The Presidential Election & Saving our Democracy

Episode Notes

Transcript

David Pepper:

We need to start living up to that constitutional guarantee that every state essentially is a function democracy. It could be a red state or a blue state by the way, but it should be a state where the people in these state houses generally reflect the mainstream views of the people of these states. And right now, in too many states in this country, that’s just not the case.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the award-winning podcast, Lawyer 2 Lawyer with J. Craig Williams, bringing you the latest legal news and observations with the leading experts in the legal profession. You are listening to Legal Talk Network.

J. Craig Williams:

Welcome to Lawyer 2 Lawyer on the Legal Talk Network. I’m Craig Williams, coming to you from Southern California. I write a blog named May It please the court and have two books out titled How to Get Sued and The Sled, my blog. May it please, the Court is up and running in the New York, so check it out at that website. May it please the court.com. And I also have a new book coming out called Bad Decisions, 10 famous Trials that Changed District Be on the lookout for it around June. Well, on November 5th, 2024, later this year, people across the nation will be heading to the polls and casting their vote for president of the United States. Right now we’re in the midst of the primaries. It’s looking more and more like another battle between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump with policy and rhetoric indicating an even more divided nation than in the prior election with policies like immigration, abortion, IVF, guns, employment and the economy taking center stage in this race, this election could once again be a controversial one, but is democracy itself on the line?

Well, today we’ll be discussing on Lawyer 2 Lawyer the upcoming presidential election. We’ll take a look at the status of democracy in the United States, the current issues that could impact the election and what this election really means. And to help us better understand today’s topic, we’re joined today by attorney David Pepper. David is a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official and adjunct professor at the University of Cincinnati. He also served as a chairman of the Ohio Democratic Party between 2015 and 2021. In that role, he was engaged in numerous fights and extensive Litigation over voter suppression and election laws in the Buckeye State. Stemming from that work, David appeared in all in the documentary highlighting Stacey Abrams nationwide fight for voting rights. David has written a number of books including his most recent Saving Democracy, a User’s Manual. Welcome to the show, David.

David Pepper:

Thank you. Great to be with you.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, it’s wonderful to have you here. You’re a whole bunch of different things. Lawyer, writer, activist, former elected, official, adjunct professor. Give us a little bit of background about how you got into politics and all of these interests.

David Pepper:

So what’s funny is I grew up in Cincinnati. I went to college in law school out east. I actually worked overseas in Russia. I moved back to Cincinnati and clerked for the sixth Circuit, which is based the federal Sixth Circuit, which is based in Cincinnati. And I didn’t move back here to run for office, but while I was here, Cincinnati, which was a town I was not only grew up in but very proud of, I actually at one point in law school was named most likely to be president of the Cincinnati Board of Tourism because I’d always brag about Cincinnati. Well, I moved back, and you may or may not remember this, but around 1999, 2000, we had terrible police community relations. We ultimately had riots on our streets and it was a really low point for the city. And so what prompted me to run for office, I had no political background, not really any partisan background either, but it was this concern that the city I grew up in was doing terribly and I just sort of thought I could do something about it, which in a way, in hindsight, I was a very naive candidate, but in a way that also I think is one reason I ended up winning was I felt like someone knew someone fresh.

And so I’ve been involved ever since, but I really ran because of the city I grew up in and cared about was really going through a terrible time and I was hoping I could provide better leadership than we were seeing.

J. Craig Williams:

You said like Mr. Smith went to Washington.

David Pepper:

It really was. And then I look back, my first campaign, no polling, no nothing, I actually ended up finishing first out of 30 people. We had this crazy at large field race, but I really mean, my slogan was just Add pepper, which is my last name. Obviously. It really was in hindsight this very sort of rookie race. But I think again, because it was a time where the city really desperately wanted change, it was obvious in every way that I was not some insider. I was new and I think that allowed me to get votes from all over a pretty big city. So it was kind of a unique way to start, but I still think politics should be about public service. That’s why I ran and that’s what I, even while I was chair and everything else of the party, I always try to reemphasize this should be still about public service. Even if when you watch most of it these days, it doesn’t feel that way.

J. Craig Williams:

Alright, Mr. Smith, give us the state of democracy. Give us a little mini state of the Union address here. Tell us what’s going on.

David Pepper:

Well, the truth is the reason I wrote this very versus that very sort of naive, happy, optimistic, first run, the reason I wrote the first book of the two in 2021 called Laboratories of Autocracy is because I’m deeply worried about the state of democracy. And what’s interesting is a lot of what I bring to my books is as a lawyer, I teach voting rights. I teach election law. So I’m always thinking about it, but I’m trying to explain it in a way that non-lawyers understand it. So I wrote this book, laboratories of Autocracy because when you look at any definition of a functioning, healthy, viable democracy, many parts of our country struggle to meet it or they just clearly do not meet it. We have, I think, real issues in many of our states where gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of engagement by many, and I wrote it about Ohio, but it’s true of a lot of states. We’re really starting to see a decline of the basic principles of democracy in states. And the whole theory behind my book is because states are the places where democracy of America are shaped. I mean that’s where the rules of our democracy are largely written. When they go south, it throws off our whole national system.

J. Craig Williams:

You mean like fake electors?

David Pepper:

Like fake electors, like gerrymandering. So almost no member of Congress has ever in a real election, including today’s speaker of the House, the current speaker of the house has never been in a real election. I mean half his elections have been uncontested, others have been blowout. So once you don’t have a core democracy at the state level, whether it’s state officials or in the end federal officials, many of them are existing in a world without real democracy, without real accountability. And that ends up warping all the incentives, which is leading to so much of the extremism and dysfunction. And too often, this is why I wrote these books too often, because we only think about federal races, those get the attention. We aren’t seeing that the core problem is that in state after state, the essence of democracy is looking a lot more like hungry. The country where there’s very little accountability, very little choice, often no rule of law. And that’s why we see so much of the dysfunction on full display in Congress or they can’t agree on everything on anything, but also in all these states that are going through sort of rapid downward spirals of extremism. But I hate to say it, it’s a pretty negative report on democracy. To answer your question,

J. Craig Williams:

It sure is. And it seems to be rampant throughout our society. I’m listening to what you’re saying, thinking while I we’re also seeing this in the police forces across our country, a disrespect for certain human rights.

David Pepper:

Yeah, I mean we’re seeing, I don’t get into that as much. I mean that was an issue when I ran, ironically when I first ran for office, we had very, very challenged police community relations. And the good news is I think that can be resolved. And it’s something I worked on as a city council member. We came up with some police community agreements that help fix that. But yeah, we are seeing just broken government all over. But my main focus is we have made ourselves believe that the end all be all of saving democracy is federal office. And what I try and point out in these books is we have won, I’d say sort of the pro-democracy, which is more than just Democrats, but obviously there’s a lot of Association with the parties here. But the side that cares about democracy has convinced itself that if all it does is win federal offices, that it wins the battle.

So when Biden won beat Trump and when Democrats won the Senate, people celebrated like everything was won. But the point of my books is to say in a lot of the presentations and speeches I make, we’ve won those, right? But it doesn’t feel like democracy saved. And that’s because the battle for democracy, and this was true in the Jim Crow era, this is true going back through a whole history, it’s a much deeper battle and it’s based more in states where far more of democracy is shaped than the federal government. So what I try and do is get people to really focus on the much broader and deeper battle and struggle for democracy than the five or six swing states that determine federal elections.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, let’s go right to that. I mean cpac, we have a speaker, Jack pbe who says, we’re going to end democracy. There are actively people trying to end it. If you haven’t figured out that Trump’s trying to do it and project 2025, let’s talk about that.

David Pepper:

Yeah, when I first wrote my book, the first one, laboratory 21, I had people kind of push back because my theory is you got one side that is taking democracy for granted. The other side is actually their very goal is to divert democracy enough so that views that are so toxic they would never win in a real democracy still prevail. They’re attacking democracy. And people would say to me, David, are you sure you can say that? I mean, come on, that’s a major accusation. And I would say things like, well, look, they’re studying Victor Orba, that’s what he’s done. Or they’ve written this or other things. Well, now like you said, they just say it. They say it in that way. If you put out on social media that you care about democracy, a lot of times you’ll get this instant response. Well, we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic as if being a democratic republic is not what we all think of as democracy.

So yeah, I mean I don’t think any more than even hide the fact. And it cuts back to that reality I mentioned on the far right, they perfectly understand that their views, be it abortion bans, no exceptions or censoring history or nothing on climate change, they actually know full well or crazy gun laws. They actually know that on a fair playing field, a non gerrymandered world where people are largely voting, they actually know they would lose. I mean their viewpoints are deeply unpopular. So their game plan, their strategy is not well, how do we convince people to support our deeply unpopular views? It’s how do we rig the rules of democracy enough? How do we subvert democracy enough that we win even though we are unpopular? And that’s when that Jack Poso, or however you say his name or Steve Bannon or all of them say that, it’s because they know that unless they have certain ways to undermine what is otherwise a majority rule democracy, they know they would actually lose. I mean, look at it. They lost in Kansas 60 40 on a referendum about reproductive freedom. They got crushed in Ohio when we had our reproductive freedom of amendment on the ballot. So they’re losing in red states on their core beliefs. Of course, they’re going to lose everywhere unless they keep doing what they’re doing. Gerrymander suppress, like you said, that project 2025, they need to figure out ways to subvert democracy enough to keep a very unpopular worldview in place.

J. Craig Williams:

How does gerrymandering play into all of this?

David Pepper:

I mean, gerrymandering in many ways is sort of the original sin of it all. If you watch closely, when Lindsey Graham came to Mitch McConnell after Dobbs and said, Hey, let’s do a national abortion ban, Mitch McConnell said, no, we don’t want to lose Rick Scott has a plan to attack Social security. Mitch McConnell said, don’t talk about that. We don’t want to lose. So they can’t do their unpopular agenda items there at the Senate. It’s too much attention. There are too many states that are pretty even gerrymandering means that in states which control every single issue in politics except sort of foreign affairs and military, those same abortion bans, those same toxic gun laws, all of them can be pushed through state houses. But gerrymandering means they can be pushed through state houses with no accountability. I mean, these people are largely living in districts they cannot lose.

And they have majorities that are way beyond what the people of the state actually how they would break down in a partisan way. Gerrymandering gives them more votes in the State House caucus than they actually have earned. But more than that, most of them never fear an election and half of them never even are contested. So gerrymandering gives them sort of the perfect high ground where they can pass really unpopular things without ever being held accountable. Things that Mitch McConnell, because you can be held accountable as a Senate candidate in Pennsylvania for example, or Georgia like Herschel Walker or me, Oz. You’ll lose if you support those things in a Senate race or a swing house seat. But back in a gerrymander legislature, heck, you could do about anything you want as unpopular as it is and still get reelected. And half the time you don’t even have an opponent. So you’re not even reelected. You’re essentially reappointed. So gerrymandering is what gives them, and it’s been more extreme in the last decade, gerrymandering is what gives them the perfect place to ram through most of their very unpopular agenda, which is the state houses of America.

J. Craig Williams:

How close are we to losing the democracy that we grew up with, say your grandfather’s Republican party and the Democrats as they used to exist?

David Pepper:

I mean, I would say at the state level, in many states it’s really hard to say their democracies. I mean, you have state legislatures passing things and unless the people can repeal them through referendum or they’re struck down by a court, they’re passing things that routinely 60, 70% of their state don’t agree with. So in terms of thinking about states as representative democracies, many of them, I think it’s our, we can fight back and regain them if we do certain things, but many of these states, it’s not like a future state where they won’t be democracy. They really have ceased being that now they’re more like sort of Jim Crow Southern states where you had this lockdown one party rule and no ability to change it. Many states are already there and once they’re there, the truth is the incentives get so upside down. You do better being an extremist in a gerrymandered state because that way you don’t have a primary and you don’t worry about your general.

You’re better off serving up goods to private interests. The public can’t stop you even if you’re giving away public outcomes to keep the private players happy. That’s the reality right now in dozens of states. But the worry of course is that we are now going to see that meltdown trickle up to the national level in national elections. Gerry Maynard house districts, obviously we see the presidential, the federal government is still hanging in there better than the state level. But the other way I’d frame it though is this has happened before. There’s never some permanent end of democracy, but we have to fight back. And my frustration, and again, one reason I wrote these books in a sort of tone of alarm is we have to stop accepting that this is sort of business as usual no matter what in these states. I think those of us care about democracy, be it Democrats, independents and some Republicans, and we see some out there doing this.

We have to start saying it’s no longer good enough to only fight for democracy at the federal level. We’ve got to get back into states way beyond our sort of blue and purple ones and start saying, the meltdown has to end. We’re going to start running in more places. We’re going to start investing in more places because it’s simply go back to our constitution, which guarantees that every state should have a Republican form of government by which they meant democracy. As we think about it, it’s literally an unconstitutional state of affairs that dozens of our states essentially are no longer democracies. We need to start living up to that constitutional guarantee that every state essentially is a functioning democracy. It could be a red state or a blue state by the way, but it should be a state where the people in these state houses generally reflect the mainstream views of the people of these states. And right now in too many states of this country, that’s just not the case.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, David, at this time, we’re going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We’ll be right back and welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer. I’m joined by David Pepper. He’s a lawyer, writer, political activist, former elected official, and an adjunct professor. Well, David, right before the break we were talking about the change in democracy on the state level, but you wrote the manual, what are we going to be doing? What do we need to do to restore democracy as we understood it when they taught it in social studies?

David Pepper:

Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing is to just recognize that that’s the battle we’re in. I mean, I think we have been since the sixties, especially I’m in my early fifties, I think the generation that grew up after the Voting rights Act, after the war in court really kind of convinced itself that oh, democracy’s fine. That the generations coming after that thought, Hey, we’re the first generation of Americans that doesn’t have to worry about the health of democracy itself. It’s here to stay. And the sad reality is that was taking democracy for granted. We are not the only and first generation Americans who simply have democracy here no matter what. We are in the same battle that the suffragists were in, we’re in the same battle that John Lewis was in. And if we thought for a moment that somehow we were the only people never to worry about the health democracy, it’s time to face the fact that was wrong.

Once you see that, as I think is so clear, when you look closely, and I think people see it a lot more now than even when I wrote the first nonfiction book a couple years ago, you see that the battle is very different than the one we’ve been fighting, which is, oh, we pick a few states every couple years to win a few federal seats and that’s it. You actually see that everywhere in this country, from the Red Estate to the bluest states, we’re all on the front lines that this democracy battle is playing out at school boards, it’s playing out at elections officials positions. It’s playing out in every state house as I’ve described. And once you see that we’re in a battle for democracy, you realize we’re in a long battle. It’s more than just individual election cycles. It’s more than just elections.

It never stops. It’s in 50 states, it’s in all parts of states. It, once you see that, although it’s a very sobering thing to see, there’s actually to me a lot of empowerment that comes with that. It means that folks in California and Boston are as much on the front lines as those in Wisconsin. Their battle may look a little different, but they can do a lot to lift democracy that they haven’t thought they could do because they thought, well, I’m not in a swing state. There’s nothing to do. People in Oklahoma have a lot they can do. They can start taking on more of these uncontested districts because uncontested districts are a big part of the problem. The other thing that I think helps, and I go through all these in my book, but the other thing that once you see the battle for democracy is bigger than party, that also means there’s so many things you can do that are nonpartisan to lift democracy.

And I give examples a lot in my book and in my talks, if you’re in Ohio or Tennessee or Missouri where voters have been purged for voting infrequently or Georgia, it’s been really bad there. As much as your political organization can help with that. If you sit on the board of a homeless shelter, that can help even more if you sit on the library board, if you’re a local official, if you help at a health clinic, all those institutions could be actually directly lifting people back into democracy by registering all the people they serve when they walk through that door. Too often that is not happening because we think, well, that’s too partisan. They shouldn’t get involved. And the answer is no, it’s not. Democracy is not partisan. Registering voters done the right way is a nonpartisan activity. And once you see that, and this is, I get into this in my books, I ask everyone, look at your footprint that you apply every day in all that you do, the organizations you’re part of beyond politics, where you work, where you work out, you name it. Think of all the things you do of all those things which could be used to lift democracy in nonpartisan ways. And the answer is so many of them. And if we all start to think that way, Hey, I’m on the board of the homeless shelter, I’m going to ask the executive director, why aren’t we registering every homeless person that comes through these doors? If everyone started to take that on, the truth is we’d be doing a huge lift for democracy far more than the things we may do in politics late in campaigns.

J. Craig Williams:

We’re seeing big changes in our national discussion in the split between Democrats and extreme Republicans to be pretty stark. Where do you see this going on election day? What’s your prediction?

David Pepper:

I mean, it’s hard. I don’t want to act like anyone knows what’s going to happen. I mean, I think in the end, I mean just to go into my political analyst hat on for a second, it’s obviously very fractured. It’s going to be a very long year, a painful year. I mean, it’s already that way, but a couple things are happening that I think could turn into a good year for democracy. One, just to go to the presidential level, Donald Trump, I think is a much worse candidate as a matter of politics than he was in either 16 or 20. In 16. He actually, in a weird way, because he can be quite negative, he offered some hope to places that did feel like they had been paid attention to. He tried to set a tone, I’m going to help these. That’s not the tone of his current campaign.

I mean, it’s literally retribution and reliving 20. It’s a bizarre campaign if you think about it from politics. So I think at the end of the day, he’s actually not a good candidate and worse than he was in 16 or 20. So I think all the worry that he is some kind of juggernaut when you look closely, and this is why I think he keeps underperforming these primaries. I actually think it is just a matter of assessing a candidate in that message. It’s a really bizarre candidacy versus even years ago. But on the flip side though, the thing that gives me hope is in my books, I really call for people to focus on way beyond the presidential to focus at the local and the state house and all that. And what’s such, what’s been incredible in the last year and a half is that there has been a bigger army of pro-democracy activists focusing at that level.

And just like I hope when I wrote my books when they do democracy wins. I mean there’s a winning streak for democracy happening in our country right now. August of 22, a vote to protect reproductive freedom in Kansas, win 60 40 state houses were flipped in years that the White House is in democratic hands. Democrats are supposed to lose everywhere. But in 22 against that pattern, we saw state houses flip in Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania. We saw election denying Secretary of State and governor candidates lose all over America. Then we see the Wisconsin Supreme Court flip in April of 23, and that court has now ended gerrymandering in Wisconsin. We saw the Ohio votes to protect democracy only a year after Ohio was very red. We see very extreme school board candidates lose across the board, including conservative areas in November of 23. So the truth is, at the ground level where most aren’t paying attention, there’s this very counter historic winning streak that extended even a few weeks ago in New York with that special election where, what’s his name?

George Santos was replaced by a Democrat. So I think if that continues to build contrasted against Donald Trump being a truly flawed candidate, I actually think more than just a presidential race, I think 24 could actually be a very good race for democracy itself. In America, for example, in Ohio, we have on the ballot an initiative that would end gerrymandering. If that passes, given what we’ve talked about already, that would obviously be a massive victory for democracy in Ohio and get rid of our broken legislature. So I think it’s going to be a crazy year, a painful year, but if done right, I think we can extend a winning streak that’s quite impressive and do it at many levels and in many states beyond your typical presidential year.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, David, it’s time for another quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. We’ll be right back. Welcome back to Lawyer 2 Lawyer. I’m back with attorney David Pepper. We’ve been talking about the end or the savior of democracy. What do you think is going to happen in terms of voters’ reaction to President Trump’s criminal cases as we ramp up toward the election and his civil cases and this whole nonsense today about or when this podcast was recorded, about when he’s going to post a hundred million dollars bond in New York instead of a 454 million bond and thinks he’s going to get away with it?

David Pepper:

Yeah, I mean, I think with his diehards, and we’re seeing some, interestingly, Nikki Haley keeps getting a decent number of votes, so maybe it is already impacting some Republican votes. It’s obviously not affecting his diehard supporters. But I do think, as I said, I mean in the end, getting to November, I think Trump will be the candidate. Lemme put it that way. I don’t think any court case is going to stop him from being the candidate. I never have thought that this is going to come down to the American people rejecting him if he’s going to go away, that’s how it’s not going to be because some court case catches him before the election. I mean, they took too long to get started for that to happen. But I do think at some point you add up all those different cases, I think it has a marginal effect on the voting, not an effect that you’d hope.

Normally in the past, these would be disqualifying cases. I mean, absolutely disqualifying as a candidate. They’re not disqualifying, but I do think on the margins, they do move the needle. I think the long-term thing you mentioned that a hundred million dollar bond. I mean, I think another big picture thing that could happen this year as we’re thinking about predictions, and this may come out after we talk about it, but he’s basically taking over the Republican party and I don’t think he has the money to pay for all this stuff. And I think the Republican party is at great risk of becoming the piggy bank for all of Trump’s burdens. And so I actually think if he has a bad year, but in the process of that year, drains the Republican party of its resources and gives Republican donors an amazing reason never to give to that party.

They don’t want to be paying Trump’s legal bills or fines. I actually think he really may put in jeopardy the Republican party as a matter of its brand, but also even as a matter of its basic finances. I mean, I think when you see, I guess it’s his daughter-in-law taking over saying, we will put every penny into the Trump campaign. I think he’s making a break to find a way to pay his bills. And sure there’ll be other people trying to help him pay too, and that should scare us. But I think the Republican party right now is about to have a huge sort of sucking sound of money flowing to bail out Trump from all his court cases.

J. Craig Williams:

As we look at this and look at this election, age is certainly one of the issues that are present, but that brings to mind term limits as well. And even the potential, we have a 30 5-year-old that you have to be 35 years to run for president. Should there be some kind of constitutional limit on how old you are to run for president or for that matter to run for any office are people that are too old in office right now.

David Pepper:

I would hope, and this doesn’t always happen, that when people reach a point where they really can’t do the job that, and I don’t think that’s the case with Biden by the way, but we’ve seen moments where that’s clearly been the case that they and their staff figure it out and for the good of their own health and their life as well as the community they represent, they move on as we’re talking. Mitch McConnell has announced today this will be dated by the time this comes out, that he won’t be the majority leader again or whatever he wants to be. I’m sure that’s tied to the fact that he’s also seems to be struggling a little bit, but I don’t think there should be a hard and fast limit. We have an age limit here in Ohio on judges of 70, and I think it’s really hurt.

I mean, we literally lost a very good active, moderate call as she saw at Chief Justice last year because she hit that age limit. She was in her prime. She was really strong and had been around long enough to stand up to bullies in the State House of her own party. And I think that age limit actually really hurt Ohio that she basically couldn’t run again. So I think that it should be sort of a case by case deep look internally, but I think an artificial age limit, and I’ve just seen it play out in negative ways where people who are maybe the wisest and in some ways the most independent because they’ve got some real established name and brand, they’re not worried about the next run for anything because this is where they are. I actually think we’ve heard ourselves in some cases, and in Ohio, frankly, it’s the difference between us being gerrymandered or not. If she had been able to stay on through that 70-year-old age limit, we would not have a gerrymandered state right now. That’s how consequential that age limit was.

J. Craig Williams:

It’s an absolutely amazing difference. I’m approaching the age myself when that would be the case for me. So it’s certainly a consideration. Well, for a moment, I’d like to take up and snatch part of the Alabama Supreme Court ruling, not about the IVF part of it, but about the religious aspect part of it, the number of biblical quotes that were in it, in this rise of Christian nationalism that we’ve seen. How does that play into democracy?

David Pepper:

I think it’s so, people ask me all the time, what’s driving this attack on democracy? Because a lot of my books describe the process more than the motivation. And I do think a very strong, very extreme faction that’s tied to religion is one of the driving factors. And it’s folks who think our views are not going to be a majority viewpoint, but we need to have them happen based on our faith. And I think that they are one of the, now there’s other elements pushing the Koch brothers think that, well, their economics will be turned upside down if the people get to vote broadly. They don’t want public schools or higher taxes. And then you have a strand of white supremacy that goes back to our founding that doesn’t like whenever diverse majority comes along and gets its way, which is what happened when Obama won.

So I think you have a variety of different groups that have sort of come together, and each of them on their own decided, well, we won’t survive in a robust democracy. Our views are too extreme. Abortion bans, no exceptions, IVFs being prohibited. That’s probably a 10% out of a hundred percent. That’s a very toxic view. And my sense is that some of these groups have figured out the only way they can get what they want in America is not through a healthy democracy, but through the opposite. And clearly, I think this sort of far right religious nationalism or however we need to find the right language to say it without offending people who are sincerely religious, who aren’t trying to undermine democracy. But clearly there’s an element of that, and it’s affecting everything from the attacks on schools to the push to drain all our public school funds to pay for vouchers for private schools to the fact that that chief justice in Alabama is citing the Bible as if it’s legal precedent.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, on that note, David, thank you very much for being on the program. It’s been a wonderful discussion and certainly going to prompt some more discussions, I hope, as a consequence of what people have heard today.

David Pepper:

Thank you, It’s great to be with you. Thanks for all you do.

J. Craig Williams:

Well, here are a few of my thoughts about today’s topic. We’ve heard from a number of law professors over the course of the last four or five years that democracy is on the line, and I think that David sounding the alarm is certainly a call to arms of everybody individually to get involved at the local level. I think David’s exactly correct. The attack on democracy is coming from within. It’s coming from the far right extremists in our country, and they’re imposing or beginning to impose their thoughts of a theocracy on our nation. And we do have this thing called separation of church and state in the First Amendment. I strongly believe in it, and if you do too, it’s time to get involved. Well, that’s it for Craig’s Ran on today’s topic. Let me know what you think, and if you like what you heard today, please rate us on Apple Podcasts, your favorite podcasting app. You can also visit us at the legal talk network.com, where you can sign up for our newsletter. I’m Craig Williams. Thanks for listening. Please join us next time for another great legal topic. Remember, when you want legal think Lawyer 2 Lawyer.

Speaker 2:

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