 to think take away our first episode of 2023. Time for responsible change. And we're, we have with us today, Louise Heng, one of our leading attorneys, women's rights lawyers and a leader in community service here as well. And David Larson, immediate past president of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution. Professor at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in St. Paul, Minnesota. And innovator for the New York court system on online dispute resolution to greatly expand access to justice for a lot of people, especially during the pandemic. Okay, welcome folks. And today's topic is, we'll take a shot at a review of 2022 and see if we can foresee a little bit of 2023. And David, you're going to start us off with a blast from the past on what people were projecting for a hundred years ago, 1923, is that right? Yeah, I looked at that. I found some material that NPR collected. I looked at some of what newspapers were predicting for a hundred years later. And some really interesting things for example, beauty contests will be unnecessary as there will be so many beautiful people that it will be almost impossible to select winners. And I look at that us, I think that's probably true. Average lifespan. We've all said two out of three ain't bad. Average lifespan will reach a hundred years. One scientist predicting 300 years. And note that the fact is that a lifespan in the United States actually decreased last year to 76.4, which is the shortest in two decades. So we are not going in the right direction. Charles Steinmetz, an electrical engineer and mathematician predicted that because of electricity, people will work only four hours a day. And I don't know any one who's working only four hours today. So those were just a few of the predictions that I thought were really interesting. So maybe he anticipated what's now being called quiet quitting. Maybe some people aren't sitting by with four hours a day. Yeah, no hours per day. Or none, yeah. So looking at 2022, we'll starting with you, Louise. What are your takeaways? What's worth holding on to or learning from? You know, to prepare for this, I had jokingly said, let's all read Dave Barry's year in review because just to have some levity. As well as a perspective. I only got through part one or two. I didn't get through both parts, but I guess thinking over the year, of course, there were highlights and low points. I guess to me, I continue to want to be hopeful. And I was glad to see that, for instance, the midterms did not result in the red, Republican blood bath that was predicted. That was good. We didn't start out with a very, we started out rather ignominiously with a little leadership fight in the house that perhaps that does not bode well for making progress in Congress. But maybe that means that we have to continue on the path of making sure that at least on the local and the state levels, we can get things done. I also thought the contrast was interesting. Last year, we were talking about things like quiet quitting and transformation of the workplace. We're starting out this year by talking about mass layoffs and certain sectors of the workplace, as well as in others, staff shortages. And I've also been hearing among leadership issues of just needing to work on succession planning and leadership development and people development. And to me, that all ties together. The focus still needs to be on building relationships, connections, leadership, and trying to make 2023 better. I also think the good thing was that there was more time, thanks to vaccines and public health and the like, there was more opportunity for people to connect and people were connecting. And I think we all came out with a better appreciation of making those personal connections. Great insights, David. Well, I've got an obvious takeaway that touches in this early New Year also, know where your classified documents are. That's a lesson we could take away from the past year or the current year. My God, what is going on? If we actually checked her out, I suspect that probably every administration took some documents with them either intentionally or just because they were packing it up, they put stuff in boxes and then we went back to early administrations, we probably would find other classified documents. I think probably a lot of it was not intentional. But it's surprising, I guess I'm surprised after everything that happened with former President Trump that suddenly we have these revelations that documents are showing up in Biden's office at Penn and it is garage. It's like, oh my God. So yeah, so one of the takeaways is, you'll protect your classified documents and know where they are. I mean, that's clearly something to take away. Another thing that I think is really interesting is that so we had Roe versus Wade overturned and we're getting this polarization on states that are banning abortions and others are trying to protect them. And in the states that are trying to protect them, they're doing different things. They're talking about constitutional amendments, but those are hard to do. So Minnesota and other states are passing legislation to protect abortion. And California, for instance, is expanding access to abortion by passing legislation that says that nurses assistants, PAs, midwives are gonna be able to do abortions without any supervision. So that's a change. New York has passed legislation that says that if you have any maternity coverage in your health insurance plan, it has to include abortion. So we're seeing the lines and the differences between our states being even more stark in terms of what's gonna be permitted and protected and what's gonna be prohibited. Another thing that's happening, I think it's gonna increase in 2023 is the legalization of recreational marijuana and expunging and eliminating prior convictions for convictions based upon possessions of small amounts. I think that's happening as we speak and it's gonna increase in 2023. Again, looking at the polarization around the country, in some states like Florida, you're gonna see more investigations in the school libraries, pulling books out, more censorship going on, probably in Texas and other places like that. For me, that's really disturbing that there are gonna be school-aged kids in different parts of the country that are not gonna have access to the same kinds of materials that other students do. That's, to me, that's very troubling. And another takeaway from last year is that oil and gas producers record profits doubled last year, approximately $4 trillion in profits. So if you're wondering who made out during the pandemic, oil and gas producers are the good place to start. They made tremendous amount of money. It's not just because of the pandemics because of Russia cutting off the supply and demand going up, being able to ask for higher amounts and get them, but that's a stunning amount of money to double your profits in a year. And now we're talking about, again, approximately $4 trillion. And particularly for entities that are provided many mechanisms for avoiding having to contribute proportionate tax revenues to those profits. So what do you see ahead for 2023 that either gives you hope or cause for concern or elements of both, please? Well, I'm thinking of the fact that, in what ways we're taking, we have taken two steps forward in the past. There's gonna be challenges in the future. And specifically, for instance, on ESG issues, diversity, inclusion, equity issues, things that some of us feel are important, mom and apple pie issues of corporate responsibility as well as multiculturalism and diversity. And as David said, what we're seeing are pushbacks against that. There's word in Congress about legislators who wanna push back against company or investors who are advocating for companies to follow climate sensitive corporate responsibility type of principles. And we can see perhaps with the growing, the great profits of the oil producers, that's probably one area where there is gonna be a push from lobbyists for that kind of thing. And we're seeing that in the, as David mentioned, the pushback against boards of educations and libraries to limit the ability, to limit the access to a variety of reading materials. Those things are troubling to me and just underscore the need to be vigilant and to continue to make the case and educate about the need for social, corporate responsibility and accepting many points of view being advocating for diversity and a multicultural approach. Yeah, one thing that's, I guess, troubling. You could say this is what's supposed to happen with federalism. We're supposed to have states moving in different directions, trying different things, see what works, that's the benefit of federalism. Okay, kind of having this deregulation at the federal level let the states do what they wanna do. So on the one hand, the pickup on something that Louise was talking about is that Rhode Island just passed a pay equity law that bans employers required wage history and require an equal pay for comparable work. That's an improvement. And the whole idea of requiring wage histories, that's a way really to cement kind of past discrimination because if you're gonna pay somebody based on their prior wage history, we know that the market has been sex discriminatory and those discriminations will get locked in for the future. So prohibiting people from asking for that, I think is really a good thing. But those kinds of movements are happening inconsistently across the country and we're moving in different directions. So kind of going back to where I started the idea, well, let states try what they wanna try and see what works and let's embrace this idea of federalism. When it comes to human rights and equity, that theory is a troubling. That's one area where I don't like the idea that we move in different directions and that there's maybe some states trying to eradicate and eliminate and minimize past discrimination and others are doing a lot less. So I guess that's, I'm encouraged that some states are taking proactive measures but the scourge is that not everybody is. Looking ahead, one thing that people will be talking about this year, I'm sure, sports betting. There's about 30 states that are permitting it. You know, who's gonna be able to do it? Do you want them doing it at the college level? And we're really concerned now about there's so many college games going on and now there's corruption and people throwing games. But that's, we're moving in that direction. The majority of states are now permitting it. So that's gonna be an ongoing topic. You know, it's something that I think to celebrate and we'll have to see how it plays out is we did get a climate bill, you know, that if everything works as planned, we're gonna significantly reduce our carbon emissions. We don't know how it's all gonna work, but it's promising. And the fact that we could finally get something done I think it's very encouraging. And it does a couple of things. One, it does have a positive effect for the world, but also it increases our position in terms of an influencer in the world. If we can say we were able to get this done and here's what we're doing, maybe it can encourage other countries to do the same thing or maybe even more. And those are really great insights. And there are some common underlying themes from the 2022 takeaways and the 2023 hopes and concerns that focus on which rights and whose rights are going to be protected and safeguarded and which rights and whose rights are going to be eroded and suppressed or restricted. And we see that in the areas you've mentioned in educational freedoms and they're all balancing tests, educational freedoms versus first amendments and parental control, gun controls versus public safety, including especially in schools for our children, healthcare protections generally. In your experience, which are the areas where you see the greatest cause for concern facing us now and in the short-term future, Louise? Well, I'm concerned about the impact of the geopolitical situation, the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine for which there doesn't seem to be any end in sight and the impact of that on energy, the cost of energy, what businesses decide to do. I think one of the reports I heard recently was that one of the reasons that financial services industries, for instance, are looking at retraction and perhaps as well as tech is that there's less appetite for going public these days as people kind of hoard their or conserve their capital and perhaps don't take big business steps. To change their, you know, people are wanting to be careful. And what that means is that perhaps, you know, the hiring binges that went on in order to prepare for this kind of transactions are going to be retracting this coming year. You know, I've heard that, as I mentioned for Goldman Sachs, I'm starting to hear that for with some law firms where, you know, they're starting to contract their mergers and acquisitions departments. So I think the economy and recession are big issues that we're going to be facing and having to deal with in 2023. Yeah, I got, you know, I haven't watched the circus with the election of the speaker and the House of Representatives. So I am definitely concerned about the ability of the House to govern. You've got an unopposed candidate that all you have to do is approve that candidate. They can't do it, it takes a week. And finally, the only way they can do it is making concessions to a very extreme small minority in ways that take a lot of power away from the position. And it's going to put people that are very extreme positions in leadership positions on committees. So yeah, I'm concerned about what's going to happen in the House and whether it's going to be able to govern it all. The Republican platform was, you know, we're going to look at inflation. You know, we're going to look at corruption. And we're going to work for the American people and so far all they're doing is kind of protecting themselves. You look at, when I think about what's coming up in 2023, it might be the year of the big lie. The stupendous lie, the incredible lie, the unbelievable lie, because you look at who just got elected in New York and the endacity is beyond belief. It's like everything this guy said, Santos said about his life is apparently untrue and exaggerated and he made all these crazy claims about different successes. And I don't hope that's not becoming a modus operandi that now that's the way we're going to operate is just tell the craziest biggest lies we can to see if we can get away with them. But one thing I'm hoping is that he doesn't get away from them with them, that there's going to be sanctions, that he's going to be removed from Congress. He defrauded the electors of New York. I think if they had known the truth that he wasn't who he said he was, he probably would not have been elected. He doesn't belong there. And I hope that that is removed. Well, then the question is what happens because in some states, if a member of one party is displaced, someone like the governor may be able to replace them with another member of that same party, but that may not be the way things work in New York, particularly if it's fraudulently procured election results that may under their laws require a new special election and that could throw things into even more doubt. Yeah, I mean that margin is so thin, but I tell you, when I think about Marjorie Taylor-Green, you know, in the rules committee or wherever she ends up, it's like, you know, and Matt Gates taking leadership positions, this is very disturbing going into 2023. You know, the other thing that's disturbing and we talked about a little bit is, you know, we now have far more guns than people in the United States. I don't know what's happening where you're at, but you know, we have record gun violence in Minnesota. I think that's true in a lot of states. I think that's gonna be a continuing issue this year as more and more people are affected by gun violence and I just become unable to ignore it any longer that people who've been on the sidelines, I think, and hope that increasingly they'll step forward to say that something has to be done. It's just too much tragedy, too much loss that we've got to intervene. Yeah, to me, the, you know, the intractable national issues that I would, you know, would be nice if we can start addressing this year our gun violence and gun control immigration. You know, nobody's wanted to touch that. We finally have the president going down to El Paso, but there's talk about how, you know, maybe he didn't see the worst parts of El Paso in terms of homelessness and displaced people and the like. And, you know, are we gonna make progress there? You know, we need to. And on the other hand, we have indications in the house that they're gonna spend their time not on legislation and moving things forward, but on, you know, political theater. More investigations, retaliatory investigations, and now, you know, making a big deal about the classified documents issue on both sides, although, you know, even some of the media has tried to distinguish the situations of voluntarily disclosing as opposed to making the government go after you. So I am concerned about our ability to make progress when you're faced with so many intractable issues. And then sort of switching, talking about the big lie. Then we have Brazil and certain factions there trying to redo or, you know, do a remake of January 6th. Will that be a lesson to nations to, you know, I guess correct or just do something to dispel these lies? Or will it just encourage people to do more crazy things? You know, I do hope it points out to people that we need to get back more on to a track where things are truth-based and evidence-based. We'll see. That was heartbreaking. I saw some video on split screens. You saw it was happening at the capital, our capital on January 6th. Oh, God. And it's like, it is too similar. It's like, we have provided the template in the example of how you react if you don't like an election. This is what you do. And that was very disturbing. And to kind of walk that back, I think it's gonna be hard. So yeah, this whole idea of election denying and the appropriate response is something we need to be worried about. Well, and that's a great insight because that both of you have had because we need to understand that the whole election denial framework that's so essential to the entire right-wing Republican approach, it really takes two manifestations. One of them is the violent uprisings, the attempt to literally shut down the peaceful operation and transition of our systems of government and institutions. But the other is the legislative approach to dismantle voting rights, to engage in serious gerrymandering as numerous political commentators have pointed out, Republicans would not have that slim majority in the house were it not for the gerrymandering and voter suppression and restriction that they were able to get through in a number of states where that did make the difference for them. So serious concerns. And perhaps that, in a bad way underscores the need to plan for the long game, right? This gerrymandering has been an issue for years and now it sees its manifestation and some of the election results that we're not too happy about. I think that goes back to about making sure that we are, people are getting educated about our democracy and legal principles and civics and that we also get judges who are going to rule and go by the rule of law when they see machinations like this go on with voting rights. One thing, I've heard commentators, Democrats saying that that whole situation trying to like the speaker was great. It was great theater, it just shows how incapable the Republicans are from governing and the next two years will be wonderful because they will be so inept that we will reclaim the house in the next election cycle. So all of this is okay and I'm not sure it's all okay because we have two years coming up where a lot of things are going to happen in those two years. So I'm not gonna celebrate failures in the house because that means that we're not governing and there's gonna be horrible repercussions and implications for the country and that worries me and the fact that it may make for a stronger election cycle for the Democrats in the next round isn't enough. It's comfort for me and I'm worried about the next two years. And your perspectives have really highlighted the truly essential need for Americans to stand up, speak up, speak out and protect truth in education and truth in elections. Those may be two of the key areas. How we can do that. Any last thoughts, Louise? Well, I think it goes back to, well, what fair reporting. We have to have a media that speaks, goes on evidence-based reporting as opposed to political oriented stuff we're getting from Fox, for instance, education. Reporting on things like, okay, what is the aftermath of the Brazil incident gonna be? Hopefully it is prosecuting those and having consequences for those who acted out improperly as is happening in the US. And we need to sort of reverse four years of legitimizing lies and untruths that led to situations like the big lie and George Santos being able to be elected. So as much as I was unhappy with how the media kept harping about the midterms and the bad things that was gonna happen, it does underscore the need for a free and fair and evidence-based press that helps tell the truth. David, last thoughts? Yeah, I think that all of us need to make a concentrated effort to try and point out inconsistencies and truths and to do it without raising our voices, without using derogatory terms, to just try and make fact-based arguments that the reason why we're moving in a bad direction is because these are the facts, not the facts that have been explained to you or presented to you as facts, but these are the things that we can verify. And it's up to us in a democratic country to pay attention to facts and take responsibility for our votes and understand. Now, when you elect people like Brobeck in Colorado, this is what you're gonna get. Sometimes I've got Republican friends who, when I say to them that you have to take some responsibility for what these legislators do, they say, oh, no, it's not my responsibility. I didn't do it, I have no connection to that. And I think we have to make a concerted effort to explain to people you do have responsibility. You're electing people as your agents, and when they do something that even you disagree with, there's gotta be some accountability. And when the next election cycle comes along, you need to keep that in mind and you need to change direction. So vote, vote is important, remains important. Absolutely, and that's a good place to wrap us up for today. That responsibility at the individual group and community level may have to take a much more dominant role over the failures of leadership at the upper levels. That's the hope for 2023 and beyond. Thank you all for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii. Time for responsible change. Lee Zing, David Larson, thanks so much for joining us and sharing your insights and perspectives. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.