Noah Feldman on Axios Today

will too. Good morning, Welcome to Axios Today. It's Friday, December fourth. I'm Nila Boodoo. Here's how we're making you smarter today. President Trump wants to auction drilling rights in Alaska's Arctic wildlife refuge. Plus, there's a new genealogy database dedicated to enslaved people and their stories. But first, the

test of our electoral system. Today's one big thing. That was two weeks ago when the Wayne County Board of Canvassers in Michigan met to certify presidential election results and both Republican members refused. A few hours later, the Republicans relented. There was another vote in the certification. Happened. It wasn't

just these Republicans in Michigan. A Republican secretary of State in Georgia, a Republican county supervisor in Arizona, and Republican appointed judges in Pennsylvania were among the state and local officials who ended up validating the voters choice of Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the presidential election. Noah Feldman is a constitutional law scholar at Harvard and host of

the Deep Background podcast from Pushkin. Noah, So, we talked before the election about your concerns about the democratic process. I wonder in the end, did it all come down to these few people. Those officials mattered a lot, but it did come down to more than just them. Had they ultimately gone down the Trump rabbit hole, that alone would not have necessarily caused the next steps that Trump was hoping for. That would have taken a lot of people.

But those folks were crucial because had they gone down that road, it was possible that the democratic process would genuinely have unraveled. So would you say, as a constitutional law scholar, the process worked. Ultimately, the process worked in the sense that we got the right outcome. It's not a process that you or I would have designed in

the first place. The good news is the overwhelming majority ninety nine point nine percent of state bureaucratic officials actually just did their jobs in the ordinary way, and that's great news. No, you and I have also talked in the past about all the unwritten rules that govern our election process. Do you feel like there's been irreparable damage because of the way President Trump continues to attack what an overwhelming majority of government and other officials say was

a free and fair election. Major damage has already been done at present. I would not say the damage is irreparable, but it's only reparable with a lot of work, a lot of time, and a lot of logic and reason being used against many, many, many arguments that are really grounded a conspiracy theory, and they aren't so easy to refute with facts. So what work has to be done? Then? Some of that work can be done by making what's already a fairly transparent process even more transparent in this

day and age. Probably there should be a video camera on every polling place, every pile of ballots. That would help, but it's not enough. There need to be officials who are trusted public leaders saying the process is legitimate, and that starts from the top. So in the end, how are you feeling about all of this? I guess what I would say is Donald Trump came close to breaking the norms of the system in a way that shows

the vulnerability of the system. And in that sense, we learned a lot about how precarious our constitutional democracy is. And that's very, very sobering for anyone whose job, like mine is involves looking at the system and judging its strength, judging how capable it is. So we have a lot of serious challenges that we need to address going forward. Noah Feldman is a constitutional law scholar at Harvard and he's also hosts of the Deep Background podcast from Pushkin.

Thanks Noah, thanks for having me. We'll be back in fifteen seconds with the latest plan to drill for oil in Alaska. Welcome back to Axios today. The Trump administration announced yesterday it will auction off drilling rights in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if those rights are sold before January twentieth. That's a big step towards drilling in what has been a decades long battle in the region. What could President elect Joe Biden do to reverse this once

he takes office. Ben Gamon is an energy reporter for Axios. Then the drilling rints in this area have been fought over for such a long time. Can you just tell us what's going on here? Yeah, that's right. And what's happened here is that as a result of some gop led legislation in twenty seventeen, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or the coastal plane of it, a part of it

has theoretically thrown open to drilling. What's going to happen now is that early in January they're going to auction these drilling rights to oil companies and that would make it much more difficult, but hardly impossible. I should stress for Biden to prevent drilling from ever occurring there. So this is a significant step, but the fight is hardly over. So we know that Biden opposes this, what could he

do to stop it? To some extent? Their hands are going to be tied because the leases will have already been sold. But that said, there's any number of different levers that the Biden administration could attempt to pull to either thwart or at the very least massively slow down this process. And that could be anything from no longer defending the Trump administration's position in ongoing litigation over prior

parts of this effort. They could impose different types of permitting requirements that would make things very difficult for the industry. That said, I do think we will see some level of industry interest in the sale of simply because the resources there are believed to at least potentially be incredibly large. Can you just tell us about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, what kind of ecosystem is it and would it be

damaged by drilling? Yeah, certainly any type of industrial development in this ecosystem is going to have some impacts and cause some level of harm. Now, advocates of development think that this can be done in a way that is quite manageable and minimizes the risks. Opponents of its say that's essentially a fantasy, that just the level of development that's going to be needed to create well pads, pipelines,

other infrastructure will badly harm and jeopardize the region. And this is a very pristine, remote and ecologically sensitive place. It's home to species including caribou, polar bears, other types of animals and species that people are very fearful would be greatly disrupted by this. Thankiemon is the author of the axios Generate newsletter, one of the most comprehensive it's on slavery is now using technology to help millions of

descendants learn more about their ancestors. It's called enslaved dot org and Russell contrast excuss Race Injustice Reporter is here to tell us all about it. Russell, how is this database different than say, ancestry dot com. Well, an answerstry dot com there's a lot of information, but there was

a void on its history of slavery. A lot of people have discovered documents in their own personal research about their own family members, and so what this website is doing is encouraging people to submit these documents so they could be vetted by scholars and be included in this database. How else does it fill in these holes that are in a lot of family narratives. I took some time was looking at it, and I, of course, you type

your own name. And what was shocking is that I found two folks who had my last name who were slave traders. They came from Portugal, and as I read them, I realized, not only do I have some ancestors who were connected to the enslavement of other people. I have connections to people who were enslaved and so enslaved. Dot org really brings home this legacy. Russell Controros is the race and Justice reporter for Axios. Thank you, Russell, thank you.

Let's end this week with a little story. In nineteen eighteen, in the middle of that pandemic, a baby was born on a ship carrying immigrants from Italy to New York City. Her mother's guy giving birth, but the baby, named Angelina, survived and she's still around. This year, she turned one hundred and two. That's her daughter Joanne telling her story to CNN. That's because this year Angelina Friedman conquered another pandemic, the coronavirus. She was admitted to a New York hospital

in March, where she first tested positive. Months later, in October, she tested positive again. She's recovered both times, and her daughter thinks Angelina might just be the old person to have survived COVID twice. My mother is not human, Una, it certainly seems that way. Axios Today is brought to you by Axios and Pushkin Industries. We're produced by Carol Wu Nuria Marquez Martinez, Karashillen, and Naomi Shavin. Our mixed engineer is Alex Sugiara. Dan Bobcoff is our executive producer.

Sarah Kahalani gu is our executive editor and special thanks to Axios co founder Mike Allen at Pushkin. Our executive producers are Leta mullat In Jacob Weisberg. We love feedback. Share your thoughts by writing us at podcasts at axios dot com or to me directly on Twitter at Nila Budoo. Thanks for listening, Stay safe and enjoy your weekend.