Advisory Opinions - Election Law Explained

Episode Date: September 24, 2020

A Louisville grand jury on Wednesday indicted one officer in connection with the March 13 police raid that took Breonna Taylor’s life. The grand jury declined to charge the two officers who fired directly at Breonna Taylor and her boyfriend that evening, instead only charging the third officer, who was outside and fired indiscriminately, with wanton endangerment. David explains the basic facts leading up to Taylor’s shooting, as well as the legality surrounding police raids and the right of self-defense under Kentucky law. “You begin to see where we’ve backslidden in our commitment to key constitutional liberties,” David explains, where “decades of bad Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has empowered violent tactics even when the stakes are low.” On today’s episode, David and Sarah also address how much the chief justice matters to the trajectory of the Supreme Court and the democratic prudence of voluntary judicial restraint. After a requisite foray into all things SCOTUS, our podcast hosts are joined by Federal Elections Commission Chairman Trey Trainor, who explains the ins and outs of election law, foreign election interference, and why the FEC is paralyzed right now. Trainor also explains how campaign finance laws like the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act have significantly weakened the national political parties while funneling money into the state parties in the process. “What’s happened is the smoke filled room has moved from Washington, D.C. to each of the 50 states.” Stick around for an inside scoop on the rise and fall of Kanye West’s presidential campaign. Show Notes: -30 day free trial at The Dispatch, FEC Chairman Trainor’s statement on the dangers of procedural dysfunction, “A Resignation in Time, that Saved Nine” by Josh Blackman in Reason, David’s French Press: “Supreme Court Precedent Killed Breonna Taylor.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine yourself in Ottawa, surrounded by thousands of vibrant tulips, and discovering your new favourite microbrew, before cycling along scenic bike paths and wandering through a museum in awe. Adventure awaits in Ottawa, from O to Ah. Plan your getaway at ottawatourism.ca Your teen requested a ride, but this time, not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision

with live trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to an action-packed Advisory Opinions podcast. Not only do we have a lot to cover today, the Breonna Taylor grand jury returned its decision, its charging decision yesterday, which has caused protests and violence in Louisville and in cities across the country. And we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the law behind it. Also, in light of the imminent nomination of another Supreme Court justice, we're going to answer some interesting listener mail about the court and the role of the chief justice and spin out a little scenario that I read in

Reason magazine last night that caused a little bit of a tiny bit of a mind-blown sensation, Sarah, I would say, like 5% of a mind-blown sensation. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, okay. 5%, that's fair? Yeah. Okay. 5%, that's fair? Yeah. Okay. Well, before we dive in to all of that and all, oh, how can I overlook? We have on this podcast, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Trey Trainor. He is here and he's going to talk to us about the role of the FEC, why the FEC is paralyzed right now, how campaign finance regulation has perhaps inadvertently gutted the power of national parties.

What role does the FEC have in dealing with election interference? Lots of stuff. And most importantly, he's a Texan. I knew you were going to say that. I knew you were going to say that. Most importantly, today we are interviewing a Texan. He happens to also be the chairman of the FEC, whatever, whatever. We have a Texan on the program, another Texan on the program.

Well, before we dive in, I just want to remind listeners that we're in the middle of the Dispatch.com's 30-day free trial. And so if you have not checked out the full awesomeness that is behind the paywall at the dispatch.com, you can check out that awesomeness for free for a few more days. And that URL is

the dispatch.com slash 30 days free. David. With a three zero, not a, not spelled out. 30, three zero days free. David, I have three things that I want to tell people they can get if they sign up for that free membership. Go for it.

One, today I put out my midweek mop up for the sweep, which includes a really fun interview with Reed Epstein of the New York Times about being a campaign reporter for the last several cycles and what that looks like. And those are fun little interviews that I do, and you can go read those. That comes in at number three. Number two, I had so much fun last night for our Advisory Opinions Live. Yeah.

That was really... We had the best time talking about your book and we don't get to hang out at night very often. So it was like advisory opinions at night. Yes. After dark. And number one, on Tuesday after the debate for members, including those who signed up for the free trial, we're going to do a dispatch live with Jonah and Steve and the two of us to talk about the debate afterwards, because right after a debate, if you're watching it alone, which you probably are because it's COVID, it can kind of just feel like, huh, well, that ended. But come join us instead. And we'll have just a nice little, you know, chit chat. I

bet there's actually going to be a fair amount of disagreement between the four of us on how that goes. We'll see. I expect you're right about that. I expect you're right. It's really interesting because we have seen between our little Dispatch Live crew, which is also the Dispatch podcast crew, more disagreement, I would say,

especially in the recent days than we've had in some prior days. And that's, hey, it pushes all of us, right? I mean, if we're just our little amen corner, it's a little bit less interesting. And you don't have to be a member to buy David's book, which is out now and is awesome. And I'm writing my Amazon review right now, David. So everyone should go on to Amazon after they read the book and write their review. I don't write Amazon reviews very often. I think I've probably written fewer than 10 in my Amazon career, which if you think that somehow reflects on me not ordering a ton of stuff from Amazon, you would be sorely mistaken. And so I'd like to put, it's a craft.

So I'm really going to craft this review on Amazon for you. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you. And yes, please, if you read it and you liked it, then please do leave a review on amazon.com. It helps out a great deal. It truly does. And the book is called Divided We Fall.

And just search for it in Amazon and you can find it and order it. And I really appreciate it. Well, let's move on, Sarah, to a heavy topic, to a tough topic. And that is the Breonna Taylor grand jury finding and grand jury charging decision in Louisville. And basically what the grand jury did, well, let me back up. The facts of what occurred have come into a little bit sharper focus over the last couple of months. And what happened in a nutshell is that police officers were serving a warrant on several locations in the same evening trying to disrupt a drug trafficking ring. Breonna Taylor, the apartment where Breonna Taylor was staying, was one of the places targeted because what turns out to be an ex-boyfriend of hers had been involved. What was somebody who has's strong evidence he's been involved in extensive drug trafficking and her car was seen at a uh what was termed in the lingo a trap house uh like think of something kind of like a crack house and that uh her ex-boyfriend

would was seen picking up packages at her apartment. So the Louisville police obtained a no-knock warrant to raid Taylor's, the apartment where Taylor was staying. Now, at the last minute, the police chose to knock and announce. Now, here's where things get kind of squirrely. and announce. Now, here's where things get kind of squirrely. The police show up late at night. They pound on the door. That much is established. They pound on the door. They said they called out that they were police. All the non-police witnesses, except for one, say they never heard anyone call out police. Breonna Taylor's current boyfriend was in the apartment with Taylor. They were awakened by the pounding. He says he never heard police, that he just heard pounding. A few seconds after the pounding started, the police smashed open the

door. Taylor's boyfriend had a gun that he legally owned. He did not know who had just smashed into the door. And so he fired one shot at the intruders that the evidence indicates he did not know were police. That one shot hit a policeman in the leg, very gravely injuring him. I believe it severed maybe, is it the femoral artery, Dr. Isger? Femoral? It's in the leg. Femoral, yes. Is that it? Mm-hmm. And created a grave and immediate medical emergency. The two officers fired into the apartment, directly into the apartment.

They hit, shot, and killed Breonna Taylor, who had come out of her bedroom. Her boyfriend did not fire another shot, fired one shot. There was a third police officer who was outside the apartment, and he began wantonly firing through windows and doors into the apartment, and his bullets sort of sprayed around the apartment complex. And his bullets sort of sprayed around the apartment complex. Okay. After Brianna was shot and the officers retreated, the boyfriend calls 911 and reports that somebody shot his girlfriend, that she was dying.

And it took a moment for the sort of the fog and confusion to clear. And then he realized it was police. He surrendered to the police. The police tried to render aid to Taylor, but it was too late. And those are the basic facts. And a lot of people have been demanding that the officers be charged for murder. And the grand jury did not do that. It did not charge the two officers who fired directly at Taylor and her boyfriend. It did charge the third officer who was outside and fired indiscriminately,

who was later fired by the Louisville Police Department, charged him with a wanton endangerment, with a wanton endangerment, a relatively low-level felony. And that created an enormous amount of outrage. So those are the basic facts, Sarah. And that is not a clear-cut case of police murder. It's not. And the reason, and I'll quit my monologuing, is that the police were, here is, and this is something we talked about at length.

You had a homeowner who had, not a homeowner, but a person lawfully in a residence who has a right of self-defense, who was confronting people he could not identify or did not identify as police, who smashed down his door. If those were not cops, he'd have an absolute right of self-defense. Under Kentucky law, if he knew there were cops, he would not have the right to fire on them. But he says he didn't know. The cops were serving a warrant that we can argue about whether or not it was granted lawfully, but from their perspective was a lawful warrant and they were serving it in the manner

that the law allows and they were fired upon. And they have a right to return fire in that circumstance. And so what you had was two legal, the collision of two legal doctrines this right of self-defense on both sides um creating a tragedy and and that's that's the and which now that has nothing to do with the third guy who's wantonly firing but the actual fatal shots were the collision of these two legal doctrines, these two legal regimes, which created in that moment

a mutual right to open fire. And that's what happened. That's sort of, in a nutshell, my take on it. I also think it's worth stepping back from our lawyer shoes and understanding why people are so frustrated. You can explain the law to them all day long. And I think it's pretty fair to answer

back. Okay. But Brianna Taylor's dead. Surely, surely that's not just okay because there's these legal doctrines when it feels wrong. Right. And, you know, I think that happens in the law from time to time. And I think I am certainly guilty of lecturing people about like, well, I mean, look, here's what the legal doctrine is and blah, blah, blah, qualified immunity. And even if I disagree with the legal doctrine, here's how this all functions because I'm a lawyer. And in moments like this, it is kind of important to just step back and be like, this probably isn't the way it should work.

Yeah, you know, and I wrote a long piece about this that we, you know, we had one of our, one of our livelier discussions, I remember, on advisory opinions about it. I remember on Advisory Opinions about it, a long piece about this outlining how Supreme Court precedent combined with self- have come into a house and engaged in a gun battle with a homeowner who had no idea police were coming into his house. I mean, this is something that has happened many times in America. And, you know, I wrote this and then I put it back out on Twitter as people were really arguing about the law. And someone underneath it said, this is what happens when you have legal systems that put into play, put into motion human beings into inevitable collision. And, and that's what we had here. Yeah. Um, you know, I think that trial will be very emotional and difficult for the city of Louisville. Two police officers were shot last night. My understanding is that they're in stable condition, non-life-threatening injuries.

But two police officers were shot last night. Right. Right. Oh, I know. I know. And we're in a situation where you feel like you just have this fear that we're in the middle of something that is serious and violence that is serious. But you almost sometimes feel like, are we on the precipice of something even worse? And this is going to sound like I'm being cute by plugging your book here, but actually I think,

uh, for those who are feeling that way, that's where David's book for me was a really interesting, not just a read, but an outlet. Uh, you know, I think you should start on page one 19,

which is the fictional, uh, how the United States really could be on the brink of secession and how that could come about in a way that like step by step, you're just like, well, yeah, that would follow and that would follow and that would seem reasonable. And you have a Cal exit strategy where the sort of liberal part of the United States breaks off because of sort of their anti-counter-majoritarian stuff. And then the next chapter, which is the darkest timeline, is the Texas strategy where the red states break off in something that actually does feel a lot like what we're talking about. Armed confrontation

between citizens and the government. And then, of course, the foreign policy section of what it would look like if the United States breaks up into multiple countries for the world stage, which is not a good look, it turns out. No. So that's, you know, I think I will keep sort of turning over and over in my head that part of your book, although I enjoyed all of it. And we talked a lot about the tolerance part last night, but the tolerance part doesn't speak exactly to this situation. There is something more fundamental than simply teaching us to tolerate one another, which you made this great point that tolerance is not about having high esteem and then saying you

tolerate someone. I don't tolerate gay people. There's nothing to tolerate. You tolerate things you don't like or you don't agree with or you don't particularly hold in high esteem. And that's very different than this, which I do think is the system tells us that this is legal and just, but it doesn't feel just. And therefore, we question why it's legal. In the last third of the book, I talk about the virtue of tolerance as it should be properly understood, where it's not an affirmation of someone, but it's an acceptance of someone in spite of the disagreements. It doesn't paper over disagreements. It acknowledges they're real and says we're still going to live in this country together anyway. And the other part of the book, one other part of the book is we got to revitalize the bill of rights and man if you look at the fourth amendment jurisprudence from the supreme court um that led up to this sort of empowering of the no-knock raid uh and it it and i know that it was not it didn't actually turn into a no-knock

raid uh but it was certainly a violent entry, certainly a forcible entry. And the way in which the Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has empowered an awful lot of very dramatic police tactics in situations where life is not at stake, only evidence is at stake, you begin to see where we have backslidden in our commitment to key constitutional liberties, and that has real consequences. Because one of the arguments that I make is, we just can't have a healthy nation without a commitment to these fundamental individual liberties that are outlined in the Bill of Rights. And it feels like a lot of conservatives like me have focused an awful lot. And I've said this so many times on amendments one and two, and not so much four through eight. And, you know,

a lot of progressives have focused on four through eight and not as much one and two. Gotta, gotta respect them all. So yeah. and this is one of those areas where decades of bad fourth amendment jurisprudence has empowered violent tactics even when the stakes are are low um and and that's something that i think is alarming to a lot of people who have not really understood what's going on let's take a moment and thank our sponsor, a new sponsor, the Act In Line podcast. Act In Line is the flagship podcast of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, dedicated to the promotion of a free and virtuous society characterized by individual liberty and sustained by religious principles. With episodes released every Wednesday, Act in Line brings together writers,

economists, religious leaders, thinkers, journalists, newsmakers, and more in conversations that bridge the gap between good intentions and sound economics. By demonstrating the compatibility of faith, liberty, and free markets, conversations on Act in Line reveal how economic freedom is essential to creating an environment in which religious freedom can flourish, but also that the market can function only when people behave morally. Faith and freedom must go hand in hand. To subscribe to Acton Line, visit acton.org slash opinions

or search Acton Line on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, or where fine podcasts are available. That's acton.org slash opinions to subscribe. I think we should move to an oddly lighter topic, which is somehow some hypotheticals around the Supreme Court. Do you want to introduce? some hypotheticals around the Supreme Court. Do you want to introduce?

So Josh Blackman was on this pod at the end of the Supreme Court term, and he had a tantalizing fictional idea. Yeah. Well, it's a great launching pad to talk about something that I think is super important in all these discussions. So, you know, there's,

the American political system right now, as we know, is incredibly strained, incredibly contentious, and threats are flying back and forth. I mean, it looks like the Republicans are going to make good on their threat to nominate and confirm someone before the election. And there are Democrats who are hinting at their own threat of court packing. And the last time there was a court pack threat, a credible court pack threat, was FDR in 1937. And that led to the human beings on the court, specifically the chief justice, to do what became known as the switch in time that saved nine. In other words, he just changed his jurisprudence. And so as the court ruled differently, the pressure to pack the court backed off,

which is a sign that, hey, justices are human. So Josh Blackman was writing this interesting thing where he said, what if instead of the switch in time to save nine, you had the resign in time to save nine. And he formulated that what if Justice Roberts resigned if Biden wins, after Biden won, to cool the temperature of the country and allow Biden to pick, and that pick would be Chief Justice. And he admitted, Blackmun admitted that this was kind of tongue in cheek. But as soon as I read it, I thought, I know this is tongue in cheek, but I could actually see that happening. And it was just a reminder, Sarah, these justices are not automatons. They respond to the world around them.

You know, they respond to the world around them. And we often go into these nomination fights like they don't. Like what you are nominating and confirming as your ideological automaton for the next 30 years. No, it's a human being who reacts to events. Ross Douthat had a really insightful tweet that I thought was really very interesting. And it goes to something we've kind of talked about offline. And he says, he talks about how the more Trump speaks, the less likely it is that his judges are going to actually side with him. And he says, every time the president opens his mouth, he makes it less likely that Gorsuch or Kavanaugh rules for him on a set of facts where they might rule for a President Pence or Rubio or Hawley. I think that's right. I think that's right. Your thoughts? Well, we had a listener question, which asked, based on the Blackmun hypothetical, how important is the chief justice? Like, would it matter that it's the chief justice's seat more than any other seat?

And the answer is, oh, yeah, it definitely matters. Yeah. If the chief justice resigned, not only would President Biden get a seat on the Supreme Court, he actually could elevate a current justice to the chief justice role and then pick an associate justice. Or he could pick a person like they did with Chief Justice Roberts, who is new have the tickets to the Senate Judiciary Hearing for the confirmation as Associate Justice, John Roberts, the hearing that never happened because he was nominated first for Associate Justice. Mm-hmm.

And then for Chief Justice. So that's how that went down. So fun times. But, you know, so there's that went down. So fun times, but, um, you know, so there's one world in which, for instance, Biden would promote Kagan to chief justice and nominate her for chief justice, and then nominate some other circuit judge for the associate justice spot. Why would that be important that it's the chief justice role? Because by getting to pick who the chief justice is, the president gets to decide who is going to assign opinions for whichever side the chief justice is on. So if the chief

justice is in the majority, the chief justice assigns who writes the majority opinion. If the chief justice is in the minority, they decide who writes the dissent. But that's a really, really powerful thing to get to decide who's writing the opinions. No, it doesn't affect the outcome exactly in the narrowest, narrowest of senses, but it absolutely affects the outcome because how that opinion is written, how broad it is, whether it's going to, for instance, overturn precedent or simply find some really, you know, if you squint real hard, we're not overturning precedent. This is slightly distinct from that precedent. I mean, all of those things matter a ton to the future jurisprudential direction of the law. Yeah, I'm so glad you raised that because it's another reason why you can't be assured that even when you have large majorities that you're going to get the kind of sweeping changes you want.

you want. And it was really interesting. I'm doing a big piece for the weekend Wall Street Journal about the tentative title is the historic roots of our Supreme Court rage. And what's interesting is it's not just how the court comes out, it's how sweeping is the reasoning that often has escalated the um that that has increased the temperature of our cultural conflict and it's very interesting a lot of people don't remember this about ruth bader ginsburg she wrote a 1992 law review article where she endorsed what she called measured motions of legal change more than what, over what she called breathtaking advances. Wait, was Ruth Bader Ginsburg a Burkean? I mean, in this 1992 Law Review article. Fascinating.

And this is what will surprise a lot of people. Here, what was her case that she condemned or condemned as strong, critiqued as breathtaking when measured motions would have been better? Trivia question, Sarah, which one was it? Shelby? Roe v. Wade. Oh, you mean in her law review article? Yeah, in her law review article. Fascinating.

Uh, fascinating. Yeah. This was a quote. She said, she noted that the Texas law at issue, um, the, in the row case permitted abortion only if it was a quote, life-saving procedure. And she said, suppose the court had stopped there rightly declaring unconstitutional, the most extreme brand of law in the nation. It had not gone, as the court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displays virtually every state law then in force, would there have been the 20-year controversy we have witnessed? And this is something that's a very interesting aspect, I think, of the Roberts jurisprudence. Because he can assign himself if he's in the majority the opinion he can take it upon himself to do the measured motion rather than the breathtaking stroke which means that an awful lot of people who seek a judicial revolution can be frustrated even if they win their case uh and and that's a huge power from the of the chief justice

man i would love to see a scholarly-ish comparison of the measured motions of second amendment jurisprudence post heller to the uh revolutionary motions of Roe and whether popular opinion was affected and what you can see and the distinction between the two, because I'm not sure she's right in the sense that there's a lot of frustration out there by the measured motions around the second amendment jurisprudence and that you just have to keep bringing these cases. And so there's case after case after case going to the court on Second Amendment stuff because they won't just say what Second Amendment law is going to be in the country. And so we're dragging it out over 10, 15, 20 years. Whereas Roe, to some extent, pulled the Band-Aid off. I don't know. I think that's a really interesting question that I don't know that I have an instinctual answer to. So my answer to that would be, there's a difference between post-Heller

jurisprudence and Roe in the sense that there's no measured motions post-Heller. It's no motion. That's not totally true. I mean, so I would say measured motion would be, you take the New Jersey, the you take you grant certain the new jersey law in the new jersey case which all but bans carry outside or doesn't all but ban but severely restricts carry outside the home and you write a narrow opinion regarding what that that specific law violates the right to bear without sweeping additional language that says, and oh, by the way, any form of restriction. Right.

And high capacity magazines. And there's going to be this tripartite system test. Yes, exactly. So I think that if we're going to turn down the temperature at the Supreme Court, and this is actually how I end the article. So tell me if you think I'm off base, if I've blown it in the Wall Street Journal. Because I suggest some reforms to lower the temperature. I'm with you on the 18-year term, Supreme Court term proposal. So here's my answer. So this is, by the way, where we can keep nine people on the Supreme Court,

but every president would be guaranteed two Supreme Court openings during each term. So it's a way to save nine and I don't think destabilize the legitimacy of the court, but also have a little bit more fairness and it's not just like randomly up to the actuarial life cycles of justices to determine who gets to appoint the next justice, which feels like, you know, we've talked about board games. It feels a lot like you're just rolling the dice and there's all this luck involved or not luck, whatever the right, you know, lucky or unlucky, which is not how we should

maybe run a system here. Right, right, exactly. So here's my last paragraph. So I need the Sarah Isger verdict on it. Okay. We can't forget a final necessary change, voluntary judicial restraint. As a nation mourns the loss

of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, perhaps it's time to remember one of the best of her thoughts, her admonition that measured motions are often preferable to breathtaking judicial strokes. While there are moments when the defense of the Constitution requires bold action, there are many others when the answer is to leave the question of justice to the people's elected representatives and let democracy run its messy, necessary course. run its messy, necessary course.

I absolutely agree that the courts should be more inclined to let democracy run its necessary, messy course. And I think that they have felt less and less able to do that because of the dysfunction in Congress. And when that happens, then they just have this instinct to go solve problems. And then that instinct bleeds over into areas where in fact,

you know, state laws, for instance, don't have this problem. State legislatures are doing just fine passing laws. And yet courts are feeling the ability and the need to step in just more and more in general. I remember just a few years ago, we had this huge opioid crisis, which by the way, is very much still continuing and no one's talking about. But an enormous opioid crisis in this country. And there was a lawsuit brought in Ohio about opioid producers. And the judge basically said, I'm going to solve this opioid crisis. He gave a quote about that in court. And it was like, at first, you're like, well, good. At least someone's going to do this. Because he basically says, the executive branch isn't doing anything and Congress isn't doing anything. So I guess it's up to me. I'm paraphrasing

here, but that's pretty much what he said. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, good. At least someone's doing their job. We need to solve this crisis. Too many Ohioans are dying every year, you know, tens of thousands of people unnecessarily dying. And then I was like, but wait a second. No, nope. That's a, And then I was like, but wait a second. No, nope, that's a terrible inclination. And it's coming from a really good place. But even in inclinations that are coming from good places on issues that are incredibly important, that is a bad place for the judiciary to find itself in

to solve a national crisis that is not a legal crisis. Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. And the other factor, and we've talked about this before, so as the court ascends and as Congress retreats, people react to that. Of course. And they move to the entity that seems to have power. Of course. And so what you've, you, what you've seen is a lot of smart activists say, why am I wasting my time with Congress? You know,

um, why on earth would I petition my Congressman or a collect coalition of Congressman to introduce legislation that I know will go nowhere. When one thing I do know, if I file a legal complaint, like I don't even have a right for my Congressman to respond I do know, if I file a legal complaint, like I don't even have a right for my congressman to respond to me. But if I file a legal complaint, a judge is going to rule. And if the ruling is the way I like, I can go to the circuit court and three judges are going to rule. And then I have an outside shot at a Supreme Court,

a very outside shot of a Supreme Court verdict. But the court will respond to you. It will respond. It will deny or it will grant your relief, but it will respond. And Congress likely just won't do anything. And so what's happened is people flow to power and they flow to where they think they can have their rights protected or their legal environment adjusted. And so it's just a vicious cycle. It just builds on itself. And here we are. And so, and then the sad thing about that, a part of that, Sarah, is that that power is flowing to the entity that we have the least democrat that has the least democratic accountability and now we're nominating people to serve terms that the intent is that they

serve as justices longer than most people reign as kings or queens by the way i just think this is the best segue into federal election commission, a stagnated body that is not doing anything. And then people are, uh, uh, have given up. And so they're just going straight to the courts with their federal election complaints.

And Trey trainer is going to tell us why he thinks that is not okay and not good because the fec has expertise as an administrative body but they're not being responsive because they don't have a quorum or they don't have the votes or they're hopelessly deadlocked um and like that's what's going to happen now that's a good transition sarah okay that's perfect because that's exactly where we start the interview. That's fantastic. So without further ado, let's move on to our Texan, another Texan, and incidentally, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission, Trey Treanor. Sarah, do you want to introduce our guest? Sarah, do you want to introduce our guest? I would love to.

So we are joined by FEC Commission Chair Trey Trainor. He was nominated by Donald Trump. He lives down in Austin, Texas. He's worked at DOD. He's worked for Secretary of State of Texas. I mean, he's done it all. But most importantly, he's a lawyer and a nerd, and we're thrilled to have him on this podcast. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate y'all having me on. And y'all can't see this, listeners, but in the background of his Zoom,

he's in his library, and the book that is facing forward is just Texas. And I think I see some James Michener back there too. Yeah, that's true. There's probably some of that back there. So good Texan. How many generations Texan are you? Let's see, I would be four. Wow. Not bad. Yeah, I'd be four. So before that, did your relatives come from Tennessee like most Texans?

Probably, yes. So a lot of Scotch-Irish moving in there. So you recently released what we're calling the Trainer Screed. Okay. That's what I call it. Yeah. Yeah. Better than manifesto. So tell us a little bit about this. And this is, you know, you've, you're at the FEC and it sounds like you're a little frustrated. Extremely frustrated to be real honest with you. It's what we've done, what the commission has done. And this really started before I got there,

but I just saw it in person in my first open meeting, some of the executive sessions that we participated in, but we've effectively handed over the enforcement of the Federal Elections Campaign Act to third-party groups that are really dedicated to limiting the free speech rights of Americans and really changing fundamentally the campaign finance laws for the country. Groups like Citizens for Responsibility in Washington, Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, Public Citizen, all of those groups have used the fact that there is an absence of a quorum at the commission and or collaborated with some of my colleagues to circumvent the statutory process that Congress put in place under FICA. And they've basically gone to the courts

and are allowing the courts to interpret campaign finance laws and hold people accountable for what they believe to be violations in a manner where the commission can't defend itself and, more importantly, can't defend the statute. where the commission can't defend itself and, more importantly, can't defend the statute. And for me personally, it gets down to a separation of powers argument. You have these groups are inserting the judiciary into a position of acting as executive branch officers. It seems to me, though, that there's a difference between,

for instance, if one of the commission members won't vote to let the committee, you know, move forward, then if it doesn't have a quorum, because if it doesn't have a quorum, then the FEC really can't, you know, perform its function. function. And then how are you supposed to enforce these laws? Yeah, that's true. And maybe it would help if I just described the process. The normal complaint process is anyone can file a complaint with the commission and it comes before us after being vetted by the Office of General Counsel for a determination of whether or not there's reason to believe that a violation occurred. And it would take four votes of the commission to do that, and we are supposed to do that within 120 days. If we don't do it within 120 days, then the person who makes the complaint has a right to go to court and ask the court to tell us to make a

decision in the case. And then we would have 30 days from that point when the court tells us to make a decision in the case to make a decision. And if we fail to do that, then the complainant would have a private right of action against the respondent to enforce whatever violation they'd complained of. There is a distinct difference between not acting on a complaint within 120 days and a complete inability to act within 120 days. I mean, the statute is very clear that it takes four commissioners to take any action, and it takes four commissioners to even have a quorum of the commission. And so having only three commissioners right now, we have no ability to do anything. And that's where I think the real difference here is, and that's where I think the abuse of this process is occurring, is the commission has no ability to act at all.

Even on these default lawsuits where someone files a complaint, they wait the 120 days and they go to the court, we don't even have the ability to have our lawyers show up in court and explain to the judge that we don't have a quorum. We can't take any action. Now, explain why the FEC does not have a quorum. Well, the president has to nominate and the Senate has to confirm the members of the commission. of the commission. Um, and the, the president has, uh, nominated Alan Dickerson to fill, uh, an open seat right now that happened a few days ago. Uh, and we're waiting on the Senate to, uh, hopefully confirm him soon and, uh, put us in this position, but, um, you know, it's, it's just due to, uh to people retiring from the commission.

My two colleagues who are currently on the commission on the other side of the aisle have been at the commission for a long time, 17, 18 years. And the term of a commissioner is supposed to be six years. And there's a provision in the statute that says you can only serve on the commission once. So Congress really envisioned that there would be a frequent turnover of membership on the commission. And I think it's important to note that because it's important for there to be people coming from the regulated community into the regulatory positions that have an understanding of kind of what's going on in campaigns, how campaigns are being funded, what the latest technologies that are being used, how they can and can't be regulated just from a functional standpoint.

And a lot of that is lost because of the tenure that my colleagues have. They just don't understand some of the nuances of how campaigns are being run these days and what the functionality of the various mediums that are being used to reach out to voters are. So when you're talking about functionality of mediums, you're speaking often of social media, for example, or online advertising? Well, yeah, definitely online advertising. There's been a long running rulemaking with regard to what type of disclosure is required for online ads and whether they can fit into, you know, how, how they can fit them into a, a Twitter ad, how they can fit them into a Facebook ad. You know, how do,

how do you fit it into an Instagram? One of the other things that I've seen from, from candidates of late is, you know, the use of Tik TOK. I mean, you have, you have 60 seconds to do something in Tik TOK. I mean, how do you put in a, you know, I approve this message type disclaimer into a 60 second Tik TOK when the, it may take 60 seconds to get through the disclaimer itself. So those type of things are out there. And I think having a better understanding of how campaigns are run these days and the level of communication that takes place between candidate and voter on social media is really important. And we're not seeing

that kind of turnover at the commission to bring in that type of knowledge. What is the biggest gray area that's coming up in 2020 versus previous election cycles when it comes to campaign election law and what election lawyers are struggling with? Well, I've said, I have often stated that the biggest problem that we have with not having a quorum at the Commission is the inability for us to give advisory opinions. Normally in an election cycle, you would see several advisory opinions coming in from the regulated community asking questions of the commission, uh, you know, can we do this? Is it, is it possible for us to, you know, use funds to do these type of activities or do, are we required to put a disclaimer on this? Or, uh, you know, we, we have certain donors that want to do

certain things. Can, can we do that? And the do that and the previous person who practiced in this area i mean that library is like the bible i mean you just go through and like read those and they're they're incredibly important to figuring out your world it is and and and given that given that going to the commission and asking that question basically gives you a get out of jail free card. It's the inability to be able to do that where we're really taking the risk. We're putting on the candidates and the treasurers of the various PACs that are out there. They're really just bearing the risk and saying, well, I can't get an opinion out of the commission. We really want to do it. And we're just kind of getting the best guess of our lawyers. I mean, I think it's great for the lawyers who practice in this area are

probably making a lot of money this cycle having to give opinions. But even they are very cautious about the opinions that they're giving. So it's added, I think it's added some uncertainty with regard to the campaign finance structure for this election cycle that has not existed in previous cycles. Now, you know, when you're talking about the FEC, I just, by the way, I just have to reaff and did a lot of First Amendment work, but also was kind of dabbled in a little bit of political activism on behalf of Mitt Romney. And my wife and I formed a group called Evangelicals for Mitt. This was like way back in 06. evangelicals for met this was like way back in 06 and uh time magazine did a little uh expose on us and trying to figure out like where do we get our money were we all on the up and up and there was this line in there that what that said whoever is doing it is providing them with good legal advice

and i thought oh that's just me reading the FEC website. Right. But it's so true. I mean, you know, the number of people that go to the website just to look at the advisory opinions to see whether or not they can or can't do certain things is so important. And really that inability for us to be able to take that action, I think, is what's missing from this election cycle. In 2016, the big thing was the super PACs taking over roles of a traditional campaign. What are you seeing in 2020? What did you see during the primaries? Anything creative that you were like, huh, well, we haven't seen that before. I don't know that I've seen anything creative. I have seen,

I think what we have seen is an embrace by the left of the use of super PACs. You know, it used to be that, you know, the accusation was, was that the folks on the right were the only ones who were using super PACs and they were funneling money through there. We've seen both sides of the aisle now are very aggressively using super PACs to fund independent expenditure activity. So that, you know So from that standpoint, that's probably the big development on the Super PAC front. So I want to go through a couple of hot button issues

and talk about sort of what role does the FEC have to play, if any, in these things? Because I think a lot of times people forget, for example, that a presidential election is also a collection of 50 state elections. Yes.

That are also regulated and run by state authorities. the, does it have any role, for example, in the review, reviewing the criteria or the way in which state officials determine if mail-in ballots are valid or not valid? No, not at all. In fact, it's unfortunate that one of my colleagues is constantly out in the media talking about and commenting on whether it's the president's comments or whether it's individual states who put in place various rules for mail-in ballots or the rulings of state courts like we recently saw in Pennsylvania. state courts like we recently saw in Pennsylvania. There's a lot of comment from members of the Federal Election Commission, but the Federal Election Commission has no jurisdiction whatsoever over any of that process. It is solely relegated to the area of campaign finance for federal elections, dealing with federal candidates and organizations that are supporting

or opposing federal candidates. Let's thank our sponsor, Gabby Insurance. When you've had the same car insurance or homeowner's insurance for years, you kind of get trapped into paying your premiums and not thinking about it. That makes it really easy to overpay and not even realize it. I know this. I've done it. I think I had an overpriced car insurance policy for, oh, maybe a decade. Stop overpaying for car and homeowner's insurance. See about getting a lower rate for the exact same coverage you already have thanks to Gabby. Gabby takes the pain out of shopping for insurance by giving you an apples to apples comparison of your current coverage with 40 of the top insurance providers like Progressive, Nationwide, and Travelers. Just link your current insurance account, and in just minutes, you'll be able to see quotes for the exact same coverage you currently have.

Gabby customers save $825 per year on average. That's $825 per year on average. If they can't find you savings, they'll let you know so you can relax knowing you have the best rate out there. And they'll never sell your info, so no annoying spam or robocalls. It's totally free to check your rate and there's no obligation. Take a few minutes right now and stop overpaying on your car and home insurance. Go to Gabby.com slash advisory. That's G-A-B-I.com slash advisory.

Gabby.com slash advisory. So what happened with Kanye West's campaign? And maybe more specifically, I saw that he was pretty late turning in his initial filings to the FEC, like maybe three days late. And now his campaign is sort of withered on the vine. I don't know what the right metaphor is. What were the feelings behind the scenes on the rise and fall of Kanye? That's the question, Sarah. This is why you're on here. This is why you're on here this is this is why you're here well obviously when you have somebody as high profile as kanye west talking about running for

um running for public office it um creates a stir in the building where everybody's very interested in what's going on. And he is a candidate. He was a few days late in his filing, and he did get an appropriate notice from the commission saying, hey, you're late and you need to get your stuff turned in on time. Without a quorum, what would the normal punishment be for that? Is it always just a warning? And without a quorum, did that affect that at all? Yeah, without a quorum, it didn't affect it. I mean, it's just a warning. And so

it was a letter that I ended up signing, kind of a pro forma letter saying, hey, this was due a couple of days ago, please get it in immediately. Otherwise, we'll have to take This was due a couple of days ago. Please get it in immediately. Otherwise, we'll have to take some adverse action. And it came in right after the letter went out. So we're not that quick to start fining people. To go to FEC jail? Yeah, go to FEC jail.

That's exactly right. But his campaign is still out there. And I believe he's still actively running. And we haven't seen any effort to close down his campaign yet. It's been a great advertisement for ballot access and how difficult that process is. And I agree with that you know having i represented uh governor perry when he ran uh originally in 2012 in virginia to get on the ballot and and i thought the very same thing uh when kanye west decided that he was going to run at a late date i thought

oh here comes a slew of lawsuits on what the ballot access provisions are. Yeah. I mean, Illinois, Virginia, there are some incredibly difficult states if you're a third party to get on the ballot. And I'm not saying now the whole nation knows about it, but at least maybe more people know about it. A little more love for the election lawyers out there. What all that gave me was strange new respect for the Libertarian Party, That's exactly right. What all that gave me was strange new respect for the Libertarian Party because they get on, you know, they have this reputation of being kind of a free-for-all. And in fact, I think it's their 2016 convention when somebody stripped on the stage and started running around just in his underwear. There are a few people who mistake Libertarian for Libertine.

They're not exactly the same thing. mistake libertarian for libertine. They're not exactly the same thing. Right. But so they sometimes have a reputation not getting their act together, but they're in all 50 state ballots, you know, every time. And that is no mean feat. Absolutely. Well, let me ask you another question. Okay. So a lot of people are concerned about the mail-in ballots and the counting of ballots at the state level, and you noted that that's not your jurisdiction. Does the FEC play any kind of role in preventing or responding to foreign election interference, or can it play any kind of role? And has it thought strategically about how it could, under its enabling statutes, play a role in dealing with that? Absolutely. So, I mean, foreign interference, I mean, the use of foreign money in elections since the inception of the act has been illegal and would be something that the commission would vigorously enforce. that the commission would vigorously enforce. And we would also work through, we have a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Justice to make referrals for criminal prosecutions of

that as well. So that is something that we would look at very closely. Now, the absence of a quorum for the commission creates a problem for us to be able to take any action ourselves right now, should one of those complaints come across someone's desk. That's where it's crucial that we have the memorandum of understanding with the Department of Justice because we can make a referral over there for them to criminally prosecute and criminally investigate what's going on. And that's where I would want to make that distinction as well, that anything that the Federal Election Commission would do with regard to foreign interference would be an after-the-fact action, just like it would for any other campaign finance violation.

You know, we don't have the ability to go in and get an injunction from people using funds when we see a complaint. I mean, our process is very slow and deliberate and is always taking slow and deliberate and is always taking the after the fact look at it. So, you know, if foreign interference is happening, that would be something that we would immediately refer over to the Department of Justice for them to investigate so that they could use their prosecutorial authority and law enforcement authority to go in and actually stop it. But we do have a close working relationship with them on that. Yeah, it's interesting. We think of foreign interference as a new thing, but I'm old

enough to remember during the Clinton, Sarah always, whenever I say I'm old enough to do anything, Sarah starts smiling and laughing. I'm old enough to remember the swirl of controversy around money from the sheer scale of that, it's kind of shocking, even in hindsight. It is, you know, and I think it goes back even farther than that. I mean, if you look at foreign interference in U.S. elections, it goes all the way back to the founding of the Republic. I mean, when you look at the election of John Adams, you know, the French government was intimately involved in trying to influence the outcome of that election when it happened. You know, we had ambassadors, we had other people writing articles for the various newspapers and things like that, trying to influence the election. So, you know, foreign interference goes all the way back to the founding of the republic. It's just become more aggressive of late with what the Chinese have done.

And, you know, just this week we saw that DOJ has stopped the Chinese from some involvement. Facebook has themselves has aggressively policed foreign interference in the elections, trying to stop disinformation campaigns. And getting back to what I talked about earlier, you know, Facebook and Twitter both have changed their rules for being able to register as a political candidate. And there is an in-depth vetting process that they go through before they will list someone on their Facebook page or on their Twitter as an official candidate so that they can stop all of the misinformation that happens on social media. Well, let me just get brass tacks. If I see a meme on Facebook of Jesus arm-wrestling Satan, and I think it came from Russia, do I forward that to you? No, you don't forward that to me.

Although you can, and if we think it's problematic, we'll send it over to the Department of Justice. I heard yes. I heard send it to Trey. That's a yes. That's a yes. Listeners, did y'all hear that? Yeah, just send it all to Trey.

We're so forward. So we are 10 years out from Citizens United. We are almost 20 years out from BICRA. What's working and what isn't? That's a great question. That is a great question. What's working and what isn't? I think it gets question. That is a great question. What's working and what isn't? I think it gets to your earlier question of super PACs. I think it's taken this long for

everyone to get comfortable with the decision in Citizens United that corporations do have a right speech, that the use of, well, the independent expenditures are okay, that independent expenditures are an important part of the political process. I think both sides have now recognized that. So I think that's the part that's working well. I think we're still working through the disclosure side of the Citizens United decision. We just recently at the commission had a reg associated with the statute struck down, so we're going to have to take a look at our regs on what the disclosure side looks like. I mean, Citizens United was very clear that the disclosure regime is still important. So we're going to have to go back through that process and figure out exactly what that disclosure looks like and whether, you know, the big concern has been this anonymous political speech.

And I think there's a role for anonymous political speech to be played in our democracy and has been from the beginning. and his colleagues in writing the Federalist Papers would not have been as successful with the Federalist Papers had everyone known who was writing it. So I think the adoption of the Constitution was predicated on anonymous political speech as a mechanism to have the Constitution be adopted. And I think anonymous political speech has been affirmed, you know, in cases like McIntyre versus Ohio, where people going to a local school board don't necessarily need to tell everybody on the school board who's paying for the flyers that are being handed out as people walk into school board meeting on important issues. So there's a balance between disclosure

and anonymous political speech. And I think we're still trying to figure out where that balance is. But for instance, on the super PACs, when it comes to... So Citizens United 101, you can have these independent expenditures that don't have to meet with the federal you can have these independent expenditures that don't have to meet with the federal candidate limits, but you can't coordinate then with the campaign. So the federal candidate can't say, Hey, thanks for spending all this money outside the limits on,

you know, to support my candidacy. If you could run ads in this state, I'm going to go to the other state and run ads in that state. Or, you know, we're really going to try to hit infrastructure this week. So if your ads could be on that, that would be awesome possum. That's what you can't do.

But the problem with that is it's not so clear in practice. A, if you put out a memo publicly on either side and say, Hey, uh, we're going to run ads only in Michigan. And it's a real shame that Pennsylvania isn't going to see our ad. Or you put that quote in the wall street journal with a reporter, um, that there's nothing wrong with them.

The super PAC picking that up and saying like, Oh, guess what? We're going to run ads in Pennsylvania. Thanks for the heads up. Um, at the same time, um, oh, guess what? We're going to run ads in Pennsylvania. Thanks for the heads up. At the same time, the people involved are often very close to the candidate and have a good sense of what the messaging that the candidate wants there to be. I say all this to say it's not so clean and dry the way the Supreme Court, I think, clean and dry the way the Supreme Court, I think, perhaps envisioned that it would be or could be.

And it is, in my view, perhaps the worst of the potential ways to run federal elections. As in, I wonder if going back pre-BICRA, we would all have been much happier with a full disclosure, no limits regime versus some disclosure, lots of limits, no coordination, super PACs on the outside, campaign messy, and we're all trying to figure out where that coordination line is. And I will tell you on the Carly campaign, for instance, the super PAC ran the ground game. So all those field offices, all the door knocking was run through the Super PAC, and the candidate would show up when we saw a public announcement from the Super PAC

that they were going to have a town hall on this date in this place, and wouldn't it be great if Carly showed up? And we're like, you know what? Our schedule's free. Sarah, you're singing my song. You're singing. Can I? Listen, I think you're absolutely correct. I mean, I think we all would be much happier in a pre-Bitcoin world where you had no limits, but you had full disclosure.

And we now have the technology for quick disclosure. And we now have the technology for quick disclosure. Like 24 hours later, you have to disclose everyone who's given you money, for instance, which is not that dissimilar from Texas. Correct me if I'm wrong. No, you're absolutely right. In fact, in Texas, we do that as we get closer to election day. There's 24-hour disclosure that happens.

And it's actually less than 24 hours. Typically, when you hit send, it's up on the website within an hour. Everybody would know who's spending what, where. And you're right. We have these super PACs that bill themselves for fundraising purposes as the official super PAC for the candidates. And that helps them with their fundraising and you're right. There are, there are so many mechanisms, uh, out there and available where people are, are creative in how they can get information out that, uh, the super PACs can pick up. So, um, you know, I, I think that is not necessarily what the Supreme court envisioned, but is creative lawyering by the election law bar to say, hey, this is allowed and we can put this out publicly and the candidates can participate in it once it's out there. The official super PAC thing, by the way, is hilarious because it, I mean, almost by definition

goes against what the super PACs are supposed to be. They are not supposed to be arms of the candidate. But at the same time, I understand why that needs to exist now, because part of the super PAC problem was everyone could just say like, hey, I'm raising money to help candidate X, even though it was a scam and they were spending all the money on salaries for the executives. And so then the candidates were like, well, I don't want my supporters to feel scammed. So I'm going to quote unquote, recognize an official super PAC, which I mean, it goes against the spirit of it. Certainly like 100%. Absolutely. And the sham PACs, you know, I mean, I mean, there's probably, there's a growing industry of sham packs that come up with a creative name on a particular issue to start raising money off of. And you're right, it goes to nothing but salaries for the treasurer and the few people that

organized the effort. And we see that quite often. Well, and there's also been this really, you know, after decades of campaign finance regulation, if there's one thing we know, and this is a phrase I've heard many, many times, money finds a way. You know, money finds a way. Water through rocks. Yeah, always. But there's a ton of unintended consequences of the regulatory scheme so it's not gotten money out of politics but it has had some unintended consequences and i think one of them is the profound weakening of the political parties uh that they just don't have now you know the smoke filled rooms are gone and you know our colleague jenna goldberg wants to bring them back but they

just don't have the clout they don't have the clout that they want to add in part because of campaign finance. Right. I mean, that's the function of BICRA. I mean, it really did weaken the parties. Now, it did have the effect of strengthening the state parties. I mean, the ability of the state parties to be able to move money through them. So what's happened is the Smokefield Room has moved from Washington, D.C. to each of the 50 states. And you have this high level of coordination between federal candidates and the state parties and the moving of money through the state parties that's allowed through BICRA. And so the organization has happened there. And really what it's eliminated is for there to be a national consensus on issues. I would question whether or not something like the contract with America would be able to be done today if without the support of the Republican National Committee to get to get behind that effort to nationalize all of the day, both parties are hurt by that not being able to come together and put forward a broad national agenda for governance.

Well, David, on that bright and cheery note, our campaign system is broken. It's not getting better. And it's been that way for 20 years more. That's exactly right. Trey, thank you so much for joining us. We have to ask a couple final questions here. Sure. One, do you make your children call you chairman at the dinner table? No. In fact, they think all of this, as most people probably do, they think all this stuff is incredibly boring. So, you know, my, my, my oldest is 16. So his big, his big interest right now is what his first car is going to be. And so we've, we've got, we've got football and cheerleading and all of the normal stuff that goes on.

I would say, I think you should, at least for a period of time, implement, call me chairman. Dad, can you pass the green beans? Just pretend like you don't hear them until they say, chairman, a motion to pass the green beans. Is the motion seconded? That's right. We have to have a proper parliamentary procedure used at the dinner table. That's a good idea, actually. I once had a bet with my family that the stakes, if I won,

they had to call me using the term Lord Father, my kids. You know, because I just love that formal speech of Game of Thrones and I won the bet. And so for a month at dinner, it was, Lord Father, could you pass the potatoes, please? That's fantastic. So little known naming thing from Texas. And David, I'm curious, when you have a person who is the third of their name, correct me if I'm wrong, y'all call them Trip where you are, correct? Trip or Trey. Oh, really?

Y'all have Trey out there. Yes. Trip or Trey. Either one fits the style guide. Because I feel like a lot of people outside of Texas that I've run into think that Trey is a nickname for like Travis or something. Right. And, you know, when you come to DC, your name is James and that's like your formal title, James Traynor. Right. Do people get confused how James gets shortened to Trey or do they get that?

They do. I get that. I get that a lot. So being the third in Texas, you know, I'm called Trey? Or do they get that? They do. I get that. I get that a lot. So being the third in Texas, you know, I'm called Trey. And the interesting story, you know, growing up, my grandparents, we used to go to, we used to go to my grandparents' house all the time for pretty much every holiday. And they were really big into playing dominoes. And as a little kid, I would hear them often talking about playing a tray. So playing a three domino of some sort. And I would constantly be looking back up at the adults at the table thinking, somebody's calling my name. Well, as a Sarah in the 80s, pretty everywhere I went someone was saying Sarah because there were just

everyone named their child Sarah I hope we never have that again where like there's a nationwide decision to just name every female Sarah Sarah and Jennifer are the big popular names from the 80s

awful well thank you so so much for joining us. This was a treat for a nerd podcast. Well, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. And I'm happy to come on anytime. And we'll keep an eye out for when your manifesto makes big headline news. Right now, that last part is redacted.

So hopefully, y'all can get the votes to get that out. and we can read the screed within a screed. Trey Trainor. Good. Very good. Yeah, it's always fun to see the redactions lit. Well, let's put it this way. It's always fun to anticipate the lifting of redactions, but then often when the redactions lift, it's not as fun as you thought it was going to be. Oh, well, I think they will find this one fun once the redactions are lifted on it. Well, it's in our show notes, folks. Just keep hitting refresh. That's exactly right. Thank y'all very much. Well, thanks for joining us. And listeners, thanks for listening. And we will be back on Monday.