The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – What You Need to Know About Voting–and Why by Kim Wehle

Episode Date: June 30, 2020

What You Need to Know About Voting--and Why by Kim Wehle Kimwehle.com A step-by-step guide to every American’s most fundamental right and civic duty - just in time for the 2020 presidential election. Nothing is more important to the health of a democracy than the right to vote. Yet less than half of eligible voters routinely show up to the polls. Part of the problem is that the basics of the process we use to choose our elected leaders remain shrouded in mystery for many Americans. In What You Need to Know About Voting - and Why, law professor and constitutional scholar Kimberly Wehle unravels that mystery, offering practical, useful advice on the mechanics of voting and an enlightening survey of its history and future. What is a primary? How does the electoral college work? Who gets to cast a ballot and why? Wehle answers these questions and more in a clear, engaging, and conversational tone. From where and how to register in the various states to how to change your registration when you move, this indispensable book outlines the necessary steps to take to become an active participant in the electoral process. For new voters, would-be voters, young people looking ahead to the next election, and those seeking citizenship, What You Need to Know About Voting - and Why is a timely and informative guide, providing the background you need in order to make informed choices that will shape our shared destiny for decades to come. Kimberly Wehle (pronounced "Whale-ee") is an author, lawyer, law professor, and on-air and off-air legal expert, analyst and commentator for CBS News. She has also appeared on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, NPR, and PBS. In addition, Wehle is a contributor for BBC World News, and a contributor for The Bulwark and The Hill. She has also written for the Baltimore Sun and LA Times. She is a former Assistant United States Attorney, Associate Independent Counsel in the Whitewater Investigation, and author of "How to Read The Constitution--and Why" and "What You Need to Know about the Right to Vote--and Why," which is forthcoming in June 2020, and "The Outsourced Constitution: How Public Power in Private Hands Erodes Democracy," by Cambridge University Press. For updates, you can follow her on Twitter @kim_wehle and like her on Facebook and on her Instagram.

Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, we're coming to you with another great podcast. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Today we've got a really excellent guest on the podcast that I think you're going to be excited to hear from her, and it's going to be excellent on the topics and books that she's written. The most important thing, too, of course, is to go to thecvpn.com, chrisfosspodcastnetwork.com. You can subscribe to nine different podcasts there.

In fact, you'll see this podcast going out across probably three or four of our podcasts, our book author podcast, our Chris Voss podcast, and the Resistance Radio podcast. So watch for it coming out there. And, of course, you can go to youtube.com and see the live version of this on our YouTube channel at youtube.com for chess, Chris Voss. Today, we have an exciting author on. It's Kim Whaley. She's a full-time professor of law at the University of Baltimore School of Law. She specializes in the respective powers of the three branches of the federal government. In addition to her work for broad audiences, she continues to

write scholarly articles. She's the author of two books, and the one book we'll be talking largely about today, What You Need to Know About Voting and Why, and also How to Read the Constitution and Why. Welcome to the show, Kim. How are you doing? I'm delighted to be here. Thanks, Chris. Doing great. Awesome sauce. So this is a great topical book. Give people your.com so people can look this up. And, of course, Amazon, of course, ordered the book. Yeah, it's on www.kimwhaley.com, W-E-H-L-E, and I tweet at Kim Whaley. And it's available everywhere, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books A Million,

wherever you want to look, your local bookstore, pick it up. So give us a little bit of your background. What, what motivated you to write these books? Kind of what, what, what, what got you in the position you are? You've, you've, you've been in law for quite some time now. Yeah. I've been practicing law for a long time. I was in and out of the justice department. I worked on the Whitewater investigation under Ken Starr. I clicked for a federal judge. And then I went into private practice for a while, then into teaching since 2006. And as you indicated, my specialty really is teaching about the Constitution, but from a structural standpoint. What is the role of the president versus Congress, for example, as distinct from talking about the Bill of Rights? So that's kind of a different specialty. And then lo and behold, a few years ago, we've got this new president,

and a lot of these structural basics have been challenged under President Trump. And I found myself reading the New York Times one day, and there was a misstatement in there, or at least something that I thought needed some clarification about the pardon power we've heard about. So I wrote my first op-ed and then found myself morphing from writing scholarly pieces, which I still do, but to writing op-eds, doing a lot of radio, television. I decided to write some books that really spell out civics in a way that's hopefully not boring, but also really functional, not just descriptive. So people can really understand from a law professor's point of view. I'm used to teaching people how to actually do analysis under the law. So the books try to do that for regular people, take law teaching outside of the classroom, the law school classroom, and bring it to the masses, to everyone. And this led you

to be motivated to write your first book, How to Read the Constitution, Why? Yeah, that's exactly right. So that's kind of a primer, how I teach my first years, how to think about the law, as well as just explaining what the constitution really says. I mean, only the Annenberg Center has done a study for 10 years and pretty consistently, only a third of those surveyed in America can even name all three branches of government, judicial, executive, and legislative. And another study, believe it or not, 10% of college students thought Judge Judy was on the U.S. Supreme Court. So with that level of, you know, sort of misinformation or lack of information, it's really hard to figure out how to fix America if people don't even understand the system.

I think Trump can name the three branches of government, KFC, Burger King, and McDonald's, but that's another story. Well, that's probably progress, I think. I'm not sure he can name three of his kids. But what you need to know about voting and why. So tell us about this book. What is it about? And what's the data we need to know on it?

The first book is about how the Constitution functions. And essentially what I tell people is that it's all about accountability. That is, it's all about tickets for speeding. The Constitution just sort of lays out the rules of the road. But if there aren't any tickets handed out for violating the Constitution, the Constitution doesn't mean anything. I mean, we all go above the speed limit if we know 100%, there's no cop around, there's no hidden camera. So with the Trump administration, essentially, there's no cop, there's no hidden camera, there's no one. Within

Congress, essentially, Congress is not functioning to hold the office accountable. The courts aren't functioning for a number of reasons to hold the office accountable. And that was the conclusion I drew after the first book. And so the second book is really a culmination in the heart of a democracy, my own realization, even after studying this for so many years, that it's all about the ballot box. That's how we keep government accountable to the people, regardless of political party. But it's a complicated system. I hate to say it, but it is for a lot of reasons in America.

So the book is a how-to guide. It has charts galore, 50 state surveys on how to register, how to vote, how to vote by mail, can felons vote, how does that work? And it also then lays out basics on what does the constitution say about voting? What does the electoral college do? What does campaign finance money and politics mean? What is dark money? What are PACs? What are super PACs? And then what does voter suppression mean? What does voter fraud mean. It's kind of a one-stop shopping place to just get up to speed on not only how to vote and how to get yourself on the rolls and staying on the rolls, but why should we care? Because that's really the number one impediment right now to civic participation is this sense

that voting doesn't really matter. And there's really nothing, nothing perhaps more than our own health and our children's health. And in this moment, that's more important than making sure that we're heard at the ballot box. And this is awesome. This is great because people need to understand some of these different dynamics, like you said, the PACs, the super PACs, some of the different elements that go into it. I really wish that we would be one of these nations i think it's iceland or uh greenland uh you know it's everyone has to vote it's a law australia same many like that yeah exactly i wish we would do that but i realize the reasons we're not doing it clearly for uh the benefit of certain parties um and uh

but but i think only what is it like half the people in this country vote? About half of the eligible voters vote, which means that the rest of us who don't vote are really kind of tethered to those decisions. And as you indicated, talking about money and politics, and then we can also talk about things like gerrymandering, there are a lot of ways that the individual voter is disconnected from politicians.

And I've come to believe the only way to fix that is to basically have a tsunami of civic participation, not a trickle. And I think we need to see that in November. And of course, we have this raging coronavirus that is complicating an already complicated system. But that's not to tell people to sort of throw in the towel. That's the reason to not only get yourself registered to vote by mail,

but find one person, just one. If everyone who's used to voting found one person that has never voted before and brought them into the fray, I think we'd see politicians have to pay attention to the needs of regular people versus the needs of money in politics and people with already have a lot of power. And people just need to realize that. I mean, we had a great line we had on the resistance radio podcast. We review, we interview a lot of local politicians, people running for office for the Democratic party. And I believe it was Ashley Matthews. one of the politicians said, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu.

And you see people that, well, I don't vote because I don't feel like it matters and everything else. And it's like the only way to matter is to vote because that's what the politicians look at. They go, who voted? What do they want? Okay, we'll care about what they do because they show up next time. Yeah, and if voting didn't matter, Vladimir Putin and others wouldn't try so hard to infiltrate next time, right? Yeah. And if voting didn't matter, Vladimir Putin and others wouldn't try so hard to infiltrate our elections, right? And, you know, Bush, George

Bush won the presidency with 537 contested votes in the state of Florida. Stacey Abrams lost the governorship by approximately 50,000 votes, which was precisely the number of votes that then Secretary of State Brian Kemp put on hold due to alleged lack of matching information. So it does come down to small numbers of votes. And unfortunately, not in every state is it easy to register and to vote. That's a whole other conversation. It is the system we're with right now. Congress could fix it.

Congress has not been that interested in souping reforms with voting, which means, I mean, you know, like I say, if you're stuck in the airport and your flight's canceled, you're going to stay up all night to get yourself home. It's that kind of engagement, I think, to get to the polls in a pandemic. You have to sort of plan ahead, you know, apply. And I'm actually going to start tweeting out state by state the links for mail-in voting in your state before the upcoming primaries. But ask for a mail-in ballot if it doesn't come in part because the Postal Service is running out of money and the president has vowed to veto any bailout. If that happens, you do need to also plan with your hand sanitizer and your masks and your water bottle and granola bars to show up on Election Day. And just stay there

until you're in. If you're in line before the polls close, and you saw this in Kentucky with people banging on the door and judges saying you got to open them, they have to let you vote. If you show up and they don't have you registered and you did register, ask for what's called a provisional ballot that under federal law, they have to give it to you. And again, like you said, Chris, I mean, this is the only way to preserve democracy. On the ballot is not just Donald Trump and a bunch of politicians. On the ballot in November right now is whether we are going to continue to have a government by we the people. And if that were starkly put on the ballot, I think more people would find a way to get to the polls. I really believe as a constitutional scholar, as John

Bolton has said, if we have four more years of this kind of presidency, we will, we can kiss democracy itself. Goodbye. I just got done reading his book. It was quite extraordinary. And I don't know about shocking. I pretty much figured it was the way it was, but it was the validation of it was just extraordinary. So it's going to be interesting with, know it's it's it's kind of weird how he's playing this uh mail-in voting is bad yet i and i was trying to get some data on this as to how many people that are republicans do mail-in voting but i imagine a lot of them do especially well there's five states um including utah colorado hawaii uh that almost exclusively vote finance by mail. And of

course, there are plenty of Republicans in those states. And the data suggests that not only is there higher turnout from voting by mail, but also on both sides of the political spectrum, it doesn't help Democrats. I think over Republicans, for example, it helps everyone and people like it. And particularly for elderly voters, which traditionally have voted more Republican, that's more convenient. Disabled voters, people in rural areas, this is a good thing for democracy. And you have to ask yourself these lies, frankly, about mail-in voter voting being fraudulent that are coming out of the White House and unfortunately out of the Justice Department through the Attorney General. You have to ask yourself, is this about spooking people around the election itself as a way of winning? Because there isn't any empirical data supporting that widespread claim of fraud. And I do these talk shows, and a lot of people

believe this fraud. And it's not to say that we should not have things in place to prevent fraud. It's just that President Trump, one of the first things he did when he took office was impanel a commission to find the fraudsters, and they didn't find them. It's just, it's not there. It's not there. I remember that with the Kansas guy. It's just not there. And what I've learned too, there are thousands of poll workers, regular people, mostly over the age of 60, that go and work really, really hard. Every election, election officials, regular Americans, they are the front lines of democracy. And to suggest that somehow the work they do is full of fraud, I think degrades that sacrifice and patriotism that

those people are doing on behalf of the rest of us. It's just not the case. Things fall through the cracks. There are mistakes. They are not properly funded. But there is not this big boogeyman out there that are allowing people to vote that shouldn't be voting in America. The problem is people who should be voting are not voting. It seems like they're going to suppress their own votes, the GOP, by this notion of what they're doing. And I suppose, you know, he could set up an illegal situation like we had with Gore versus Bush, where there was a, you know, well, it's too tight. I think from the numbers we're seeing, it most likely will be a landslide. And just seeing the voters pounding on the windows in Kentucky, that was extraordinary to watch. It was extraordinary.

And we saw this in Wisconsin as well. People, you know, the Supreme Court of the United States kind of shut down attempts by the governor to expand the time for people to vote during a pandemic. And people showed up anyway, and dozens of them got sick. And I mean, that shows, I think, the strong sentiment among the American population that people still wanted to control their own government and are willing to literally risk their lives. It's an unfortunate choice

that people are having to make in certain states. And the Republican Party in particular is pushing to make it harder, frankly, to vote during a pandemic. But I agree with you. I think, I think the American public will, will win out here and between what's happening with COVID-19 and what's happening with Black Lives Matter, the president is out of step with the will of the people.

People do want to put health over the economy. People do care about a systemic over the economy. People do care about a systemic police violence and racism over somehow tamping down First Amendment rights through government violence. I don't think there's a lot of support for that. And so those two primary pieces of his platform right now are not lining up with the voters. Where we failed in getting people to appreciate voting, to care about the will of their government? Is it because we dialed civics back in schools years ago or where are we failed in that? how they work. And that's really what the books do. I mean, my books use a lot, like I do in the classroom, of just common sense examples. So for example, like the speeding ticket example is one thing where I use an analogy around a bridge over a rushing river is the constitution. The cops on

the bridge can be fighting about traffic. Some are in blue uniforms, some are in red uniforms. Meanwhile, the bridge collapses. Everybody goes down blue and red. That's an example of why the Constitution is so important. So I think it's how we teach. Part of it could be No Child Left Behind, the notion that it's content, content, content, very well-meaning piece of legislation didn't translate into actually helping people make their own decisions. But the other piece is the system itself. I mean, we do have issues with politicians picking their voters versus the other way around with gerrymandering. We do have problems with massive amounts of money flooding the airwaves due to the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United

acknowledging corporations, which are legal fictions, as having First Amendment rights, and therefore politicians are not paying attention to individual voters whose contributions are capped at $2,700 each. You and I can only contribute $2,700 each to a candidate, but a billionaire can flood the airwaves with political ads and be protected under the First Amendment. So there's a lot of these things that are making it such that an individual vote is not going to change an election. I'm not going to deny that, but that's the same reason why people aren't voting fraudulently. They're not going to risk five years in prison for that very reason. But

that being said, I think it's a cultural shift, Chris. We all pay our taxes, or most of us do, even though we don't expect to be audited because it's just what we do. We stop at stop signs in other countries. That doesn't happen, not because we expect to go to jail, but because it's what we do as Americans. There's a certain level of civic engagement and just respect for each other that we use. And I think instilling voting as not just something we do, but it's also a privilege. It's a privilege of democracy to honor that. I think it's gone by the wayside as kind of a ho-hum, something that's sort of outdated. And even young people seem to think the way for change is, you

know, some massive revolution. And that's just not the case. And I encourage, again, people to just read these quick reads, these books, and decide for yourself if you agree that, you know, the framers are onto something with government by way of the people and not government by the politicians telling the rest of us what to do. And the sad thing is, and I grew up being taught this as a kid, there are people that die in other countries just for having the ability to vote. In the civil rights area, there are people that suffered and were beaten just to have, you know, be able to vote. Yeah, I was in a car recently, a cab with a driver who's from Ethiopia and is a naturalized citizen now, but he said exactly that. He was, I don't understand Americans.

You know, in other parts of the world, you can literally go to jail for having free speech and saying the wrong thing against the government. Everybody knows the elections aren't real. Everybody knows they're completely rigged in advance. You know, I think people who live under different regimes come here and are just aghast at the Americans taking for granted this tremendous, tremendous gift of democracy. And, you know, I really say, you know, one of my favorite hashtags is vote for your life

in November. And especially with the pandemic, with a government that's not responding to that, that really is what's at stake. And I'm a mother and I really, really care about preserving these freedoms for the next generations. And that is literally on the ballot in November. Regardless of who you vote for, voting or against this person or that person. I'm just saying vote. Have your voice heard along with fellow Americans. And that is a shot across the bow that we are not going to be told what to do in this country. Yeah. I mean, if you're not at the table, you're on the menu. So there you go. I mean, what's extraordinary to me is when people go, people, you know, I don't know how you feel about this, but when I hear people say, like John Bolton, let's put it this way, he said,

I'm not going to vote for Biden, but I'm going to write someone in. And I hate that write-in stuff. I realize that, you know, well, that is what was given to us in the Constitution. But in life, you've got to pick the lesser of two evils. I mean... Yeah, I mean, there are, you know, I don't know if you've heard Chris of rank choice voting. There are,

there are ways that we count votes in particular States that can remedy some of that, um, arguably. So, uh, so I agree. I mean, to, to, to write in another candidate is basically to, in a way, almost, I mean, you're exercising your right to vote, but you're essentially not, not making, you know, sort of joining in fellow, your fellow Americans and actually making a decision. And that's it. Likewise, when people say my vote is to to vote, but you're essentially not making, you know, sort of joining in your fellow Americans and actually making a decision. And likewise, when people say my vote is to not vote, you're giving away your vote to the people that are voting, that someone else is standing in for you as a proxy and you have no knowledge or control about how they're voting.

But I do want to note, you know, voting systems, as I talk about in the book, change by state. And if you don't like how your state system works, you know, voting systems, as I talk about in the book, change by state. And if you don't like how your state system works, you want more access to the polls, even less access to the polls. I don't agree with that second point of view. But the way to do it is through your state legislatures. So again, if you want to change how people vote, you have to vote. It's all about voting. But I mean, we hear a lot about the Electoral College, for example, right? People are really upset that some people, particularly Democrats in the last election, and this is not the first time it's happened in American history, that the popular vote doesn get 51% of the popular vote, all of the electors cast their ballot for that winner. Another way to do it is proportional voting.

So say it's 60% for Joe Biden, 40% for Donald Trump, six electors go to Joe Biden, four electors go to Donald Trump. That's a change that can happen at the state level and how the electors actually cast their votes. That isn't about amending the Constitution to get rid of the Electoral College, is not about these sweeping changes that I think are intimidating people and think could never happen. You can make a difference in your government at the local level if you understand how the system works. And I should say also, we hear a lot about Black Lives Matter, police reform. In many states, the sheriff, him or herself, is on the ballot as an elected official. Judges in some states.

Judges. People talk about judges, Supreme Court, not fair. I want this kind of court, that kind of court. A lot of state and local judges are elected. They're on the ballot. Choose your own judges. But you can't do that if you're not at the polls and engaging in your electoral process. And we saw a lot of the suppression of the vote.

I think it was either Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi. There was up to something in 2016. They were moving, or maybe it was 2018. They were moving like voting polls outside of the city, like 20 miles outside of the city. And then when some of the groups created busing to send buses so people could go there. They got that banned by local judges.

But yeah, I mean, it's like with any right, you have to fight to protect it and value it. You know, your book, How to Read the Constitution and Why, was a journey that I went on around the time of the impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump. And I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I had never fully read the constitution until I was 52, 51, however old I am, uh, 51 at the time.

Um, I probably was supposed to read it in history class. Cause back when I went to school, they had kind of history and stuff, but I had never sat down taking the time to read it. And I'm, I'm horribly ashamed about that. I got to tell you.

Well, I would sort of let you off the hook on that in part because, as I explained in the first book, the Constitution can't be understood unless you understand a couple hundred years of Supreme Court precedent construing ambiguous terms. So that's part of the reason for book number one is, okay, let me give you the bottom line of what these provisions mean today in modern English. But I think you're right that other generations of Americans would have understood all of that, would have read it, would have been taught it, would have understood how vital it is. You talk about other countries, people fighting for freedoms. I mean, the framers and the revolutionaries did as well. Of course, we didn't have full freedoms for all Americans, and particularly enslaved populations in the United States.

But we've expanded that tent. I think we have a proud history of that in the United States. And that is in part through expanding access to the vote. But one thing that really surprised me, Chris, in writing the second book is, and we see this with this debate around voter suppression versus voter fraud. There still is a sentiment running through America that only the right people should be able to exercise their right to vote. And I just, I don't, I mean, I use this term very carefully, but I don't think that as a bit anti-American. I mean, when I say anti-American, American, unlike England, for example, or a monarchy, where the power of the sovereign comes from God, from

higher power. It's totally divorced from the people. The idea is God decided X, Y, Z is king, and that king has the divine intervention of God to tell you what to do. In America, no one is a king. We decide for ourselves, but we're such a complex, diverse population that I don't think anyone wants a system whereby only certain groups of people get to decide for the rest of us. I mean, because what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That kind of system is just not good for anyone. And I think that's the piece that people are missing right now. The notion is, oh, team blue or team red. It's team America at the end of the day.

Politicians are not our best friends i'm sorry they're just not out for they don't have our interest at heart ultimately i mean i to me when i see people arguing online they're like i'm not going to vote for biden i'm a bernie bro you know i see all this stuff or you know well you know biden looks like he's kind of old and losing it just as much as trump is all and losing it. And I'm like, look, here's what we need to do. This isn't about Democrat or Republican. This is about we're giving the president is the caretaker of our Constitution, of the rule of law. And we are giving that person, you know, who's going to be the person who's going to carry this forward in this grand experiment of a republic that we're doing.

And people don't realize how young this experiment of being a republic is and how fragile it is. Absolutely. We saw Turkey's democracy fail in our own lifetime. I mean, this can happen. And, you know, Greek democracy was 2000 years ago, and the next robust one was our democracy. We could lose it. I think you're absolutely right. And I don't, I agree with you. This is not a vote. I mean, it's bigger than Biden at this point. This is, again, about voting to protect the system of democracy. And I mean, I don't know Joe Biden personally norms, and norms are as important as the laws themselves. And every president, for the most part, with some exceptions, have abided by some basic norms. People are jaw-dropping, like, how could this happen? How could this happen? People ask me all the time, can he do that? And that's the wrong question. The question is, when he does that, because that's who he is, what's the consequence?

If there's no consequence, the answer to the first question is, yes, he can do it. It all comes down to the consequence and the accountability for it. That's what we have to put back in place. What I find a lot of people don't understand, at least in the common populace um is that rule of law what you what you spoke of i was lucky enough to i i was pretty much dumbed the law and i was like whatever i do get a lot of speeding tickets you know bmws and stuff but but other than that i was pretty oblivious and then i uh started a lot of companies got successful and lawsuits start whether you're suing somebody they're suing you you know and all that all that stuff. And that's when I really got to know the law really well because you're paying attorneys.

And that's when I started getting a real appreciation for the law, understanding it, the rule of law in and of itself, the fabric of how that intertwines everything from our everyday safety, our everyday security, to whether or not I wreck my car into yours and who's responsible, whether or not what the president does, the attorney general does. I find a lot of people just don't understand the basic concept of real law and how it applies to them in their everyday life and gives them that security. Exactly, exactly, exactly. And I say that having taught law now since 2006, law students don't understand that either. And even in law school, it's rarely broken down in that way that you just learn

through your own personal experience. I mean, when I talk about the first book, the Constitution book and what is a constitutional right, most people answer that question, well, it's something I'm born with, it's just kind of mine. But then I say, well, you have a right to go in your own home, right? We assume that that's one of the most enshrined rights in the constitution. If you pay your rent or whatever, you haven't been evicted, you can walk into your home. But what if one day you come home and it's surrounded by armed police officers and they won't let you in? But you have a right. What do you do? You've got to then go to a judge and get an order telling them to leave. It's the enforcement of the right that gives you

the right. Without the enforcement, the right doesn't itself grow arms and legs and somehow, you know, protect you. It's the same thing with the First Amendment. It's the same thing with the Second Amendment. It's the same. Those are all the, you know, amendments of the Constitution. But all of that is contingent on having political leaders that are accountable to the people. I mean, I'm also a mother, as I mentioned, and anyone who's been around small children of that is contingent on having political leaders that are accountable to the people. I mean, I'm also a mother, as I mentioned, and anyone who's been around small children or teenagers know, if you put a rule in place, you know, and you let the kid violate it one time, the rule is gone. If it's, you can't eat pizza in the living room, but one day it's football game and you're

like, okay, no problem. Johnny, I'll let you do it. That Johnny knows you didn't mean it. And that's one of the hardest things about being a parent. And it's no different for us as the bosses of the president of the bosses of members of Congress. If we let the rule of law get unenforced, it is, you might as well crumple up this constitution and throw it in the trash. And I'll tell you, even third yearyear law students, this is an eye-opener. So if this is an eye-opener to your listeners, welcome to America. Unfortunately, this is not something that's taught this way, which is one of the reasons I'm so passionate about sharing this message. And I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk about this with you today.

Yeah, if I was a parent, I haven't delved into that. But if I was a parent, I would hire an attorney general. And anytime the kid challenged the law, I'd be like, you're going to have to talk to him. Okay. Well, that's called, that's called couple therapy. Because then you get in your own, you're getting your own little debate. Yeah. I remember, I remember doing that to my parents, you know, you go, yeah, those kids, that's my boy. They are so smart. They know, they know how to,

they know how to find the cracks in the bottle, right? So they can figure it out. But it's an analogy for people who have been around kids. I think it brings home. It makes common sense. I mean, a lot of this, Chris, really boils down to common sense. I mean, if you've got a contract, somebody demos your bathroom to do a renovation, takes your down payment of $5,000 and takes off.

The contract doesn't, again, grow arms and legs and run off and get your money back for you. You've got to go to court and enforce it. It's all about enforcement consequences, enforcement consequences. With this president and now the presidency, not just this president, the office of presidency, we saw with impeachment, we saw with the emoluments clause, we saw with appropriations, there was recently a case that kind of strengthened the appropriations clause. But we saw Congress's authority to hold, to basically grade the president's papers, all just go unenforced.

I mean, think about the obstruction of Congress charge. That was essentially giving a green light to any president in the future to say, pound sand, Congress, I'm not giving you any documents. I'm not giving you any access to any federal employees who are on the taxpayer payroll to allow the American people through their representatives to know what's going on in the White House with their taxpayer dollars. That's essentially saying, okay, Congress basically said, no problem. The Republicans in the Senate said, we are fine, no longer having meaningful oversight authority. That is in the toolbox of the president right now. So you might not like Joe Biden, you might prefer someone else. But if you reelect Donald Trump, I mean, by virtue of not voting or voting for a third party, it's really so destructive, again, destructive to the bridge of democracy, because you're fighting about who's on the bridge. The bridge goes down, we all go down. Biden, Bernie, whoever, we all go down. Yeah, and it's all about the Constitution. I mean,

that's who I'm voting for the constitution um do you talk about your book and i i guess a lot of the younger people or millennials uh a lot of people were spoiled under obama that was their first president they voted for their first experience they're in their 20s they they kind of this feeling or there's a feeling with some voters that if he's not the perfect guy, like, like you're going to date him or something, you know, if he's not the perfect guy, then I'm not going to vote for him. Like they, they want, they want, I don't know, the perfect, you know, they want Jesus

Christ to run for president, I guess, or something. Yeah. I think that's an excellent point. I've talked to, um, you know, college students and of course I teach law students and I think I wonder if part of that has to do with also they had Obama, but, and of course, I teach law students. And I think, I wonder if part of that has to do with, also, they had Obama, and even if they didn't support Obama, this very polarized way in which we live right now. What students have told me, which was sort of shocking, I taught a class called Democracy at Risk, actually, at American University this last semester.

And at the end of the course, what one or two students told me in kind of the end of course discussion was that they perceive compromise as sort of the losing position, as compromise being for losers, that the strong people stake out their ground on the polls. And of course, you know, maybe we've had a few miles behind us in life. And of course, the directors themselves of the Constitution understood it's all about compromise. I mean, that's the way forward. It's to negotiate a deal. Everybody gives up a little. That's not losing, that's winning.

To lose is to have to have everything perfect. Stake out your ground, my way or the highway. You're wrong, I'm right. You're wrong, I'm right. Then nothing gets done. And as you say, we get eaten for dinner. We don't have a seat at the table. And that is what's happening. So I think having younger people have modeled

and understand strength is in compromise. Strength is in moderate positions. Strength is in incremental change, is changing hearts and minds, not beating it over someone and shaming them. And I think that's a problem on both sides of the ideological spectrum. I am not a proponent of, you know, identity politics and, you know, making really careful people, shaming people for using the wrong terminology. I'm not saying that that's not, those aren't important interests behind that, but we have to be respectful of where each person is in this process that's messy of democracy and bring people into the fold, not shut them out in the idea that we're somehow going to get ahead.

That's just not the way. But I wonder if that's part of the problem. They grew up in such polarization. Of course, Obama came into office and Mitch McConnell said his number one objective was to keep him from getting a second term. And so even Obamacare, Mitt Romney, Republican governor of Massachusetts, successfully rolled out basically the precursor to Obamacare. That's something that Republicans should have been behind as a policy matter, but they were just, no, we're going to fight Obama because he's Obama. And that's just really corrosive.

Yeah. I hope this has been a president who only represents a certain benefit or a certain portion of his populace. I mean, he's made that very clear. I don't think I've ever had a president in my lifetime where I didn't feel like he was my president, even though I didn't vote for him, even though he's another party. I always felt like whatever president I've had in my lifetime, you know, had my interest at heart. It was looking out for me. Yeah. It was interesting when you think about what happened with, you know, 9-11 and George Bush. And of course there's some, there's some intelligence

that suggests that he knew about these planes and there, nothing was, and he knew about the attacks or there was some, not that he knew and deliberately didn't do anything, but there was some negligence arguably, but people didn't want to hear that. On 9-11, when he stood there with his bullhorn, people want a leader. They want leadership. And we don't have it with this president. And what's interesting to me are the polls that have just come out in the last couple weeks that are showing his own base shifting around two issues.

One is COVID and the notion that Americans by far across both sides of the political spectrum think health comes over the economy, that saving lives and protecting the public is much more important than economics. And we saw with the bailout, the money primarily went to people with share, you know, their shareholders or stock, you know, large corporations. So that's number one. And there's a wide margin, a gap between the president and people on both sides of the aisle on that very, very idea. The second one was Black Lives Matter, even wider gap. Most Americans when asked will say, would you care more about keeping protesters from, you know, not vandalizing? Or do you care more about why protesters are so upset?

And by a huge margin, Democrats, Republicans, former Trump supporters, or current Trump supporters, believe that why the protesters are protesting is more important. So he is off on those two central themes that he's just not listening to the American populace, including his base on those things. And to me, frankly, that was a bit heartwarming in months and months of just down news. News that's just been really depressing, frankly, to know that Americans stand behind each other in terms of protecting public health and in terms of respecting individuals against police violence. Yeah, and I think this is why it's important for a lot of people to read your book. A lot of people register to vote.

I've been telling a lot of people, hey, if you're on the streets protesting, please register to vote. Otherwise, this doesn't matter all that much. It will disappear in a year or something. And I hope it won't, but I don't want it to. But voting is just so freaking important. And, yeah, we've reached a point where, I mean, every president has a crisis that happens to challenge their leadership

and how they step up to it. And we said for years, you know, what if something happens? Mr. Bolton in his book spoke of that. I think he mentioned it to Kerry and said, you know, what happens when we hit the wall with something? And, you know, this virus is something that

he, you know, he used to be Teflon Don, if you would use the old mob boss adage. But this, you can't lie. When people are dying around you, when your family's in the thing, whether you're red or blue state or whatever, you can't deny that. You can't, you can't make a meme and be like, this isn't really happening. Right. And also, you know, we see across the globe,

other countries, you know, France and Italy, of course, Italy had a massive problem and it's pretty much open now. And there are very few cases. We know how to fix this. We fix it through contact tracing. You fix it through contact tracing. You fix it through massive testing so you could see where the trends are. And then you can start, you know, quarantining people that are in the hotspots. You fix it through widespread mask wearing and hand sanitizing. And, you know, the president is just speaking the absolute opposite. I mean, he's admitted that he's tamped down testing for his own political prowess. And so not only you can't, the virus doesn't care about politics, doesn't care about spin, but this is not a problem that you can pretend we don't know how to fix. Other parts of the world

are doing it. We're not. And we should be the leader in this. And that's what's really, really sad. I want to make a point, about registration. Couple things. Under the federal law, states have to allow you to register at the DMV. So if you go get a license, you go to renew your license. By federal law, you have to be given that opportunity. In January and February of this year, registration was way up over 2016. With COVID, it plummeted in March, in part because the DMVs are closed. In addition, under federal law, if you are a recipient of any sort of social services benefits, those offices also have to make available to recipients access to voter registration forms and have to help those people. Those places, of course, are closed. The third way that a lot of people get registered is through big voter registration drives. You have some big event

on a college campus, or there's some big Fourth of July rally or something like that. People go register lots of voters. That's not happening because of COVID. So I think what needs to happen is we need to start sharing this on social media, right? We saw how this made a difference. Teenagers allegedly kind of sort of duped the president with the Tulsa rally and buying, you know, reserving hundreds of thousands, if that kind of energy could be put into sharing the links to registration, again, it's on my website, it's in my book, and I'm going to be tweeting absentee ballot requests by state starting this or next week, state by state. That's the kind of we need to see massive, massive sort of viral sharing of voter registration opportunities through online because it's not happening physically anymore.

And the states, Chris, need to know who's coming to the party. They need to be able to plan. We can't do this in October. It has to be now. They need to order the ballots. They need to go to third-party vendors to get them printed on special paper. The envelopes have to be ordered. The barcodes have to be ordered. The more we can let the states know now that we plan to participate by mail in our democracy, the better they will be able to plan for it for November. And maybe more pressure also can be put on Congress to fund

the election in November, which at this point is vastly underfunded. Yeah, I always order mine like way ahead of time. And I love it because I can sit down, I can read the ballot, I can kind of research some of the candidates. In Las Vegas, I started, you know, I looked at the all mail review pretty much of the Congress and I went, all right, you know what, I'm sick of man being in Congress, and this doesn't look like America to me. And so at the 2018 election, I started pushing for let's fill the legislature with more women, with more people who look like America. I voted straight ticket all women, as long as we're in the GOP, I should mention. But, I mean, if you were a judge, there was like judges and they weren't like, you know, party based.

I just voted women because I'm like, I'm voting for empathy. I'm voting for people care about the future of the children and want to enact laws for education. I'm a guy. I know how guys are. You know, we're always starting wars and all that crap. So we did that. And some of the great things that have been coming out of the Las Vegas or the Nevada legislation have been amazing. It's the largest group of women in a legislative body in the U.S. And it's just been extraordinary to see. But people have got to vote. They've got to care. One last thing I want to ask you about really quick,

the Electoral College and how it works is in your book. I do hear a lot of people make the excuse, well, I live in California. It's going to vote blue, so it doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, but there's a lot of down ballot candidates on that ballot. It's not just President of the United States and, you know, members of Congress, but there's also state and local officials. And I think maybe it doesn't matter in this election, it could matter in another election. This is about developing habits, right? You want to become, you know, up your exercise. You want to change your diet. You want to, I mean, you want to meditate more.

I mean, all of the expertise around this is patterns, patterns, habits, habits. And I think we all as Americans need to get in the habit of voting. And I do actually want to say, do a plug. I like your idea of if you're not sure who to vote for. I mean, I have a giant sign. I have four daughters, and they found it actually in a dumpster, vote for women, it's outside of my house. And I think, I mean, I think we all need to vote for moderate candidates. We need to vote for people, you know, it's not red, not blue, people that are willing to compromise and are willing to reach across the aisle, negotiate,

make deals. That's how we're going to see change, regardless of where you're on the ideological spectrum. And, you know, women, our brains are a little bit different. We are kind of wired for empathy and compromise. So if you don't have the time to research the candidates, you can do it online. You can put in your zip code and it'll pull up a ballot for you. But there are ways that you can make an impact by just voting and voting in ways that in numbers, in large numbers, could change the look of our elected officials. Also, bring people of different races, socioeconomic backgrounds, economic backgrounds, ethnic backgrounds, to really represent what America looks like right now. It's not a monolithic country of white males. I mean, it just isn't.

It's not. It shouldn't be. I mean, I never looked at the pictures of all the congressmen, you know, in the photo they take. And I was like, that's way too many white dudes. I'm a white dude. That's way too many white dudes. And so I'm a big believer, uh, you know, and, and that's been like that for 200 years. So if you don't like what's going on, maybe you should change the form a little bit. I love what women do. They care about children. They care about the future. They care about education. I mean, that's one of the things that I feel has gotten us here is we've, you know, we dial back education spending as opposed to wars and stuff. And I hope people will study the rule of law. It's so important. And the fact that the fact that a president or certain people can be above the law dissolves the value of the rule of law and it creates anarchy.

There was actually a couple of times during the early days of the, um, the presidency of Trump, where I actually had the conversation in my head, like, why the fuck do I bother following the law anymore? Like this, it doesn't matter to him. So why should fuck do i bother following the law anymore like this it doesn't matter to him so why should it matter to me and i was like whoa okay we can't have that conversation there's that's that leads to some bad places but we don't want a society like that yeah we don't want a society where you have to grease palms to get anything done by the government you don't want a society where people are driving on sidewalks and running over people. And I mean, it really comes down to that level of basics. We assume, you know, you go into a McDonald's and people wait in line in America. It doesn't happen that way in other places.

It's chaos. It's every, you know, every person for himself or herself. And, you know, it sounds kind of wonky and esoteric, this rule of law concept. But again, that's why I wrote the book. You know, just pick up, even if you just read the intro, it explains kind of how a different frame of thinking about this. And I think if you think about it this way, Chris, we can see each other as advocates for each other and not be so polarized. Because that polarization, as Vladimir Putin understands, that is the biggest cancer on American democracy. Not, not Donald Trump, not, you know, Mitch McConnell or Joe Biden or whatever.

It is that internal division where we see each other as enemy. That, that itself is problematic. So ways that we can come together around the constitution itself I think are worth, worth really spreading and touting. Here you go. I bought, I bought like a really spreading and touting. Here you go. I bought like a bunch of these to give away for Christmas. So here's what you're voting for, people.

This is the most important part. And yeah, who is going to do it? And be sure to check out her books. Kim, is there any last things you want to tell us about your books and stuff? Yes. So again, what you need to know about voting and why it has a 50 state survey, how to register, how to vote a million links in there. I think it's for any age from eighth grade up to 80. Even people that are live in this space have learned from both of those books. The constitution book, as I think I mentioned to you before we started the show has been adopted

by at least one university for first year students. I think it's a terrific and important gift that you can give to people in your life that you care about so they understand how and engage in their own democracy. And you can find me at, I tweet at Kim Whaley, W-E-H-L-E, and my website is www.kimwhaley.com. I also do a lot of op-eds and stuff for Politico Atlantic, the publication called The Bulwark, The Hill. So if you don't want to look at the books, you could click on the website and just read some of my op-eds because these themes are in there a lot and just see if some of it makes sense to you. I also have clips, podcasts, you know, I do a lot of TV and you can just get a sense of whether the way this is explained makes sense. And if it is, I suggest,

you know, get the book or do the audio books. I did the first audio book, so you can listen to me for how many hours, if that's not too tedious. Well, there you go. I mean, it's got to be pretty awesome. And I encourage people to go out and get her books. What you need to know about voting and why and how to read the Constitution and why, you can get them on Amazon.

You know, Ben Franklin, there's the famous line. I'm probably going to butcher a little bit, but Ben Franklin, when he came out of writing the declaration of independence, I think it was a woman asked him, do we have a King or do we have a democracy? And he said,

you have a Republic for as long as you can keep it. And that's what people need to remember. And I encourage people that are parents to teach their children this too. Teach your children. They're not going to quite learn in school teaching the value of voting. If I had children, as soon as they turned 18 for their first vote, they would go. In fact, my nephews and nieces, when they turned 18, I was buggering them going, hey, your uncle wants to see you go vote.

I didn't push. I said, go vote for who you want. But, you know. Right. No, it's like getting your kid vaccinated or, you know, making sure they have breakfast in the morning and get a good night's sleep. It's, it's that important because our children under, if they're under 18, they can't vote. Right. So, so preserving a system of democracy,

a system of government with the consent of the governed so that they can enjoy that. That's our job. It's on us. So if you won't do it for yourself, do it for your kids and your grandchildren, because you don't want them waking up one day with the storm troopers at their back door and saying, gosh, I wish we had done something earlier. Now, right now, now is the time. This is the red light moment. This is the time to get to get to, this is the revolutionary time

and it's not about going to the streets i mean you could do that too but as you i love that that suggestion if you took the time to go protest take the time to register and vote and get one other person to do it with you we'll see numbers where politicians hopefully will wake up and pay attention to the needs of regular people again yeah it'll it'll be awesome. And you know, I mean, you see parents, they do so much for their kids' future, teach them to vote. And it's not that hard. Like if my kid came to me and said, dad, I either want to know about voting or the birds and the bees, I'd be like, well, we're talking about voting today. Yeah, they'll learn that better. Go talk to your mom about it. There you go. So there you go. Well, Kim, it's been wonderful to have you on the show. Thank you very much. Thanks to me on it the other one. Playing it or not. There you go. So there you go. Well, Kim, it's been wonderful to have you on the show.

Thank you very much. Thanks to my audience for tuning in. We certainly appreciate you guys. Be sure to go check out her books online. Is there a third book that you have coming, I should ask? You know, it is in the works. Oh, there you go. We're going to continue this series of legal literacy, so stay tuned.

Yes. I'm seeing the image on the Amazon thing there. Yes, it's coming. It's coming. So hopefully we can have this conversation next summer on book number three in quieter times. Let's hope. Let's do it. Thanks, Maddox, for tuning in.

Go to thecvpn.com. Subscribe to all nine podcasts. Refer the show to your friends, neighbors, relatives. Let them know. Just like Kim says, you know, get an additional person. So there you are. You can go to youtube.com for just chris boss hit that bell notification to subscribe to all different podcasts and

everything we do and all that good stuff and we'll see you folks next time