The Presidential Electors From Colorado Go To the Supreme Court

This podcast is part of the Democracy Group.

Welcome to Another Way, the podcast of Equal Citizens. I'm Jason Harrow, Chief counsel and Executive Director of Equal Citizens. I'm here today to bring you part two of of our series of podcasts with real live presidential electors whose cases are headed to the US Supreme Court. Last week we ran a conversation with three electors from Washington state whose case will be heard as part of the Presidential Elector Day at the Supreme Court on May 13, which you can listen to live on C Span. Today I've got a conversation with our three clients from Colorado. They are Michael Baca, Polly Baca, not related, and Bob Nemenich. The three of them were presidential electors nominated by the Democratic Party and expected to vote for Hillary Clinton following the 2016 election. But as you'll see, circumstances changed and they determined to try and vote for another candidate in the election, mostly to deny Donald Trump the presidency because, as Polybaca said, that is not the person that she thinks the voters of Colorado would have wanted to see in office.

So whether they were allowed to do

that legally, what motivated them, why they decided to channel the vote of the state in that particular way, is a really interesting conversation. It's been an absolute honor for me to represent them. You can hear their case argued in front of the Supreme Court by little old me on May 13th, starting at 10:00am Eastern with the Washington case, 11:00am Eastern, the Colorado case at cspan.org okay, without much further ado, you can of course visit our podcast website at equalcitizens us anotherway. But now we'll get to the conversation I had with Polybaca, Michael Baca, and Robert Nemenich.

Okay, so Polly Baca, let's start with you. Thrilled to have you here telling the story. You have a really long and really distinguished political career in Colorado. So tell us a little bit about your background in politics in Colorado and the first time you served in his lector, and then how the 2016 process worked for you.

Well, I might share that I've been involved in every presidential race since 1960 in one capacity or the other, and I've attended every single National Democratic convention since 1964. And I have been running for an electoral position since after, I guess 2004 was the first time I ran, But I have served as a member of the Electoral College. This is my fourth time. I was just elected as an electorate for the 2020 college, so it will be a total of four times I have gotten involved as a member of the Electoral College because I was so frustrated by what happened in 2000 when Al Gore was denied being inaugurated as president as a result of the Electoral College? He won the popular vote and didn't get inaugurated. I was absolutely curious about that. I decided I've always been this way. If I don't like something, I get involved, I run and try to change things from the inside. That's what I've been doing. After this last election in 2016, I was so upset, I even got sick that night, physically. And the next day, I went to a rally because I've been so concerned about our DACA students. I went to a rally to support them. And at that rally, this young man approached me. And I had met Michael before. I met him at one of our delegate meetings. He was a Bernie delegate and I was a Hillary delegate, but we have the same last name. But we're not. Well, maybe way back when, we might be elected. We're not sure. We haven't been able to trace it, but we have no current relationship at all. I always liked Michael, but I didn't know him that well. But he approached me and he said, polly, I've been talking all night or emailing all night with a colleague from Washington state who has another elector, and we think we should do something about this election. There's no reason why the Electoral College can't exercise its will and elect someone other than this man who currently serves in the White House. And he said, would you help us? And out of my mouth came, yes. That's how I got involved. I just said yes to Michael. Then after that, he just would call me and ask me to do things. And then other people started. And I've just been willing to help, quite honestly, because Mr. Trump, in my opinion, was someone who I was absolutely afraid that he would destroy our nation. I worked for Bobby Kennedy in 1968 and was with him when he was assassinated. And I was then after Richard Nixon was elected. Even at that time, I didn't fear for my country, but after the 2016 election, I literally feared for my country, because this man was opposed to everything that I have ever worked for that I believe in. I felt if we could do anything to implement the wishes of the United States, the wishes of the people of the United States through their popular vote, then we had a responsibility as members of the Electoral College to do so. And so that's why I was glad to support Michael in his venture.

Yeah. And I want to bring in Mike in just a few, and we'll zoom back in on that moment. After the popular vote on November 9, 2016. Polly. But just to go back in time a little bit, you said it's sort of become old hat to become an elector. How does the process work in Colorado? So did. Did it. Did you have to start it in the spring or summer of 2016?

No. What I've normally, I have the advantage of having served in the state legislature for 12 years, and in the 1980s, I was also vice chair of the National Democratic Party. So I have a bit of a history in terms of the party in Colorado, and my name is rather well known. I have traditionally just submitted my name once I learned how to do it. I didn't know how to do this until the 1992 election when I discovered that you could run for an electoral position. All I do is fill out a sheet, an application. I fill out an application to be on the ballot as an electoral candidate in both the 1st congressional district and statewide in Colorado. Well, in every state, the Electoral College is comprised of one member from each congressional district and two members statewide. I run at both levels. I've never been elected at the CD level. Michael defeated me. He won CD1 in 2016, but I always seem to be elected statewide. I think that's partially because I've been around a long time and I've been active in the party at many different levels. Part of it is just people know your name. I got elected again this year, so I'll be elected again at the state level. So I'll again be a 2020 elector.

Yeah. So, Mike Baca, I want to bring you in now. You have, as Polly mentioned, the same last name, but a little different political background. You were not with Bobby Kennedy in 1968 when he was shot. And this was not your fourth time in the Electoral College coming up. So how did you get involved?

Yes, So I became involved as an elector because I had a group of people ask me, asked me to be an elector for CD1. They wanted a Bernie Sanders supporter who would be willing to vote for Secretary Clinton should you win nomination and win in Colorado. And in March 2016, 2015. I remember the year now. So in March, before the March 2016, I had ran in a race against Paulie. And thankfully, I have the same last name as the first female senator in Colorado or first Latino female senator in Colorado. I believe that's correct, Polly, But I share the same last name as her. And so I think I got some name recognition from that. But I ended up winning at the CD1 level. I didn't really know what to do. I was Just going on the advice of the group because I believe in civic participation. And so when I participated at the caucus, at the Democratic primary caucus, we got four applications to be state delegates, county delegates, national delegates, and to be a national elector. So I just filled out all the paperwork. And I remember telling myself at the time, like, hey, I'll do this if no one else. I wasn't actively campaigning. I wasn't trying to be. I was just. I was actually going shopping at Sam's Club when I get a phone call from, and they said, hey, can we talk about you being an elector? And so from there, I just watched how the event, the events unfolded from March 2016 until November. I learned my job description. I read 12th Amendment, Article 2. I read the Federalist Papers or some of them, all of them, but I read some of those. And so I kind of learned what my role was. So I knew that I would have an understanding of the game come November

9, once it was all official and that understanding. So to go back into the summer, you were supporting Bernie in the race, as you mentioned, but you were willing to support the Democratic nominee. Presumably it would be Hillary after she won that.

Is that right?

Yeah, that was definitely an intention leading through November.

Got it, got it. So, Bob Nemenich, you're the other person on the caption of the brief. And so it's great to have you. And your story, too, is different, just like Polly's and Mike's. How did you get involved in becoming an elector in 2016?

2016 was a result of my party volunteering that went back into essentially 0706 after I moved here. I was an Obama lead in El Paso county and then ultimately cd and they got me involved in the party,

the actual party,

how that dovetails, how that moves forward to 16, was in 08, I ran for an elector. I knew what it was because I

was educated political scientist. And,

you know, it was just. I thought it was more of an

honor or something that would be pretty cool to do.

I knew it.

Put your name in the National Archives, which I don't know how important that

is, but it was something cool. In 16, I started helping the Bernie campaign.

I really.

I like Bernie making the noise, even though I knew it was probably a futile campaign. But here in El Paso county, which is the Democrats are exceptionally progressive. As we brought in Obama, I started working as a liaison between the campaign, the Bernie Bros, the Michael Bacas,

who

are new, new to politics, new electoral politics, and the regular party. And that gave me a level of not of known people who knew who I was in the Bernie. So when the CD assembly came forward, in coming out of El Paso county, we had 62.5% of the votes, delegates. Well, if you're one of the only Bernie people running for an elector, and most of them don't know what that is, as Polly knows from an old politician, if you got the numbers, you're gonna win.

That's right.

You know, there was a number of party regulars who were from the Clinton side, and they split up their votes. But I got 186 votes that day. And it was great. It was a lot of fun and. But I knew coming up to November,

things were kind of funny.

The election was weird.

It was not. It was not right.

And so after the election, I had friends of mine coming to me saying, what are you gonna do with being an elector? How can you stop this?

How can you do anything?

And finally, I was trying to find Michael Baca.

Cause I knew I had heard from

the grapevine that he was trying to start something. But Michael spells his name differently than most people. He spells his Michael with the reverse vowels at the second part. Finally, I found him on Facebook and we connected, and that was fantastic. And things happened rapidly. That Thanksgiving week, all of a sudden, Jason Wysocki came, came through. Michael and I talked to Jason, and Jason said, we'll try to get everybody together, you know. And so we started calling and emailing the rest of the electors. We got Jared to come, but the other ones kind of. They went off into the.

Back in the.

In the woods. And that's how we got involved. And I. I think just to sum it up, pull it all together. Through that month of November, leading up to November 26th, I not only was doing a lot of reading, but a

lot of soul searching.

And I realized that the Electoral College was something that was sacred, that it had been abused and ignored and forgotten

for all these years.

But this was the moment in history that it was.

It was. Had stayed there to try to stop

or put at least a political wrench in a. In somebody who's now a tyrant. I don't know people want to describe it. He's just.

He's just.

It's a tyrant. And now I'm reading, like, today, Bill Barr wants to go and start. Start going after the 12th, 10th amendment and start being authoritarian to the governors in this. In this pandemic outbreak. So that's what got me when. And when I found that Polly was going to be involved, I was like,

well, we got legitimacy now, we're just not a bunch of noisemakers.

Sure, yeah, yeah.

But there was noise made. So let's go in detail. Let's set back up the stage on November 8, 2016. So everyone's watching. You all had been elected first by the Democratic Party at various levels, and then you were elected by the voters of Colorado who preferred the Democratic slate, headed by Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine, to the Republican slate. So you knew that's where the party was in the state, and you knew that's where the voters were in the state. But you also saw that Donald Trump was presumed to win an Electoral College majority, even though he lost the popular vote by about 3 million. So, Polly, as you said, things start happening really quickly. And Polly mentioned your name, Mike, as someone coming up on November 9th. So what was happening? And I wanna ask two specific questions. So first, what were, did you start reaching out to electors from other states or how did that happen? And two, and we should set this up for people. It's impossible for electors in the Electoral College only supporting the presumptive losing candidate to do anything to change. They do not have a majority. So what was sort of the plan to think about reaching out maybe to others on the. To see if folks in the Electoral College that were Republicans maybe shared.

Shared a sentiment, knowing that being in the minority of the Electoral College gives you absolutely no power, you have nothing, and you get one chance to vote. And so the whole idea was that. Let me look into the. Looking at the exit polls, are there Republicans out there that only voted for Donald Trump because he was a Republican nominee? Yes, there was. Was there? Then the next question was, was there a big enough majority that maybe there's electors out there just from a random sample of the population? Maybe there was the electors out there that would also be like, hey, if we gave them another option, would they vote for a more moderate compromise Republican candidate? My biggest issue heading into 2016 was that Donald Trump was and is a climate denialist. And having someone that's the leader of the free world helping dictate the climate policy that the rest of the world will look at, I feel was too dangerous. And so, despite being in the minority, I realized that as Democrats, we were going to be stuck with Donald Trump as president, but we could still stop him utilizing Electoral College. We weren't going to get what we wanted. We were not going to get Secretary Clinton, Tim Kaine in office. However, there was an opportunity that we could find enough, 37 enough Republican electors that would have been willing to vote against Donald Trump, but for a different Republican. And so this whole movement, it was an effort to put our country above our party, to move past the squabbling between the Bernie Sanders supporters and the Secretary Clinton supporters. It was really an opportunity. I thought we could have really healed this country. However, this was a big unknown. What would happen going into 2016.

Yeah. So is it fair to say. And then I want to hear Polly about how you connected with Michael. But so is it fair to say that you were really trying to gather data and get a feel for what the sort of popular sentiment was in your state and others about who should be president and whether Republican other than Donald Trump should be it or because some have said that what you're trying to do with this project is just say, I am one person of these 538 people and no one knows who I am, but I am going to choose the president. I understand that's an unfair characterization, but is it closer to sort of that I hold the power view, or is it you were really trying to give meaning to the popular vote?

No, I am just a guy. It was not about that. I am more important. I am one of the ones with the requisite qualifications to elect the president. I'm no more special than any one of us. And we're all. Everyone is special in their own right. But this was about looking at what the country wanted. The country clearly wanted a Democrat in office. In Colorado, they very clearly wanted Secretary Clinton. However, if I would have cast that vote for Secretary Clinton, it would have done nothing to change the outcome. And so when Colorado said, hey, we want Secretary Clinton, that told me that they did not want Donald Trump. And so in that ground, that's where I found the leeway that says, if we can still prevent Donald Trump, we're not gonna get what we want. But at least I'm avoiding that worst case option because heading into 2016, Donald Trump was preached as the worst case option. Maybe we find a more moderate Republican. And that would have been, I was, I thought, acting still best interest of all Paul Ryan's.

Yeah.

Polly, is that sort of what you came to view the issue as when you connected with Mike in early November of 2016?

Beginning in 2000, I became very frustrated with the Electoral College, primarily because Al Gore received the popular vote and was not inaugurated. So I have been looking for a way to make sure that the American people get the president they vote for. And in 2016, they voted for Hillary Clinton by almost 3 million votes. So for me, it was really a matter of using the Electoral College to reflect the national popular vote. And that's why when Michael approached me, I hadn't really had time to think about what this all meant. I was just still in mourning, I think, when he approached me about the election. But once he did, it became very clear to me that our responsibility as electors was to reflect what the national popular vote was. And I did contact or I was in touch with Hillary Clinton's office as well as a number of people around the country. And so it was, you know, I was the Hillary whip captain, you know, for Colorado. So I was the person in Colorado that was in charge of the Hillary delegates at the national convention, by virtue of her office, asking me to do that. They asked if I would perform that function. So I had close, close relationship and a commitment to her. And I told him what I was intending to do. I wasn't secretive at all about how I felt about the Electoral College. That I didn't believe. As Michael pointed out, we knew that we couldn't get Republicans to vote for Hillary, but maybe, just maybe, we should get them to vote for someone else rather than this person who is obviously an autocrat, is not qualified to be a president who I think if he would ever release his taxes, we'd find out that he has debts to foreign countries, specifically, well, he definitely indebted to foreign countries, which is a disqualification. And so for me, it was a matter of trying to do something to protect our country. And so that's why I became very passionate about how we could change that. On the other hand, if had we been able to gain the 38 votes, I would have voted for anyone that I was asked to vote for other than so that we could stop Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, I think my counter. The morning of our meeting of the Electoral College, my count was that we got 32. We got up to 32 Republicans that said they would vote for someone else. I don't know if that is correct or not, but that was what I counted. Unfortunately, it wasn't 38. And so if we didn't get the number that we needed, then I felt compelled to not put people in harm's way and went ahead and voted. You know, I voted as I would have wanted to vote in the first place for Hillary.

Yeah. And of course, it ended up, even though there was some talk of additional Republican electors, too, from Texas, ultimately did not vote for Donald Trump. And. But again, you know, the fact that some folks knew that the outcome wasn't going to change could have changed behavior.

Okay, so that was the Primary reason, I think, that we didn't get, you know, why would Republicans not vote for Trump when they knew they didn't, they couldn't impact or affect the outcome? We needed 38. We didn't have them.

Yeah. So I want to get to the very unusual situation arounding the litigation in the week before the vote, and then the very unusual situation with the actual vote, which of course led to this lawsuit. But. But before I do that, I just want to complete the background. Bob, you had alluded to the fact that you didn't initially know Mike Baca and Polly, but By Thanksgiving of 2016, you had sort of connected with them.

So Polly was gracious, as she always is, to invite us to her apartment condominium and have a meeting. It was Saturday after Thanksgiving. We were visiting as circumstances ago. I needed the help of Michael because Michael was driving for Uber and my car got broken and we were stuck in Denver that weekend. So we drove to Powell's apartment. I think immediately the four of us were there and then eventually brought in by Jason. We all were on a lot of the same page. I think we knew that the election was corrupted somehow. I think we knew that we were in a unique position. And I also, I think we all knew that we couldn't impact the election. The purpose of us dissenting, and I don't want to use the word faithless, because that's just a term purposely made up in the late 19th century to demand discipline from party people, was that we could give cover, we could give permission for Republicans than to dissent and vote for another person and hopefully get to 38. The secret of the Electoral College, which it didn't work, let's face, just didn't work. So all of the manifestations of our founders of trying to come up with something that could save our republic from somebody like a tyrant named Trump, it didn't manifest itself because of that loyalty aspect. And if we were able to move 38, 40 Republicans of country over party, I think it would have changed the entire era. I think the Republicans would have had gone into Congress and yes, it was fait accompli in the Congress of Even how the 12th Amendment was going to work, that Trump still would have gained the presidency. There would have been, though, an enormous political wound. And I think the Republicans would have known that they didn't have that lockstep support that they built both in their political mechanisms as well as among their voting base. And that, I think, was a big moment for a lot of people. Unfortunately, I do think there were enough Republicans And I think this all brings us back to our lawsuit. We were limited in calling only states that had unbound electors. The fact that if we were going to use the electoral colleges, this mechanism that Alexander Hamilton and the other founders had fought for, everybody was needed to have their own discretionary mind in voting. And we were locked. We were electing our own stuff.

The only grace I had, even in

my back of my mind, is nothing had ever happened to quote, unquote, faithless electors in voting a dissent. It just was recorded. This was something else. And Williams really showed the way of what they were willing to do to protect their partisan vote.

Yeah. So just to jump in there, Bob, so as you're alluding to, the majority of states, 32 in the District of Columbia, have laws that purport to direct their electors of exactly who to vote for. And so, as you mentioned, that made this project of finding enough electors who might not vote for Trump and who might join a consensus candidate very difficult because they could face harsh penalties, indeed jail time in some states if they didn't vote for the winner of the popular vote, even though there have been deep constitutional concerns about those laws, which now we're on the verge of finally having the Supreme Court resolve. Okay, so because there are these laws on the books, and in particular, there is a law on the book in Colorado, where you all live and where you have major political careers. Polly, Bob, you all decided to get clarity on this and ask the Secretary of State and sue as well. So, Mike, I actually don't think you were involved in the lawsuits here. So I'm going to go first to back to Polly and then Bob. So, Polly, you started this process of getting an official opinion about what the law was from the Secretary of State or the Attorney General, and then ultimately suing to get an answer and prohibit him from directing your discretion. So what were those sort of frantic weeks leading up to the Electoral College vote like?

Well, quite frankly, I feel passionately that states ought not to or should not or cannot be contrary to what the United States Constitution holds to be fact. My concern was that the United States Constitution created, or Hamilton had a say in the development of the Electoral College. And if we aren't going, if the Electoral College isn't going to be used in the way that it was intended to be used by our founders, then we ought not to have it or we ought to do something. I don't believe that states ought to be contrary to what the United States Constitution holds. And so for me, it was a question of how we Moved forward. I got very upset when the Secretary of State replaced Michael. There was no reason for that. Michael had a right. My goodness. We were elected by people in, you know, by our voters. In Colorado, we were federally. We were elected to a federal office as electors. And as electors, we had the right to vote any way that we decided we wanted to vote. And if, you know, and in my opinion, that's what the United States Constitution says. And so you cannot, you cannot take an elected person and arbitrarily replace them by someone who was not elected, which is exactly what happened to Michael. Michael had a right to vote. However, he wanted to vote according to his constitutional rights. There was no reason for the Secretary of State to replace him with a non elected person. We received votes for a position. The person that replaced Michael had not received votes from voters in Colorado. So I was furious when that happened.

Yeah. So, Mike, we'll get to when that happened and when it made poly mad on December 19th. But, Bob, you specifically asked the Secretary of State and the attorney General what would happen, because as Polly said, you had thought you had the right under the Constitution to vote as all other elected officials do, which is to cast their own vote without fear of being sanctioned or removed from office for it. But Colorado had this law that said you couldn't. So, you know, you decided to sue about it and ask for an official legal opinion. And what answers did you get and what happened in the run up to December 19th?

Well, first I wrote an email or

a letter to the attorney General's office asking for some definitions, which is now nice, nice little legal thing, because it was the Secretary of State's office that wrote back saying that we shall, and they wanted to underline in bold, shall. And we had no choice but voting for the winner of the popular vote in Colorado, that was in many ways a little linchpin for our case. But the process that worked itself up. And I'm trying to understand your question as far as lead up. The lead up was that we first had a hearing with Judge Daniels about trying to get a temporary restraining order. The only way we could get something was to give us permission that we could vote our discretion legally and protect it from the state law. And the thing is, if we would have gotten that TRO that could have run a wildflower through a number of other states that were sitting ready to have suits filing for a TRO to open up their electives. But Daniel stated from the bench in his pontificating way that he was not going to change the votes here in Colorado, from all the people that voted. And his ignorance regarding that, whether it was truly ignorant, is that the term electors is a legal term. That when we're voting for our senators or our aldermen or anybody else, you are an electoral. You're the person doing the electing as voters. Voters are not electors in the presidential election. They're electing you the elector and then you're the one that has the vote. Well, a vote is a will. It's something Michael chose. He sought the will to dissent. And dissent is something that is critically important in our political system. It is absolutely important because it shows that there's not a unified and we're not authoritarian and everything else. So we were ordered by Judge Starr under implied and threat of contempt of court. We didn't vote under the state. And still Polly and I were adamant. We wanted to go forward. We appealed, we appealed to the federal appellate court, the district court. They gave us a little bit of a light and they said that once voting begins, it would be very hard for the Secretary of State to interfere. I don't know this exact words, but

that's right in the text of the 12th Amendments.

That's it exactly.

Yeah. It would be unlikely.

Yeah, unlikely. Yeah.

And those are important. So when Michael wonderfully dissented and did it in such a theatric way, then Jason, our small statured attorney, with great passion, he stole the podium that our Secretary of State was using and cried out saying that the 10th Circuit is the law of the land. And they said that once voting began. Now I'm going to take this back and understand the lawyers, understand this, the little technicalities. I also wrote a letter to the AG saying, can I get legal representation from the Attorney General's office? Because that's in the state law that electors can get free legal.

And they said, I'm not an elector

until I take the oath. So they put us in a box saying, well, and then when I got the oath, when we went through that, I still went through him saying, now can I get some legal representation? Because Jason wanted me to do that. And they said, well, now, now you are. Now we're. We can't advocate for you because we're on. On two different sides. So, all right, you put us in Catch 22. That was important, though, because back to what the 10th Circuit Court said, that it was unlikely. Well, I don't know if they're thinking about the judgment of Williams or the legal justification, but that's ultimately where we're at.

Yeah. So, Mike, let's pick it up where Bob left off, which is it's December 19th, and as he alluded to, you were able to at least attempt to vote for someone other than Hillary Clinton. You show up, you, you're appointed, you get the ballot. The ballot has one name, Hillary Clinton. And what do you do?

Then I see the ballots, I see that it's pre filled in with Secretary Clinton's name. So I asked, I think it was Joe Albin, whoever the secretary of the election was. But I asked for the vice presidential ballot because in the grand scheme of things, I'd hope that as electors that we were going to decide amongst the President and Vice President. Those conversations loosely happened, but didn't actually occur. And so I wanted to vote for Tim Kaine for Vice President while I was still waiting. And so from my readings and my understanding, it tells electors that we are to vote for President and for Vice President. It doesn't tell me that I can't vote. So I didn't want to not vote and then be removed for not following the rules of the Constitution. And so I see Secretary Clinton's name at that point, I'm still truly undecided because I see the way the country is going. Maybe I felt that it was unlikely, but the rest of the country hadn't voted yet. And so I asked for vice presidential ballot. I do not receive it. So from there, that's when I cross out Secretary Clinton's name and I wrote in Governor John Kasich. And then they removed me as an electoral. But because my duty wasn't done, I was an elector, I was going to fulfill my constitutional duty. So I wrote in Tim Kaine on the back of a vice president on the box of where we got the pen. And that's where I wrote in Tim Kaine for Vice President. And then the madness ensued, Right?

But when you say the madness ensues, but that even though you were the elected one and you were the appointed one, and as we said, the Constitution says that you as an elector shall vote by ballot and then make a list with the electors of the other candidates chosen and send it all along to D.C. you weren't permitted to do that. So what?

That's what I was really intrigued because reading the 12th Amendment, as electors, we were supposed to gather the ballots, we're supposed to sign them, steal them, and send them to the seat of the Senate, which is the Vice President, United States. So the fact that states are reviewing the electoral ballots, because in that meantime, between, after I, after the elections have voted and before the votes have been transmitted to the seat of the Senate. I don't even know if the state has that right to be. I guess my point is Colorado shouldn't even see my vote until Vice President Biden had read the vote in a special session.

Right, right. But they did and they intervened. So ultimately, your vote was not cast. You were sort of summarily dismissed, Polly, as you mentioned, replaced with someone who is not elected by the people who ultimately cast the final Colorado electoral vote for Hillary Clinton. And so you, Mike, like a couple of other folks, ended up being one of three electors that are the first in US History to have their votes rejected by state officials on the basis of who they were cast. Okay, but so then, you know, as you described it, it was madness. But Donald Trump is elected. The effort to sort of restore the Electoral College didn't work, at least on December 19th. But clearly you were passionate about the issue and didn't want to drop it, because here we are four years later and the issue is continuing. So let me go back around the horn to you, Polly. Why, when you woke up either on December 20th or 21st, or maybe you took some time and you saw the inauguration, why did you want to keep the fight up and decide this question, which has now become sort of an abstract question, because it's not going to change the outcome of the 2016 election of whether electors really have this right to vote by ballot that cannot be interfered with by a state.

I've actually been engaged in trying to do something about the Electoral College for, well, since 2000, for the last 20 years. I will continue to try to either cause the Electoral College to be used as it was intended to be used by the founders of our country, or change the Electoral College. It does not now reflect the popular vote at all times. It doesn't reflect how Americans vote for President of the United States. I believe passionately in the one person, one vote principle, which is a democratic principle. For me, it's a matter of causing that to happen. Either we cause the electors to reflect the national popular vote of the population of American voters, or we do away with that. We cannot continue to obstruct the popular vote of the American voters. That is just wrong and we have to do something about that. So I'm going to continue in the fight. This isn't the end of it.

So there's political and there's legal ways to fight. And pie. I'm glad you kept up the legal fight, Bob. Why did you decide to keep going both initially and here we are three and A half years later.

Well, the point is the Electoral College

is not functioning the way it was designed and it didn't provide us the purpose that it was originally put forward to stop tyrant or for somebody of low moral character to be president, as I think those are the words Hamilton used. But more importantly is what Polly echoed is I am absolutely about one person, one vote. Whether you live on the north slope of Alaska or in the middle of the Bronx, New York, it does not matter. You're an individual citizen. And all the other laws in the country look at you as an individual, not because you live in a certain state or you have certain status. And all the campaigns run on seeking individual votes.

Now they do it on a contrived

state by state contest, but they're still looking for individual votes. And that's the only way you unify the country is having the popular vote. So my purpose was to show, demonstrate, scare, do whatever it is the country is saying that this Electoral College does not work for you, the individual voter, the individual citizen, you know, forget the power, the political people. It's actually easy to affect corruption in very small units. Doing it in a mass basis where 150 people are voting or more is, you know, that becomes mathematically almost impossible. So that was the purpose, is to run it through. Let's clean this thing out. Let's try to get rid of the party's control. Let's face it, you know, if you really understand your history, we've had a two party system of Republican and Democrats since 1860. Previous that we had parties that came and went. And the Electoral College then became very solidified with this party rule about where state by state electors have to vote or are encouraged to vote. They use the term faithless or all this other stuff that goes against the whole thing. We are much more than a Democratic or Republican Party. We are Americans and we should be able to move beyond that and vote for the person and the administration that we want. And then when that's done and we know what the vote is over, then we all can get around it. And I think in 2016, 3 million people voted for Hillary. More.

And I look at it, I even

try to explain to people, I go, and they said, why did you want to vote against Hillary in Colorado? And I go, well, in Colorado, more people did not want Trump. There's a vote is both a positive and a negative. You know, it's a clear choice. So if more people don't want Trump, I'm trying to represent the people who don't want Trump here in Colorado. And, you know, it's just, it's the fight of redefining where we at constitutionally. And I'm going to say the last thing is I learned this from Rob Nadelson, even though he's on a political spectrum, the complete opposite that I look at. He told me the way it functioned. Right now, it's the state and the state political officials who are actually doing the voting. When they open up Michael's ballot and they saw they didn't vote the way

they wanted him to vote, they in

their power struck that, that, that vote, that dissent and put somebody else in the stead that would do it for. That's the state doing it. That's not the people.

Yeah, yeah. No, that, that. That's many of the exact same arguments. Even better said than we can in our legal briefs, for sure. And, you know, for those who haven't listened or read, we'll post the briefs online. And we did a Larry and I did a legal episode about this, too, Bob, and I think that captures a lot. So, Mike, I think Bob leaves us in a perfect place to then go to you and say, so you also kept up the fight for several years, and you, in some ways, because of your vote against Clinton, had it the hardest. You got a lot of incoming messages and a lot of incoming criticism. And then lo and behold, last summer, after years of litigation, the 10th Circuit issues this long opinion, and it says, you were right the whole time. So how did you sort of feel reading that?

So I was actually in the middle of class when I found that opinion out. And so I got to share that news with my students live. And I was ecstatic because I believe that what we did and what we were trying to do in 2016 was incongruent with all the laws. Like, we weren't violating anything. And so when the courts finally said that what I did was, was maybe not the right thing, but at least it was legally accurate, then it means I didn't just disenfranchise the will of voters. It means I had an interpretation and I acted on my own conscience. And I was able to. Not me alone, but, like, we have the heroes to my rights. And it was just. I was very excited. And like Paulie and Bob. Yeah, like Paulie and Bob, I been trying to continue this fight any way I can because I do believe in one person, one vote. I would say millions of Americans feel disenfranchised because if you're a Republican in California, that's always going to go blue you're going to say that my vote doesn't matter why I vote and then that creates a level of voter apathy which then turns into a self fulfilling prophecy. I'm not going to vote for people who don't vote for me or vote in my interest. But then you don't vote and you don't have a country that reflects you. And so I really felt at the time that this was about preventing the most dangerous president in modern American history. And then it turned after the fact into this, hey, you know, we have an opportunity to make serious constitutional, hopefully constitutional reform with electoral college, move to a constitution, you know, create a constitutional amendments which requires so much more work than it is now, but have a constitutional amendment that will allow for a one person, one vote all across this country because it's just the way it should be.

Yeah. And so Polly, you too kept this up for a while and you've seen a lot, but I don't know that you've ever been a plaintiff or had a Supreme Court case. So a couple months after we got that opinion from the appeals court in Denver, the 10th Circuit, saying that you all had been right the whole time that electors are free to vote for whoever they wish, we also got word that the Supreme Court was going to accept the case and we'll be hearing it soon. So how did that make you feel?

I was excited about that, that we would be heard by the Supreme Court of the United States. I mean, my goodness, I never thought I'd be a part of a, I'd be a plaintiff in a suit that would go that far. But I'm delighted that the court is going to hear our cause because we've got to make sure, we've got to do something about correcting the manner in which the Electoral college is used and works. If that means that we go to the Supreme Court and try to convince them to follow the United States Constitution, then that's what we need to do. If they don't ruin our favor, I think we need to carry on the fight to continue to resolve this issue in another way.

Bob, then we'll let you get the last word in here. What do you hope to see? We talked about the 10th Circuit decision. We talked about the moment when the Supreme Court accepted the case. Now we're just a couple of weeks away from the Supreme Court actually hearing arguments. What do you hope to see from the justices when they hear argument and ultimately in an opinion?

Well, I hope to see again country

over party where some, the Federalist judges and the Liberal judges come together and both affirm that electors have freedom of discretion and also have standing. You know, we see how state officials can get really partisan, political or very powerful and trying to step on small people who are standing up and moving forward in the electors. And so what I'm hoping is they affirm this. I hope that they state it strongly that electors have discretion and that they strike all the other 32 states laws and say that. And I think what that will do is make it made people, even in

my local CD when we were running

again,

think deeply who is going to be their elector and why. And it's not just a ceremonial or honorary position. It's something that's like any elected position, serious matter. And my hope is then, once they affirm it, that the country really starts looking at all of its electoral processes. And this jumps us toward a national popular vote or national. You know, they call it national. What it really is is a form of a national referendum of who will be the president. And I just look at this as we could be doing something positive that has been waiting to happen. And my final thing is Michael and Polly, it wouldn't have been happening without you guys stepping forward. I'm just a noisemaker back here.

You know, you guys,

this is something. And of course that goes to the Washington electors. Chet, I think what I'm going to finish up by saying people don't understand the amount of pressure that politically as well as individually, from legal point, that people can bear on you to do something. And when it's. When it's the rightful descent to go to continue with the marching of our mechanisms, it shows a lot of courage. And those two really show it. I'm really complimentary, but yeah, I hope there would be. We get a major majority decision and the Federalists join with the liberals and reaffirm it. And that way, you know, the political people won't have much to say except that they lament the loss of control of the electors.

Yeah, well, fingers crossed on that one, Bob. And I can say it's gonna be a real thrill to be able to present the case. I don't know that I'll be able to present it as cogently or as passionately as you three did. But I'll do my best to channel it in front of the Supreme Court. And of course, Bob, I guess the place to leave it is you started this conversation by saying that, boy, wouldn't it be cool to have your name in the National Archives or something? But by being an elector. Well, now your name is on the caption of a Supreme Court case. So there's something else that is in the Library of Congress. Yeah. Polly, did you want to say anything

else to close one of the things that I hope is remembered through this? I mean, I feel so honored to have been with Bob and Michael in this case as plaintiffs, because we really are, like David, fighting Goliath. We are the little guys that are just trying to change the manner in which we elect our president. We live in a democracy, with one exception. The people of this country never vote directly for President of the United States. They're voting for people like Slate, like us. And we would like to see them be able to have their votes cast for the President of the United States, the ultimate authority as CEO, in a way that reflects their vote. One person, one vote. And right now, our country doesn't reflect that. So we don't really have a democracy when it comes to electing the President of the United States. And we need to either allow the electoral. The electors in the Electoral College to reflect the national popular vote or do away with this mechanism that prevents that from happening.

Yeah, that. That makes a lot of sense, Polly. Well, thanks to each of you. We'll check back in with you as the case goes on, but it's been a real pleasure.

Thank you very much.

Jason Sa.