Interview Only w/ Nick Troiano - How To Fix America’s Broken Political System - The Chuck ToddCast

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(01:52):
bit about reforming. Are the infrastructure of the democracy. If
somebody I've had conversations with before, somebody I've known a
long time, Nick Triano, he's the executive director of Unite America,
are the organization that brought ranked choice voting to the
state of Alaska in particular, had been fighting to get

(02:13):
essentially to get rid of partisan primaries, whatever form that
can be done. If it's ranked choice voting, it's ranked
choice voting simply getting rid of the need for party registration.
Then it's getting rid of the need for that. But
it has been the through line of Nick's work. But
I know that he's essentially been in this game. He look,

(02:34):
he ran for Congress as an independent. He's he realized
these barriers to entry were extraordinarily high. You know, if
you're not a far left or a far right person,
is there a home for you in American politics? Is
there a home for you in primaries? And I think
Nick has been devoting himself to trying to find that

(02:55):
place for those of us that aren't stuck in the
wings and joins me. Now, Nick, good to see you.
Good to see you. Check. So let's start with sort
of your This is United America. What are we up?

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Ten years coming up on ten years running the organization?
And we're not more united than I than we started. However,
we're still working on it.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
So look, the let's start with ranked choice voting because
I think the first time you and I had a conversation,
there was a lot of there's a lot of bullishness,
a lot of excitement about the idea. It kind of
worked right pretty It seemed like it worked the way
it was supposed to work in Alaska, it worked the

(03:42):
way many people were hoping it would work in New
York City in twenty twenty one, and you know, the
main experiment has been less successful because of the decision
that main lawmakers made to to only have this somehow
count for federal not for state, which is just a
head scratcher. And frankly, I find the whole New York

(04:02):
City setup. So the Democrats use rank choice voting, but
that trust me, there are a lot of voters who
wanted rank choice voting, I think during the general election.
But I know, you know this, over the last four
or five years, I feel like there's been a movement
against it, even people that were supportive going It's hard
to explain. You and I've had this conversation. I've always

(04:25):
said it. You know, hey, as somebody who has walked
people through election nights and talks about you know, vote
dumps and things like that, explaining ranked choice voting. Getting
it out of the black box is very difficult. So
that's a long wind up. Where are you on this?
Where's United America on rank choice voting? And is this

(04:47):
a method that you still think is the answer?

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Well, I in you in America are focused on solving
what we call the primary problem, which is the role
that party primaries play in exacerbating our divisions in inc
increasing dysfunction in government because they incentivize candidates and elected
officials to play to the base of both parties in
order to win the only elections that really matter these days,
which is not the November election when most people vote,

(05:12):
but the primaries when the candidates are nominated, because most
districts and states right now lean so heavily one way
or another. So that's the problem, in our view, low
turnout party primaries dictating the outcomes of most elections before
most Americans can even vote. The solution set for what
we can do to solve that problem is varied, and

(05:33):
when we talk about solutions to the primary problem, it
could look like opening up party primaries so that all
voters can participate, including independent voters that are currently locked
out of primaries. In sixteen states. It can look like
getting rid of party primaries and replacing it with all
candidate primaries, so there's a single ballot in the primary,
everyone gets to vote for whomever they want, and the

(05:55):
top finishers go to the general election. There's a system
that's called top two that's used in California and Washington
for example, or what Alaska adopted in twenty twenty, which
is a top four system. And when you advance four
candidates from the primary to the general election, you want
to ensure that one of them wins with majority support,

(06:17):
not just plurality. And there are two ways of accomplishing that.
One is you can hold a run off election if
no one gets over fifty percent, or the other is
you can have an instant runoff where people rank their
candidates according to preference, and if no one gets a majority,
there's a process of elimination using voters' backup choices. That's
what ranked choice voting refers to specifically, which is the

(06:40):
part of the reform in a top four primary that
is focused on ensuring a majority winner. Ranked choice voting
is used in other circumstances, and in our view, it's
most powerful when it's combined with a reform to the
primary system. So Alaska's reform is a top four primary
reform plus ranked choice voting in the general election, and
other places like New York City or Maine are what

(07:02):
we would think of as partial reforms because they only
have ranked choice voting and they don't really have any
other kinds of reforms to the primary system that could
improve governing incentives by widening the electorate.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
Let's talk about the mechanics of ranked choice voting, because
I think that's been the stumbling block. Can you is
there any way to make this feel more transparent where
you feel like you can see I have not come
up with one, but I'm curious if if you have,

(07:38):
or you know of other folks who have tried.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
Well, there's two parts to the ranked choice voting process.
There is the part where voters show up to the
voting booth or get their ballot in the mail and
they fill out their ballot. And that part is simple,
which is you have the option of ranking your candidates
or you can just vote for your favorite. And in
all of our exit polling, we found that eighty plus
percent of voters say that they find this simple to do,

(08:02):
and that number goes up over time as people get
used to it. The second part is how the votes
are tabulated, and that is done by election administrators. They
have a range of options for how they do it,
and some jurisdictions in the country, particularly those that have
been using it for a decade or more, have found
ways that this can be an instantaneous process and it

(08:23):
could be fully transparent, which is to say, they release
the cast vote records so that there is a way
that anyone can audit the results. There is a way
to make sure that there's results delivered on election night,
and there's ways of displaying the results that make it
intuitive for people to understand exactly what happens at each
round of the tabulation. So the charge sometimes that it's

(08:45):
a complicated or confusing system is really used by opponents
to say, you know, let's not change the way that
the elections are currently working, because the current way works
for them, It works for the two major parties, it
works for the incumbent politician. They're afraid of change. But
you know, election reforms like the ones we champion have

(09:05):
been used successfully in America and abroad for many years,
and it's a necessary part of what's going to take
to foster a more functional and representative government.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Look, I am, I am. If we could get if
we could go to a top four I fully believe
we should be a top four democracy. I'd love to
see that in our presidential race, you know where and
then and that I wouldn't do rank choice. I think
the country suite, there's a runoff, then the top two

(09:36):
face off, we have one more debate, like there's a runoff,
right Like it feels like that that is that we
you know, we wouldn't have a big drop in you know,
the concern and when we got rid of general election runoffs,
the concern is always, well, you're not going to have
a good turnout. Well that's not true anymore. I mean,
my god, I look at the special election in Tennessee
earlier this during the early part of December, and for

(10:01):
a special election in December, you know, there were something
like one hundred and fifty thousand total votes. I mean
that's impressive for that. I mean, I think the engagement
with the democracy, and you know, I think there's a
I think there's a commentary about our country that our
electric gets engaged when when they when they think they

(10:23):
feel it slipping away. But you know, it turns out
that apathy was a sign of stability. But it is,
so I don't mind that. What but if we had
thirty states holding runoffs but the other twenty didn't, then
I could see that that would be an issue.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, runoffs get a bad rap for some good reasons,
including that they have been used historically in ways to
dis It.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Was about denying black representation in the South, right, That's
why why did we have Southern runoffs. Every Southern state
had runoffs for one reason, and one reason only, to
prevent black people and winning elections.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
And two things can be true, which is that there
are systems that have runoffs today that don't necessarily have
that negative impact that you actually do see turnout increase
in the runoff. That is the case in Louisiana, for example,
in their governor's races. Louisiana has a very interesting election
system where there is effectively no primary. There is a
general election. Everyone gets to be on the ballot. They're

(11:24):
kind of top two, right, and if no one gets majority,
there's a runoff. And so in that case, the top
two finishers advance, or if someone gets a majority of
the vote. It's a one and done election. And by
the way, it's simpler for election administrators, it's simpler for voters,
and it's better for democracy because the election that matters
is the one in which most people are already voting,

(11:45):
and so you get a more representative outcome and there's
not this initial primary filter. We're only ten percent of voters,
who are usually on the most extreme fringes of the
political spectrum, are deciding you know, election outcomes, and so
this will set wonky and maybe mechanical to people, but
it has an impact on public policy because when you
look at Louisiana, it's one of the only Deep South.

(12:09):
It is the only Deep South state that's expanded medicaid,
for example, and was one of the first states to
really lean into charter school reform. And when you think
about the purpose of government and is it representing people,
in Louisiana, more citizens have access to healthcare and too
education than a lot of other pure states. And the
reason for that is they have a more functional political

(12:30):
system with leaders who are intended and focused on solving
problems rather than just these partisan squabbles every day. And
so performing our elections improve incentives. But ultimately improves governance
so that we can solve problems that matter to people.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Of course, I think Bill Cassidy wishes that they would
have kept the old system, but now they're going to
go to a primary system, which certainly complicates his path
to renomination. Let's talk about where you're active on the
playing field here. What's the status in Alaska and what's
the status in Nevada. I know, those are two places

(13:04):
that you've been active. And where else are you guys
active in trying to expand access to primaries.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
So Alaska is a great success story for primary reform
because after the state adopted it through the ballot initiative
process in twenty twenty, it's now gone through two election
cycles where more voters than ever before have been able
to cast what we call a meaningful ballot, you know,
which is a ballot in election that's truly competitive in
which of their vote matters. And that resulted in Chuck Is.

(13:35):
The State House and the State Senate now have bipartisan
governing majorities. It's not just one party that's in charge.
There's a coalition of members Democrats, Republicans, and independents by
the way, that are working together. To address the problems
important to the state, most recently overriding a governor's veto
to increase education funding. And so Alaska's been a success

(13:56):
story of how better elections result in better governance, and
it's produced a backlash from those who used to be
in power and liked elections when it only represented a
handful of people, And so they've been trying to repeal
this system. They were unsuccessful in that last year, a
majority of voters in Alaska voted to defend the system,
and opponents are going to likely try again next year.

(14:18):
And I suspect that support for the system is going
to continue to grow over time, not just because people
in theory like the concept of the freedom to vote
for whomever they want, but now they're getting real and
better results from the system that they voted in a
few years ago.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Did you think you were going to have to fight
multiple election years in Alaska to keep this system in place.

Speaker 2 (14:41):
I don't think it's a surprise that every action has
an equal opposite reaction. There's the forces of trying to
make government better fighting against the forces that are trying
to protect the status quo. I think that the period
of defense is most important in the immediate years after
the adoption of reform, but that it gets better over
time because the new incumbents, there are those elected under

(15:03):
this system who actually like it and want to defend it.
And so it's not the legislature that's trying to repeal it, right,
it's a small faction of partisan activists that are.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
The other perception problem rank choice voting has, and I
say it's a perception problem because it obviously depends on
where you sit, is that it appears to have benefited
the center left more than it has benefited anybody on
the right.

Speaker 2 (15:28):
Well, I think the challenge that we saw in twenty
twenty two was that the candidates who were running the
two Republicans, were late to adopt their campaign strategies to
this new system. So instead of telling voters vote for
me first and the other Republican second, they ran against
the system that the voters just adopted. And so without

(15:51):
that adoption of a new strategy to build broad coalitions,
a moderate Democrat, Mary Potola, you know, was able to
win that US House race. By the way, a couple
of years later, voters voted differently, and the Republican now
represents that US House seat. So I do think that
there's this transition period in which the parties and the

(16:11):
politicians have to get smarter in how they campaign under
the new rules of the system rather than campaigning under
what the old rules used to be.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
So that's Alaska. So you're likely having a is it
the same ball on initiative that the opponents are putting
up or are they rewarded.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
It they actually expanded what they're trying to repeal to
include repealing dark money disclosure requirements that were originally passed
in twenty twenty.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh wow, that actually helps your cause. People don't like
dark money.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
People don't like dark money, and they don't like party primaries,
and they don't like plurality winners and elections, and so
opponents are trying to do something unpopular for the sake
of protecting, you know, what was their own political power.
And I'm confident that the system will continue to endure
and be a proof of concept that other states could

(17:01):
potentially replicate. And that's what we did see in last
year's elections. You know, multiple other states pursued ballot initiatives
for an Alaska style kind of system, and while none passed,
three states came within three percentage points of passing in
a pretty to.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
Be honest, though, five years ago, I thought all of
those were going to get pass easily. You know, I
remember when we were first talking, and you know, you're like, yeah,
we got to do Nevada twice. You were pretty you
had you were kind of bullish about Missouri, I believe
if I'm not mistaken, And it did seem as if
the opponents got savvier in pushing back at you guys

(17:44):
in Nevada and elsewhere.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Well, what we're up against is the two party duopoly
that wants to.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Protect actually working with each other in this one.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
Right, it was Democrats that spent over fifteen million dollars
against this in Alaska and Republicans who spent over seven
million in Montana to try and fight it, and they
would sort of weaponize the issue and say like, actually,
these reforms are about the stocking horse for the other party. Well,
they both can't be right when they're saying that, And
so we have work to do to build more early

(18:16):
and durable support among voters for these policies. We don't
need to convince anyone that our political system is broken.
What we do need to do is educate voters about
the benefits of these systems and why it is worth
a change. And as you know, the threshold of getting
a voter to vote yes on an initiative is much
harder than getting them to vote no, because you have
to kind of prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt.

(18:38):
And I think that's the task that we've signed up
for and we're going to continue to work on because
the status quo is unacceptable and it's leaving us in
a direction in which we're seeing our politics.

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(20:35):
in your shoes, I'd actually think that this is about
as opportunistic of a period of a year as you
can have. And when you think about the re redistricting wards,
it is taking you know, the issue of political party
manipulation and putting it right in the voter's face. Right,
so you know, I throw that in there. You throw

(20:56):
in that the electorate that you're like to get in
a midterm environment is an electorate that's going to be
more open to changes in the primary system. I think
that electric you would get in a mega induced environment.
I think we think you know where I'm going there.
So what states do you expect to be on the
ballot in trying to do primary reform?

Speaker 2 (21:17):
And is it.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
And let me know and differentiate whether it'll be the
top four or it's just open primaries, et cetera.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
There is a lot of activity happening in the movement
to reform our politics. There is litigation happening to open
close primaries in states like Maryland or Pennsylvania.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
I'm convinced there's an equal protection argument on this. I
do not the idea that the tax that there is
a poll tax against me as an independent voter, and
there's you're telling me that the only way I could
participate in a taxpayer funded election, is I have to
join a private club. I believe that's a poll tax.

(21:59):
I don't see how that's constitutional.

Speaker 2 (22:02):
It's certainly not in our belief under many state constitutions
that have even more protection for voter rights than maybe
the federal constitution. And so there's work happening on that.
There's work happening in legislatures to at least open the primaries.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
To all voters.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
We saw earlier this year in New Mexico, after a
multi year campaign, there was a bipartisan bill that passed
to allow unaffiliated voters to start to participate in party
primaries starting next year, over three hundred and thirty thousand
of them. And then, of course there's the ballot initiative pathway,
and there's at least two states where local groups are

(22:38):
pursuing the top two all candidate primary initiative, and that's
in both Massachusetts and Oklahoma. Two very different states politically,
but what they have in common is that all of
their congressional seats are decided in the party primaries, and
in Oklahoma those are closed to unaffiliated voters. And so
those are two states I think to be watching for

(22:59):
and to your point, the environment has never been more
ripe because our political system has never been more dysfunctional.
We've just emerged from the longest government shutdown that we've
seen in history, motivated by you know, in this case,
democratic leaders who just want to fight. I mean, that's
what this has become. I mean, the word of the
year the Oxford Dictionary new word is rage bait. That's

(23:21):
reflective of where our politics is.

Speaker 1 (23:23):
Right. I'm still trying to understand how the word of
the year is two words.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
But that's a good question. But that's reflective of our politics,
which is it's about playing to the base. It's about
demonstrating the fight, not about solving problems. And that's why
this primary problem, the incentives, is behind so much of
the dysfunction that we see, our inability to solve problems.
Another issue we can look at is immigration. As you know, Chuck,

(23:47):
a decade ago, there was a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform
bill that passed the Senate, it goes to the House.
Why does it fail? Well, the House majority leader was
primaried out of office that summer because he was open
to some compromise on this issue. And then here we
are a decade of pendulum politics. We had, you know,
effectively open borders under the Bided administration, and now we

(24:10):
have ice raids with even American citizens being snatched off
the streets under President Trump. People don't want these extreme
policies that we've been seeing of late. They want these
issues to be addressed in a sensible way. That's not
going to happen until we change the incentives of our
political system.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
You and I go back, i think almost two decades now,
our mutual mentor the late Doug Bailey, and you know
you've been in this. You've been in this what I
call radical centrism, you know, movement for some time. I
use that phrase. I'm going to be a bit self
referential and name drop here. Bono called me a radical

(24:55):
centrist one time at a salon dinner that we were
at together, and I said, are you I'm going to
take it as a compliments. Okay, he wasn't, because it's
sort of a compliment. He goes, there's sometimes that I
wish you would take up this cause here, this cause there.
And I always say I'm not a centrist. I'm an incrementalist,
meaning that are some things I'm on the left and

(25:17):
some things. I'm on the right, but I know that
the only way to make change in America is one
step at a time. And I don't think you try
to do big things. You try to do baby steps
and eventually you get your hockey stick moment. Why do
you think it's been so hard to galvanize the frustrated

(25:37):
center in America?

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Well, first I would, I would. I was also say
on this topic of what you know, what is the
ideology of this movement that wants to make politics better?
I think centrism comes short in describing it because it
really is not about living in what many people view
as a mushy middle.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
It is about no, it's not about just everything's a compromise.
It's just that it's that's not what it is. That's
why I always say no, no, no, no. I'm an incrementalist,
you know. I empathize with your idea on here, let's
try with let's try one step.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Yeah, it's about also people that want to find common
grounds and no matter where you are in the political spectrum,
you can work with others to see what you have
in common to actually get something done. And that's how
the biggest, most durable change that we've seen as a
country work. You know, when we look at the landmark
pieces of legislation that have passed the Congress, whether that

(26:32):
was civil rights or social security, or medicare or welfare
reform and a balanced budget, these things were votes of
a majority of both parties doing it together and to
be sustainable, not what we're seeing today. The promise of
primary reform is that for every state that adopts it,
it effectively liberates both senators and the representatives from those

(26:54):
states from being beholden to the base to being representative
of the whole. And so you don't need to win
in all fifty states. If we can abolish party primaries
in tense states, that's twenty US senators. It's a fifth
of the Senate that actually can have more leaders who
are willing to work with each other on issues of
national importance. That's never been more important for the country.

(27:16):
When I think about where we're at right now facing
the rise of artificial intelligence, whether we get this right
in terms of setting the right rules for the road,
having the right overset in place, making the right investments,
that's going to be hugely consequential for our economy and
national security. In our society. And if we don't have
a representative Congress that can do that, other countries will,

(27:39):
or the corporations themselves will, and we're all going to
be worse off for it. So whether we have a
Congress that works affects us all. And the reason why
it doesn't today is not just because of this partisan paralysis.
It's because without competitive elections, we wind up getting career
politicians who stay in office for way too long. We
have a quarter of the Congress that's over the retirement age,

(28:01):
over a third of the sentence above age seventy. It's
how we get congressional hearings where they're asking about tik
tak instead of TikTok. And these aren't the folks that
we needed making the decisions that are going to affect
maybe the biggest transformation our economy and society, you know,
going forward.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
The biggest difficulty I have and I'll just speak for myself,
and I'm curious where you're where you are on this
what I'm about to bring up, which is I am
I am easily persuaded in the reform movement, right. I
think there's a lot of I'm I look at the

(28:39):
last sort of crisis moments in American history, and each
one of them came with serious periods of reform. You know,
after the Civil War, during the basically after the Gilded Age,
and the and the and the robber barons right after,
you know, during and after FDR and you know, both

(29:01):
for good and for bad, right like when, and so
I'm optimistic that we're about to hit one of those
periods that we know, Look, we've got to do something
about the pardon power. We've got to do something. You know,
it's clear the Constitution is going to have to deal
with campaign finance issues because you can't do it legislatively.
And we've got to deal with age limits. Right, I'm
all for this age issue, but they're only you have

(29:23):
to do it in the Constitution. So the point is
is that I'm I can be I'm almost like a
squirrel with this. I'm like, oh I like that reform.
Oh yeah, I want to do this. There's a lot
of I've been you you go to these gatherings too.
I get invited to many of these sort of gatherings,
whether it's a fledgling third party movement, a fledgling reform movement,

(29:44):
you know, those advocating a constitutional convention. The folks at
the Forward Party. You've got the World Open Primaries, which
is another organization that's working in a similar fashion. I
know there's a loose connectivity between these groups, right you guys,
You know you're all rowing in the same direction. But
everybody has their own sort of laying in their own thing.

(30:08):
And maybe it's you already are biased that you have
got to start. Do you think you feel like there
is an order to the reform that's necessary here, that
you know, before we get to X, we've got to
do why, and before we get to why, we got
to do Z.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Well, I think two things are true. One is, we
have a beautiful system of federalism in our country, and
we can do this in an experimental way at the
state level. I mean, and that is the way that
these reforms have gotten done in the past and will today,
which is states can change these rules without an Act
of Congress or a constitutional amendment, and by virtue of

(30:43):
building momentum around reform, it will put more pressure on
Congress and potentially create an environment in which constitutional change
is possible. So I think the state by state route
is both a strategy and an opportunity to try different things.
And the second thing is I and we did not
start with primary reform as being our north star. We

(31:04):
got there through examining what sits at the center of
both what is most viable and could be most impactful.
And I do think that abolishing party primaries is the
biggest possible change that we can make right now that
can open the window for other potential changes down the road,

(31:26):
particularly changes that will require legislatures to do something, because
for them to do something on this issue, they need
to be more representative of the population who supports these
reforms than they are today. So I both support an
experimental approach to this, and we support primary reform for
a very particular reason, which I do think it is
the most solvable problem right now.

Speaker 1 (31:47):
Well, and that's the key, which is what's a problem
you could solve first? And I think there's no doubt
about that. This feels like a you know again, I
called myself an incrementalist. This is an incremental step that
could actually, you know, open the door to a whole
bunch more of ideas. Do you find yourself frustrated that

(32:09):
other reform minded folks don't see this as the core problem.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
I think I was frustrated in year one when we're
you know, or year two, when we're back at the
same table and arguing no this one, no this one,
and realize, like we're thirty people in the room, there's
three hundred and fifty million people out there. Those are
the folks that we need to be kind of talking to.
And so my orientation changed, like this is a positive
sum approach to a movement. You know, when you look
at the environmental movement or other movements, there's not just

(32:35):
one policy that they're behind. It's a diversified approach, including
what could be done on the state or federal level.
And so it doesn't frustrate me that there are multiple
potential pathways to making our democracy better. The thing that's
frustrating to me is around apathy or defense of the
status quo, because can anyone look around today and say, oh, no,

(32:59):
this is actually fine and we're moving in an okayed direction.
If you can't, then then choose something, choose one of
these things to be for and get behind it, because
I don't think the path that we're on, you know,
is sustainable.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
What's been you know, there's a lot of statistics that
show that the youngest voting generation is not registering D
or R. The registering is I or no party affiliation.
So in theory, this should be the core of the
activists that you're able to recruit to make this change.

(33:34):
Are you making some inroads? Is this something that can
be turned into a something that's galvanizable with the college crowd.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
I do believe that. And what we saw last year
was that the number one predictor for voters that would
support election reform at the ballot was not by party affiliation,
It was really by age. Younger voters disproportionately in favor
of changes to a political system they've only known as
been broken, and older voter sort of more hesitant around
any potential changes to a system they've known the same

(34:05):
way while all of their lives. And that's good news,
because young voters become all voters and just a question
of time. And so I think time is a really
important lever here when you look back, as you reference
before to the progressive era when we got major reforms done,
the women won the right to vote, direct election of
the Senate, banning of corporate campaign contributions, income the big

(34:29):
party primaries.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
People don't realize the income tax amendment was important because
it also helped create the property tax structure in America,
which is, you know, how we fund so many local services.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
And that didn't happen in just a couple of years.
That was a thirty year period of time. And so
when I think about, Oh, Alaska won this transformational reform
four years ago, it suggests to me we're at the
beginning of a very exciting decade plus era of reform
in reaction to you know, historic levels of polarization and partisanship.

(35:04):
The country knows is just not working for them right now.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
You know, we've sort of danced around this issue, but
the biggest opponent to everything you're trying to do is
the duopoly, and it's you know, the Democrats and party
in the Republican Party doesn't really work together on anything
other than this right, which is sort of protecting their
status at the ballot. You can sometimes win over local

(35:33):
members of a party or local party organizations if they're
in a state where they've been marginalized. But I imagine
donors are hard to come by because a donor usually
is a partisan right. They usually are passionate about something.

(35:54):
Is it hard to find people passionate in the very
wealthy space about reform.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
Well unit in America over the years is built across
partisan community. Now over one hundred and twenty what we
call political philanthropists, and many of them have not traditionally
been partisan donors investing in politics for a partisan outcome.
That's fine, but there's been a lot of people on
who have come into this movement because their interest is

(36:23):
not trying to elect or oppose one political party or another.
It's about people who have been philanthropically mind who care
about an issue, that knows we're not going to make
progress on that issue, but for government being able to
be functional and representative of the electorates. So I would
say it's a different profile oftentimes of a donor that
gets involved in this space and from across the political

(36:48):
spectrum as well. It's really interesting in this work, not
just at our team or board level, but also in
the donor community of people that may not agree a
lot on particular candidates or particular policies, but we do
agree that government should represent a true majority of Americans.
And then let's have the argument once we have, you know,
a government that can represent us.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
I know you said in a few states where there's
not a referendum option that you're trying to work in
the state legislature, obviously you have to go with the
lowest common denominator. Stuff is it? Is it simply allowing
independence in primaries. That's about the about the best you
can hope for in convincing a legislature to do something

(37:29):
in the near term.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
I do think that legislatories will take more time to
bring along to more ambitious reforms. But let's remember that
California adopted it's all candidate primary system by legislative referral,
so some states legislators might be willing to at least
put it on the ballot. It takes leadership, though Governor
Schwarzenegger was instrumental, you know, in that campaign. And when

(37:54):
I look at incoming governors like an Abigail Spandberger who
serves in you know, have one term in Virginia, maybe
this is something that schol champion is part of her
legacy there to say this will be good for the
commonwealth out into the future. Let's get this done. I
think when we have executive leadership that leans into the issue,
legislatures may be more likely to follow.

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(39:42):
a Virginia voter. I don't have to register by party,
and I at least get a choice what primary, you know,
and I always just find the competitive primary and I
vote in it. So I you know, Virginia is a
place where I where you feel like, no matter where
what your ideological stripe is, you at least have some
say in the conversation. But Virginia may also repeal a

(40:05):
constitutional amendment on redistricting reform in a couple of months,
and California just did it, and I look at what
happened there. There was real momentum on redistricting reform just
four or five years ago. And I would bet frankly
that movement had more momentum than your movement did. We
were part of that. Actually, yeah, for me, but it

(40:25):
had a and and it's amazing how that flipped that quickly.
Are you at all I mean, are you at all
demoralized at how people who are reformers are going? Yeah,
but on this, I mean I just have struggled, you know,
And I've had this debate with friends out in California.

(40:46):
I said, Look, I just don't understand why. If disenfranchising
voters in Texas is bad, why is the answer disenfranchising
voters in California.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
I'm with you. I think fighting fire with fire means
everything just burned and is down. So it was not
in favor of what California is expression. However, the instinct,
which is that I get it, I get it, yep.
And I also think it's important to bring it back
to why it's happening. When Texas redistricted, when Missouri followed suit,

(41:16):
and now there's pressure in Indiana. It's because the president
right now is weaponizing the primary system to get it done.
When he goes sweeps into a state, it is get this,
find me five more seats, or I'm going to primary
you in your next election. So I think it's important
we connect the dots back to the political incentives piece,
which is how primaries can be weaponized not just to

(41:39):
push people to the extremes, but to push them to
do undemocratic things to consolidate power. The opposite is true
as well, or the other side of the coin, which
is that if we didn't have party primaries, this challenge
of safe districts or districts that are heavily lopside would
matter less, Chuck, because there would be more competition in
the general election if we advanced more than two candidates

(42:03):
rather than what it is you know right now. And
so I think the answer to.

Speaker 1 (42:06):
Go ahead and create a partisan right, go ahead and
create a partisan plus twenty district in California. At least
there'll be a top two in the same party, and
then they fight over you know, you know, left versus center.
I mean, I always thought Berman Sherman was the first
one of these, and it was Howard Berman and Brad Sherman.

(42:28):
They got redistricted into the same thing together and they
both advanced to the they were in the top two, and
so it was a d on d general election. And
I remember the dividing issue was actually tart at the time,
and one of them had been you know, voted against it.
One of them voted for it, and that essentially they
were wooing the third of Republicans that were in their district. Right,

(42:51):
they were both Democrats, and there was a third of
Republicans that were the swing voter. And I thought, boy,
that that could really if if we could have that
system everywhere where, at any point in time, even if
you're in the minority, you your vote could be the
swing vote. You get to decide do I want, you know,

(43:12):
do I want a libertarian conservative or do I want
a evangelical conservative? Right? And if that's the two choices, well,
I you know, it may not like either, but I
have a preference of which I want less, you know exactly. Yeah,
you think about it.

Speaker 2 (43:27):
The midterm elections that we're going to go into in
ninety percent of the districts, these elections are over before
people show up in November, and their vote, if they
cast it really doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
We're going to have a one hundred and ten million,
you know, I think we'll get one hundred and ten
million midterm voters, maybe one hundred and fifteen. It's turnout.
It's been amazing in the Trump era again, and maybe
there'll be thirty five congressional seats decided by ten points
or less out of four hundred and thirty five maybe.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
So that's tens of millions of people. You know, who
is A vote effectively does not matter. It's impooring people vote,
but on participation without competition does not result in representation.
If we want your vote to matter, you have to
have a choice that is real. And so the idea
that in red districts you get to choose what kind

(44:22):
of Republican you want, during blue districts, what kind of
Democrat you want in the general election, is much better
than showing up to an election that's already been decided.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
You know, it's funny. I grew up growing up in Miami.
I grew up in the seventies and eighties, and I
remember my dad was a Republican Conservative, but he was
a registered Democrat. And I remember asking, and I said,
why are you Originally he says, well, there's no Republicans
down here because at the time the South, this was
back in the seventieswer every politician in the South, everybody
was a Democrat, but half the Democrats were really Republicans.

(44:55):
But all the local offices, he said if I want
to have to say in local primaries, you know I
got to vote. So in some ways, conservatives, older conservatives
in the South have actually been participating in primaries this
way for a long time.

Speaker 2 (45:10):
Yeah, I mean, it all boils down to the idea
that every American should have the freedom to vote fro
whenever they want and every taxpayer funded election period. Right
seventy eighty percent of voters, regardless of party, believe in that.
In addition, though to the attacks on redistricting, what we're
also seeing in nine states right now is attempts by

(45:31):
legislators to close the primaries and actually start to register
voters by party in order to do so. That is
extremely unpopular. I mean, we just released a poll today
from Republican polster in Texas that found two thirds of
Republican primary voters support the current system. They like to
have the freedom to vote. They don't like the idea
of government overreach and starting to have to register publicly

(45:52):
what party you're from. So these attempts are driven by insiders,
driven by extreme factions where they're trying to is unpopular,
and that's one of the reasons why you know, in
America is working hard in these states to defend the
current system from going backwards. And what we have found
is that our allies in this in many cases are
Republican legislative leaders who know that not only is this

(46:15):
bad for America, it's bad for their party. When the
largest and fastest growing part of the electorate are those
that don't belong to either party, How can you expect
to win those voters over if you're kicking them out
of the process in which you're choosing your candidates. And
so it really is, you know, courageous Republican leaders in
many of these states that are standing up to forces

(46:35):
within their own party that want to close elections to
create more pure ideological purity that might wind up costing
them elections.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Is there a good privacy argument? I mean, you know,
I don't want to have to join one of these
two clubs. Don't make me join a club. I want
the privacy of keeping my you know, I may lean
one way or the other, but I'd prefer the government
and anybody that checks my vote a registration to just
see I'm a registered voter period. I don't think you

(47:05):
should know my politics now. You may learn it over time,
but I don't want to have to identify. I mean,
it's sort of a strange thing that government is making
people do this in a quote unquote democracy.

Speaker 2 (47:20):
I mean, we adopted the secret ballot a century ago
to give people privacy over their right to vote. In
many states, however, we force people to register publicly with
the political party. Go into some database, I can see what.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Party you belong to.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
In many states don't have this system today, and that's
what those those states.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Are trying to change.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
And I agree with you that it's an invasion of privacy,
particularly in an era of politics in which one's party
affiliation can be used against them.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
Now, it gets weaponized culturally, it can be weaponized at
your job. It can do this. I mean, you know
the local part well, the local Democratic Party here in
Arlington County, if you want to participate in some of
the county primaries, because Virginia, each county can sort of
party can decide how they want to do it. So
they don't have party primaries, they don't have taxpayer fund

(48:10):
of primaries, but they do have their own party primary
and you have to sign a pledge if you want
to participate in it. And I just won't do that.
I know the pledge is meaningless, but I kind of feel,
you know, but I don't think they have the right
to ask that right now. It is a privately funded
election that they run, so okay, it's private organization. They

(48:31):
can have that say. So I just don't participate in.
I won't participate in in because there're sometimes the Republicans
have gone off and on about doing the same thing
where they make you sign an oath because there isn't
a there isn't party registration in this state. So let
me shift in our last few minutes here to the

(48:51):
other areas of reform to focus on. So I agree
with you. I think primaries number one are sort of
easy to communicate to people that it's a problem, right,
it's a we're polarized. Hey, it's this primary issue. People
get it. So I'm with you. I think it is
the good first reform to focus on what's next. What's two, three,

(49:13):
and four in your head? I think it's a good question.
I think we need to do something on campaign finance.
It's a salient issue for most voters. They don't like
the idea of special interests or wealthy interests having disproportionate
say in our political system that will likely require a
constitutional amendment. There's something the other number two issue. When

(49:34):
you ask people what's wrong with.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
Politics today, one's money in politics, the next is career politicians.
And I think there is something to do with age
limits and term limits to make sure that we have
a Congress that can reasonably turn over with time and
remain both nimble to the issues of the day, you know,
and representative of people. Again, those may require amendments, so

(49:56):
those are harder, you know, lifts. I'm also frankly interested
in what may not be a reform that requires a
change in law or state constitutions. But how do we
think about other ways we do democracy outside of an
electoral context. And there's a growing movement around deliberative democracy
and citizen assemblies, which are essentially randomly assembled groups of

(50:20):
citizens that can deliberate on issues and make recommendations to government.
I think they're interesting ways where they can actually be
integrated into the government.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Like a jury pool, but instead of for deciding somebody's
guilt or innocence. Okay, Arlington County is going to do
a random jury of one hundred citizens because we want
to decide whether we want to put bike lanes everywhere, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (50:46):
I mean, and this goes back to Athenian democracy. I mean,
this is not a new idea. This is actually how
democracy was done in the very early days and.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
The idea it's what Datokville loved about our democracy. It
was how local it was and how engaged we were
at the township level.

Speaker 2 (51:03):
Yeah, and I think this could be even more important
as our information ecosystem is transformed and in many ways
polluted and distorted by artificial intelligence. How do we protect
the spaces in which democracy can be done?

Speaker 1 (51:16):
So mean, this intrigues me is who's trying this? Any
community out there trying this?

Speaker 2 (51:23):
There are local communities in fact here in Montrose, Colorado,
and for Colins have done citizen assemblies. There have been
How does it work?

Speaker 1 (51:32):
Give me an example of how the citizen assembly worked
for Collins especially.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
People will approach in different ways. The sort of ideal
way is a process of what they call sortition, which
is random selection of citizens. They are incentivized for participation,
like compensated for their time, but they might meet a
few times on a weekend over the course of a
few weeks. They're presented with information and arguments from different

(51:57):
perspectives on an issue and then they liberate in a
facilitated way together to render a particular you recommendation or
perspective that then say, goes to the city council and
so binding. No, although it could be set up in
a binding way, but right now, many of the ones
that are being done are advisory, you know, in nature.

(52:20):
I think there are interesting ways in which may be
integrated into the citizen initiative process itself. We can use
citizen assemblies to determine what gets to go to the ballot.
I mean, it's just it's an improvement in what direct democracy,
you know, can look like. So I would say like
over the next decade plus, there's going to be needs
to reimagine what democracy looks like. I mean, we're coming

(52:41):
up on our two hundred and fiftieth anniversary as a country.
We've gotten here, I think by continuing to look at
and innovate and improve the way that we can self govern,
and we need to be responsive to the times. And
so whether it's these election reforms or citizen assemblies, the
ideas that we need to keep democracy fresh to keep

(53:01):
it working.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
I'll tell you I would. I would. I've always thought
about this, and you know, I joke that if you
live in the state of New Hampshire for more than
ten years, you're going to end up in the state
legislature at some point when you have a four hundred
members state House. But I used to think, what if
that were just four hundred random people that were selected

(53:23):
to be in the you know, and then you brought
them together just like you would a jury, and okay,
this is the legislature. We're going to compensate you for
your time. You're the citizen legislature for the l and hey, look,
if you feel like any you vet them, maybe you know,
certain people can't serve, and you know whatever, you can
come up with some criteria. But compulsory representation is something

(53:47):
that I've actually been curious about, where you basically, okay, yeah,
once every twenty years, I got to sit on the
city council, you know, once every twenty twenty years, I
got to do six months. I got to do six
weeks at the state capitol. You know, I think we

(54:08):
would get better. I think we would certainly get outcomes
that were more reflective of the population.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
I mean, if you put in a poll right now
and ask most Americans, would you rather keep the five
hundred and thirty five leaders we currently have in Congress
or do a lottery and try out something new for
a couple of years. I'd be interested how to come back,
but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people
would be open to trying something a bit new. And
this model, like you said, is not a foreign concept.
Juries make life or death decisions the trust. Really they

(54:39):
are also capable of informing what our marginal tax rate
could be.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
Now you look at it, it feels like there are
a couple of rural states that would be more open
to trying this first, you know, And it could be
interesting whether it's a you could see easily see one
of the New England states being open to this concept.
I mean, the New Hampshire State House can be such
a pain in the ass with how many specials, you know,

(55:04):
we have foreignered members. There's always somebody who's you know,
can't do it, or can't go or this or that.
If you told me they transition to something like this
in twenty years would shock me. By the way.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
The pathway that many of these reforms take at the
state level is through the initiative process where citizens get
to decide this and shape their own government directly, and
that process needs to be protected. It is under attack
in many states right now by legislatures that are trying
to increase the threshold of what it takes to pass
the ballot initiative to make it harder to qualify. So

(55:41):
I think everyone who cares about democracy, and especially in
the reform movement, ought to be working together to make
sure that we protect and improve the citizen initiative process.
There will be initiatives on the ballot next November that
will both attempt to make things worse that we need
to defeat, and a couple of states innovating with constitutional

(56:02):
protections of the initiative process so that legislatures can't undo
them in the future.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
I scared Jack dan Forth on the idea of a
constitutional convention. He fears it that you know that you
know it implies that we're scrapping the Constitution, and he's like,
I love our constitution, we just need to amend it.
And I'm like, well, it's a gathering to basically consider amendments,
is what I'm what I'm advocating, But not everybody is.

(56:27):
There's always when when you throw this idea out there.
It's more folks on the left who are skeptical of
it these days than folks on the right. And in fact,
had Clinton won in ninety six, I think it was
Greg Abbott at the time as governor of Texas was
basically wanting to to lead a movement of states to
call for a constitutional convention. And you know, had Clinton

(56:49):
one in sixteen, that might have been what the right
would have focused on. It might have been an interesting exercise.
But do you think it would Is that a fool's
errand in your mind? Or is it something that whose
time might be now?

Speaker 2 (57:07):
I think the time was before now for a convention
to re examine some of the not principles of our
constitutional design are checks and balances or our separation powers,
but the structures. I mean, whether you believe there ought
to be an electoral college or not, no one can
argue that it's functioning in the way the founders designed it.

(57:29):
So what does it look like to improve and modernize that?

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Well? I got a simple solution to that. Double the size,
go back to increasing the size of the House every
ten years, and then your electoral college and your popular
vote will no longer I mean right now, every four years,
the likelihood of a split decision between the electoral college
and the popular vote is more likely, not less likely,

(57:52):
because we have not expanded the numerator of the electoral
vote of the electoral college. And if we double the
size of the House, I promise you nobody will be
complaining about the electoral college.

Speaker 2 (58:07):
As you know, what people fear about a convention, is
it the runaway convention? Well, they do something to radically,
but we're skipped. But those critics forget there's a ratification process. Whatever,
the practition comes up with.

Speaker 1 (58:20):
A quite high yes. Right, you don't think you're the voter. Yeah,
I don't think we should fear it.

Speaker 2 (58:26):
I think we need to treat it seriously, be cautious
and smart about it, and embrace it as a tool
the founders gave us to ensure that we can continue
to endure as a representative republic for centuries to come.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Why isn't someone trying to be the leader in convening this.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
I think that there's this sort of psychological barrier about
whether constitutional change is possible. It's been what thirty years
since the last amendment, you know past? But I think
pressure is going to build, especially because of how if
power continues to consolidate in the way that it does,
if the initiative process deteriorates, then the other levels we

(59:08):
have to make change become harder, and I think people
may view this other pathways becoming increasingly necessary.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yeah, it's been I just feel like that the I
think that there's agreement with this, But in some ways
you have to have a leader, right to galvanize people
to get there.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Well, your next project, Chuck.

Speaker 1 (59:31):
Oh man, We've all got a lot of projects. Right,
let me get you out of here on this. You
ran for office once before, you still have the itch.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Not under today's party primary system, I can tell you that.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
You live in Colorado, it's the least partisan or the
least primary impact. I mean, certainly primaries have some certainly
or but it's less so, right.

Speaker 2 (59:53):
Yeah, Although I think Colorado is heading the direction of
many other places where the primaryism is causing our state
to become a lot more partisan. It's one of the
states that we continue to work on for form. But
we'll say having had the experience of running for office
early on was good in being grounded and how voters
actually think about democracy and elections, not just an academic

(01:00:14):
perspective on this, and I feel grateful to be in
a role right now to make the biggest impact I
can that can impact how people who runs and how
they govern and at scale.

Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
You ran as an independent, So let me get you
out of here actually on this topic, which is what
do you think Mike Duggan is running into right now
running is independent in Michigan That he didn't expect that
you would have been able to tell him how He
asked you that, Oh, yeah, this is how many voters
view third party candidates are independent.

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
Yeah, be wary of the early polls that show voters
would like the idea of an independent.

Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
And looks really good at first, doesn't it exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
But I think the most important thing for any independent
is to achieve escape velocity, which is to say, you
have to be able to prove that you are viable
before voters really start paying attention and ask if you are.
And that happens well before election days. So unlike the
traditional playbook where you spend most of your resources in
the last ninety days, you know your November election is

(01:01:14):
actually months earlier because you have too interesting that you
can be a.

Speaker 1 (01:01:19):
What does that look like being showing up in the
conventional places that other candidates do? Is it money? What
is it that you think? And I know this is
a bit subjective, but generally, what do you think that
voters are looking for to decide, oh, you're legitimate?

Speaker 2 (01:01:38):
I think in the past the heuristic would be like
traditional media coverage, the press taking you seriously, do you
get a debate? Are you as the what are you
pulling at? But today I think that's changing because the
metric that probably matters most in our politics is attention.
Are you getting attention? Am I hearing from you? Are
you breaking through? I think that works in the favor
of independent candidates the extent that there are a fewer

(01:01:58):
gatekeepers that are saying whether you're credible or not, but
you can reach voters directly in a more democratized way
than ever has been the case. I'm hoping that we
might see a couple of these candidates actually break through
what has been that glass ceiling and then show that
it's possible.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Nick Treada, you always give me a little more hope,
your your glasses half full on.

Speaker 2 (01:02:20):
This reform movement. Aren't you continue to stick there? There's
no other choice, So let get it done right.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
There's only forward, right, there's there's my friends at a
certain third party like to say, you know, we only
have one choice. We have to move forward exactly. Thank you, John,
great to talk with you. There's a reason results matter
more than promises, just like there's a reason. Morgan and
Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last

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Interview Only w/ Nick Troiano - How To Fix America’s Broken Political System

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Interview Only w/ Nick Troiano - How To Fix America’s Broken Political System