 Thank you all so much for being here at 9.30 in the morning on a day in L.A. where your son is not shy anymore. This is bizarre weather for us, so I'm so sorry for folks from out of town who have to handle this. And one thing is, we woke up to all sorts of news from both of the coasts as a proud California. I would be remiss to start off this panel on democracy without honoring our now-awaited senator, Diana Weinstein. We serve as a trailblazer of the Senate, even if we didn't agree with all the things that she did, which at times I did not. But we can all most certainly honor and respect the incredible work that she did as a leader at this time. We have an incredible panel for you today. This is empowering democracy, the intersection of race, rights, and right of choice voting. A conversation I cannot wait to have and to hear so many of these incredible insights from these wonderful folks who are doing this work from around the country. My name is Sarah Savani. I'm a political science professor and I have the great opportunity of serving on the California citizens' commission here in Bowman State. Thank you. But we have an incredible conversation because right of choice voting is something that's taking store across the country, although I will share that here in Los Angeles where we are on the precipice of reform. It's not really something that's on the table. And I wish that because there's a lot of concerns from many reformers about what the implications would be or would be of some color and for voting rights. And so I cannot wait to have this conversation and really learn more from all of these incredible experts that we have. So I'm going to jump right in after sampling numbers of black voters who matter. And you guys are going to need to take a look at them in a month's time. This is an incredible panel, so please take a look at everyone's bios. But let's tell us first, is there a relationship between the fight for voting rights and election reforms like right of choice voting and fear of districting and proportional representation? And if so, how would you describe that relationship? What does that look like on the front page? It's a great question. Before I start, I just think y'all need something real clear for us to do. Like I said, you know, it's not hot on the last day. So y'all help me out. When I say black voters, you say that. Black voters! Black voters! Black voters! Black voters! Where are y'all just living? Good morning! Good morning! Good morning! I'm sure you got your representation. Because those three words represent and symbolize our principle. That hopefully everybody just agrees with us. And by the sound of it, by the volume y'all, and I think y'all do agree with me. Yes there's a connection between this world of voting rights and civil rights and the world of good governance. The challenge, and we know this for a couple reasons. Right? We know this because some of the traditional things that we think right until we know are under attack. We know that we were up until a few weeks ago, we were literally this close to there being nothing left of the Voting Rights Act as many of us thought that the Alabama, the Milligan decision was going to go in one direction. Further weakening of the Voting Rights Act, which had already been gutted in 2013, but then attacking, possibly attacking and getting into section two, it did not happen though. But we're still this close. And so what we know is that many of the tools that we think about when we think about civil rights and voting rights, they are important, but they're not necessarily enough. We've got to have some other reforms. We've got to have some structural reforms, right? But those structural reforms, whether it's great choice voting or proportional representation, which I support, any of the other structural, good governance, good democracy, whatever you want to call it, that's not a replacement for civil rights. That's not a replacement for that outranked question that we see on a regular basis in black communities all across this country. In part of the challenges that those two worlds that we started off asking about, that do intersect, unfortunately, in the way that the word carries out, they don't. And there are some good reasons for that, right? There are folks within the civil rights voting rights community, which quite honestly are a little distrustful of some of the good democracy, good governance discussions. Because sometimes those discussions, if we're going to be honest, are carried out in a way that is just as race neutral and color-blind as the Supreme Court, when they just have to perform the facts. And so we can't engage in that. We can't not have a discussion that would touch the deals with race just to enable structural reform. And we've got to be honest about that. In fact, sometimes, not only is it just color-blind some of the discussions, sometimes they are actually antagonistic to the interests of black communities. Can actually decrease power in black communities, if not addressed on a perspective that takes race and race equity into account. And so we've got to be honest about that. And the same thing applies to the right choice voting discussion. I'm going to be honest, I like race choice voting. I think that it's got a lot of potential for decreasing polarization and for opening up choices. There are a lot of good aspects. But my interest in race choice voting came about mainly because a lot of interest in Sister Lonnie, Professor Lonnie Gwinear's work are proportional representation. Right? Because we give up on the Lonnie Gwinear issue as the power. That was my entry point here in this point. And if she had had a chance to have a national dialogue that could have taken place in 1990 to 1993, when she was nominated for the Department of Justice, if she could have had a hearing where we could have had a full national discussion on proportional representation, we might be in a better place 30 years later today on both proportional representation and race choice voting and a whole bunch of other things. But that wasn't allowed to happen. So that was my entry point to proportional representation and to race choice voting as a path or as a part of getting to proportional representation. But as I've learned more about RCB over the years and the way it's been implemented, the ways that it was implemented in Cincinnati. And Sarah said, we've got some material that we put into the group app that includes some background on race choice voting and some of the history. And some of that history includes in Cincinnati where race choice voting was used to actually increase black representation in the city of Cincinnati. Right? And it was so successful for two, three decades that eventually the white community, the white power structure there said, you know what? We might need to get rid of this structural reform in order to decrease black representation. And that's exactly what happened. Right? And so I started to learn more about the ways that race choice voting has been used and the ways that it actually has increased black power and black representation. Started to learn about places like Memphis, right? A southern city where people voted for a race choice voting only to see the Tennessee state legislature, right? Staying in Tennessee state legislator that voted to expel two other members, right? Recently, staying in Tennessee state legislator has been engaged in all kinds of shenanigans. That's staying in Tennessee state legislator voted to pre-empt Memphis and the ability of other settings to use race choice voting as a mechanism. And so in my mind, anytime the Republican from Tennessee tried to keep something away from us. That's something I'm gonna look at, right? That's something I'm gonna find out some more about. And it's not just that, you know, Sarasota's the same thing in Florida, preempted their ability to use race choice voting. And so when we looked at the ways that's been used, even when we looked at the New York collection, I don't know whether you've already know this, historic New York City election, most of our first council ever, first time ever majority of women. So when we looked at the waitress, right? That's right, that's right, right? And so when we look at the ways that's been used, yes, there's a lot of potential in this discussion. And so when people say we hate to live, we really stand, we're just like, why don't we stay in our race choice voting, or are you all in? One of the things I always say is I am all in to the fact that we have got to have this discussion. We can no longer not have this discussion in our communities. We've got to broaden, and that's what's been happening over over the past couple of decades, it's been widening, it's been gaining, it's set to stay and use more and more places, but it's not really penetrating itself, right? And it's not really penetrating, most of the communities where black folks live, we are committed to playing a part in expanding that discussion, to pulling young people in discussion. We've got a program that we're working on for our friends at Fairport, to expose college students, particularly at HBCUs, to race choice voting. And so we're committed to expand that conversation and pursue a structural reform, while we are equally committed to making more committed to that. As we do so, we can, whatever space we go to, what I'm including this room, are going to be delivered about insisting that race has got to be an intentional part of that discussion. Any discussion of race choice voting that does not deal with the potential impact on the power of black communities is not a discussion that we want to be in. So Nisha, should the voting rights, should they be supporting these kinds of structural reforms? And what are some of the key concerns that communities of color are facing particularly in liberal states like Massachusetts, and in some of the work that we've done to advance opportunities for righteous voting? So I have a couple of things that I want to take a step back. I think for those of us who believe in this country, the great promise that a multiracial democracy presents for all of us in pursuit for freedom, justice, and equality. I believe that in order that we deserve, we have to acknowledge that we are evolving. And so too must the structure the idea that we want to see that started hundreds of years ago that did not include if I look around this room any consideration for the majority of us in this room. The idea that we would continue to support and advance that structure does a tremendous disturbance to our democracy and the one we are trying to achieve. And so, yes, it is critically important that as Cliff shared as we're thinking about the evolution of our democracy and the structures that support that democracy to help us achieve the truly multiracial inclusive democracy that we are intentional about all people that includes people of color, generally speaking, that includes black folks, specifically that includes women, specifically that includes all. I say I answer the question that way because not to be short-shripped to the importance of intentionality relative to race and ethnicity in the conversation but it is to say, there is no conversation about a strong democracy that does not have integrated into that conversation in debate, black folks, Hispanic folks, Black folks and women. You can't have that conversation. We cannot achieve the objective without being inclusive. So I don't want it to be an appendage to the movement. You follow what I mean? Part of what we are all striving to achieve. And so, yes, I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I am proud. So many ways in which we have been on the front lines of advancing our democracy. But at the same time, I realize that in the Commonwealth we still have a lot of work to do. And we are not always as much of a, we are not always the beacon. We aspire to be. And it's one of the reasons why it has been important to me in the work that I do in the civil rights community and the voting rights community to ensure that we are building coalitions with non-traditional allies to ensure that we are actively and openly looking at structural reforms that are coming from, again, non-traditional allies, brain choice voting is not widely accepted within the black community. And one of the reasons we, just like many of several other structural reforms, the right choice voting in particular, and at the root of that, my friends, is trust in the black community. When we talk about the power of voting, there's no community in this country that understands the power of voting like the black community. We believe that if we achieve the right to vote, that we would vote and that we would be able to then have self-determination over our lives and over our communities. Generation after generation, what we've seen is that the system is not trusted by the people. And if the people don't trust the system, the people are not going to participate in the system. And so this idea, this movement that we have that I believe is critically important, again, the evolution of democracy and the evolution of the structures, this movement that we have that is calling us to do different requires attitude of face level of trust. If we've got a whole community that's struggling with trust in the system, you told us to do it this way. And we play by the rules. And what we're seeing time and time again is that you like to change the rules. When we start playing and we start winning, more representation of people of color, more representation of black folks, more representation of women, more representation of the LGBTQ community, y'all want to change it up. And so we've got to deal with trust because what's happening is and a healthy level of skepticism, but a level of skepticism that is not allowing us at the same time to move at the pace at which we need to move in order for this again, this democracy to work for all of us. And so I want to encourage, I want to thank those of us in the room who are already in the movement. I had the opportunity to co-chair our statewide ballot initiative in 2020 that just missed the mark a little bit. I'm going to let the co-chair arrange you a spot. And I know we're going to get that done maybe then. We're going to get that done. To ensure that as we continue to build this movement to expand this movement, that it is truly an integrated movement and a way in which we're building. We're not thinking about racial justice as an add-on. We're not thinking about gender justice as an add-on. It is the movement. Okay. So I want to challenge you with that. I want to also challenge us that in order to do that, our rooms, our spaces where the strategy is set need to be more diverse. Okay. They need to be more diverse. Because one of my good friends at the city council was that nothing for us without us is about us. Okay. So really challenging a more integrated, inclusive movement because in that, I currently believe we will be able to achieve more and achieve more at a faster pace. And that's what our democracy needs more. It's about teaching the ballots, teaching electoral systems. We've had a lot of great changes in California. We have a very inclusive voting process. Folks can vote for about a month in advance. Ballots are sent to people's homes in multiple languages and still in 2022, Latino turnout was only around 20% in the city of Los Angeles. So despite all of these efforts to make things more accessible, we continue to see low voter engagement. And then when we think about adding on additional changes, something like rank choice voting or changing our electoral systems, how's that going to work when we're trying to translate it into 12 different languages already? Will people understand or will it turn on to folks? And so I take those comments very much apart. And I want to turn now to council member from New York City of Manipariate about your experience as a candidate having to run under an RCD system. What were some of those benefits? What were some of those drawbacks? And what were the voters that you were really trying to do outreach to? Thank you so much for that question, Heather. I have to write notes down because I think there's a lot that we saw. So please give me some phrases to write this. But running as an RCD candidate, I think very exciting because it was a new electoral system that we were implementing. It was a way to see in our communities at least how many of us see it as is a way to be more collaborative, a way to get your message out there a bit more. But I think and I appreciate Esha and Cliff's comments around the trust. And what I always talk about is the empathy that people have with government and with electoral systems that really were not created and built for any of us to participate in actively and get your representation. And so there were definite challenges that we saw in New York City's electoral cycle. We have a public matching. So I think one of the first things was money to run these elections and to use that for the education and outreach. I was in a cycle that it was immediately implemented post-COVID or in the midst of COVID where we saw very little and limited outreach. People were still kind of nervous to come back outside and to stand in long lines. And we really were not sure how we were going to anticipate further turnout on that we historically already have well, we'll have turnout in our elections. So definitely from a candidate perspective, looking at RCD as a way that we're supposed to be is money to elect ourselves but also to collaborate with other members on the ballot. And to really figure out how do we make sure that we're not only partnering with the people that have the equal amount of money that represent our values and are similar to me, right? We have hours of money to help those candidates get their name out there, right? And then I think that's one of the important parts finding the candidates to collaborate with and ensure that we weren't or I wasn't going against my own messaging or my own values and could see the person if I was giving crowd of that winning that election, right? And what I found is with some of those challenges was not everybody had the same fundraising ability as I had, which meant that their message was only going to their small base. I had to find ways to use my fundraising ability to do mailers or lit pieces with both of us on it to help get a message out with, which I think for candidates feels a little bit counterproductive. It's like you're kind of messaging against yourself in a way, but I think with that as well, it helps align who you're working with and collaborating with. It helps shows beyond talking points and taglines to voters that there's trust on to candidates that have similar values. And that helps spaces grow. And I think, you know, come over to the other side. And the great benefits that I saw, I think immediately was just more engaged with people who were more curious. They were very curious about candidates working with one another. And then I was very proactive in my race. I allocated about $45,000 to the candidates that I collaborated with. And again, we have a process in the city. So some of that money is worth it when you're collaborating because I wanted to make sure that people saw when we're doing events together, we were doing food distributions together. And I'm a lot of our labor unions and our past, I don't know how to that re-evaluate their endorsement process to say. Two people, three people, five people. How do we deal with the lack of investments from the local government in outreach and education, help people understand that this isn't just a one-to-five checklist. This is like, you need to do the research, you need to understand why you're giving people your first, your number one present. See a victory, are you okay with the number two? Are you proud of that number two? It's a lot more effort than so. That process in and of itself for the first time has been difficult for all of our acts and labor members. And then I think what I saw as someone that would be deemed, and I think this is a larger challenge that candidates now or maybe in these upcoming cycles will see more of, even though my seat was an open seat, I had run for it prior without branches moving and had come in as to run her up. And so I was the perceived front runner. He actually kind of encouraged a block of candidates against me to strategize like that I was the person with the most money and the most support and like the person that is, no one's ever used the one to sell out, but basically like selling out and like the next to be. And that wasn't something I anticipated as someone that challenged the boys club and ran against the power structures, the election cycle before that, coming into this race with public matching and the new electoral system, folks were willing to kind of use that algorithm in a way to set themselves up to kind of dishonestly win in an election. I think ultimately, if you have the strategy and you have enough money to be collaborative, we were able to help promote people that their base is really to leave a lead in and I built that trust in those people because I kept showing up for them as well, that they naturally just transferred over to me in terms of ranking each election cycle. And then I think one of the challenges with voters was helping folks really understand the power behind ranking and what that meant of just not selecting one person to have a lot of people that continuously got the message that you have to pick five, you could just pick one, but that there is actual voter power behind choosing more than one person. It was a lot of folks that were just kind of the apathetic or the usual voter, the consistent voter that was like, I don't want to deal with having to know all of this, but at the same time I would say that you're tired of your mailboxes getting filled up with voter literature. So you have all the options to be able to choose more than one person. So I think that was a challenge of encouraging people in this first cycle, like yes, this is our permanent system from this point on, and yes, we will have plenty more opportunities to use range from me. But that doesn't mean you give up on this one because you don't want to learn a new system right away. So definitely encouraging people to select more than one person. And then I think voters generally just had a hard time fighting against the apathy. And I think that was because it was a post-COVID election. They were seeing it active and like engaged debates in our local government of should we delay it? Should we not? Is there gonna be money in the budget to actually do the outreach and education? Is it worth it if voter turnout is gonna be low? And that kind of, I think, cycled people's encouragement to come out. But it was really, all this is really put on individual candidates that have CDOs like Frank DeVauve who are out there trying to make sure like we wanted people to come out, wanted people to understand the system. It was not as difficult as it might have been seeing it seemingly and selecting or being able to have family balance. But I really do think that it was like the best opportunity for folks to see that there is power behind getting representation as Cliff mentioned. I'm a part of the first female majority of New York City House's history. We have a women's caucus that both kind of feel redundant at this point. We are the majority. We are the majority, women are the majority. We're no longer fighting for priorities because all of our priorities are women's people. And I think this reelection cycle is what I'm trying to encourage voters to understand. We have so much opportunity now and people in the major chair positions and committee caucuses because people came out, because people ranked, because we had a system that didn't cost our local government more money with run-offs. My election, the numbers were so close that I wouldn't have had to have a run-off election. But because of our CV, we were able to widen that quick gap. And that was super helpful. It would have been more costly. The voter turnout would have been lower. Initially on our actual primary day, had to have a run-off and I think those benefits is what we need to relate back to voters because the tax dollars really haven't worked. They're electoral system working for them for the most part. But we have to be more inclusive for sure. We have to think about who's not on the table. Language access is always something that we're battling. Yeah, language access is definitely an issue that we have. I feel, across the board, we have to work out. And it's not just the main ones of what I'm just gonna be representing. We've got to go in community and be able to find the local dialects to make sure we're engaging as many people as possible. Yeah, overall, I think where I get most folks are looking forward to being re-engaged on our CV in years. This is fantastic. Yes, particularly in the great communities. And what we see for 20 years in polling data is Asian-Americans and Latinos saying, no one bothered to knock on my door. But when bothered to call me and tell me there's an election happening, I don't know how to participate. I have three jobs that I'm working. And I think it's so exciting to hear the candidate perspective, because too often it falls upon the candidates then to do so much of this mobilizing work. And hearing just the great challenge that went into doing that education, ensuring that there's the campaign knowledge to do that outreach, and ensuring that these other good governance practices are already in place so that that can happen. We can have this kind of collaboration. So that's really powerful stuff. In addition to the candidates, however, there's also a whole lot that I do in the work on the ground. And I want to turn now to Mike Griffin, who is a good morning, who is doing so much work in the state of Minnesota. And I want to hear a little bit more about the impact of our CVS, particularly on voters of color in the joint cities. Good morning. I am Mike Griffin. I have been a proud advocate of rape toys voting since about 2012. I first arrived in Minneapolis in the early 2000s. And our city council was majority white males. We have one black male that represented North Minneapolis with a black people in, but the majority of our city council were old rich white men. And rape toys voting has fundamentally changed the composure of our city council. First, let's take a look. First one elected. We got the trans women presidents of our city council. First in the nation. First trans man elected. First a model elected in the nation and that go on, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Rape toys voting gives more choice and more power to people who look like me in years one. In Minneapolis, when I first got there, when the city council was old rich white, was because we had a two step process. People who showed up in the August primary, y'all were familiar with the primary process. Two step process. People who show up in the primary process typically are old rich white people. Let's be honest. And in my official job, I worked at Community Change and I everyday work to determine what doors we're not going and the strategy to get people elected in primaries and in general leadership. There are people who make money to determine what doors we're not going to. And in the primary, those people who vote are only people who are targeted who are old rich white people. Both people in the August primary. And then people who look like me show up in November and then we select from a deluded two person, two people who've been selected by old rich white people in August. That calls for our city council to be old rich white people by themselves. And now we have a city council that is actually working for the people. When I first started in 2007, I was an organizer for Barack Obama in the South Side of Jamaica. Hillary Clinton was a senator, running for president, y'all follow me? John Edward was also running. I was a young 20 year old organizer for Barack Obama. I went out and I learned not to the door. If people told me they were voting for Hillary Clinton, what did I do? Speak back at me. And so I knocked on the door, 20 year old. Hey, I'm Mike Griffin, I'm an organizer for Barack Obama. Tell me, they support Hillary Clinton, what did I do? That was the end of that conversation. The end of that conversation. In a right choice voting election, you need to ask what issues they care about to potentially move that order to be a second choice vote. Right choice voting fundamentally changes not only how you vote, but the conversation we have at the door. It changes how you campaign fundamentally. It changes how they govern. Because you have campaign to win 51%, and not just win an election with a 30% or getting a high score, you have to win a majority. So you actually, with the decree of the people, in Minneapolis, we passed $50,000 out in our wage. Earned 50,000 times. We have the majority of Minneapolis that vote for ring control. We have our entire state council that has supported our consent decree with the federal government to fix our police department that killed George Floyd, gotta get a brother call. And that's all because it fundamentally changes elections and how we govern in this country. We believe what the council member from New York, Amanda said that ring choice voting fundamentally gives more power to voters. And clearly, you're not going to steal my child a chance. But I've been known to say, ring choice voting gives more choice than how more power. I say more choice, you say more power. More choice! More power! More choice! More power! More choice! More power! Ring choice voting fundamentally gives more choice and more power to people of color, with that help. You know, we're changing some minds today, so this is pretty exciting stuff. I mean, I could talk to you all for all day long, but we only have a little bit of time left. And so I wanted to open it up to the floor and see if there are questions from our audience today. I think that there is enough honesty about my need to reform. I've heard a lot about the old politics that becomes so divisive over the past few years. Sorry, politics that becomes so divisive over the past few years that are hard, but how do we bridge that into our conversations as we're building and making bigger coalitions and actually address a minimum of issues within democracy, which is a lot to do with racism. Yeah, so I can hear, this is a great question, and if I can paraphrase, I think what you're saying is, you know, often we hear about electoral downward as this antidote to polarization. But what is polarization? We have a democratic party that is a big tent with a whole lot of people of color in it. So underlying this is actually racism. Do you want to take a stab at that question? How do we bridge this? How do we, how do we bring racism back to the center of this conversation? Do we need to, in order to advance these kinds of political life? So it's a great question. You know, and it actually reminds me of an incident that happens this week. I'm not going to go into all the details. Long story short, was my co-founder, Tasha, made a deal in a discussion about political violence. And you know, basically the person was saying that, oh, at least in the country doesn't support political violence. And she was saying, well, that's not true. Because there's a lot of people that support racial violence. It's just when it spills over, when that same Confederate flag spills into the Capitol and becomes a political violence, now it's like, ooh, look what, I'm shocked, shocked and fine. That there are people that become violent about elections and like, welcome to life, welcome to my life, right? And so we've got to have, to your point, we've got to have honest conversations about that. And I think the only way for me to answer that is to say that those conversations just have to happen. People have to be courageous enough to enter that element into discussion so that when somebody is up, just as you said, when somebody's talking about that polarization, to point out, well, you know, a lot of that polarization started with racial polarization, right? It continues to this day as racial polarization, you know, just as some of the issues that we see in the economy. With the tip wage, right? Like, with power fair, many of those, I mean, it's the SSE 16, 19 project, much of that started with race with anti-blackness and then it spills over and then you turn around and all of us are without healthcare or all of us are with stagnant wages or all of us are with political violence or polarized elections. So I think, you know, I think you raised the point. What you did is you raise it in whatever discussion that you're in. This is about power, who doesn't have it, who gets to determine, who controls it. And so yes, racism is a factor. Sexism is a yes, okay. Sexism is a factor, all of the isms play a role because historically, the way the system has been structured and operated, it has been for the benefit of those who actually held the pen writing the founding documents. The person, the people who control the pen control the power. So I do believe it is important for us to acknowledge and have an understanding of kind of what the drivers are at the base level, right? So that we can be intentional about dismantling racism, sexism, all of the isms as we're working to move forward. I also think it is important for us to keep in mind that this is about power because, and I'm gonna say it because I think it's important for us to hold on to it. This is not just about representation. Yes, as a black woman, I want to see the women who look like me holding that pen, sitting in seats of power and influence, but I don't want to see me reflected back for the sake of seeing me reflected back. I need something of a difference, which is why I do want to go back to my point about because I think ultimately what we all, what I have and I statement, ultimately what I want to see is a democracy that is representative of all of us and representative of all of our values and is actively advancing our collective values. And so in an RCB system, what we have is the opportunity to fill partnerships and coalitions with people who we might not otherwise know partnerships and coalitions with regardless of what they look like. I was gonna do when you get there, okay? So yes, on racism, we cannot forget in the conversation sexism because women of color, women of color have had some of the hardest times breaking into these power structures. So it is the twin, racism and sexism to be mindful of. People who have experienced racism, black people, in Minneapolis, there's some of those black people who are against the system. And here's why, here's why it's about power. They benefit from the system. They like the two process where they can pick the voters that are showing up in August primary. They like that system. Some unions like that system, right? Because they have gained the system so pick the people that we all show up in order in November to vote more. So that's why I think it's a past racism system. I think it's past racism. I think it gets to the core of power in this country and taking it back to us and be able to bring back home. So thank you for that question. You do in this scenario, racist hate speech that we heard from the recording from our council members last year in part was in the context of black versus Latino versus Latino versus black redistributing process which of course happens with single seat where it takes all districts. The city council right now is conducting a process to look at a large even council has been in large since 1925. We have the first work out of representation of the country, 15 people for former. So the groundwork has not been done in this area to go to multi seat proportional range choice voting. Yet that would be the system that could alleviate these conflicts. And instead the council looks like it's only going to increase the council size by a few seats and we're going to miss a once in decades decade. So my. We're about to blow up an historic level and what do you do when we're about to blow it? And you know what the right answer is with the groundwork hasn't been done at the clock is taking. Maybe we have a political moment in Los Angeles and there is no grounds to have broader conversations about what the range of possibilities could even be. Any time I've written up it is shut down real quick. Notably, I'm a part of a group of scholars put together a set of recommendations for the city council. We included in it, don't just expand the seats. We got a lot of pushback because we suggested a mixed system. Rowsome, so we put in at large districts as well. We can work on that. But what has happened is it has opened a conversation to some extent about what else could the range of possibilities be. And most certainly at least I know when I tested my before city council, I said, you can increase the seats, but that's not going to change the chemistry of this council, a council that has had corruption scandal after corruption scandal in which we have multiple members of our city council who are have been convicted of corruption. Another one's still dining corruption. It's not going to change that system. There are a lot of differences, however, right? New York City, Chicago have strong mayors. We don't. And I don't know if we want to switch, move away from them. So they think there's plenty of conversations to be had. You know, I think one of the things in California that I reflect a whole lot on from my work at the redistricting commission for the state. Tisha was talking before about changing the system and what that feels like. Well, in California, we're a very diverse place. We are a majority minority state. The rest of it can, yes, thank you. That's what proud of our diversity in California is something to be celebrated. And we, by all measures, the state's redistricting commission was wildly successful. We passed our maps 15 to zero. Like, there was a unanimous passage of Democrats and Republicans of independence coming together and agreeing on these single-member districts that we drew, we expanded opportunities for Latinas, the nearly majority of the state of California to elect the candidates of their choice using the voting rights act as that tool. But because it's a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy, I think it was left feeling so disheartened because what I saw were communities of color fighting for representation, for legitimate claims for representation using the tool that's perhaps not really adequate to be a racial multi-ethnic democracy. So I think there's so many more to be had. I'm having to talk to you guys about that. But you're right, we are in this moment where we'll be lucky if we just get an expanse. So I'm sorry, some of the yellow text was given because I'm from New York City, so I did want to comment on your politics. Every state's in municipalities politics, obviously, are super-imprinted in how representation is implemented or fought for or won. What I will say, please continue to have hope. That sounds as cliche as it is in Courtney, but please have some hope. I believe even expanding is important in the New York City Council. We have posted 9 million people now, but way back when, we went from about 1115 to 3233, and now we're at 51. It took time, but it happens. It can't happen. And additionally, I want to say, redistricting happens every decade, right? We know it's gonna come. We always anticipate we're trying to work within that decade of how do we improve on the quality of life for residents? How do we get more representation? How do we, you know, reform on a lot of our policies and politics? But that doesn't mean the foundational stuff, the working normal groups in community or political groups to help pull maybe some of those corrupt people out of office, triggering some primaries, breaking down those power structures of where you know who is helping out, who member and who is molding the next person that's going to do nothing in that seat. That is really like breaking down those power structures within counties or municipalities or in the state. To me, it's how I've even seen New York City politics and those dynamics completely shift. It's how I challenged my being of the 14-year senator council in the seat that went prior, really breaking down their local support of, I don't know how the positions are broken up here, but we have like district leaders, like community captain kind of roles, state committee people taking those seats little by little. Every election cycle to kind of break up where the power is held mostly and how like the next of January that the nepotism happens is really important in this entire process as well, because it's how you really get to representation of people and not necessarily the person that's on the shoulder to commit and might have no experience at all and really just keep the same combinations happening, cycle after cycle. So don't ever forget that other aspect too, and I'm not saying play the 10-year long game. Think of your election cycle as you play a two-year game and every two years play that game. I had a four-year gap before I could run again and I challenged the incumbents, state committee member, I went by 96 votes and it was, I ran after my city councilor's area right after that next summer and I was able to vote one person and I ran to 10 other people and three of them won and then two years cycle of pulling away the facade of their foundation where they had that went into their building and told everyone to vote for, like now I can pull that person out and I had my own president who could kind of say, here's what the field looks like, show up for the primary. So, you know, looking at those structures. We've got a flanking round of two more questions, so great that I get it right. I think you guys, my name is Melissa Nantona. I am a resident of Nevada where in 2022 we passed the initial passage for a great choice voting in open primaries. You're welcome. Yeah, that's part of that. However, because it's a constitutional amendment in C4, I want to read a quote from one of our senators, Jackie Rosen, where she says she has serious concerns about the initiative that it can make casting a ballot more confusing and time consuming, lead to increased errors that cause eligible votes to be thrown out and disproportionately impact communities of color. This is a dog whistle. I know this. I'm sure you guys know this and it's been disheartening to see communities of color actually take this, identify it and be like, oh no, I don't want to learn about this because it's too confusing. I'm gonna vote no. Have you guys heard this in the field? Probably the mind of you especially since you've been doing the quality grassroots organizing and what is the most compelling, I guess, statement against this argument? Yeah, I mean, it is really insulting to think that people of color, this is what we do on a daily basis every day. When I woke up today, I decided I was gonna wear what shirt I was gonna wear so that I could partner. I thought, hey, should I wear a shirt that matches this? Should I wear a T-shirt that's in bridgewood and not right then? And I just had to go with a plaid shirt followed by a blue vest. And I think that that was a good choice, all right? So, black people, everybody does this on a regular basis, right? Everybody does it. And in Minneapolis, and this has been tested in cities and has been proven that black people and people of color rank just as high as white people. In Minneapolis, Minnesota, the task is to solve every single demographic ranked over 90% of the time. And the only reason you didn't rank is because you wanted to bullet go. Because that was a candidate strategy to bullet go. And if it's a candidate strategy to bullet go, some people will. But the notion that black people can't rank, I think it's fundamentally insulting. Two, every one of them under who is educated about ranks we're voting, likes it, accepts it, does it, and then reports afterwards that they like except they're there. Everybody goes across to the records. You can't, you have to educate people on ranked choice voting. So, cities who are looking forward if you pass it, we have to do an education campaign. It doesn't it's different, but it's not confusing. It is different and not confusing in last house. If I just go quickly, but I agree with everything Mike said, right? There is a challenge though. And honestly, my wife's health made me see my wife do the session like this in Harvard last week. And part of what some organizers there from various parts of the country raise, and I agree with, is that while we do doing just as much as well as any other community, what we know is that when you layer all the issues of voter suppression, right? What you find is that the penalties will then be disproportionately needed out, right? So, there's a argument about voter anti, right? That oh, we can get it just as much as everybody else can say no, we have difficulties getting in, but the penalties are needed out differently by communities. So, in that particular state, it is a dog whistle and everything Mike said is true, but we do have to be mindful, particularly in certain communities, in some states, in some counties even, the ways that if there are differences, the way that people get penalized for that and the way that it increases the stigma. So, not giving credence to the overall point that they're making, but just being mindful. And then just quickly, the other piece, so that is the education piece. The materials that we posted in the Puba app talk about ways and means that we found and the researchers found in talking to black groups that help to deal with some of that education, to help deal with what my friend over here was talking about in terms of basic ability. It deals with emphasizing the values that we've talked about. We talked about self-determination. We talked about more choice, right? And so, there are ways that we can incorporate the right values, including love. Because remember Dr. King said, power without love is reckless and abusive, but love without power is sentimental and a need. And so, in all the work we do, we talk about power, we also talk about sentimentary, we do it love. And we include that in the messaging about this sometimes complex and new system that we find in our community very susceptible to. I do wanna pick up on the disproportionate impact disciplinary action when there is some alleged voting violation. Yes, it is true. The need appears now that people of color tend to experience greater disciplinary action, but it's not just limited to range-wise voting. I wanna make that clear because it is across the board when it comes to exercising this right to vote. And it is something that we definitely need to be mindful of in this movement holistically, regardless of what the structural performance that we're trying to advance. This could also be fun. The education component can also be fun. On my campaign, I realized I didn't want people to see this only as a whole and making decisions on how to rank. So I took one of the most controversial names in New York City, our public transit system. And I ranked, do you want to write a bike to mark, a bus, take the bus to mark, take the train to mark, and any each of those set sections of which ones they can rank, I created many bios. Like, the train is always a 20 minute delay. Like, I had on my survey that we would go to the doors with and we would help people understand, like, help, how do you wanna get to work? And what's your preferred method? You went outside and you was raining, cycling was your number one option, okay, what's your number two option on that day? And creating these concepts for people, because yes, by choosing a red shirt or blue shirt, yes, we do this every day, but helping build out why you want people to rank your candidates or why you want people to rank up these issues is so important in this process of education that I think, like, to that quote of that senator, like, same shit, different state, but there's ways to implement this in a real way for people to feel confident going into that ballot box because we're helping their thoughts around the single issues and around the individual candidates and why they're working collaboratively or not. I don't think we have three minutes left in two minutes. Okay, I guess I've been told there's time for the next event that you've mentioned. So, I guess the reason I find range where it's voting so compelling is because I think it does broaden the kind of group or diversity on the ballot box and it does make sure that we have a genuinely representative set of elected officials. And I think that for me, there's a very strong symbolic appeal there that a lot of people can. But I didn't grow up in New Jersey and New Hampshire and haven't lived in swing states, but do you know that there is an entirely different tension of voters who might be kind of center or center-right and might stand to benefit in terms of the operational ideology from greater representation like this, but who nonetheless have a very different conception of what it means to be American, which is not like multiracial, pluralistic, and in the same ways that we're tapping into this symbolic ideology. And so I'm really curious if ideas come up, how do you think that we should tap into the symbolic appeals to people who have maybe a different conception of American voters? I think that's one, I think it's important to lift up to remind us all that one form is not only, it's not the beginning and end of the conversation. And so one of the things that I like to think about in the context of brain choice voting is also elections, right? It is important to know that most of our organizations up here are non-partisan, okay? So it's just, yes, we can shut up, we are non-partisan. And so I do think it is, if the goal is to have representation of the majority of people who aren't, then, and if the goal is to truly advance democracy, then I do think it is important for us to be mindful of how we are advancing some of these reforms so that we are not stopping the conversation before it can even get started. I believe that brain choice voting is good for democracy, period. Democrat, Republican, libertarian, I don't care. I think it, I believe it is good for democracy because it means that the majority of the people get the person that they want in office. And so I think that as we're advancing RCB, and I see it as we're advancing RCB, I think we should also be thinking about some other complementary reforms that can help ensure that we're not in unintentionally creating and that creates more political divisiveness because that's not good for democracy. Y'all didn't like that non-partisan comment.