Each odd year, guaranteeing that each president would have the opportunity to nominate two justices per four year term. Of course, this coming to a head very much in a big significant way because of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the controversy over whether President Trump should appoint a new Supreme Court justice, as he is about to do. Joining me to talk about more on this, gabe roth, the executive director for, really appreciate it. Thank you for having me, dan. First of all, what is fix the court . Tell me about that. Sure, so were a national Nonpartisan Organization that advocates for greater openness and accountability in the u. S. Supreme court and across the federal judiciary. We want them to live stream arguments. We want them to be more transparent about their finances and conflicts of interest and serve a more reasonable length of tenure on the high court. Interesting. So your mission here is broader than just term limits for the Supreme Court justices. Exactly. A lot of other things to discuss here. Do they operate in too secretive of a manner in your view . Definitely. I mean, its very hard to get any information out of the court beyond their opinions in terms of who theyre meeting with, where theyre traveling to, whos paying for their travel, whos paying for their houses. I think theres just, a general expectation of the 21st century when it comes to Public Officials and the Supreme Court in so many ways fall short of that. So were trying to fix that. Gabe will talk more about this but playing devils advocate here, part of the goal and the way the system was set up by the Founding Fathers was for the Supreme Court to operate very independently from the executive branch of government and the legislative branch and that secrecy you talk about is by design, is it not, so that they are not influenced . They may be. I think the countrys obviously very different now than it was when the constitution was written, but from my perspective, the Supreme Court and really, the judiciary as a whole, is acting like a super legislature, when the houses of congress dont get along, the president hasnt gotten along in years, its really the Supreme Court that has the final say in so many things, who lives and dies, who can invest in elections, who can vote, who can get married, who gets health care. These are things there used to be a conversation about these topics and now the Supreme Court is the final arbiter. Theyre acting more and more like elected officials, so i say, lets hold them to the same standards of transparency and accountability that we hold elected officials too. Quantify that more. Supreme Court Justices are acting more and more like elected officials, how so . Sure. So in the very basic way, if a law is passed and the Supreme Court says this law is unconstitutional, in the past, congress would go back and rewrite the law, same thing with the executive order. The president would go back and rewrite the executive order. Now that doesnt happen anymore. It used to happen a dozen times a year. Two dozen times a congressional session. Now it almost never happens. Just a few examples, the Supreme Court invalidated part of the Voting Rights act that passed 980. When it was invalidated seven years ago and in that amount of time, even though the Voting Rights act passed by unanimous margins, able to rewrite the bill that was invalidated because in that short amount of time, congress became so contentious and hyperpolarized, so instead of the ongoing conversation, what the Supreme Court says goes. With the dreamers and samesex marriage, these are things i think congress would weigh in but instead falling to the Supreme Court to make these decisions for the people, and i think thats less than ideal and its not the values. Founders did intend for the Supreme Court justices to be nominated and serve lifetime terms, article three of the constitution. Gabe, why do you believe there should be term limits imposed on Supreme Court justices and making this constitutional change . Sure, so, article three, section one says that the justices and federal judges shall hold their office, and i believe in many constitutional scholars much smarter than i believe, the office theyre referring to, or the office that congress interprets it to be is the office of federal judge. So if youre a Supreme Court justice, and you serve for a reasonable amount of time, say 18 years, after which you would maintain life tenure on the federal bench, just not on the Supreme Court. The founding generation, in the generations that follow, just maybe a few exceptions, justices were not serving 30 or 35 years. Nowadays, thats common place and i believe way too much power to imbue in just a few individuals, so i think the more modern understanding of the office is the office of the federal judge, which you can serve for life and congress has every right to, in my view, say that after a reasonable amount of time, justices should rotate off and a new justice should be seated. At 18 years, first, id love to know why you arrived at 18 years, i think the math is such that every president can appoint two justices, but 18 years in your view, i would imagine still removes them from the political pressure of whoevers in office at the time. Exactly. That will come up with the number where you still have the independent judiciary, justices are not bought and sold by unseemly influences but they arent sitting on the bench for so long so they become maybe their mental acuity slows down or just gain too much power. You know, throughout the United States history, there have been in every generation, really, a justice or two whose cognitive ability declined before they left the bench and thats something weve seen and thats something we want to prevent. Currently, president s are almost supposed to, or theyre incentivized to nominate the youngest possible individual that they can get through, so that individual would serve for 40 years. I dont think thats the way things should be and what the founders intended and i think theres a way to start having a balance without compromising Judicial Integrity and independence. Gabe, how difficult do you think this will actually be . Changing, making a constitutional change like this is a significant undertaking. What kind of support do you have . I think the reason were on here today is the statute, not the constitutional amendment. From the time the bill is signed by the president , justices appointed after that would serve for 18 years. So were exempting and saying, the next justices, each of them would serve. How hard is it to get done . Incredibly hard. The way congress works, you have to introduce a bill in several successive congresses for it to be in traction. That being said, the unique thing about proposals is its been around forever. Discussed in papers written in the 80s and the 90s and Supreme Court renewal act that one of one of the Yale Law School professors signed into law that became popular and similar proposal in 2009 and 2016. This is an idea of the sign thats come. Its been supported by the heads of the federal society, very conservative and then liberal, and it doesnt have a partisan balance. 18 year doesnt benefit anyone in particular because its up to the people henceforth. We dont know whos going to be president in two years, four years or six years, sort of decide and make that decision. Youre agnostic going into the proposal. Gabe, quickly, about 15 or 20 seconds. Should President Trump nominate a new justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg . Just a few weeks left in his term . I mean, he has every right to nominate an individual to the high court, but its really up to the senate. The senate needs to hear from their constituents as to what they want to do. Thats 100 people and i think i know where my senators in new york are voting but im not sure what senators elsewhere are going to do. Your organization is nonpartisan, you try to be nonpartisan, am i correct . Yeah, no, we work with democrats and republicans. I mean, we had a republican on a version of the bill up until recent recently. Unfortunately in a tough race right now, so hes focusing on that, but i dont really see any partisan advantage to transparent. Executive director for fix the court, hoping to impose term limits on the Supreme Court amid other reforms. Gabe, thanks so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Take care of yourself. Were going to take a break here on air, but the conversation continues on Facebook Live and when we come back, former president ial candidate and current ally to governor gavin newsom tom steyer joins us to talk about the governments recent welcome back. Glad youre with me today. We want to get answers for you. If you have questions, reach out, and ill ask some of our guests. Governor gavin newsom issued an executive order earlier this week that made national headlines. He wants the state to stop selling new gas powered vehicles by the year 2035. Just 15 years from now and joining me is tom steyer, cochair of the governors business and Jobs Recovery Task force. President ial candidate and advocate. Thank you so much for coming on. Great to have you with us. Dan, thanks for having me. Listen, critics say this is a radical move and rush decision with no guarantee of affordability for many who live in an already expensive state. Is the governors plan truly realistic . Absolutely, its realistic. I think its forwardthinking. Necessary and important to boot, dan. Were talking about 15 years from now. They keep coming down and its projected by analysts that the up front cost of electric vehicles will cross the cost of internal combustion vehicles in a few years, probably three. What this announcement does it meets the moment. Were in a Climate Crisis, dan. We all live in the bay area. We live through the hottest month in california history last month month. Were in a Climate Crisis and this gives american businesses an incentive to create zero emission vehicles that are going to keep getting cheaper, keep getting better, and gives them a definite market so they know that when they come up with new products, they create new jobs, new businesses across this state. Were doing what california does. Were innovating our way out of a problem. Were creating businesses and good paying middle class jobs by doing it. And were leading the world. I think Governor Newsom deserves a lot of credit for this announcement. Its certainly a major milestone and great political decision on a lot of levels and exciting one for environme environmentalis environmentalists, of course. The competition, you mentioned with this mandate, automakers have to compete in a significant way to sell vehicles 15 years from now that are not combustion engines, that will continue to drive the cost down. What needs to happen in terms of infrastructure to truly make this change. I think theres an infrastructure question about building charging stations for electric vehicles. I think what were going to see, 34 people are building electric vehicles across our state right now, dan. Were going to see the private sector innovate. Were going to see california researchers and engineers and Business People coming up with new products to satisfy the need. Some are surprises, which is going to be great. Thats what we do and were going to see businesses created out of this, jobs created out of this. Were going to see an economic engine here really good for this state but lets be clear too. C. Were in a Climate Crisis. Half our greenhouse emissions come from transportation or the extraction of fossil fuels for transportation. This is a very, very important step from an environmental standpoint. Its leading the country. Its leading the world, and i think that california can do it in a way that is created and also, lets be clear, cleans up air and water around our state and weve got to remember and i know this from years of traveling this statement, the places where theres bad air quality and kids get asthma, the places where its unsafe to drink the water that comes out of the tap. In california and across the United States are overwhelmed with underserved black and Brown Indigenous community. This is very much addresses those needs. Its about justice, job creation and addressing a Climate Crisis that we are living as a state, were living in all 50 states and weve got to add together on a global level. I want to ask you an interesting question from a facebook viewer but first, bounce on something you said there. 50 states and this is californias one, granted, its the largest, will we really lead the charge . Do you think other states will fold . This isnt the first time that california has led the way terms of tailpipe emissions. Were talking about zero emission vehicles but california led the way as a state in terms of miles per gallon rules and a lot of other States States stats this is a role that we play in this country for decades to lead on environmental quality. The Clean Air Act which came out of california, going to cost trillions of dollars. Its saved trillions of dollars, its impossible for us to meet those miles per gallon standards and then they meet the miles per gallons standards. This is what leadership looks like. Ive been working on these issues for a long time and i was thrilled on this announcement. I think this kind of leadership with we need in dc of the kind joe biden can bring. Interesting. 15 years time is a fairly rapid pace in terms of retooling an industry. Could we have done it faster . As i said lot of people building. The number two export from california, electric cars. Is that right . In 2020. Half of the electric vehicles are in california. We need to create these businesses here. Working on this issue here, talking to Business People about what it looks like to create Clean Energy Jobs here. Middle class jobs. That is also something we can do here and you know we need it. We have a really high unemployment rate. This is a chance for us to put young people, Diverse People to work at good paying middle class jobs. I think its too good to pass up. Tom from facebook, one of our viewers. How do you charge cars when pg e shuts off the power . Is that something weve got to get past . Theres no question, we have to start with the concept of a reliable and flexible grid. Thats going to be part of the Infrastructure Spending thats going to happen over the next 15 years. But let me, at this point, say this, dan. Joe bidens climate plan involves 2 trillion of spending over the first four years. That involves rebuilding the grid. And that plan is a big job to plan. It is a big Environmental Justice plan and it deals explicitly with building the infrastructure to make sure it has a huge component of building charging stations but it is about building the infrastructure so that private enterprise can thrive and create a lot more jobs and spend multiples of what the Government Spending to set it up so we can build the clean energy feature. Tom steyer, thank you so much for coming on. Always a good friend to the program. We appreciate your time as always. Thank you for having me. You bet, see you soon. Tom steyer. When we come back, indepth conversation about the bay Area Real Estate market and where it goes from here. Its changed dramatically an army family who is always at the ready. So when they got a little surprise. Two . They didnt panic. They got a bigger car for their soontobebigger family. After shopping around for insurance, they called usaa who helped find the right coverage for them and even some muchneeded savings. That was the easy part. Usaa insurance is made the way liz and mike need it easy. Welcome back. This pandemic has thrown a lot of turmoil in markets including the Housing Market in a huge way. Joining me to talk more about this, emile of 5 Point Holdings llc, a major real estate company. Thank you so much for coming on. Its great to have you with us, emile. Nice talking to you. Thank you very much. You recently gave a great speech that i watched on some of the changes happening. As you assess what the pandemic has done to the Real Estate Market in the bay area, what would you say is the longterm impact . I think that you have to be careful about a shortterm impact and a longterm impact. I think it is very dangerous to extrapolate too much from the conditions were living in, which are very unnatural into a longterm trend because i believe that once the pandemic is in history and memory, i think that what youre going to see is youre going to see us go back to the trend that were seeing before and that is the flight to the major cities, very attractive from the economy. Were all living in conditions so unnatural to us and assume thats going to be a permanent change. And p predicting a longterm impact, too hard to tell, but one thing we can say is that theres a lot of Companies Working from home. What do you anticipate when these companies dont want as much Square Footage . I think every ceo is going to be looking for a new model of a relationship between an employer and employee. The fact of the matter, is the 59 model, all of these going to be charged with a different relationship. How do you measure performance . Its going to be more on efficiency rather hthan hours. Its amazing how at 5 00 in the afternoon, every Office Building in the country is staffed. It cant be that everybody finished at 5 00. Its basically around the clock. I think were going to lose a model probably hybrid. Flex time. More allowance of people to bring more social life into the office. This is sending a very serious message. This is a social generation. They want to be together. Theyre taking the risk of getting the virus because they cannot stay away from socialization. So if we as humans are going to go and stay home and work out of home and that is going to be, i think were making a mistake. Very well said. And i know a lot of young people who feel that way. And they wanted to move into the city and be around other young people. In the 15 seconds and then continue on facebook, emile, what are you doing to pivot in terms of your company all right. Thank you so much for joining us on this interactive getting answers show. Well be here every weekday at 3 00 on air and on live stream answering your questions. Im dan ashley. We appreciate your time. World news tonight is next. Tonight, breaking news as we come on the air. Abc news has learned President Trump intends to pick Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginn against on the Supreme Court. What weve just learned tonight. The news comes on the same day the nation witnessed a historic farewell at the u. S. Capital. The casket escorted into the rotunda. Becoming the first woman and jewish woman to lie in state. Joe biden and Kamala Harris among those attending. The bipartisan women of lawmakers saluting her as she left. Justice ginsburgs trainer doing pushups to honor her. President trump moving to make his pick