 Welcome Aloha and thanks so much for joining us at Think Tech Hawaii. This is the last week of the Think Tech fundraising so if you get time and you're motivated and you think Think Tech is doing good things to promote difficult conversations to make good trouble as we do then click on Think Tech Hawaii, click on donate and whatever you're willing to do is greatly appreciated. We have with us today retired Judge Sandra Sims and author now working on her second book. David Lewis former attorney general of the state of Hawaii law partner and also an author and maybe working on his second book and professor emeritus from the University of Toledo School of Law Ben Davis who's now visiting professor at Washington and Lee School of Law and David Larson immediate past chair of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution and professor at Mitchell Hamlin Law in Minneapolis St. Paul. Okay so this is our last one of the year we get a chance to kind of go out on whatever note you choose. What do you think are the challenges that really face us going into 2023? Sandra you want to start us off? The challenges okay I can start the challenges I think I don't know if I start with challenges because I think we're sort of ending this year on at least it appears to me quite a hopeful note. I think well for those of you who think so I think the election results were mid-term elections results were considerably more than we had expected and turned out to be a far more positive situation than we then those of us who you know lean toward that that side I would imagine. I think we made some progress in addressing the issues that were generated by the overturning of world versus weight and as well as forestallings any sort of pushback on interracial and same sex marriage which hadn't been codified before so that's like there now and we have I was noticing yesterday listening to some of the Sandy Hook tributes that the young people who are coming out of that who've been very very energized to address some of the key issues that surround young folks are now turning 18 they're registering to vote we're seeing more of that so actually it's kind of hopeful right now for some things to make there's obviously there's still challenges but I've been seeing all year the you know the young folks are going to save us and apparently they're getting ready to do so yeah we're certainly not the seniors in there voting at least the white team so one of the challenges that goes along with the bright spots that you just insightfully pointed out is if the republicans control the house and the democrats control the senate and the executive hey are they just going to shut things down in gridlock ben well i'll jump in and uh and say that uh say that uh it's not uh looking so good okay i mean once the numbers come up so that there is a republican majority in the house you know the the first intimations leaving aside the whole mccarthy thing of whether he's going to make it or not but the whole intimations of what's on their agenda did not look like it was an agenda of uh moving on or addressing uh particular problems of people you know it was sort of like let's have a lot of uh of hearings on various things and hunter biden's laptop i've been i think i have i must have that in my closet here you know that's where it's being hidden you know uh but you know there's a lot of that going on now i don't know if uh uh this is kind of the the bluffing beforehand but uh one thing that uh i do uh gives me concern or qualms i'll just say it this way is that uh just the amazing capacity for people to say things that are really like insane in but i wonder if there's a certain amount of people being willing to say that is insane uh i just was listening to news early today and i guess there was some member of the uh freedom caucus who was saying that the shooter in that buffalo rest uh that buffalo supermarket uh was really antifa you know and i was like wait but the guy literally had the n word written on his gun you know what i mean i was like i mean and he and he fully you know i had all that stuff but i was like seriously is that you know it's almost like it's so crazy that uh i don't know how that plays out that 80 or 90 percent of americans but i look at that i say uh whether you're trying to quote unquote own the libs or not it's just insane i mean you know i mean if somebody could feel owned by that it just seemed to you know you look at the person and say geez have you taken your medication you know what i mean because this uh so the other things like that that um there's this kind of weird reversal thing that goes on where you have this sort of political discourse it's all there like i think it was on fox news was really upset about the lgbt thing passing right you know but they don't say anything about the interracial part of it i say wait a minute man you know you know i'm in virginia okay loving v virginia 1967 you know virginia is for lovers you know and all that stuff and it's like oh you know this is a bad law what about talking about the interracial part you know and how does that play into your because both are covered in this law you know and it's just funny you know to watch this sort of what's said and what is unsaid weird game you know and i don't know what the answer is and but um you know i saw a lot of folks who are allies who are lgbt who felt good you know they actually felt good and i said well that's good with all the craziness that's good that for at least a little bit there's a little optimism and so maybe that's the thing that i'm positive about but uh you know i saw i there's another thing is and i'm going to end with this is uh i you know i i believe in and uh faith and things like that and you know religious faith and all that but i i i have to say i am seriously amazed at what is said in the name of faith with the the texts that have come out after or around january 6th or right up to january 2021 uh is we're calling for martial law in jesus's name kind of thing and i'm like what what was it lately you know i mean i'm just kind of you know figure that one out you know how you get from this to that you know what i mean so i don't know but it it sure looks like a lot of insanity is is exhibiting itself i don't know how far it's going so dammit louis while you were attorney general for hawaii you were instrumental in getting the same sex marriage passed here are there lessons or challenges from that that we still need to keep front and center now um well that that was my privilege to be involved in that and it was part of you know a national movement uh where we had the uh united states state supreme court at that time ruling in obergefell and in the windsor cases that supported same sex marriage you know my take on this to riff a little bit off of what sandra and ben has said is is that i think we are in a mixed bag period i i can't quite tell some days i think it's two steps forward and one step back and some days i think it's two steps back uh i'll be it with one step forward because there are there are great things that have happened we yes yes we got legislation to to codify nationally same sex marriage and and uh interracial marriages but you have the supreme court taking away rights and you have just as thomas saying yeah we should we should uh get rid of all all those prior decisions that gave anybody rights uh you've got good things like alex jones being uh held liable for billions of dollars uh for his lies but you have other people continuing to spew hate and lies you still have asians being attacked uh for the color of their skin um at the same time i i saw a story about a new chief justice or new justice of the nevada supreme court who is asian and black it's a woman and she's a really i i read the story about her she's really terrific so to me it's it's a mixed bag um of of what's happening and and uh um the the one thing is is is that you you know somehow that uh with the internet and with donald trump and and and with all of the dog whistles we have let the genie out of the out of the lamp here and the genie is doing terrible things everybody feels empowered now to to say or do terrible um and you know i saw this cartoon i saw it and it was just like you know uh where it was saying be yourself speak your truth don't let people put you down and then the next panel was about you know gays and lesbians and blacks and asians going yeah yeah yeah that's right we're gonna speak our truth and then the next panel was a bunch of neo-nazis and skinheads going yeah we're gonna speak our truth we're gonna go kill those mothers you know and it's like oh my god oh my god you know it's terrible you know and so i i regarded as a mixed bag there are some bright spots but there are also some dark spots yeah and uh you know when when uh governor abercrombie pushed forward the legislation in hawaii and uh uh to allow same sex marriage you know and and when uh president obama got elected i naively thought we have turned the corner we have turned the corner we're we're moving forward we're bending the arc of history in the right direction we turn the corner all right and then after that we got and it all went to hell with the donald trump uh so you know but but that's not permanent either because he's he's starting to get his comeuppance so i think it's a mixed bag some good some bad okay and we can hope that kevin mccarthy doesn't try and break the house record of 133 votes for speaker of the house that's the most yeah so david larson where do you think we're headed and what's in the way of that lots of interesting comments um chuck you asked the question are we going to be stuck in in stasis because um now the the republicans are going to take the house 435 members um you know it's a little harder to reign in that many people as opposed to hundred senators so i think the possibility of some defections is greater i think it's going to be a little harder to keep that that slight majority all in line so i'm a little more optimistic that uh that the house won't be able to stop everything from going through that some people may have a conscience and don't need a lot of them and they might kind of drift over and and support legislation that's really aimed at helping people so i'm not completely pessimistic about the fact that the that the house going a different direction than the senate and the executive um i am optimistic that finally it looks like some of the criminal prosecutions are moving forward for january 6th and against the former president trump that to me that's really encouraging it's taking forever but there's so many different actions moving forward you have to believe that one or two are going to catch traction and maybe actually come to some kind of conclusion uh i am still a little concerned about i think we still have culture wars um you know we still have some very strong positions in terms of abortion in terms of um in rate in positions on race and sexual orientation and i think those are challenges going into 2023 that how can we begin to close the gaps in the culture wars and that people are so polarized on different positions what can we do to kind of bring them more um towards the center closer to each other another thing that that definitely has me concerned i'm coming out of 2022 into 23 is uh if anything the number of mass shootings is going up uh i think they're really worse and like every every day you're seeing things and we've got 19 kids getting killed in uvaldi and two teachers uh it's just horrific and um you know and that's i think one legitimate concern about the house going republican is that to the degree that we desperately need legislation to limit um high powered rifles and automatic weapons and i don't know if we can get it through the house and uh and if we don't do something these mass shootings and mass killings are just going to going to continue so that's that's really troubling um a really optimistic news point came out the other day is that apparently we are now learning how to harness fusion and um and if that's true and that we're going to be able to move away from fossil fuels that is tremendously exciting that's going to change our our climate that's going to change global power structures um that's that is a remarkable discovery and hopefully what we're hearing is true and that they actually can move forward and and capitalize that and then uh as quickly as possible and as efficiently as possible so that's something i'm definitely optimistic about well that's a great insight because it gives us direction and motivation and that may be what's most needed to deal with these challenges that if some people are stuck remind them the great majority of the populace prefers gun control abortion affordable housing for the homeless and the poor health care for the homeless and the poor all of those things so is there going to be any progress on any of those so there was a story on npr this morning about how the republican legislators in Ohio are trying and in a bunch of states uh notwithstanding the overwhelming popular sentiment in favor of various uh initiatives and rights that the republican legislators are trying to take away the ballot initiatives and and and the fact that you could change the constitution by popular vote so what you have is the hand reaching up from the grave uh to try and and you know kill the future uh and the popular will and it's it's unfortunate but that goes along with the exercise of power you will always have people trying to control others uh and bend them to their will uh and do things that are against the will of the people which is unfortunate so i don't know that we you know you got to get people activated you got to get them out to vote uh and unless they're willing to exercise their rights those rights are going to be gone the you know democrats were motivated to vote in these midterms i think in part because of the overturning of real versus weight but i also think that a lot of people were motivated to vote in some republicans because it finally began to sink in that they're that that democracy is fragile and that um yeah you can slip into an autocratic state a lot more easily than perhaps we once thought and uh i listened to a lot of interviews of voters in georgia and there were republics saying i'm voting in this election because i'm concerned about the future of democracy and i didn't hear that so much um even four years ago so to me that that's encouraging that the idea that people are saying we really do have to protect this and i think the the failure of so many trump endorsed republicans around the country is a recognition of that that we really need to elect responsible intelligent people as opposed to um extreme ideologues if i could jump in on one thing that does uh occur to me and um uh so andra i i guess i'm i'm reaching out to you in particular but more broadly to all of us is the uh the sort of revelations about the supreme court that are coming out right now uh about you know the efforts to influence them outside of that oral argument you know thing that we always think about or the submissions and the oral argument structure and all that stuff and this uh i i saw that there was a gentleman who said that you know he'd gotten a heads up on an earlier case as the as the answer was and he testified before congress and talked about very conscious effort uh in the sort of the anti-abortion movement right okay but what occurred to me was like what about any other thing out there what other issues yeah other issues um i mean we've had uh various law schools have been you know you'd have a supreme court justice who would come and talk you know and you know you can you can see a supreme court justice speaking to a group or this kind of thing and like seeing an effort to really sort of shape the context for them in ways that i found really kind of uh nagging at me that they've got to deal with this in some way i don't know if they're able to do it but it you know if people are really feeling that it's just politics and who you know and you know and who can influence um which maybe a lot of people already think i still think it's really troubling at least the forms of of distance in the forms of independence because it got me thinking all the way back to the cases in the 1800s and 1900s was there you know the kind of club thing at the cosmo club or whatever it was going on while the case is being argued by the lawyers in front of them and there is this influence game going on in the background and that's what yeah the most recent thing again yeah i i was gonna get to that the minute that the sort of the concern about the supreme court um is something that's kind of nagging at me to kind of think that wait a minute we're really entering into an era where that our supreme court is not viewed in the same way that you know those of you who are on this panel would have seen how a supreme court is to be regarded how you regard the rules of precedent and even their interactions with each other the upside though well it's kind of it's hard right now to watch what's happening in the supreme court at least to me it is um you know i think that i think postponing garland for a year and then we bear it down in a week i think that those two actions really destroyed a lot of faith in the supreme court he did the idea that it's a non-political body because that's the only way you can explain that yeah yeah it's raw political power yeah that is troubling that part is and then of course the whole thomas jenny thomas and his wife's situation is that's that's just plain scary to me uh that that's just scary to me that you could have that kind of i mean that's what you have that relationship that's fine but you just glibly say that it's not having an effect on how you're making decisions nobody believes that right right nobody believes that that's just i don't nobody can believe that right i mean it's quite disappointing to me that the justices of the supreme court refuse to establish any kind of an ethics code any behavioral code uh any kind of of of code at all or just rules and regulations that they will not cross um i saw that that um uh justice katanji brown recused herself uh from the harvard case because she's in there but you know the justice thomas justice scalia and the rest of these conservative justices would apparently not recuse themselves from anything um regardless and so so the thing is is that unfortunately um you have some people playing by certain sets of rules and thinking those are fair and other people not wanting to play by the rules and it's very disappointing that that the justices refuse to see it for themselves that they are not above the law and that they should be subject to an ethics code uh just like everybody else every single judge in the united states do an ethics code except for them except for them yeah and we have a chief justice who does not appear to be effective in bringing influence to move in that direction well that makes you think of another thing is this case about the what is the independent legislator case that was argued in front of the supreme court where i think it was the chief justices of all 50 states and seven territories wrote to the supreme court saying this is a bad idea i mean i was like that's pretty that's pretty intense to have 50 chief justices right of the state supreme courts writing to the federal supreme court saying this is a bad idea you know we'll see what happens but you know i'm like that's pretty powerful you know that of course the response will be that of course they're going to say that because what this theory does is cut them out of the loop so the response will be that we can dismiss what they're saying because they just don't want to be cut out of the loop it's all about their power yeah but yeah but you know i'm just going to say i don't buy i don't buy the it's madison it's madison there it is you know the the checks and the balances and the fighting and all that stuff not yeah i sort of make sure that i don't buy what i just said isn't what i maintain yeah no i mean that's the for that's the side of it that this may get promulgated uh should that argument come up in front of us i yeah it is i'm seeing our supreme court now it's is is very very troubling to me well you know the idea that it just literally blows my mind the idea that interracial the legality of interracial marriage is back on the table it's like yeah how yeah how can we go back decades you know how can we go back a time like this and think about like this is a new issue something to be reconsidered it's it's it's just just mind boggling yeah it's and yet here we are here we are yeah here we are yes and we can only hope in some days i have unbridled optimism and hope for the future and other days i'm very depressed we can only hope that that we have enough of an educated rational reasonable populace in the united states that we will not let democracy go without a fight that we that people will not step up you know i mean unfortunately you have autocracies and dictators and strong men asserting themselves in tons of places around the world and you don't have an educated enough populace and you don't have enough people to step forward um to protect the democracy um and be willing to do that and i think we have enough in the united states although some days i questioned that uh you know at the midterm election with the elections coming up a lot of people um were saying that message and then as i said a little earlier i think people heard it i heard voters in george are hearing it the problem is now that the elections have passed and that that immediacy has gone away you know i think some people believe their need for them to uh continue to explain how how vulnerable democracy is how things are at risk how carefully have to be goes away and the people who are working against it they they're not stopping you know they're not letting up so that you know that that balance can kind of start to shift because the voices of reason don't feel that immediacy and are getting a little quieter and the other ones working against that are just not letting up and then our last minute sandra any words of wisdom going forward hey david larson i i i hope you're wrong that's the best i can say i hope you're you're wrong with that and you and i'm sure you you feel the same way but you there are those voices out there but then there are also maybe we don't hear i just believe that we don't hear them as much those that are the easy the intelligent voters are out there the thoughtful citizens are out there uh sometimes when they're engaged and involved in their own communities they begin to see that there are ways that we can communicate with each other that we can address issues you know from a sort of this uh organic local perspective i i have to yeah i agree with david louis well some days you're like yes we're gonna be all right none is like oh my god i can't get out of bed but you know but yeah that's where i'm at okay david louis last words yeah i you know it's just so important for shows like this and for people like all of you to just keep talking your truths to encourage people not to be apathetic remember that's that's what martin luther king said the apathy of your average person is is worse you know than than the guy who's out there who's a uh in your face races sometime it's the apathy of the people who just stand by and allow these things to happen and allow rights to be taken away so uh we just all have to be vigilant and hopefully things will come out all right on the other side okay and david larson last words yeah i i agree um kind of going back to what i said before and what david just said and sandra is that we do have to keep talking have to talk calmly and rationally you know don't don't don't accelerate the volume don't get all worked up just calmly and rationally explain what's at risk here um you know you elect um uh walker in georgia and understand what those implications are then when it comes to federal allocations that he's not going to be argued very effectively to get money for georgia you know understand what do you know what's at stake here and um you know think about the implications and let's talk about it rationally that's like and ben do you want to finish us off well i i i just think a little a good tag lines are also good to you know to break it break things down for people like i really thought it was great when there was this uh reverend in georgia right before the election said we don't need a walker we need a runner you know a runner for justice a runner you know i was like oh you know he you know that that ability to just crystallize it for people in ways you know and and so you know we we we don't need to be walkers for justice we need to be runners you know for justice and housing and making that better world for our children are and you know the best we can't you know we can only do what we can and where we're at and we just try to do what we can and that's already something and quite honestly i feel really good because i see you all and it makes me feel good to see all of you all right because we're in a lot of different places with a lot of different experiences but you know i'm trying to be on the side of the angels and that's all you know and i'm not saying that's a democrat or republican i'm not saying that i'm just in the side of the angels of trying to make it a better world for all this that's already something you know and sundra david and david thanks so much for your insights and we know we have the challenge of trying to build on democracy we're not there yet we got a long way to go but it comes down to what people are willing to stand up for and speak out for and you're exactly right hopefully the voters and the people will give us a direction and that the politicians will have to listen to take care happy holidays happy holidays everybody yeah and holiday greetings from think tech and to all of you and yours take good care 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 linked in and donate to us at thinktecawaii.com mahalo