Here's Where It Gets Interesting - 60. Sharon Answers Your Questions #3

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

Back by popular demand: Sharon Answers Your Questions! This episode will feature Sharon answering listeners' questions with the facts. The topics of this episode include electoral votes and why Washington DC has three, State Pledges in school, the Antiquities Act, plus the story behind the ratification of the 27th Amendment. These episodes are fueled by YOU. What are you curious about? Drop a voice memo here, and Sharon might answer your question on the next episode of Sharon Answers Your Questions! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, hello, and welcome. So happy you're here today. I have got some questions for you to answer. You have been leaving me the most interesting voice memos with such thoughtful questions that I think everybody is going to enjoy hearing more about. So let's dive in. Let's dive into four of your questions today. I think you're going to love this. I'm Sharon McMahon, and welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. Okay, question number one comes from Elizabeth. Hey, Sharon, my name's Elizabeth. I had seen that you posted on your Instagram about how DC has three electoral college votes. You then went on to talk about how electoral college votes are determined and that they're determined by

how many representatives that state has in Congress. And I just was a little confused because I thought DC didn't have any representation or voting representation in Congress. So I guess are they just given the minimum, which is three, or is it calculated different for the District of Columbia? I just wasn't sure. Thanks. Great question. Love it. Thank you so much for sending in that question because I think a lot of people probably are wondering the exact same thing. Chances are good that if you're wondering it, somebody else is wondering it too.

So you actually do understand, maybe even more than you realize, the first thing is the number of electoral votes that a state has is determined by its population size. So big states, more electoral votes, small states, fewer electoral votes, right? The smallest number the state can have is three. And that is because the number of electoral votes that a state has is equal to the number of senators they have plus the number of representatives they have in the House. And that smallest number is three. Every state has two senators and the minimum number of representatives that a state can have is one. So small states like, say, Wyoming have three electoral votes.

Two senators plus one representative means three electoral votes. So you get it. That's correct. And then you also correctly made the connection, like, hold on. If that is the formula that's used, how do we get three electoral votes for Washington, D.C. when they don't have any voting representation in Congress? How do they get three? Great question. And the answer to that question is the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution. So the Constitution does set up a system under which states have all this representation in Congress, and then they use that as a method to determine how many electoral votes. So for most of this country's history, the people of Washington, D.C. did not have a voice in the presidential election. They did not

have the ability to vote for president because they have no representation in Congress and thus they have no electoral votes. But the 23rd Amendment changed that. So the 23rd Amendment was ratified in 1961. If you're not familiar, the process to change the Constitution, to amend the Constitution, begins when Congress passes an amendment with two-thirds majority in both houses. Congress passes an amendment with two-thirds majority in both houses. And then it goes to the state legislatures. And three-quarters of state legislatures must agree for an amendment to be added to the Constitution. So there is generally a difference from the time an amendment is passed by Congress and the time it's ratified. Those are two different times. So we go by the ratification date because that is when the constitution is actually officially changed. So the 23rd Amendment basically acknowledges like, yeah, D.C. is not a state.

We're going to give it to them anyway. And it specifically says that they're entitled to the same number of electoral votes as if they were a state. And based on D.C.'s population, they would have three. So they currently have three electoral votes, even though they have no voting representation in Congress. They do have one delegate, and that delegate is there in an advisory capacity. They get to participate in committees, but they do not get to vote on legislation for legislation to pass. So they just advise, there are no delegates to the Senate. There's just one delegate to the House. Great question. Thank you so much. Okay. The next question comes from Allie.

Hi, Sharon. My name is Allie and I live near Austin, Texas, and I have yet another Texas question for you. I moved to Texas from Denver, Colorado when I was 16 years old. And let me tell you, I was shocked when we had to pledge allegiance to the Texas flag every morning at school. I'm curious if Texas is the only state that does this and if so, why? Interesting. Super interesting question. Okay. Okay. So a few things to sort out here. The first one is that most states have in their state code that students at school will have the opportunity to recite the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag at school, and that they will be taught about the flag, taught about the Pledge of Allegiance, et etc. By the way, it is not constitutional to force students

to say the Pledge of Allegiance. The Supreme Court said that that is a violation of a student's First Amendment rights. And so students cannot be forced to say the Pledge. States vary on whether or not the student is allowed to opt out of saying the pledge, or if only the parents are allowed to opt out for the student. There's only a small number of states that don't have it in their state code that schools will recite the Pledge of Allegiance. So even if it is state code that they recite the pledge, students are still allowed to opt out.

Okay, so moving on to state pledges of allegiance. And those are generally pledges to the state flag. There are actually 17 states that have state pledges. Texas, of course, is one of them. Let me read you a few state pledges. Texas, of course, is one of them. Let me read you a few state pledges. This is the state pledge of Alabama. Flag of Alabama, I salute thee. To thee, I pledge my allegiance, my service, and my life. That was adopted in 2001. Let's go to Georgia. This was adopted in 1935. I pledge allegiance to the Georgia flag and to the principles for which it stands, wisdom, justice, and moderation. I'm not going to read all 17, but I'll give you just a couple of other examples.

Louisiana has a state pledge that was adopted in 1981. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the state of Louisiana and to the motto for which it stands, a state under God, united in purpose and ideals, confident that justice shall prevail for all of those abiding here. So, as I mentioned, many states have state pledges. This is what Texas says. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. So the current version that I just read to you was passed in 2007, but there are prior versions that were passed in 1965, 1933, etc. And Texas is the only state that requires students to recite the pledge to the Texas flag in between the American Pledge

and a moment of silence. Other states like Alabama do require students to learn about the Alabama pledge, but they are not required to say it in the same manner that Texas students are. Now, all of y'all Texans who are like, hold on, I never said that. I never had to say that pledge. First of all, remember that this version was passed in 2007. Maybe you weren't in school in 2007. But also understand that enforcement of these things vary widely by location, right? It's not like the Texas legislature is there Zoom calling into every single classroom in every single city in the state of Texas every morning to see if they're being said. So it is entirely possible that individual schools don't enforce this, that your teacher didn't enforce it, but it is part of the Texas Code and they are unique in that requirement.

But not unique in the fact that many states, 17 states, have state pledges. Interesting question. I love it. Thank you so much. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together, we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is Steve Carell in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests, and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your

questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Lady 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're going to move on to a question from Becky. This is so interesting. Hi, Sharon. My name is Becky and I live in Minnesota. Yay. Today, I'd like to know more about the Antiquities Act.

I'd like to know more about the Antiquities Act. I'm originally from Utah, and I remember as a child when President Clinton designated a lot of land in Utah as some national monuments like Grand Escalante and Bears Ears. Fast forward to President Trump, who made a big deal about returning that land to state control. Fast forward to just recently, when President Biden made it a big deal of restoring that land to federal control. I'm not sure how I feel about any of this, but I read that the presidents have this power due to the Antiquities Act. Honestly, to me, it seems like a bit too much power. I'd love to know more about this. Thanks. So interesting. I bet a lot of Americans don't know about the Antiquities Act. Are you familiar with this? Do you know what the Antiquities Act is? I'm going to fill you in. I'm going to give you the details. So in 1906, who was president? Quick,

quick. Who was president in 1906? Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt was pregnant. Oh my goodness. I just said Teddy Roosevelt is pregnant. I just said Teddy Roosevelt is pregnant. Nope, that's wrong. In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt was president and he signed the Antiquities Act into law. And it was obviously, as all laws are, passed by Congress and then signed by the president. So the Antiquities Act, signed by the president. So the Antiquities Act, the idea behind it is that it allows the president to set aside federal land for cultural or natural significance. And that could be something like a historic landmark. It could be a prehistoric structure. It could be some other type of land that is unique in some way. And then they can be designated as national monuments. The federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, et cetera, that oversee federal lands then assume control of that national monument and they are assigned to take care of that piece of land.

So for example, Teddy Roosevelt designated the Grand Canyon as a national monument. And of course it is now a national park, but at the time it was a national monument and the purpose of using an act or having an act like the Antiquities Act was to permit presidents to act quickly to save something of national importance. We all know how deadlock and permit a president to save something, perhaps that may be threatened, or to save something for the future that maybe Congress is not willing to take up, or that maybe Congress might not agree that is important. So all of that to say, since the Antiquities Act became law in 1906, every president except for four presidents have used the Antiquities Act to either enlarge national monuments or create new national monuments. The president who established more national monuments than any other president besides Teddy Roosevelt is Obama. Teddy Roosevelt established 18 national monuments. Obama established 26.

So people have varying feelings about a president's ability to set aside federal land and say, this is important. Nobody is allowed to develop it. And some people feel like that is an overstep, that to say this land cannot be developed, this land must be set aside, is bad for individual liberties. Perhaps it impacts the economy. You can make various arguments about why it is a negative for a president to have that much power over federal lands. The reverse side of that is that once these pieces of land or cultural sites, historic sites, etc., once they're gone, they're gone. And that Congress would rather have the president err on the side of being able to set these pieces of land aside than to have them destroyed. So in 2017, President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to review the Antiquities Act and to review how it was being used.

The Trump administration then reduced the size of a couple of national monuments like Grand Staircase Escalante and Bear Ears. Both of those are in Utah., reduced the size of those dramatically. And then immediately lawsuits were filed about the reduction of those national monuments. There were lawsuits filed by a variety of nonprofit organizations, Native American tribes, et cetera. By the way, several cases have gone to the Supreme Court in the past not related to the reduction of barriers or Escalante, but in the past, other cases have gone to the Supreme Court related to the Antiquities Act. And repeatedly, the Supreme Court has said, presidents do have the right to proclaim these sort of large areas as national monuments, that that is within their power under the Antiquities Act.

So once Biden took office, he restored Bear Ears and Grand Escalante to their actually even slightly larger than their previous size under Obama. And so what happened then with some of those lawsuits is that a judge essentially shelved them, didn't dismiss them. But basically, the idea is this is kind of moot right now, because they were restored. And so continuing forward with lawsuits to restore something that's already been restored is not a wise use of anybody's resources. So again, it's not a complete dismissal, but it is a just sort of a setting aside of these lawsuits that were underway as a result of the reduction of those monuments. So I definitely don't want you to walk away from

this feeling like, well, Sharon told me I needed to feel this way about the Antiquities Act. But hopefully, now that you have a little bit of education on what it is and what the purpose is, hopefully you can use that education then to make a well-informed decision for yourself about whether or not you think presidents should have the right. I mean, they do have the right. The question is whether or not you think that is a wise use of federal resources and whether or not you think they should. Whether or not you think the Antiquities Act should be changed in some way. Now you have some education to make an informed decision about that. Okay, we're going to move to our last question. I love this question, Nicole. Twist my arm. I love this question, Nicole. Twist my arm. Sharon McMahon, this is Nicole, and I sure hope that you have the story of the 27th Amendment on your list of podcasts, because it is one of my favorite stories about the college student, Gregory Watson.

He figured out that this was still open and he wrote a great paper about it. And the college professor was like, you're wrong. And he was like, no, I'm not. And he's like, yeah, you're wrong. And he gave him a C and he was so offended that he went and got the amendment ratified. And then he didn't get his paper grade changed for like 20 years after that. You're gonna have to check my facts on that one.

But it was amazing. And one of my favorite stories of the Constitution. So I'm going to have to ask you, please, please, please tell that story so more people know about it because it's amazing. Happily, happily, I will tell the story, although you did a great job summarizing it, Nicole. So James Madison, founding father considered by many to be the father of the Constitution. He was really a driving force behind the idea that we needed to abandon the Articles of Confederation and write a new Constitution. He arrived in Philadelphia weeks before everybody else. He was like, here's what we're going to do. I have studied the Magna Carta. I have studied Greek democracy. I have gotten all the best ideas. Here's what we need to do. And then, of course, we all know they hammered it out over one long, hot summer in 1787.

So one of the issues with the Constitution was that it did not have any rights for citizens. And some states, some framers, in fact, didn't even want to pass the Constitution because it did not have any guarantee of rights for individuals. So James Madison basically said, listen, listen here, friends, go ahead and vote for this Constitution. Let's just ratify it. And I will go back and I will change the Constitution. I'll make some changes. Amend means to change. So I'll make some changes. I'll change it. Don't worry about it. I'll fix it. I'll fix it up. I'll get some rights

in there. Can you imagine that happening today? Would Congress be like, oh, okay, sure. No problem. Let's go ahead and pass it. Let's pass it, everybody. Okay. He's going to fix it later. Don't worry. He'll fix it later. That is absurd today that anybody would be like, sure, we'll just trust that you're going to fix it later. So James Madison then spent a period of time writing amendments to the constitution. In fact, he wrote 19 of them. He wrote 19 amendments, submitted them to the house of Representatives in 1789. So the Constitution written in 1787, ratified in 1788. In 1789, he submits 19 amendments to the House to include the rights of citizens, etc. The House approved 17 of those amendments, 17 of those 19 amendments, then sent those 17 amendments to the Senate.

The Senate approved 12 of them. So the Senate then sent 12 amendments to the states to ratify. Sent 12 amendments saying, okay, y'all, here are the 12 amendments that both the House and the Senate can agree on. We would like you to ratify these. That was in 1789. Okay? By the end of 1791, so two years later, only 10 of the 12 amendments had been ratified by a sufficient number of states. Only 10. You'd need three quarters of the states to ratify the amendments.

So we now have 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights Congress that did not get ratified by the states. The first one was about the the idea that one representative shall only be in charge of representing 30,000 citizens. And then it has a little bit of a formula. And then after we get to 100, there'll be et cetera, et cetera. I won't read you the whole thing. There'll be et cetera, et cetera. I won't read you the whole thing. But it was basically a statement of we only want to have one representative for a certain number of people.

And of course, we have 435 representatives now, and they are apportioned out amongst the entire United States. The United States population continues to grow and grow and grow. And the number of people that representatives are in charge of representing now is far, far greater than when we set that number at 435 a long time ago. So that was the First Amendment, not ratified. By the way, if we had ratified that First Amendment, we would now have over 6,000 members of Congress. Where would we put them all? I'm not saying that we should never re-examine how many members of Congress there are. I think actually maybe we should. But 6,000, where are we going to put you? Literally, from a space perspective, where is a building that 6,000

people can meet in and vote on things. Okay. The original Second Amendment. So we know now the Second Amendment is related to the right to bear arms. But the original Second Amendment was about congressional pay. And it was very simple. It said no law varying the compensation for the services of senators and representatives shall take effect until an election of representatives shall have intervened. And what that means is, listen, if you want to pay yourselves more money, fine. But that law will not take effect until after the next election. And basically, that is a means to keep people or was meant to be a means to keep people from saying, OK, congressional pay is $20 million. Pass the law. Sign it. Tomorrow we'll get $20 million. Ha ha. Right. You know, like that's a bad idea that members of Congress could just say, like, we each make $20 million, get the Treasury Department to issue them a check the next day and call it good.

No, there needs to be an election in between the time you change your compensation and the time that it takes effect. We want to have a chance to vote you out, essentially, is what that is saying. Well, that was not ratified either. So when the states did not ratify those first two amendments, it took the 10 amendments that it did ratify and it moved their position in the lineup. So now our first amendment is about freedom of speech, press, assembly, it's religion. That used to be the third amendment. That was the original third amendment is ratified as the First Amendment. Okay, that gives you some context. That sets the stage. That sets the stage for our friend Gregory Watson. So in 1982, Greg Watson was an aide to a Texas state senator whose name was Rick Williamson. He was also an undergraduate

college student. And he was going to the University of Texas, Austin. And he was a sophomore. He was in a government class. He needed a topic to write a paper on. And he began researching amendments. He began researching things like these amendments that were not ratified. And he discovered that the amendment, the original second amendment that was never ratified, that that amendment about congressional compensation could still be ratified, that it did not have a timetable put in the amendment. It did not say you need to ratify this within five years or it's no, it didn't have that. So his perspective was this amendment that had passed Congress more than 200 years prior, past Congress in 1789, that it could still be amended. And he wrote a paper on it. His professor was like, this, no, this is a dumb idea. This is a C paper. You have failed to convince me that this amendment is still pending. So I'll give you self-financed campaign to get this amendment ratified. At the time, there were 26 amendments to the Constitution. If he could get the states to ratify this amendment about congressional pay, it would become the 27th Amendment.

congressional pay, it would become the 27th Amendment. So in 1982, 1983, Greg Watson begins writing letters to state officials. He begins laying out his case saying, we really should ratify this amendment. And this, of course, was during the Reagan era. This was during the time when excess government spending was seen as a huge negative. And so there was a lot of public sentiment that like, yeah, that's a great idea. It's a fantastic idea. Of course, I'd vote for that. So in 1983, Maine went ahead and ratified it. And then Colorado ratified it in 1984. And then magazines began picking up this story. And some other states like Wyoming were like, actually, we ratified that six years ago. Like more people had ratified it than Greg Watson had initially even realized. More states ratified in 1985. There was a lot of argument about like, is this even legal?

Is it even possible? And in 1992, so this is 10 years after greg watson embarks on this journey as a college sophomore to get states to ratify the 27th amendment because he did not like that he got a c on a paper when he knew he should get an a on the paper in 1992 the final states that were required to ratify the 27th Amendment signed off on it. Alabama and New Jersey voted to ratify the 27th Amendment in 1992. And a bunch of people were like, hold on, hold on, hold on. What? Is this even possible? This was originally proposed and passed by Congress in 1789. And it is now 1992. I don't know if this is possible.

Let's examine it. Let's look into it. Meanwhile, the Archivist of the United States added it to the Constitution, put it under 27th Amendment. It got added to the Federal Register register it became part of the constitution and people were like you know what it wasn't that bad of an idea anyway we're just gonna drop it we're gonna let it go so that is the story of how the 27th amendment spearheaded by what a lot of historians refer to Greg Watson as the stepfather of the 27th Amendment, James Madison being the father, Greg Watson being the stepfather,

his college project, he did not like that he got a C, and set out to prove his professor wrong. By the way, the university later changed his grade to an A. After he got the amendment ratified, they went ahead and said, you know what? You were right. You did deserve an A. So Greg Watson got his, right? Like he gets to feel good about the fact that he was right and he took it to the bank or he took it to the constitution. Yay. That's it for today, everybody. Listen, if you would like me to answer one of your questions in the future, you need to go to

my website, SharonMcMahon.com slash podcast. And there is an orange button that says essentially, leave me a voice memo. Leave me a voice memo there. And if your question gets chosen, I will include it in a future episode. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you had some little brain tangle moments. I'll see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast. I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor.

Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. I cannot wait to have another mind blown moment with you next episode. Thanks again for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.