If You Think Democracy is Guaranteed, Think Again! with David Pepper

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

SideBar is brought to you by Monterey College of Law, San Luis Obispo College of Law, Kern County College of Law, empire College of Law, located in Santa Rosa and the colleges of Law with campuses in Santa Barbara and Ventura.

Mitch Winick (00:15):

Welcome to SideBar discussions with local, state and national experts about protecting our most critical individual and civil rights Co-hosts, LA Deans, Jackie Gardina and Mitch Winick.

David Pepper (00:31):

And so the first message to everybody is once you see it’s a battle for democracy at the state level, everyone’s on the front line. We all should thinking, what can we do? We’re on the front line versus, well, I’ll send some money to John Federman and that’s it. It’s a very disempowering and false narrative that everything’s going to come down to a few swing states. So once you see that reality, which is you’re on the front line, then all of a sudden it’s clear there’s a ton people can do.

Mitch Winick (00:57):

That’s our guest, David Pepper, lawyer, writer, political activist, adjunct professor, and M-S-N-B-C analyst.

Jackie Gardina (01:07):

Mitch. It is hard to believe that it was just a year ago that we launched SideBar. It was October, 2022 and we were in the midst of yet another critical election cycle and I told you about David Pepper, the author of Laboratories of Autocracy, and I wanted to invite him to be our first guest because his book had really opened my eyes to the importance of and the dangers in local and state elections. Surprisingly, he said yes. So it seems right that we invite him back to celebrate the success of our first year of SideBar and discuss all that has happened since his first visit.

Mitch Winick (01:44):

Well, Jackie, if we attempted to discuss all that has happened since we interviewed David Pepper last November, we might have to change this episode into a miniseries. The state of Ohio has been at the epicenter of so many critical challenges to democracy that have been in the national spotlight, and not surprisingly, David Pepper has been at the forefront of these issues. I’m thrilled to have him back with us today to at least help us reframe the context for the current battle for democracy.

Jackie Gardina (02:15):

And just for those listeners who don’t know David Pepper, and let me do a brief introduction. David Pepper earned his BA magna cum laude from Yale University in 1993, and he served as the managing editor of the Yale Daily News From 1993 to 96. David worked at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC as an aid to former national security advisor, Dr. Brozinsky. After graduating from Yale Law School, he clerked for Judge Jones on the US Court of Appeals for the sixth Circuit and worked at major law firms. He’s a former elected official in Ohio, served as chairman of the Democratic Party of Ohio from 2015 to 2021 and teaches election and voting law. Importantly for our conversation, he’s the author of Saving Democracy, a user’s Manual for Every American and Laboratories of Autocracy, a wake up call from Behind the Lines. I do want to mention he’s also the author of four fiction political thriller and I’m quickly working my way through the second one. So welcome David.

David Pepper (03:22):

Thank you. It’s so good to be back with you guys.

Jackie Gardina (03:24):

David, I listened to our earlier conversation and it is frightening how everything we discussed in those first episodes played out in the last year in states across the country. You and other guests on a podcast articulated the theme that our nation’s history is really a story of battling for democracy from the founding through reconstruction to the Jim Crow era through the civil rights movement. And then here we are again in this episode, we want to discuss some of the lowlights and highlights of last year in this battle for democracy and then discuss what we need to do in 2024. So your first nonfiction book, laboratories of Autocracy used Ohio as an example of what happens when state legislatures captured by one party through gerrymandered seats and becomes essentially unresponsive to the public. The book was published in 2021 and then two years later, Ohio continues to make headlines for its legislature’s, anti-democratic conduct and citizen pushback. I want to catch listeners up on what was happening in Ohio. So let’s focus first on what led to an August, 2023 special election and then the November, 2023 election and its aftermath. Can you just give a brief description to describe what the legislatures and courts did and how Ohioans responded?

David Pepper (04:50):

What happened about a year ago when we talked was it was after Dobbs and some really spirited heroic advocates led by doctors, not political people, but doctors said that the abortion ban in Ohio, a six week ban, no exceptions to rape, incest or health mother, the one that led to that 10-year-old rape victim being forced to go to Indiana was a disaster for their patients and everyone else. So they began to lead an effort to collect signatures to put it on the ballot. In 23, they faced some resistance actually from even the democratic side. Well, 23 is too soon, we should do in 24, but they said, no, this is an emergency for our patients. We need to do it now, politics aside, we’re doing it as it built up momentum. What we saw was an entire government of the state of Ohio weaponized to stop that effort and that government and its leaders understood because, and that government was the one that had put in place that ban that this would overturn and that government understood from the very beginning, and this was their problem.

(05:56):

What these leaders and advocates were trying to do was actually the majority viewpoint of the state of Ohio. It was somewhere every poll in Ohio for the last couple of years has had a pro-choice, pro Roe v Wade View, somewhere in the high fifties. So the government of Ohio, the leaders who brought that abortion ban had a problem. They knew that they were on the wrong side of the people of Ohio on this issue. And so what we saw over the last year, and I think this is a really important bigger picture point, and it also is something you will see everywhere is a battle over reproductive freedom became a battle over democracy itself because reproductive freedom was polling in the high fifties and rather than accepting that reality, this is all by the way consistent with what Dobbs told America, which is, hey, these decisions should be made by the people of the states.

(06:45):

The whole thrust was it shouldn’t be the federal government, it shouldn’t be the constitution, send it back to the people to decide. But in states like Ohio where it was very clear the people would support reproductive freedom, like in most states, the government here did all it could to keep that majority will from being reflected. So over the last year they started off trying to rig the rules midstream raise the threshold to change the Ohio constitution to 60% because they knew that 60% was probably high enough to stop this thing. 50% was too low and it would pass. They turned out to be right. We defeated that. That was actually scheduled in an August special election that was actually in violation of the Ohio revised code to even have an August special election. But in states like Ohio, the rule of law is so gone that they can literally schedule elections when it breaks the law and get away with it.

(07:33):

But the voters stood up and voted against that effort to change the rules and then we get into all sorts of other sort of weaponization of literally government functions. They use their ability to summarize ballot language to write a very, very sort of toxic summary of the ballot language in a way that they hope would confuse the voters or make the voters vote no. There was purging late in the election that was very late purge purging voter rules. 27,000 voters knocked off the list but done so, so late that if the voters had discovered, Hey, I was on that list, it was too late to reregister. Normally that timing is not when it is all sorts of disinformation, not from just the campaign, but the government itself when we a couple of weeks ago supported the issue, one to protect reproductive freedom, this was not only a reproductive freedom win, although that’s very important at 57% right around where the polling had it for two years, it was a democracy win.

Jackie Gardina (08:33):

I just want to summarize for a minute to make sure that everyone understands. You started summarizing this idea of the leaders using the processes of democracy to actually subvert democracy. And this seems to have a number of tactics embedded in it from calling a special election to raise the threshold of what it takes to amend the constitution, to purging voter rolls, to disinformation campaigns, rewriting the actual amendment itself. And I believe the courts got involved too, didn’t

David Pepper (09:10):

They? As a lawyer who believes the courts are our last protector, the rule of law, one of the most disturbing aspects was that the courts of Ohio, the Supreme Court of Ohio, which has now been made partisan again, the legislature didn’t like that we had won an independent court a few years ago, so they change the rules so that our courts are now partisan. You run on a partisan label, which I think is very unfortunate, and those races have been moved up to be with all the other partisan offices. Part of the effect there is that the courts, I believe over time and even the short term will be less independent. In this case, that’s exactly what happened. The new partisan court allowed an election on a day that the Ohio revised code said it was not allowed, said the legislature could do that, which I think is, I don’t know what’s left of the rule of law if a legislature can schedule an election on a day that they had made it illegal to have an election.

(10:02):

And then the court also said it was okay for this ballot summary. And just to be really clear on this, this was the weaponization of processes of democracy that are meant to be used in good faith to forward and advance the democratic process. And I would submit they were each abused along the way raise the threshold of 60% through an illegal election. But the amendment one to me is the most troubling in many ways because there’s a process in Ohio called the ballot board. I mean this is literally like out of 1984 or something, the ballot board has a simple job. If an amendment is very long, you summarize it to a short enough form that fits on the ballot and your job is to capture its meaning. If the thing is a thousand words, but the ballot can only hold 300 words, you boil it down to 300 words.

(10:54):

What did the ballot board in Ohio do? And by the way, in the meeting, the officials on that board were railing against the substance of the amendment as if they were part of the campaign. They actually wrote a quote summary that was longer than the amendment itself. That’s a red Flagg. They literally did all that in the Supreme Court of Ohio except for one change said, okay, you’re fine doing that. One other way to think about it, the amendment process, the initiative process is actually the citizens process. The government has already passed their law. This is the citizen saying, we want to weigh in. This is our election. You guys weighed in, we’re coming here to overturn what you did, and this is the government people saying we’re going to interfere at every point we can to get in the way of a citizen led process to convince fellow citizens to vote for new rights. So in that way, it’s even more disturbing in the court, as you said, basically it green all these steps, which as a lawyer again who teaches is just very disturbing about the state of the rule of law in states like Ohio when courts just are going along with it and letting it happen when they should be the final independent arbiter saying, no, you’re not allowed to do this. You’re not allowed to do that. That’s too much. That didn’t happen here, unfortunately.

Mitch Winick (12:14):

David, let me focus on a couple things you said or you said it several times. One of the steps in the process was to change the summary and even perhaps to change the amendment, but if I’m not incorrect, after the election there was published by, what was it? 40, 50, 60 of the elected officials who said, despite the outcome of the election, and I’m paraphrasing now, we believe that this did not give us clear direction and the direction of this prop one, we’ll never see the light of day in state law.

David Pepper (12:51):

We can’t be surprised anymore by the behavior. If you’re willing to attack democracy through all that I described on the front end of the election, well of course you’re going to be equally willing to attack the result of that democracy after if you don’t respect the process or the majority will going through the election. Why would we expect you to be all of a sudden really observing to democracy after? And by the way, the statement you’re talking about, it wasn’t that many, but it was dozens. This is very similar to what’s happened for five years in many states. I can show you constitutional amendments that passed or statewide initiatives that passed in Missouri, in Florida, in Maine, in Ohio that gave us this gerrymandering in the first place that after these elections, the will, the people, and sometimes the laws that they changed were simply ignored or defied long enough. They basically became null and void.

Jackie Gardina (13:46):

We’re going to take a brief break to hear from our sponsors when we return, we’ll continue our conversation about anti-democratic efforts in other states with David Pepper, author of Saving Democracy, a user Manual for Every American.

Speaker 6 (14:00):

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Mitch Winick (14:57):

David. As you’ve just pointed out, Ohio wasn’t the only state in the spotlight in the past year. In addition to what you just pointed out, Tennessee made international news when it expelled two young black representatives for violating chamber rules when they protested their legislature’s refusal to take up gun legislation. Montana Creed, its first openly transgender legislature. When they spoke out about banning gender affirming care in Oklahoma, the legislature stripped a black non-binary democratic lawmaker of committee assignments when protesters took refuge in their office. So in addition to the things you’ve pointed out, when the legislatures choose to penalize a lawmaker, they’re actually punishing the lawmakers, constituents, the voters is this tactic of punishing lawmakers just another front in the battle for democracy.

David Pepper (15:55):

Again, a lot of this is tied to the just philosophy of election denialism, you deny the result of an outcome. You don’t like the person who won, so you almost pretend that the people didn’t vote for that person. I’d say the bad news since we last talked is that so much of what we talked about is still happening. That’s not a surprise though. Once you understand the very, very poisoned incentives of these places with no accountability, that’s the problem that Tennessee State House is acting the way it’s acting, and I went through this right after that, they kicked out the two state reps. 50% of those Republicans in that State House had no opposition in November of 22. Oklahoma, 60% no opposition. Last November, I don’t know the Montana number, Georgia 50%, Texas 40%, the crisis that is leading to these incentives of terrible behavior, an incentive towards extremism, an incentive towards giving public assets to private players because that’s how you get ahead. The heart of why those incentives are leading on all that behavior is that these are largely politicians in office who’ve never faced a real election, often face no opponent whatsoever. That’s all they’ve ever known, which means they’re not really public servants in the way that we all think they should be. And it explains almost all they do because behaving the way they do gets them ahead.

Jackie Gardina (17:26):

I want to focus on that for a minute because you talk a lot about this idea of gerrymandering, creating politically safe seats that results in legislatures not being responsive to the public needs and also more likely to enact an extreme agenda. This isn’t an Ohio problem and it’s not necessarily a GOP problem either. We can point to states that have gerrymandered safe democratic seats as well, but in the last year, the US Supreme Court and state courts have declared that multiple legislative maps violate the constitution or violate the Federal Voting Rights Act. Yet states have ignored these rulings. Ohio states’ legislator exist under a map declared unconstitutional. Alabama was ordered to redraw its congressional maps and essentially ignored the ruling, and Louisiana was ordered to redraw its maps by January 15th, but just said that it couldn’t meet that deadline because its chambers were being remodeled. So I have to admit, this scares me a lot When court rulings are ignored, as you’ve said, the rule of law is lost. What’s the counter to this lawlessness

David Pepper (18:38):

One counter that is just a bottom line mindset shift is those in politics need to see that running everywhere is the beginning of accountability coming back. And as you said, it can be beyond one party, but when 50% of the Tennessee Republicans are not opposed, that is a license for extremism. Just keep getting worse and it actually fuels it because if no one’s running against you in a general election, the only fear you have is you’re going to lose a primary. And the way you lose a primary is someone more extreme than you beats you. The US Supreme Court has said that a pure partisan gerrymander cannot be struck down, which is why the Ohio one were stuck with it even though we shouldn’t be, why others are happening. But they did say, and the Alabama case, if the way you gerrymandered was you split up a large black community in a way that you reduced the number of seats they otherwise could have had.

(19:29):

And in Alabama it was very clear. There could have been two seats, but the Alabama legislature split it up, so there was only one. The court said, we are going to stand by our precedent that that’s unconstitutional. So that’s the good news. The bad news is Ohio being a perfect example of this, these legislators have figured out that they win with delay, so what are they all trying to do right now? You just mentioned it, what they did in Ohio keep violating these orders long enough so that the next election starts to happen and no one can stop these illegal maps from happening. That’s exactly the game these state houses are playing, and so the solution has to be the Ohio Supreme Court next time or whether you’re a federal court, you say, I’m sorry, time’s up, we’ve ordered the map. Here it is, boom, it’s the map that has to be the answer or the lawlessness will win for another term.

Jackie Gardina (20:24):

Just to go on a mini ramp because I’m in that kind of mood. Steve Latt was on here talking about the shadow docket and one of the decisions the Supreme Court made on the shadow docket was allowing maps that were ultimately declared to be unconstitutional, to be used in the 2022 midterm elections because it was so close to the election and on the shadow docket, they actually created a three to four month buffer that if it’s three to four months before the election, they’re not going to interfere. So technically they only need to delay. And there’s a Supreme Court decision that says if you delay until four months before the election, we’re not going to get involved.

Mitch Winick (21:06):

It actually seems more than that. What you have is the Supreme Court giving them the playbook of how to disrupt this process.

David Pepper (21:16):

The delays of all this process is rewarding the lawbreakers, and that’s when you go back to the original question. If the courts really want to have a rule of law, they need to see that playing this long drawn out process. Whenever someone wants to try and keep a gerrymander map, the delay is saving the gerrymandered and in cases at least of the Voting Rights Act cases, the illegal maps, and they’ve had already a term on these illegal maps, and what they’re trying to do with there are excuses is to have a second term which is making the difference in who actually runs Washington.

Mitch Winick (21:49):

David State legislatures just simply deciding to ignore court rulings seems to me like a huge step towards autocracy. A year ago we discussed the role that Lawyerist and even state bar associations have in speaking out against this conduct. We do have rules of ethics and professional guidelines that seem to be ignored. Unfortunately, we have seen Lawyerist to be at the forefront of some of these efforts. We’ve seen some accountability in the past year. Rudy Giuliani was sanctioned and is barred from practicing law in several jurisdictions. Jenna Ellis was censured by Colorado. Texas is investigating Sidney Powell here in California. John Eastman has been in a very public month long trial before the California State Bar Association, and it appears he will also be likely to face consequences. It doesn’t appear when you look across these incidents that the legal profession is doing enough to both protect the rule of law and democracy. Should we be reevaluating our role and our ethics rules and the methods that we need to take to protect our profession?

David Pepper (23:06):

In how you just described it, I actually would say the legal profession is doing more than most other institutions, which is the good thing. But I do think that role needs to be really prioritized. I teach a class of young law students here in Cincinnati, they’re going to take the Ohio bar. It’s painful because I know what they’re thinking. We went through a whole two hours on the Ohio gerrymandering cases, and unlike when I was in law school thinking, okay, I’m entering a profession that has some rules and we all follow them. The students are looking thinking, what kind of profession is this? And the Ohio Supreme Court’s part of the problem, not on some narrow substantive issue, but on allowing the violation of their own orders. And so I do think having the legal profession figure out a way that if there isn’t accountability in other areas because the partisanship keeps it from happening or the power dynamics keep it from happening, theBar associations and others maybe are one institution that can continue to play a role. That said, we know for a lot of political or power reasons, someone else is not going to hold people accountable when they should. But here at our Association, we know what the rules are, we know what ethics are and we’re going to enforce them. Any level of accountability that we can bring to worlds that right now lack it, we need to bring.

Mitch Winick (24:26):

We are going to take a brief break to hear from our sponsors when we return. We will continue our conversation with David Pepper, author of Saving Democracy, a user’s manual for Every American about anti-democratic efforts in other states,

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Mitch Winick (25:03):

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Mitch Winick (25:27):

Jackie, and I would like to take a quick minute to recommend a great podcast and honorable profession profiles, the Rising Stars in American politics. From mayors to attorney generals, an honorable profession gives listeners a view from the front lines of our democracy. Check out an honorable profession. Wherever podcasts are found,

Jackie Gardina (25:54):

We’ve been railing against everything that’s been going wrong, but there have been some bright spots. I want to talk about some of those spots and how they tie back to your book, saving Democracy, a User’s Manual for Every American. What did you see in the last election cycle that gave you hope?

David Pepper (26:13):

It’s not even in the last cycle. In both my books, especially the first one, laboratories, I sort of theorized that, well, maybe if we all saw with a battle for what it is, which is a battle for democracy itself, beginning in states, if we fought the battle in that way versus only worrying about a few federal seats and swing states, maybe we would do better, was sort of my theory. And I had a few examples that made me think, well, that was true. And saving democracy, they went through more. Well, we now have, going back to August a year ago in Kansas, an incredible winning streak for democracy where again, the special election in Kansas and August, the Secretary of state races all around America last November where election deniers lost badly in every single swing state. You had a flipping of the Michigan and Pennsylvania state houses to get them out of being laboratories of autocracy.

(27:06):

You had a win in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last April. You had the Ohio special in August, you had Ohio and November you had Virginia, you had a Pennsylvania Supreme Court race where an election in Iron lost. You had in some cases, Carrie Lake and Mastri truly running lawless election nine campaigns they did worse than everyone else on their ticket. All this is happening in a cycle where you usually see the party in the White House lose everything. And I think the real good news is there is a sense of energy building around, oh my gosh, democracy itself is in trouble. We win that battle not just at federal, but at state level races. So you’re seeing a real interesting counter historical pattern of a democracy based win at the state level, and I think that is the very good news, long-term.

Mitch Winick (27:59):

David, one of the things you do so well in both of your books, and I’d like to go to that next, is not just the philosophical movement that you just described, and in some cases the emotional movement to get engaged, but pick and shovel guidelines, what should we do to be engaged? We ended our first program with you a year ago on that, and I’d like to come back to that as a reminder of it’s more than just sending money. It’s more than just caring. There’s hard work at the grassroots level that was the basis of each of these successes that you’ve described. Would you mind going back over some of those key points?

David Pepper (28:39):

Sure. Well, the most important thing is for everyone to realize that, and this is true, especially if you have listeners in California or New York or Oklahoma where it’s so red. A lot of people in these states hear the incredibly disempowering narrative that, oh, you’re in a really blue or red state. You’re not really part of the democracy battle. There’s not a Senate seat up in your state that’s going to change the outcome of these elections. And so the first message to everybody is once you see it’s a battle for democracy at the state level, everyone’s on the front line. We all should thinking, what can we do? We’re on the front line versus, well, I’ll send some money to John Fetterman and that’s it, or Warnock or whoever. It’s a very disempowering and false narrative that everything’s going to come down to a few swing states.

(29:27):

And so once you see that reality, which is you’re on the front line, then all of a sudden it’s clear there’s a ton people can do. In some states where we’ve had terrible voter suppression, the voter purging that Jackie and I talked about in some states, it’s figuring out that is not a partisan thing. Removing voters from democracy is a nonpartisan weakening of a democracy, and there are many nonpartisan things you can do in your life to help change that. Think about what are all the things you could be doing that lift voters that are essentially nonpartisan activities? Do you happen to know the mayor of a town? That mayor could be using the full footprint of that city hall to lift every voter in that city into a democracy where in many states they are being intentionally removed? So that’s one part of it.

(30:18):

I go through a lot about advocacy. We could all be advocating, and we’ve seen in recent years and months in particular, the groups that are showing up at school board meetings to speak out against book bands are almost always succeeding because they represent the vast majority of their communities. Just like the candidates who showed up to take on these liberty for mom candidates by 75% or so last week won in Iowa, in Ohio, in Pennsylvania. So there are ways at the local level to get involved, and if you speak out and run, you may win far more ways than you ever expect. Everyone has an assignment once you realize the battle for democracy is everywhere and that we’re on the front line, the opposite is everyone thinks it’s a few Senate races far away from them. So we just sit around and watch Rachel Maddow and think, well, that’s too bad all that’s happening, but there’s nothing we can do. So my book is a way to say, feel empowered and here are all the specific things you could do about it.

Jackie Gardina (31:16):

I think that is just a perfect place to end. We ended with some bright spots and we ended with a call to action, which is exactly what we like to do on this podcast. So David Pepper, thank you so much for joining us for our first episode on SideBar and now being the end of the first season, our last episode on SideBar,

David Pepper (31:37):

Of course. Really great to be with you on both.

Mitch Winick (31:39):

And lemme make sure, as Jackie said, the last episode for this season, we start season two in January. David, I just want to say one last thing that when we finished our program with you a year ago, I was encouraged by the roadmap you gave us for progress, but I was discouraged about the possibility that that would work. And only a year later we have all of these examples of the exact things you laid out for us have been working, and as you’ve said, not even in a partisan manner, they’ve started to be working. So thank you for that. And I leave this far more optimistic than I did 12 months ago.

David Pepper (32:28):

That’s great. No, I actually feel the same way. Theory is becoming reality all over the place.

Mitch Winick (32:35):

Thanks, David.

David Pepper (32:35):

Thanks again. Take care everybody.

Mitch Winick (32:41):

Jackie. This episode with David Pepper was just great. First of all, it was exciting to talk with him again. It’s hard to believe it was a year ago that we had him as our very first guest on SideBar, and it gives us an opportunity to look back over that year, which will have been almost 30 episodes. David set us on this path of talking about challenging meaningful topics that not only were of interest to us, but we hope gave direction on things related to our individual and personal rights and democracy and the Supreme Court. And he just set us on the path, and it was great to have him back to remind us that these are issues that are important.

Jackie Gardina (33:28):

Yeah, and I think what was so helpful for me during both the episode and the last year is seeing some of those bright spots is seeing some of those tactics to save democracy being used across the country. And I think it’s so important that we talk about, and David talks about it, as well as really a nonpartisan issue, saving democracy and our democratic institutions and processes are actually a common bond that we share as Americans, and I think we’ve lost sight of that in some ways in the polarized and partisan environment that we’re now existing in. It’s heartening to see nonpartisan efforts to actually push back against some of the autocratic tactics that we’re seeing at the state and in some cases local level as well.

Mitch Winick (34:29):

On that point, I agree with you that it is entirely possible that some of the bad behavior that we watched over the past year, I’m hoping is an echo of bad behavior, and that what we’re looking at is current behavior in states such as Ohio and the other states that David pointed out, where the individual voters in a nonpartisan basis have stepped up and said, free and fair elections is important to all of us regardless of partisanship. And they’ve stepped back up in some ways, fairly quietly in the background and reclaimed this process. He reminds us of that. I was dubious a year ago, but I am not now. I’m very optimistic about this.

Jackie Gardina (35:20):

Optimism is not a natural state for you. So I know this is probably a little uncomfortable, but I like the idea that you’re feeling optimistic going into 2024. It is a great way for us to end our first season of SideBar with a note of optimism and launched the second season in January. So I want to thank you for inviting me to be a part of this podcast. I’ve enjoyed it immensely over the last year. I’ve learned so much and I’ve been able to talk to so many interesting people like David Pepper

Mitch Winick (35:55):

And Jackie. It’s been a pleasure and educational for me as well, and I look forward to an equally exciting season two that starts in January.

Jackie Gardina (36:09):

Once again, I want to thank everyone who joined us today on SideBar and as always, Mitch and I would love to know what’s on your mind. You can reach us at SideBar media.org.

Mitch Winick (36:19):

SideBar would not be possible without our producer, David Eakin, who also composes and performs all of the SideBar music. Thank you also to go Gogo Zogerwho manages sidebar’s marketing and Social media.

Jackie Gardina (36:39):

Colleges of law and Monterey College of Law are part of a larger organization called California Accredited Law Schools. All of our schools are dedicated to providing access and opportunity to a legal education to marginalized communities.

Mitch Winick (36:54):

For more information about the California accredited Law schools, go to ca law schools.org. That’s ca law schools.org.

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