Tim "The Lawyer" Sandefur Talks to Armstrong & Getty, Part 1

part to keep the DC area moving. Find out more at well mata dot com slash doing our part, No no, do you picked a good hour of the arms drawing and get a shot to tune in because we have Tim the lawyer. Tim Standiford has been joining our show now for years. You were a child then. I can't believe it's been that long. I was just I was just looking at some things that feel like yesterday, and

we're actually a long time ago. My wife and I have decided to start watching Star Trek the Next Generation on Netflix because she missed about half the show and it was originally on the first episode of that show was thirty two years ago now, which means that uh that the show was a lot closer to the original series than we are to that show. Now. That's an interesting The original Star Trek is only twenty years old

than that show. Tim, aside from being a Star Trek historian, is the vice president for Litigation at the Goldwater Institute. Tim Sander for so, Tim, we know you're working on some really exciting and fun stuff right now, and we want to talk about that, But we have a couple of general constitution e questions that we wanted to che. I wonder what you're just because you're a guy who's read a lot about the Founding and the Constitution, that's

what you do. Um um, what are your thoughts on impeachment in general, not the particulars of this one, but just the removal of a president from office. I think that the Founding fathers expected us to use impeachment a lot more a lot more than we do. And of course not just presidents, but judges also, and uh, they would be shocked that in the history of the United States there have been so very few impeachments of people who have abused or arguably abused their offices. Because impeachment

is a political process. Of impeachment is a constitutional political process. It really drives me crazy that partisans in the media referred to impeachment as a coup or as trying to undo the election. No, impeachment is a political process that if the if they're the constituents want it, then they should get it. And that's that's what the system is designed for. And and we have come close but not actually convicted presidents in in the impeachment process because there

wasn't actually that kind of political pressure for it. So now judges, I don't know, I don't know what how many judges are judges for life are a lot of judges judges for all Article three. Federal court judges are jus for the the article for the good behavior, I should say the article the argument for impeaching them makes a little more sense than that. You know, the only way you can get them out of there if you think they're corrupt, whereas with a president h An elected

officially you can wait till the next election. And it does happen that that federal judges are impeached, but you know when you can. When you just look at the numbers, it's just not plausible that we've been using impeachment as often as we ought to. So you think it would have been more I wonder if maybe we don't go

through a period here where we just constantly or impeaching. Yeah, no, I and I and I don't see anything inherently wrong with that, because the system is supposed to balance parties against each other in order to protect the the individual. You know, the whole system of checks and balances is designed to keep the political branches at each other's throats, and that's a blessing, that's a benefit to us. You know, people talk about gridlock, they used the term gridlock, when

gridlock is a feature, not a bug. The system is designed to to counteract each branch so that the people can go out there about their business in peace and safety. You want an efficient government where these the fools who are in office can get what they want done immediately.

That would be a horrifying alternative. No, that that we're better off with the political parties duking it out and accomplishing nothing by the end of the day, because then we can go about our our lives, pursuing happiness and and and being with our families, and running our businesses and and minding our own business. I mean, that's what the Constitution was designed to do. So there's a lot

of discussion about what's an impeachable offense? We started our talk show roughly coincident with the whole Clinton impeachment mess, and there's there's bribery and treason and high crimes and misdemeanors, and everybody argues about what that means. Um, I understand they were vague, so it would cover things they couldn't anticipate. But what about incompetence. What if you just think in

a lot of people think the president sucks. That's that's kind of what they did with Andrew Johnson was just the idea, he sucks, let's throw whole bunch of stuff at him. And he really did. I mean, he really should have been thrown out of office. No, absolutely, incompetence is an impeachbable offense. Of course it is. It has

to be. You couldn't possibly have a constitutional system where a president, let's say, in the first year of office, goes crazy or something and just decides to randomly do all sorts of terrible things and there's nothing you can do about. Of course, impeachment exists in order to remove people who are unfit for office. Like switchness to the metric system, my card gets fifteen rods to the hogshead,

and that's the way I like it. The impeach I mean, uh, gross incompetence is an impeachable offense because it's a political crime. It's a danger, a serious threat to the safety and security of the people of the United States if the president is dangerously incompetent, and so of course that is an impeachable offense. But they specifically did not go with the term maladministration or whatever they were talking about at

the time. That's true. But also, you know what, what the founders chose not to include is of limited value when interpreting the Constitution because there's lots of stuff they chose not to include, and there's a lot of reasons why they might have chosen not to include something. So perhaps they didn't include terms like maladministration because they thought that was covered sufficiently by the language that they did use. So it's always of limited value to say, well, the

Founders show is not to include something. Maybe that's a helpful argument, maybe not. But what we do know is that historically speaking, and just as a matter of common sense, removing a person from office because that person is dangerously incompetent is obviously within what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution. I'm not saying that that's the situation today. I'm talking about what the Founding Fathers thought at the time. They were right in the Constitution. Tim

Standard's VP for Litigation of the Goldwater Institute. The Second Amendment is also another aspect of the Constitution, part of the Constitution that seems to vex people for because it's it's vague. Would the Constitution have been better if they've made it two or three times as long or shorter.

So at the found at the writing of the Constitution, there were a lot of people who were opposed to including a bill of rights, including James Madison and James Wilson are too, probably the two smartest guys at the Constitutional Convention, and Alexander Hamilton's They were opposed to including a bill of rights at all because they said, look, the Constitution only allows the government to do the things that we've listed on this piece of paper exactly. That's it.

They all they can do is what's listed here, and if we put in there, if we write a bill of rights that say, by the way, you have the right to freedom of speech and the right freedom probably blah blah blah. Then what's going to happen is people are going to forget that the federal government only has the power to do the things that are listed on

this piece. That's a pretty argument. It turns out that's right if if you and if you accidentally leave something out, people will think that you purposely left it out there. So they said, if we were at a Bill of rights that leaves out that you have a right to run barefoot through sprinklers on a hot summer day, you might have people out there who say, well, you don't have a right to run barefoot through sprinklers on as

slumber day because it's not in the Constitution. And sure enough that is today how a large number of people read the Constitution. So it's arguable that we would have been better off without a Bill of Rights because that would have forced people to face the fact that the federal government has limited powers. That is really interesting. I don't by itself by that argument, but it's an interesting argument. Is there anything in the Constitution about becoming the world's

largest insurance company read distributor of wealth? And there is nothing in the Constitution that authorizes the federal government to do those things, I thought, not all right, then, so let's talk about what you're doing these days about we have a big case we're gonna be asking the Supreme Court to take this month that involves whether lawyers can be forced to join bar associations. And this is a

this is a very important issue. So for a long time now, lawyers have been forced not just to pass the bar exam and not talking about the bar exam. You have to pass the exam and you get licensed, you get sworn in, then you're a lawyer. That's a different thing. A lot of states, about twenty states, I'm sorry about thirty states today now force lawyers to join bar associations, which are private clubs, are basically labor unions

for lawyers. And I am a member of the Arizona State Bar Association they called the Arizona State Bar but it's a it's a private trade organization that I'm required every year to pay five dollars or so too, and they spend this money on political activities. They lobby the legislature, they take political positions on things. State bar associations do this all over the country. Even though I disagree that they're forcing me to subsidize political speech that I disagree

with and you disagree with some of their positions. Oh yes, and this is now you might think or not. I'm not sure you should absolutely, and and listeners might think, well, who cares about the first meant rights of lawyers themselves.

And this is very important because bar associations have a lot of political influence with state legislatures, because state bars lobby and they get a lot of influence, and they got listened to a lot at state at the state level, and then they may never notice that in corrupt the fornias. And then the media view of the media regularly throws around whichever bar association believes this as if well, but not subtles it as if that's they speak for the

entire legal profession, and they don't. So we have sued over this issue in several states in Louisiana, in Oklahoma,

and Oregon. There are cases going on in Wisconsin and Texas, and we're doing a case in North Dakota that we're asking the U. S. Supreme Court to take and to hold that lawyers cannot be forced to join bar associations and subsidize their political activities just like the Supreme Court has already said you cannot be forced to join the labor union and subsidize its political activities against your will.

How hard does that test? The bar? Uh, the bar exam itself, that it is, it's certainly the hardest test. I Ever, how long does it take you? Well, these kids, these kids that they have no idea how good they have it? When I took the bars and the California Bargsam is a three day exam, three days, and the Arizona Bar Exam was and still is a two day exam. I believe California is now only two days. But it is a very demanding test. And um, could you pass it today or is it the sort of thing you

need to study up for? At that time, I would have to study up for it. And I was in a bad situation because I took it in California fifteen years ago, and then I had to retake it in Arizona two years ago when I lived there. So it is a uh, yeah, it was tough to have to go back over that stuff and relearn it. Is it like word searches two pictures? What's the difference between these

two pictures sort of things? Well, the answer is no. But actually to get into law school you have to take another test, the l s AT, and the L set actually does have something kind of like that. The l SAT exam is a lot of logic puzzles. It's stuff like, you know, you have a chicken and a wolf and a bag of seed, and you have to cross the river in a canoe, and you can really have two in the same canoe at the same time. That kind of question is on the L side. Do

you have to go to law school to take the bar? Uh? Not in every state, but some state could study up. There are some Sti Randalls like Lincoln call Jack. California is the is I think the only state where you can take the bar exam without having gone to law school. And every few year a few people passed the bar exam having studied on their own. Very few. And of course it's very hard to get a job if you

do that, but it is possible. If you graduate from law school you are automatically a member of the bar in a few states. Among the fine books that Tim Senterver has written uh the recent The Ascent of Jacob Bronowski, which we talked to him about on a podcast right, that's right at some point. Uh yeah, very very good. Uh. Frederick Douglas self Made Man, which is absolutely terrific. The Permission Society, which we helped inspire, finally inspired something positive

in the world. Um, and the right to earn a living one of my faiths about economic freedom, which is another forgotten notion these days. Very much so. Yeah. Anyway, we'll have a linked all that stuff for you. We'll be back with him to talk more liberty and constitution stuff like that in moments on the Armstrong and Getty Show. When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to know we're ready for you. Here are just a few of the people at Metro to tell you how we're

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