i also want to say that it is

wonderful to be here with you all. i have already looked out into the audience and i have seen some former senate judiciary colleagues and friends, and i am just delighted that we have this opportunity to engage with these two incredible men to talk about an issue that is so very important to us. i have been getting to know judge ludick who is also

distinguished practitioner fill out our institute at uva, and secretary johnson as we overlapped the obama administration. i have had the opportunity to get to know them better in recent months. to say that i am a fan is an understatement. these are two people who are extremely busy and at the same time, are, of public severance whether they are in or out of government at a time when it is so desperately needed. so i want to say publicly, thank you for the work you all are doing and for your leadership on this task force. [applause] mary gave us some of those sobering statistics, and i am going to date myself by saying that hopefully some of you can remember this with me --remember when johnny carson -- i am old enough to remember johnny carson dash for jay leno needs to do that met on the street interviews and they would talk to people and i wouldn't know how many senators they had, who their elected representatives

were, and you would think, oh, ok. and we just kind of let it go. but now we understand what happens when citizens don't understand fully their government or their democracy, and how those things interact with their lives. and we understand what that leads to when we don't have well-informed citizenry that is not only committed to a robust democratic institutions and practices, but also the democratic culture, the health of the body politic that supports those institutions and those practices. that is the focus of the work that we're doing at the institute, the work we are doing -- the work this task force is working on and that is what we want to talk about today. we want to highlight the importance of the work that lawyers can and must do is, in fact, we are to live up to the fact that democracy is not inevitable. it's not like the air we

breathe. it isn't just there, we have to work for it, create it and sustain it. with that, i went to turn to judge luttig and secretary johnson for conversation. but to remind you that we are saving time at the end so you will have an opportunity to ask your questions at the end so that those questions ready. i want to start with a question to the first view, judge luttig. if you all are both really, really busy and you have both spent time in government serving in different ways. there are a lot of people that would have walked into the sunset and said i am going to focus on my family, on my practice, focus on my boards and i will vote and call it a day. and that is the exact opposite of what you all have done. i am curious, what it is about the state of american democracy today that led you to answer mary's call and to say, yes, i

want to chair this task force? what is happening in your estimation that makes the work of the task force so judge luttig: important? thank you, melody. thank you for creating the task force on american democracy. the secretary may be busier than all of you, but i am not. [laughter] or at least i didn't think i was. [laughter] but for me,, it was this. i guess it has been almost two years ago that i had the honor of testifying before the january 6 committee on the attack on the united states capitol. and the first line of my testimony was to this effect -- a stake was driven through the heart of america's democracy on

january 6 2021. and today, our democracy teeters on a nice edge -- knife's edge. two years thence to today, if anything, america's democracy and the rule of law are in graver peril than they were on january 2021. the statistics that mary read you tell the story. and it is a frightening story. millions and millions of americans today, for the first time in american history, the first time in almost 250 years since the founding of our nation, no longer believed in our elections.

they no longer trust in our elections. they no longer believed in our democracy. and increasingly, they no longer believe in the rule of law. i recently said that american democracy and the rule of law are the heart and soul of our nation. and that we are fast becoming unsold -- unsouled, in america. so, dramatically, it has been the effect on our nation of the events of the past three-plus years.

democracy is, as melody said, it's not just like the air that we breathe. for our discussion purposes today. it is just the opposite. we, the people, we have to continually breathe life into american democracy and the rule of law. and if we stop for one minute, then just like the human body, our democracy and our rule of law will die. now, for all of us, it never occurred to us in our lifetime that we would ever, ever be called upon to support, defend, and preserve our democracy, our constitution and the rule of law. think about that especially for lawyers, because lawyers are

uniquely positioned, qualified, but also obligated, obligated by oath to support and defend our democracy, our constitution, and our rule of law. we take an oath to support and defend the constitution of the united states. but all of us americans have an obligation, whether we take an oath to do so or not, to support our democracy and our rule of law. but we never have ever thought that we would need to. well, that day has arrived. and you not only need to stand up and affirm what we believe and what we do not believe about

america, our democracy, our constitution, and our rule of law, if we don't do that today, then tomorrow we'll wake up and find we no longer have a democracy or a rule of law. and we truly will have witnessed -- borne witness to and hopefully not sat on the sidelines for what might be the unsouling of america. melody: secretary johnson, judge luttig has talked about the unsouling of america and raised this issue to a level of crisis. i think there are a number of people who shrug their shoulders, who may not see it that way, who may see this as a

partisan issue. but you also answered this call. why? secretary johnson: so -- good morning everybody. i took the oath of office to support and defend the constitution four times in my career, six if you include the ceremonial ones. and interestingly, the first time i took deal with them to support and defend the constitution from was january 3, 1989, administered by the u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, at rudy giuliani. so the price of getting me to speak here is i have to tell at least one more story. [laughter] and i am in the room full of litigators. how many of you have been federal prosecutors in your career? raise your hand. not many, but a couple of you.

i was in the u.s. attorney's office for about three weeks, and judge luttig will not appreciate this because he is an appellate judge. [laughter] melody: all fancy. [laughter] secretary johnson: what happened below. [laughter] i was assigned my first trial. i had been out of law school for seven years. i was very anxious to try a case. this was my opportunity. it was a two-date drug by and -- buy and bust case involving a postal inspector and someone undercover who had sold him two bags of pcp in manhattan. but to me, it was the crime of the century. [laughter] so i wrote my opening statement and practice my opening statement and then i had to practice my opening statement in front of my supervisors. and the night before the

trial, they said, no, rip that up. this is how you deliver an opening statement in the u.s. attorney's office of the southern district of new york. if you walk to the you go over to the defense table and you point at the defendant and say that men sold drugs on the corner of 28th and 9th, and i will show you how. you go back to the lectern and deliver your opening statement and every sentence must begin with the words "the evidence will show." at the end of your opening statement, you must say the same thing, whether it is a two-day bust or one month-long corruption trial. listen to the evidence, listen to the law as judge luttig will instruct you, and use your common sense. if you do those three things, i am confident you will find the defendant guilty as charged. three years later, i'm now a

defense attorney. southern district of new york. my first trial is a defense attorney, i got to finally deliver that opening statement that i wanted to deliver for so long. [laughter] i told my client, it was a small drug case and i was doing this pro bono, i said the prosecutor will walk over, he will point you -- [laughter] i was thinking about what will happen to me. it is a very emotional thing. if you feel tears welling up, let it out. i'm delivering my opening statement. i did something you should never do as a trial attorney. i departed for my script and i was just connecting with the jury. eye contact. i can tell i was getting through. then, i forgot my flight plan. i forgot how i was going to end my opening statement, my fantastic opening statement.

so, i reverted to form. in conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, i want you to do three things. i want you to listen to the evidence. i want you to listen to the law as the judge will instruct you. i want you to use your common sense. if you do all three of those things, i am confident you will find the defendant guilty. [laughter] i sat down. it was my drop mic moment. i sat down, and i could hear the court reporter sitting about as far away as the judge is. "you meant not guilty, not guilty." sure enough, the next day's transcript read "not guilty."> [laughter] [laughter] anyway, why are we here? we are here because -- i am proud to say that melody is part of our task force as well. we are here because we took our

oath seriously and we believe it is a lifetime oath. we as lawyers have similar obligations, whether in government or private life, to support and defend the constitution. we are very different people. one of us is tall, one of us is a little shorter. one of us has a head of boyish hair. one of us is a democrat, one of us is a republican. one of us is from texas, one of us is from new york. but we all believe in the same constitution and we took an o ath. we both believe the democracy is under threat. we would like to say we live in the most enduring democracy in the world. we always have orderly and believe that our democracy is under threat. we like to say that we live in the most endearing democracy in the world, we always have orderly and peaceful transitions of presidential power prayer that is no longer

true. and, you heard mary reading the poll numbers, about americans added to our democracy, in my judgment, democracy is like water. you don't think about its importance until somebody tries to take it away from you. our democracy is like oxygen come you don't wake up every morning thanking god for the air you breathe unless somebody tried to take it away from you and you are desperate to get it back. and in my post government life, i recognize that this is the most important way in which i could contribute to the public good, by joining up with judge luttig , one of my heroes, in this cause, i've been gratified by the level of interest we have seen on the listening tour we have been on around the

country. one challenge that i see, every time we do one of these events is i would like to see younger people take an interest in this issue, people in their 20s, even college age. but i see this as the most important way that i as a private citizen can contribute to the public good, so when i was asked by mary smith to do this with judge luttig, i did not hesitate, i said yes. >> for i go on, gentlemen at this table over here asked the question we all want to know, who won that case?>> well, i got my first trial, i got that conviction, the second one where i defended the client, he's probably still in jail. i don't know.>> we reversed it

on appeal.>> [laughter] >> secretary johnson, you said one of us is a republican, one is a democrat, one is from texas, the other from new york. the things that you don't have in common, and i point that out because at a point when the nation is so fractured, we often are talking about polarization, the ways that we differ ourselves, other people that are not like us or that we don't know, and the midst of all that, it may be not surprisingly, we may be having challenges, facing these challenges to democracy and the conversation about democracy has itself become polarized. something that i find stunning, that when we use democracy, at dinner last night, somebody

said, who is working on this issue, said a person said to her what kind of democracy do you mean? and i asked that, i set that up to ask the question, this is a bipartisan effort that you are working on. this is not partisan in the least. how are you engaging people and informing people, educating people to that fact, and getting them to trust the process, that the task force has underway when there is so much polarization, and so much fracturing right now?>> so, you put your finger on something, a lot of people, i think, would believe that this is somehow an anti-trump effort and it's not. it is a pro-democracy effort, no matter who wins in november, through the democratic process.

i have supported presidential candidates in the past, i have been disappointed by election results in the past, i have been greatly disappointed by election results in the past, but have always accepted and respected the result. as have our leaders. up until recently. everyone remembers al gore's concession speech in 2000, the supreme court shut down the building in florida and the vice president recognized for the sake of our democracy, he has got to concede, richard nixon did the same thing in 1960, he believed illinois was stolen. by the kennedy family. but, he knew he had to concede for the sake of our democracy. and the credibility and legitimacy of the presidency, and one of the revelations that

i have come to is our democracy is frail and that there is a lot of gray in the constitution, and our constitutional norms, there's a lot of gray and some ambiguity. and therefore, our democracy depends upon public servants of goodwill, who respect constitutional norms. our democracy depends upon us electing and appointing mature actors who respect the constitution, respect the rule of law, respect constitutional norms and do not exploit the ambiguity and the vagueness that exists in our constitution. if someone tries to push the envelope, it may break.

and i'm pleased that congress, for example, cleaned up the electoral count act to take out some of the ambiguity there and how we count electors. part of a small group that just put forth the congress recommended changes to the insurrection act, the insurrection act is antiquated, it is ambiguous, it has some triggers and it, for enabling the commander-in-chief to call out the national guard under his or her control, or the active duty armed forces in domestic situations, that needs to be revised, to take away some of the gray. but we never had to have these conversations before now. because we could always depend upon the people we elect, whether they are black obama, ronald reagan or a lot of people in between who respected

our constitutional norms. up until now. and to me, that is not a partisan effort, that is very much a bipartisan patriotic effort.>> judge?>> well, the secretary is exactly right. on that last point in particular, fundamentally, in particular, which is no organization, certainly no government can completely protect itself. at all. every organization, every nation requires the goodwill of

its representatives. and especially its president. and in this case, the president of the united states of america. in 250 years, it has never even been questioned until today. but, the task force in particular understands that the concerted effort to politicize not just the rule of law, the concerted effort to politicize the rule of law in america, but also america's democracy. and that is an obstacle that is almost insurmountable to those of us who are trying to support

and defend our democracy today, because of the polarization, political polarization in america today, that what we have to do, and the only thing we can do is stand on the truth. recognizing that today, there is no truth, that we agree upon, there are not even facts that we agree upon. but, nonetheless, there is a truth in america about democracy and the rule of law. it transcends all politics, melody, it is not simply bipartisan, it is nonpartisan, it is a political, it is literally the foundation of

this country, for almost 250 years, america has been the beacon of freedom of the entire world because of its democracy and its rule of law. i've said recently that unfortunately in my view, america will never again be the same, that it has been 250 years as the beacon of freedom to the world, as a consequence of the past 30+ years, perhaps with time, not five or 10 or 15 or 20 years, but more perhaps, america will once again be that beacon of freedom in the world, if we rise to the call of our

country today. if we don't, then we will never again be the beacon of law. >> you were talking about challenges, we can't agree on common facts, there is no common set of truth, and doing the work you are doing in that environment is really challenging and one of the goals of the task force and one of the tools of task force is using is that you are going into communities around the country to engage, to inform, to educate around the work of elections, the challenges facing election workers. can you talk a little bit more about that work, why going into communities, anything that you are starting to see as you have the community-based conversations. >> well, just like any other

top of an organization, like the task force in this instance, we are all but powerless. right? just like, you think about it, the president of the united states is all but powerless. unless he can lead the people, and leverage the people in the pursuit of his vision of america, in this case for the task force and the pursuit of the vision of the task force, andy american bar association. so, it was essential that we not sit on high in a proverbial ivory tower, and

just speak, speak on the truth, that would be useless, especially in this time. so the first thing we decided to do was that we had to go out into the communities, out into the states, and for our purposes today, we had to leverage the organized bar in the united states of america which is 2 million strong, which is to say, without all of you in this room and all of your colleagues across the country, in all 50 states, we can do nothing at all. we depend on you, we need you, and we need, in turn, we the people of the united states of america. so, it is a herculean task, trying to reach 300 million

people, as many as possible, but we are not alone in this effort. this is a massive national effort and it is as righteous an effort as this nation could ever know. we are trying to preserve our democracy and the rule of law. there is no higher calling in america than that, the difficulty is just convincing millions and millions of americans who do not believe yet that that's literally what's at stake in the coming months.>> if i could, i've been really impressed by the fact that once we got started, we found, i found a lot of other

organizations devoted to the same mission. thinking about the same issues, working in the same direction, and one of our biggest challenges is trying to harness all of that energy and interest into one place in a coordinated fashion, but it has been heartening to see it. my style of leadership has been to look people in the eye and connect directly, my last year as secretary of homeland security i was determined to raise morale in the department of homeland security, no easy task. an agency of 250,000 people, i literally would play undercover boss. so i went out to bwi and i put

on a tsa uniform and began working the line, the inspection point. no one recognized me. finally, i was with this elderly couple on the way to north carolina for a wedding, the wife was in a wheelchair and i finally broke down and said, ma'am, do you see this patch on my shoulder? i'm the head of this whole organization and she looked at me and said well congratulations on your promotion young man.>> [laughter]>> but my style, you have to connect directly with people, to get us all inspired in this effort. so you know, we have been together, we were in philadelphia two days ago, we

did georgia and we are going to do wisconsin, arizona, we have done michigan, we are going a bunch of places, all of these places by the way happen to be swing states, where it matters, the way our presidential elections work, they are going to be between 5 to 7 states that decide this election, all the rest of us, in places like new york and new jersey where i live we will cast our votes, but this election comes down to crucial battleground states, so we want to reach people, leaders, community leaders and those particular states.>> secretary johnson, as we are talking about communities, i would be remiss if i didn't ask you about a community with which you have a particular attachment, as a trustee and that is columbia university. and in particular, in the context that we are discussing this morning and democracy, and

as the university is grappling with rule of law issues, including first amendment right to protest, right to assembly, and maintenance of other elements of the rule of law, and trying to make decisions for its community and also sitting inside new york city. and working with young people, and i want to talk a little bit more about this in a minute, but young people that some feel close attachment to democracy, others care deeply about issues, don't see it connected to democracy, others think democracy is not for them and i'm just wondering if you can share with us to the extent that you are able, how the university, or how you are thinking about these issues at

this moment that is so tense.>> so, columbia university, i'm a graduate of the law school, my father went to columbia, two of my uncles went to columbia, my grandfather is -- has an honorary degree from columbia and the decisions that the president faced about what to do, with the encampment, with the protesters, most difficult set of decisions that i think i have ever seen in government or out of government, dealing in an academic environment, but there are two overriding principles that i think those of us in higher education, those of us who are trustees have to bring to this situation, one is, no

constitutional right is unqualified. and a university in a city on government grounds, people have the right to exercise the first amendment and engage in free speech, but always subject to time, place and manner restrictions, always. the other overriding principle is for a university president, for university, for school, the safety and welfare of all of the students and the university itself is paramount. and i fully support the columbia presidents decisions

that she had to make, we were hoping for a constructive negotiate if resolution -- negotiated resolution, but once people began occupying hamilton hall, we had no choice but to call in the nypd, the situation was spiraling out of control and my hat is off to the new york city police department. they did a remarkable, professional job in addressing the situation, but we go on, there will be challenges, i hope that the day after will be the first day that we begin the healing process, and for those

who are in encampments who are demonstrating or protesting, i think should not lose sight of, i worry what is happening on colleges and university campuses right now is becoming a domestic political issue at the expense of highlighting the plight of palestinian people in gaza, where i think we are at risk of losing sight of what started all of this, and it has been a very difficult set of challenges, unlike any we have faced since probably 1968.>> you spoke about the healing process, and for you as well, judge luttig , and i want to talk in the second about how we engage law schools and law

students but staying on this for a moment, as we think about young people, in particular in many instances, don't feel connected to democracy or believe that the values that we often articulate for our democracy, our values that they are living or witnessing and i'm curious what you believe would be early steps in the healing process. the process of engagement and using this moment or hoping that this moment would help us to move forward to something that allows us to be stronger. any thoughts about that, given what you are experiencing and witnessing?>> well, i conceptualize the problem this way, i think it is the great

tragedy of our times, is that the younger generations have no nothing -- known nothing bad of these times, these tumultuous times, these times that have been drawn into question for whatever set of reasons. our democracy and rule of law. in a word, our younger generation in particular, they now believe that this is what politics in america is. another way i have captured this, is that all of the politics of the past has now

become normalized, into america and normalized in america's political culture and its culture otherwise. think about that. and then think about how we get out of that position, and again to have a question of the path forward. well, i don't have a clue anymore. all i can do is again, in theory, i know what has to happen, and first, that is that we have to stop what has been going on and then turn the corner. so i said to congress, how do

we start? and i said, we all know how to begin the healing and that's the way we begin the healing of the fractures of every relationship from husband and wife, two family, two friends, neighbors, community, to national fractures and relationships, like we have now. and that is to start talking again, at the national level, that is what i see, we just need to start talking, talking. for years, we have not spoken to each other, why?

because we have been told so much that we are literally enemies of each other. now, i ascribe that to our so- called leaders in this country. it is in the political interest, and the self interest of our politicians and political leaders, that we be polarized, even that we be enemies of each other. and we have been told that for years and sure enough, in fact, we have never been that concept

of america, we are the polar opposite of that. we are friends, we are colleagues, neighbors, we are family, we all share the same hopes and dreams and ambitions for america, the greatest nation ever in civilization. our democracy. no different than a marriage or a family. it cannot exist, unless you are talking to each other and of course they cannot exist if you are enemies of each other, so i said to congress, that is how you start. i said the problem, the heart of the question is, who starts?

who has the courage, the will, and the desire and interest to start, start talking i knew it was silly, but i said all it would really take at this point, this point we would take would be a small group of political leaders from both sides of the aisle to sit down and agree first, that america is in peril and that they would reinvent it, to stand together and say to america, this country is in peril, we need to come together and we believe

that two years ago, one of our public leaders has decided to act in that way and after the election in november, it is then, if ever. >> i think the issues that you are both talking about go to the issue of the health of the body of politics, and there is a reason we use that language, at the body politic, it is an organization that is living and breathing, it is us, and the lack of good health contributes to the challenges that we are seeing, some of them are contemporary challenges, many of them are also age-old challenges. i recently had the opportunity

to engage with david brooks, it was at uva two weekends ago and his recent book, how to know a person, the art of seeing deeply and deeply being seen and the conversation, or the importance of proximity and engaging, the importance of seeing people as individuals and as part of cultural groups and holding those two things simultaneously, of understanding a history but also understanding the unique functions and roles that we all play in contributing to a culture, the culture of the nation and to our own destiny mixed with systemic issues. i think all of that is wrapped together in what you are talking about. i'm curious, in a room full of lawyers and as a lawyer, i have never felt safer in my life, that the importance of training

young lawyers and working with law schools, as we work on these issues, and as we think about and talk about democracy and how you are approaching that, what response you are getting from law schools, what might be the way forward, because i certainly remember it has been a while since i've been in law school but i remember, i took all the classes that we all took that were required and then those that we had the opportunity to take, and then there were the required professional response ability classes before you graduated but there was no class about, or opportunity, i guess there was an opportunity, i don't know if it was taken to talk about and think about democracy and think about our role as lawyers, in perpetuating living by acting on being responsible toward and

for the rule of law. so i'm curious -->> from my years in washington, people often say to me, gee, you got along with republicans so easily, how did you do that? and my answer is simple, when i walk into a room with people and i meet somebody i have never met before, just a name tag, i look -- before i snuff out party affiliation, ideology, i want to establish common ground. so i will ask, where are you from, where did you go to school? when you walk into a room, i always assume when i meet another person, i start off

with the presumption, this is a person of goodwill and a decent person who is here in this room with me for the same overriding purpose and i look for common ground. i'm from cincinnati, well, i had the conversation i was just having a minute ago, i grew up in dayton. and i will explore other potential areas of common ground, and then we get into what might divide us, but by that point, we have already made a basic human connection that takes the venom out of the inevitable disagreement we are probably going to have about something. and contrary to that, imagine walking into a room, whether it is the floor of the house of representatives or a law school class where you walk in, your

political party is on one half of the room and the other political party is on the other half so you immediately enter a situation of division and it's kind of hard to establish common ground with the other half of the room, if that is how you start off. young people, law students, students do tend to see things in a different light, when the reality is that the world is full of almost all gray, different shades of gray. and my view is that the sooner we can educate young people, students, young lawyers that the world is full of gray and to achieve something, you need to be able to establish agreement with someone where

you are effectively compromising the better off it will be.>> so, i don't have a problem that the secretary has because i don't even like republicans or democrats.>> [laughter] >> and i never have, if i go into a political room, i just assume that i don't like any of them and i'm just going to do my best to have a good time.>> [laughter] >> the last thing i'm going to do is ask them about politics, because i don't care and i don't respect them for holding their politics, and that is only half of us. but no, i'm not a political person, never have been, and i'm unapologetic and i can tell you, i have never respected politics and politicians.

the proof is in the pudding. so, i go into every room everywhere, just happily believing that everyone i meet is just a human being. period, full stop, i don't even care where they come from politically in the slightest, but to your question, the task force and the effort. we lawyers, you probably don't know this, the one thing we do is talk about the issues when we get together. so, the task force has had some initial resistance. to the idea of supporting and defending both democracy and the rule of law.

from some quarters. and we know exactly why now, it is because as melody alluded to earlier, that idea of democracy has been politicized. so, it is no surprise, i suppose, that as we have gone into the legal community, and into the law schools and said, look, this is a nonpartisan issue, this is american democracy and the rule of law, in some quarters we have been met with the suggestion, no, this is not nonpolitical. this is political. and, that is within, at the

public at large within the organized communities, within the law schools, we have met some initial resistance, to the idea that law school should in some way incorporated into the curriculum the teaching of american democracy and the rule of law. resistance to that idea, in america's law schools. personally, i'm not going to speak for the task force, i prescribed that resistance to the faculties because as all of us know, faculties are famous for the fact that they don't want anyone to tell them what

to teach. not even the rule of law. and i speak for the task force, my view has been, if america's law schools are unwilling to teach the rule of law, they shouldn't be certified as an american law school, okay?>> [applause] >> what else are the law schools doing? for god sakes, that is what they are teaching, or supposed to be teaching, but those are smaller pockets, to come out of that happily, we are going to soon have a large effort by a

sizable number of law schools across the country who are going to throw their full support behind american democracy and the rule of law.>> melody, you asked a moment ago, what should law schools be doing along these lines, and i won't be shy about this, i will suggest what they should be teaching, one of my most favorite things that i did when i was a dhs, to administer the oath to people who are becoming new citizens, naturalization ceremonies, wonderful experience, and you are talking about people who took years to get there. and if i could mandate a curriculum, maybe even a first- year curriculum, it would be to help one person become a u.s. citizen, help them with their education. i have sat with people studying for the exam, how many

representatives are there in the house of representatives? how many senators are there per state, how did they get elected, how many terms can a president serve? this is all stuff that many americans don't know. and mandate that a law student has to help somebody whose english is their second language, become a u.s. citizen. help teach them the basics of our democracy to get to that point where they take that oath. maybe that is already done in some law schools, i don't know.>> i wanted to say, and now is the opportunity, civics understanding of democracy, and the rule of law, and civil

discourse about those fundamental features of america and american society are the bread and butter of the legal profession. for obvious reasons, the first part, but just as obvious for the second part, civil discourse, we are trained, trained in civil discourse, and once we are trained in it, it is required of us. it is required of every lawyer in the united states of america, that every single conversation they have in their professional capacity, and then before the courts of the united

states and the courts of the state's, that they civilly address the issues. there's no other -- let alone a profession in the united states of america that has that obligation and therefore, that obligation that translates into an obligation now to teach america what is required for sustaining our democracy and rule of law, which is the civil discourse, the civil discussion of the issues that are before us, and the civil discussion of how we continue this democracy, if we do.>> these are the

competencies and capacities of democracy and as a friend often discusses, productive disagreement, because we aren't all going to agree, democracy and our construct of government allows us to move forward and to engage productively when we don't and to find consensus and ways to move forward when we do.>> i like that, what rolls off the lips is usually constructive disagreement, that is the first time i remember hearing someone say it is not just constructive, it is productive disagreement.>> i want to open the floor for questions and give you all an opportunity to engage, there's also a microphone in the center if you could just give us your name and let us know where you are from and pose your

question, please.>> i will speak from here, first of all, thank you all. >> one second. okay.>> in morning, my name is jeff greene from new jersey, first i would like to thank you for participating in this very important task, in my view the most important issue facing this country today. you have in this room people that may share my views and if they do, what advice can you give us, each of us, what is the most important thing each of us can do to address this problem and to reverse the statistics that mary talked about when we started this presentation?>> if i could start, i would suggest that we

each support the actual election process. support election workers, serve as one of the things we are working on, a rapid response teams, if there are challenges at the polling place somehow, just get involved as many nonlawyers do polling questions -- places, answering questions, be available in case there is some sort of challenge or trouble at a polling place. and then, what michael was talking about, just the basic every day civil conversation about the decision that we are going to have to make in november. start there. but there's a lot of work that can be done around the actual

election process itself and as judge luttig said repeatedly, we have a particular obligation in this regard.>> i would say, take that microphone when you leave the room and somewhere in the next few weeks, trade it for a megaphone and distribute that among all of you, the entire organized bar in america and speak the truth and speak out, you know, it is now or never.>> thank you. >> good morning, united states district judge, barbara lynn from dallas and a proud uva graduate. what about the big problem which is the internet? it is like whac-a-mole, every day a horrible rumor about american democracy that is just

absorbed into the body politic, and we can't get rid of it, i wish i could figure out where it was and organized 600 people with axes to chop it up, but as long as we've got it, it has got the giant megaphone. 600 people with a megaphone, how do you respond to something that powerful that is full of, to say it is incorrect information is to understate the problem, it is grotesquely wrong information every minute of every day. how do you deal with that?>> well, the internet is in and of itself, judge, not the problem. the problem, as i see it, is that we each can now go to a particular source of information, whether it is the internet, whether it is cable

news, or even print, that simply reaffirms our own biases or purchases -- prejudices or inclinations, without challenged or without really learning something. and the problem with the internet in particular is that there are very few barriers to entry and standards for exit, anybody with a keyboard can go on the internet and report to be news. which is how you wind up with a certain large percentage of americans who believe that 9/11 didn't really happen or it was all a government hoax. years ago i was sitting at the breakfast table with my son and a friend of his and the kid, with a straight face, said i don't believe 9/11 happened, i think it was all a government cover-up, and my son said, well

you do recognize that is true, that my dad must be a part of that, but we are allowed to believe what we want to believe from various news sources and i believe that there are organizations, there are initiatives to put good housekeeping seal of approval on various different internet platforms, you know, caution, this one is not reliable or this one is. but ultimately, i think this tracks back to the american people themselves. we need to take some response ability for this, and be more scrutinizing to some of the garbage that we are asked to consume and accept. and question it prayed well, maybe this headline is not

something i should just simply accept. without question. maybe i should look a little further at some other news source and see whether they are saying the same thing. part of this is our own civic responsibility to be well informed and well educated.>> your honor, the way i think of it is this, we have looked up recently and found that we are leaderless and therefore letter lists, if you think back over the years, at least i have always thought that there are countless sources that i could look to for the truth. and certainly as to the facts of the truth, and today there's

no one. no one certainly that the american public at large trusts. to speak the truth and the facts. you know, looking at you and me in the mirror, there's no longer a president kennedy or president reagan, nor is there any longer any of the number of great senators in congress who have served the people of

america and the consequence of that tragedy is weighing on the country today. i'm as positive as i can be, and we have leaders again and leaders in the price of national media who are trusted and respected by the american people, then the nation is going to wallow around in the cesspool that is the internet.>> my view is, a big part of our problem is, in any movement, backwards or forwards, you have at the core

the protagonist, or the antagonist, and then one circle out, you have a much larger population of enablers, who enable either through indifference or apathy, or passive endorsement, or because they are afraid to challenge something. and i'm speaking specifically of members of congress. martin luther king used to say that the greatest sin are not the actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and indifference of the good people, in the face of a real challenge, and i think that a solution to our problem is to re-incentivize political behavior among them as a congress, so that they are not afraid to challenge their political leadership and do the

right thing.>> but when melody and i and some of our friends were coming out of the restaurant last night, walking down the stairs, and i glanced down on the wall of the first floor, and i stopped mid step and i took a picture, this picture with these words, if i were to remain silent, who will speak? that's what's at issue today in america.>> okay, good morning, thank you for this morning's panel, my name is shayna steinfeld, i'm going to ask two questions that are kind of related to what you just said. my first question or comment that i want you to comment back on, i believe that all of this

goes back to what we've done with education and i think education has really taken a political twist for the past, ever since my 30-year-old were in elementary school and we have politicized education and infusing it with a political kind of band that is taking away from core american values and we have eliminated lessons and civics and core american history and world history, we are not teaching the holocaust, we are not teaching what has happened, we are not teaching our children for the past couple of decades, we haven't taught the problems with authoritarianism and that is coming back to bite us badly and that leads into my second question which is what we have seen on campuses right now, in the past couple of weeks, that has to do with people not understanding that history.

and i'm frustrated as a member of one of those communities on the receiving end of these protests, not exactly because i'm not a student, but as one of those minority groups that the government is not looking into the funders of the protests and i believe that the funders that puppetmaster the protests overall, and those puppetmaster's are to me very dangerous and they are very dangerous to america, they are dangerous to democracy, and i want personally, and i think that the panel and the aba have the ability to do something that i can't do as an individual to encourage the government to try to prosecute the puppet masters so they can comment on that. thank you.>> so, i think that the u.s. government needs to tread very, very likely --

lightly around investigations into this, you give one government the authority to do certain things, and how might another abuse these set of authorities, that is one thing. point two, the best education i ever got in school was in my second year, property law class and it was the day after the 1980 election, ronald reagan had won in a landslide, and my property professor, before he started talking about the rule against perpetuities or whatever, he started looking in the face of all the students,

most of whom at columbia law school were devastated like me and because my president, jimmy carter, who i worked for as a volunteer, had been wiped out and landslide and an actor who believe that pollution came from trees had been elected and i was devastated and a lot of my classmates were devastated and curtis berger stopped and he said look, i can see you are devastated. let me give you little lesson. 1952. his candidate for president, adelaide stephenson was wiped out by dwight eisenhower. and he was devastated but we went on and he went out on a limb and said i realize that dwight eisenhower was the right president for that moment. this is 1980 and ronald reagan went on to be president for eight years and in the view of

many, he was a great president. looking back on it, i'm not sure that's wrong. i'm a recipient of the ronald reagan peace and strength award. never thought that would happen when i was in law school in 1980. i'm not trying to suggest the same thing for now but that, for me, was a huge education. >> you know, i will speak to the educational.. if i may. what i have said over the past year or two is that we should have thought of this when we were not educating. and now, we are paying the price for that failure in education that you are even talking about. i guess as fate would have it, we are having to pay the price for that failure at the very moment in american history when we need that education.

so that those of us who are in this room and our colleagues out across the country, we are now on the pointy end of the spear, having to defend america's democracy and law and we are the generation, you know, that was educated but the generations that are going to be needed in the future have not been educated. which is another way of saying that, for those who are going to have to defend our country in the next generation, they are not educated. sufficiently to do that and it is too late. >> thank you. >> and my name is --

>> yes, i can hear. >> ever in san francisco. >> i just want to check, i think there's one more question and then we will have to wrap after that. please, we will take these last two. my name is lauren kiva. in 1964, president kennedy invited the major law firms on the east coast to the white house to found the lawyers committee for civil rights under law. it organized the bar in an amazing capacity. i am on the board of that organization today. we have an election protection program around the country. i've served as head of that the last 20 years. i think the time is now for you and your organization, your committee, to call upon the long first -- law firms to do exactly the same thing for the lou -- the rule of law, the role of democracy.

paul weiss is, i think, the most preeminent law firm and advancing the good of the public in terms of what they do for pro bono. the stances that they've taken and i would urge you to call upon the major law firms, the minor law firms, all around this country to do what you are asking them to do and i would just like to thank you for that, thank mary for what she's doing. >> we are doing exactly that, sir. thank you. >> thank you very much. >> yes, please. i'm sorry. i realize these last, these are the last two questions. >> i think the panel was addressed for pretty much all of the morning, the question of what is wrong with our body of politics that makes them willing to abandon, you know, democracy. if we were talking about 10% or

something in that range, you know, probably wouldn't be asking that question because you would see that as a fringe group. but i think the polls and the statistics that we were citing earlier suggest to us that it's not a fringe group that is, in varying degrees, prepared to seek something that's an alternative to our democracy. and some people are fundamentally opposed to it, but some people are maybe a little bit on the fence. i think there is a corollary question at play here. which needs to be addressed, maybe not by this task force but in the larger picture and that is, what is it that's wrong with our democracy now and the way in which it functions, which is