The Next Great Civil Rights Bill? With Elizabeth Hira

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group. Welcome to another episode of the podcast, Another Way, produced by Equal Citizens. This is Adam Icahn, the executive Director of Equal Citizens. Right now, the Senate remains in recess, but momentum continues to build towards the for the People Act's passage. Some big question marks remain, of course. Will senators release a revised for the People act that all Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin, can support? What internal negotiations are going on regarding the filibuster? And this is an important one. When will President Biden get more involved in this fight? These are critical questions that have to be resolved, but I'm confident that they will be resolved soon enough. Today, though, I want to think more deeply with you about the general structure of the for the People act and why it's such a brilliantly designed policy. My goal is not only to inspire you to keep fighting to pass this critical bill, but also to help give you some talking points to push back against the pundits who say that this bill is too big or poorly designed. Talking points that unfortunately have become commonplace, at least commonplace inside the Beltway. And I could think of no better person to join me for this endeavor than Elizabeth Hera. Elizabeth, in addition to being a good friend of mine, is especially fellow and policy council with the Brennan center for justice, and she's a leading voice in the democracy reform movement. Elizabeth worked most recently as a lawyer in the US Congress, first for Senator, well, then Senator Kamala Harris, and later serving on the Committee on House Administration to develop the first version of the for the People act for the 116th Congress. In other words, she literally helped to write the bill. And of course she worked for the Vice President who is now leading the White House's efforts to get the for the People act passed. I'm really excited for you to hear this interview. Without further ado, I hope you enjoy the episode. Hey Elizabeth, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm always thrilled to chat with Equal Citizens and specifically with you, of course.

I'm extremely excited for this conversation. I think it's going to be a really, really good one. So let's start really. Generally, I want to give our listeners a sense of what brought you into this democracy fight, because I know this story and I know why you're so motivated. But I want you to share it with our listeners. Why do you care so much about democracy? What keeps you motivated in this fight?

I think democracy isn't bloodless infrastructure the way that we often talk about it. Democracy is the ability of everyday People to participate in the systems that most affect them. And I frankly am from a background where you don't see many people like me actually representing us at the table. So I am an immigrant. I was born in Guyana. I am a woman of color. I am from a working class background. I was raised by a single parent. And I cannot tell you how many times I have been in a room where policy is being made where. Where it is abundantly clear to me that that room was never designed for me to actually be in it. And being working alongside other people who have similarly diverse backgrounds. To me, I have seen what it actually means to be able to speak up, to help shape what policies are getting made. And it matters, it really matters that there are people like us there. And I think, again, that's not just about democracy broadly. It's literally about the things that affect our families, about food insecurity, about health care, about the things that everyday Americans are experiencing when they're just living in the world. And I think, frankly, all they're trying to do is be safe, to be healthy, to feel embraced and accepted in their communities. And I think that's all of our identities that come into that. That's our gender, our race, our sexual orientation, our gender identity, our income, all of those things are sort of actually what is at stake when you're building a democracy. And so I work on democracy because I realized that when people who are impacted don't take an active hand as voters, as policymakers, as people who are shaping this, then we are left behind. And too often have we been told that we shouldn't participate when in actuality, the only way we change these systems that hurt us is if we actually do. And I will sort of. It is not lost on me that I was an elections council in the United States House working on this great big democracy bill. And the only reason that I am even in this country is because America had a hand in destabilizing the democracy in my own tiny country in Guyana. And I've written about it in a medium and I've shared it with you, Adam. But I think it's really ironic that we have seen the fruits of that sort of undermining of democracy. I saw it in my own country. It's caused my country to really lack stability for decades and to be one of the consistently poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere until the very recent discovery of oil. But I've seen what it does because it robs people of a faith in the integrity of their democracy and it makes them sort of give up in systems, which hurts everybody. And I don't want that to happen here. Right. If my little country hadn't been destabilized, I wouldn't be here with my little, my family that looks so different than so many other families. But it is a privilege to make sure that that doesn't happen here. And I think that's why I'm sort of wowed and awed to get to work on the for the People act to support and protect and frankly, strengthen America.

Yeah. And it really is. You mentioned that the Medium post you wrote about kind of the linkages between your family's past and your present. And we'll include that in the show notes because it really is a powerful media. You know, it really is a powerful meditation on the way you see your role in this democracy and the fight to fix it. And also the, you know, as you mentioned, the profound consequences of democratic backsliding that we often talk about, you know, just how important democracy is, but we don't often talk about just how scary and dangerous it is when democracy is taken away. And that's, you know, part of what I think you and I think about a lot when we think about American democracies, because we see our country backsliding.

We see.

We see our democracies and states across the country veering towards minority rule. And that's very, very frightening. And so I think that's an important thing you're bringing to the table here, is that this isn't just about making small improvements to American democracy to make it work better. This is about guarding against democratic backsliding, which is really dangerous, and then also pushing our country and pushing our democracy to make good on the promise of being a multiracial democracy. Something that, as we'll talk about, has largely been aspirational and never really never been fully realized in this country.

My story seems like it would be impossible, but it shouldn't be. And I think I don't view myself as special. I view myself as just like every other American. And what is important about this work is that everyday Americans deserve a seat at the table. And they should be voting, they should be running, they should be making policy, and they should come be staffers in Congress, which is the thing that I'm excited to talk to you about. But I sometimes would sit in these rooms and just patently feel how special it was to get to be there as a regular person. And I think that's sort of that, to me, is what makes the for the people act special, is that it is actually envisioning a democracy. It's not just playing defense against the worst stuff. It's creating opportunities for people who are the most left out to actually lead America as we shape it.

No. And I think that what your story highlights is also the perils of what happens when there is an absence of democracy or when democracy is taken away. It's not a game that when we face a democratic backsliding, it's very scary. And destabilization can happen anywhere. And so, you know, it's not something that we can give up on that the. That American democracy is far from perfect, but we have to give it everything we can to not just preserve it, but bring it to a place where it's never been before, that we actually have a government that works for the people. As you said that, you know, it's very clear that our democracy doesn't work that way. It hasn't for a long time, but it's getting worse. And we have to guard against backsliding. And we have to go further than just preventing backsliding, but making good on the promise of American democracy, which we'll talk about this. But it's a promise of American democracy that has never been fulfilled.

Yeah. And I also. I think what you've raised, jobs, a really important point is that there are really critical effects when you cause people to lose faith in democracy. And I've seen it in Guyana. Right. There is a. There is a poverty of expectation about the functioning of the nation, just the basic functioning of the nation. And we've always been jockeying like, since that American intervention occurred, we have been jockeying for the status of the poorest country in the Western hemisphere. And it's amazing even now to see people with incredible resources and talent sort of just not be able to realize their full potential because they're literally living in a country whose infrastructure doesn't embrace that necessarily. Or at least that was true when my folks were coming up. And I don't want to see that happen in America. I don't want us to see people who are the most impacted look at the government and say, they have nothing for me, they are not for me. And as a result, I will disengage. When in fact, the single most helpful thing to be able to help people who are the most impacted harmfully by our current status quo is for them to become involved, for them to participate as voters and as people who are running for office. Because that lived experience will inform policy that they can create to change those circumstances. And so I think, you know, I reflect on it as like, I think it's, it's originally from Baudelaire, but people know it from Kaiser Sosse, right? It's like the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing folks that he didn't exist. And I think that the greatest harm that we are seeing currently in our democracy is convincing people who are most impacted by harmful status quo to disengage from the democracy, because that ensures that these things will never be fixed. And I think that's sort of the story of the topic of our conversation. HR1 is how do we open democracy up to people and convey to them effectively why it matters for them? And so that's sort of the work that you guys are doing that so many of us are lucky and privileged to get to work on.

Let's take it back a couple years. You were a staffer on the Hill and you actually helped craft the for the People Act. Can you take us through that process of crafting the for the People Act? What were the goals when writing the bill? And how would you describe the architecture or the structure of the bill?

So, as you mentioned, I was one of hundreds, if not thousands of people who helped to put this bill together. I think at the point that we were doing it in the 116th Congress, I think it clocked in at about up to 700 pages, I think, and now it's up in the 800s. Nothing in the bill was revolutionary. I was really privileged to get to work for the Committee on House Administration. I was an elections counsel on the committee alongside with, frankly, some of the most brilliant people I've ever had the privilege of working with. And nothing that we were doing was revolutionary. It really was taking things that were already in place in existence all across this country, automatic voter registration, same day voter registration, and putting it all together in one comprehensive bill that said, hey, what if we just made this accessible to everybody? What if we just said, hey, let's flip the paradigm and make it easy for every actual American who wants to vote? Mr. Sarbanes, who is the primary sponsor of the bill, always reminds people that Representative John Lewis basically wrote the first 300 pages of the for the People Act. And I think the bigger thing for me, and this is sort of was in our mind, I think, on House Administration when we were helping with the bill, is that this isn't just a bunch of bills that are preexisting, stapled together. It's not a voting rights bill. Stapled to a campaign finance bill, stapled to an Ethics bill. It is a comprehensive picture of what actually needs to be fixed in American democracy. And I think as I've developed on it now, retroactively thinking about it, we, we were sort of renovating a house. You've got this great house. It's beautiful, but it needs some help. It needs repairs. And it's like you would never in a million years fix your roof and say, well, why don't we just leave the door wide open off its hinges and the windows out, and then maybe in a couple of years we'll fix that. Right? And so I think this was an opportunity and in frankly, some of the darkest days of our democracy, to optimistically envision what would be possible and to fight for it. And I think that's sort of what was incredible about that bill is, was just hundreds of people, you know, advocates like you guys on the outside, experts like the Brennan center, who just were putting their emotional and intellectual energy into creating something that was, frankly, effectively a fix for the worst things wrong in our democracy. And I think that's sort of the spirit and energy that we took into it with a yes and strategy because we were seeing, frankly, the most cynical people and the most cynical pundits around us tell us that we were never going to recover. And we certainly were never going to recover if we never offered a plan. And so I think, as I think about it now, HR1 was our plan for, you know, saving our democracy. And lo and behold, I think when we did it, we could not have imagined that we would be in the suppressive climate that we're in. You guys know better than anybody, we're literally looking at 49 states offering more than 400 voter suppression bills. And that wasn't even the climate when we were drafting it the first time. So the fact that we were answering questions that we didn't even know were going to be asked feels pretty extraordinary. But again, I have to lift up that team of folks, you know, particularly my friend Steve Spalding, who's now on the outside with me at Common Cause. This just doing the Lord's work, honestly, and it's one of the great privileges of my life to have gotten to do that with them.

Was it exhilarating to do?

Oh, I cried so much, Adam, during the whole thing, I cried so much. I remember there was one meeting that we went to at the parliamentarian's office, and I remember, you know, I love anybody who knows me knows I have. I love shoes. And I was wearing these cobalt blue suede shoes. And I remember, like, you know, hearing my heels click on the floor and getting into the parliamentarian's office, and this view is to die for. It just felt like being in a movie, you know, where you were like, oh, my God, this is really, like, this is governance. This is all these, like, people who are so smart and so dedicated, woke up this morning, drank probably way too much coffee, and they're here to, like, fix our democracy. And we're doing this together in our, like, you know, fun shoes, overlooking this beautiful vista that, you know, just, again, feels like it's out of a movie. So, again, there's a lot of stuff that I definitely. I sort of treasure as the coolest parts of getting to have been in government. For all the frustrating, you know, there are certainly nights that we slept in the office for sure. But, yeah, it was. I mean, that's what I talk about as this privilege. We were coming up with concrete stuff. This wasn't just like. I think when people think about the government from the outside, they're sort of like, what are they even up to? And getting to actually see it from the inside. Weirdly, I may be the only person that will say this out loud, but working in government, frankly, strengthened my faith in American democracy, and I'm excited to see that work continue now.

So what do you make of the pundits who consistently say that the for the People act was written just as a quote, unquote, messaging bill and never actually intended to pass, that it was just something that Democrats did because it was appealing, that it sounded good, it was a campaign promise that they were trying to fulfill just to put it out there, and there was never any intention to pass. What do you say to that?

I find that really rich coming from people who weren't there. And I think what's amazing about it is sort of the hubris of, I guess, having pundits have to eat so there's space to fill for them to take up. But I find it, frankly, insulting to the American people that really basic stuff like should we support the right of people to vote regardless of the color of their skin is being presented by pundits as messaging. The fact is, and we'll talk about this, I'm sure, later, the content of this bill, I always say it's doing three things. It is continuing the work of the Voting Rights act. So it is beating back active and invidious discrimination that is occurring in the modern day. The Brennan center has really cataloged alongside other folks, including the American Congress, Nvidia's discrimination in voting absolutely persists. To this day, this bill is beating that back. It is also doing amazing things like taking neutral measures that have disparate impacts and beating those back as well. And finally, with its campaign finance reforms, it is asking the fundamental question about what needs to change in American democracy to actually have a government that reflects the American people. Those three critical things is what the bill is actually doing. And I find it frankly insulting that pundits would look at that work and say that it is messaging or that is not necessary or that is not possible. And I think the swell of support nationally that we have seen for this bill over the last years proves that this clearly was not designed to be a messaging bill, otherwise people wouldn't be behind it this way. And I also just find it upsetting because it's like Congress is not in the habit of wasting its time. Right. And so we had an opportunity to do something, frankly, visionary. And those folks, those folks who were working on it, those members who were leading that charge, so Lofgren, John Sarbanes, Mr. Lewis. Lewis, Mr. Cummings, they were just, they said, let's do it. Marcia Fudge, these guys are just out here and they're doing the job that they were sent to Congress to do. Yeah. And the pundits weren't there and they don't know and they shouldn't talk about things that they don't know.

And so a very similar question, but another refrain of the pundits is that the bill is just too long, it's too complex. They say, oh, it's 700 and something pages. It's not serious. It's just a grab bag of, you know, Democrats wish list of what they want. But it's just too big. It's too much of an omnibus to be taken seriously. I mean, what's your response there? What's your response to the length of the bill? Because I know that you this is not the first time you've heard that criticism and I know, Elizabeth, we've talked about this, that that drives you insane.

I'm just flabbergasted at how people have the audacity to be angry at Congress for doing its one job. This is a really big bill because there is so much to fix in American democracy. Right. And frankly, I think you would be abdicating your responsibility as a Congressperson to say I'm just going to fix a tiny bit of it incrementally and not because it was more feasible to be done incrementally. It'd be one thing if there were a strategic likelihood that Doing it one tiny, tiny bit at a time would make it more likely to pass. What we've seen. And the facts behind HR1 and S1, the for the people act are very clearly that we actually can get the numbers to get this passed and we can get it done now. Right? The bill intact is possible. And again, it's not because of the choice of the senators, the choice of the president. It's about the fact that the people have collectively clamored for the things that are in the bill. So the bill is not too big because again, it just does not make sense to say we're going to fix voting rights so people can vote. But if you don't fix who people can vote for, then your vote doesn't really seem to be as important anymore. Right. Because American voters need to vote for people who reflect their bloody values. And I'm just so angry. I'm angry at people who say it is perfectly appropriate that we're literally having a conversation about insane inequity in America and it's perfectly appropriate that 2/3 of the United States Senate are millionaires. That is not appropriate. That is unacceptable. And I think that's the sort of thing that this bill is tackling because it's saying millionaires should not be controlling our elections, billionaires should not be controlling our elections, regular people should have a shot at office. Right? And so, like, if that's the stuff that's being addressed in this bill, we're saying we're going to affect who can vote, we're going to affect who can run, and we're going to ultimately affect what policies end up getting reflected to help the American people. That is not too big. There is no universe in which actively being effective as policymakers is too much to ask. That is literally their 1 job in Congress. And so, again, I think I'm stunned. I am disappointed. I am. All sorts of things that the sort of people who just say, well, it's too big to pass. Well, no, it's close to passing. Right. And the people of America have made clear that they wanted to pass again. And we've talked about this extensively. You guys at Equal Citizens have done fantastic polling to show that there is bipartisan support for this bill. It is a lie that's being told that. Not that folks, this is only belonging to one party. The fact is that it is Republican politicians alone, not Republican voters, who are fighting what's in this bill. And that's what we saw with that great Jane Mayer expose saying the reason they're relying on what they call under the dome tactics is because they cannot win hearts and minds on the message. The message of HR1 resonates with the people. And that's what I think these folks are afraid of. So I think the pundits who say it's too big are not actually responding to the fact that there is a lot to fix and the job of the United States Congress is to fix it. And they're doing it with this bill. They've packaged it up and it's ready to go. So we just need to.

Right. And there hasn't been a real rewrite or kind of a fixing of American democracy via Congress in years. I mean, there was the Help America Vote act in 2002, which was a significant bill, but it didn't really get to these the real inequities in the system. And then before that, you have the 1965 Voting Rights act and may some small things here and there, but there really hasn't been an attempt by Congress to bring American democracy into the 21st century. And so it's not. It's. Yeah, it's just not a surprise that the bill's so long because our democracy has been decaying for decades. And so if it wasn't 800 pages, that would be a problem because there's a lot to fix.

And we have been sticking our finger in a lot of dams. And I think that sort of, why not just fix the whole dam, you know?

Right.

I think that's what is really exciting and what I like to remind people about, this last election, the one, the 2020 presidential, was the most secure in American history, but it also had the highest participation in American history. And so I think folks use that to say, like, oh, well, democracy is totally fine. People are voting. Do you know what also was happening during that election that you know better than anybody? You have people standing in line for 10 hours to be able to vote. So the fact that Americans are going to go above and beyond to participate in their democracy is amazing. It also should not be. And I think that's the sort of stuff that this bill is actually fixing. Right. You should not have to suffer and struggle to be able to vote. Because we have been suffering and struggling in this country to be able to vote for so long. Women, people of color, people who are left out, people who are not property owners. Right. We're just left out. And it has been a struggle of literally centuries to get us to this franchise. And I don't understand why we wouldn't just make it accessible when we're finally in a time where, like the words of the founding fathers that were exclusionary are being answered by this level of participation for all the people that they never envisioned getting to participate. So this is the work that. This is, frankly, just unfinished work that needs to get done. And that's what this bill is doing.

Yeah. And, you know, ultimately it's, you know, the ease of voting and, you know, how fair your districts are shouldn't depend on what state you live in. That's kind of one of the core principles of the for the People act is that it sets national standards for all these things that, you know, during the elections, during the pandemic, you know, some states transitioned pretty easily, like Colorado, where they send everyone a ballot, you know, whereas in other places like Texas and Indiana, it was very hard to vote. And it also, you know, your ease of access to the ballot depended on, you know, how old you were. You know, they allowed anyone over 65 to vote by mail, but anyone under 60 had to have an excuse. You know, we've talked about that on the podcast before, and I think that's one of the critical parts of the for the People act that makes it so transformative is that it would set national standards for all these things. And that's not a small fix. That it really is about equality and that, you know, your ability to participate in our democracy can't be dependent upon what state you call home. That's absurd.

Especially when states have not necessarily shown that they're willing to live up to the responsibility that they should take seriously to give people access to the vote. And the example I want to give there is everybody's sort of familiar. I'm sure your listeners are familiar with the Monster Law in North Carolina and this thing that frankly, the federal court struck down saying that it targeted African Americans with, quote, surgical precision that is lifted up as a. It should be a good news story where litigation was able to stop this thing from happening. But I want to emphasize that even after that litigation, the nation reported that we had in 40 heavily black counties, there were 158 fewer early polling places for early voting after the Monster law. Right. So it's like, because there's still local control, and as you say, there's no federal minimum standard, you still have counties who are able to say, we're going to reduce early polling sites. And in North Carolina, guess what? Early voting places were completely eliminated at historically black colleges and universities. And so that sort of thing is exactly what would be addressed by the for the People Act. Because you would just set a minimum standard, as you said, two weeks of early voting. Right. Just simple things that would make it actually accessible for people to vote. And I think the analog that I use is that, like when you look at the suppression that's existing, first of all, the federal government has this authority under the Constitution, under the elections clause of the Constitution, the Congress can do exactly the sort of legislation that we're talking about. But like, more importantly, when things are in crisis, we have a precedent in America of saying the Fed needs to step up. When there was active stance, when there were active stances against school integration, the National Guard was sent in. And the fact is that we're seeing these bills that nonpartisan nonprofit groups like the Brennan center are very clearly saying have disparate impacts on minority groups, on poor people, on women, even. These impacts are being allowed to persist and they should not be. And so the federal government, frankly, has an obligation to stop states from playing whack a mole with people's voting rights.

Yeah, completely agree. So, okay, let's change gears a bit. I want to talk about something a little more optimistic. I want to get a little bit into the weeds because, Elizabeth, one of my favorite things when talking to you is you always bring receipts. When it comes to the for the People act, you're one of the few people because you wrote it or you helped write it. You, you have a citation, you know exactly what page specific policies are on. And I'm not going to quiz you, I'm not going to tell you. I'm not going to give you a policy. I'm not going to tell you what page is early voting on, although I think you might know. But I won't put you on the spot. But one of my favorite things is that you do know this bill inside and out. Right. And so I want to give you an opportunity to give our listeners a sense of some of the lesser known provisions of the for the People act. Because there really are so many great parts of this bill that we have never even mentioned briefly on this podcast. Right? And we've talked about the big stuff. We've talked about, you know, limits on gerrymandering, you know, independent redistricting commissions. We've talked about public financing of elections. We've talked about same day registration, early voting, automatic voter registration, but there are so many more. And so, Elizabeth, I want to give you a chance to talk about a couple of your favorite lessons or known provisions.

So one thing we've talked about, this Equity for the People, this report we were able to do with the Brennan Center. That's fantastic. And sort of puts a lens of equity on the bill. And one of the things that I was amazed to discover is just how young people need to be supported to be engaged in our democracy. Like some fun things are happening where like Gen Z is the kids who are coming up now, they are the most diverse American cohort in history, right? They are 48% non white. They are also the least registered to vote. And what I find shocking is that Gen Z and millennials together right now, boomers are 28% of the eligible voting electorate. If millennials and zoomers got together, they would literally be the largest voting bloc in America. Young people in this country could dictate what happens in American politics, which it's sort of shocking, right? We're collectively, we're 38% of the eligible American electorate. You're not seeing us turn out in really great numbers. And I think the result of that is seeing people who are not having lived experiences like ours, right? So like currently democratic leadership is often, I think all collectively in their 80s. The last presidential contest we had was literally which white male, 70 something year old millionaire would you like to choose to run the country? And like that doesn't reflect what these young people's actual lived experience is. So I raised that because I find it amazing that we could literally turn the tide of this country if we got young people to vote. And young people voting is a really big part of for the People Act. So the bill contains Pre registration for 16 and 17 year olds, many of whom are going to the DMV to get their permits and stuff. And so it would put your names into the rolls such that when you turned 18 you were automatically registered to vote, which I just sort of love because I think to me it's like the great side of like we figured out civil service in this country. I remember my brothers getting their cards in the mail when they turned 18. What if we gave you a card in the mail when you turn 18 to say welcome to our democracy, you're welcome to participate. So that's one thing that I love. I also love the democracy restoration pieces of the bill that we don't talk about often enough that this bill would just make it a clean standard that if you are in your community, you have the right to vote again and again. I think people who are returning to the community after incarceration are so marginalized in so many ways that this little entree to say you belong in our society, society and you yourself have the opportunity to make it better and by extension to make yourself better. Right. Like every American does. I think through participating in the polity

is a really beautiful thing. So one very quick just point of clarification. Can you just quickly explain the status quo about why we need democracy restoration? We've talked about that on this podcast a bit. But just to remind our listeners, why do people not have the right to vote?

I think in 29American states, folks are not given they're limited in their ability to vote after they return from incarceration. There's not a great rationale for why. And the equity paper really points out that there frankly is a lot of racist history that goes into that. The states passed laws that they knew that they were going to over enforce against people of color with the specific intention of them being able to say, well, hey, once you've committed this kind of crime, you actually lose your right to vote. And so it was a very strange workaround to basically deny the franchise to many people of color all across this country. So that's the sort of the status quo on democracy restoration. Again, because of mass incarceration having these disparate figures. We know that this thing would restore the vote to 3.9 million Americans, 1.6 million of whom are black and Latinx. So democracy restoration matters because it also, like right now, there's just a patchwork quilt of laws all across the country. So some folks aren't sure if they can vote, and then some folks are not sure about their actual eligibility. And one of the stories that I'm sure you hear lifted up often is that of Crystal Mason, this woman who was returned. She was living in her community after incarceration. Her mother encouraged her to do her civic duty and vote. She cast a provisional ballot and then she was penalized, sent back as a result of what they were calling voter fraud for a vote that never even got counted. You know, and I think it's that sort of what you see sometimes. What's pernicious about these things are not just their individual instances, it's the chilling effect that they have on other people. So if you are a formerly incarcerated person and you see that happening, you're going, oh man, I don't know for sure, for sure. Under my state law, if I am absolutely allowed to vote and it may actually kill my participation period, which of course then hurts my community. Right. Because I don't get to participate in choosing who represents us. Right. And those people who are representing us are very unlikely, frankly, to have to understand my Experience as a person who has been incarcerated because of.

Again, sorry. So just to be clear, so the for the People act would make it so that anybody who has left incarceration, so immediately upon being released, you're automatically given. Once you are living the franchise again,

if you live in your community, you can vote. That's it. That's the answer. And the other part of it that I really want to lift up to your broader question about other things that I love that are in the bill. It also ends prison gerrymandering. A lot of people don't know that the current practice when we count where folks live in their community for the census is to take folks who are incarcerated and count them not at the place from whence they come, but where they are incarcerated. And frankly, again, over representation of people of color in these systems means that you have a lot of people of color counting where they are incarcerated, often largely white and rural communities. And we know that the census matters because that dictates where resources go in a community. So there's this perverse thing happening where you're having a lot of people of color counted in a community where they cannot participate because they are currently incarcerated. And then those resources, just by dint of zero sum realities, resources are being given to communities who are incarcerating. And frankly, that means that they're not going to the communities that these people who are being incarcerated come from. Right. And so the things that help keep you out of jail are good structural supports that you are being denied because you're not being counted in your community. And then perversely, you're being incentivized to build prisons so that you can have more people account toward getting you resources from the legislature. So HR1 ends prison gerrymandering in this way that I think again is really simple and deals with this. When people learn about prison gerrymandering, they're horrified. And HR1 would fix it. But I want to, in the time that we have, Adam, if you'll allow me to, to tick through some of the other things that I love.

Of course, because there's one in particular that I know is a policy I care very deeply about. So it would be remiss if you didn't mention it. So I want you to mention it.

Yes. Well, also one that I also love to lift up, just coming back to the young people thing, is that there are grants in the bill on page 92 in the version of HR1, grants from the EAC to states to support civic engagement for young people. And that's everything from, you know, helping them be poll workers to actually just changing your classroom curriculum to focus on civic engagement. Which is amazing because I heard a stat recently that I think a third of Americans aren't able to name the three branches of government.

Wow.

And when you process that, you sort of realize like, we need, we have a lot of work to do. And if people understood what the government does one, and what the government could do two, they would be way more likely to participate because they understand what is at stake. And so I think what's awesome about this bill is like, not only are we saying we're actually fixing the infrastructure to participate, we are incentivizing young people to learn about what is happening in their country so that they can participate, so they shape the future that they are.

Elizabeth, I want to just quickly build off of something you just said, but the word you keep using, I think is so important to lift up of infrastructure that this bill really is infrastructure for democracy. It's the, you know, for lack of a better expression, the roads to get people from non participation to participation to have easy access to the right to vote. I mean, it really is about a long overdue infrastructure bill for the life of American democracy. The institutions. And you're right, you're so right that what this bill would do, in addition to kind of what we talk about all the time about making it easier to vote and gerrymandering, but it would, it would restore faith and confidence in government, especially among young people. And I think that's just so important to highlight that in so many different ways this would reinvigorate American democracy. It really would be the difference between a bridge that's on the precipice of collapsing, it has cracks in it. People don't want to cross the bridge because they're worried about that bridge. They're worried if they go over it, going to collapse when they're in their car going over the bridge to a brand new bridge that they can drive over it and have zero doubts that it's going to carry their weight and they'll get from point A to point B. And so I think that's just such an important thing to lift up.

Yeah. And one of the things that I love about this bill is that again, I think the bad guys didn't realize that in their efforts to suppress the vote, they have piqued the ears of all of these young people. And one thing that's always stayed with me is an interview that the Times did with a young woman who was at Stanley Rock, a young Native American woman who was voting for the first time in the election where we know voter ID was having a suppressive effect attempted on Native American communities. And she said, I literally am only motivated to vote because I didn't realize how important it was until I saw how hard they were working to take it away from me.

Right.

And that realization, there are young people all over this country who are watching that happen. And I think that's sort of what's been. They were poking a bear. And I think that this idea of being like, no, this actually really matters and can have huge impacts on communities is going to inspire more people to participate. So I think that's a really beautiful part of it.

I couldn't agree more. But before we move on, tell us about the Help America Run act, because it's a critically important part of the bill that I have to have you talk about, because I know that you care deeply about it. And it's one of the. The most transformative policies within HR1 that no one talks about.

Oh, I talk about it.

That's true. Which is why you're on the podcast

to talk about it, Elizabeth And I try to get other people to talk about it, too. So the genesis of this thing, when I was in, I worked for Senator Kamala Harris before, and I had a woman who came to me after the Parkland shooting, and she said, I think that we could help a lot of the bad things we see in America if more women were in Congress. And I think half the women, half the Congress should be women. And it's sort of the question, just Wonderful woman KATE Paredes the question sort of stuck with me, and I was always like, well, what infrastructure could we change to help diversify Congress? Not to reach necessarily parity even, but just to like, to twig that. So the question was stuck in my brain. And then we had the opportunity with HR1 to sort of look at what, again, those. What are the current structures, the status quo of how people run? And I was shocked to find that there were just infrastructure, these things that exist. Like, you know, they say that you have to tell a woman seven times to run before she takes it seriously. The other things that I learned that were amazing and heartbreaking, the center for American Women in Politics reported that in a survey of sitting state legislature legislators, they reported that a third of them had been actively discouraged by politicians, by party apparatus, from actually running, and that's women who ended up in those seats. So imagine women who never even chose to run after they overcame that hurdle of personally being interested and then were told by party apparatus not to run. So I started to discover these really horrible things about why particularly women were being excluded. And one thing that I hit upon, that I found fascinating is that under current law, if you want to rent a tuxedo to go to a gala for your campaign using your campaign funds, that is perfectly acceptable. But if you want to use those same campaign funds to pay a babysitter to go to that gala, you have to appeal to the FEC for special permission to do that. And what that actively does is disenfranchise working parents. And we know in this country it's a lot of women, women are still bearing the domestic burden. And so it's like simple things like that. If you can't use your campaign funds to pay a babysitter, then you cannot campaign unless you are a very wealthy person, right? So you see this double edged sword where we know like women are overrepresented in poverty and women are not getting to the table because they can't even afford to run for office. Never mind that. Again, one of the stats we lifted up in the equity paper, black women who were running for Congress in the 2018 cycle raised a third of what their female counterparts were raising, never mind what men were raising, right? So, like, there are all these barriers that exist. And one of the little levers that we found to flip is what became the Help America Run Act. And so it simply says that you can use your campaign funds under the same cap that exists for other folks to pay for the basic necessities that everyday working Americans have, including elder care, if you're taking care of your folks, child care, health insurance premiums, care for dependents. So if you're taking care of a person who's dependent on you, and then those simple fixes would make it so that again, everyday Americans could actually run for office. And that single fix would actually really vastly diversify who was able to come to the table. And I was thrilled to see Katie Porter, who is an American hero, champion and adopt and decide to take on that, that bill. And she championed it as a standalone. It actually has passed the United States House as a standalone bill and it's still part of the for the People Act. And you know what's really amazing about that? Speaking of representation, Katie Porter is the first ever single parent of young children to serve in Congress. Think about how common that experience is all across the country and the fact that it took Katie Porter, with that lived experience coming to the table to champion this policy and lead it and get it done. And I think that's sort of like the, the bigger. If I had to zone out when I talk about why diversity matters in government, and I think we'll get to this with the campaign finance reform piece. It's not diversity for diversity's sake. It's diversity because it literally, who gets a seat at the table dictates what policies get lifted up. And who gets a seat at the table right now doesn't reflect America. And so Americans actual priorities are not being raised. Partisan politics and the estate tax are not the purview of everyday Americans. Right. But we can change that if we, we change who gets a seat at the table. And that's exactly what the Help America Run act does. And I'm so proud and awed by Representative Porter for lifting it up and making it hopefully come closer to reality.

Yeah, I mean, it's doing this work, you always discover more ways in which the system is stacked against ordinary working class Americans. And that's just another example of it. And it shows that just tweaks here and there could make such a big difference. And so I always love talking to you about the Help America Run act because I think it really is a transformative part of the for the People act that, you know, no one talks about. And again, it makes me even more frustrated when, you know, the pundits say that the bill's too big and too broad. Right. Like, one of the reason why, you know, one of the reasons why it's so broad is because it does include many other policies like the Help America Run act within its pages. So I think that's really exciting. Okay. But you've alluded to it a couple times now. So let's shift the discussion to this major report that you did with the Brennan center about why we should reconceptualize the for the People act as an equity bill. Why? What do you mean by that? Can you take our listeners through a little bit about the kind of the origins of this report? And of course, we'll link the to, to the report in the show notes. And I highly, highly, highly encourage folks to read this. I mean, this is really, and I'm not just saying this, Elizabeth, because you're on the podcast and because we're friends, but it's a really important report. And I think you and I have talked about it a lot about reconceptualizing this bill as about equity. It raises the stakes and underlines the importance of the for the People act in a way that is largely missing from the broader narrative about this just being kind of a quote, unquote, democracy reform bill, that this is really a transformative piece of legislation that if we could pass, it would change so much about American life. So I want to kind of just give you the floor and have you talk a little bit about this report and why you wrote it.

So I was really, again, privileged to get to work with the Brennan center to be the lead author on this with my amazing co writers Julia Kirschenbaum and Julia Boland. And I think the baseline for this was frankly deciding that we were going to say the thing that you don't say in polite company, which is American democracy was literally founded on the exclusion of people based on their race, based on their gender, and based on their property ownership, their wealth. The Constitution is great. We've got a fantastic country. But those historical roots have ramifications into the present day. And I think it is no coincidence when you make those connections that you begin to actually see how folks have been left out of these structures. It is not a coincidence that we are impacted by our race, by our gender, and by our wealth when we are trying to participate in democracy. So the story of the Equity paper is lifting up some of these things that I think we haven't been talking about. When you have folks who have been systematically targeted by redlining so that they can't generate wealth, so that they are left out of being able to run for office effectively, it has effects, right? Some of the things that I learned in the report were shocking to me that actually for many racial groups in this country, there were deliberate efforts to leave them out. African Americans obviously suffered under Jim Crow in the south and elsewhere. There is a thing that I just learned about to do, the report called Juan Crow, where Latinos were also systematically left out that it was legal in some Southwestern states to actively profile Latino folks and challenge their right to vote. And that was a persistent feature of many of places where you had high Latino populations that Native Americans are incarcerated in some place where they're having Native American communities at seven times the rate of white Americans, which obviously affects their ability to participate in the vote. In California, they excluded Asian American born Asian folks from being able to vote. Right. And so these are just sort of the status quo of many of these groups that have been left out consistently. And it does have effects into today. And rather than just say, we're going to beat this dead horse with history, that is of interest to people of color and frankly should be of interest to Everybody. The second part of the analysis is like there is a lot of redemptive work that can be done. And particularly as somebody who studied history, I have always marveled at the idea that America needs a national conversation. America needs a sociological and philosophical inquiry that has no deliverable, that has no ability to show evidence that we have improved. We just talk about these things because I don't think that's true. And I think that's actually what HR1 is doing. HR1 is saying there have been absolutely horrific historic harms that raged from lynching to leaving black women out of the 19th Amendment, right, leaving women of color largely out of the 19th Amendment. Those things can actually be fixed. And those things are fixed by simple infrastructural structural changes to our democracy that is provided by the for the People Act. And so it's sort of crafted in that spirit of, I think, honoring the wrong that we have experienced in this country, but actually saying we can fix it. And frankly, I think the fact of the wrong behooves us. It behooves us to fix it because of that sort of historical inequity. And that's the story of the paper. So the thesis of the paper is that there is lots of strategic and simple work that can be done, levers that can be flipped to remedy historic harms. But more important than that, for the first time in American history, we have the opportunity to ask the question about what changes could be made to actually include, include those folks who have been left out. And that's where I always come back to. It's not just the voting rights, it's not the ability to vote in spite of having been left out. It's actually for the first time saying what changes could we make to actively bring you to the table? Not as a voter, but as a person who sets policy as well. And voters set policy, obviously, but candidates who run for office and then become politicians can actually change policy in America. And that's what's transformative about the bill to me is like our democracy as an inclusive democracy has always purely been aspirational. We have never had that right. We have the most diverse Congress in American history. The most diverse Congress in American history is 77% white, 74% male. Fewer than 5% of them in the last Congress reported ever working a blue collar job. So the founding fathers setting up a system where poor people, people of color and women could not participate. And today they are just not participating at the levels that they should be. And it is not for lack of trying. And these infrastructural changes in the for the People act, specifically the campaign finance pieces, can actually change that. And so that is what is transformative. I am saying we need to call out an ugly history, but we need to do the work to remedy it. And that is the power of the for the People Act.

And I want to read a little bit from, from the report, but before I do, you know, you. You wrote a blog post for the Brennan Center a couple months ago. I mean, we were just joking before, before starting a recording that it feels like you just wrote it. But in this blog post, which again, I can link to in the show notes, you call the for the People act the next great civil rights bill. Can you just give a little bit about why you decided to make that bold claim? And maybe it shouldn't be a bold claim, but it's not something that other folks are saying. And so why did you feel it was so necessary to. To make that statement?

Because democracy, infrastructure sounds bloodless. And what is actually at stake is the lived experience of people in America. That is what the for the People act is actually about. That a frank look at what our current status quo is is that being poor in America is a crime. Being a woman in America makes it harder to get ahead. Being a person of color in America makes it harder to get ahead. And there is not an equal playing field. And I think what the for the People act does is fundamentally say you should be able to participate, to set what priorities exist across your country. Right. I have been so amazed to watch who has become an advocate for this bill. There are veterans in Arizona saying, I did not literally go and fight and shed blood in Iraq to go help them set up a democracy, only to come home to find that my brothers and sisters who fought alongside me don't have the right to vote the same way that I do that. Yesterday, the Sierra Club in Arizona hosted a fantastic conversation that linked the for the People act to climate change. One of the participants was a woman who, I think she's the first Latina woman to serve statewide in Arizona. And she had cancer from a toxic chemical that was in her environment that was predominantly focused on these communities that were communities of color. Right. And that's what fundamentally the for the People act is about, is that you should participate and get to set the conditions of your living in America just like anybody else should. Right. And I think that's what this is about, that this is not democracy reform on paper. What it actually is is saying Americans who are most Impacted should be the ones who are leading about the issues that impact them. And that's all it's actually doing. Does that answer that go off the rail?

No, it absolutely does. And again, I can't say it enough. I think that our listeners should read that piece because maybe I'm somewhat delusional, but I really do feel that if the conversation in the Beltway and on cable news were conceptualizing this as a civil rights bill, it would be much harder for folks to stand in the way. It would be much harder to hide behind the filibuster to say that we can't do this because the filibuster is imperative for the continued functioning of the Senate, which we know is absurd. We know that doesn't hold any water. But just like during the civil rights movement, having bills, civil rights bills, conceptually and talked about as civil rights bills blocked by the filibuster creates a very stark political reality where there are senators who hide behind the filibuster to block civil rights legislation. And history remembers those politicians abhorrently and at the time were seen as abhorrent. And I think that conceptualizing this bill and those senators who are blocking it as blocking civil rights could again, raise the stakes for more individual or make it more salient for more folks that this really is of historic consequence. And blocking it is inexcusable. It's inexcusable no matter how you cut it. But it becomes even more, more inexcusable for the Beltway and for Americans across the country to see how this is within the same legacy of the civil rights movement.

I'll interrupt you for one second to say I shouldn't say this because the Brennan center wants you to read everything thoroughly, but if you just read the first seven pages of the Equity report, I think you will understand why this really matters. And I think, Adam, I don't think we say this enough because, again, it is impolite, but I think it is really difficult for me to watch the current status quo and frankly realize that if this mattered, if it mattered to you, that the current Congress is barely one in four women, if it mattered to you that there are bills that are being passed to actually target people of color so that they cannot vote in the same way that other people can. If it mattered to you that American poverty is on the rise as a result of this pandemic, you would change the infrastructure. You would support this bill. And the fact that, frankly, again, look, I'm evaluating this bill as an immigrant. There is one immigrant in the United States Senate. I am an immigrant woman of color from a working class background. My lived experience is very different than the three people who have the power to get this done, and that's Kirsten Sinema, Joe Manchin, and Joe Biden. And it is really hard and problematic to me as a person who holds a different identity than them, to realize that it's those three white folks who actually have the power to decide whether they care enough about people who are different than them being left out of democracy. The stakes are different for them. And I think that's why you see things that are powerful, like the folks, the poor people's campaign marching on West Virginia, or you see the veterans organizing in Arizona alongside the Sierra Club, alongside the League of Women Voters. We are the actual people who are impacted by these things. And it is inside insulting for people who are not as directly impacted to not only have the power to decide whether they'll get this done, it's to have the power to even say, we think you're important enough for this to matter. And I think that that may be a thing that we need to raise more frequently, frankly, because it is problematic that you get to decide what the outcomes are for people who are not like you. And that is one of the founding sins of this country. And it's something that we've been trying to deal with since the Voting Rights Act. But the fact that that is still allowed to persist today, and I talked about this earlier, the reason the Voting Rights act exists is because the Civil Rights act was watered down to exclude voting protections. It should have been a standard part of civil rights that we got the access to the vote regardless of the color of our skin. But the fact that in 2021 we are still having that conversation about whether people of color should be allowed to fully participate. And the fact that the arbiter of that conversation are three white folks is very troubling to me. And I think if they had experienced it directly, if they had empathy directly, we would be having a very different conversation. But I am heartened by the fact that Senator Schumer has said this is going. Majority Leader Schumer has made it a top priority to get this done. But I just would remind folks that the power they have in the hands is the power over other people. And it's a historical sin that they have the opportunity to fix right now.

All right, Elizabeth, I'm going to give you a chance to take a breath and a sip of water. And if you'll permit me, I want to read a little bit from the report to entice our listeners to check it out more in full. So let me read two paragraphs that I found to be incredibly powerful, and you've touched on it a little bit, so I'm just gonna read what you wrote here. Knowing the historic roots of American exclusion empowers us to reveal and remedy harms that masquerade today as, quote, neutral policies, policies that unsurprisingly, consistently yield unequal and inequitable outcomes for certain historically marginalized groups. But we do not have to be resigned to inequity as a structural feature of the United States. Instead, understanding this history of exclusion equips modern policymakers to recognize the long reach of the past into policy today and to offer a tailored, effective solution that invites every American to participate fully and fairly in our democracy. The for the People act is crafted in this spirit, and then it continues. Ultimately, the reforms of the for the People act address an old truth. Our democracy has always been aspirational, yet our most damning history need not be our destiny. This bill offers today's Americans a surrender to the crushing failures of the past or choose an optimistic future, one that honors the ability of Americans to take the profound words of a slaveholder and breathe life and meaning into them. Across time and place, from Seneca Falls to Selma, Stonewall and beyond, the for the People act will profoundly, yet practically advance an inclusive democracy, long overdue and needed now more than ever. Elizabeth, any thoughts about those paragraphs? I find them to be incredibly powerful, and I just want to give you space to explain your words there.

They're the heart of the argument. And I think what is really what motivates me to do this work every day is that we are in a country that for a really long time told most of us that we did not belong. And this is the first time in American history where we can fix that. Really, really fix it. And not just like in the words on the page saying your school is allowed to be integrated, or in the words on the page that say, like, you should not be sexually harassed at work. We need to actually do work, to change the structures, to create an inclusive experience, a lived experience, not just an inclusive democracy, but to say that you shouldn't have a different experience of just being healthy and safe and loved because of the color of your skin or your gender or how much money you make. And I genuinely think that that's the infrastructure that we're changing with, that we genuinely are saying it matters that you participate and it matters that you run, and it Matters that you represent folks who have a lived experience like yours, because that has never happened before. Right. Those stats that I gave you earlier are shocking to me that we still have a predominantly wealthy, predominantly white, predominantly male government. And it doesn't matter, for diversity's sake alone, that our government doesn't look like it's people. It matters because when you look at those numbers, you suddenly realize why basic things that folks are struggling with are not lifted up. Why we don't have simple paid family leave in this country, right, where we don't have universal health care, when we know that in the history of Congress, only 10 people have ever given birth while serving in office. And that's such a common experience of American people that it's like, well, why wouldn't we have things like paid leave for new moms and for new dads? And it's just sort of. I raise those things just to say. And what is profound to me is this bill is just offering up the simple structural changes that need to happen for us to actually say everybody belongs here and everybody has a right to be safe and happy and healthy like every other American. And not only does that matter in a vacuum, it matters because it's the actual answer to this incredibly painful historical wrong that has been done to so many of these groups.

We know exactly what we need to do to address these inequities, to address these really painful histories that define our country and that continue to define our present, and that we need not be resigned, as you say, to kind of to that past, that we can honor that past by taking very concrete steps now to rectify it. And I think that that's the real takeaway here, that no, this isn't a messaging bill. This is a redemptive bill. This is a civil rights bill. This is a bill that would concretely move us from a place of aspirational democracy to a multiracial democracy in a more true form than we've ever had. And so I think that again, for our listeners, I'm going to keep saying it, that I think that check this paper out, because again, I really do think that that framing raises the stakes in a way that we haven't done a good enough job of making that case in the public. In the interest of time, I want to change gears a little bit, Elizabeth. And you and I talk a lot about why it's so frustrating that the money and politics provisions of the for the People act continually get erased in the media, almost as if they don't exist. You know, pundits call the for the People Act a voting rights bill. Sometimes they mention gerrymandering, but, you know, they rarely ever talk about the campaign finance provisions. And we, we talked about it a little bit earlier in this conversation about the Help America Run act and, you know, alluded to the public financing provisions and the other inequities in the system that make it harder for working class Americans and people of color to compete in, you know, running for office, largely because of a extremely unequal campaign finance system. But why are you so passionate about these campaign finance provisions and why are they so central to this equity lens?

I didn't realize until I started to actually do this work how much the actual system is rigged against regular people being in office. And when you start to look at the data, it makes really clear why it is, as I said earlier, two thirds of the Senate are millionaires, that the majority of people in Congress, across both the Senate and the House, are millionaires, and that they are not lifting up the priorities. I think the statistic is that 1 in 5American children are going hungry. That has not been prioritized by the people who lead our government. And that's disgusting. And I think the more I started to do this research, the more I realized that the people who. The system that we have created is one that lets people who are least affected by the things that hurt everyday Americans be the one in charge of deciding what happens to everyday Americans. And when you create that system, there is no incentive for folks who are leading us to actually help people who are hurting. And the system that I'm talking about is actually exactly as you said. What's brilliant about this bill, Adam, is that it finds levers to flip. There are tiny levers that make huge changes. What's amazing in this bill is a small dollar public financing can fundamentally change who has the ability to ability to run for office. The bill has a six to one match. So Adam gives a dollar a fund called the Freedom from Influence Fund that is not taxpayer money, but is in fact penalties paid by corporations breaking the law, then goes to match Adam's $6 to 1 so that regular people who aren't millionaires, who don't know millionaires and can call up fellow millionaires to say, you know, take off your monocle for a second and donate some money to my campaign. You know, regular people get a shot. People like Mondaire Jones, who grew up in public housing, can come to the Congress and that matters. The biggest example I can give is Cori Bush is one of the first people I've ever seen in Congress who talks about the experience of living in her car with her babies. And I don't think it's a coincidence that Cori Bush slept on the stairs of the Capitol and protected so many Americans from eviction because she has lived that experience. I think we need more corn bushes at the table. And that is what the campaign finance pieces of this bill actually do. So it's small dollar public financing. It's the Help America Run act. Like we said, Katie Porter should be able to pay a babysitter if she's going to go convince people that she should run for office, for Pete's sake. And I need 100 more Katie Porters in office. Right? So it's small dollar public financing, and it's also shedding a light on who. Who is actually supporting the people who are running for office. When we were putting together the slate of the first witnesses for the original HR1, the folks who were coming to speak were a kid in Kansas who had lost his ability to vote because they had moved the polling place away from public transportation. An advocate from Flint who was working on the water crisis in Flint, a young black man who was speaking out and saying our community should matter and we should not drink water that is toxic, and a lawyer who was representing regular folks against paint companies that had paid off politicians knowing full well that they could get away with putting lead paint, that children were going to eat, they were going to get away with that. Those were the people who stood up to testify for HR1's importance, and those are the people who were affected. And politicians have a responsibility to pass bills like this to protect our infrastructure. But politicians also have responsibility to pass policies that affect all the things that I was talking about. Lead paint, clean water, the basic ability to vote. Right? And if we don't change who can become politicians in this country, we're going to be stuck with a status quo that frankly does reflect what the founding Fathers were okay with, right? Which is excluding people based on their race, their gender, and how much money they make. That's not okay. That has been the growth of America. Just the beautiful story of America that we no longer think that that set of evaluations about the worth of a person are acceptable. And our current politicians need to pass HR1 because they need to say that it actually does matter. We're going to put meat on the bones of that hypothesis that every American, regardless of their race, their gender or their income, belongs in this America. Campaign finance reform in this bill, the way that it is structured is the single, I think, most effective thing to be able to change who gets a seat at the table, and that changes policy. It's not just diversity. You all hear me talk about diversity all the time. It's not just for diversity's sake alone own. It's literally that we don't have voices who have that experience at the table. Right. And I also will just throw this out. I don't think we talk about this enough. Of the 115 Supreme Court justices in history, 108 of them have been white men. And I'm sure that they probably all were pretty wealthy, too. I haven't done that math, but I think it really matters when it's that Supreme Court that's being nominated by a Senate that you elect, confirm by that Senate, that Supreme Court gets to decide about evictions, that Supreme Court gets to decide about your voting rights, whether you as a woman have bodily autonomy. All of that is being decided by a court that is being put up by a Senate who doesn't reflect you. Right. This is like the nasty version of it is the fish rods from the head. The positive version of it is with campaign finance reform, we can plant seeds to change who gets to represent America, and that will change what America actually is for most Americans. And I think that's really powerful. It's some of my favorite stuff in the bill, frankly.

I think that's a key part of this right, that it's not a voting rights bill with some campaign finance provisions tacked onto it. This is fundamentally a bill that is. There are buckets. There are buckets that it fills. It addresses the freedom to vote. It addresses aggressive partisan gerrymandering that dilutes voting power. And it also empowers everyday Americans to have a voice and to make sure that they have influence over policies and that it opens up the political sphere to people to run for office if they're not extremely wealthy. That this bill needs to be conceptualized as addressing all these features. It's not just a voting rights bill with a couple provisions tacked on that can be negotiated away. There's a lot of intentionality that was done to craft this bill, to make it so that it really is addressing equity in America. So, Elizabeth, that does beg my next question, which is we know that in the next couple weeks, Democrats are going to release a revised for the People act that's going to have the support of the entire caucus. In other words, Senator or Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is working alongside a bunch of other Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin, who's the only Democrat who does not support the for the People act as written, and they're going to be releasing a revised version that's going to be able to get the support of all 50 Democratic senators. And from there, obviously, we have to break the filibuster to fix the filibuster, to get it through the Senate. But what are you going to be looking at when they release this revised for the People Act? What are kind of the general things you'll be looking for that you're going to assess it off of?

I hope that the biggest fixes stay in for exactly the reasons that we were talking about, that it maintains the campaign finance protections, that it maintains the voting rights protections and expansion, and that it stops partisan gerrymandering so that again, people can actually pick who should represent them and make sure that those people actively do represent them. So I think I love the bill as is, obviously, and I do think that what I want to see is an earnest and good faith effort to actually fix the things that are wrong in our democracy. So I can't speak to it until I obviously can see it. But I would say that that is why it is critically important in this time that we're still in recess for the American people to keep up the clamor, to keep demanding that the bill stay as intact as possible. Because every single piece of it down down to that part in page 92 about civic engagement, all the way up to literally millions of voters coming onto the rolls through automatic voter registration and same day voter registration, every piece of it is in there because it actually matters. And so I'll assess it, you know, based on hopefully seeing that it does actually impact what matters to your average American.

Yeah. And I should say that we are I mean, I'm not in the negotiating rooms, but I mean, I think that, you know, we're optimistic that, you know, any sort of revised version will maintain the kind of everything that we've talked about in, you know, in our discussion, that it will have the broad contours of a bill that would, you know, would be classified as a civil rights bill, as an equity bill that would begin to redress these historical wrongs. So, I mean, I'm really optimistic. I mean, again, like, I agree with you that in I would rather the bill pass exactly as written. But we do know they're going to release they're negotiating on some sort of revised bill. But I think that we got to keep up the clamor to keep it as close to the original as possible. But I think that the wrong narrative is that any sort of revised version is going to be watered down significantly or it's going to be something that we can't rally behind. I really do feel optimistic that maybe there'll be some tweaks here and tweaks there to get Senator Manchin on board, but the broad framework and kind of the transformative policies will be there. And I think that it'll be very interesting to see what they release. But I think that as you said, the key thing is that up until the day they release it, we got to keep fighting as hard as we can to maintain as many parts of the original bill as possible. Because as you said, it's with obsessed, absurd for Senator from West Virginia, a very wealthy white guy, to be trying to whittle down a transformative piece of legislation that is so critically necessary and would rebuild the infrastructure of our democracy

and is critically necessary for people who are not like him. Right. And I think that's sort of what the power of these next few weeks is like. The clamor doesn't just matter because this should be top of mind. The clamor matters because it is actually showing that people are impacted. And I do think one thing I will say for Senator Manchin that I think is so powerful and really good is that it seems to me that he is actually listening to the people of West Virginia, that there are folks who are out there on the pavement. Really, like yesterday there was a motorcade that was led by the Poor People's Campaign by Reverend Barber. Those folks are loud. And I think that we have an opportunity to be optimistic and say if we can convince Senator Manchin that this actually matters to enough of us, I think he'll do the right thing. And so rather than sort of debate about what the bill might look like, I think that continuing the clamor will dictate what the bill will look like because it will make clear that this actually matters to the American people and to the people of West Virginia and Arizona and the other states. So, yeah, I don't want to cynically imagine what the whittled down version will look like. What I will say is that our continued advocacy will help the bill be as robust as it it possibly can be.

Yeah. And advocacy has already moved the ball forward. I mean, we went from a place where Senator Manchin said that he didn't support the for the People act and you know, a lot of folks said, well, that's the end of the fight to, you know, a lot of resistance in West Virginia and across the country. And then, you know, Senator Manchin was brought back to the table, is negotiating in good faith. And again, you know, all, you know, everything that I'm hearing is that, you know, that, you know, the activism is really working and that there, there's reason to be really optimistic that whatever all 50 Democrats agree on, we're hoping again that if there's enough clamor, it really will be a bill that we can be extremely proud of. And so I'm excited about that. I don't want to be overly optimistic, but I think that that's clearly what the activism is producing right now.

And I think that's the. I get out of bed every day because everyday Americans are raising hell and it's working. And I do want you to be overly optimistic, Adam, because do you know what I want you lifted up this morning? Some of the footage from the poor people's campaign march on Mansion yesterday. And you know, what I saw was like people who were 4th generation coal miners saying, when did we ever meet a fight that we didn't keep fighting? And I think that's what's beautiful about it. This is a struggle that people really relate to because too long people have been having to fight. And what we're asking for is, is just basic minimum access and we'll go from there. But I think the American people were poked, right? It was sort of like, hey, would you like to give up your rights? And these people are out here saying, hell no, we're not going to give up our rights. And that's inspiring. And I think it's actually going to be.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I think that one of the most upsetting parts of the coverage is there's just been a complete erasure of the activism happening on the ground. I mean, huge shout out, as you said, the Poor People's Campaign, Black Voters Matter, the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition. I mean, these folks are throwing down tomorrow, this episode is going to be released later. So this will be in the past tense. But tomorrow, from the time we're recording, on Saturday, 28th August, there's a huge rally in D.C. the March on Washington to commemorate the anniversary of the March on Washington. And there are going to be thousands of people who show up to try and pressure the Senate to pass the for the People act and fix the filibuster and to pass the Voting Rights Restoration, the Voting Rights Advancement Act. And that's really inspiring. Elizabeth, I like you. I'm very invigorated every day looking at the folks who are willing to throw down for this because it's just such an insane, inspiring cross section of America. You know, it's environmental groups, it's labor groups, it's racial justice groups, it's, you know, good government groups, it's, it's folks that aren't affiliated with groups, it's, you know, professional activists, it's, you know, non people working nonprofits. It's people who work in government, it's people who work in business. It's, it's, you know, across the board. It's, it really is like the, an incredibly diverse coalition and, and being on the calls and just fighting alongside folks that a normal circumstance I may never cross paths with is what keeps me going. And so I think that that makes me really optimistic about the next couple weeks. So I'll just throw it to you and say, okay, we talked about all this stuff. We kind of got a little bit into the weeds about the actual politics of it. But if you just had one, one takeaway of why you're still optimistic, what is it?

This is too good to fail and we need it. And I have never been more disheartened to see the bad headlines about what's happening, but I've never been more heartened by the fact that there is a solution. Right? And you've heard me say, when I first went to Washington to work in the Senate, I was told that on average, bills take eight years from ideation to passage and there are 10 million ways for a bill to fail and really only one for it to succeed. And you know, I tell people, based on how I grew up, that I'm like one of the luckiest kids in the world, right? And I think we are about to be one of the luckiest countries in the world that this big, big, big disastrous problem that we face, a democracy that was not designed to include all of us, has a fix and it's got a fix and it's on black ink in a bill that is literally ready to go to the President's desk the minute the Senate passes. And I always flip the paradigm, we need to not think about this in terms of how hard the last couple of steps are going to be. We need to think about the fact that not only was this bill envisioned, hundreds of thousands of people put their sweat equity into actually making it, writing it down, getting the policy exactly right. Then it got put together, put into the House, passed one time by the House, Then it got brought back again in a new administration, passed again by A house. And that we have been able to get the executive BRANCH and literally 50 congresspeople to say that they support it. Right. Do they support having a conversation about it? We're only a couple of people away from actually making this thing law. That's amazing. And exactly as you said, Adam, a couple of months ago, Senator Manchin was like, absolutely not. And suddenly we're actually having this conversation again. Right. Like, I want the pundits to take that. They should eat their hats, frankly, because this is the sort of change that we've seen when people have spoken up. And so I have never been more optimistic than I am right now about the fact that we will get this done because it needs to get done. I can't imagine looking at our grandkids and saying, we had an opportunity. We were one person away from finally creating an inclusive democracy, and we sat back and didn't do it. You know, I just don't think that's acceptable. And I've been seeing people all around the country have that same feeling with me and advocate alongside me. And, like, that is why I'm optimistic. It has to get done because it is too good to not get done.

Well, I think that's a great place to end. I mean, it certainly fires me up. I'm ready to keep fighting. I'm ready to keep fighting alongside you to get this bill across the finish line. Elizabeth, thanks so much for joining me for this conversation. I thought this was just a fantastic, fantastic conversation. So thanks again for joining us.

It is always a pleasure to talk to you guys. And I just am consistently wowed by how you're able to engage folks with. With sort of just the passion and sensible discussion of the bill. So I am always thrilled to be in conversation with you. You always make me cry. But I feel it really deep in my bones, and I'm thrilled to get to share it with other people because this is. I can't emphasize enough. It's not bloodless stuff.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. So thanks again, Elizabeth. And this has been another episode of Another Way. I'll see you next,

Sam.