 Good morning. Thank you, folks, for joining us. This is Think Tech Hawaii. I want to remind everybody that this is the fundraising time of the year, so please help us stay in contact, help us stay connected with you, and if you're moved to contribute, please do thinktechhawaii.com. This morning we have with us a really stellar group of people. We have about to become dean of the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law, Jelani Jefferson Exum. We understand that will take place on July 1st. Thank you. So there's going to be at least two celebrations within days of each other of a new level of independence that this all signifies, and we're just really loving seeing it. The Camille Nelson's, the song Richardson's, that there's just, there's a litany of wonderful, wonderful additions to leadership in legal education, and it's great to see Dean Exum become another one of those. So much. Thanks for raising the mic for all of us. We have Professor Bernalia Randall, University of Dayton School of Law, Emerita, my Latin background. There is a gender distinction there. Definitely, and I always pointed that out. Thank you. And I appreciate that reminder. Ms. Waitman, my former high school Latin teacher would be happy to see that observed. On the other end of the gender, Emeritus Professor Ben Davis, who will be delivering a commencement address this Saturday that we hope to get access to and be able to share. And Tina Patterson from Germantown, Maryland, mediator, arbitrator, and critical thinker are excellence as each of these four panelists are. So we're going to, without further delay, treat you to some of that. Tina, you were talking a little bit about the article you read this morning in the New York Times, talking about the level to which division and deceit have come together in a particular group that we refer to as the Republican Party leadership here. What's your take on that? Where's that coming from? Sure. And what I was referring to is a New York Times op-ed piece by David Leonhardt. And the article title is, Liz Cheney's ouster is the sign of the Republican Party's growing discomfort with democracy. The outline of the article is essentially regarding two pieces. One is the ouster of Ms. Cheney, but underlying that is the new state voting laws and how at least 10 states have suddenly changed their laws that for many of us we think there's no real impact, but there is an impact. And underlying that is the impact for the elections in the years 2022, as well as 2024. And while the media may be focusing primarily on Ms. Cheney, the rule of law, which is what you focus on in this program, is at stake. It's literally in the precipice. And while we talk about it, action has to be taken. And I think part of it is stemming back to, and this article also mentions it, is the events that took place in November and how we continue to see this dialogue regarding a lie regarding the outcome of the election. And the media initially supporting it, being very soft in approach, and later saying we can't find anything factual to back up the statement, but it perpetuates itself. And it's why we see the outcome of, and the media is still dancing with this term, I'll just call it what I see it as insurrection. If we were in any other country or talking about another country, it would be called a coup d'etat, a golpe de estado, or an insurrection. And part of it, again, is tying back to the events of November and prior to that, I should say the past four years. So I'll pause there because I know that was a mouthful. It's a great place to start. And Professor Randall, you reminded us in a previous session about a distinction that may be really important in connection with what Tina just said. And that is that while the rule of law may not be essential to the growth and perpetuation of capitalism, it may very well be essential to the growth and sustainability of democracy. Where does that distinction come from? What causes? Well, so first of all, I don't think we have a democracy and have never had a democracy. And to talk about reinstating democracy starting four years ago is to ignore that we've never had a democracy. And to lay it at the feet of the Republicans when the Democrats have done just as much to undermine the rule of law democracy. I mean, the Democrats and the Republicans work together to make sure that they maintain control of the political system. They keep out socialists, they keep out communists, they keep out everybody but themselves. Now, yes, there's some it has in the last four years, the Republican Party has taken it to a different level on voting right. But when you look at it, it's consistent with what they've done my lifetime. So it's sort of like, you know, there's an outrage, which we should be, but to think that somehow this is remarkably different than what's been going on by both Republicans and Democrats. And I'll stop here. I'm not sure this answers your question. It's the thought in my head. But part of the thing that is not being talked about, which is upsetting to me, is how the Republicans and the Democrats had a bipartisan agreement where they included restrictions, increased the amount of money third parties would have to pay to get their candidates on the ballot. And that's just kind of like slipped on by everyone. And that's as much a threat to getting democracy. And that's what I would rather phrase it to, we need to move to getting the democracy as opposed to protecting it. We don't have it. We've never had it. But it's possible we could get it. And that's kind of my reflection. And I know that's not even responsive. But no, actually, it's right on the point because it reminds us that while the pandemic and media may have accentuated things that have been systemic patterns, anti-black racism, anti-Asian American Pacific Islander racism, exclusion of people with disabilities of LGBTQ plus people and other excluded groups. This has been going on for a very, very, very long time. So what moves us in a better direction? Ben, Dean Exum, thoughts? I have a thought. I don't know if it could help. But it comes back to a speech of part of the King in 1967, which was basically talking about their people in the United States who like to have democracy for them and dictatorship for others. And so the whole thing that is kind of tying in with what Bernalia is saying is that democracy for the two parties and dictatorship for the third parties is that vision, is that kind of that package. And I'm not sure what else can be done about that. But at least in our constitutional structure, what I would hope is that with these 400 bills that have been put in various parts of governments around the country at state level, that there would be the countervailing federal bill to at least address the kinds of clear efforts that essentially trying to shape the electorate so that that electorate has democracy and then everyone else has got a dictatorship. Unfortunately, there's the whole Senate problem. But that's the countervailing force that can happen other than people being in the streets, of course. Yeah. And I also mean, I don't know what the solutions are, but I'll just offer another observation, which is that when it comes to our political structure with both parties, the goal is to win. And that's always been the goal because you don't have any power. If you're not, you know, the party of power, it's just very difficult to push your agendas ahead and things like that. And so what I think has happened specifically with the Republican Party in this moment is they found a winning strategy, which is, you know, to sort of perpetuate this sort of rhetoric on this message, they have folks who've really captured it and and have, you know, or I say they found a winning strategy, let's say that they believe they found a winning strategy, right? I'll put it that way. And so they're going hard on that thinking, you know, this is what's going to get us where we need to be, because otherwise we don't have power to push our agenda forward. And then as Professor Randall pointed out, none of this is new, right? It's all kind of repackaged. So on voting rights, we should have, you know, it's expected. There's always a backlash to, you know, to any sort of progress. Of course, we'd see, you know, Trump loses, there's going to be backlash. If there is, you know, if there are enough Republicans who can push something forward, they're going to push forward where they've always tried to do. And so, you know, they're just in a position where they're able to do what their party has always wanted to get done. And so then I'll just add one other piece there that Ben made me think of, which is, you know, what can we do about it? I don't know, but I just keep thinking about the importance of judges for thinking about the Constitution and constitutional structure and, you know, how we would hope, you know, just kind of thinking about history at different points. We've really been at the mercy of like judicial interpretation of our protections. And, you know, we're circling back to that diversity aspect, which is, you know, we're stuck with for a long time with the judges that were put in place in the past administration. And that to me is disheartening. I'll put it that way. You're only stuck with them to the extent that the Democrats are unwilling to do more to change the system. The Democrats want to support the system as exists. They want to get a little bit of change, but they don't want to undermine the existing system so much because it works in their favor when they're in power. And they're not going to want to, because they could. I mean, well, the Democrats, the problem the Democrats have is they have, they're more of a right to the right party with a lot of people to the right. So it's going to be hard for them to do anything. But there are solutions to the judge's problems. My own suggestion is pat the appellate courts. Forget the Supreme Court. Pat the appellate courts because there's only so much that the Supreme Court's going to be able to do. And the appellate courts will control people's lives. And the Supreme Court, yeah, will have ultimate decision. But even when the Supreme Court acts, we can always have a president who will ignore them. I mean, if our investment established at least twice in our history, so the Democrats can say, hey, look, you know what? We're not going to the right wing Supreme Court. We're going to pat the appellate courts so that appellate courts are as favorable as possible to our agenda. And if we have the power, we are going to ignore Supreme Court decisions. But the Supreme Court's happy. I mean, the Democrats are happy with the system as is. They just want to, they don't want to undermine that system by taking the suggestions or doing something that would fundamentally change the system. And I don't see how. That's a brilliant insight, Professor, is that theoretically the Democrats could add a lot of appellate federal positions through a budgetary authorization that they could do with 50 votes or 50 plus one. So going back a little bit, one of the viewers asked, they've heard 100 Republicans are threatening to split off from the party. We need to look a little bit deeper on that one, because if you look at which 100 Republicans, those are, they're complaining that the Republican leadership is too moderate, they're even farther right. And the ones who are saying directly contradictory things within minutes of each other, Mitch McConnell saying Trump is guilty of sin, but voting to acquit him. McCarthy saying nobody is claiming that this election was fraudulent. I met with the president and he was legitimately elected and that's our leadership. And then he turns right around and says, but we're going to use that lie to justify over 400 voter suppression bills as compared to 40 in all of 2020 that were presented to legislation. So we know what's going on. Are people going to stand for this? Yeah. One thing I was thinking about, Chuck, was this representative Stefanik who was being proposed to be the third to replace Cheney, right? And one of the points that was made by people who know her very well was how she had flipped. They were sad by watching how she flipped. And one of the points that was made is that her fundraising increased by seven times from around whatever she had at the last time she ran to like three and a half million dollars. So it's like literally she could say, I can see which side my butter is, well, my bread is butter, right? And if you think of that money part of it, that why would I keep this big lie going? Because it gets me money and it's got nothing to do with reality. It's got to do with getting the power to get the power. Money is the lifeblood, as the representative Fibern said, of politics. And so you say what you can to get more money. And that seems to work very well with this big lie. On the Democratic side, it's the countering the big lie. But it's still everybody's getting paid in that kind of position of things, which I don't know what the answer is, but it's a hell of a deal because people's votes are going to be suppressed or they're trying to suppress. If you're trying to fight that 400 different bills and 400 different states, match the resources you have to have to bring those cases, all those different places. I mean, it sucks up your resources as an entity trying to address that. I don't know which entities could do it, but you know, the NAACP, I know, did a file something in Georgia, but then you've got a Florida, you're going to have Arizona, you're going to hit on just the lawyer part of it. So maybe it's a civil rights division, which I understand is looked very carefully at this recount in Arizona. It's not even a recount. Okay, this fraud audit, okay, that's going on. I've been asking people, why isn't this election interference, this privately funded secret count of the actual ballot that people in Maricopa County actually did? Why is that not election interference under our law? To me, it seems like it is, but I'm just a crazy guy. But that's the thing. It's not election interference unless a court says it is, right? To me, that's the whole thing is like, law is what it's interpreted to be. So at some point it comes down to who is telling us what the law is. And that's why I go back to judges. I mean, in some ways they're far removed from the everyday and everything that's happening, but in some ways they really, they're just points in time when we really count on that decision to kind of stop something or move something along. And I think it just really matters who's in those seats. It's not election interference unless prosecutors say they are. I mean, it could, if in fact, the prosecutors in the Department of Justice decided to bring a case, they might not win the case at trial, but it could slow up the count very significantly. They could get a temporary restraining order to stop it until it works its way through the court. And the question I have is, why haven't the Democrats done that? Why haven't they undertaken prosecutorial attempts to stop the Republican interference? Because I understand that the federal law about conserving, preserving for 22 months valid in a federal election. And that there's either civil or criminal penalties for failing to do that. It just seems to be that, geez, that seems like a pretty obvious case that they're using them kind of like McDonald's raps almost, you know, the way that they're taking care of them. I mean, there were people inside who have been observers who criticized how lackadaisical the folks have been with these things. I mean, I've sat as a poll watcher and watch people vote. And it's one of the most moving experiences to see people exercise the franchise. And each one of those ballots, in a certain sense to me, is kind of like a person's will as to how they want their country to be. They're not just pieces of paper we flip around with. There's something special. And this kind of cavalierness with them, to me, and I may be crazy, I agree civil rights division should be all over this at the federal level. But also the state under the state rules should be all over this too. And I understand the political thing of like, who's going to vote for me the next time around. But that's not the point, it seems to me. If you don't step up, what did Cheney say? If you don't set up to contest the liar, you give the liar power. And that's the problem. And Cheney should know because her father was a big liar. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. She knows the game. And she supported him in that lie. So having me quote Liz Cheney, when I was used to really despise her for how she was rationalized torture, okay, is that's telling me how crazy this thing has got. Because she was actually saying things that made sense in a world where you're looking for the adults in the room. All that said to me when she supported it is that the sociopaths on both sides who will switch sides to say whatever is necessary at the point. She's hooked her at, she hooked her thing for a lot of reason, including defense of her father to being a non Trump person. And she's willing to say whatever is necessary in that arena. And she's not a rational person, she's not a person to be trusted and to be believed that she's doing something out of the goodness of protecting democracy. She desires to regain power for herself and her friends. And that's the road she has to take. If she could take a different road, she would. She could do it. Rest assured for me, Professor Randall, I never believe a politician's promises, right? They only bind the person who believes them, okay? I'm just looking at the words that were said and saying those words were good words to hear. I don't know what's going on in her head. I don't know what she's planning, what's her strategy. But I'm just saying that I said that was a good speech, you know. But I mean, but don't you think then that we have to look beyond what the words people say because that's what Trump people did. Yes. They just looked at the words he said and not the person behind it. Okay. So didn't Maya Angelou say that if a person shows you who they are, believe them, right? Yes. Yes. Right? Yes. So she has shown us who she is or these other people are showing us who they are. I believe them and they are to me very dangerous people. They will go to violence. They've already gone to violence. They will go to violence and the system will not do anything about them. You see these people testifying yesterday who were running the Department of Defense and they were whitewashing everything that we all saw on TV. I said, there's nothing here. There's nothing in these people. It's unbelievable. It's like, I don't know how people, you know, the only thing I can think of is people get paid. They get paid. It's worth them money. It's worth them for them to say these things because they will get paid. As in America, you know, like in that movie, Killing Me Softly, Brad Pitt said, America's about getting paid. And that's all that's going on. I don't know, but it's just really surreal. Actually, I'd say it's surreal. If I wrote this as a novel, you would say, no, Ben, we can't publish it. This is not serious. But I don't know. So as we move into our last couple of minutes, what are the takeaways? Tina, you reminded us that the Lean Hearts article faulted the Democrats just as much as the Republicans and Professor Randall has been very clear in saying that's been a pattern for a very, very long time. Besides the DOJ, where might we go from the air? Who do we look to for hope? I agree with Professor Randall. I think it's the lower courts. I honestly do. Packing. And I was going to ask, is it too late or is that event approaching? I personally don't think it's too late. I think this is the time to take action, but Professor Exum also touched upon it and that's, are you willing to step out if you're an elected official? Are you willing to step out risking that you may not make it through the next cycle and know that you're going home and be okay with that? And I'm fairly certain I can say most of elected officials don't want that. They've got a long-term strategy, whether that's to stay in office as long as possible, or until someone comes and picks them up to take them home forever. And it might not take that much money to add 100 federal district judges and 50 federal appellate judges. See Exum? I'm just going to say I still, I mean, and I agree with all that. I still think that there's hope in grassroots voter efforts, because at the end of the day, that's what everybody at the top is after, in some extent, not because they necessarily want to be representatives of those people's voices, but they do want the numbers. And they're looking for rhetoric that will resonate enough to get some of these numbers. And I think that we saw this last time around that those efforts on the ground to raise up a new crop of voters, getting them out there and all that. Of course, that's why we're seeing the restrictive voting laws coming out, because everybody knows that that is also a part of the strategy. So, I mean, I still have some hope there. I think that's always been, especially thinking about the black community, that's always been something that people have been working on and kind of finding new ways to do that on these kind of local levels, too. So, I wish as a black community, we would put as much effort into getting a viable third party as we put in to getting voters for Democrats and Republicans. It seems to me that we're pouring money down a sun pole that it ain't never going to happen. The Democrats and Republicans are never going to protect our interests. And whether we turn out voters for the Democrats, whether we turn out Republicans, we're going to be unhappy with the results. And so, I wish we would give up on that. I don't know whether, given that the Democrats and Republicans have effectively posed out third parties, that effort would probably fail. But I feel better if we were working on that than continuing to support what is obviously a system that's not going to ever give back what we put in. So, thank you all. Let's come back to that in a couple of weeks. And let's think about how we might meaningfully enfranchise those groups that do make the difference. The minority voters, the young voters. Socialists, communists. Communists are unconscious. Thank you all. Thank you. I'm joining us again in a couple of weeks. Thank you. We'll be back.