encourage congress is to take small businesses into consideration when you are making regulations. is actually an act that requires congress to do that, but there are a lot of loopholes that allow agencies to get around that. they are supposed to consider less burdensome regulatory alternatives for small business owners when making regulations, so what does that mean in practice? it means they have a paragraph or two singly considered it for small businesses, but we decided not to do it, so they have encouraged congress to reform the flexibility act to ensure that agencies are actually considering small businesses but wouldn't it be a great idea to have those for small business owners? i think that would really help

folks like you a lot who are doing it by yourself. you do not have a compliance team or a legal team. you are doing this yourself, and it means you have less time to deal with your business. >> thank you so much for joining us. ons because in the t five years, election issue one is the largest bipartisan group in washington with over 200 former members of congress in cabinet officials and a bipartisan coalition just advocating for good government. accountability. transparency. just the things that we all agree should be put forth, and lately we have been really focused on elections because in the last five years really

election integrity and trusting the outcome of elections is a big challenge. we shifted focus away from some things to really focus on elections by form the national council integrity but also very interested in other things like social media integrity and protecting children on social media. we have several different angles, but it is a big bipartisan group mostly made up of former members of congress that put their country first.>> one of these cochairs -- what is election integrity and her biggest concern this year? >> nice to be with you first of all. always a pleasure to be on c- span. a great opportunity for americans to tune in and get educated and talk about what they want to happen. always a pleasure to be with my friend from tennessee be we do not agree on everything, but we really agree on this issue. election integrity. it means putting country before

party. accepting the results of our elections. it means a peaceful transfer of power. it means us working together to support our neighbors and friends who are in our local communities in indiana and tennessee running our elections and making sure that they have the resources today to run these elections safely and securely when we know that china in particular and even russia are trying with cyber security measures to get into our state and local offices, and try to disrupt these elections and divide americans against each other. >> what is the bigger threat? external or internal threats when it comes to americans accepting the results? >> it is hard to say which one is the bigger threat. they are both threats in a sense because if there are

people trying to undermine our confidence in our own elections it's really un-american. and then we know that these foreign actors are about the business of trying to confuse and divide our country. they use modern technology with algorithms to actually pray on divisions. they want us to be divided. they want us to hate each other and to be polarized. if you do not know that you need to be aware of that. people tune into c-span to learn. the foreign adversaries are intentionally using social media platforms to divide us, so it's really important that we have our defenses up and that we come together at the end of the day. elections are not perfect in this country, but they are still better than anywhere in the world. there are best practices that

we all agree state should adhere to. we want the elections to be carried out at the state level under the constitution, but there is a federal role now that the foreign actors are trying to interfere in our elections and even pick sides and divide us through the election process. the worst thing that could happen to us is that we fail to peacefully transfer power. this is where america really has been exceptional friendly 250 years that we are willing to hold free and fair elections at the state level. accepting the results. not be satisfied always, but accept the results as mature adult americans and then move on. that has happened throughout our 248 years and makes us exceptional. we peacefully transfer power. the rest of the world looks at us in amazement. i pray that continues. >> what is that federal role? >> let's just say four years ago they put $400 million into

the election infrastructure across the country. the department of homeland security has deemed our election infrastructure as a national security threat. as an asset that needs to be protected at the federal level. just think about that. even election workers have to be protected. you need legislation to make sure they can't be targeted by people who do not like the way the election went because they need to be protected, so there is a federal role. even though local citizens volunteered to serve and carry out these elections, and states make the rules for how each state has elections, but on the federal side while the should not federalize elections we believe there should be best practices. when you have early voting we believe all of them should process the early votes so that on election day you can actually know the outcome. florida does it. pennsylvania doesn't do it. in

pennsylvania four years ago they are still counting votes days after the election causing people to say what is going on here? why was one person ahead on election night and another person three days later? we really hope that we can make a system where states will adhere to best practices, and we can have more uniform elections. not only about accepting the results, but improving the whole process of how they are carried out so that people cannot use the funds in any election system and say that means you can't trust the outcome. if we cannot trust the outcome you cannot trust it anywhere in the world because we knew this better than any other in the world. >> election integrity in campaign 2024 is the topic. pl?

what was your biggest concern during the primary? guest: well, a couple of things. one of your earlier callers i listen to 10 or 15 minutes ago, talked about their heroes. willie mays just passed >> what lessons have we learned so far in election 2024 from all of these primary elections that have taken place? what was your biggest concern during the primaries?>> a couple of things. one is one of your earlier colors that i was listening in on around 15 minutes could talked about their heroes. willie mays just passed away your he was a hero of mine. may be the best baseball player ever to play, but he played with class and grace. he was a great citizen. told the truth. we need our candidates on both

sides of the aisle to tell the truth about elections. to accept the results. even when they lose. losing is not easy in baseball or in politics, but when we run our elections fair and square and when they are counted fairly by our friends and neighbors that live next door to us the federal government does not count those votes. it is our neighbors in south bend or seattle or nashville. they are trusted people. they are the faces of our democracy. that is important. on the national security terms when we spend close to 900 million and our defense to protect our citizens and support veterans to make sure that we are poised and equipped to protect our country against threats we know when there is an aircraft carrier that is pointed at us with a missile system we do something about it. we now know that china is going to be trying to use cyber

methods to get into our election systems and individual state. they have done it now for eight years, and they tried to penetrate pennsylvania and get into the judicial system in kansas. that is something our national government needs to help our state protect ourselves by critical infrastructure with some funds to do that, so we get this question all the time when we travel around the country to bipartisan support the peaceful transfer of power. support some funds going to our local officials. to protect them against china. we say why should the federal government be involved in this? it is because the federal government is responsible under our constitution to protect our country including our local communities and election people

, and india just conducted an election to 1.4 billion people. the leader of the country. the prime minister did not win with what he projected he would win by, and he lost a lot of seats but did not question the election or say it was rigged or not a fair. he went and formed a coalition government and form some other parties and is prime minister today. there was not one accusation of falsehood or not counting appropriate votes, so india does it well. america has always done it will be we take great ride in this. it is something that we will continue to do and not let other countries divide our citizens against one another in election years in particular. >> starting first on one of minnesota's 10,000 lakes. lake elmo. this is moses. independent.

good morning.>> good morning. two things . he mentioned the federal government spent $400 million to help the infrastructure on our voting systems in the united states. last election mark zuckerberg put in 450 million. tell me what you think of what he did and how he was able to put that money into the system of elections in the last election. if there is belles lettres harvesting and drop boxes, and if people are not having to show their id to vote i do not trust the system. what do you think about that? thank you very much.

>> let me speak on both of those issues. the worst thing that can happen is for private citizens to take over elections or start funding our elections proposes another reason they need to do their job to put money up to help the state carry out the elections so that private citizens or private corporations don't step in and try to find our elections. i do not think any of us appreciated that are wanted that, and we were talking about things like belles lettres harvesting or drop boxes. that is where we do not agree on some things. republicans and democrats. because i do not believe there should be belles lettres harvesting or drop boxes. but i do believe there should be early voting and absentee voting and states should have best practices they all adhere to to give everyone access to the ballot. everyone that is legally a citizen to go and vote. i one of those that believes we should have identification to vote. that is a discussion as well, but if you have to have it to go to the bank to get your money out you should have

identification to vote, so there are a lot of things we can agree on, and then we carry out these elections and do the best we can in a free country and accept the results and move on. i think the caller is really well-informed and knows the big issues . the are some of the divisions that we need to work out. this is one of those issues where we should meet at the water's edge. we used to say that on national security issues that are more important than partisan politics. we should put our politics and the outcome of the elections on the side in the country first and come together and do what is right for the country. i think the caller is right on these issues that we need to fix so that we can restore confidence in our election, but we shouldn't erode confidence by one candidate not accepting the results. that is frankly not good for anybody.

the 2020 election results were clear. president trump even admits himself i read yesterday in a book he knows that president biden got more votes than him. back in 2000 al gore accepted the results of the election in a razor thin outcome that took a month to actually get to the bottom of and then he accepted the results. that is the american way. my hats off to him. i like the fact that the voters and independent because frankly neither party gets it right all the time. i am a conservative republican but do not think that either party has an exclusive on integrity. >> what is belles lettres harvesting? >> let me address those questions. one is the mark zuckerberg funding. private citizen coming in and supporting our local elections and state elections. whatever that intention is whether it is coming from a rich democrat or republican. either side.

it is not what we want. we do not want private citizens and wealthy people pointing their finger potentially on the scale and impacting our elections. that is why the federal government from a national security perspective and calling it a referee. straight down the middle. they should be the ones doing this. this is a defense issue. a national security issue. not a partisan issue you convince a democrat or republican to put money into these campaigns. moses is talking from the land of 10,000 lakes. i think that is minnesota. next door to wisconsin. the people in wisconsin are trying to decide in their state. it has gone up to the supreme court. about ballot harvesting and drop boxes. they are trying to make sure these are secure and fairly counted and it is in a legal

way of voting. this is one area where we might disagree. we agree on 99% of democracy and moving forward that if the states like wisconsin or pennsylvania decide that they can carefully and legally count every vote and they could be protected and whether it is a democratic administration in michigan or republican administration in the state in georgia. you have a state like colorado run by a democratic governor

who has great best practices by the way that they count votes and do their legal system. by the way that they have early voting. another state like georgia is right up there at the top, and they are run by a republican administration and lieutenant governor who in 2020 took former president donald trump on and said there was no illegal vote counting. there was nothing rigged in the selection. we carefully went through every single vote, and it was a fair and free election in 2020. that was stated firmly and boldly by republicans in the state of georgia confirming that joe biden won georgia in 2020. you have heroes and courageous people on both sides at the state level government deciding

this, and that is a good place for it. >> what does that term ballot harvesting mean? >> ballot harvesting is a way to gather votes together and count them in a legal fashion by local people. democratic and republican volunteers that volunteer in the local community. my hometown of south end, indiana. ting, is that what you referred to? guest: no, well, what you are looking for is more of a definition of someone's commission by the election commission in terms of being able to round up a bunch of votes. demonstrating the process whether it is a single person we coming in who cast a ballot or somebody asking for your id and asking that you are who you say

you are. those are the faces of democracy that count our votes that administer our elections in that we trust to have peaceful transfer of power and to accept the results of these elections. >> when you say you do not support ballot harvesting is that what you are referring to? >> what you are looking for is really more of a definition of someone's commission by the election commission to go out and round up a bunch of votes. i believe on the counsel that people should appears to be in person or through the mail and absentee to vote so that they are validated they are the person that is actually casting the vote. the danger is you rounding up a bunch of ballots all at the same time. that is where the mischief can fall into it, so i might have a disagreement there. we are not all the same person

on the counsel. we are a 40+ americans. all of them have served at some level of importance. we are hammering these issues out as well because we're trying to restore confidence and make sure that integrity is at the heart of these decisions. i personally do not believe individuals should be able to round up a bunch of ballots. they should go through the legal process at the state level. the state are the ones charged with setting the systems in place. under the constitution. some might say we are going to get these people the right to go out and collect these ballots that were illegally cast, but we are saying let's have a system of best practices on how any of that might be done to make sure the individual voting is a citizen. they are legally voting. and that the person can actually be validated as a

person casting the vote. as long as that integrity is in the system we can reach an agreement. these are the things that need to be fixed so that we can have the confidence we deserve, but make no mistake about it. in the 2020 election nationally 50+ legal challenges on all of these state levels. including the states that were up for grabs. the swing states. all taken through the court system. it was determined over and over again that there was no fraud that affected the outcome of the election. people who prey on these situations are not doing us any good if they are eroding the trust we deserve to have in our elections today in this country so we can peacefully transfer power. if we cannot as a nation peacefully transfer power any cycle we are losing the fabric that keeps this republic strong and free. that is what makes us and has made us exceptional in the

world for almost 2050 years. we have to be able to preserve that. we are fighting to protect the confidence that the people deserve to have in our election process. >> in his comments the former ambassador to india mentioned the state of georgia. ralph is in macon, georgia. go-ahead. >> good morning. in order to form a more perfect union we just cannot get this right. i am a black man who marched and demonstrated for the right to vote in the early 60s. now ever since then i am afraid to sit on a board to help with the election. i will not volunteer. we will be threatened if we go to court. i will try to make this as quick as possible. there is one we say who is

running for office who has already said that he would do away with democracy the first day he gets into office. he is threatening the judge. he has threatened the people sitting on the jury. why what i want to sit on a jury and you try to tell me about election integrity when this one can threaten a judge and everybody else even in a trial that is going on now? a person that has been convicted. this individual has been involved in over 4000 court judgments. what is it? >> i think i got your point. we will let you start. >> thank you for your call.

i think you started your conversation off with absolutely the perfect terms. it just inspires me. we the people. we have this wonderful country where we just celebrated d-day. american troops helped to free the continent of europe from tyranny, and we are going to celebrate her birthday coming up. the 4th of july. almost 250 years of us working and earning our democracy. you earned it. you work for it with the right to vote, and making sure that all citizens have the right to vote in our country. it is something that abraham lincoln talked about. we have to earn our democracy

every generation. it is not something automatically passed on from our founders who discovered it and originated it. now we have to. that is why we are working together today. we could be doing other things in our retirement. i am often asked. you have four kids and a wife. you have all of the stuff you want to do. why are you still working in politics on strengthening american democracy for democrats and republicans? i say because it is the most important issue to us as a country and as a people. we the people have to be out there calling into c-span. talking about why this means so much to us and that we are not going to let democrats or republicans lie about our country. talk about rigged elections but we are going to count votes be we are going to peacefully transfer power. we are going to do it like we have for almost 250 years

because of the pride we have in this. the problem is you so eloquently said is we have republican and democrats that are now working across the country. i was talking to a republican from colorado the other day. a clerk that cannot even drive and park in the same place at her work or grocery store because of people harassing her because she works on american elections and democracy. we have democrats and republicans like you that do not want to volunteer to secure our democracy because people are threatening them personally. we heard stories of moms and as that cannot attend their kids little league games because somebody is harassing them and threatening them and pushing them around in a local baseball game then you.

we have to stop as a country going after each other. china wants that to happen. russia wants that to happen. we cannot let that divide us. we need to come together. this is certainly something we can all agree on that we care so much about our country and america that we are going to do simple things like count every legal vote. accept the outcome of the election even if we lose. and work towards the peaceful transfer of power. >> troy, are you with us? i think he was there. this is darrell and eastpointe, michigan. go-ahead.

>> i want to talk about a concept developed a number of years ago. right now i think it's more important. years ago supreme court rule citizens united which essentially gave corporations the right to whatever they want to do. i can tell you from experience that if a corporation donates 100 million to a candidate you can be assured he is going to get more than 10 times that somewhere whether that is passed by both sides of congress or the senate and the house by both parties. right now what is happening is we have newsmax and fox.

cnn. cnbc. msnbc. cbs. abc. all fighting for their particular parties. when you add it all up the only parties there really fighting for is controlled. >> citizens united was actually a dark day in the history of our country where everything would be unregulated. all of the big money. all the problems you can point to can be traced back to power and money. now fame figures into that because some of the members are just grifters that want to be famous. you're really speaking as something it has been about. the influence of big money. trying to fix that without taking away anyone's individual liberties in this country. i want to go back a little bit to ralph from georgia because i

was born in columbus, georgia. he and i have a lot in common. he is a democrat and i am a republican, but i grew up a democrat. i voted for jimmy carter. ronald reagan made a republican out of me. a consensus builder who knew that some things were more important than party like our country in national security. like the tenants of our constitution. i just want to say to hang in there. one of the things we are about is to lift up those workers and protect them. we actually hold up those people that will work in our elections as heroes. as civil servants that are worthy of our respect and support, and to give them the

security. we push for legislation on antitoxin so that they can't be mistreated through social media and their information shared with other people so that they can become targets of anyone who doesn't like the outcome of the election. we are working to give people like ralph the confidence to know we can volunteer pubic can step in and be americans without fear of somehow retaliation. this is the darkest side of our culture. the dark side of social media appeared when people can pray on others because they do not like the way things go. that is not the american way. the american way is to put the fundamental tenants of american democracy up here. we can have our disagreements but we have to recognize the country comes first. my side of the aisle has a phrase called america first. to meet america first is that we do not put our party ahead

of our country. we put the country first and political parties are down here. i think most americans would really prefer their families to be first in the country to be second. the political party to be way down the list. we have extreme partisan activists on both sides that do us a disservice by preying on the week or trying to use force or even violence. that is the big threat for 2024. we should never accept any kind of political violence be we should never accept violence after an election as an acceptable way to respond to the election. we have to maintain peace. i would implore the nation to tell your friends and neighbors whatever happens in november we come back together and accept the results and we peacefully transfer power. >> you mentioned the citizens united. that famous 2010 case. a reminder to the viewers today is another supreme court decision:. expecting decisions out of the court. in less than

10 minutes we should start hearing what cases are coming down outside the supreme court. you can see is starting to get crowded this morning. >> here is yet another area where democrats and republicans and independents should all be able to agree. he has a couple of kids. i have four. when i sit around the table and talk to them about the next 50 years looks like for them and how proud they are to be in america. when i served abroad in india i was not the democratic ambassador or republican ambassador. i was the american ambassador. helping americans. helping citizens and helping to create more jobs in america.

our kids want to see america change for the better. they want change in the political system and economic system. darrell put his finger on one of the biggest problems in america. it is money. it is the power of money. billionaire money. to influence and direct what happens in our legislature in congress. in presidential races. citizens united was probably one of the worst decisions since the civil war decision. on the categorizing of freed slaves. we have a system in place today where a billionaire can decide to put $100 million into any senate candidate. $5 million

into any congressional candidate. democrat or republican. and just control it. that is not the american dream. i dreamt when i was in the fifth grade that i could run for office someday and may be win for my hometown because i have knocked on doors and went to fish fries and spaghetti suppers. to raise a few hundred dollars of support. not unlimited amounts of money that cannot be determined by one single person to buy off an election. when we campaigned in the 1990s we had limits on how much we could raise from an individual and from a pack. $1000 was all an individual could give us. 5000 from a pack. that is a lot of money by itself. that is enough money. now it is blown off. anybody can give as much as they want to give to a

particular candidate where they can run and self fund and by the office and election. we need reform and money and politics. that is something issue one works on. go to it and support our bipartisan efforts to put we the people in charge again in america. >> let me get to bob in atlanta. good morning. >> you have let these people go on and on. you have two issues. stop melt in voting. the next one is have same-day election results like florida. they did it successfully in florida and we can do it nationally. i served in the army in the 60s and 70s. was disheartening to watch president trump be ahead on the last election and all of a sudden start to count the vote harvested votes in the drop in

boxing means that no one washed. i have friends that volunteered. there were plenty of shenanigans that went on. until you stop you have to take a day off and go vote. that is the only way that anybody can trust the next election. legislation to pass ln like florida where they would process all of the ballots that had been mailed >> i think that he is right about certain things, and there is no question we are all working to try to get the same day voting results so that we can do will be did in florida, but florida knew the outcome of the election at 11:00 that night, and they had a lot of mail-in ballots because senior citizens in florida prefer to vote by mail. mail ballots in florida are very secure. they ran elections perfectly. we knew the outcome it 11:00 my. our organization is trying to get to pennsylvania legislature

prior to the election to pass legislation where they would process all of those ballots that had been mailed in before the election day so that they could hit a button in the the results. it is absurd for new york and pennsylvania and many of these blue states to be counting votes after election day. we are the group that is trying to bring some common sense solutions to this in a bipartisan way to put the country first. you cannot just point fingers and not jim and and try to fix the problems. we are trying to fix these things. you do not want to nationalizing with the national situation. i have to tell you. colorado only votes by mail and they do it very safely in security. it is actually run by the democrats. georgia cleaned up their election laws and it went really smoothly, and they should be commended. we have

republican states doing the right thing and democrats days doing the right thing. we need national best practices so that every state will do the right thing. the truth is some of the states like new york are still counting balance on thanksgiving day after the election, which is just absurd. there is a way to secure the absentee vote so that senior citizens can feel comfortable. anymore they won't feel comfortable going to the polling place and they are going to feel intimidated. we have to protect that right. you cannot say that every single american has to show up in person to vote on a certain day that is a national holiday if they cannot get to the polls. i want my grandparents in children's grandparents to be able to vote absentee but safely and securely, so there is a way to come together. just put the country first.

>> i wish john would have stayed on the line. he would have been fun to talk to. he was fired up, and i am fired up about protecting american democracy and trying to work in a bipartisan way to achieve that. he mentioned that he may have been in the military. the military votes by mail from overseas. we count those votes. those are important. we are not going to cut off our military from voting by mail and doing it securely and cutting those votes when they come in. i agree that we need to be able to count the votes on election day and not wait three weeks. that is something we are trying to get more space to do whether it is pennsylvania or other states that are not counting them as quickly as a state like florida. and we need all of the state to come together. i would end on saying that this

is not something that should divide us if this is something we can respectfully talk to one another about. we can disagree on reproductive rights or climate change and when it should happen, but we should not be disagreeing on peaceful transfer of power. on no violence on whoever wins. making sure that we count every legal vote. those are principles we have adhered to for 250 years and should be working today to make sure they go on for another 250. 10:00 p.m. eastern simulcast of the presidential debate following the debate, stay with c-span as we take your calls and get reactions on the first abate of the campaign season. the cnn presidential debate simulcast live at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span two, or

online at c-span.org. your unfiltered view of politics. this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of congress like no other. since 1979 we've been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government taking you to where the policies debated and decided all with the support of america's cable companies. 45 years and counting, powered by cable. several lawyers discuss the impact recent and upcoming court decisions will help