Protecting Rights - Balancing Power - The Electoral College and Federalism - with Michael C. Maibach - [Ep.260]

Linda J Hansen:  Welcome. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101 Breakroom Economics® Podcast. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host and the author of Prosperity 101, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck® and the creator of the Breakroom Economics® Online course.

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Thank you so much for joining with me today. It is a joy to have you and we have a very interesting and timely topic, something that a lot of people don't think about until election time rolls around, but we should be thinking about all the time because it's part of protecting our freedoms. I want to say thank you to our prosperity partners, those who send gifts to help us keep the podcast on the air and to our strategic partners.

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It can be a ministry in so many ways as you serve people in the workplace. So join with the U.S. Christian Chamber of Commerce and you'll find the link in our show notes and on our website. If you'd like to be free to work and free to hire without all the woke nonsense, visit Red Balloon.

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Visit the link from our website and you will find Mother Nature's Trading Company all with these wonderful products made in Wisconsin and made in America. So let's keep that American supply chain going and support the freedom loving employers, employees and businesses that are our strategic partners. 

So moving into the interview, if we want to protect our freedoms, our supply chains that I talked about, our rights to do business, our rights to raise our families as we want, the freedoms that we have come to know in America.

There's things we need to understand about our constitution. We've become a constitutionally illiterate citizenry, I believe. That's why I work so hard at what I do. But there's things about the way we run our elections and everything that people don't understand. The Electoral College being one that often causes confusion. Today, I have an expert on the Electoral College.

I'm honored to introduce Michael Maibach. And Michael Maibach is the Distinguished Fellow for Save Our States. He is also a policy advisor at American Constitutional Rights Union, but he also has a very deep business background and he'll maybe share some of that, too. But whether you are a business owner or, you know, a parent, a student, this episode will provide great information for you because I'm sure you, as well as others, have had questions about the Electoral College. So thank you, Michael, for joining with me. It's just an honor to introduce you to the listeners.

Michael Maibach: Well, thank you. Delighted to be here, Linda. Thank you very much. I grew up in the southern part of Wisconsin, which is Peoria, Illinois. We had all of our vacations in Wisconsin at Wood Lake, which is a wonderful place. And so I have a great affection for your state. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, thank you. It's great. Right now, I'm a little worried about Illinois and some of the politics in Illinois. But I'm worried about the politics in every state, which is why I do what I do but Illinois is especially troubling.

I've often said that we need a Midwest sweep with the governors, like whether it's Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois. We just need this sweep of new governors here, but hopefully that'll come.

But if we're going to have elections, we have to make sure they're secure and that they're fair, that they're honest. And we have to protect the rights of all citizens. And I highlight citizens, not illegals when it comes to voting. I highlight citizens. But I like this, this was part of your bio,

“It says in an era of rising calls for national popular vote reforms, you explain how the Electoral College protects minority rights, prevents regional domination, and ensures presidents have broad, legitimate support. Arguments that are both rooted in historical precedent and constitutional law.”

So for those who are crying out that we need a national popular vote, or you hear every election, count all votes. I often say, no, not all votes, only those that are legally cast, certifiable, and have followed a legal chain of custody. We can't count all votes. This national popular vote is another cry that is being used to undermine our constitution.

I'd love for you to just dive in and tell us why the Electoral College is so important.

Michael Maibach: History is always very important. Cicero said that until you know history, you're always a child. We have a constitution written by the people of the 13 states, and those states were very jealous of their own place in America and in our political process. 

So at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, they decided a couple of things. One is they were going to have checks and balances to keep us free. They studied Aristotle and they studied Montesquieu. Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws was written when they were very young men. And they wanted to make sure that the checks and balances would keep us free.

So they want to have an independent president. The question is, how do you elect the president? And there was only one delegate in the Constitutional Convention out of the 58 that voted for a national popular vote, only one. And the rest didn't want a national popular vote.

The question was, should this new Congress elect the president? But then they wouldn't have an independent executive. So they decided to have an independent election. So how do you do that? Well, every state got the number of electors equal to their two senators and their House members.

So this is the electoral votes that we have. It really is at the heart of the Connecticut Compromise, which was the House is by population and the Senate is by states. Every state gets two senators.

So that's maybe a long answer. But they wanted to have an independent executive elected by the people within the states. So the last thing I'll say is- we do believe in democracy, but we have 50 Democratic elections and then we combine those.

And that's how we get our president. So we do count every vote, but then we count them in every state. And then the success of the candidate is aggregated in the electoral college.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it's fascinating and can be confusing to people. And that's, I think, where people get concerned, and it's often used by people on all sides of the fence at times to confuse.

I love that you brought in the lessons from history. Could you repeat that quote? I just think that is so good. Those that do not learn from history.

Michael Maibach: So Cicero, a great Roman statesman and philosopher, said, “until you know history, you are always a child.”

Linda J. Hansen: That's so good. It is so good. As we look at the history of America and what this has meant for our nation, understanding that history is so important as we move forward, especially in a time where we're kind of in an upheaval and there's such divide. I think the electoral college is something that really helps protect the vote of the individuals. But then also, can you talk about how it helps against or really protects against regional dominance?

Michael Maibach: Yes. So it turns out 50 percent of the American people live in nine states. Los Angeles County has more people than 41 of our states. New York City has more people than 39 of our states.

Nassau County on Long Island, which is one of two counties on Long Island, Nassau County, which is not part of New York City, has more people than 10 of our states. So when I give a talk on the electoral college, I include a picture of Central Park in New York City. I asked my audience how many acres? And the answer is eight hundred and forty three.

How many of those acres are farmed? They laugh and they say, no, they walk their dogs in Central Park. They play baseball, they jog, they don't get dirty with crops and animals and things. I show a picture of Whole Foods in Manhattan full of food and say, my gosh, these New Yorkers, they're not growing anything in their Central Park, but all this food.

And then I show a picture of an Iowa farm and I say, ah, we start our elections in Iowa because they feed the cities. We cannot make them serves. It takes five acres to feed one person for a year.

If Central Park was farmed, it could feed one hundred and thirty six people a year, not nine million. So we have to have a voice for the people that feed the cities. But also I show a picture of Caterpillar factory where I worked after college, my first job after college in East Peoria, Illinois.

Well, the iron ore for those tractors comes from the largest iron ore mine in Minnesota. And there are no people, pretty much, that live there. So these rural areas provide the factories with their natural resources and rubber and plastics and all the rest. And then the food for all of us, three meals a day. So they have to have a voice. And we can't just have the city's rule, which we'd have for national popular vote.

So that's some thoughts about why it's such an ingenious system. When Gore versus Bush, 2000, very controversial election, Bush only won by five electoral votes and they came from West Virginia. Little West Virginia decided that presidential race.

If you think about it, Bush went to West Virginia and Gore did not. So if you don't visit the small states, and a lot of times our elections are very close, if you skip New Mexico or you skip Wyoming, you may lose by three or four electoral votes.

And so you can't just go to the big cities in our system. That should be a comfort for everybody, really, including people in New York City or Chicago. We can't really just have the cities run everything. Unfortunately, our cities are not run very well, as it turns out, which is another speech. 

Linda J. HansenL That's a whole ‘nother episode. Yeah, I've actually focused on that some in the past a few episodes on inner city crime and poverty and things. But this is so good. 

I remember when I was Herman Cain's deputy chief of staff for his presidential campaign after the election and they brought in the top campaign managers from each presidential campaign to the Harvard Kennedy School of Politics, they do this every four years.

We're having this conversation where they transcribe it and it's part of history. Several people were discussing how many debates there were that year.

Many of the candidates complained about it and the consultants, it wore the candidates out. It was expensive all these things. Now, being from the heartland myself and hearing from people in the Midwest, but also Herman Cain went all kinds of places that people didn't understand because he understood the people. I kept hearing again and again and again from people how great it was that our candidate came to X, Y, Z city or state.

But also they needed more debates because you have these debates, you couldn't always watch them. You needed to be able to have access and understanding of the candidates. Now, that was 2012.

I mean, since then, you know, social media is really advanced and you can catch up on things a lot. But you're right. The people in those other states, not only do they not have representation in voting, but sometimes they don't have recognition when it comes to campaigning or information given to them.

So it's really hard for them to have a voice. The Electoral College prevents that. I love it that you tie it into the fact that they are the ones that are feeding us. They're producing the goods that we need. They're the ones that are really keeping our nation humming. I love that, that you connected that.

Michael Maibach: The genius part of Electoral College that we sometimes don't appreciate is for many, many decades now, we start our presidential selection in Iowa. If you think about Iowa, it's hard to fool farmers. 

They have dirt under their fingernails and they're real people and so you can imagine all these presidential candidates going to Iowa and the Iowa State Fair is very famous. But a lot of them do the full Grassley, which is all 99 counties, like DeSantos did this last time, 2024.

By the way, we then go to New Hampshire and everyone has at least four meals with every candidate before they decide. Right. 

Linda J. Hansen: I always used to say that you could do all the doors in New Hampshire in one day.

Michael Maibach: I asked the governor of New Hampshire who just left office, but I said to him last year when I was with him, why is it important we have a New Hampshire primary? And he said, because people in New Hampshire can tell a phony across the table. They have meals with these candidates.

If you think about it, after the farmers and after these small towns, then we go to nothing but screens and stages. We go to South Carolina, and the rest of the presidential primary is all about media and and big money, if you will, not the retail politics.

Well, unfortunately, and I'm not a partisan person, but our last president skipped Iowa and New Hampshire and we would have known a lot more about him as a candidate if he had been on those farms and been in those tables in New Hampshire long before we had to have him withdraw.

So one of the genius and genius parts of the system is these retail engagements really do a lot. American people meet the candidate in reality and not just on a screen. So it's a good system, and we only have Iowa and New Hampshire because because they're small states and we don't start our primaries in New York and Los Angeles.

Linda J. Hansen: So good. It's so good. I love the fact that you brought up how farmers are real people. And I just thought, you can trust farmers. They know manure when they smell it.

So it's you it's a whole different vibe in these areas than it is in New York or Los Angeles or things. And it's so important, and so I'm thankful for the Electoral College. I'd like you to touch a little bit, too, on the federalism and the need to save our states and the autonomy of the states in terms of their ability to make decisions for themselves. Could you touch on that?

Michael Maibach: Yes, so the history, again, is very important.

The states were very jealous of their power when the federalist papers were written during the constitutional debate. All 13 states had assemblies of people who then voted to ratify the Constitution. So about 2,500 Americans actually were in the 13 state conventions and voted state by state for or against the Constitution.

Of course, the federalist papers were written by Hamilton, Jay and Madison because New York was on the bubble. It was unclear New York was going to ratify the Constitution, so Madison went to New York and he and John Jay and Hamilton write the federalist papers.

Federalist number 45, Madison writes, the federal government will have limited powers and enumerated powers and a look outward toward other nations. So think about military, borders, immigration, trade. The states will have fuller powers and they will focus inward on the people and they will be endeared to the people because they'll deliver services in each state.

That was federalist 45. He was telling the anti-federalists, don't worry, the federal government is not going to run everything. It's not going to have housing and urban development department or an education department.

So one of the things that Americans are concerned about is all of our debt and the mismanagement of our government. And with DOGE we're seeing so much that's being unearthed that is really not healthy.

One of the best things you can do as a company, if you want to raise your stock, is to get rid of subsidiaries that aren't functioning well. As soon as IBM announces a closure of a plant and selling of part of their business, their stocks go up because the management is making sense of their business. I think what we ought to do is close some of these departments that the states can handle better.

We don't need to have housing and education in Washington. So the Congress can have more time for things other than those. So federalism is about that, which is what we call subsidiarity sometimes, which is you do the right thing at the right level of government.

So the local government runs elections, not the state. The cities and the towns run the schools. The states don't run the schools. The states have highways and they have other services they render, driver's licenses and all the rest. 

Then the federal government is supposed to defend the country and have certain things. But because of progressives, Obamacare and Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, all those things, so much of our government now is dysfunctional because it's so hard to manage centrally.

So federalism is really about letting the laboratories of democracy, as one Supreme Court justice said, compete. So now we have seven states that don't have state income taxes, but other states are talking about that. In the last census, we had 12 congressional seats moved to other states because people are on the move.

Americans can go from New York and Illinois if they're unhappy with the state government. They can go to Florida or Texas, which they're doing, so federalism gives people a place to go to have a different life.

If you want to have school choice now, there's 20 some states that give you a voucher to have school choice. We didn't have that 20 years ago, so the wonderful thing is we have sort of incremental changes as states compete for people and for jobs and job creation.

And you would hope that some of the states that are not doing well would change their ways. About half the states are right to work and half the states require union membership in many jobs, that drives employers to go to the South or to other places where they don't have to deal with the union.

If the people in those factories don't choose to have a union and people that want to work there don't have to join a union to work there. That's what we call free labor during the Civil War.

So anyway, federalism really gives people competition between governments. And so people do run for office saying our state is number 6 in in X, but it's number 30 in Y and we need to improve on Y.

Linda J. Hansen: That's so good. It reminds me really of what burdened me to start Prosperity 101. As I shared with you before we were recording, I was really talking to business owners all across my state before the 2010 election.

So this was like 2008, right after the 2008 election. The business climate in the state of Wisconsin was so poor that people were telling me they would move their business out of state if a business friendly governor wasn't elected. People have no idea how much these policies affect their daily life, their jobs, everything.

I encourage people just a resource that people can go to is American Legislative Exchange Council has their annual Rich States Poor States Guide. I often have Jonathan Williams on, we're working on scheduling for that again to have him on to talk about, the most recent findings with this. It's laboratories of democracy. We can see what works and what doesn't.

Why is this state always number one in certain areas? And you're talking about education. Mississippi, right now people can look up the Mississippi Miracle and they can see what's happened in education in Mississippi as they have changed their policies and gone from really low on the educational standards to really high on educational standards.

So whether it's the economy or education or whatever, these states should be able to make decisions. If you want to find a solution to a problem, you need to go to the person closest to the problem. So local elections and local control is the most important.

And so all the listeners, I know that if you're viewing this or listening to this, I'm always saying, call your senator, call your representative, but also call your mayor, you know, call your state legislators, call your city council person, your school board members, all these things. It's very, very important at all levels. But this federalism is so important.

And it ties into our Constitution which is just so amazing because the protections that the Electoral College brings, plus the protections through the authority, the ability of the states to make decisions for themselves based on what the people decide. It's just incredible. It's so amazing to me.

Michael Maibach: I was going to say that on Rich States, Poor States, when I was at Intel Corporation, we used to say everything you measure gets better. It's very important that you measure things in business, but in all your endeavors.

How am I doing? Athletes measure all the time. I mean how fast did I swim that race or whatever? An example of federalism is a lot of us are very concerned about children in school and the devices, the phones, the screens all the time, the sort of impact on personal relationships. So Virginia has now passed a law, no phones in schools. That's wonderful. Well, the other forty nine states can do that if they want. Let's see how it works.

We don't have to have a national law on that for or against, but rather let's see how Virginia does on that law, maybe other states will say this is better for our kids not to have phones when they're at school. Talk to each other rather than to the screen all the time.

I give speeches in schools and sometimes there's so many screens in the room with the kids. I just have to say you have to put those away. 

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah it's so good. It is really important. I'm glad you brought up the point about you being in business and things. That's one last thing that I'd like to cover is, because you do have an extensive business background before you really got into doing this full time, your fight to save the Constitution full time, but your extensive business background, what would you say to employers who have a burden and would like to help their employees understand the importance of these issues, these constitutional issues that protect their freedoms? What would you say to employers?

Michael Maibach: Well, one way to think about civics is I'm on an airplane and I've been upgraded to first class, but it's important I have a good pilot, right, because we're all on the plane the same way. We're all citizens in this republic. If we don't have a good pilot, we don't have good people in office.

So civic education is everybody's responsibility and business people should and often do care about the business climate. Well, if you want to have good elections and good people in office, the people that work for you and with you in your company ought to be educated.

So why can't a private employer, let's say with a hundred or a thousand employees, bring in periodic speakers at lunchtime so employees can hear about the Constitution, about American history, about all the things that you should know as a citizen? Public companies, it's harder for them to do that sometimes. But with good leadership, they certainly can do it and have debates on the issues.

Debating is a very healthy thing. But civic education is vital to our future, Winston Churchill once said to students, the further you can look backward, the further you can look forward. The reason he said that was until you know history, as Cicero said, you're always a child. But also human nature doesn't change.

That's a conservative Small C principle. If you know the broken nature of human beings, you know, this is how they did it then. This is what worked and what didn't work, and that gives us lessons for the future. So looking back on our history really informs us how to do things better.

That's when you make a new friend, you say, where are you from? Are you married? You have children? I know as a boy, I wanted to talk to my grandparents about my parents. What were they like as children? You want to know that about your history. 

Harry Truman, who didn't go to college, was asked by a young man, what can I do to be a good American? He said, study history, so it's very important that people do it. History is not all about dates. History is about stories, about real people that did real things that were hopefully helpful to the republic. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it's so good. And we do need to know that. I think especially in this era where a civic education, a basic understanding of how to protect freedom, a basic understanding of what freedom is what prosperity is, truly, which is human flourishing and freedom. We need to do that.

I always say that if employers don't do it, who will? Because a lot of these people, these 60 plus million people in the workforce have not been taught in their schools or their universities, but they're out voting. We need to help them understand as they go and help to train that next generation. 

You mentioned you speak in schools and things. So I'm sure there might be someone who would like to know how to contact you. How can people contact you? 

Michael Maibach: You can go to Save Our States, or you can go to my page on LinkedIn or Facebook and simply ask for a speech. I do them online, I do them in person. I've spoken at 23 states and have a travel budget. We don't charge anything. So if you believe in free speech, I have a free speech for you or your group, your school. Happy to try to arrange that. 

Linda J. Hansen: Well, that's wonderful. And listeners please reach out to him. Also, I'd love to address your group. I'd love to work with you if you are an employer, employers. If you are an employee and is interested in bringing this type of education and what I offer with Prosperity 101 to your workplace, talk to your employer or contact me and let's set up a call.

But the goal is we want to educate people and preserve freedoms and make sure our nation stays free. So thank you, Michael, for talking about the Electoral College, for saving our states with the federalism of our Constitution, guaranteed in our Constitution. And thank you for just providing hope that as we look at history, we can look forward, we can apply really good principles to our lives.

Kind of like I used to always tell my kids, we don't always have to make our own mistakes. We can learn from the mistakes of others. So I hope that we will. 

Michael Maibach: Well, thank you so much it’s been a delight to be with you. Thanks, Linda.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you. Thank you again for listening to the Prosperity101® podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share and leave a great review. Don't forget to visit prosperity101.com to access the entire podcast library, to order my newest book, Job Security Through Business Prosperity, the Essential Guide to Understanding How Policy Affects Your Paycheck®, or to enroll you or your employees in the Breakroom Economics® online course.

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