone else we've spoken to, John Sarbanes. He's been committed to the importance of reforming the corrupting influence of money and politics. And one of the reasons he is committed was that he and I share a common ancestry in our education, the scholar Bruce Ackerman. And Bruce Ackerman, of course, with, with Ian Ayres, crafted the idea in a really robust way. It's an idea that had been bouncing around in the academic debates for many years, but he crafted it in a robust way to support what's called Democracy Dollars, or vouchers, which you've heard spoken of in this podcast again and again. And Roe introduced into Congress a plan to Give every citizen $50 to spend in federal elections. This was before this current presidential election cycle. $50 seemed like a lot of money. Since he did that, candidates like Andrew Yang proposed $100 vouchers, and then Kirsten Gillibrand proposed $200 per federal election, which means in some elections, you could have $600 as vouchers to help fund campaigns differently. This is an idea that has really taken off, and Roe has worked incredibly hard to press this idea into the center of political debate. And the place that I was most grateful, as you'll hear in the beginning of this podcast, most grateful that he was able to succeed in convincing someone was his work with Senator Bernie Sanders. Roe was the co chairman of Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, and in that role, he succeeded in getting Bernie to see why vouchers would be such an important part of any solution to the corrupting influence of money in politics. And you'll hear a little bit in this discussion about how he got Bernie to see that, but that he succeeded in that, in my view, is one of the most important contributions he's made. Because now we can begin to see how across the range of positions in the Democratic Party, and let's hope also in the Republican Party, there's a recognition of how we could fund campaigns differently in a way that would radically change the way politics works. So I'm eager to welcome my friend and longtime collaborator, Ro Kahana. Ro, thank you so much for talking to us. As you know, we've been talking on this podcast about the question of reform and the urgent need to find reform inside of our political system. You, as co chairman of Bernie's campaign, were quite successful in getting Senator Sanders to focus enormous energy on the question of reform. I wonder, how do you find Democrats when you raise this question of reform? In particular, the way we fund campaigns, how do you find them, especially ones who've been around D.C. forever.

Well, Larry, first of all, thank you for having me on the podcast and thank you for your work, not just on democracy Dollars and campaign finance reform, but in making the case that reform agenda is one of the biggest ways that Democrats can appeal to a broad segment of the electorate. I had actually sent one of the op EDS you had done on that to Bernie Sanders, and I know he read it. There is an increased understanding, I think, among Democrats that the frustration at the current system, the frustration with the role of lobbyists, with the role of a professional governing class that is unelected and many people think is influenced by money, accounts for so much of the anti establishment politics in our nation, whether that's on the left to Bernie Sanders or whether it was disingenuously on the right with Donald Trump. I mean, you have people saying the system isn't working. If you're in the working class, you're not being represented. There are people in the middle of the night lobbyists who are inserting provisions into these bills that members of Congress are not even reading. And it is, of course, politically, I think, resonant, but it substantively matters because you can be for Medicare for all, or you could be for $15 minimum wage. And what people get is that even if you have a bill towards that end, if you don't get rid of the lobbyist financial industry, then they're going to insert things to dilute any bill. They're going to stymie any real reform. So it's why the Congress led with HR1 in terms of a reform agenda. And I think it's increasingly becoming a prevalent view among Democrats that this is something we have to fight for.

You were instrumental in getting Bernie Sanders to do a town hall with us in New Hampshire, Zephyr Teachout. And I had the great privilege of interviewing him. And you know, you know, I've been talking about this issue for a dozen years. You and I both were tutored by Bruce Ackerman about this issue long before that. But Bernie gave the best account of why we need vouchers as a way to address the corrupting influence of money in politics, by far, of anyone I've ever heard give that account. And I've tried to give the account, you know, hundreds and hundreds of times. So you were his teacher, you were his tutor here. And I just wondered, like, what was that conversation like? Because he so completely got it and sold that audience. And we bundled that up and we sell. We offer that as often as we can because it gets people to see what's at stake. But what was the conversation like with you and him on this?

First of all, I appreciate you saying that Bernie Sanders has a genius for being able to explain ideas very simply. And in a way that's Common sense. And I think he's actually underappreciated just as a political talent. I mean, I've seen him go into rooms and talk about health care, Medicare for all in very simple language that cuts through a lot of the ideological lens. So I certainly cannot do what Bernie Sanders did. But I'll tell you what I said to him. I said to him, senator Sanders, all this bill does is it allows everyone to be Bernie Sanders. And he said, what do you mean by that? I said, look, you can raise money online at 5 bucks, 10 bucks, 15 bucks because you built a national movement and you're somewhat of a celebrity figure, but I can't do that. And I'm your co chair, and certainly a person who has even less name recognition than me can't do that. And so we're stuck in a system that forces us to solicit $2,300 checks. I get that you've never solicited a check in your life, but most people don't have either that total idealism or that ability. But if you actually allowed people, if you made every voter a donor, everyone could run a Bernie Sanders like campaign. And I think that really struck him that what we were doing is basically making it possible for everyone to run the type of campaign he did.

So you could hear that in what he said. And we're gonna link to that town hall in this podcast. At the end, you can hear when he describes the opportunity of being a candidate and being able to appeal to every single voter to become a funder, not just to become a voter. And the dependency that candidates would have on ordinary people, as opposed to a dependency on this tiny fraction of funders, was, was the most important thing for him. And I'm so grateful you got him to see it, because obviously once Bernie Sanders started speaking about it, I think it, it really clarified the issue for so many people in this movement. Because I know that you know that the movement has been attracted to the enormous success of, for example, New York model of matching funds for small dollar campaigns. And people are really excited by that reform. But when Bernie saw and made everyone else see why this is an order of magnitude more important because it would bring everybody into the funding of campaigns. I think that was a breakthrough. Now, you mentioned HR1, and obviously I was so proud of Nancy Pelosi when she delivered on that promise to bring HR1 to the floor and to get it passed if the Democrats regain control of the house. HR1 has a matching fund proposal at the core for campaigns, but it also has A pilot program for vouchers. I wonder, do you, I mean, you also introduced a bill for vouchers to compete with the HR1 idea. I wonder whether you've seen progress in, in the House to see the next version of HR1 to be more ambitious around the idea of vouchers.

Well, first of all, I would just say, and I think you would agree with this, Larry, that John Sarbanes, who's really this is his issue in the House that he cares most about, did a pretty extraordinary job of getting the entire caucus behind HR1 and the matching funds in six to one match is substantial. Okay. It may not get to 80% of people giving, wouldn't be able to give and get that matching funds, but having 10 to 15% give is much better than having 1 to 2% give and it would allow people to expand the donor base and is in the right direction. And so I certainly support it. He also was open to having this voucher idea as a pilot and there are, you know, legitimate concerns in implementation. Right. I mean, Seattle tried it and one of the issues was, well, how many people are actually going to take part in it? How do you do the education behind it? You can have the voucher program and if no one participates, it doesn't really make sense. So I think what Sarbanes was saying is why don't we see a few examples and then focus on the education and the outreach and make it successful. I'm open to that. I'd like to see more than three pilots. I think having 20 pilots or so is probably a better way to go. But in my view, the challenge will just be the execution. How do we actually get people using the democracy dollars and participating with it?

And do you see that if, I mean, let's be optimistic, let's assume we hold the House, we get the Senate, so there's a real chance of getting a bill passed and we have a president who's willing to, to sign the bill. And fantastically, Joe Biden has come out and committed to the idea of fundamental reform in the first hundred days of his administration. So there's a real opportunity here. Do you imagine that if the House takes this up again, it'll be HR1 plus, will it be more ambitious than what HR1 was? Or where do you see that coming down?

I do think it would be more ambitious, I think partly. And I think Biden would sign whatever the House comes up with. But the Senate, of course, is a challenge. And so partly it'll depend on whether we take back the Senate I think if we take back the Senate, I think Schumer would support something more ambitious, and I think Biden would sign something more ambitious. Now, if we don't have the Senate, we're going to narrow the gap, but if we don't have it, then I think it becomes a much more compromised bill that Biden would sign. One thing, Larry, I want to say is that it's very important in this debate not to come at it with a sense of moral. I mean, the reason I don't take PAC money or am able to raise money is I live in one of the most affluent districts in the world, in Silicon Valley. And so if you have other members of Congress who are from districts that are poorer, many of them have a much different challenge in raising funding, especially if they're in black or brown communities where you have a 10 to 1 racial wealth gap. So I don't think we should approach this saying, well, you know, they're doing something morally worse than what I'm doing. We're all in the same system. I think what we're trying to say is that the system is forcing bad choices. It's actually putting people in less affluent districts at a huge disadvantage, and this kind of proposal will actually make things more equal. So you don't have more influence if you come from a very rich district.

Absolutely. I mean. I mean, I'm proud that you're one of, I guess it's six who've committed to taking no PAC money in the House. And that's important. But I think more important is getting people committed to the idea of passing fundamental reform, because it's just not practical in many districts to imagine people being able to run successfully if they have to tie their hand. But if we change the rules, then everybody could run and they could run in an effectively Democratic way. And that's why what you're doing, what you're pushing is so important. But, you know, you've seen the skepticism, the cynicism about the way politics would work. Yes. Obviously, if we don't get the Senate, if Mitch McConnell is still majority leader in the Senate, there's no reason to even talk about this. But there's such a potential here, such an optimistic potential if we do win. You know, I've been fighting this for a dozen years. I don't think I ever thought it was really possible, but now I think it's really possible now. I think we really could get the majorities we need to be able to pass this. But the cynics will say, Look, Democrats passed H R1. Cuz they knew Mitch McConnell would stop it in the Senate. Do you think that you've got the. Here, I'll just say the moral high ground to demand that the Democrats continue through with the promise that Nancy Pelosi promoted and I think so successfully delivered on.

I do. And I think the reason is that Trump has made corruption apparent as opposed to subtle. You know, the reality in Congress, I'll just tell you, my experience is you rarely have a case where someone comes in and says, I'm going to raise you X amount of dollars and I want you to be for this bill, or I don't want you to support Medicare for all. It's very rarely that quid pro quo or obvious. And that's sort of insulting to people who are in Congress. Very few people in Congress, at least on the Democratic side, and it would entertain that. But the corruption in Congress is more subtle. It's more that you have this bill and then somehow some lobbyists get to it and it doesn't get a hearing in committee or it doesn't come to the floor, and they have enough influence with the party leadership because there's enough funding coming into these huge party apparatuses or super PACs. And so that's how it has worked. And because that corruption has been more hidden, I think it has been tougher to expose. Trump comes in and people just see the rampant corruption and it's not subtle and it is so obvious and it's so over the top that I think, and you saw this with Elizabeth Warren's campaign, where I think she gained a tremendous amount of traction running against corruption, corruption in our government. And I think if Joe Biden wins, decency and restoring honor and integrity is gonna be a key part of his message. And so I just think that the political moment is gonna say a reform agenda has to be at the top of the list.

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously you're a progressive leader in the House, but, you know, it must be the case that you have some connection with people on the other side, people in the Republican Party. How have Republicans reacted to this reality of this blatant corruption, let alone the implicit or less obvious corruption that you were describing?

Well, if you take Trump out of it, for whatever reason, Trump has just become polarized. So you're never gonna get any Republican saying Trump is the most corrupt president. I mean, they just, there's too much ideological fealty to him in the Republican Party. But you will get Republicans saying, you know, we really do need to go after the blatant role of lobbyists and moneyed interests. And they will actually say that they think those lobbyists and moneyed interests in beltway are stopping populist agenda. They'll say that they're the ones who got us into these trade deals, they're the ones who got us into these wars overseas. And so they actually share a view that this system has been corrupted. And the interesting thing is I think there is a chance for a grand bargain if you link it to term limits. And there's some members of Congress, Gallagher, Fitzpatrick on the Republican side who have said okay, if we can grandfather in the current members of Congress. But the new folks and very few of the new members of Congress I think expect it to be a career. They feel they'll do 10 years, 12 years and then do something else. Then why can't we link campaign finance reform with some form of term limits? Now we may be able to pass this without the Republican votes, but if you want Republicans on board, I think some kind of grand bargain on that is probably what it would take.

Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense. I mean, I don't think that term limits alone fixes anything. I wouldn't mind term limits with something else. But if you could get term limits and this kind of funding, that would be critical. And to get Republicans would assure that it doesn't become the next Obamacare work where it becomes the political rallying call of one party against the other. I mean, that's optimistic. And it's one really good thing about imagining a world beyond Trump. Because you know, one thing we could say about Trump is you said it was disingenuous at the beginning. And I agree with you. I never really believed it. But it was striking that he stood on that debate stage in 2015 and called out all those other Republican members standing on that stage with him and said that they were all bought, that he had bought them all and that money was a corrupting influence in politics and he was going to drain the swamp. And super PACs were a quote, abomination. I mean it really showed that Republicans too should hate this system as much as Democrats have. And though Democrats have done, I think more to evince their commitment to changing it, I think there's something to get from that. But why then don't we say see yet any significant number of Republicans even talking about changing the way campaigns are funded? Mike Gallagher is wonderful. I really, I think he's fantastic. But he won't touch that with a ten foot pole. So what is it that makes it so hard for them to talk about or embrace the idea of changing the way campaigns are funded.

Well, partly, I think there is a ideological view where they bought into this idea that money is speech and that people should be able to spend their own money and that they're against sort of public financing of campaigns, which voucher system is not directly public financing, but it is using tax dollars to help fund political campaigns. So I think that some of it is ideological. Some of it is their view that the candidates that are taking on the system really will be able to generate grassroots contributions on their own and don't need the aid of government resources. I would say those are probably the two reasons. But you have people like Brian Fitzpatrick and others who do see a role for some form of reform.

And so when we imagine an opportunity to think about this beyond the current crisis, and there's so many crises, we could talk about, whether it's the political crisis or the economic crisis or the health crisis. But beyond this crisis, you remain optimistic that we're going to get some fundamental reform passed in the first six months of the next administration?

I do. Now, what I'm not sure of, and you would know much better than me, is what the Supreme Court will do with it. I mean, I think there's a possibility you could get the House and the Senate to pass something and Biden to sign. It, I think is more likely to be on partisan lines with a few defecting Republicans, a handful, than some broad mandate. And then it would go to the Roberts court. And of course, that's. You have much more expertise on what you think the Roberts court would do with that.

Yeah, well, your bill, I think, is fine. There's no doubt your bill survives. So if that's at the core, and you know, the matching fund, too, the court has been pretty clear. As long as you don't have any trigger tied to the way other people speak. It's a crazy opinion that did that, but that's basically the Supreme Court's rule. I think you're fine. I don't see the court, especially if you can do it in a relatively bipartisan way, stepping in and stopping it as long as we can build the pressure to make sure that it happens. So this is the biggest challenge for me right now to imagine leading up to the COVID crisis, you know, we other groups like Represent Us and Citizens United had succeeded in getting every single Democratic candidate and then finally Biden to commit to fundamental reform. In the first hundred days, Obviously, in the 2018 Congress, you had a huge number of members who came to Congress committing to the same idea. This is why they made this as a topic top priority. But right now we're in the middle of so many distracting crises that it's hard to keep people focused on, like what we need to do, assuming we get through these crises. So what would you suggest to the movement to help the movement understand what we should be doing to make sure that once the smoke clears, we have a clear focus on doing this as the first thing, One of the first things that comes Congress does.

Well, it's understandable, obviously, that, you know, people first care about their life and they're seeing people dying with coronavirus and they're seeing the spread. And so the first concern is I want my family and me to be safe. I want to live. And I think that that's before you think of democracy, you think about your life. The second thing they often think about is I want to make sure that I have a job, I have a paycheck. And that's also a more immediate need than sort of systemic reform. And then you have modern day lynchings going on with George Floyd. And so people are saying, look, I want my kids, if I'm black, to not be shot by cops. And there's an emotional urgency to it. There is an immediacy to it. I think what the reform movement needs to say is all of the agenda that you want, Whether it is a real economic rebuild of this country that focuses on the working class, whether it is real reform in terms of the justice and Policing act that we passed and seeing that that passes the Senate and is signed by the president, whether it is health care reform, all of that at the very least becomes much, much, much easier if you have democratic reform and in some cases actually possible because it is the lobbyists and special interests that are blocking it. And I think. But I think it has to be more than a process argument. I think the more vivid it is where people say, because we have special interests and don't have democratically funded campaigns, your treatment for Covid or your health care stay or your pharmaceuticals costs more, or we didn't have NIH funding to do research or any other number of examples, I think the more immediate it makes it for people.

So do you think that, I mean, obviously what it's going to take is people getting it and then politicians taking it seriously enough. So how does the reform committee communicate to the politicians, to the leaders, that this is the thing they need to take up? Because it's so easy obviously to focus on the thing that seems the most pressing right then. But, you know, I think we've got a. We've got a significant majority who recognize if we don't actually address this fundamental problem, none of these issues that are pressing right now will get addressed in a serious way. So what's the way that they make this feel most powerfully?

Well, I think the continued mobilization. I mean, I think it was very smart to be mobilizing in early states that the movement did. I think mobilizing in battleground states, mobilizing in congressional districts, in Senate place, in places where senators are up, all of that, I think makes a big difference. And I think just conveying the urgency, requesting meetings, writing letters, being on social media, I mean, I can tell you as a member of Congress, I pay attention to that. And if. If in a week I was getting 100 phone calls or emails organically, I mean, not something that's scripted on the need for reform, I would pay attention to that, and it would move up the priority list of what I was focused on. I think, again, tying it to some vivid examples always captures attention. I mean, the way we stopped the repeal of Obamacare was having patients tell their story. And the challenge on reform is it's sometimes harder to personalize it or to make it about, here's what's not happening because of these corrupting influences. But the more we can do that and the more ordinary citizens speak about that and their frustration, I think the better the chances.

How do we get Joe Biden to think about it? I mean, have you spoken to the campaign or to him about this issue? Have you tried to persuade him the way you successfully persuaded Bernie Sanders?

I've spoken to Vice President Biden's team about some other issues. Not about this. I will speak about this after the campaign. I think this is a tough time. You know, right now they're so focused on outraising Donald Trump and making sure that we win that it's probably not the best time to broach it, although I can certainly send it. But I think with Biden, I think the one thing if he does win is that he is going to be in a perspective of legacy right from the first day. I mean, I don't think he's going to be calculating to run for a second term. Maybe he does run for a second term, but I think he's going to realize he may just be doing one term, and so he's going to think about, okay, what can I do to leave America a better place? I really believe that. I mean, there are A lot of places I disagree with the vice president, but I think he does have a sense of decency about America and a belief in wanting to preserve our democracy. And so I think tying this into his view that this is for the soul of America and soul of American democracy, and this could be an enormous legacy issue for him. It seems to me that that is the best way to get him to prioritize it.

Yeah, I mean, he did way early on in his campaign, in his career, push public funding in Congress. This was an important issue to him. So that's a great strategy to get him to recognize how fixing this would be really the most. The second most important thing he's done for America. The first defeating Donald Trump, perhaps. But that's a fantastic strategy when you think about, you know, obviously you. You're in the middle of Silicon Valley. As I explained in the introduction, I first came to know you when you came out to be a lawyer in Silicon Valley, and you helped us at the center for Internet Society and at Creative Commons. And then I was eager to support your campaign when you first ran for Congress against Tom Lantos. But you have succeeded in Silicon Valley because you've become quite an effective spokesperson for the, the values and the importance of innovation and technology and what technology can do. You've also played a really effective role in being a watchdog or raising the balancing concerns. The Technology Bill of Rights, Internet Bill of Rights, which I think is a fantastic example of that, which Sir Tim Berners Lee has endorsed, is a good example there. But when Silicon Valley thinks about the influence that they have in a world where they have money, are they resistant to the idea of moving to a world where all they've got is ideas where they don't have influence through money? Or are they on, let's say, our side when we talk about the need for fundamentally fixing this corrupt democracy?

Larry, thank you for that kind words. And for people who haven't read it, the Code which you wrote is one of the most brilliant books on technology and the law, and certainly shaped a lot of my thinking about how basically software engineers are shaping the architecture that are determining so many outcomes in undemocratic ways. And that looking at Foucault looked at literal architecture as a source of power, you look at the architecture of cyberspace as power. And you did this in the 90s, unbelievably, which was decades ahead of, of the current debate. So I highly recommend. The work is really one of the leading books in the entire field. But I would say that Tech would be open to democratizing funding. I don't think that they're as hung up on preserving their ability to shower politicians with resources. I think that they're far more concerned with issues like do their companies get broken up or not. Section 230 immunity. What are the rules in terms of speech. In some sense you even have in tech saying, well, show us the regulate us. I think people at Facebook would say we don't want as a company of 2.6 billion to be having to navigate the decision making between free speech and hate speech and not and we rather that Congress just provide us with guidelines. But I think they have so many other battles that they're certainly not going to stand in the way of the democratization of finance. And you probably will have some of the people supporting it because to the extent you do believe there's an idealism there, and I do, I mean, I think there's a lot wrong. The one idealistic thought is that the Internet is supposed to democratize access to information, democratize voices, give more people a chance to participate. And if you believe that that is the one core mission that they're still holding to, it would seem highly contradictory then to oppose efforts to democratize campaign finance.

Yeah, I mean I've seen really strong support out of Silicon Valley for it. Although the Silicon Valley I knew when I was there 10 years ago was obviously much younger. As these companies mature, they become used to business model that depends on Washington to protect them more. So I think it's important to get them on the right side of this. And it's fantastic you're leading on this because I think many in the industry listen to you on it. Is it feasible to talk about for them to consider the effect of antitrust in making Silicon Valley more competitive or is the anxiety that antitrust being revived in Silicon Valley would do more harm than good?

Well, I think it depends on who you ask. I mean if you ask the current leaders at the top companies who may face antitrust consequences of breakup, then they would say, they probably say they're for well crafted antitrust regulations. Things that may make sure there are no anti competitive platform privileges that may ensure a portability of data, but they don't want a sledgehammer approach. If you talk to some of the VCs and some of the startups and the entrepreneurs themselves, they'll say these big companies are really taking up a large space and it's becoming harder to compete in these areas. And yes, you can get acquired by them, but overall we need some checks to allow more entrepreneurship to emerge. So I think it's a very open field. And my sense is that if someone articulates thoughtful ways of regulating antitrust, short of breakups, that probably would have the best chance to get people in Silicon Valley on board. I'm not saying some people, they say, no, you don't need them on board, but if you want to get them on board, I think having well crafted regulations is the best chance.

So you've obviously been a leader in the funding of campaigns. Let's talk about some of the other issues that you think are critical. HR1 obviously had gerrymandering reform for at least congressional campaigns. That's going to be part of the next HR one too. Do you think that's if there's any resistance to that?

No. In fact, there it's a little bit easier to get even Republicans on board. Even Republicans, I think, are people like Gallagher. I think I did the op ed I did with Gallagher when I just got to Congress. He embraced redistricting reform. So that's one where you really could see a bipartisan consensus ranked choice voting in the.

I mean, especially we saw this in this recent Democratic primary where I mean, it would have been so wonderful to come out of a state like New Hampshire with something more than just who happened to win, you know, the number one space. Do you think that's a feasible part of reform here?

I've supported ranked choice voting. It is a little bit more controversial among my colleagues, even on the Democratic side. And there are people who are still somewhat skeptical whether ranked choice voting works or not. So I think that's an argument that we have to continue to make, but that's not as much of a slam dunk on the Democratic side.

Okay. And then voting rights. I mean, it is astonishing that we're at a period in our democracy when one party at least seems quite open with its strategy of deploying burdens and tricks and devices to make it hard for the other party to vote. I mean, it's typically framed in racial terms, and obviously in places like Georgia, it plays out in racial terms. But I think the core motivation is just even purely political. It's like if you are writing the rules and administering the election, why not write the rules and administer the election to make it hard for the other side to compete against. Against you? What's astonishing is that we don't have a core principle of equality built into our law that says the party in power can't use their power to make it harder for them to be ousted from their power. Yet we don't. And so we have this open vote suppression. Now, is there a chance that we get a stronger movement to resist the vote suppression not just on racial grounds, but on this more fundamental equality ground?

Yes. And I think you put your finger on the Republican strategy. I mean, their strategy. I mean, you saw the election results in Wisconsin where the Supreme Court justice there lost and partly lost because there's a case that would disqualify 200,000 or 300,000 registered voters from voting. I mean, they literally want to take people who are registered and throw them off the rolls because they haven't voted frequently enough. And now the Supreme Court justice who lost has unrecused himself and is going to preside on the case where unfortunately they may succeed in kicking off 300,000 voters. So if there's anything that I'm concerned about in terms of the 2020 election, it is if you close down enough polling places, if you kick enough people off the rolls, if you have a mail in system without education and outreach, could you have a situation where Biden is winning 5, 6, 7, 8 points in the polls and just is stymied because of voter suppression. And this is where Biden's concern is. I mean, this is why he's announcing 600 election lawyers and monitoring. So I do think that voting rights, I believe that that was a bigger reason for Hillary Clinton's loss than even interference, though interference did happen. The fact that some re polling places were shut down in 2016, that people were kicked off the voting rolls, I think that contributed in dramatic ways to our loss. So my view is that has to be as high a priority as anything else. And it was part of HR1, and I assume it would be part of any HR1 in the future Congress.

But we understand the political motivation, we understand the political games. But I wonder what is the justification that the other side gives for adopting techniques which are solely designed to make it harder for their opponents to vote? I mean, is there a plausible public regarding reason for this or is this just as grotesque as it seems?

Well, I don't think there's anything plausible. I mean, the argument they make is fraud, which is defied by all of the data. But I think they understand that the energy in this country, the demographics in this country are shifting away from them. And their strategy, I think is to hold on to power as long as possible to entrench counter majoritarian institutions, starting with the courts, with the hope that they can stymie fundamental change. And this is why I think people Say, well, why are people still for Donald Trump on the Republican side, it's not that they don't see a lot of his boorishness, his trampling over the rule of law. It's that people like McConnell, I think, fundamentally view this as a battle to entrench their ideology in a nation that they see changing and slipping away. And so if that's your view, then voter suppression is part of it. And you label it, you give the pretense that you're tackling fraud.

But when you. I get that when you talk to politicians, and I get, especially in Washington, the strategic understanding of everything takes preeminent position. But ordinary voters, I just find it harder to believe that ordinary voters, even Republicans, you know, I grew up in the Kentucky part of Pennsylvania, so, you know, I know what a Republican voter is like. I was a Republican. So, you know, I understand this mental, but I don't understand the mentality at that level that would say, yeah, the politicians in power should have the power to screw with the system, to rig the system to make it harder for them to be thrown out. I mean, is there an understanding out there that's justifying this, or is this just. Most people don't focus enough to understand that's what's happening.

I think there's a counter narrative that is false and propaganda, but that is very powerful where they're saying, look, the Democrats are cheating. They're harvesting these votes on vote by mail. They're having people register who are not in multiple ways voting more than once. All of this is defined by the data. But when you have Fox News, when you have conservative radio over and over again appealing to this idea of an aggrieved silent majority, right? I mean, you look at Deaton and Case's work, the Debts of Despair, which I highly recommend, and they talk about how white rural Americans life expectancy has declined in ways more than even the decline in some minority communities. Now, that's not because the life expectancy was already perhaps higher, but the decline has been steeper. And you look at the demographics and they say, look, we've really been shafted. And so the Republican strategy is instead of talking about the structural reasons that they maybe have been left behind, which is Bernie Sanders, they're saying, well, the reason you've been left behind is all of the focus has been on minority communities, on immigrant communities. And what the Democrats are doing is they're just playing to their vote bank and they want more of these people to vote so that you are going to fall further and further behind. And that's really how they tie a message of fraud and voter suppression.

So let's talk a little bit about the media. You know, if you had said to me in January, you know, I just published a book last year where I talked about, you know, the way in which it's terrifying that our democracy is so driven by polarizing media. And, you know, I was talking at that point about the way even the impeachment was being rendered in radically different ways depending on which side of the media you were watching it. But if you'd said to me, look, imagine we had a pandemic and 100,000Americans died and, you know, it was spreading fast, would we penetrate the polarized media and finally get a story that all of America could understand and agree on? I would have said, yeah. I mean, I think I would have said there's some limit to it. But it's astonishing to recognize we're at a moment where 80% of America now lives in a place where the virus is growing faster than declining, the R factor is greater than one, and we've polarized, we've made political the idea of wearing a mask or not. And obviously at the center of that story is the incentive of at least one chunk of the media to render this public health battle in a partisan way. Does that worry you for, you know, the thoughts of what a democracy can be when we can't even deal with the most fundamental questions of health without somebody turning it into just a partisan fight?

Yes, I mean, it's obviously concerning. I mean, I will say this. I thought in the beginning there was more consensus. In the first few weeks, I think when there was a shutdown, lockdown in large parts of the country, even though the president was resisting, there was, I think, more of a sense of compliance. And not just in the blue states, but even in some of the red states. And there was more concern. And then slowly we saw this really come apart. The question is, why are we not able to have honest disagreement and debate within a sphere of common assumptions and facts? By that, I mean, look, there is a genuine debate worth having about the prioritization of public health safety and opening up businesses and opening up the economy. I tend to be more on the side of we need to do everything we can to be safe. And I tend to be more cautious. And there are others who are more risk taking and say, no, we've got to have the economy open up. And if we were having a conversation about that, about the fundamental values differences, at least it would be a conversation that was taking other perspectives into account. Instead, you have this sense of the politicization, even a masks. And the irony is that the masks, wearing masks would have allowed you possibly to have your cake and eat it, too, to save lives and to. To open up the economy. And if Trump does lose, my sense is that what will hurt him the most was not his rejection of shutdowns or the reopening of the economy. It was actually his refusal to even allow for masks. His refusal to do things simple that would have allowed the opening up of the economy while saving lives.

Yeah. And he certainly seems oblivious to the dissonance that's creating. There's a great CNN story where they were interviewing a bunch of Republicans in Florida and a whole bunch of them were, you know, saying, why am I wearing a mask when the president is not, like, why can't he wear a mask, too? Because they all realized the burden is in some sense necessary, especially a state like Florida, which is now the third fastest growing state of the nation. And it's astonishing that he's unwilling to embrace that as a strategy. But let's think a little bit as we come down to the end here about what you're most afraid of in 2020. You know, there's one clear constitutional strategy which you can imagine unfolding where, you know, let's say that we have the third wave of the virus return. So in November, it's a quite serious health crisis, and a state like Florida is quite severely impacted by that. And the state legislature in Florida could declare, we don't think it's safe to have an election. So we're not going to have a presidential election. And instead the legislature appoints the electors themselves, which the Supreme Court and Bush versus Gore reaffirmed what the Supreme Court said in McPherson versus Blacker in 1896, that the legislature at any time could do something like that. I. Are you afraid that as we get close and it seems clear that Biden would prevail under fair and honest rules, that the other side will pull something like this in order to assure Donald Trump gets reelected?

I am concerned, I mean, it would be naive, I think, not to be concerned either by trying to cancel an election, which I think is more extreme, or what I could see is if, if the election is at all close. And I do think the polls are going to tighten just out of. I don't believe we're too polarized a country to believe Joe Biden's going to win by 10 points, though. I wish and hope that that's the case. If the polls tighten. If you end up having a close election, you could see challenges and then states refusing to certify and then it getting kicked into the House, in which case, as you know, the House votes not by the majority, but by who controls the state delegations. And that's another way I think Trump would have a chance. But I think they're going to fight with everything they have to try to win this election, whether that is suppressing as much of the vote, whether it is pushing on elections if they need to, whether it is challenging the results of elections and refusing to certify. And this is the one place I think Biden is right is this really is a battle for our democracy.

So do you think it would have been a better strategy in March or April for the Democrats to have said, look, here's our one non negotiable, we're going to have automatic vote by mail in every state as a part of any Covid address, Covid response package, so that at least we would go into that election knowing that there would be no good justification for doing anything other than just counting the votes that are cast.

You know, I had supported that. There were a number of progressives who had supported that. The challenge is, of course, when you're in Speaker Pelosi's position and you literally are having people say the economy is going to collapse, people are going to lose their jobs, people are going to lose their, their ability to survive, you feel a sense of obligation, moral obligation. And I think that sense of duty to the country was weighing on her. Now, I do think Trump politically needed this probably even more than the Democrats did. But Democrats aren't like Mitch McConnell. I mean, we're not just obstructionists. I mean, the irony is we're the ones saying, let's have another stimulus, even though it would probably politically most benefit Trump. So I think the challenge was that she really felt the weight of history on her.

And so is there any chance right now that those ideas you were pushing four months ago might actually come to fruition? Will we see a major push to support vote by mail at the federal level?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I've just. I think there is no way the Republicans would pass something like that. And, you know, the vote by mail, Larry, one of the important things which I know you understand well, because you've written about this, talked about it, is that it's one thing to have vote by mail, which we need to fight for. It's another thing which we. There's some very good Groups doing is to make sure that people are educated about how to use vote by mail and that they're using vote by mail because the studies show that younger voters and black and white Latinx people and communities are the least likely to use vote by mail. And so if we just have vote by mail and don't have a concerted outreach effort, that also is a challenge.

Okay, so we've spoken to a bunch of candidates for Congress who have been importantly committed to reform. Who are the most exciting people that you've been seeing or talking to in this upcoming cycle that you think we should be talking to as well?

Well, there are a lot of great candidates running in terms of people who I would say of new candidates, you know, I mean, Mondir Jones, of course, just won his race. I was.

We spoke to him. He's great.

He was very much about this. Sri Kulkarna is running in Texas, and I've been involved in his campaign. He's talked about reform and getting behind reform. And those are sort of two candidates off the top of my head. I'd have to go look at their positions on reform or, I mean, there are other candidates I know on healthcare, where they stand or other things. But maybe that's a challenge. I mean, maybe we should be evaluating these candidates on a reform agenda more prominently. So much of our effort in the House is, of course, defending the incumbents who we barely won in 2018. There's one other person who I think would be great on reform, and that's J.D. scholten. I don't know if you've talked to him. He's running in Steve King's district and has really championed reform issues.

I would love to talk to him. That's great. Yeah. No, and I hope you do begin to create this category, because 2018 was so exciting. We had so many people make this the issue, and we need that again in 2020 if we want to make sure that we have the votes to assure that we pass this in the first six months. I hear your kid in the background. I'm so grateful you would take time to talk to us, Ro. It's been many, many years we've been working together, and I'm honored to continue to support whatever you're doing.

Well, I'm honored. And, Larry, you've been a big influence on my thinking. But more importantly, you've been a big influence on the House's thinking and the Senate's thinking and our presidential candidates thinking. And I hope Biden would have you lead the effort on some of the reform initiatives. And then we need, of course, your continued voice for many years to come on technology and navigating that. So thank you for all of your work.

Thank you. Thank you, Raoul. These podcasts are produced by citizens us. You can find us on the web at Equal Citizens Us. Find this podcast at Equal Citizens Us. Anotherway. There's a place there to share the podcast and give us your feedback and your ideas. Please do both. Here's what you really need to do. Please help us identify other candidates we should be talking to. As you hear at the end of this podcast, one of the things that Rocahonta suggests is that we make this an issue in the 2020 congressional races so that members of Congress are identified by their commitment, their willingness to take up and to fight for these issues of fundamental reform. It's interesting how the perception is it's hard to do that when you need to raise money to defend these people who were elected at close margins in 2016 and 2018. But of course, there's no inconsistency with fighting in the system as it is, while committing to changing the system to what it should be. So we want to hear about candidates you've come across who've been talking about these issues in a way that could actually make a difference. And even if they're not running for Congress, even if they're running for state legislature or any other place where politicians are succeeding in getting people to recognize the importance of addressing this fundamental corruption inside of our system, we want to hear about them. I've discussed many of these ideas in the book I published last fall. They don't represent us. This book is going to come out again in next year and I'm going to revise a bit based especially on what happens in this election. I'm hoping that in the following fall we're going to launch a book club discussion around the book so I can get some of your feedback to ideas that are in the book that might help me think about how I can update or change or correct the mistakes. I'm sure there are lots in that book. Thank you again for listening to these podcasts and thank you for your support. This is Larry Lessig. Tomorrow I leave for some vacation, but until I get a chance to talk again in these podcasts. Thank you for your support and for everything you do to make these issues central in our political debate. It's been a long 12 years, so 12 years that I've been fighting as a commitment, as a promise, not just to my kids, but to many other kids as well. So thank you for helping in that. And let's keep fighting until a year from now when we can look back and say, we did it, we've succeeded in passing fundamental reform, and now we can get onto fixing the problems that America faces. Thanks very much.