John Koza Episode Transcript

 John Koza: [00:00:01] The fact is the ball game has changed now nobody seems to care whether the president gets elected with the most votes. In fact, it's almost a virtue that they not be [00:00:13][12.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:00:14] welcome to live rich. Have Fun. Save the World, a podcast focused on reimagining how we define success, cohosted by myself, entrepreneur and CEO of Expensify, David Barrett. Today on the podcast, we have John Khoza, co-founder of National Popular Vote, an organization looking to roll back the winner takes all approach of the Electoral College in favor of a system that focuses on the states granting their Electoral College votes to the candidate that wins the, you guessed it, national popular vote. We very publicly endorsed Biden in this last election and wanted to talk to someone on the front lines of our democracy. How did you think the conversation went, David? [00:00:51][37.1]

DB: [00:00:52] Well, yeah, I think it was incredible seeing an organization, Kennedy, just as small as national popular vote, accomplish such enormous change. I think it's super inspirational for anyone who's trying to make the world a better place to realize you don't need a billion dollars, you don't need a huge organization. It's like six part time people are changing the most important part of the presidential election. And that's an incredible and inspirational tale. [00:01:15][22.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:01:15] It's a fantastic story. Stick around for it. From national popular vote today, we have John Kosa. He's the chair of National Popular Vote and a member of the board of directors, as well as lead author of the book Every Vote Equal a state based plan for electing the president by national popular vote. He's also the originator of the national popular vote legislation on top of that. And he's also a board game inventor, a former professor of genetic algorithms and genetic programing at Stanford University. Quite the resume. John, thanks so much for joining us today. How is your day going so far? [00:01:46][30.9]

John Koza: [00:01:47] Good. And thank you very much for having me. [00:01:49][1.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:01:50] Of course. Our pleasure. Our pleasure. Want to dove right into it and talk about our recent election back in November. A lot to unpack there still even now. David, I'll let you get into it. [00:02:00][10.5]

DB: [00:02:01] Yeah. So I was so excited to talk with you because for years, if anyone asked me if I could be king for a day, what would I do? I would say I would enact the national popular vote. I think the the way I view it is is the highest. Why change that we could possibly make? Because if you could improve, you know, the decision making capability of the United States by one percent, whatever that even really means, I think that has a bigger impact on basically every global issue than any single policy you could do. So I'm a huge fan. I've been a fan for a long time, and I would just love to hear a bit more about, you know, when we talked a couple of years back, you talked about the organization as a small but incredibly effective organization. And for me, that was super inspirational, that such a a group of people could actually enact such important change. And so I kind of love to hear an overview right now of what is the organization like and and how do you operate on a daily basis? [00:02:54][53.6]

John Koza: [00:02:55] Well, our goal was to have the president elected by popular vote of the people in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. And it turns out the Constitution gives the state legislatures the power to decide how the president is elected. So what our organization does is we go out and talk to the state legislators to try to get them to pass our legislation. There's seventy four hundred of them in the country. So our organization's main audience is the seventy four hundred state legislators. But of course, all the other people in state government are of Congress, the media, professors and civic groups and so forth. But the ultimate audience is the seventy four hundred state legislators and we're lobbyists. We go out and talk to them one by one. I can't tell you exactly how many we've talked to over the years, but it's probably about 4000. We have about a thousand meetings this year, many of whom they used to be more in person. But that is what we do. [00:04:10][74.2]

DB: [00:04:10] Yeah. I want to get back to the account of what changes have been triggered by covid, because that's always the topic do. But maybe kind of stepping back a bit. So can you just briefly, for the readers or the listeners that don't already know, kind of explain the mechanics of how the interstate compact works? [00:04:25][14.9]

John Koza: [00:04:27] Well, it's a piece of state legislation and it says, for example, Colorado was one of the states that passed it recently says Colorado will award its nine electoral votes to the presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. But it doesn't go into effect until states having a majority of the electoral votes cast the very same law. And at that point, since a majority of the Electoral College would have passed this law, there would then be a majority of the Electoral College that would be given to the candidate who gets the most popular votes in all 50 states. So we create a nationwide election for president by passing state laws. And the interstate compact is just a fancy way of saying that the legislation takes effect at a certain point. In our case, when states having 270 of the five hundred thirty eight electoral votes passed, the very same law. [00:05:38][70.6]

DB: [00:05:40] Yeah, it reminds me of there is a website called Kickstarter, which is all about basically raising funds for non-profits and it's sort of you contribute funds, but no one actually pays anything until the campaign has earned enough to basically get cross a certain threshold. So there's no risk to participate because, you know, either nothing happens or you get what you want, but you never actually end up paying for something that you didn't want. I think this is a great example of like this kind of Kickstarter effect on a much more important stage. [00:06:08][28.5]

John Koza: [00:06:09] Well, that is a good analogy. And of course, no one state would want to give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote unless it knew that enough other states were doing it, that it would actually produce a nationwide election of the president. [00:06:26][17.2]

DB: [00:06:28] Absolutely. And so I know that this is a very complicated topic, but I'd be curious for just what would you say is the most significant and most persistent piece of opposition that you get? What's the biggest criticism that you get? And what's your sort of how do you rebut it? [00:06:43][15.1]

John Koza: [00:06:44] Well, the biggest single opposition is inertia. This inertia comes from several sources. One is particularly when we were getting started, nobody believed that it could be accomplished. So it was viewed as a pie in the sky issue that really wasn't worth legislators spending any time on. And that's still persists as a major issue because we've got states, 16 states now that have enacted this with one hundred ninety six electoral votes. So we're seventy four short of the 270. But still, when you go to any one, legislature obviously has less than seventy four electoral votes. They don't quite see some of them won't quite see the urgency of doing anything. And legislators are very busy. They deal with thousands of different proposals in the course of a year. And if something doesn't seem likely to happen, that's not very attractive. [00:07:51][67.6]

DB: [00:07:52] Yeah, well, that reminds me of the early days of a startup as well, where you just basically out there with an idea, a laptop and basically everyone things are just like, oh, you're very cute. That's a great idea. But that will never, ever happen. And so I'd be curious, like, when you think back to the earliest days, how did that first meeting go? Or someone was like, what are you talking about? This is wild. [00:08:13][20.9]

John Koza: [00:08:14] As a matter of fact, the very first legislative chamber that passed, it was sort of spontaneous. The Colorado Senate passed about a month after our press release and the Senate later there had gotten a copy of our bill from our website. And we just thought it was a good idea and he passed it. OK. Wow. Then the second state we worked on was California, where is where I live and where the very fact I'm the president of National Popular Vote lives. We went up to Sacramento and visited 112 of 120 legislators over the course of several months. And we got it passed in both houses, although the governor at the time vetoed it. But we did get it passed in California, in the legislature during our first year. [00:09:08][53.9]

DB: [00:09:08] Wow. I mean, that's incredible progress for a brand new, pretty radical idea. I mean, it's radical not just in its what it's trying to accomplish, but how it's trying to accomplish it. Has anyone done this interstate contract idea before? [00:09:20][12.0]

John Koza: [00:09:22] Well, there are a lot of interstate compacts and they all are very much like ours, that the states agree to do something they wouldn't ordinarily do unless they knew a certain number of other states were doing the same thing. So, for example, the Colorado River Compact, each of the states in the river basin, none of them would want to give up access to the water unless they knew all seven states were cooperating in agreeing to reasonable limits. So there are quite a few interstate compacts. Some involve all 50 states. Some just involve two states like the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. [00:10:07][44.1]

DB: [00:10:08] Oh, that's super interesting. I never heard of that sort of idea before. And so I'd be curious when you were forming the initial idea, like, did you have experience with this before or did you just sort of stumble into it like how to even learn this? How did you come up with this idea, I guess? [00:10:22][14.2]

John Koza: [00:10:23] Well, when I was in business, I was in the lottery business in the 70s and 80s, introduced the rip off instant lottery to the state lottery industry. It turned out there was a a group of three small states, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and they wanted to run a lotto game, which, as you know, has a big prize. But because the state, the small population, they couldn't get the multimillion dollar prize that made the game attractive in any one state. So they formed an interstate compact of three states for the tri state lottery commission, it was called. And by getting together, they were able to offer an attractive prize and have a successful game. And our company got the first contract for the lotto game there. So that's how I became familiar with interstate compacts. [00:11:20][57.0]

DB: [00:11:21] Wow, that's wild. OK, so it starts to rub off lottery tickets and it goes to basically the most significant overhaul of voting rights in America. So that's an incredible evolution of the idea that how did you and curiosity go from academia to lotteries when what was that transition like? [00:11:43][21.8]

John Koza: [00:11:44] Well, actually, it was the opposite direction. When I got my be in 1972, I had been working for a company that did commercial games, supermarket gas station games. And we sort of came up with the idea that a more secure version of those same games might be attracted to state lotteries, which were just getting started at the time. So I went into the lottery business in 1973 and stayed there for almost 20 years. And then I started to teaching as a consulting professor at Stanford. [00:12:28][43.6]

DB: [00:12:28] OK, so Ph.D. in 1972, then 20 years of basically inventing the lottery system, then went into what were you teaching at Stanford? [00:12:39][10.6]

John Koza: [00:12:43] Genetic algorithms and genetic programing, it's artificial intelligence [00:12:48][4.5]

DB: [00:12:49] that feels like a natural transition from lottery. Yeah. [00:12:51][2.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:12:52] Oh, yes. Right. [00:12:54][2.1]

DB: [00:12:55] And then, of course, then the obvious leap from genetic algorithms to a national popular vote. So this all adds up. [00:13:01][6.2]

John Koza: [00:13:01] Perfect, right? As it happens, the president of National Popular Vote with Kumite work, he was our attorney in the late 70s to get lotteries passed by initiative in states like Arizona, California and Oregon. And our company also did a lot of lobbying. So the reason we got into national popular vote was we thought we had a unique background of dealing with state lotteries and the initiative process and that that would be a very good background. [00:13:38][37.0]

DB: [00:13:39] That's super interesting. So because lotteries are a state regulated thing, you already had a lot of experience talking to state legislators and lobbying these groups. And this happens to be the same group that also picks the national president. And so that's a very unusual like I don't think I wouldn't have expected sort of that background to have such an overlapping sort of complimentary experience, skill set. But now, in retrospect, it's quite clear. [00:14:03][24.1]

John Koza: [00:14:06] Yes, it was the experience and the lottery and we were trying to get additional states to pass state lottery. So we've got we've got not only legislative lobbying to legislators, but also we ran three initiative campaigns where we put the question on the ballot and then the voters approved it. [00:14:26][20.1]

DB: [00:14:28] That's pretty interesting. So there's obviously a big conversation around the role of politics in business. And in your sense, like in your background, politics was your business like you you had to do this in order to function. [00:14:39][11.3]

John Koza: [00:14:40] Well, right now, our business about dealing with state governments and if we want more lotteries to be created, somebody would have to go out and make the case to the state officials to start a lottery. [00:14:53][12.7]

DB: [00:14:54] So I think obviously there are, you know, a ton of lottery or sort of lobbying efforts from big tech firms and so forth today. But they seem to be sort of under the hood a bit. They're not as loud and proud. It sounds like for you is such a key part of your actual business strategy was engaging with governments. But it feels like anymore the idea of direct engagement is very frowned upon. I'd be curious for your thoughts and like, do you think over time we're going to see more engagement between large tech corporations and other state or federal governments? Or do you think that's something that should actually have a bigger separation? [00:15:31][37.2]

John Koza: [00:15:33] Well, for most businesses, they have no particular reason unless they're doing business with the state government or if they're concerned about wanting some favorable legislation or opposing some unfavorable legislation. Not only lobbying is a fairly small part of most businesses. Mm hmm. Maybe no part for a great many. [00:15:59][25.8]

DB: [00:16:00] That makes sense, so coming back to the present event, so so, OK, that's super fascinating how the organization got started. And I would be curious also what like what sort of lessons? It sounds like you've developed kind of a playbook for how to work with, you know, getting initiatives on the ballot, how to get these initiatives passed and so forth. What's your secret like if you going to break down the ad to give an example? There's I think it's a general belief that the way you accomplish change is to show up in protest. Do you think that you're you're not you're making very significant changes to the world, but you're not doing it through like a protest movement. And so I'd be curious, what what do you think works that the technique that works the best that's being overlooked by others? [00:16:44][43.8]

John Koza: [00:16:45] Well, you have to have something the public wants. In the case of state lotteries, there was very substantial support in the 70 percent neighborhood. And in each state there was opposition in some cases from religious groups, in some cases from people like horserace in the street who incorrectly thought that a state lottery would compete with the horse racing industry, which doesn't. But they thought that. So you have opponents and if you have enough support, you overwhelm their opponents. In the case of national popular vote, it's pretty popular and that doesn't guarantee anything will pass. But it is obviously the foundation of getting anything passed [00:17:40][54.6]

DB: [00:17:40] that makes sense. So step one of any kind of real world change involves make sure that people want the change you want jocking. What a crazy idea. [00:17:48][7.7]

John Koza: [00:17:49] Well, indeed. And if public opinion is on your side, you know, you have a very good chance over time of getting getting it passed. [00:18:00][10.9]

DB: [00:18:01] So do you. When it comes to public opinion, had you commissioned just like general polls and so forth, what do you think is a good way to demonstrate that the public is on your side? [00:18:11][9.8]

John Koza: [00:18:12] Well, we've done a lot of polls, but in the case of our issue, lots of other people do polls as well. It shows up often on Gallup polls and any number of other organizations are asking the public about how the president should be elected from time to time. So we've done about thirty five polls ourselves. We've probably seen maybe a total of one hundred [00:18:38][25.9]

DB: [00:18:39] interesting from [00:18:39][0.7]

John Koza: [00:18:41] all kinds of different organizations, sometimes different civic groups run polls [00:18:46][4.4]

DB: [00:18:46] as well. Do you engage with these other groups like both Gallup and these others, or are they all independent? [00:18:49][3.3]

John Koza: [00:18:53] No, we've never had any connection with Gallup, with. Gotten polled, so the polls we have commissioned and paid for and initiated have been with smaller companies, smaller polling [00:19:08][15.6]

DB: [00:19:09] companies that make sense. OK, so step one is make sure that your issue has wide appeal in the public. And so step two is so you talked about setting up meetings with, you know, the entire legislator, like how does that work? Can you just call them up and say, I can make a meeting and I'll say, OK, how's that work? [00:19:24][15.9]

John Koza: [00:19:27] Yes, in many cases, we just directly contact them and the issue is certainly nowadays of sufficient prominence and interest, that it's reasonably easy to get meetings, but we always hire a lobbyist in any state that we're. At least vigorously working on, in fact, usually a Republican lobbyist and a Democratic lobbyist and and because they're located in the state capitol, they're able to get meetings and obviously advise us on strategy and politics that are peculiar to each state. [00:20:15][48.2]

DB: [00:20:16] It sounds like in the early days you would directly just walk up and make these meetings. But now it sounds like you have a sort of a lobbyist wing in front of you to kind of the vanguard to clear the path so you can talk. [00:20:26][10.2]

John Koza: [00:20:27] All right, when we passed the bill in California, we did not have a lobbyist. We just knocked on doors and we had a sponsor, Tom Amberg, who was come back to the legislature after a number of years. He's there now. His office was very helpful in setting up meetings for us. But in most states, we have a lobbyist. In three or four states, we've done the lobbying ourselves. [00:20:55][27.8]

DB: [00:20:56] That makes sense. OK, so step one is make sure the public's on your side and use polls as one technique to demonstrate that if others aren't doing it, to do it yourself. And then step two is just show up and talk to the people making the decision and either make the introduction yourself or hire a lobbyist, or I assume you probably get a lot of introductions from one one supporter to another and so forth. That makes sense. [00:21:16][20.4]

John Koza: [00:21:17] Oh, exactly. And the National Conference of State Legislators and Regional Conferences, which, of course, we go to frequently. And that's a good way to meet a large number of lobbyists informally. And then at those conferences, you set up subsequent meetings back in their home state. [00:21:38][21.2]

DB: [00:21:39] So how does this legislative conference work? Because it just like a fishing conference where basically there's booths and show up and you get swag and all that sort of stuff. [00:21:48][8.8]

John Koza: [00:21:48] Well, the the bigger conferences of state legislators and are several different conferences every year. They have exhibits. Yes, they do have swag and they have elaborate programs, speeches, workshops, specialized topics. We almost always get a booth up there if they have booths so that we can meet the legislators as they're walking around the exhibit hall. [00:22:17][28.6]

DB: [00:22:19] That's interesting, so would you say that the the conference strategy for you has been like a really important part, or is that just pretty ancillary? [00:22:24][5.3]

John Koza: [00:22:25] Now, the conferences are important and it also makes us visible even to somebody that we don't actually talk to. One on one. They see our booth as they walk by and say that's interesting and they talk in a way, in the back of their head. [00:22:43][17.5]

DB: [00:22:43] All right. So step one, make sure that the people on your side, step two, is just get in front of the right people. So when you sit down to talk with a legislator about this, like, how does that conversation go? Do they typically start off very opposed or curious? Be curious what like what your experience has been? I'm sure it's all over the board, but if you're going to generalize [00:23:01][17.4]

John Koza: [00:23:02] all of this all over the board, the status we meet with, not so much today, but but even even this year, we will run into legislators who actually haven't heard of it. But the vast majority of the 70, 400 state legislators have heard of it. And usually they have questions. The first thing is we have to make sure they understand exactly how our legislation works because it has to be explained in many cases. But then they have questions and then they have concerns about it. And it is a big step. And the Constitution gave them gave the state legislators this unique and exclusive power to decide how the president selected the method of electing the president is only vaguely outlined in the Constitution. But the actual mechanism for electing the president is state law. It's not it's not federal law. It's not in the Constitution. [00:24:06][64.2]

DB: [00:24:08] Hmm, yeah, that's. And so that means there's like 50 different ways at any point in time to like the president like one for each state and then how similar they are. They are they all over the board or they basically pretty consistent? [00:24:21][12.6]

John Koza: [00:24:22] Well, in the early years, right after the Constitution was passed, there was an enormous variety of different methods used. But what started to happen was that starting in eighteen hundred, Jefferson and Virginia had just lost the previous presidential election by two electoral votes. And he lost those two votes, one from his own state and one from neighboring North Carolina, because the state had awarded electoral votes by district. And there was a district in each state that he didn't get a majority in. And as a result, he lost those two electoral votes and lost the presidency. So when the eighteen hundred election came up, he got the Virginia legislature to install the winner take all rule where whoever got the most votes in Virginia would get all of Virginia's electoral votes. And that's what started this chain and a chain reaction because once a couple of states started doing winner take all all the other states looked at it and said, well, we're reducing our influence if we don't follow that. So about over about a 30 year period, one by one, the states adopted winner take all [00:25:53][91.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:25:54] interesting, more or less of a domino effect over that 30 year period. [00:25:57][3.2]

John Koza: [00:25:59] It's a prisoner's dilemma. The classic case of our race to the bottom, where something may not be the ideal way to do it, but if other. Entities are doing it and you're competing with them, are you pretty much have to do [00:26:20][20.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:26:20] it, your hand is forced to follow suit. [00:26:21][1.4]

John Koza: [00:26:21] Totally, your hand is forced. And by the way, that's what the interstate compact unravels because we don't ask the state to abandon winner take all on its own, which a state would really not want to do. We only ask them to pass a law that says when we get the critical mass of 270 electoral votes, then these laws take effect simultaneously and you get the results you wanted, which was a nationwide election of the president, a go [00:26:53][31.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:26:53] fund me and the evolution of political will. I love that idea. I kind of want to pivot here and take your take your temperature, get your opinion about the current happenings, the current events, given the unprecedented news cycle that's been going on over the last few weeks. What's your opinion on the current events, on what's happening and how do you feel it's going to shake out? [00:27:14][20.7]

John Koza: [00:27:16] Well, we were just talking about this in the last six elections, we've had two elections where the second place candidate ended up winning the White House in 2000 when George W. Bush won Florida by 537 votes. He got all of Florida's electoral votes and the winner take all and thereby won the presidency, even though Al Gore was ahead by, as it happens, five hundred thirty seven thousand votes, coincidentally, a thousand times more. So every vote in Florida was worth a thousand times a vote anywhere else in the country. And the same sort of thing happened in 69, where Trump found the way to win. Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin got by very small margins, eleven thousand in Michigan and 20 and 40 thousand and the other states. And with the seventy seven thousand votes, he was able to win all of the electoral votes of those three states and win the White House, even those three million votes behind Clinton. So we've had two second place winners, but we've also had two near misses. You know, for we had a case where if John Kerry had switched 60000 votes in Ohio, he would have won Ohio, won the Electoral College, even though, you know, for George W. Bush was ahead by three million votes. And then, of course, this year and a lot of people haven't focused on this yet. Everybody saying, well, Biden won by about six million votes, more or less. That's true nationwide. In fact, a switch of twenty two thousand votes would have elected Trump this year. So we have another near miss election. It just hasn't gotten very much attention. So Trump just carried a pardon me. Biden just carried Georgia by about 12000 votes. He carried Arizona by something like twelve thousand, and he carried Nevada by a similar small margin. And he carried Pennsylvania by, I guess, 60 or 70 thousand. But the point is, if if the if as few as twenty thousand, twenty two thousand people had changed their mind, Trump would have won this election in the Electoral College, even though he would have been six million votes behind in the national popular vote. [00:30:06][170.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:30:07] Wow. And that's just a glaring disparity, just keeping that as the trend goes, as each election happens, it seems that this is just only getting highlighted more and more, which I think is, again, just more evidence on the need for an organization like National Popular Vote, like what you guys are trying to achieve. [00:30:23][15.7]

John Koza: [00:30:23] The fact is, the ball game has changed. Now, nobody seems to care whether the president gets elected with the most votes. In fact, that's almost a virtue that may not be. [00:30:36][12.4]

DB: [00:30:37] Yeah, well, I think I agree with you there, I mean, crazy times and maybe just getting back to kind of like maybe thinking the next steps for national popular vote. So it was Colorado the first time I was officially on the ballot anywhere. And it's got it won pretty much by a landslide. [00:30:53][16.0]

John Koza: [00:30:54] And yes, it was the first time it was on the ballot. In fact, our bill passed the legislature and was signed by the governor in 2000 nineteen amidst a whole bunch of other controversial bills. There was a sex education bill on oil and gas bill and a red flag gun control bill. And our bill passed first and became the lightning rod for everything. The people were unhappy about the legislature doing so and was circulated the put national popular vote on the ballot in Colorado. And it came up a couple of weeks ago in November 20 20. And fortunately, the voters approved the bill. But the voters in Colorado and a number of states have the power to review a bill that's been passed by the legislature and decide whether they like it. And also, a great number of states have the initiative process, which allows voters to sign a petition and put a question on the ballot and adopt the legislation, much like we did with the lotteries. So a potential way of passing national popular vote in some states is to get an initiative petition and put it on the ballot and try to get the voters to approve it. [00:32:25][91.1]

DB: [00:32:25] Well, that's interesting. So it sounds like to date you haven't really relied upon initiatives like citizen initiatives for national popular vote. Why haven't you done it so far? [00:32:34][8.8]

John Koza: [00:32:36] Well, this is our initiatives are extraordinarily expensive. We just had one here in California where two hundred million dollars was spent on one proposition low and even in smaller states like Nevada, that was one hundred million dollar petition in 2008. So the initiative process is expensive, not it's somewhat expensive to get it on the ballot to actually go through the process of collecting signatures, but it's extraordinarily expensive to run an initiative campaign. [00:33:11][34.6]

DB: [00:33:12] Got it. So you think there's there are some hard costs to actually get onto the ballot, which is primarily the cost of getting signatures. But then you're saying to actually win is just a classic, sort of just massive? Oh, the [00:33:23][11.0]

John Koza: [00:33:23] wedding is the campaign is the big concern that attention can be a big cost depending on the state. Some of the states are quite difficult to get signatures. Others are easier, I say. [00:33:37][14.0]

DB: [00:33:38] So going to like the costs of political change. And so when we had talked a couple of years ago, the national popular vote, I think organization had an annual budget around six million dollars. Is that right? How is that? Was that right then? And how has it changed since? [00:33:53][15.6]

John Koza: [00:33:55] No, no, our budget has never been that anywhere near that big. I was almost six million dollars was the California or probably the Colorado referendum campaign. Uh huh, uh, normally our budget is in that two to three dollars million area. [00:34:12][16.5]

DB: [00:34:12] Wow. And I'd be curious just to hear, like, what is the organization today? What kind of who is you? You mentioned a bunch of lobbyists, I think, to each state that you're active in. What's the actual staff of the organization? [00:34:23][11.3]

John Koza: [00:34:26] Well, we have nine people that work not quite full time each year, and then we have usually two lobbyists in a great many states simultaneously. Sometimes we have a dozen states where we have lobbyists. Sometimes we have eight. Depends on the year. [00:34:45][19.3]

DB: [00:34:46] Yeah, I mean, I think that's incredible. I mean, coming from Silicon Valley. There's this perception that you can't do anything without a billion dollars, like that's basically the table stakes are just such astonishing large numbers. And I think it's interesting how you are able to leverage what you know by comparison is like a very small amount of resources to achieve really incredible world changing and truly world changing. Yes. It's about the US elections, but the US elections affect the entire world. And so I think that where you're operating on such a huge scale and I think it's inspirational to hear that that's possible because I think that we're told by the voices and by everyone else that like now you can't do anything in that scale. Two million dollars is nothing. And it's like, no, actually two million dollars is the difference between the success or failure of democracy. And it's hard to exaggerate the value of that. So I think it's great. I would be curious, as you sort of looking forward at what are the sort of changes or changes in strategy as you adapt to this covid world, because you mentioned that actually a lot of your historical past has been like sitting down face to face with legislators, going to conferences and so forth, like, are those conferences even happening anymore? [00:35:59][72.2]

John Koza: [00:36:01] Well, this year, the conferences were canceled and we've obviously done almost no traveling, but we've we've held just about as many meetings with state legislators as in previous years, almost a thousand this year, largely by Zoome or Skype or occasionally by phone. So after March, the amount of travel that our people have done has been very, very small. [00:36:29][28.3]

DB: [00:36:29] Yeah, I imagine. Yeah. And so have you found a difference in effectiveness now that we've all been forced into this telecommuting experiment together? Do you want to go back? Do you want to go back to the in-person or do you actually think the Xoom and Skype are more effective? [00:36:44][14.6]

John Koza: [00:36:45] Well, I think like a lot of people, there's no question that face to face meeting is more natural and more congenial than any kind of electronic meeting. But we've been impressed with how much eye contact and body language and how close these video meetings are due to the real thing. Obviously, they're not as good. And you can't establish really personal rapport over a video connection, but for the purpose of having a conversation and explaining something and noticing when the eyebrow goes up, when you haven't explained things correctly and have to go back and re-explain it. We've been quite pleased and surprised that the video meetings have worked out as well as they have. In any case, there wasn't much choice. Not only did would have been foolish for our people to be traveling extensively this year, many, many of the state legislators have preferred to have video meetings because they don't want to meet with dozens and dozens of different people in the course of the day. [00:38:07][81.7]

DB: [00:38:08] So if you know the playbook for making world changes like step one, make sure that the people are behind you using polls and intuition and so forth, that you just do the work to get in front of the right people. Step three have those meetings ideally in person, but Zoom's a good fallback and that's maybe a step forward. Be curious what it sounds like. You guys are taking a huge burden on the shoulders of very few people. How can the population at large help? I mean, there's protests, there's initiatives, and there things like this that engage millions of people, but actually hasn't really been your strategy so far. So I'd be curious, what have you done that effectively to work with the population at large? And what can people do overall to help? [00:38:55][46.9]

John Koza: [00:38:57] Well, the most important thing anybody can do is to talk to their own state legislator, either by email and we have a system on our website that national popular vote outcome that's very convenient for writing your state legislators and other state officials all at once, telephoning your state legislators, visiting them, whether in person or resume doing things like writing letters to the editor, of course, speaking up at civic meetings and then, of course, donations. All of these things take money and donations help. But the single most important thing for people to know is that they should talk to their state legislators and tell them that they favor a national popular vote bill and state legislators, much more so than congressmen who have so much bigger district. They interact with their constituents very, very freely and extensively. It's harder for a congressman or obviously a U.S. senator to to do that. But a state legislative district tend to be small. [00:40:13][76.2]

DB: [00:40:14] Do you think that. Like, one thing that's been very interesting is here I live in in Portland, Oregon, and it's been sort of the center of the BLM protests in response to sort of George LUDs murder. And the there's been a huge protest movement. And the protest movement has been interesting because the protesters themselves have not been advocating for specific policy change. But it seems like those policy changes have happened. Now we're seeing the real police accountability bill passed. And even now we're talking about some significant changes in the state legislature at the state level to kind of override the police union, collective bargaining and so forth. And so I'd say, what's your take on the effectiveness of protest for this kind of nationwide change? [00:41:00][46.2]

John Koza: [00:41:03] Well, protests can be very helpful if they're peaceful and have and have a reasonable goal that the public can latch on to and agree with, but as we well know, they can also drift into disorder and violent, in which case it's almost always counterproductive. But certainly protests are part of the democratic process and appropriate. Are they're done peacefully? [00:41:36][33.0]

DB: [00:41:37] Yeah, well, OK, so then there you have it then the the playbook for changing the world. Step one, make sure the people behind you step to get in front of the people who make those decisions. Step three, ideally do it in person. If not, call email your state legislator, whatever it is, whatever it takes. And then step four is if all else fails, turn to the public, do initiatives and protest, but peacefully. So that's good. That's a good summary of how to make it work. [00:42:04][27.1]

Monte Barnard: [00:42:04] And there it is. Easy. Is that. [00:42:05][0.9]

John Koza: [00:42:07] Well, that's right. I think you're right. [00:42:09][1.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:42:09] Looking forward to 2024. You guys are almost there to the 270 Electoral College votes. You'll need to enact your playbook. What are the next steps for national popular vote tomorrow, the next day, the coming years looking to 2020 for what are your next steps? [00:42:26][16.6]

John Koza: [00:42:27] Well, every year, including this year, we're visiting state legislators every month of the year. By the way, most, most state legislators meet only for a few months at the beginning of a year. There are few year round legislators, but most of them are packed into the front end of the year. So we talk to legislators all year round. Obviously, we focus our attention on the states where we passed one house of the legislature or gotten some toehold, for example, in Missouri and Georgia. We passed the elections committee by unanimous votes. Well, that's that's therefore a good starting point to make progress next year in eight states, nine excuse me, nine states. We passed one house of the legislature, which. You have to start over every two years, but if you passed one House once, you're pretty good chance of building on that so that you can pass the second house. And then there's all the other states that where we haven't passed either House or committee, but we have to work on those two. But the highest priority are states where we've passed one house or where we have a bill that has a lot of sponsors, for example, in Michigan in 2008. Our bill had twenty five of the thirty eight senators as sponsors. So that's a good, good, good start. [00:44:06][99.3]

DB: [00:44:07] Hey, well, this is great. Thank you so much. Again, been a huge, huge fan. One thing we didn't talk about, but maybe another time I just even off the record, like, what's your take on gerrymandering? Obviously, national popular vote is a big deal. Gerrymandering is also a huge deal. [00:44:21][13.5]

John Koza: [00:44:22] Oh, it is a huge deal. And as you well know, there's numerous groups that common cause the League of Women Voters, a number of others that have been working on that. That is a really hard problem and a very important problem. [00:44:36][14.7]

DB: [00:44:37] Yeah, I mean, is there any angle like I mean, it seems like the interstate compact is a really clever solution to the national popular vote. Is there a similar clever solution to gerrymandering? [00:44:48][11.2]

John Koza: [00:44:51] As a matter of fact, Congressman Jamie Raskin, who happens to have been the sponsor of our bill in Maryland, which is the first state that passed national popular vote, he actually has a proposal about where states would get together and agree to set up nonpartisan redistricting commissions in pairs so that one party would say he's from Maryland. The Democrats in Maryland, instead of perhaps gerrymandering Maryland, would get together with the Republicans from an adjacent state or nearby state and agree that both of them would do nonpartisan redistricting so as to remove the obvious political advantage that each political party has in the state that they control. So, yes, the idea of an interstate compact, it's a little complicated, but it could be. Could be. And there is a proposal out there that Raschein has. [00:45:58][67.3]

DB: [00:45:59] Right. Well, it looks like there might be a national popular vote V and the way tackling the next layer down. [00:46:05][6.3]

John Koza: [00:46:07] Oh, very good. Well, thank you very much. [00:46:09][1.9]

DB: [00:46:09] Thank you. Have a good day. [00:46:10][0.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:46:10] There we go. And there you have it. Real change is possible. You can affect the world around you. We just gave you the playbook. Everyone listening out there, call your legislators, call your local representatives, and let's get this on the road to 270 or 2024. John, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. [00:46:27][17.1]

John Koza: [00:46:28] I will. David, thank you very much. And thanks for inviting me live. [00:46:32][3.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:46:32] Rich, have fun. Save the World is brought to you by Expensify, hosted by David Barry and Monty Bernard, engineered and produced by Monty Bernard. Theme song by D.J. MC. Please rate review and subscribe to Live Rich. Have fun. Save the World on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you happen to be listening. Head to Expensify dot com to sign up for a free trial and see just how easy it is to automate your entire pre accounting process. Expensify easy money. [00:46:32][0.0]

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