Radiolab - Uncounted

Episode Date: August 7, 2020

First things first: our very own Latif Nasser has an exciting new show on Netflix. He talks to Jad about the hidden forces of the world that connect us all. Then, with an eye on the upcoming election, we take a look back: at two pieces from More Perfect Season 3 about Constitutional amendments that determine who gets to vote. Former Radiolab producer Julia Longoria takes us to Washington, D.C. The capital is at the heart of our democracy, but it’s not a state, and it wasn’t until the 23rd Amendment that its people got the right to vote for president. But that still left DC without full representation in Congress; D.C. sends a "non-voting delegate" to the House. Julia profiles that delegate, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, and her unique approach to fighting for power in a virtually powerless role. Second, Radiolab producer Sarah Qari looks at a current fight to lower the US voting age to 16 that harkens back to the fight for the 26th Amendment in the 1960s. Eighteen-year-olds at the time argued that if they were old enough to be drafted to fight in the War, they were old enough to have a voice in our democracy. But what about today, when even younger Americans are finding themselves at the center of national political debates? Does it mean we should lower the voting age even further? Music in this episode by Carling & Will This episode was reported and produced by Julia Longoria and Sarah Qari. Check out Latif Nasser’s new Netflix show Connected here. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate. 

Wait, you're listening to radio lab from W and Y. Hey, hey, all right, well, first caveat caveat, which I feel like I need to do, which is that I have my, I literally just got a call. I have my phone on because my wife could go and deliver it any minute. Yeah. You just got a call. I just got a call from my sister.

Probably trying to see if my wife is going in the labor. Okay. Hey, I'm Chad Abumarad. This is Radio Lab. We've got a couple of things for you today. We have a look forward. Then a couple looks back, which turn into a look forward. But to get going, I want to share a conversation I had this week with our Director of Research

Lattif Nasser, who among other things hosted the recent series, The Other Lattif. Might think of Our Lattif as The Other Lottif. And I want to feature, I just want to sort of point a spotlight at him for a second because man, he has a lot going on right now. In addition to having a kid, he just released a TV show he did with Netflix. And I wanted to talk to him about it.

So two days ago, my show came out and then today, hopefully, supposedly supposedly my baby's coming out. So it's really, it's a lot going on right now. Well, let's talk about the child, the creative child, the creative baby that you just had. What is it? How did it come to be? Yeah. And just sort of set it up for me.

Yeah. So I made this TV show, it's called Connected, and it's the idea is it's sort of a, it's a kind of meditation on the, like many scientifically observed ways that each of us are connected to each other and our world and that are sort of so surprising. And the kinds of things, like I think a great radio lab show,

we'll make you kind of look at a thing you take for granted and see it in a whole new way. It's one of these like Jason Bourne-esque shows where literally every scene is in a different country. You know, there's a lot to film the desert. There's a lot to film a plane. There's a lot to film in space. I don't know to film a plane. There's a lot to film in space. I don't know if you were ever in space,

but I was in space. I did go in a hot air balloon over a volcano. I was like, I was so, I was jealous of you from the very beginning. How did you let me ask you about the, let's talk about dust, because that's one of the six episodes where you follow dust literally blowing across

the earth. How did you decide on dust? It was from a press release that NASA put out and it felt like this globe-spanning subtle hidden force that's like nudging different people in different places and different ways that you just, you never could have guessed that all of those came from the same thing. And then that thing happened to be like, this random dust from this random spot in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

So it turns out getting to the dustiest place on planet Earth is really, really difficult. I've been traveling for like three days now. So okay, so we start in the Sahara, beautiful overhead shot of you walking through this like dusting landscape. And it's a great scene of you and a scientist leaning over a prehistoric fish. Oh, wow. Dried up in the dust because you explained that this used to be an ocean. It's catfish! It was like, it almost felt like a religious experience. Like I felt like I was

communing with this, with this, with this prehistoric catfish. Okay, so you point at this fish and you say this ancient fish is part of what has created the dust of this desert, and this dust literally blows across the entire globe. Walk me through the sort of places you follow it. Yeah. Okay, so this dust, so it's like in this special spot where there are these mountain ranges, and it creates this kind of wind tunnel effect, to the wind just like digs it up and kind of grates it down this fish fish and all the other creatures that lived in this like prehistoric lake, it gets into these fine, fine, fine grains, like even finer than the sand and then it gets kicked up way high into the atmosphere.

And from there it goes fully over all of West Africa, it keeps going over the Atlantic. And there's this kind of zone that meteorologist called nursery, Irma, Matthew, Maria, Ivan, over half of the Atlantic storms big enough to get named, start as baby storms here off the West African coast. And so what happens is this dust cloud goes into the kind of hurricane cloud. And there's one, I think it's Lorenzo. There was a hurricane that was like an active hurricane in the middle of the ocean that was making its way across the Atlantic. And this dust cloud, what it does, is it's,

it basically snuffed it out. If it weren't for this dust doing its thing, there would be more hurricanes hitting the Americas. Okay, so step one, 8,000 year old fish are like chilling out modern day hurricanes. Right, right. So, okay, so then we keep going, we keep following it. We know that there's a lot of dust blowing over the ocean from satellite images, and most of this stuff ends up in the ocean. A lot of that dust is sort of as it goes, some of it sort of rains down along the way.

And so imagine you are plankton just kind of in the middle of the ocean, just hanging out. Like in the middle of the ocean there's not a lot of nutrients to be found. But then this dust comes out of nowhere and gives life to these plankton, which is great for two reasons. Number one, they're a major carbon sink. So in terms of global warming, when those creatures die,

like their little skeletons sort of fall down to the bottom of the ocean. So it's a literal carbon sink. The other good thing, those ocean phytoplankton make a, forget what the percentage is. It's like a ridiculous proportion of the oxygen that we breed. That is so cool.

All right, so step one, the ancient dust chills out baby hurricanes. Step two, it feeds the phytoplankton, which create literally the lungs of the planet. What's step three? So some of that dust goes over, basically, to the Caribbean, to the Gulf Coast of the planet, what's step three? So some of that dust goes over basically to the Caribbean, to the Gulf Coast of the United States, and it can cause a lot of problems, actually.

There's one thing that happens called red tide, where it basically gives, in the same way that it's feeding those, phytoplankton, it feeds this bacterium that, and what you see is like, just tons of fish, dolphins, manatees, all these different ocean creatures dying, but not just that, it can have for people nearby the coast, like respiratory effects. So somebody coughing in Florida,

like that could be because of this, again, this, like tracing it back to this fish, you know, this, this, this thousand years old fish. Okay, so then where does it all end up? So the kind of magnificent end to our episode is the Amazon Rainforest. When I went there, the thing that one of the scientists there told me was, and this kind of blew my mind and I never, never occurred to me, is that the soil in the Amazon rainforest kind of actually sucks, like it's not great, and this dust comes, rains down, and again, it's full of all these nutrients like phosphorus that are like amazing fertilizer.

The rainforest is being fertilized and sort of kept stable by this fertilizer from falling from the heavens, you know? That's amazing. It's amazing to consider. But to me, wow, it's it. Sorry, you have to go ahead. No, just the kind of the astonishing thing to me and the thing about this connection between the Amazon and the Sahara

between the Sahara being the like the deadest place you can imagine and then for that to be fertilizing and giving life to the most vital, vibrant, you know, biodiverse place that, you know, that you can imagine, like that connection is so, it's like so beautiful and profound to me. Yeah, totally. So, okay, if they want to check it out, they just search for connected. You could literally, it's Netflix.com slash connected.

The one thing I did wanna tell you, oh, sorry. Yeah, go, no, no, go for it. No, I was gonna start to wrap up, but yeah, please. The one thing I did wanna tell you, because I feel like I owe you to tell you this. Okay, so there was one thing that I kept bumping into as I was doing the research for this show,

this like numerical, statistical pattern. I was like, okay, I wanna do a show about this. We started, we were partway through, and then one of the producers that I was working with was like, oh, you know what, there was a radio lab about this. And I was like, wait, what? And so it was before I got there, it was in the numbers episode,

it was a segment in the numbers episode. I don't know if you remember doing a segment on Benford's law? Oh, sure, yeah. That episode actually was made when I was on paternity leave. Oh, so you don't even know. Okay. That was really like soren, grabbing you don't even know. Okay. That's That was really like soren grabbing the whole of that one story. All right, but yes, I do remember that episode Yeah, so Benford's law so so I ran at that same story. I did like a much bigger broader version than Then in the real out version

But what was cool was one of the scientists who I talked to who was using Benford's law She was using it on bots. She exposed this ring of thousands and thousands of Russian Twitter bots. And the reason she did any of that research was she was like, oh, because I heard it on radio lab and then I went out into my research and I tried it the next day and it worked. And it was just so cool to me to be like, oh, that feels so nice. It feels like a thing. It's sort of the universe folding in on itself or something.

Totally. And it's like, I like that there too, you see those kind of hidden connections. The idea dust from Radio Lab blows. I mean, certainly didn't start at Radio Lab. Those things have been blown forever, but that they were a node in the spread is really cool. Yeah, really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Radio Lab director of research, lots of NASA.

Again, the show is called Connected, and you can find it on Netflix. And by the way, just a few hours ago, a few hours ago from this moment, at the moment where I'm speaking into this mic, Latif and Carly, his wife, had their second baby. Huge congrats to both of them. Okay, so I mentioned that we have a couple of little looks back, timely looks back, I think you'll see. So a couple of years ago, it was part of our more perfect series,

we made an album. We got a bunch of musicians together, and we had them each write a song inspired by one of the 27 amendments to the United States Constitution. Dalley Parton, by the way, was on that album. That was my first interaction with her before Dalley Parton's America. In any case, we made an album, an actual album that got released, by the way, was on that album. That was my first interaction with her before Dalley Parton's America. In any case, we made an album, an actual album that got released in all the places,

and on the podcast, we sort of paired each of those songs with little stories. I like to think of them as audio liner notes, which told little stories about each of the amendments, and recently, a couple of things happened in the world that brought two of those stories to mind for us. First of all, about a month ago, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to make Washington, DC a state at long last.

And one of the key political players behind that push was a woman named Eleanor Holmes, Norton, DC's congressional delegate. We actually got into a bit of a tussle with her about this very issue two years ago. So we're going to play that for you now. It was part of the piece we did on the 23rd Amendment. 23rd Amendment. Presidential vote for DC.

W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N-A-B-D-C. The district constituting the seat of government of the United States, shall appoint in such manner as Congress may direct a number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of senators and representatives in Congress to which the district would be entitled if it were a state. Okay, we arrive at amendment 23. All those words just a second ago what they amount to is simply this. 23rd Amendment gives the citizens

of the District of Columbia, the citizens of DC, the right to vote for president, which for me begs the question, DC didn't have the right to vote for president, what? The White House is in DC, for God's sakes. How did it take us 23 amendments to give the citizens of DC the right to vote for president? Why, Julia Lungoria, why? And why didn't they have that right in the first place? The short answer is it was kind of an accident.

The reason why they ended up happening is the founders wanted to put the White House in a neutral place. They wanted it to be outside of state politics, so you wouldn't run into a situation where like the Civil War breaks out and the White House is in Alabama, like what would Abraham Lincoln have done in that situation. We wanted to make sure the capital would operate from a peaceful place of neutrality. So the founders took corners of Maryland and Virginia

and created a city that would be controlled by Congress. I don't think anyone meant to disenfranchise all of the nearly 700,000 citizens that live in DC. But that's what ended up happening. Because DC is not a state, the Constitution didn't really address it. For instance, it didn't have electors in the electoral college. Alexander Hamilton thought eventually we'd fix the representation problem in DC, but that didn't come until 1961 with amendment number 23.

It's crazy. Took that long. And did it actually fix the problem in the end? No, actually. All the 23rd amendment did is give the citizens of DC the right to vote for president, which is no small thing. But it left many things unanswered. It didn't really clarify what DC is constitutionally.

Like, is it a city, is it a state? The way our system of government works, you gotta be part of a state to have senators. You gotta be part of a state to have a vote in the house. DC is simultaneously not a state and not part of a bigger state. So it's definitely a thing, but it's like not part of a bigger state. So it's definitely a thing, but it's not enough of a thing to get it full representation in Congress.

You don't have a full democracy unless you treat it equally. And the district is not treated equally because we're the only jurisdiction that pay federal taxes, whose member cannot vote when whose member has no senators. And that's you, you can't vote, right? That's me. This is Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes-Norton.

And I represent the District of Columbia and the nation's capital. She kind of sits at the center of the blind spot of the 23rd Amendment. She's the non-voting delegate from Washington, D.C. I'm called a delegate. I'm just like my peers are called delegates. Sorry. What is a non-voting delegate? What is that? It's kind of what it sounds like. Like it's a Congress person who represents their constituents in Congress. They have an office in Congress. Does all the things

that normal Congress people do, but when it comes time for the final vote on the floor, they don't have a vote. They don't have a vote? Isn't that the whole reason you elect a Congressperson so they could go to DC and vote on bills? Yeah, over the years, there have been over 150 proposals to change this.

Ideally, Eleanor wants to solve it by making DC the 51st state of the United States. But it's become like this political thing where DC is very blue as a city. It's also 47% African-American. What's happened over the years is that some Republicans have found ways to block Eleanor Holmes-Nortons' efforts to get representation.

Some people say it would be unconstitutional. A huge disappointment to me, but very frankly, I'm used to uphill battles, so you can get yourself together. A thing to know about Eleanor Holmes Norton is that long before she was the Congresswoman from DC, she was a civil rights activist. I will not yield, sir! A student organizer with the Mississippi Freedom Summer in the 1960s, equality is not an ingrained part

of this society and I might add, of almost any other diverse society. Amazon made a show about a lawsuit she won for young women researchers at Newsweek, the idea of women's equality. Uh, begins yesterday. When she was a lawyer at the ACLU, she won a historic First Amendment case where she represented white naturalists. Sometimes I got to defend people who would not defend me. I mean the woman is fascinating. She was the first woman to head the EEOC,

the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and wrote the first federal guidelines that helped make sexual harassment illegal under federal law. And Alonore Holmes-Norton led the push so that Anita Hill could even be her. She was one of the people who demanded that Anita Hill be able to testify before the Senate. Like, she is a revolutionary.

With that, I would like to invite Congresswoman Norton up. Thank you so much. Which is why I found it strange to see her in this position. Thank you very, so much. Which is why I found it strange to see her in this position. Thank you very, very much. Why would she choose this job? I christened this ship, Potomac water taxi too,

soon I hope to have a real name. The day we visited her, she was speaking at an event at the Wharf neighborhood on the water that she helped develop to Chris in a new water taxi. May she bring fair winds? And I know politicians have to do that sort of thing. Less rain. But the juxtaposition of the revolutionary I read about. And good fortune fortune and this woman

all who sail her who I see smacking a staff against a yellow water taxi it was confusing you've been doing this for a long time, right? Since 91. And I'm curious, you've had a really varied career. You know, you've, I watched the Amazon special that's loosely based on your life. And you were the first woman, you know, all this. I wonder why you made the turn to be in this position where your hands are tied. Ironically, my hands aren't tied in the least. I can't do the final vote, but by the time the final vote comes in the house, it's a done deal. So I have to do the work ahead of time, which is whatever you remember, even those who have the vote.

I have to do. What made things even more confusing is that she insisted that even though she cannot vote, her job is no different than any of her colleagues. I go to the house floor like everybody else. I work in committee where most of the work is being done. I go and talk to members of the Senate. And it kept coming up. She kept harping on that point.

My job is no different. Frankly, I do what everybody else does if you want to get a bill passed. At one point, she got really upset with us. This is what I'm like this. I had more. Just the moment. Because we made the mistake of comparing

the situation of DC to the territories, which also don't have voting representation in Congress, places like Puerto Rico and Guam. These are completely different places. It seemed almost like an insult to her to ask questions about this thing which seemed so obviously true. Every single respect except not having the final bow in the house floor, we are a state. What was that? What do you think it was? The irony of this comes out almost cartoonishly when the press person that we talked to

was in the room Ben. He had told us that there was this buzzer that goes off in the office when there's a vote on the house floor. Ben was saying about a sound that happens when there's a voter something like that with. No, it was no vote. But what is that? I don't know what that is. But it's what? Now there's a vote. When you hear the bell, you know there's a vote and it Warns you that you have 15 minutes to go to the floor

Or a nice signal Whether it's a boat on the rule or on something else So that is supposed to signal like get your butt over there kind of thing It's over to the floor. It does mean that if you have a vote, you should be preparing to go to vote, yes. And for you, what does that signal to you or how does that beep make you feel? Well, that may mean I've been on the floor already to discuss the bill.

I can discuss any bill including bills I can't vote on, which is most bills, which are all bills. That doesn't keep you from going to the floor. Speak on a bill. I'll be going to the floor to speak on the FAA bill where I have been able to go. I didn't know how to make sense of this irony. This woman who's been representing disempowered people all her life. She's almost choosing to be in a role with virtually no power and

then insisting in these moments that she's not disempowered at all. If I were gonna demand change it seems like I would shout from the rooftops that I don't have a vote that my job is completely different that I'm completely disempowered. But in these moments Elinor Holmes-Norton had almost this willful denial of the miserable situation that DC finds itself in. I only had about 15 minutes with Congresswoman-Norton, and I went home from DC totally baffled by the interaction. So I started looking back at her speeches and her writings, deep, deep cuts on C-SPAN. And I found this one panel from 1987

at the SAG Harper Initiative. It was called the Retreat from Equality. We'll not go back on. And it clarified things for me. I do want to say something about the constitutional myth. Thurgood Marshall did a great service to the country. And the third-grade Marshall did a great service to the country and reminding it that revisionist history is very un-American

and reminding us of the evolution of our own constitution. But it is very important that myths not be associated only with negative aspects of American life. No society continues to grow without its own powerful myths. One of the only remaining powerful myths in American society with all of our diversity is the myth of the Constitution. The myth that all of us somehow have bought in whatever our religious or ethnic or political background into that wonderful, powerful myth. The fact that that myth has not always been real or true is quite beside the point. The myth of God is true for those who believe in God. Even when there is war and

famine and pestilence, it is the myth that makes people live through the pestilence so that they can they can indeed live for lives once again. The myth of the Constitution is in a very real sense the handy work of black people who enjoyed it at least when there was nothing but racism. They believed those words because they believed them, they ultimately made them live. Black people therefore have to be at the forefront of those for have to be at the forefront of those who celebrate the Constitution, not because it is perfect, but because they have made it more perfect. One of the worst things we could do in a time when so little brings us together is to just try to debunk or destroy the one powerful myth that continues to animate the society, the myth of the great American Constitution, which has been copied all over the world and which continues to drive us to a more perfect society.

In some ways, I think Eleanor Holmes-Norton kind of stands in for DC. She lives in a state of suspended denial in order to keep fighting. If she or black people or women or any of the people who are not in the original we, the people, if we ever succumbed to our powerlessness gave up, it would all be over. But if Eleanor Holmes-Norton keeps believing in the Constitution, believing in the myth that it tells us the myth of her own power, despite the odds, despite even the reality of her situation, maybe she can make her reality match the myth. Maybe she can make her reality match the myth. I mean, hey, we got the 23rd Amendment, didn't we? That was Julie Alangoria reporting for more perfect. Now, as I mentioned,

Eleanor Horms, Norton, has been at the center of this recent push to make DC a state. The resolution passed in the house in June of this year, but we should admit, it's unlikely to pass the Senate. In large part because Republicans are almost universally opposed to it, however, we are living in turbulent times, my friends. You never know. And when we come back from break, we will have another little DC story, also about the power to vote, and we will see how now the winds might be starting to blow in a different

direction. Might! Hello, this is David from Berlin. Radio Lab is supported in part by the Alfred Peace Loan Foundation Foundation in enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org Science reporting on Radio Lab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simon's Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Chad Radio Lab, we just heard a story, we did a few years ago for the most perfect album

about the 23rd Amendment and DC trying to get statehood. And to continue the theme now, we're going to play another piece from that same more perfect series on the amendments. Another story that seems to resonate with a lot of things swirling around us all right now. This one was two amendments down on the 25th amendment, and it came to us from reporter Sara Cari. And after we play the original, Sara will have a little update for us from the streets. Here we go. It all starts around World War II.

In September 1940, the Selective Service Act was passed, and for the first time in history American boys were being drafted. You'll have the confidence during peacetime. Right at you, and the love of your countrymen. During World War II, you had all of these young men who were about to be sent overseas. Many of whom were 18, but still didn't have the right to vote. Because in a lot of states at that time, the voting age was still 21.

For years, our citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 have been summoned to fight for a minute. And to a lot of people that didn't seem fair. They should participate in the political process that produces this spacial summons. But the moment where people really, really start to get mad about this... is Vietnam. Thousands of demonstrators opposed to the Vietnam War,

assembled in the nation's capital for a mass protest. Down, bow, scream, up, go! Down, bow, scream, up, go! They came up with this phrase. All enough to fight, old enough to vote. Old enough to fight at 18, die at 18, old enough to vote at 18. And so with that, in 1971, we are certifying the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The 26th Amendment is ratified in just a hundred days faster than any other amendment in the Constitution. And actually, it's interesting to think about this amendment now, because some young people recently have started to feel like 18 isn't good enough.

Up next, the youth vote gets a little bit younger. A group of teenagers has formed a campaign called Vote 16 USA. They want to lower the voting age to 16 in cities across the country. Hello. Hi. Hi, Alex, is that you? Yeah, it's me, hi, Sarah. How are Sarah. I'm good. This is Alec Shire. And I'm from Washington, DC. I'm 16 years old. And what kinds of things do you do, like besides political stuff? I work at a kombucha stand. Nice. That's just that my local farmers market. Yeah, and then I'm also a host at another neighborhood restaurant. Alec has been in the news a bit recently.

The idea here is to lower DC's voting age to 16. He's an activist with this organization called Vote 16 DC, which has gotten behind this bill in his hometown of Washington DC to lower the voting age. After the parkland floor to shooting, DC would become the first jurisdiction to allow minors to vote for a president. And interestingly, Alec told me that that same argument from the Vietnam era. Old enough to fight, old enough to vote.

It's come back around, but in a new form. It was, oh no, not again, another high school. All of the school shootings that have happened. Deadly shooting at a high school in Kentucky in Rockford in Southern California in Santa Bay little to Colorado they've created that same sense that if people are dying newton elementary school they deserve to have their voices heard I just I think it's really frustrating for me personally that it's taking us being shot in schools for people to be like,

you know what, I'll give you the right to vote. I like actually says that he should have that right for more basic reasons. I just think that, you know, every two weeks I get a paycheck and I get taxes taken out and, you know, where those tax dollars go, they go into the council members pay checks and the council members get to vote on budgets that include my hard-earned money and they get to decide where that goes. Not only that, he says that young people are already behind the wheel. You know, we're going 60 miles an hour, but you don't want us to walk into a voting booth and you know, click a couple of boxes and make an informed decision.

We drive a car. When we go into apply for a license, we can choose whether or not we want to be an organ donor or not. So the basic point is, if you trust us to pay taxes, you trust us to drive, you trust us to be part of the decision to donate an organ, then you should trust us to vote. But here's the thing, right? When I went out on election day to ask people, do you think 16-year-olds should be able to vote? If they thought this was a good idea, most of them were like, no. No. I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don't think 60-year-olds should vote.

Absolutely not. That's around the time they're getting into marijuana. Their judgment is off. No. Is that a thing that people are talking about? I even had a 16-year-old tell me that 16-year-olds shouldn't vote. There's a lot of kids who are really stupid and don't know anything about politics that are my age. And as for why most people that I talk to, like that guy, they just had this gut feeling that 16

is really different from 18. 16 is still a child, is still is still child, just till a kid. 16 is not a grown-up. There are certain things that are wrong with that age. They might not be as informed about these issues. I mean, I'm thinking of my kids when they were 16 or my... People constantly are coming up to me after events. They look at me and they say,

how like, I trust you more to vote than me. You know, I trust you to make a more informed decision than I trust myself. but what about the other, what about the other 16, 17 year olds? You know, just looking at social media, perhaps, it gives you maybe a sense of that kind of 16 year old. Now, to be fair, I'm just wondering if I could ask you a quick question.

Go for it. At one point, somebody did think differently. Do you think 16 year olds should be able to vote? Oh, wow, that's a quick question. Go for it. At one point, somebody did think differently. Do you think 16-year-olds should be able to vote? Oh, wow, that's a good question that I've put absolutely no thought into. Weirdly enough, that's Seth Meyers, the late-night talk show host. He was voting right where I happened to be gathering tape. What's your gut reaction? My gut reaction is you could let 16-year year old votes and we wouldn't be anywhere soft.

Do you know you're like the only person who said that? Yeah, I believe, I don't know, I'm starting to doubt my answer, but I'm gonna stand by it. Maybe that's because that's my demo. Cool. There we go. Take care.

And as the day wore on, I actually did encounter more people who felt like, maybe it's different now. All the musicians they're listening to are also talking about politics and TV has politics, so maybe they're more important. Maybe 16 today is different from 16 back in the day. I'm trying to think whether or not they would have

a very strong opinion, but gun violence going on, they probably do. Yeah, today's most 16-year-olds are mature enough to understand what's going on happily. Now, from a psychological perspective, By the time people are 16, their abilities to make thoughtful, deliberate decisions to consult with experts when they wanted advice, that those abilities, by the time people are 16, are no worse than the abilities of adults.

That's Lawrence Steinberg. Professor of Psychology at Temple University. He says that the research out there seems to suggest that cognitively, the average 16-year-old isn't that different from the average 18-year-old. They're both equally likely to make bad decisions. It almost sounds like it's not that adults are smarter than 16-year-olds. It's that 16-year-olds are just as stupid as adults are. I guess you could look at it that way or let's just say that the proportion of 16-year-olds

who are stupid is no greater than the proportion of adults who are stupid. If that's the case and it really is true that the average 16 year old today is more politically aware than 16 year olds in the past, then it really is hard to think of a reason why they shouldn't have the ability to vote. You know, right now 16, 17 year olds, you know, me personally, I have nothing that a politician wants. You lower the voting age to 16, they actually come to us, and they're going to actually start to care about us.

When I spoke to Alec, the vote in the DC council was a couple months away, and he was super optimistic that the bill had the votes that it needed in order to pass and that it would become the law of our nation's capital. If this does pass, you will see 16-17 year olds voting in 2020. I will be 18 at that time, but I know I'm going to be like, up early that morning and I'm going to take my neighbor who's going to be 16 at the time and take me to go vote. I mean, you're going to be the first 16-year-old. The history of this country to vote for president. Bill 22-778 youth vote amendment act 2018. Councilman Brown.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Finally, last week, the DC Council met to decide the fate of the bill. Earlier this spring, we watched incredible voices take the helm and lead our country. We saw incredible voices talk about gun violence. We saw incredible voices talk about action. We saw incredible voices lead a national conversation that the adults had not done. What we saw were young people stepping up to lead. And those young people were, in many cases, 16, 17-year-olds. That was Councilmember Charles Allen, who opened with that statement in support of the bill.

But after him, another Councilmember spoke. Oh, Mr. Evans. Jack Evans. Uh, Mr. Chairman, again, there is significant unreadiness on behalf of some of the Council members, majority of the Council members. So I'm going to make a motion to table this bill at this time. He proposed a motion to basically kill the bill. There's a motion before us to table the bill.

A motion to table is not debatable. The 13 council members then voted on whether or not to table the bill. And? Yes. Council member bonds votes. Yes. Council member Che. Yes. Council member Che votes. Yes, come from the chair. Yes, come from the chair votes. Yes, come from the Evans. Yes, come from the Evans votes. Yes, come from the Gray. No, come from the Gray votes. No, come from the Brasso, come from the Grasso votes. No, come to make a long story short. No, come from the Allen votes. No, Mr. Chairman. There are seven yeses and six. No, the measures. and there are seven yeses and six noes. While the measure is tabled.

So for the moment, 16 year olds are not gonna be voting in Washington DC in 2020. But that's just for the moment. Okay, so that was November of 2018. Yeah. What has happened with Alec? Well, how's it going? I'm good. You're lemme, should I start recording now?

Yes. Okay, sounds good. I called him up to find out. Yep. I'm all good Amazing. I'm so happy to be talking to you again. It's been so long. He's probably a teen now. Where is he about? Yeah, so he's 18. I am yes So you're like legal voting age now. I'm legal voting age. I voted for the first time in June In the primary it was a little unaventful. Because of the pandemic, he and his mom decided to vote by mail. And he was like, yeah, I was a little bit anticlimactic.

Made a little photo sheet out of it, but it was a little, I kind of wanted a little bit more drama. But beyond his voting status, he just graduated from high school, literally like a month ago. Oh, can you guys ungrad. Oh, congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, congratulations. Yeah.

Amazing. Thank you. He's like going to be a freshman in the fall at DePaul University in Chicago. Knock on wood. He's right now. It's like, oh, we have no clue. But just stay tuned to them. I'm like, OK.

And so it was cool to catch him at this time because he was kind of like looking back on what he's done and looking back on the last two years in a way. But before I go there, I will say like, the movement itself, there's been some small incremental progress that they've made like last year in March, in the US House of Representatives,

Representative Ayanna Presley actually proposed an amendment to another bill that was being considered, that would lower the voting age in all federal elections. So not local, but all federal elections. Interesting. Yeah, 126 members of the House of Representatives actually voted yes on that amendment. Really, 126 out of, what's the total number again?

I wanna say it's like 435 plus a few non-voting members. Okay. So, you know, that's quite a few, but it's probably not likely to happen at the federal level, especially in thinking about the Senate anytime soon, but at the same time in DC where this bill got tabled by like one vote. There are three council seats opening up, which means that two opponents of the bill are on their way out, and at least one of the likely incoming members who's already won the primary seems pretty supportive of lowering the voting age. And so I talked to council member Charles Allen, who originally introduced the bill, and he told me that he's hopeful that the votes are in their favor and that he'd like to reintroduce it.

Huh. All of which for somebody like Alec is pretty encouraging. Yep, it is. Another thing that's happened in the time since is there's at least in some places like in San Francisco, there's going to be a ballot question in November that would lower the voting age to 16 for all local elections. And that like back in 2016, they had the same ballot question and it only lost by like four percentage points. And so you know, it does seem like there are cities where the idea is being considered seriously and like it does seem to be a thing

that is gaining more traction over time. But beyond these small, maybe hopeful things, Alec told me that he just thinks the whole conversation around this issue has shifted. The bigger shift has been that their arguments that they used against us two years ago that young people do not have enough skin in the game and they do not have enough knowledge. I think that these past couple of months have shown that that is absolutely not true.

That all of the reasons that 16-year-olds have just as much skin in the game as people older than them, they're all just sort of intensified in this new world that we live in. I have friends who work in restaurants, I have friends who work at grocery stores, or at clothing stores, and I have so many friends who are essential workers.

And you know, a lot of 16 year olds have jobs at pharmacies and things like that, that could be considered essential by a lot of standards. And on top of that, Alex told me, we have a lot of people who want to rush us back into school. And that's something that 16 and 17 year olds have a direct stake in. And so in a lot of ways, the pandemic has just added this layer of like why 16 year olds are actually quite relevant to the conversation. Yeah. How do you know how well DC public schools are working when you don't even want to have the very people who go to those schools five days

a week for eight hours a day make had any say in that. And the other thing that Alec told me is that his thinking has really changed around like how do you fight to even have your say? Like in the story that we told where he was trying to do this two years ago, he'd done a lot of shaking hands. You know, he'd done a lot of like showing up at the council member's office and saying the right word. The kind of the respectability politics and playing nice and smiling for the cameras.

And if I could go back and change one thing, I do wish that we would have been a little bit more loud and been a little bit more in your face to a lot of these elected officials, just being able to see with my own eyes and from my experience that playing nice and playing by the rules is exactly what people who don't want us to succeed.

That's exactly what they want us to do. He essentially said to me, instead of showing up to the council member's office and shaking hands, I wish we'd done a diet where every few minutes we represented how many 16 year olds were dying of gun violence. Okay, this council member doesn't believe that we have enough skin in the game.

So we're gonna stage die in in their office. And I think by literally showing them with our skin that we are not going anywhere and that if they vote against this bill, they're voting against the 30 young people who are currently like laying down in their office with, you office with a dozen members of the press all filming. And it was really interesting to see his sort of radicalization in a way as a social activist. Not just because the vote fell through, but also because I think now he's seeing that

in so many ways, it goes beyond just, beyond just not being able to vote. Like there's so many other ways that young people around him are disenfranchised and like especially young people of color. Because if you look at the protests that have happened in Minneapolis or in DC, it was young people of color who were getting beat

by police officers. I have numerous, numerous, numerous friends who were tear gasped for Trump to make his photo op that one night in front of the church. And they were able to, yeah, and they were able to submit testimony to the ACLU who was actually suing for that action. Oh wow. Um, and, and you know, he was telling me actually like, as a DC resident, it's been really weird to watch because DC, when the protests started, was flooded with National Guard forces like hundreds from different states. We had troops from like five different states down here at one time. Yeah, like ice and CVP were out. All of these federal officers coming in.

Like me and my friends were like, oh, that's 11 o'clock at night and you know, a giant military helicopter carrying, you know, 25 arms soldiers just flew by my house. Like it was, yeah, there was a probably like a solid two weeks where it was, yeah, there was a, probably like a solid two weeks where it was, it was like, it was full on. And through all of that, I think Alec, you know, he kind of saw this like double disenfranchisement in a way, like a lot of people respond to that, including DC's mayor, like responded to that being like, this is why we need statehood. But in DC, we don't have any autonomy over that.

We don't have a governor, we don't have senators. And so as much as our mayor was like, no, we don't have any autonomy over that. We don't have a governor. We don't have senators. And so as much as our mayor was like, no, we don't, no, no, thank you. Trump could do essentially what he wanted. And so, you know, there are photos of my friend took a photo of outside the Lincoln Memorial and every third step there was a whole row of armed officials. And so I think all around him he's been seeing examples of disenfranchisement of all kinds that go beyond just

like being under the voting age, but also just people going out and fighting it. Okay, that's all for today. We had original music for this episode from Carling and Will. Thank you so much to them. Special thanks to DC Council Member Charles Allen. Don't forget to check out lots of show on Netflix. It's called Connected. And if you want to hear stories about the rest of the amendments, plus songs for each amendment written and performed by some incredible musicians, including Dolly, go to mostperfectalbum.org

and you can listen to them all there. I'm Chad Abumrod. Thank you for listening. Hi, I'm Yoann from Vienna. Radio Lab is created by Chad Abumrod with Robert Crowley and produced by Saren Wiener. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Hi, I'm Johan from Vienna. Radio live is created by Chad Eppenrod, a robot corollic, and produced by Sauron Reena. Dylan Keefe is our director of Sound Design. Suzy Leckenberg is our executive producer. Our starting cues, Simon Adler, Jeremy

Bluen, Becca Brestler, Richard Keeweig, David Gavill, Ethel Hefty, Tracy Ham, Metacifty, Tobin Lowe, Anime Guin, Latifnasa, Sava Curry, Arena Wack, Pet Walters, and Molybethsla. With help from Shima Oliai, W Harry Fatuna, Sarah Sandbag, Test Davis, and Rastwick Rack, our tech checker with Michelle Harris. marriage.