The Constitution with Ben Sheehan
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Hi, Rammies. Welcome to our newest segment, Write Guests Only. We will be bringing on interesting people every month who will get to teach us a thing or two about a topical subject or juicy event in history. Today's guest is Ben Sheehan. Formerly an award-winning producer at Funny or Die, Sheehan's mission to increase civic participation began when he registered 50,000 voters for the 2016 election through comedy videos. Ben Sheehan is a former

That project led to the highly praised bestselling book, "OMG! WTF Does the Constitution Actually Say?" for millennials and Gen Z, and "What Does the Constitution Say?" for ages 8 through 12, which details how our government was designed to work. With clear prose and graphics, Sheehan has annotated the entire Constitution, explaining its provisions, pointing out its loopholes, and giving readers everything they need to know about being informed, effective citizens.

Let's talk to Ben.

Perfect. So yeah, we already, we did your intro and everything in pre-recordings. We don't have to just, you know, you don't have to sit and just. But we can just say amazing things about you and all your accomplishments again. This is true. My first question is when you came up with OMGWTF, were you like, I'm a genius that this works out that way?

No, I was not. I was looking at a list of governor's races on my phone with my dad. I'd actually just left my job because I wanted to do something. Well, I was about to leave my job because I wanted to do something political for the 2018 election.

And I was looking at a list of governor's races on my phone and I started deleting the ones that I thought were not as important or competitive. And I just kind of whittled down to a list of like 12. And then I think just some of those happen to be like close in order. And so it kind of popped out. Perfect. Damn, it is perfect. It truly took me like a hot second to figure that out. Like Canola has the hat and I just was like, oh, that's fun. And then when I was reading your bio, I was like, oh, what what is wrong with me? Yeah.

How did I not make this connection? That's just so clever. Well, the states that it represents, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Texas, Florida, not all of those are competitive anymore. Ohio is not a competitive state. I mean, Texas...

At times has been competitive, at times has not been competitive. So it's hard to keep that organization. It's not up and running anymore. It was specific to the 2018 midterms because the states change and they're not necessarily focused on those same races four years later. So it's kind of, you know, I got to come up with a new acronym, I guess. Well, we do always say there's nothing sexier than a blue Texas.

We do always say that. True. We mentioned that far too often. And I will stand behind it. Actually, I have a trivia question for you quickly off of that question. What was the last time, what year was the last time a candidate, a Democrat won statewide in Texas? Was it, was it just, okay, this might be crazy. Was it as far back as the 60s with Johnson? No.

No, it's more recent than that. Okay, that was crazy. Oh, God. Statewide. Hmm. I don't know. The 80s? No, close. 1994. It's been 28 years. Oh, for the presidential. Or no, for governor. For the lieutenant governor. Oh, 1994. I realize. 1994 was the last time that a Democrat won statewide in Texas, the lieutenant governor's race. Wow.

And every single elected official since then in Texas statewide has been a Republican. Do you think that will ever change? How long will that change? I do think it will. Well, it's interesting. I would have said it could potentially happen this cycle. There's a really competitive race. I don't know if this is one of the questions you wanted to get to, but there's a really competitive race happening for attorney general in Texas. A woman named Rochelle-

Hispanic woman is running for the seat to unseat the current attorney general, who I think is running for his third term. Fun fact in Texas, there are no term limits for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general. So you can just, if you keep winning elections, you could have that job forever. It's terrifying. You can never be turned out. Yeah. What are your thoughts on like term limits and stuff? And like, what, if you think it's important, why? I think it depends on the office. I think for something like, uh,

an important executive position like governor, I think there should absolutely be term limits. I mean, it kind of is too close to like a monarchy, a king, in my opinion, if you can just keep winning elections. I will say for legislative elections, whether it's in the states or in Congress, I think there's something to experience. I mean, there's a huge learning curve in terms of knowing how to get things passed, how to negotiate and how to, you know, sort of

And also like relationship building, right? That's a huge part of passing laws is building relationships. So if you have term limits, it's hard, you know, you're making, forcing people to have new relationships every couple of terms. I do think that you could have term limits in the, you know, some have proposed like three terms for a sentence. That's 18 years. So that's a pretty good chunk of time to make terms.

and get stuff done. As far as house races, some have proposed five, so that's 10 years limit, more than that a little. But I'm not opposed to term limits, but I think capping it at two or three terms in the house, that's just a massive amount of

turnover and a huge learning curve. And I think there is something to, you know, building relationships, building a reputation, being able to get stuff done across the aisle based on those relationships. But I don't think people should just be allowed to serve in perpetuity. Right. Yeah, it gets a little clicky, doesn't it? It does. Like you got to branch out. It's always just high school. Everything's high school. That is true. High school never leaves us in so many different ways. Never.

Before we get into some of our questions from our listeners, Ben, do you just want to give us a little history of how you got here, how you're so smart, how you know so much? Sure. It was forced on me.

i had no i had no say i i happened to be born in washington dc and i had uh my family worked in government so they worked in the federal government they worked with the federal government and so the topic of conversation at the dinner table literally every night was government

And my parents would unwind by watching comedy about the government, whether it was late night shows or The Daily Show or anything else that sort of satirizing the news of the day. This is just what was on in my house and what was talked about at the dinner table. And I didn't even really get much of that education in school. And I went to school in D.C. I got one year of government, I think, in eighth grade.

And nothing beyond that. And then I ended up studying that in college and all my sort of entertainment jobs, whether it was Funny or Die or or other, you know, freelance gigs. They all kind of pointed me toward the intersection of comedy and politics and really using

Humor not to sort of like scrape the surface jokes and, you know, make, you know, like jokes about Trump's, you know, like sort of like the low hanging fruit, but to use it as a way to help inform people, to help explain something that is that is complicated and confusing, but to use humor as a vehicle to simplify it.

I love that. I love that too. Cause yeah. What do you remember from school? Like I don't even remember government. I truly don't remember any class that taught me what I think I should know now. We had a civics class, but it was definitely not taught through humor.

No. Which is like nice. I imagine most of them are not. Yeah. Why not? But maybe they should be. How many classes did you get in school? I'm actually really curious about this and I'll explain why in a second. But how many civics or government classes did you get between kindergarten and 12th grade?

I know I got one civics class. And then with like, I guess with like AP history or US history, you kind of learn through that, but it wasn't like specifically just government. And then there was an option that you could take AP gov later, but it wasn't like a required class. The only required class I remember is civics. And it was my freshman year. Was that a full, that was a full year? A full year. Okay. I think I had a civics class. I want to say it was sophomore year for a semester. Yeah.

I mean, not a lot. Only eight states require a year of civics at some point between kindergarten and 12th grade. That is crazy. This is how we are built. Can I ask what state you were in? Arkansas. Interesting. For me, California. Yeah.

I think California, now that's required. So some schools may opt to teach more than that. Right. But today, only eight states require a minimum of a year of civics or government at any point between kindergarten and 12th grade. I feel like maybe we should teach it more. Yeah.

We should know what's going on in our government, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's so much of high school. Like you think now, like, God, it'd be nice to know, like when you're 22, you're like, would have been nice to know how to do taxes. Like maybe there should be a full year on that, you know? Yeah.

What's even more ironic is the reason we have public education in the first place is largely to teach people how the government works. In fact, the first pitch for a national university in the history of the United States was in 1796. George Washington used his final State of the Union speech to

to pitch Congress on creating a national university to teach everyone how the government works. And that didn't end up happening, but that idea began to circulate. And so it was like, okay, well, why don't we have public education? We have schools to help make people model citizens and teach them how the government works so they can participate. So that was actually...

of the main, if not the main early reasons for having a public education system in the first place. And today, fast forward a couple hundred years, only eight states require at least a year of it. That is crazy. My jaw has dropped. You know so much. You

I know a lot about a very small amount of things. So you happen to be catching me on those. I'd love to. Oh, that's true. Kunal is the reigning champ so far. He likes to boast about it to everyone. Oh, interesting. You guys would be unstoppable. It would be scary for other people. It would be. It would be.

Well, shall we dive into some questions? Thank you, everyone who wrote in. We just tried to reiterate that it's a safe space. There are no dumb questions. And there's a lot of shit going on right now in this country. Yes. Also, Ben, I have to tell you, my aunt started your book yesterday and finished it yesterday.

One day. She loves retirement and that is the way that she filled her day, but she loved it. I'm so glad to hear that. Yes. So exciting. But yeah, should we start with the questions? So we've been hearing a lot about the Supreme Court lately. Can you just explain to our listeners what exactly the Supreme Court does in a way that you would explain it to a fifth grader who's learning about it for the first time?

Think of the Supreme Court kind of like umpires and referees. And they are umpires and referees for really, really two things. One is the Constitution, and two is federal laws. So the job of the court is to, if there are

or arguments or disputes over what this part of the Constitution means or whether or not this law that Congress just passed is constitutional, the Supreme Court is the body that decides whether it is or whether it isn't.

So, today, it doesn't have to have nine justices, but ever since 1869, that's been the number that's set by Congress. And these nine people get to decide what the Constitution means and what our laws mean and solve any disputes around either one. So, Congress decides how many members of the Supreme Court there are? That's correct. But then the president elects the...

So Congress sets the number of justices so they can pass a law and say we're going to have – so at first we had six judges. So Congress for the first hundred years or so or less than a hundred years, we changed the number all the time. We started with six, then down to five, then six, then seven, then nine, then ten, then down to seven, and then back to nine. And then that's been where it's been since 1869. Okay.

But if there are vacancies on the court, so let's say because Supreme Court justices serve for life unless they die or quit or they get impeached and removed. And we've never impeached and removed a Supreme Court justice. We've impeached one justice but didn't remove that person. That was 200 plus years ago. Right.

Because they get to serve for life. If they quit or step down, there's a vacancy. And so what happens is it's the president's job to nominate somebody to the court. And then it's the Senate's job to confirm that person to the court. So it's a nomination and confirmation process. Got it. Interesting.

Interesting. So interesting. That is so interesting. So when you see on Twitter, like those videos, you know, when a Supreme Court hearing is happening, whether it was, you know, recent examples, Amy Coney Barrett or Katanji Brown Jackson or Brett Kavanaugh, you know, you see them sort of sitting before this panel of people. That's the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And so those members of that committee, those senators, are asking that person questions to try to see if they're going to be an impartial judge, if they have the qualifications, if they're up to par in those senators' minds. And then it moves to – if it passes that committee, if those senators vote on that person, then it goes to a floor vote, the entire Senate votes. And as of today, these days, you only need a majority vote.

But it used to be subject to the filibuster where you actually needed 60 votes to confirm somebody. Got it. And is it really hard to impeach somebody? Like, why has no one ever been impeached or one person? It's a great question. It is very hard to. Well, impeaching someone only takes a majority vote in the House. So it's like a two step process, right? The House impeaches federal officials so they can impeach members.

Members of the executive branch, they can impeach judges, not just Supreme Court judges, but circuit court judges, district court judges, really any federal judge. But we've only impeached, I want to say, about 20 people.

people in the history of the United States. And less than half of those were actually then removed from office. So then it goes to the Senate for like a trial, not like a criminal trial, but like a impeachment trial. And you need two thirds of senators, so 67, in order to convict. And the punishment upon conviction is removal from the office that you hold.

And then the Senate takes a second vote whether or not to bar you from ever holding federal office again. Gosh, it's such a process. I mean, I feel like I really started understanding this a little bit more in like 2016 when Trump was elected and then during the Brett Kavanaugh trial. And I was like, oh, you can't just be like, oh, these people have some bad allegations. This was said there's proof of this. Like, I feel like when I was a teenager, I was always just like impeach them.

That's the solution. Well, we came, you know, we came, I don't know how, I'm significantly older than both of you. But when I was younger, I remember, you know, the Clinton impeachment trial. I was 12, I think, when that happened. Oh, wow. 12 or 13. So I remember, was sort of starting to follow politics and like that was top of, that was top of mind and watching that unfold and go to the Senate. But, you know, impeachment of presidents is extraordinary.

extremely rare. There have been three presidents have been impeached, four impeachments total. So three in our lifetime. And then the first one that ever happened was after the Civil War, Andrew Jackson was, I mean, Andrew Johnson was impeached. But it's a very rare thing. But it seems to happen a lot for presidents in our lifetime, which is strange. Do you think that has to do...

This might be silly or dumb, but do you think that has to do anything with like technology and the rise of technology and just more information being spread and then like public uproar?

It's possible. I think absolutely that the spread of information, or I should say the spread of polarizing information, is having an effect on the electorate. The fact that everyone is able to see information immediately when it happens or reporting on something that when it happens, but also the way that the algorithms that present us the information decide what we want to see. They want to get information.

They're designed to get a rise out of us, to either make us really happy or really sad or really mad or any sort of really strong reaction because that keeps us kind of watching the platform. So we're definitely being presented with a lot of –

emotional information, I think on a scale that we really never have been before. But I also think that just the nature of polarization among our elected representatives may be, you know, driven by that as well. Yeah, that's interesting because I don't really remember a time before information was so quick and accessible, like,

when I was in high school, that was, you know, during Facebook statuses and everything was just like overwhelming access to opinions. And I think it's interesting to think about like our parents of, you know, them having a newspaper and it's just completely different worlds in that realm. I don't also want to clarify that polarization isn't a new phenomenon. We've obviously been polarized many times in our history, but a lot of experts who study polarization say that one,

Our level of polarization right now is at its most extreme level since the Civil War. I mean, I've never been, wasn't in the Civil War time, but I can see how it feels like that. Totally. Seemed pretty polarized. Yeah. Yeah. Which is a good segue to a lot of questions that we got, obviously.

Have to do with the political climate and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. And I think, you know, after that happened, obviously, there was a lot of paranoia and a lot of fear of the Supreme Court coming for other issues like gay marriage and interracial marriage. And we're wondering if you could speak on the reality of those fears, how you sort of see that happening.

I see that going. I think a lot of the dialogue has been like they've been planning, you know, Roe v. Wade for years. And this has all been part of this intricate plan. Like, do you think that's that's similar with gay and interracial marriage? It definitely has been a long term plan to overturn Roe versus Wade among people.

People on in conservative circles. Right. I mean, even even the creation of think tanks to to push for that to happen. Also, organizations that recommend judges, places like the Federalist Society, you know, they suggest judges for Republican presidents to.

nominate to the Supreme Court who they believe will overturn Roe versus Wade when given the chance. So it's not hyperbole to say that this has been a 40 plus year plan to do this among Republicans.

the right of this country, the conservative wings of this country. I don't know if it's quite comparable to same-sex marriage. I would say maybe in sort of the opposite way where there's been a long conservative concerted effort to legalize it. You know, there was a, I believe, you know,

I'm trying to think when the first sort of like major Democratic figure came out for same sex marriage. I mean, look back to the 90s. President Clinton signed a bill called the Defense of Marriage Act recognizing surrogacy.

straight marriages as recognized by the by the in the federal government's eyes. So they look at look how far we've come in just two decades going. I think that was 1996 going from the federal government clarifying by law, I should say, by law that they will recognize straight marriages. And then two decades later, the Supreme Court saying that same sex marriage is a fundamental right.

So to answer your question, I think there is interest in reversing that decision among certain justices. Obviously, the reason that this is being discussed is because in a concurring opinion that Clarence Thomas put out for the Dobbs decision, he mentioned that other cases that are built on similar logic or decisions that were built on similar logic, which is

the right to privacy and that being an unenumerated right. So just to step back a little bit, the Constitution specifically says some rights that we have and then it doesn't mention others, but the Supreme Court is allowed to decide which rights are implied by parts of the Constitution. So obviously abortion is not specifically mentioned,

In this document, because it was written over 200 years ago by 55 white dudes, you know, in a tiny room in Philadelphia with no AC. Abortion wasn't exactly top of mind for these people. It does sound miserable. But...

the Supreme court has recognized that, you know, there is a part of the constitution, uh, that says, um, you can't be deprived of life, liberty and property without a fair legal process. So what does liberty mean? Well, liberty includes things like privacy, uh,

The right to an abortion, according to the Supreme Court in the Roe decision, fell under privacy, which falls under liberty. So, you know, it's a bit of a logic, a couple of logical steps, but they, you know, the Constitution is also really short. It's less than 8000 words. So not everything is in there. And it is the Supreme Court's decision.

or one of their jobs, their responsibilities to say what it means, and that includes deciding what rights should be recognized that may not be explicitly mentioned. So...

With same-sex marriage, obviously this decision in 2015 legalized it, but Clarence Thomas in his Dobbs concurring opinion said that we should revisit other cases that are built on similar logic, which would include same-sex marriage, which would include same-sex sex. In the 2003 case, Lawrence v. Texas was about a gay male couple in Texas that was having sex.

as consensual people do. I've heard of it. And according to Texas's own state laws, they had anti-sodomy laws. And so that was illegal. And it wasn't legalized until 2003 in Texas when the Supreme Court struck down that anti-sodomy law. And

The person who is running, as I mentioned earlier, in Texas, Rochelle Garza, is running for attorney general. The person she's running against, who's a sitting attorney general, wants to bring that law back to recriminalize same-sex sex. Texas listeners, do you hear that?

Do you understand why we came for you? That is not my opinion. That is what he has gone on the record to say. Um, so yes, other cases like that and also contraception, the right to contraception was recognized by the Supreme court in, I believe 1966. Um, and then a few years later it was recognized that was for married couples. A few years later it was recognized for unmarried couples, which is really insane to think about that. We didn't necessarily have the fundamental right to contraception, uh,

Whether we're married or not married until the 60s and 70s. But all of those cases are rest on the same logic as the right to an abortion. And so those are potentially on the proverbial chopping block, I guess, for the Supreme Court.

It is just scary to me that the Constitution was written so long ago. We live in a completely different world. If the founding fathers saw what we were doing at this moment, they couldn't even wrap their head around it. And that a group of people interpret it, it's wild. It feels unfair. Well, there is definitely a movement among...

to put term limits on the Supreme Court. And there's dispute over whether or not that would require a constitutional amendment. Some people say it does, some say it doesn't, because one proposal is to give people terms of 18 years on the Supreme Court, and then you don't get removed from... You still are a judge, but you go down to the circuit court. So you kind of cycle through judges, if that makes sense, rather than...

You know, them having to step down from their from their position. So it's unclear if that's constitutional or not, but it's been proposed and it's definitely been brought up in a couple of recent debates and discussions around Supreme Court reform. Yeah, it is just crazy. Think about like I think the whole Roe v. Wade thing.

Being overturned just really made me think that I, it's, it's just, it's fascinating. It's also concerning. Like there's just so many things about the Supreme Court that seem just, I'm like, how can this happen? And I think especially with,

With the abortion conversation, it's like, don't these men and contraceptives, like, don't they not want to have children? Like, don't they also want control over it? Like, obviously, a woman is the one who has to have an abortion. But it's like, you know, it takes two to tango, I always say. And like, don't you just want to...

Put your girlfriend on the pill if you like. Don't they have that motivation or no? Right. Well, it's it begs the question, is this about preventing abortion or is it about forcing birth? Because there are ways to prevent abortion through things like contraception, which if you if you don't like abortion, why would you not support that?

But there is a significant there are there's a significant number of people, elected leaders who oppose abortion and also oppose contraception. So the question is, why are you why do you want to force birth? And who are you trying to force birth for? Right. Well, controlling controlling of women stuff is tough. But speaking of abortion rights, can you explain what just happened in Kansas last

Sure. So what happens when, you know,

when something isn't specifically mentioned in the constitution, it's really a state issue. So abortion has long been something that's been decided at the state level. It was a state issue before it was recognized as a fundamental right in Roe versus Wade. Even after that, states would still pass abortion laws. Some were found to be unconstitutional, some were not, but states have the ability to make their own laws about what happens in their state. And so what happened was states,

The Kansas legislature, the Kansas State House and State Senate put a constitutional amendment to the Kansas state constitution because every state has its own constitution. And it's totally separate from the federal constitution. A state constitutional amendment on the ballot in the primaries to decide whether or not the Kansas constitution should continue to recognize a woman's right to choose.

And it was a little bit of a surprise because usually – well, Kansas is seen as a conservative state, conservative-leaning state. And it was put on the ballot in a primary election, which tends to favor – for some reason, more conservatives usually turn out in primary elections. So conservative state, conservative-leaning electorate. But overwhelmingly, Kansas voters said no.

No, we do think that the Kansas constitution should continue to recognize that. Right. We don't want to abandon abortion and in totality. Um, and there's a lot of sort of searching as to why that happens, why it was this resounding. It was surprised to a lot of people. Um, but I've seen a lot of the messaging and the ads around this and it makes sense. It's actually in a weird way. There's actually a daily episode about this, but they used, um,

sort of conservative talking points about, you know, do you really want to change the constitution? Do you want to have the government force, you know, to tell you what to do with your body? You didn't like it when the government was telling you to wear masks. You really want them to tell you how to, you know, whether or not you can give birth. It was really interesting messaging, but I do think it gets to a fundamental disconnect between the electorate and the elected leaders. Yeah.

because clearly when you look at poll after poll,

The way that Americans feel about abortion is not consistent with the way that politicians feel about abortion. It's just not. It's certainly not consistent with how the Supreme Court feels about it. So there's a real disconnect between that and what you can see, even when you're a conservative state, when you put it to a vote, voters do not agree with what their state legislators were trying to do.

So frustrating because I'm like, well, then what are you guys even doing here? You're supposed to be representing us, you know?

Yeah. And this is the you know, this is the problem with gerrymandering. Right. When you are able to, you know, the same the same state legislators who put this amendment to a vote for the Kansas voters. You know, they also draw their own districts. They in most states throughout the country, legislators draw their own districts, which is a fancy way of saying they get to pick who votes for them.

So that happens every 10 years. We redraw the line. So if you wonder why it seems like politicians are so much more extreme than the voters and the state that they represent, it's because they pick their voters in a way that will keep getting them elected and they don't have to be accountable to voters. Now, obviously, that's not the same with statewide elections because it's the entire state voting. But when you look at district based elections, so state house, state Senate, you know, the U.S. House elections.

That's the reality. And so you end up with a group of people who are representing you who represent only the most extremes. I can't believe that's just allowed. Yeah.

I share your concern. Now, there are ways to get around it, right? So you can pass an independent redistricting commission where you have a group of citizens draw the lines instead of the people serving in office. That's what California did. That's what Michigan did in 2018. They actually had a ballot measure or a state constitutional amendment on the ballot that was initiated by citizens. So this...

This woman named Katie Fahey was pissed off about gerrymandering and just started posting on Facebook and getting her friends to post about it, too. And then they ended up getting a group together that started volunteering and getting signatures to try to get this on the ballot. And they raised some money and they got it on the ballot and then it got passed.

That is so encouraging. Gerrymandering is illegal in Michigan and completely changing how the first cycle that we're going to see these changes in is this year. This is the first, the new maps were drawn and this was passed in 2018. New maps were drawn in 2021. They take effect this year. So you have new maps for the U.S. House, for the State House and the State Senate based off of a young woman who was pissed off

Four years ago and completely changed the future of her state. So anyone who tells you that things can happen, it takes a lot of work and sometimes a lot of money. But it is entirely possible. She went completely around her legislator, legislators and said, you know, fuck this. I'm going to I'm going to do something about it. That's incredible. We love that. Hell hath no fury. Right. No kidding. A pissed off woman. No kidding. And we are here for it. So here for it.

That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Should we do, let's see. Second question is about Moore versus Harper. We kind of just covered that with what that has to do with the gerrymandering. A little bit. There's one additional thing about Moore versus Harper. So it is, it is a case based around gerrymandering, but the ramifications would go far beyond gerrymandering and to really any legal

laws for federal elections, including the presidential election. So the basic idea is that, you know, in the Constitution, in two parts of it, it says that state legislatures get to decide the times, places and manner of elections for Congress. And it says that how we

choose our electors because, you know, we don't vote for president directly. We have this group of electors and each state has a different number based on its population. You know, how we choose the electors is up to the state legislature. Now, state constitutions

have their own rules where they can say, well, you know, even if the state legislature says they want to choose the electors this way, you know, the governor can veto that decision. Or if the state Supreme Court, the state Supreme Court, because every state has their own Supreme Court, says that, you know, that law that the state legislature passed is inconsistent with the state's own constitution, they can strike it down. Kind of how the, you know, the Supreme Court can strike down federal laws. So,

What's really extreme about this is because the Constitution doesn't say the governor in the state can strike down these laws, it doesn't say that the state Supreme Court can strike them down or even that the state Constitution can allow them. It is this idea that a state legislature can just operate unchecked. It can ignore the governor. It can ignore its own Constitution. It can ignore its own Supreme Court and just decide how elections should be run.

And we've never operated like that in the history of the United States. This is a theory that's really gained ground in the last 20 years or so. But it would be a sea change because it would basically allow the groups of people we're talking about who don't very accurately represent us, especially if they're gerrymandered. Do you have unfettered control of elections for members of Congress and elections for Democrats?

the president and potentially even taking away our ability to vote for president because we don't actually don't have the right to. It's just a courtesy that our state lets us vote as a way to choose the electors. We don't have the right to vote for president in the Constitution. We've never had that right for the first hundred years of the United States. State legislatures in some states just chose the electors themselves. There was no presidential election. But it's been since 1880 that every state has had a popular vote, you know, as a way to decide the electors. But

States can take that back at any time. And if more v. Harper is decided in favor of the plaintiffs, then the legislatures would have this power basically unchecked and they could have an unprecedented level of control over our elections and ignore their governor, ignore their state constitution, ignore their state Supreme Courts. And it would have – it's sort of like – I was talking to one elected official recently who described it as like a nuclear bomb for –

That's what it feels like as you start talking about this. I'm like, oh, it gives me a little... Did that make sense? Was that too convoluted? No, it's just a scary thought. Totally. There's no democracy in that at all. Yeah, I would agree with you. And some would say that there's not as much democracy in our country.

original design as we think there was. And there is some truth to that, but we've also expanded democracy over time. We didn't used to be able to vote for United States senators. It was state legislatures that chose senators. And then in 1913, we said, nah, let's let the people choose senators. Obviously, not everybody had access to voting. And the Voting Rights Act in 1965 changed

that drastically for, for millions of, of Americans. So we've definitely made things more democratic over the years, but this would be a real, uh, I don't even want to say leap. I would, this would be a, a massive, you know, cannon shot backward in, in history if it were to pass. Well, that's actually a perfect transition to our next question. Um, someone wrote in and asked about the electoral college. What is it and how do we get rid of it?

So it is a it's a compromise. It was a compromise between a couple of ways of picking the president. So, you know, back to the old white guys in the air conditionless room in Philadelphia, they were trying to figure out how to choose the president. And for a long time, for most of the convention, they were like, well, Congress will pick the president.

And then they were concerned and be like, well, but, you know, the president is allowed to veto bills. So if they're dependent on Congress for their job, maybe they just will sign everything Congress passes so that they can keep getting chosen as president and not actually veto bills that maybe shouldn't be passed. So they said, OK, that's a really good point. Well, let's say, how else should we do it? And they said, well, in most states, the state legislature doesn't.

at the time, chose the governor, so maybe the state legislature can choose the president. They said, well, but sometimes they're slow to act. And some people were like, why don't we just have everybody elect the president? Just do a popular vote across the country. And some people supported that. And some said, well, you know, we didn't have, they didn't say this, but we didn't have Twitter. We didn't have phones and news updates. So people didn't get information quickly. So how would they know who would be a good president if they were somebody from a different state?

So at the very end of the convention, they decided to pull all of these ideas. And so they said, all right, well, instead of Congress picking, it's going to be just a bunch of people who have no political power and their only job is to elect the president.

So it takes a little bit of corruption out of the picture because these people can't pass laws. We're going to have state legislatures choose the method of choosing these people. And if they want, they can choose a popular vote.

So it kind of cobbled together these different ideas. But one thing the Electoral College also did, which is help which southern states, you know, agreed to because you needed nine of 13 states to agree to the Constitution. Otherwise, it wouldn't happen. So there was this compromise because it's based on the number of representatives plus senators. Right. So in a small state like Delaware, you only have one member of the House and two senators. So you get three electoral votes. Right.

And then for big states, you know, like Texas Dex cycle is going to have 40 electoral votes because 38 members of the House and two senators. But the effect of this is

was because at the time, members of the House were chosen by population. And how did we count the population? Every free person counted as one. Every indentured servant counted as one. Every Native American who didn't pay taxes counted as zero. And everyone else, meaning slaves, counted as three-fifths of a person.

So if representatives are based on, you know, counting the population, part of the population is three fifths. So are electoral votes. So Southern states got electoral votes based on their enslaved population. Oh, I never knew. I never knew that. That couldn't even vote. Like that had no say in it. Who had no say. Yeah. So a state like, a state like Virginia in the first presidential election got like, it was the biggest state at the time.

It had like, I think it had 12 electoral votes and three of those electoral votes were based on the enslaved population. So it's great. And in 1800, the margin of Thomas Jefferson's victory in the initial round of the electoral college was very small.

And if you add up the total number of electoral votes he got just based on the enslaved population of Southern states that voted for him, that margin was bigger than his margin of victory. So some historians say that Thomas Jefferson rode the backs of enslaved people into the presidency. I would say so. Wow. And so this is what we're still using today. This is what we're still using today. So that's how it was decided at the convention. But then that other second part is why

Because there were way more eligible voters in northern states than southern states. Each group of states had about 1.8 million people. So the total population in northern states was around 1.8 million. The total population, forget the designation of enslaved, free, whatever. 1.8 million, 1.8 million. But a significant portion of

that 1.8 million in Southern states could not vote. So a popular vote would mean a lot fewer voters to represent the interest in those states. So they had to come up with a system that would make it relatively even. And so that's the system. Right. Southern states were like, it's not fair. And I would say there's a lot of unfair things going on right now.

So that's the reason. So that's how we got the Electoral College. So the more important part of your question, how do we get rid of it? So there's three ways to do it. One is a constitutional amendment, which is really hard. Ultimately, you need 38 states to agree to do that. And it almost happened in the 70s.

It fell apart because of the filibuster, but it's going to be very hard to do that because a lot of states benefit from the electoral college, right? Because you always have a minimum of three electoral votes, so it doesn't matter how small your population is. If you have this basement of three votes, the proportion of electoral vote to voter is much higher in smaller states than it is in bigger states.

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Rammies, I'm going to let you in on a little secret, and I'm going to say something that you probably have never heard a soon-to-be bride say, and that is that I love wedding planning. I have had such an amazing, fun, light experience doing it with my fiance, and that is a huge thanks to Zola. So with Zola, you can plan your entire wedding in one convenient place. You've

You guys, they have everything. So from like the day you get engaged, you can start planning on Zola. You can find the venue there. You can create your save the dates. You can make your registry. You can make your wedding website. Even to the final stages of tasting your cake, Zola has everything.

everything you need to make this process super easy and fun. And this should just be a pleasurable experience that you get to share with someone you love. And I'm really appreciative that Zola has just let us do that. There's even a five-star app that helps you plan on the go on your couch. So if you and your future husband or wife are watching a movie, having a glass of wine, plan your wedding

from the couch. Do it wherever you want because this is all about you. So here's what you're going to do. You're going to start planning at Zola.com. That's Z-O-L-A.com. You can thank me later. So like, for example, let's look at one of the largest states and one of the smallest states. So based on population a couple of years ago, in Texas, there was about one electoral vote for every 550,000 voting age.

In Wyoming, there's one electoral vote for every 140,000 voting age citizens. So your individual vote for president as a citizen is significantly more impactful in Wyoming than it is in Texas, purely because of how many people live in the state. So that is so the reason is some states may not want to get rid of that.

The second way to get rid of it is something called the National Popular Vote Compact, which is an agreement among states to give their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, not the popular vote in their state. You need ultimately, in order for this compact to take effect, you need the total number of electoral votes in the states that agree to reach 270. Right now it's at like 195, 196, and I think 15 states and D.C. have signed on.

But that could fall apart at any time because if one, say you hit 270 and then one state pulls out and you dip below 270, the compact takes effect. So it's very flimsy. And then the final thing is if every state has the ability to do this tomorrow is just give their electoral votes proportionally rather than winner take all.

Right now, if you win Texas, say you get 50.1% of the vote versus 49.9% of the vote, you get all 40 electoral votes from Texas. And the person who got 49.9 gets zero. If you just did it proportionally, where that person, the winner, gets 21 electoral votes and the loser gets 19, at least it more reflects the population. And that's something that any state could do differently.

tomorrow, if it wanted, could just pass a law to change how they give. You don't need permission from Congress. You don't need the Supreme Court to get involved. It's just every state legislature, as the common theme, keeps coming back to state legislatures. That's my thing I scream about all the time when I'm with my friends in very popular parties. But that is where the power is. And if you're mad about the Electoral College, your state representatives could change that.

Tomorrow. How many states do you think would be like, you know what, let's get rid of it right now if there was a vote today? I think it would be less than half, probably. I think it's a good indication of a number of states that have signed on to the compact. So 15, clearly, I'd say there might be another...

five to seven that haven't signed on, but might support some version of getting rid of this. But, you know, in order to do it as a constitutional amendment, uh, you need, you need to hit that 38 state margin to ratify, to, to agree. And that's, and that's very high. The numbers were there in the late sixties, early seventies, uh, but were killed by, uh, Southern, Southern senators with the filibuster. Um, but, uh, it is, uh,

It's something that's left over from a much different time. It obviously has dark roots and ties to slavery. It's a very unique system to the United States. And the whole idea of that, the original dispute was some people wanted a popular vote, some people wanted the electoral college. Plenty of people...

wanted a popular vote and then signed on to the Electoral College because it was the compromise. So it was never originally it was never like a, you know, Electoral College versus the popular vote.

It was more of like a popular vote versus Congress choosing the president or legislatures choosing the president. This was just the compromise. So we've all kind of been taught a slightly incorrect version of this in our very limited government civics classes. Very, very limited. Do you see in the next hundred years maybe us changing from the Electoral College to a popular vote? Or what sort of like in your, not ideal, but like what would be the minimum population?

of this may be happening? I have, let's see, next hundred years. I've got a lot of thoughts about what might happen in the next hundred years. I will say that there are two states right now. Right, exactly. I'll say right now, there are two states that do it a little bit differently.

Maine and Nebraska, where the winner of the state gets two electoral votes, sort of representing the two senators who are statewide. And then the winner of each U.S. House district gets one electoral vote for that member of the House. So you can split votes in Maine and Nebraska. Yeah.

And candidates do. So that is at least a little bit more representative of the voters. But the problem is that if every state did that, you'd basically be gerrymandering the Electoral College and the presidential vote. Because if it's based on, you know, elections for or you're using the same districts that you use for the House, like in those districts are gerrymandered, then.

You're gerrymandering the Electoral College. So if you were to pass a bill, a single bill, it's one of my big my biggest like solutions is like I don't understand. I mean, I do understand. But Congress should just pass a standalone bill to fight gerrymandering for Congress.

That's it. Every state has to have an independent redistricting commission. You can't gerrymander the U.S. House. It could be less than a page, just like a simple, simple fix that would have huge ramifications and positive effects for our democracy. But do you think some of those Congress members are like, but that's how I got here? Yes. I absolutely do think that. Exactly. But I think that it's also important to force

people to vote on that. But I will say that even though, you know, I would say more states right now, and I don't know if it's because of values or because more states are controlled by Republicans, but more Republican state

are gerrymandered versus Democratic states, but Democratic states gerrymander too. Illinois is gerrymandered. New York is gerrymandered. Massachusetts, my home state of Maryland, is one of the worst offenders of gerrymandering. And all of these states I just mentioned screw over Republican voters and favor Democrats. So it's not a one party does it. It's not in even proportions, but both parties are guilty. So I think maybe you could get some Republican voters

from those states to sign onto a bill because it affects them negatively. Yeah. Totally. You should run for president, Ben. I don't want to. I don't blame you. I don't want to. It seems like a horrible job. No, she hated it. Jackie would be a chic first lady, though. Oh, yeah.

Honestly, Jackie is a much better politician than I would ever be. She can walk into a room and command it. I mean, she's like a saleswoman on a whole other level. She has the like...

gift of, of, of gab, of, of network. She just, she has that whole package. Yeah. And if she actually did want to do it, I think she could go very far. I think so too. Power couple. I've never been more ready for a female president. So bring it on Jackie. Come on, Jackie.

Well, I know that you have a lot to do, so we'll kind of wrap it up. Besides voting and calling our elected officials, what can we do, Ben? Yeah, what the hell can we do? One thing is you can take matters into your own hands and run for office. I think people think that it's this sort of distant thing that you got to do a lot. Like, I'll put it this way. There are, you know, there's one federal government.

There are 50 state governments and there are 87,625 local governments. Which level do you think we pay the least attention to? The one with 87,000 local governments. Of course, naturally. Obviously. So we often think of holding office as something that, you know, it's like running for Congress or running for governor. There are so many local offices that have a resounding impact on our lives that not only do we not turn out for, we don't even know exist, but

There's an organization called Run for Something. Oh, yeah. If you go to runforsomething.net, you can take a quiz about what, you know, you can set up a call with them and talk about, like, what your values are. They'll tell you, like, what office affects the things at the local level that you care about. They'll even do a consultation with you and help you figure out how to file papers to run. That's so cool. Thousands of young people, people in their teens and 20s, have run for local office because

hundreds of them have been successful. And so instead of waiting around for, you know, to try to influence other people to fix it, fix it yourself and run for local office. And if that seems like something you want to keep doing, keep doing it. But this is something that we can all do today to take matters into our own hands. I would also say

even starts like just knowing who your representatives are at the federal state and local level, um, follow them on social media. I follow my representatives on social media. Some of my local representatives, I, I, I DM with, I mean, they, people, you'd be surprised how few people follow them on social media and like interact with them. Um, you can definitely get people to respond that way. And that's obviously something a little easier than, than, you know, um,

calling and talking to like a member of the staff, maybe it's a member of staff that runs it. I don't know, but some people do it themselves. Um, you could volunteer on a campaign, uh,

If there's a candidate you really believe in, someone like, I don't know, Rochelle Garza in Texas who's running for attorney general, you could volunteer on her campaign and help her out or someone else who you believe in. You could attend a town hall. This is something I did for the first time a couple of weeks ago. I went to my city council members' town hall. There were maybe in total 80 people there. They were crazy.

were there were snacks uh if they everyone talked about what they went over like the budget for the year uh that the chief of police was there the head of the fire department i mean they're all is it a chance to interact with directly with your city council member the people who are leaders in your in your city and 80 people showed up wow and this is a chance to have like a direct conversation with the people who basically you know have control over your life at the local level so not nearly enough of us take

that opportunity. And we should. Protesting, donating, obviously, staying informed. One great thing that way to do it is to sort of think about how do I find out what my elected officials are up to with the different levels of government. So I look at it as four, I divide it into four tiers and I follow one newspaper for each tier. So if I want to know what Congress is up to, I read the Washington Post, since that is

Obviously, that was the paper that I read when I was growing up, and that's a paper that I think covers Congress really well. There are other newspapers in Washington you could read, but one to follow Congress's activity.

I recommend subscribing to the newspaper in your state capitol. So I subscribe to the Sacramento Bee because they report on what happens in the capitol with the legislature and the governor, and I find out about what state laws are being discussed and considered and coming up for a vote. So that's a great way. Follow the newspaper in your state capitol. For my county, I follow the LA Times. Other counties may have a newspaper that...

generally covers or partially covers what's happening at the county level. And then for my city government, I follow the Pasadena Star News and that tells me what's happening in Pasadena. So I follow one level, one newspaper for each level of government that affects my life. And I recommend other people, you know, take that approach. That's so inspiring. Yeah, I really like that idea because I think right now it's obviously, you know, we all follow a thousand different things on Instagram. I think there's such an influx of like,

It's a little overly saturated sometimes, but I like that specific agenda of where you get your knowledge. So I think that's a really great point. Right. And real journalists, not someone's like uncle talking on Facebook. Yeah. I mean, it's easy just to like repost something really quickly and be like, yeah, I agree. And then you're like, what even is this from? Like, what account is this? Totally. So I know I can do a better job at that as well. Mm hmm.

It's just a little bit every day. You know, it's not like you have to, you don't have to devote hours of your, of your day every day to doing this. You can just, you know, you know, look at the, you'll get your email newsletter updates, follow them on social media, just kind of be casually aware. And then if something happens that you're really passionate about, or that affects your life, or there's an issue you care about, you know, get, get, get involved. Yeah. We love that. It's run, run for something.net you said.

Run for something.net is the website where you can sign up to run for local office. And I know at one point they had a tool on Snapchat. I don't know if it's still up. I think it might be.

Where if you have Snapchat, you can go to, I believe it's the Discover page or like the app page, and you click on the Run for Something module. And like it gives you a quiz and you start to answer questions. And then at the end, it determines what local office you would be best suited for based on your interests.

I don't know if that's still up, but I know that if you go to the website, runforsomething.net, you can sign up and Zoom with one of the people on their team and they can help guide you as to what to run for. Amazing. We can put that link in our bio. Yes. And the show notes, everyone, I think that feels nice just to be able to take matters into your own hands right now when everything feels so out of control. Totally. Yeah.

Well, Ben, God, these have been very informative. We really appreciate your time. We have a question for you, as we will ask all of our guests at the end of every episode. Just because we are a history podcast and usually we have a cocktail or smoke a joint while talking about some juicy, juicy stories. If you had to split a joint with one person from history, dead or alive, what would you do?

And be with them for hours and hours. Who would that person be and why? What a question. Only one person from history. Only one person. I would say Ida B. Wells Barnett. Oh. This is a woman who is one of the founders of the NAACP. And she was...

She's sort of been forgotten a little bit by history, but she would go investigate lynchings and crimes against African-Americans throughout the early 1900s. And the reason—it was sort of like the early roots of the civil rights movement was this woman risking her life doing investigative journalistic work in the South at a time when a black woman doing that was insanely dangerous. Yeah.

And she was basically exposed this whole culture of like post-Civil War, post-Civil Reconstruction racism. And just like the balls it must have taken to go into these...

very scary, threatening areas, doing this journalistic work, compiling the information that she compiled, then leading to the founding of the NAACP and that spiraling into the civil rights movement. She was sort of like the founding mother of that movement that I don't think gets enough. No kidding. I would just, I would just like to know what it was like risking your life in that way and being able to, how did she get people to open up to her? How did she get, you know,

How did she not get killed doing this? How did she get information? How was she able to make relationships? I just find that so fascinating. Someone should make a movie about her. We have to do a Ram episode about her. Yeah, we should. Wow, that's an incredible answer. And what a conversation to have, like a little high. I mean, I was going to say, like, maybe that's not like the most lighthearted conversation, like a pretty deep topic. No, that's what you need. I'm fascinated by her story and I would just want to know more about it and maybe, I don't know,

There's definitely some really tough parts of her story, and so maybe being high would make it better, maybe it would make it worse. I don't know, but I would love to pick her brand. 100%. I feel like she would be like, I deserve this more than anyone. Literally, though. Wow.

The least we could do is get her a joint. The least. Yes, the least. That is a perfect answer. Well, Ben, thank you so much. Everyone be sure to follow Ben on TikTok and Instagram at Ben Sheehan. We'll put your handles in the notes and our socials. Ben does really great videos on TikTok and Instagram with current events and about, you know, a minute or so of just what you need to know and what's going on. I know I literally get most of my news from you at this point and-

walked them over and over and just finally feel like I'm more of an informed citizen. So I appreciate that. Thank you for your service. Oh, that's so, so nice to hear between, uh, between you and between your aunt. Uh, I'm thrilled to have a, an impact on this podcast. Of course. Thank you so much for coming on Ben. Give our, give our fam the best. Tell Chooch I say hi. I will. Hopefully she's, she's hanging in there.

She's not. She's not. She's really mad that she's not the only baby in the house. I felt that. I felt that from her photos. It looks like she's upset. Yeah, she's mad. Oh, man. Well, thank you again, Ben. Thanks, Ben. We'll talk to you soon. And everyone go follow Ben right now on all of the social medias ever. Bye, Ben.