1 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:07,800 Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. In his new book 2 00:00:08,200 --> 00:00:13,440 Speaker 1: Not Accountable, Rethinking the constitutionality of public employee unions, Philip 3 00:00:13,480 --> 00:00:17,680 Speaker 1: kay Howard argues the public employee unions undermine democratic governance 4 00:00:18,000 --> 00:00:22,680 Speaker 1: and should be unconstitutional. American voters elect governors and mayors who, 5 00:00:23,079 --> 00:00:28,000 Speaker 1: under union agreements have been disempowered from managing schools, police departments, 6 00:00:28,040 --> 00:00:31,920 Speaker 1: and other public agencies. He presents a searing five point 7 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:36,840 Speaker 1: indictment that constitutional government can't work when elected leaders lose 8 00:00:36,920 --> 00:00:40,839 Speaker 1: control over the public operating machinery. Here to discuss his 9 00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:44,839 Speaker 1: new book, I'm really pleased to welcome my guest. Philip 10 00:00:44,920 --> 00:00:47,960 Speaker 1: kay Howard is a longtime friend, a leader of government 11 00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:50,839 Speaker 1: and legal reform in America. He is chair of Common 12 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,800 Speaker 1: Good and a bestselling author. He has advised both political 13 00:00:54,840 --> 00:01:07,880 Speaker 1: parties on needed reforms. Welcome and thank you for joining 14 00:01:07,880 --> 00:01:10,680 Speaker 1: me on this world. It's great to be with you again, dude. 15 00:01:10,959 --> 00:01:14,240 Speaker 1: So you've had a very unusual background to get to 16 00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:16,959 Speaker 1: where you are now. As I understand, it's starting at 17 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:20,120 Speaker 1: oak Ridge National Lab. Yeah. I got a job of 18 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,800 Speaker 1: the federal poverty program. My parents weren't very rich, and 19 00:01:23,840 --> 00:01:26,240 Speaker 1: I got appointed to be the gopher to a Nobel 20 00:01:26,319 --> 00:01:30,360 Speaker 1: Prize winner named Eugene Vigner for three summers when I 21 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 1: was in college and ended up publishing papers when I 22 00:01:33,200 --> 00:01:37,480 Speaker 1: was a teenager on economic matters. And it was such 23 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,800 Speaker 1: a fantastic education, because you know, the best education is 24 00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:44,240 Speaker 1: to be with really smart people and see how they 25 00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,959 Speaker 1: think and to see how they do things. And it 26 00:01:47,040 --> 00:01:50,240 Speaker 1: was just luck, but it was good luck when you 27 00:01:50,320 --> 00:01:53,360 Speaker 1: have those kind of summers as a young person near 28 00:01:53,480 --> 00:01:56,400 Speaker 1: somebody who was as brilliant as Vigner was. When you 29 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:58,200 Speaker 1: look back, what do you think of the big things 30 00:01:58,240 --> 00:02:01,920 Speaker 1: you learned? You know, the thing I learned there, I 31 00:02:01,960 --> 00:02:06,400 Speaker 1: think more than any other, was the kind of mystery 32 00:02:06,440 --> 00:02:12,240 Speaker 1: of human accomplishment that you can't reason your way into accomplishment. 33 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:16,000 Speaker 1: That people get ideas they're trying to solve a problem, 34 00:02:16,240 --> 00:02:20,400 Speaker 1: but the ideas come to them by accident or spontaneously 35 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:25,440 Speaker 1: through their subconscious And it's people following their instincts that 36 00:02:25,639 --> 00:02:30,320 Speaker 1: leads to great innovation and to great things. It's not people, 37 00:02:30,880 --> 00:02:34,480 Speaker 1: you know, filling out the right boxes and shuffling paper. 38 00:02:34,520 --> 00:02:39,640 Speaker 1: There's a kind of mystery to human nature that has 39 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:42,880 Speaker 1: to be honored if you want things to work. You 40 00:02:42,919 --> 00:02:46,880 Speaker 1: went from there to law school, went to Yale College 41 00:02:46,880 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 1: and the University of Virginia Law School, and you're a 42 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:51,520 Speaker 1: senior counsel at the law firm of Covington or Berlin. 43 00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,600 Speaker 1: What does lawyer training teach you about how you view 44 00:02:54,680 --> 00:02:59,040 Speaker 1: the world? Generally leads if you're really bad things, which is, 45 00:02:59,320 --> 00:03:01,760 Speaker 1: you know, one of the countries and says trouble. We 46 00:03:01,840 --> 00:03:04,680 Speaker 1: think that if we have enough process and enough rules, 47 00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:07,760 Speaker 1: things will work well. But being a lawyer, at least 48 00:03:07,760 --> 00:03:11,360 Speaker 1: in my case, taught me to have a healthy skepticism 49 00:03:11,480 --> 00:03:13,560 Speaker 1: for the virtue of law. I mean, one of the 50 00:03:13,639 --> 00:03:15,839 Speaker 1: things that I think it was formative in my young 51 00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:19,640 Speaker 1: legal career was I was a civic leader in New York. 52 00:03:19,680 --> 00:03:21,720 Speaker 1: I was a chair of the Municipal Arts Society, and 53 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:25,280 Speaker 1: we would do all these civic battles to make New 54 00:03:25,360 --> 00:03:28,919 Speaker 1: York a better place or whatever. And my friends who 55 00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:33,519 Speaker 1: worked in government couldn't use their common sense. They would say, gosh, 56 00:03:33,639 --> 00:03:35,640 Speaker 1: we ought to do this, but I don't have the 57 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:38,400 Speaker 1: power to do that. But they were people who had 58 00:03:38,440 --> 00:03:40,760 Speaker 1: big jobs and they should have had the power. So 59 00:03:40,800 --> 00:03:44,760 Speaker 1: I started looking into why don't people with responsibility have 60 00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:48,200 Speaker 1: the authority to act on their best judgment, and it 61 00:03:48,280 --> 00:03:52,680 Speaker 1: was that question that led me to ultimately to writing 62 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:55,080 Speaker 1: The Death of Common Sense. I just kept thinking that 63 00:03:55,160 --> 00:03:58,680 Speaker 1: I did, and I read Hayek my copy of Friedrich 64 00:03:58,760 --> 00:04:02,800 Speaker 1: Hyaks The Constitution of Liberty. It literally in tatters. It 65 00:04:02,960 --> 00:04:06,760 Speaker 1: so worked up. I read it so deeply. And then 66 00:04:06,800 --> 00:04:11,040 Speaker 1: I discovered this wonderful book by Guy Michael Polani called 67 00:04:11,080 --> 00:04:14,960 Speaker 1: Personal Knowledge, written in the fifties, about the personal nature 68 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:19,200 Speaker 1: of innovation and how the mind works, and how self 69 00:04:19,279 --> 00:04:22,839 Speaker 1: consciousness makes people fail. So if you ask a pianist 70 00:04:22,880 --> 00:04:26,560 Speaker 1: to think about how she's hitting the keys on the keyboard, 71 00:04:26,720 --> 00:04:29,640 Speaker 1: she can't play the piece, you know, it's self consciousness 72 00:04:29,800 --> 00:04:34,039 Speaker 1: is really the enemy of innovation. Anyway, I discovered that 73 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:39,520 Speaker 1: Polanny had been Eugene Wigner's mentor, and so all of 74 00:04:39,560 --> 00:04:43,040 Speaker 1: these ideas that I was having, you know, they all 75 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:44,960 Speaker 1: went back to the lunches I used to have with 76 00:04:44,960 --> 00:04:47,719 Speaker 1: this Nobel Prize winner and this little team he had, 77 00:04:48,080 --> 00:04:51,240 Speaker 1: talking about how things get done. I first got attracted 78 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:55,080 Speaker 1: you to work when you wrote the Death of Common Sense, 79 00:04:55,360 --> 00:04:58,880 Speaker 1: How Law Is Suffocating America back in nineteen ninety five, 80 00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,360 Speaker 1: which became a New York Time he Is bestseller, which 81 00:05:01,400 --> 00:05:04,400 Speaker 1: really sort of took on your own profession, didn't it. Yeah, 82 00:05:04,440 --> 00:05:09,200 Speaker 1: I did. It. Basically said counterintuitively that if you try 83 00:05:09,200 --> 00:05:13,400 Speaker 1: to make law precise, you turn it into central planning. 84 00:05:14,520 --> 00:05:16,919 Speaker 1: You give somebody a thousand page rule book, they'll go 85 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:18,840 Speaker 1: through the day with their noses in the rule book, 86 00:05:18,839 --> 00:05:21,200 Speaker 1: and they'll never get anything done. They'll be tripping over 87 00:05:21,279 --> 00:05:24,480 Speaker 1: why Harrison, falling flat on their face. And that's sort 88 00:05:24,480 --> 00:05:27,720 Speaker 1: of what we've done to modern government. And similarly, if 89 00:05:27,760 --> 00:05:30,719 Speaker 1: you give somebody rights, you give them the right to 90 00:05:30,760 --> 00:05:34,279 Speaker 1: complain about anything, to bring a lawsuit about anything. Pretty 91 00:05:34,279 --> 00:05:37,239 Speaker 1: soon people will be wielding those rights like an axe 92 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:42,320 Speaker 1: and extorting people all throughout society. And the cost of 93 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:46,159 Speaker 1: that won't be a lot of crazy verdicts. The cost 94 00:05:46,240 --> 00:05:49,520 Speaker 1: of that is everyone else will go through the day 95 00:05:50,279 --> 00:05:53,120 Speaker 1: tiptoeing looking over their shoulder, are scared that they might 96 00:05:54,080 --> 00:05:57,760 Speaker 1: offend somebody. Or boy that problems only gotten worse. You know, 97 00:05:57,800 --> 00:06:00,800 Speaker 1: in the land of the First Amendment, no business will 98 00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:03,640 Speaker 1: give a job reference because they're scared of getting sued, right, 99 00:06:03,720 --> 00:06:08,040 Speaker 1: that's honest. And on college campuses you can't even express 100 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:13,160 Speaker 1: a descending political view without getting canceled in austracide. It's terrible. 101 00:06:13,480 --> 00:06:16,839 Speaker 1: So in that sense, are you more pessimistic than you 102 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 1: were twenty years ago? Yes, I'm more pessimistic. On the 103 00:06:20,600 --> 00:06:24,800 Speaker 1: other hand, it's darkest before the dawn, and people in 104 00:06:24,880 --> 00:06:28,839 Speaker 1: America know that there's something wrong with this system. But 105 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:34,320 Speaker 1: what hasn't happened yet, is it neither party has presented 106 00:06:34,400 --> 00:06:39,400 Speaker 1: a vision of how to fix the operating machinery. Parties 107 00:06:39,440 --> 00:06:42,919 Speaker 1: are you over policies like immigration policy or climate change 108 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:45,920 Speaker 1: or that sort of thing, but they haven't really created 109 00:06:45,920 --> 00:06:48,200 Speaker 1: they haven't given a vision. You've been writing about this 110 00:06:48,240 --> 00:06:52,120 Speaker 1: recently yourself, about the need to kind of reboot the systems. Well, 111 00:06:52,160 --> 00:06:54,280 Speaker 1: we need to have a vision of one that we 112 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:56,919 Speaker 1: have to do it, and secondly, how do we do 113 00:06:57,000 --> 00:06:59,080 Speaker 1: it on what principles? Well, and that's one of the 114 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:02,839 Speaker 1: places where I think you among the most creative writers 115 00:07:02,839 --> 00:07:05,840 Speaker 1: in the country, because you're at least wrestling with the 116 00:07:05,920 --> 00:07:09,479 Speaker 1: notion of how do we go back to a responsibility 117 00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:14,200 Speaker 1: based system rather than a rules based system. Yeah. For example, 118 00:07:15,040 --> 00:07:18,600 Speaker 1: if people can be accountable when they don't do the job, 119 00:07:18,840 --> 00:07:21,600 Speaker 1: you can give them much more freedom to take responsibility, 120 00:07:21,640 --> 00:07:24,320 Speaker 1: whether it's to run the classroom and the best way 121 00:07:24,320 --> 00:07:27,800 Speaker 1: possible or run the school, or to give permits on 122 00:07:27,840 --> 00:07:30,640 Speaker 1: a timely basis for infrastructure, or all the things that 123 00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:34,360 Speaker 1: can't happen in today's society. Giving people the freedom to 124 00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:39,560 Speaker 1: take responsibility requires that they also be accountable to someone 125 00:07:39,760 --> 00:07:43,760 Speaker 1: else up the chain of authority. And in modern American government, 126 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:46,800 Speaker 1: and I write about this and not accountable, there is 127 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:51,520 Speaker 1: basically zero accountability in the government at every level. I 128 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:55,480 Speaker 1: have recently been writing about the report in Baltimore on 129 00:07:55,680 --> 00:08:00,880 Speaker 1: twenty three schools in which not a single student professional math. 130 00:08:00,880 --> 00:08:04,880 Speaker 1: Out of two thousand students, not one was professional math. 131 00:08:04,880 --> 00:08:08,040 Speaker 1: And my theme has saved the children, and you can't 132 00:08:08,080 --> 00:08:12,320 Speaker 1: save the children within that system. It's not possible, That's correct. 133 00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:15,680 Speaker 1: So running an inner city school is undoubtedly hard, right. 134 00:08:15,720 --> 00:08:19,160 Speaker 1: I mean, these kids are not socialized necessarily. They've come 135 00:08:19,240 --> 00:08:22,400 Speaker 1: with a lot of disadvantages. But the good charter schools 136 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:24,880 Speaker 1: have figured out how to do it. Even Moscow with 137 00:08:25,080 --> 00:08:28,960 Speaker 1: his success academies in New York. They often share a 138 00:08:29,040 --> 00:08:32,600 Speaker 1: building with a public school. They picked their students by lottery, 139 00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:36,480 Speaker 1: so it's from the same cohort of students. There's one school, 140 00:08:37,080 --> 00:08:41,280 Speaker 1: Jas in Harlem, an elementary school that's ranked thirty seventh 141 00:08:41,440 --> 00:08:43,480 Speaker 1: in the state of New York out of twenty four 142 00:08:43,600 --> 00:08:49,080 Speaker 1: hundred elementary schools. The adjoining public school in the same building, 143 00:08:49,280 --> 00:08:52,880 Speaker 1: with the same cohort of students was ranked sixteen hundred 144 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:57,000 Speaker 1: and ninety four. What's the difference there. The difference is 145 00:08:57,040 --> 00:09:01,200 Speaker 1: that somebody is using their imagination, their energy, and the 146 00:09:01,320 --> 00:09:05,520 Speaker 1: magic of their own ability to adapt day to day 147 00:09:06,000 --> 00:09:08,959 Speaker 1: to inspire these kids to learn, and the other one 148 00:09:09,040 --> 00:09:11,640 Speaker 1: is just going through the motions. I always tell people 149 00:09:11,840 --> 00:09:14,280 Speaker 1: from my own experience teaching in high school and college 150 00:09:14,720 --> 00:09:18,880 Speaker 1: that education is a missionary vocation. You're in the process 151 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:24,360 Speaker 1: of engaging the imagination, creating the excitement, encouraging the growth. 152 00:09:24,800 --> 00:09:28,960 Speaker 1: It is explicitly not a bureaucratic procedure, and if anything, 153 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:33,200 Speaker 1: the bureaucratic procedure kills the opportunity for learning completely. I 154 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:36,280 Speaker 1: once wrote a chapter in a book called Bureaucracy Can't Teach. 155 00:09:37,240 --> 00:09:40,280 Speaker 1: And there was a wonderful book written by some scholars 156 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:42,520 Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago a couple of decades ago, 157 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:45,360 Speaker 1: called The Moral Life of Schools, where they went into 158 00:09:45,400 --> 00:09:49,240 Speaker 1: classrooms for weeks on end and studied the kinds of 159 00:09:49,320 --> 00:09:53,960 Speaker 1: little judgments the teachers made and two things in common. First, 160 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:57,600 Speaker 1: what did all great teachers have in common? Nothing. They're 161 00:09:57,640 --> 00:10:01,640 Speaker 1: completely different personalities, completely dif ways of approaching the students 162 00:10:01,640 --> 00:10:04,000 Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. But they all had 163 00:10:04,000 --> 00:10:08,680 Speaker 1: a knack for engaging the student's interests, in making them 164 00:10:08,720 --> 00:10:11,480 Speaker 1: want to be there and learn, And they were making 165 00:10:11,520 --> 00:10:16,160 Speaker 1: all these little moral choices all day long. It's an art, 166 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:18,680 Speaker 1: and it is like being a missionary, you know. It's 167 00:10:18,720 --> 00:10:23,880 Speaker 1: really pouring yourself out, your personality. And if you standardize it, 168 00:10:24,640 --> 00:10:28,280 Speaker 1: you make the teachers boring, and just by that alone 169 00:10:28,559 --> 00:10:32,600 Speaker 1: make them fail. It's doubly interesting because we're in a 170 00:10:32,720 --> 00:10:39,079 Speaker 1: situation where we actually know what works, you know. And 171 00:10:39,200 --> 00:10:41,800 Speaker 1: Drucker made a very similar point in his amazing book 172 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:46,040 Speaker 1: The Effective Executive, where he said being effective is not genetic, 173 00:10:46,160 --> 00:10:51,800 Speaker 1: it's looks, it's not intelligence. It's a series of learned behaviors. 174 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:55,200 Speaker 1: If you learn them, you are astonishingly effective, and if 175 00:10:55,240 --> 00:10:58,160 Speaker 1: you don't learn them, you're not. And the same thing here, 176 00:10:58,160 --> 00:11:02,559 Speaker 1: I mean, we know that if you liberate people to 177 00:11:02,600 --> 00:11:08,760 Speaker 1: pursue their passions, you get a totally different situation. Then 178 00:11:08,760 --> 00:11:11,720 Speaker 1: if you trap people into worrying about a petty set 179 00:11:11,720 --> 00:11:14,560 Speaker 1: of rules. Now we know that, Yeah, we know that, 180 00:11:14,640 --> 00:11:17,280 Speaker 1: and yet that's what we do. And again, going back 181 00:11:17,280 --> 00:11:19,160 Speaker 1: to your point, it is hard being a good teacher 182 00:11:19,160 --> 00:11:22,840 Speaker 1: in these situations. But you go into the good schools, 183 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,720 Speaker 1: well it could be public schools through or hard schools, 184 00:11:25,760 --> 00:11:28,400 Speaker 1: there'll be a buzz, there'll be a sense of shared 185 00:11:28,480 --> 00:11:33,080 Speaker 1: mission that everyone has to make a difference. If you 186 00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:37,680 Speaker 1: instead create a regimented school system with by the way, 187 00:11:37,720 --> 00:11:41,199 Speaker 1: no accountability, then there's no mutual trust that others are 188 00:11:41,240 --> 00:11:44,480 Speaker 1: working hard. Why should you work hard? Right? And the 189 00:11:44,600 --> 00:11:47,520 Speaker 1: bureaucracy on top of that weighs down on you and 190 00:11:47,600 --> 00:11:49,599 Speaker 1: pretty soon you're just going through the motions and the 191 00:11:49,679 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 1: kids don't have a chance. It is a crime. It 192 00:11:53,120 --> 00:11:56,640 Speaker 1: is a crime that those twenty three schools in Baltimore 193 00:11:56,800 --> 00:12:15,280 Speaker 1: have not one child truth proficient in math. In two 194 00:12:15,320 --> 00:12:18,520 Speaker 1: thousand and two, you founded Common Good, which you describe 195 00:12:18,840 --> 00:12:23,200 Speaker 1: as a nonpartisan reform coalition with one basic goal to 196 00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:27,360 Speaker 1: restore the freedom of officials and citizens to use common sense. 197 00:12:27,400 --> 00:12:29,760 Speaker 1: First of all, what led you to found it? And 198 00:12:30,280 --> 00:12:32,520 Speaker 1: how is it doing and how can people be involved 199 00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:35,080 Speaker 1: in it? Well, what led me to do it is 200 00:12:35,160 --> 00:12:38,079 Speaker 1: I wasn't making that much headway with the political system 201 00:12:38,120 --> 00:12:41,400 Speaker 1: to advance these ideas, because, as you know, Washington, it's 202 00:12:41,400 --> 00:12:44,920 Speaker 1: a giant engine of the status quo. Right So any 203 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,480 Speaker 1: message that says you need to reboot the system, which 204 00:12:47,559 --> 00:12:50,000 Speaker 1: is one of the messages that's that you're tuning right now, 205 00:12:50,440 --> 00:12:52,920 Speaker 1: any sense message is not going to be received with 206 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:56,480 Speaker 1: open arms by ten thousand interest groups. You know, they're 207 00:12:56,520 --> 00:12:59,160 Speaker 1: doing fine with the status quo. So I thought there 208 00:12:59,200 --> 00:13:02,360 Speaker 1: needed to be at least some voice that was talking 209 00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:06,720 Speaker 1: about and presenting different models for how to do things. 210 00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:10,000 Speaker 1: So one of the first things we did was organize 211 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:13,560 Speaker 1: a coalition of everyone in healthcare, the patient safety groups, 212 00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:17,120 Speaker 1: the AMA, everybody behind the idea of creating expert health 213 00:13:17,160 --> 00:13:20,840 Speaker 1: courts to solve the medical malpractice problem. We even got 214 00:13:20,920 --> 00:13:24,160 Speaker 1: President Obama to support it, and there was a provision 215 00:13:24,200 --> 00:13:27,240 Speaker 1: in the draft Affordable Care Act doing a pilot project 216 00:13:27,280 --> 00:13:30,439 Speaker 1: for these expert health courts that wouldn't have juries, that 217 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:34,559 Speaker 1: would have the advantage by restoring trust injustice of not 218 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:39,800 Speaker 1: only creating a culture of candor within hospitals, which improves 219 00:13:39,840 --> 00:13:44,240 Speaker 1: patient safety, but also saving about two hundred billion dollars 220 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:46,920 Speaker 1: a year in defensive medicine. We had a partnership with 221 00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:49,560 Speaker 1: the Harvard School of Public Health, and the night before 222 00:13:49,559 --> 00:13:52,800 Speaker 1: the Affordable Care Act was supposed to pass, Harry heat 223 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:56,480 Speaker 1: read the trial lawyers got to him and removed that 224 00:13:56,600 --> 00:14:01,040 Speaker 1: provision for the pilot project, we present actual proposals and 225 00:14:01,480 --> 00:14:05,040 Speaker 1: build coalitions behind them. More recently, I've been working on 226 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:08,840 Speaker 1: infrastructure permitting, and some of that has actually been enacted. 227 00:14:09,160 --> 00:14:13,280 Speaker 1: But you know, we have very concrete proposals that in 228 00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:17,120 Speaker 1: order to make aspects of society work better. One of 229 00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:19,800 Speaker 1: the things that you've really focused on, which I totally 230 00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:23,560 Speaker 1: agree with in your new book, Are Not Accountable, is 231 00:14:23,600 --> 00:14:27,760 Speaker 1: the impact of the teachers Union on driving and defining 232 00:14:27,800 --> 00:14:32,280 Speaker 1: what is acceptable education policy. So somehow in our current dialogue, 233 00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:37,000 Speaker 1: nobody makes a connection between how much the teachers union 234 00:14:37,040 --> 00:14:39,960 Speaker 1: blocks progress and the fact that none of those two 235 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:43,440 Speaker 1: thousand kids can do math. It's really astonishing. You know, 236 00:14:43,680 --> 00:14:47,480 Speaker 1: here you have a situation that ought to be treated 237 00:14:47,520 --> 00:14:51,480 Speaker 1: like Upton Sinclair's the Jungle. Wait a minute, None of 238 00:14:51,480 --> 00:14:55,480 Speaker 1: these kids are learning because the schools aren't manageable, and 239 00:14:55,560 --> 00:14:59,400 Speaker 1: the teachers union use all their power to get President 240 00:14:59,520 --> 00:15:02,800 Speaker 1: Biden to have new rags making it hard to open 241 00:15:02,880 --> 00:15:06,120 Speaker 1: new charter schools. They're the only ones who is succeeding, 242 00:15:06,200 --> 00:15:08,960 Speaker 1: you know, in the inner cities, and it's just astonishing. 243 00:15:09,720 --> 00:15:12,880 Speaker 1: They won't go back to work during COVID because the 244 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:16,120 Speaker 1: teachers union contract didn't require it. They won't do distance 245 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:19,240 Speaker 1: learning during COVID because there's nothing in the contract about that. 246 00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:23,280 Speaker 1: So I've got to renegotiate that. They're so selfish and 247 00:15:23,440 --> 00:15:29,760 Speaker 1: so restrictive, and there's zero accountability, there's almost zero manageability. 248 00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:32,440 Speaker 1: You know, the principle can't go into a classroom and 249 00:15:32,480 --> 00:15:37,080 Speaker 1: observe a teacher unless without advanced notice and under control circumstances. 250 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:40,920 Speaker 1: The principal can't give extra training to a teacher because 251 00:15:40,920 --> 00:15:43,600 Speaker 1: the union limits that. You make the point that in 252 00:15:43,640 --> 00:15:48,120 Speaker 1: New York City, out of fifty five thousand teachers, only 253 00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:53,480 Speaker 1: eight were dismissed for poor performance. In Illinois they only 254 00:15:53,520 --> 00:15:57,040 Speaker 1: had two teachers out of ninety five thousand dismissed for 255 00:15:57,120 --> 00:16:01,440 Speaker 1: poor performers annually over an eighteen years study. So if 256 00:16:01,440 --> 00:16:03,920 Speaker 1: it doesn't matter how bad you are and how incompetent 257 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:06,000 Speaker 1: you are, you have a job for life. I tell 258 00:16:06,040 --> 00:16:10,520 Speaker 1: people the Baltimore system works if you think of it 259 00:16:10,560 --> 00:16:13,920 Speaker 1: as a payment system. It just doesn't work as a 260 00:16:13,960 --> 00:16:17,080 Speaker 1: school system, but it does a great job every month 261 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:20,360 Speaker 1: of paying. In New York City, a teacher who was 262 00:16:20,400 --> 00:16:24,240 Speaker 1: convicted of being a cocaine dealer when he came back 263 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:29,360 Speaker 1: out of jail was ordered to be reinstated. Recently, a 264 00:16:29,440 --> 00:16:34,640 Speaker 1: principle who had great record in Queens, New York was 265 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:38,960 Speaker 1: discovered to have falsified all of those results on the test, 266 00:16:39,440 --> 00:16:41,760 Speaker 1: and they couldn't get rid of him. Eventually reached the 267 00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:45,720 Speaker 1: settlement where he would leave the principal's job in exchange 268 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:49,120 Speaker 1: for being paid get this, two hundred and sixty five 269 00:16:49,160 --> 00:16:52,280 Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year for seven years the person who 270 00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:56,640 Speaker 1: is guilty of fraud. So the contracts that have union 271 00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:01,640 Speaker 1: approved arbitrators, union approved rules, tragedy is. Of course, it's 272 00:17:01,720 --> 00:17:04,720 Speaker 1: bad for the teachers. They have to be in these 273 00:17:04,760 --> 00:17:08,800 Speaker 1: institutions without pride or respect or energy. I mean, who 274 00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:11,280 Speaker 1: wants to work in a place like that? Which leads 275 00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:14,399 Speaker 1: you to sort of take on this whole notion that 276 00:17:14,480 --> 00:17:19,880 Speaker 1: the very structure, the very concept of public employee unions 277 00:17:20,400 --> 00:17:25,040 Speaker 1: is probably a violation of the constitution. Yes, trade unions 278 00:17:25,160 --> 00:17:29,000 Speaker 1: like steelworkers unions and coal miners unions, all that the 279 00:17:29,119 --> 00:17:34,440 Speaker 1: origin story of them were abuses in workplace and deaths 280 00:17:34,480 --> 00:17:36,760 Speaker 1: and unsafe work conditions, and that was all in the 281 00:17:36,800 --> 00:17:40,560 Speaker 1: eighteen nineties and nineteen hundred whatever, and there was a 282 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:44,400 Speaker 1: role for unions and they helped sort of rescue the cohort. 283 00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,600 Speaker 1: There is no such cruel for public unions. FDR was 284 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:50,920 Speaker 1: firmly against public unions because they thought it was a 285 00:17:50,960 --> 00:17:56,159 Speaker 1: conflict of interest. But what happened was that the civil 286 00:17:56,200 --> 00:18:00,040 Speaker 1: service had created public jobs as a kind of a 287 00:18:00,119 --> 00:18:03,720 Speaker 1: natural voting block because people didn't change over with every 288 00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:06,360 Speaker 1: new party, you know, into the spoil system, and the 289 00:18:06,440 --> 00:18:10,280 Speaker 1: leaders of these unions that had no power kept agitating 290 00:18:10,320 --> 00:18:13,800 Speaker 1: for more power. And at the end of the nineteen sixties, 291 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:18,800 Speaker 1: during the Rights Revolution, they got their democratic allies without 292 00:18:18,840 --> 00:18:22,440 Speaker 1: anyone noticing it and without any debate, to give them 293 00:18:22,480 --> 00:18:27,439 Speaker 1: collective bargaining power, and almost immediately they sat down with 294 00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:31,639 Speaker 1: the politicians and said, we'll get you elected, but you 295 00:18:31,720 --> 00:18:35,080 Speaker 1: have to give us what we want. And for fifty 296 00:18:35,200 --> 00:18:38,720 Speaker 1: years they've been piling on these controls so that there's 297 00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:45,119 Speaker 1: again zero accountability and practically zero manageability, and there was 298 00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:47,879 Speaker 1: never any need to have it at all, and people 299 00:18:47,960 --> 00:18:52,639 Speaker 1: just didn't understand that public bargaining bears no relation to 300 00:18:52,800 --> 00:18:55,320 Speaker 1: private bargaining. You know, when the private sector, when a 301 00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:59,919 Speaker 1: union sits down with a company, if it demands inefficient 302 00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:03,439 Speaker 1: work rules, they're all going to lose their jobs. The 303 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:05,320 Speaker 1: business is going to go out of business, or it's 304 00:19:05,359 --> 00:19:08,360 Speaker 1: going to move out of town. Government can't move out 305 00:19:08,359 --> 00:19:12,600 Speaker 1: of town, and in the private sector, they're only arguing 306 00:19:12,640 --> 00:19:15,359 Speaker 1: over the split of the profits between capital and labor. 307 00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:19,040 Speaker 1: That's what trade unions do. In the public sector, the 308 00:19:19,040 --> 00:19:22,520 Speaker 1: politicians not paying anything, and the government can't move out 309 00:19:22,560 --> 00:19:24,679 Speaker 1: of town, so they're getting as much out of the 310 00:19:24,720 --> 00:19:29,719 Speaker 1: taxpayer as they can, and then the negotiation itself is collusive. 311 00:19:30,160 --> 00:19:33,919 Speaker 1: I think the most useful book ever written about Ronald 312 00:19:33,920 --> 00:19:38,359 Speaker 1: Reagan is a little book called The Education of Ronald Reagan. 313 00:19:39,160 --> 00:19:42,960 Speaker 1: His years a General Electric. And in the eight years 314 00:19:43,000 --> 00:19:46,320 Speaker 1: he was at General Electric, he'd been brought in by 315 00:19:46,359 --> 00:19:50,440 Speaker 1: the vice president for labor relations, who had seven unions, 316 00:19:50,520 --> 00:19:53,959 Speaker 1: five of them led literally by communists. This guy had 317 00:19:54,000 --> 00:19:57,560 Speaker 1: reached a conclusion that you could never negotiate successfully with 318 00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:01,320 Speaker 1: the union leaders, but what you could do was educate 319 00:20:01,359 --> 00:20:06,360 Speaker 1: the employees so that they would refuse to strike and 320 00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:09,520 Speaker 1: take power out of the union leader's hands. And when 321 00:20:09,560 --> 00:20:12,520 Speaker 1: you read this book, it's astonished. Tom Evans Wrot, who 322 00:20:12,560 --> 00:20:14,760 Speaker 1: had served in both the Nixon and Reagan white houses, 323 00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:17,680 Speaker 1: I studied Reagan starting in sixty five, and I worked 324 00:20:17,680 --> 00:20:20,320 Speaker 1: with him starting in seventy four, and only when I 325 00:20:20,359 --> 00:20:23,760 Speaker 1: read this book that I realized how strategically principled his 326 00:20:23,920 --> 00:20:27,480 Speaker 1: system was. And I think, in a sense, as people 327 00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,520 Speaker 1: learn what you're reporting, public sentiment will increasingly conclude that 328 00:20:31,720 --> 00:20:34,560 Speaker 1: we are in the replace not the reform business. Right. 329 00:20:34,920 --> 00:20:37,600 Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting what you're saying about Reagan, because 330 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:40,280 Speaker 1: I was in Chicago last week now talking to some 331 00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:44,080 Speaker 1: of the leaders there about dealing with the unions, and 332 00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:47,639 Speaker 1: it occurred to me that the really good forum that 333 00:20:47,680 --> 00:20:51,560 Speaker 1: would be I think maybe exciting to people is a 334 00:20:51,680 --> 00:20:55,800 Speaker 1: forum on what should the deal with teachers be. Let's 335 00:20:55,880 --> 00:21:00,480 Speaker 1: make a system that's better for public employees than this reary, 336 00:21:01,240 --> 00:21:07,040 Speaker 1: rule bound, entitlements based thing that's run by union leaders 337 00:21:07,119 --> 00:21:09,800 Speaker 1: for union leaders, not for the people, not for the 338 00:21:09,880 --> 00:21:12,439 Speaker 1: rank and file. Do you point out for examples in 339 00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:15,600 Speaker 1: terms of the imbalance of power the Terry mode discovered 340 00:21:16,200 --> 00:21:19,679 Speaker 1: from two thousand to two thousand and nine teachers. Unions 341 00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:24,919 Speaker 1: outspend all business groups combined in thirty six states, and 342 00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:28,600 Speaker 1: that the amount that they've been spending actually jumped from 343 00:21:28,640 --> 00:21:31,639 Speaker 1: two thousand and eight to twenty twenty. This is about 344 00:21:31,720 --> 00:21:35,600 Speaker 1: raw power, yes, and they are brutal. If you're a 345 00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:40,520 Speaker 1: state legislator and you try to introduce a reform that 346 00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:43,960 Speaker 1: somehow tries to cut back a little bit on union controls, 347 00:21:45,520 --> 00:21:49,400 Speaker 1: there's a good chance that millions of dollars of national 348 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:53,920 Speaker 1: union money will come in and get you defeated. They 349 00:21:53,960 --> 00:21:56,400 Speaker 1: will come up with a new candidate, and they will 350 00:21:56,680 --> 00:22:01,000 Speaker 1: pour money into the campaign. When John Casey had reforms 351 00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,919 Speaker 1: that similar to Scott Walkers to kind of defending the 352 00:22:04,000 --> 00:22:06,760 Speaker 1: unions in Ohio, and he got them passed, what happened. 353 00:22:07,240 --> 00:22:10,440 Speaker 1: The National Unions came in with tens of millions of dollars, 354 00:22:10,800 --> 00:22:15,920 Speaker 1: had a referendum initiative which undid all those reforms. They 355 00:22:16,000 --> 00:22:21,520 Speaker 1: hire buses and pay people to go testify and pick 356 00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:26,600 Speaker 1: it capitals all the time. They're the only organized group 357 00:22:26,840 --> 00:22:29,280 Speaker 1: in our society that does that kind of thing. But 358 00:22:29,440 --> 00:22:32,520 Speaker 1: you point out the total membership dues for public unions 359 00:22:32,800 --> 00:22:36,920 Speaker 1: as about five billion dollars a year, I mean that's 360 00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:41,080 Speaker 1: a staggering center of power in a free society, right 361 00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:58,680 Speaker 1: used mainly for political purposes. I want to be a 362 00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:00,720 Speaker 1: little closer and one of you key points, because I 363 00:23:00,720 --> 00:23:03,439 Speaker 1: think it's exactly right and could be the beginning of 364 00:23:03,520 --> 00:23:06,919 Speaker 1: changing the whole conversation. And that is your point that 365 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:13,320 Speaker 1: it's very likely that the very nature of public employee 366 00:23:13,400 --> 00:23:18,720 Speaker 1: unions is unconstitutional because it is a misdirection of power 367 00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:23,440 Speaker 1: away from the elected officials and the American people towards 368 00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,920 Speaker 1: groups that are unaccountable. Can you expand on that. One 369 00:23:26,920 --> 00:23:30,159 Speaker 1: of the first principles of constitutional governance coming out of 370 00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,359 Speaker 1: John Locks I can treat us is that you can't 371 00:23:33,400 --> 00:23:37,920 Speaker 1: delegate sovereign power to any private group. Governing in the 372 00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:42,399 Speaker 1: democracy is a sacred trust. We appoint people, elect people 373 00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:46,119 Speaker 1: to make decisions, and they can't give it away, sell it, 374 00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,240 Speaker 1: or they have to keep it and make those decisions 375 00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:52,720 Speaker 1: and then be accountable in the next election. Democracy, it's 376 00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:57,200 Speaker 1: useful to remember it's basically a process of accountability. People 377 00:23:57,240 --> 00:24:00,159 Speaker 1: don't do a good job, you elect somebody else. So 378 00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:04,880 Speaker 1: that principle is actually memorialized in a variety of places 379 00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:10,080 Speaker 1: in the Constitution. The Constitution very clearly defines who has 380 00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:12,440 Speaker 1: power to do what between the executive branch and the 381 00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:15,200 Speaker 1: legislative branch and the judicial branch. And there's a lot 382 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:19,040 Speaker 1: of law on what that means. And then in Article 383 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:24,639 Speaker 1: for there's something called the guarantee clause, which is that quote, 384 00:24:24,680 --> 00:24:28,440 Speaker 1: the United States shall guarantee to every state a republican 385 00:24:28,640 --> 00:24:33,119 Speaker 1: form of government. And James Madison talked a lot about 386 00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,879 Speaker 1: this during the constitutional debates, and basically they said, the 387 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:40,440 Speaker 1: states can create whatever kind of kind of democratic government 388 00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:44,080 Speaker 1: they think makes sense for them, but the baseline of 389 00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:48,120 Speaker 1: anything that they do is that the people they elect 390 00:24:48,880 --> 00:24:53,080 Speaker 1: have to maintain the power to run government and be 391 00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:56,680 Speaker 1: accountable to the voters. That's what it meant. The republican 392 00:24:56,760 --> 00:25:00,320 Speaker 1: form of government means that voters elect somebody who has 393 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:05,400 Speaker 1: the governing authority. And Madison said this prevents giving powers 394 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:10,720 Speaker 1: over to any aristocratic nobles or quote, any favored class. 395 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:15,080 Speaker 1: And so what's happened in the last fifty years is 396 00:25:15,119 --> 00:25:21,480 Speaker 1: that these collective bargaining agreements legislatures have saddled executives like 397 00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:25,520 Speaker 1: governors and mayors with contracts. They get elected and come 398 00:25:25,560 --> 00:25:29,520 Speaker 1: into office, and the contracts already in place and they 399 00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,840 Speaker 1: can't do anything about it. And then if there's a 400 00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:37,320 Speaker 1: disagreement over the contract, must states say that disagreement gets 401 00:25:37,320 --> 00:25:41,560 Speaker 1: resolved by an arbitrator who elected them. In New York State, 402 00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,720 Speaker 1: if there's a disagreement and it continues to be a disagreement, 403 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:50,359 Speaker 1: the law is that the existing collective bargaining agreement runs 404 00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:55,640 Speaker 1: in perpetuity. Illinois the path of the constitutional Amendment in November, 405 00:25:56,520 --> 00:26:01,480 Speaker 1: which provides in the Illinois Constitution that the collective bargaining 406 00:26:01,520 --> 00:26:08,879 Speaker 1: agreement supersedes any past or future statute. Think about that. 407 00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:12,760 Speaker 1: I mean, these people don't even know the concept of overreach. 408 00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:17,200 Speaker 1: It is so clearly unconstitutional. And so in all these ways, 409 00:26:17,720 --> 00:26:21,440 Speaker 1: I think what's happened runs a foul of the basic 410 00:26:21,640 --> 00:26:26,640 Speaker 1: constitutional framework of American government. To show you how rapidly 411 00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,480 Speaker 1: the change has been, as you point out, as late 412 00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:34,280 Speaker 1: as nineteen fifty five, a fl CIO president George Meaning said, quote, 413 00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,200 Speaker 1: it is impossible to bargain collectively with the government. So 414 00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:39,920 Speaker 1: here was the head of the union saying, you can't 415 00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:45,359 Speaker 1: possibly unionize government negotiations. Right, and even in the heyday 416 00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,639 Speaker 1: of when unions were being created and somebody wanted to 417 00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:54,240 Speaker 1: organize the police into unions. The labor leaders in the 418 00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,399 Speaker 1: eighteen nineties said, I think it was Gompers who said 419 00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,320 Speaker 1: police can't unionize. That's a conflict of interest. They owe 420 00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,760 Speaker 1: duties to the public. They can't unionize to negotiate against 421 00:27:05,760 --> 00:27:08,840 Speaker 1: the public. As a lawyer, do you think it's plausible 422 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:11,960 Speaker 1: that a case could actually get to the Supreme Court 423 00:27:12,000 --> 00:27:15,400 Speaker 1: saying that this is a violation of the Constitution. Absolutely, 424 00:27:15,480 --> 00:27:18,400 Speaker 1: That's the reason I wrote the book. Not only it's possible, 425 00:27:18,720 --> 00:27:20,879 Speaker 1: I think it's clearly correct. You know, my whole career 426 00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:23,040 Speaker 1: was as an apellate lawyer, So you know, when you're 427 00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:25,439 Speaker 1: an a pellate lawyer doing Supreme Court cases and that 428 00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:29,080 Speaker 1: sort of thing, the way you're trained to think is not, well, 429 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,960 Speaker 1: does this fit with the past case or not. You're 430 00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:34,560 Speaker 1: trained to think of what's the right rule to make 431 00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,240 Speaker 1: this industry work, or what's the right rule to make 432 00:27:37,280 --> 00:27:41,520 Speaker 1: the society work? And so here it's not a big leap. 433 00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:43,359 Speaker 1: There's a little bit of a leap, but it's not 434 00:27:43,440 --> 00:27:47,439 Speaker 1: a big leap to move from past precedence and a 435 00:27:47,440 --> 00:27:51,040 Speaker 1: lot of discussion about things like the spoil system. By 436 00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:54,080 Speaker 1: the way, the unions basically are now the new spoil system. Right, 437 00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:56,919 Speaker 1: That's what they are, except they're permanent. You elect a 438 00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,320 Speaker 1: new person and they still stay in power. You know. 439 00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:02,400 Speaker 1: It's like a the government for the unions, biber unions. 440 00:28:02,520 --> 00:28:05,840 Speaker 1: I'm already talking to the team that brought the Janis case, 441 00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:10,800 Speaker 1: which held that non union members couldn't be compelled to 442 00:28:10,920 --> 00:28:14,600 Speaker 1: pay agency fees to the union as a violation of 443 00:28:14,680 --> 00:28:18,840 Speaker 1: their First Amendment rights in notwithstanding the Illinois statute that 444 00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:22,520 Speaker 1: said they had to. And so the team that brought 445 00:28:22,760 --> 00:28:26,120 Speaker 1: that case in one in the Supreme Court, it's very 446 00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,600 Speaker 1: interested in bringing my case. I'm also interested in bringing 447 00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:32,240 Speaker 1: a case in New York State because it has a 448 00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:36,119 Speaker 1: somewhat different in some ways even worse set of rules 449 00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,240 Speaker 1: as I just mentioned where collective bargaining Green it's going forever. 450 00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:43,160 Speaker 1: So I'm in it for the action, not to write 451 00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,760 Speaker 1: the books. Let me assure you anything I can do 452 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:50,880 Speaker 1: to help, I want to. There's no single change in 453 00:28:50,920 --> 00:28:54,640 Speaker 1: the structure of government that would be as powerful as 454 00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:59,040 Speaker 1: stopping the scale of the political machine now being run 455 00:28:59,080 --> 00:29:04,560 Speaker 1: by the unions, which blocks any significant reform or replacement. Right, 456 00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,640 Speaker 1: and think about the polarization you know that's happened and 457 00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:11,280 Speaker 1: some of the craziness on both sides in the last 458 00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:17,080 Speaker 1: few years. That's a symptom of frustration. It's a symptom 459 00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:20,200 Speaker 1: that people keep electing people who say change we can 460 00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:23,720 Speaker 1: believe in, or drain the swamp. So you were saying 461 00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:28,000 Speaker 1: that the human cost of not fixing this is so great. Yes, 462 00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:31,240 Speaker 1: And the only solution is to give people the freedom 463 00:29:31,280 --> 00:29:34,000 Speaker 1: to start trying different things in the schools, and to 464 00:29:34,160 --> 00:29:36,840 Speaker 1: have new leaders in the police departments, and to have 465 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,880 Speaker 1: a different way of managing public transits and we don't 466 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:44,560 Speaker 1: waste two out of three dollars and inefficient work rules 467 00:29:44,560 --> 00:29:46,760 Speaker 1: and such. You've got to give people the freedom to 468 00:29:46,800 --> 00:29:49,640 Speaker 1: make those choices. And right now they get in power, 469 00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:54,360 Speaker 1: they get elected to manage, and they have none of 470 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,520 Speaker 1: the authority to do any of those things. Philipona, thank 471 00:29:57,560 --> 00:30:01,960 Speaker 1: you for joining me. Your new book, Not Accountable, Rethinking 472 00:30:02,000 --> 00:30:05,719 Speaker 1: the constitutionality of public employee unions, along frankly with all 473 00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,000 Speaker 1: of your previous books, should be must reading for those 474 00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:11,280 Speaker 1: who are trying to understand the impact not just of 475 00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:15,080 Speaker 1: employee unions in our society, but of the fundamental difference 476 00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:20,080 Speaker 1: between an outcomes based entrepreneurial model and a process based 477 00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:25,280 Speaker 1: bureaucratic model and the capacity of a outcomes based entrepreneur 478 00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:29,480 Speaker 1: model to be just dramatically more creative and dramatically more effective. 479 00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,560 Speaker 1: I don't know if anybody who has written more intelligently 480 00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:35,040 Speaker 1: and more thoroughly than you have on these things, and 481 00:30:35,280 --> 00:30:37,920 Speaker 1: we're going to encourage folks to really pay attention. I've 482 00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,000 Speaker 1: look forward to working with you both on developing the 483 00:30:41,080 --> 00:30:44,880 Speaker 1: messages at large and in helping and encouraging the development 484 00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:47,000 Speaker 1: of the court case. So I want to thank you 485 00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:49,920 Speaker 1: for joining me on news World. It's great to be 486 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:55,000 Speaker 1: with you, great to work with you. Thank you to 487 00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,480 Speaker 1: my guest Philip ka Howard. You can get a link 488 00:30:57,480 --> 00:31:01,920 Speaker 1: to buy his new book, Not Accountable, Rethinking the constitutionality 489 00:31:01,920 --> 00:31:05,360 Speaker 1: of public employee unions on our show page at newtsworld 490 00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,440 Speaker 1: dot com. Newt World is produced by Gingwich three sixty 491 00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:13,560 Speaker 1: and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Garnsey Slam, Our producer 492 00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:17,800 Speaker 1: is Rebecca Howell, and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The 493 00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:21,720 Speaker 1: artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley. Special 494 00:31:21,720 --> 00:31:24,680 Speaker 1: thanks to the team at Gingwich three sixty. If you've 495 00:31:24,680 --> 00:31:27,760 Speaker 1: been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple Podcast 496 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,680 Speaker 1: and both rate us with five stars and give us 497 00:31:30,680 --> 00:31:33,240 Speaker 1: a review so others can learn what it's all about. 498 00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,440 Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of new t World can sign up 499 00:31:36,440 --> 00:31:40,400 Speaker 1: from my three free weekly columns at gingwichtree sixty dot 500 00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:44,720 Speaker 1: com slash newsletter. I'm new Gingwig. This is Newsworld