 Thanks so much for joining us on Think Tech Hawaii. Hey, really glad to have you with us. There are always lots of things to pay attention to and think about. Hey, we wish we could have you folks connected with us in ways that would enable us to all interact, but we're not there yet. So, fortunately, today we have with us, retired Hawaii judge, Samuel Sims, also author of one book and another one in the works, as I understand it. And David Larson, professor at Mitchell Hamlin School of Law in the Twin Cities and the recent past director of the American Bar Association section of dispute resolution. The largest and leading organization of mediators, arbitrators, and consulate resolvers, I think any. So thanks so much, Sandra and David for joining us. Lots of things going on. We have some general topics, rights at risk, and maybe some changing tides. But what do you think might be some of our most important rights at risk as we're looking at things now? Sandra? Well, I see a couple of things. I see a couple of things. One, of course, I think, you know, when it comes to, you know, women's rights, those issues are certainly in the flux at this point. There's so much uncertainty and there's so much inconsistency across states and I think that's going to be something that's going to really affect the November elections. And I know that that was the original plan, but it certainly is now because we're looking at, particularly for the younger generation. I mean, it's a generation of women and young people, not just women, but, you know, young people who have lived in a time when certain rights were just assumed and taken for granted and believed in. And those rights are being challenged. And those folks that not ever had a chance, had not ever had things that were given to them challenged in such a way as we're seeing now. And then, of course, there is the voting rights issues that are, you know, kind of traversing around the country as well. I'm not as sure what the impact necessarily here is in Hawaii. We're in sort of a sort of a different space at this time because we're doing all voting by mail. And the sky hasn't fallen. People get their ballots in the mail and send them back. You can go to the polls if, you know, drop them off or the polls are going to be open. We did that for the last thing. Like I said, the sky didn't fall, but I don't think that's going to be something that's going to happen in a lot of other places and with that kind of ease. But those are some of the issues that I'm seeing. Then the other part, of course, is our justice system itself. That's a concern to me as a judge, as a lawyer. Those are the kinds of things that, you know, we think about, is it, I mean. Well, and you shared them. Although you guys, I'm typically a bit on that, but I know it's of concern to those of us who are in the league field. Yeah. And you shared a valuable insight. Several of them. One of them being that we're now looking at generations, millennials and those succeeding who don't just take our word for it of the older generations. And women who don't necessarily take the government or political leaders word for things when not only their reproductive rights, but their rights to be treated as independent human beings with agency, with their own autonomy, are not just seriously put at risk, but seriously eroded. So, David, what comes to mind for you at risk? Sandra touches on so many things. I don't even know where to start. You know, what am I worried about? She mentioned our justice system. One thing I'm worried about is the availability of delay in our justice system. You know, thinking about our former president and who's adopted the strategy of just, I'll just delay. I'll delay every step I can. And it's working. It's working unbelievably well. I mean, he doesn't get indicted. He doesn't get tried. What is wrong with our justice system that we can't proceed and prosecute people and bring them to trial? That's very disturbing, number one. So I'm worried about that, the way that people can exploit kind of procedural opportunities to avoid responsibility. And picking up with women's rights, and I'll just take it a step further, all rights of personal choices. I mean, I'm one who believes that once you start down this path, then we better worry about same-sex marriage and all kinds of personal choices because you just kind of step them up one by one and take them away and I'm concerned about starting on this path and what's going to be next. Then the other thing I'm concerned about is this kind of rise in election deniers, which goes to our fundamental belief in democracy. And you have legislators actually passing laws to make it possible to throw off election results. If you don't like them, we'll just declare them invalid. And if you take away the kind of respect and confidence and believability of elections, that's the end of democracy. And so that's a very good thing. Yeah, yeah. And that's a really important point. Go ahead. That's a biggie because you're looking at things that are basically kind of going to undermine our faith if we had it in the electoral system, our faith in the judicial system. The judicial part is a real concern to me. David, you raised some really good points about what is and certainly how it's being conveyed in the media and how the community is seeing how manipulated our justice system is. It always kind of concerns me as well when a decision is reported that instead of it being the judge making a decision that it's a republican or it's a democrat or it was appointed by Trump, the judge was appointed by Obama, the judge was appointed by Bush. As though that's going to make a that's going to determine how a judge is going to rule. And sometimes you've seen some erratic things, but generally, you know, speaking, you know, as a as a as a retired judge, I because we're appointed here. We don't have elections. But I don't think I I still have a strong belief that judges don't rule that way. They don't rule on the strength of who appointed. They don't rule on the strength of even any sort of political tag. For the most part, obviously they're going to use some exceptions. And I find that that continual emphasis is also going in to really undermine people's perception and faith in the justice system to be fair and to reapply equally to all. That's a concern to me. I and and and of course the the ways in which um system is being manipulated. I I think by a former president is also frightening because it is a method and style that he's using that is clearly not available to hardly anybody. Um And so when you see that and then when you're having to A person who's not trump is called to be accountable for their actions How are you going to enforce that? How are you going to get them to be? To accept accountability if you're seeing this person never has and appears like almost never will I'm I'm hoping that's not the case Even though that's not to me Even though Sander's worth worst suspicions. I think we're confirmed by the district court judge in florida Um, who I think really I don't know how you can explain what she did Other than by the fact that she's a trump appointee But by the same token, then I'm kind of heartened by the fact that when it went on appeal There were two of the three judges who were trump appointees and unanimously they said that this was wrong Then you know the governor, you know the ex-president president does not own government classified documents and never were his documents Um, you know the idea that the justice department can't have access to government documents is Is absurd um, so Yeah, so on the one hand, I'm encouraged by that, but this whole idea that We've got this checks and balance system and the judiciary is independent and it's a check on presidential power and congressional power um Yeah, that really has been damaged and uh, you know, the Supreme court is not supposed to be politicized But when we saw um, um marlott garland being Held off for a year this appointment saying you shouldn't do anything in an election year and then someone being appointed in a week um And then you're going to come around and say this is not a politicized entity Uh, there is no credibility. So I think right now that we're looking people look at the supreme court saying that Yeah, this is a political body and its membership was very much manipulated And we don't have the same kind of faith in it that we used to have Yeah And this may be the first time that we have seen supreme court justices publicly Essentially debating each other over the politicization of the court With justice robert saying we're not political. There's nothing wrong with people just not liking the decisions we made and Justices sota mayor and keegan basically saying who do you think you're kidding? Yeah Yeah, which I think is just Echoing millions and millions of americans are saying yeah, you know, don't try and kid us because we see what's happening Yeah, yeah, I mean we've we've dealt with You know decisions that come out that you don't agree with that's just the nature I mean that's the nature of Of the system it's you're gonna not everybody's gonna be in agreement and so just for him to say that It's the credibility is is under attack because people don't agree. That's no no, we know that's that's not why That's not why at all and and now we have a specter of of I'm not even sure if I want to even say it out loud just really troubles me so much that You know with well just but with you know, it's just this time of situation. It's it's very very Disturbing In this I mean in a situation where it looks like his wife now is going to be called to testify You know with the january 6th committee It also looks like she has had some participation in You know urging The Republicans and Trump people to not accept those results And now to I mean There's a there's a there's a dilemma here because you know on the other hand, you know, she's an independent person She's certainly entitled to pursue her own activities within their relationships, but he's on the supreme court and He's made no secret about, you know, some of his points of views with regard to some of these matters and it's just Unnerving to think that there is that possibility that He will clearly rule Or make a decision because he's already done it once um With regard without regard to the law, but just basically making a purely political decision um It's happened So And he's he's already done it. He will do it again. He in fact there was a very political case that tried to get Justice Kagan to agree to Grant's review. She rejected it The same party resubmitted it to justice thomas. Yeah, and he accepted. Yeah, so there's no question It's whose vote Makes the difference And justice is kagan and sota mayor have come right out and said that It's clear to us that that's true we don't have a Juditially independent integrity based System anymore at least at the supreme court level and clearly at some of the district court levels David you're right. It's it's kind of nice to see that the fifth surrogate even with the majority of Trump-appointed justices on that panel and on that court to come out and Really smack down the district judge's opinion has essentially without factual or legal basis Is a very For a limited issue case. It was an extremely broad and strongly worded opinion Yeah, it was it really really wasn't and I and I think you know as you know, you're both lawyers and you know, you know judges and I I was actually really really shocked That the district court actually allowed there to be a master appointed. I It never occurred to me that that would have happened Did you think that would have happened? No, I mean that was just a request by it was a clear attempt to delay the proceedings Because there's so many documents. There's thousands of documents And if you can require an independent person to review 11,000 documents It's going a long time since that before I have to go to trial I'm certainly not going to have to go to trial before the november elections So I win. You know, this is yeah, this is a this is a win for me Um, so that was yeah, that was that was really disappointed in them. I'm happy that those documents were released Yeah, yesterday was not a good day for the former president Not only in the 11th circuit, which essentially gutted the district court's decision And you know virtually every respect even including its remarks concerning the appointment of the special master hey with whom Trump's lawyers had Hey a less than gratifying encounter last week in their first session where he expressed some pretty clear displeasure and lack of credibility credibility Hey in Their demands and their position. Yeah. Yeah, it's just upsetting is people are they've taken a position that I can say very extreme things and I know there's a population out there that will believe it So I can say things like In order to declassify documents. All I have to do is think about it I don't have to do anything But that's that is just I mean it's borders on insanity Uh, and yet some people will buy. Oh, sure. I guess you can Um, but of course you can't and again the nature of these documents are they aren't his correspondents They aren't his letters. These are government documents the government documents. They belong to the they belong to the united states of america Right your personal things. You don't get that. You don't get personal stuff In the white house, right to which he had access by virtue of being president But that didn't give him ownership. It gave him access, but that's it Well, and that kind of Flows into the question about whether any of the tides may be shifting Because there are three things that we know about narcissists. One is that Everything is leveraged. It doesn't matter where it came from doesn't matter how they've got it Doesn't matter whether it's even true or not or even remotely true The second thing is that they're immune They have no accountability What they do with it at whose expense There is absolutely no responsibility for that on their part The third thing however Which may be coming back around to bite the former president is they will turn on anyone friends relatives family Confidence, yeah, right hand people We saw that with bill bar. He's now figured it out and he's left the camp and Is he really? Well, he has he's saying things Are very different than he used to say before Okay about the lack of truthfulness And the lack of responsibility of the former president or credibility so What does that mean for us going forward? What means that the elections are incredibly important it means that We're not as confident In our checks and balance system and that the courts will be there as a backstop In terms of protecting basic freedoms and freedoms of personal choice We don't know that they're going to be there and it looks like they're not going to be there so Congress can do things to overrule supreme court decisions and can Legislate personal freedoms can legislate a role versus Wade But they can only do that if they've got a majority that is in favor of doing that So these November elections given how the court has been politicized at the highest level Become extremely important And so we all need to participate Well, and that raises a really good point David, which is that Hey in the senate Whose approval would be necessary for legislation to pass for judges to be appointed to the federal courts and for many other things Treaties and things like that It takes a supermajority a 60 Yeah and yeah You can carve out exceptions to that but Doing that itself requires A level of majority that Is not consistent with the basic majority rule democracy and that's senator mcconnell's greatest weapon And he's not about to let go of it Yeah, you know, we have to pay attention to our local legislators um Because when we were talking a little bit earlier about election deniers, you know, that's happening at the state level and Sometimes people aren't as active and attentive to what's happening in their state legislatures As they need to be because maybe they are to aware of how much power they actually do have But again as we approach November, it's not just congressional elections. It's local elections and If we if we want people respecting our election results, we want to make sure that people in our state houses Uh, think the same way that they think that elections Can't be violated can't be overturned easily Can't be overturned just because I lost Uh, and we need to be attentive at the local level That's a good point. David. Oh go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead I was kind of thinking the same thing. I know we spend a lot of time talking about congress and senate, but What's happening in these in these local elections is really Where as I say the rubber is meeting the vote and if we're letting some of those folks come through I mean, we've been seeing I've even seen some people that are sort of semi Into acting as all their deniers even here in Hawaii, which is a little bit unusual We've seen a few that have come forth and you know are questioning whether or not Well, I'm not going to question it but things happen Stuff happened. I don't know if it's true or not And so when you start hearing people do doing that kind of wailing about the results You're still you're still talking about someone who's really If they're involved in the local election Also taking the stance on so in some way to to undermine it. So I don't know what happens if these people I guess if they win it's okay, but if they lose it's it's it's It was fixed. Is that how that works? Sure, and that's what they say but it is for the elections Yeah, yeah, yeah, they said before then they actually say if I win it was okay if I lose The that's what was that's what was funny in Arizona Where the candidates said this election is rigged it that turns out the primary which is again A republican primary your party's election. You're saying it is rigged And she said it's rigged that she ends up winning What was it? Well, I think it was about that now Yeah Yeah, that's that's going to be the that's going to be the thing I I David you're absolutely right. I mean these are the probably the most important midterm elections we've seen in a very very very long time Uh Yeah, it's clearly control of the house and the senate Are in risk, but also the states that exactly as you pointed out In many states the people responsible for certifying the validity of the elections Who with a more secure election system than we have ever has in our history the people responsible for that Many of them have quit. They've been intimidated. They've been threatened. They've been not just professionally implying but personally they their families others Yeah, this has been a really A nasty assault And you know Yeah, and we are in tough times Um, we're seeing things that we've never seen historically. We're seeing climate change consequences that are ravaging places around the world um God be with Puerto Rico because man, they just continue to get hit by terrible storms And hurricanes are moving towards the United States right now So we're worried about hurricanes and forest fires and water shortages as water dries up in the southwest We're worried about inflation and we're worried about global forces over which we don't have a whole lot of control We're worried about supply chain for food and energy coming out of Ukraine and uh coming out of Russia Which is a source of energy. So I've got these huge macro issues that take a lot of our attention And uh, and so some of these other issues that are going to determine what our lives are like Begin that's a slip aside a little bit and again. I'm going back to the state legislatures that we're so worried about Our gas prices and our food prices as well. We should be And we're worried about our water supplies and you saw it happen in Jackson, Mississippi Whether couldn't even drink the water that um, that maybe you aren't paying Close enough attention to what's going on at our local level That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely and some of the folks that are you know involved in In and and running for office seem to not even have a concern at least the kind of concern that we think Is important about these issues. They're more concerned about Uh, making certain that everybody Doesn't believe in the election that you know, the 2020 was rigged or whatever You know the 20 so that's You're absolutely right, David. And so and what I've also seen is that oftentimes people would volunteer to be a part of You know local elections That's not happening People don't want, you know, I mean, I've done I've gone and volunteered at the polls and assisted, you know with with elections and stuff People don't want it. They're not going to want to do that Because You're going to be attacked. Are you going to be your integrity is going to be impugned or you're going to have to deal with the You know with someone coming up and You know doing something Untoward to you or your family and look at the those Those uh pro workers who were in george, of course, they were being paid but still to have been subjected to what they were subjected to um When we've got so much like as you point out, David, there's so many issues really really at stake Aside from just how the system how the election is going to work. We've got stuff problems that need to be Worked on and solved in in our society and we're we can't even take time to do that You know, we don't have time We're short on resources. Um, something happened in minnesota discovered this week. Um, what they believe is the highest Uh, or the worst covet broad case. I don't know if you heard about it Um, there was a an entity set up to feed the children here in minnesota They took $250 million Didn't feed any children. Yeah somehow and when they kept flowing um And now they're discovering they bought they were writing checks for porches um, you know in luxury cars and buying big homes and taking luxurious trips Uh, and nobody was stopping it um You know and again, that's the whole whole idea that there's so many things happening now that That events are slipping through the cracks and really significant things Are are are people believe I can get away with it. So they're they're taking the risk And uh, and that's frightening Well, and you raise another really important point david that the media hasn't really spent much if any attention and that is to what extent the sputans invasion and war policy in ukraine and the timing of it Relate to his attempt to destabilize us democracy in order to serve The forces of the prior present And those who support him Yeah, there's always been that that quote friendship um an alliance poodin believing that um, the trump administration would be much more sympathetic To whatever he wants to do then and the another administration would be and certainly more than than president biden would be so Yeah, that's very um You have to I mean you it seems you can connect the dots that uh, you can't ignore it Yeah, that not only And it's hard to really understand what russia's interest is here if it's just really strictly limited to Land in ukraine. It's got to be more than that. I mean he's got to be thinking about some other benefits He may be getting this other agendas and maybe serving um Yeah, that is puzzling and as you may have seen Now it's going to start drafting russians And I was looking at a map today of all the flights leaving russia going to places where people can go without visas and No, there's there's not that many Um former soviet satellites that can go there you go to turkey But it shows just a flood of planes leaving russia and trying to drive into georgia And just trying to get out of the country before they get drafted and sent to sent to ukraine So in our last minute Is sundry on rights at risk What right would you most like to see? Vindicated by the results of the midterm elections if possible to be honest I just have to say it's the integrity of our court system Fair enough david Yeah, I think I I think I agree with sondra And my second one is you know the confirmation that as americans we retain the ability to make choices for ourselves So but I think I agree with sondra that first off It's really important that we believe that elections are the way we choose our leaders and the way this country survives yeah And a lot of that does go back to the judicial system because the the protection of those rights election And election integrity protection of reproductive rights all of that eventually falls back to the courts and we don't have integrity in the court system then It's often not And that's a great because i'm a required prior judge, but that's just I mean we know how important that is Hopefully we all Share that view and that's a great place to wrap up for today Let's see whether We can protect those rights and take back the choices that have been put over us David sondra. Thanks so much for joining us viewers, thank you too. Good. Always see us. We'll be back in a couple of weeks Thank you 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 twitter and linked in and donate to us at thinktech hawaii.com Mahalo