good evening. i'm john podesta. it's a great honor for me to be here with this great panel and on behalf of the american constitution society, i'd like to welcome all of you to tonight's plenary panel, which is entitled the levers of change, how progress -- i like that term -- how progress is made in today's policy environment. i'd also like to extend a special thanks to all of our panelists who had been generous enough to donate their valuable time to participate in this discussion. this discussion. we have several members of the administration up here, and given the pace of the new administration, i think spending a friday evening doing anything but being in a catatonic state is really an heroic effort. i know that the panel will be lively, and it just by way of one housekeeping business, you will get to ask most of the

questions tonight. you need to reach into your back in right -- pullout a card and write your question on the card. people will collect them and give them to me. if you do not have a card, just write it on a piece of paper. i just want to set the stage briefly for this panel. change is a word we have heard over and over again during the past few months. we heard a lot of it during the course of blasters campaign, and i think for a reason. -- the course of last year's campaign. in november, after eight years of conservative leadership -- i wanted to say it failed conservative leadership, but they told me to pull my fangs in. the american people went to the polls prepared to send a clear, decisive message that they were ready for a shakeup in washington. the >> the election and the moderation of president obama reflects really i think a sea change in politics and policy in

the federal government. and i think it mirrors a fundamental shift in american attitudes. our country has become more progressive on a variety of key political and social issues. research done by the progress of the studies program which is a project of its center for american project shows there is no broad support for a number of progressive priorities, for example 80% of the electorate agrees that there is need for more environmental sustainable lifestyles, 79% agree that there needs to be government investment in education and infrastructure inside. 65% are looking for guarantees for affordable health coverage for all americans. i think the polls that just came out in "the wall street journal" and the cbs and "the new york times" kind of america that. on a mackerel level the change in popularity level in the progressive label over the past several years serves as another bellwether. today, 67% find the term

progressive to be favorable. i think that is partly because president obama tends to talk about progress in being progressive. but that was up from 42% in 2004. now time conservative. so i think we have seen a momentous shift not just in policy but in the public's perception of what needs to happen in the attitudes of american voters as well as of the leadership in washington. that's created a host of opportunities and challenges for policymakers. from the $787 billion recovery and reinvestment bill that was passed 25 days into the president -- after the president inauguration, a wide variety of executive actions that hopefully will get to tonight. the legislative battles that are currently taking place on capitol hill. to the nomination of a new supreme court justice. we are sick of these prospects and problems influence how we make progress. and that's what we're going to talk about this evening we will export how the levers of change

have shifted, how those chips will influence the way we operate in a new policy environment. our panel is this evening represent expertise and a wide range of fields that encompasses this topic and once again i would like to thank them for joining us. i'm going to give them introductions at the front end and then begin by asking in turn each panelist to say a few words, but i am going to try to scare this a little bit by asking the question at the front and. and. let me get introductions first. lisa brown is very well known in this crowd or she serves -- [applause] >> she now serves as the assistant to the president and sacked under secretary position i occupied for president clinton so i expect her to be the chief of staff and the white house and the last two years of the obama administration. she cochaired the agency review

for the obama biden transition project that we got to work extensively on that. prior to join the transition, she served for six years as the executive director of american constitution society where she helped lead the organization to the tremendous growth and prominence that it has today. lisa also was counsel to vice president al gore and a member of the executive order for employment for people with disabilities before her duties in the vice president's office, lisa served as attorney advisor of the office of legal counsel in the department of justice. so she has seen a law from a variety of different perspectives. ron klain, who is into lisa's left, curly serves as the assistant to the president and chief of staff to vice president joe biden, a position he knows well of serving as serving to al gore. before joining vice president gore staff, ron was chief of staff to the attorney general janet reno and associate counsel

to president clinton in charge of judicial selection. mr. klain has been in five presidential campaigns, he directed the fall debate preparations for president obama as well as for john kerry in 2004. in 2000 he served as general counsel to vice president recount committee in florida, a role made slightly more famous than kevin spacey. on capitol hill he served as the staff director for the senate democratic leadership committee and chief counsel for the u.s. senate committee on the judiciary for then senator joe biden. no francisco, civil and criminal involved the federal and state government including enforcement actions brought by government lawsuits and gets government in congressional investigations can he has recognized authority on constitutional and national

security laws. in addition, mr. francisco advises individuals and companies subject to congressional investigations such as international coal group in connection with the 2006 sago mine accident. perhaps more important with respective of this panel he served as the associate counsel for president bush in 2001 until 2003, and in the deputy assistant attorney general in the office of legal counsel from 2003 until 2005. spencer overton is the principal deputy assistant attorney general for the office of legal policy and the department of justice. he is really only from a position of a professor of law at george washington university law school where he specializes in the log democracy. mr. overton was a commissioner on the carter baker commission on the federal election reform and chaired the government reform policy committee for the obama for american president campaign and he served on the obama-biden residential transition team.

spencer was an associate counsel in the office of general counsel, chaired the election assistance commission agency with him and served on the reform team. we didn't really have very many people in the transition so spencer took on 12 rolls. he is also a former board member of the american constitution society. and finally, preeta bansal's career spans private practice and she is truly the general counsel and senior policy advisor of the office of management and budget in the executive office of president. at omb she works on issues regarding the preparation and supervision and administration of the federal government for federal branch agencies as well as the ordination debate and procurement financial management information and regulatory policies. before joining omb, she was a partner and head of appellate litigation group in new york.

she was the solicitor general of the state of new york, special counsel in the clinton white house and justice department and law clerk to the u.s. supreme court justice john paul stevens. she also headed up in the transition the role of picking and putting lawyers into the administration. so if you have a piece about that you can see her about this. [laughter] >> after the panel. but we had a great chance to work together during that time. we were to have greg craig on the panel tonight. you know, it's tough in the white house and the west, particularly over last five and half months. he is not yet in witness protection but he did come up, he had an unavoidable conflict so he will not be with us this evening. so i regret that. but he is with us in spirit. let me start, i'm going to start in honor of her role as the former executive director of the american constitutional society or i'm going to start with lisa.

and i want to ask you a two-part question that have nothing to do with each other. the first part is you have been the executive director of the mirkin constitution society, and you have been at the white house staff secretary. we know which one is harder. you have to answer which one is more fun. and when you are done without, last year i think at this conference i think if you asked anybody in the audience, there was probably everyone assumed that if a democrat was elected president, president obama was elected to office, he would close guantánamo. he has pledged to do that. that seems to be somewhat more difficult and he might want to reflect on why you think there's been so much resistance to that, particularly on capitol hill. but i think most of the people in the room would have thought that he might have abandoned military tribunals in favor of moving the prisoners at

guantánamo through the criminal justice process, through the uniform code of military justice. and that you are in their really grinding and working on those issues, i would have asked it to greg but i know you have been involved with the. explain a little bit about why the president chose to stick with military tribunals at least one venue for trying guantánamo prisoners and has dealing with this basket of very tough national security problems has been for the white house. but you have to answer the first question first, which is more fun? >> first i want to say it's amazing to be here and it's amazing to be on the side of the microphone. is the first time i've done it and i now think i should have done it before because i look at these lights, i can't see everybody very well. it is really terrific to be here, and i consider it an honor actually to be here. and more fun, they are both

spectacular, both spectacular. and there is no question, everything i did with acs in many ways as to help prepare me for what i'm doing now. and the breadth of the issue that acs covers, which i care passionately about. it's not surprising that i ended up and work in some of the counsel's office because of the issues i care about so much. but the people that i met working at acs a lot of it has really transferred to the people i'm working with now and the administration. and from spencer and ron and preeta and john, these are all people who were part of the acs family before so i feel like it's just continuing it and feel very, very lucky to be able to do that. i think the hours are worse in this job, i'll say that. guantanamo, the president i think everybody here knows here's a very, very deeply about closing guantánamo, about ending torture. i mean, when you think what he

did when he came into office in terms of the early executive orders on saying no torture, i'm closing guantánamo. we are going to look at each of the detainees and figure out who can be transferred, who can be released. we want to try people on article three courts heard what he said very clearly is where practicable he wants to be trying people on article courts. and that presumption on its own is a big change and is working with the justice department is working very hard. there's a passport now that is evaluating each detainee at guantánamo and determining who can be tried in a article three court, who can be transferred to another country, can be released in transferred. and there's a huge amount of thought that is going into this. military commission's, he feels, is that there is a place, and now plays for them but there is a legitimate role for military commissions in a time of war, but he has also made very clear that they need to be improved

upon. and there are a number of administrative changes that he has ordered that involve no introduction of evidence of statements that were obtained by use of torture, have a greater choice of counsel, that the burden of proof on hearsay evidence is now on the government if they want to introduce the hearsay evidence instead of on the detainee. and he wants to work with congress and actually make it more changes. so under the changes he is engaging in working with congress on a number of these very difficult issues. and specifically on military commissions is a scenario where we are in the middle of right now figured out exactly where it is what the changes are that we would like to see and working with congress on that. i think it's become a more political issue, john, as you recognize with capitol hill. it's not always easy when you're trying to resolve some of these issues.

and is an ongoing conversation with the hill about bringing people into this country to be tried and i think we have just done that would go on he who was transferred to new york to be tried recently. and i think the conversation with the hill will be an ongoing one. [inaudible] >> it's really hard. i have to say it's not -- having worked with vice president gore and one of the things and he gave a speech, yes, several years ago, a number of people from the prior administration came together and talk through a number of these issues. on a lot of the national security issues it's not as though people are in extreme different positions. there are certain fundamental differences over things like what constitutes torture, but on a lot of these issues i think everybody is really trying to do the right thing, trying to protect the country. i think there's really is on the military commissions on guantanamo the desire to have the rule of law apply, but i think everybody is really trying to figure out how to do this the

best they can. >> user -- i'm having a little trouble in my mike. can we bring it up i think they're trying to bring them up and down. you served in the office of legal counsel. at a time that has generated great controversy in 2003 until 2005, a number of the teams at the office were withdrawn by the bush administration right before they left office. there is now a review of what went on during that time. but i want to ask you to follow-up on what lisa said. as you look at the way president obama has handled these cases in particular, what have you agreed with, what have you disagreed with, what surprised you if anything about the approach of the administration has taken particularly on this basket of cases on torture, on guantanamo,

on how to prosecute the people who are being held? >> i would like to start out with something that i completely agree with lisa on, and that is regardless of which administration lawyers you're looking at, these lawyers are always, always in my experience trying to do the right thing struggling with very, very difficult legal questions. take the torture issue. there was no lawyer in the united states government that was roving around the world trying to push on others in various practices. rather, when you're a lawyer in the office of legal counsel a question is brought to you. the question is can i do this or can't i do this when it comes to things like stress positions, whether it comes to putting a caterpillar in a box with a man and letting them and think it's poisonous, or even when it comes to the waterboarding. so this question comes to the lawyer, and a lawyer is faced with really a horrible decision. a decision that no matter how he decided or she decided, has

horrible consequences. if you come to the conclusion that it's not torture, or that it is torture, then you are potentially preventing the government from finding out information that can forward a second terrorist attack, another september 11. if you come to the conclusion that it is torture, then you are authorizing government officials to do what i think everybody rightly cringes at, a pretty bad thing. either way it's a bad decision but these lawyers are forced, forced to make this decision because that's their job. they have to decide it one way or another. that's what i think the lawyers in our administration did, and i hope that you all will never have to confront those decisions, but they may be questions that you have to face. when it comes to how the president has addressed a lot of these issues, and in particular, when it comes to the military commissions in guantánamo bay, and i think the president is confronting an issue that president bush confronted as

well. i think most people and most members of the administration eventually came to the conclusion that we would be better off without guantanamo bay. the problem though is how practically can you shut down guantanamo bay. you have a bunch of very, very bad people. there maybe some set of them that could be criminally rossa cute but i can guarantee you that there is also a subset of them that can't be, will he prosecuted. and they can't be criminally prosecuted either because the evidence that you have against them would b be completely inadmissible in an ordinary criminal proceeding, or perhaps they actually didn't commit a crime. when you hold somebody who is engaged in war, they didn't necessarily commit a crime. they are engaged in combat against a country. traditionally prisoners of war in a traditional war unlike the ones we have been fighting were not criminals. they were warriors. and as warriors you have the right to hold it but you didn't have a right to criminally tried them because they didn't necessarily violate a law. so what do you do with that class of people that you can't

criminally try. you can have military commissions for the ones that you think commit crimes because that's what a military commission does. is simply an alternative form for trying somebody for committing a crime, but what about the legibly don't have any admissible evidence against or the ones that come franca, you don't think commit crimes but nonetheless are people that if you release your preacher would pick up arms against you again. there's not a good answer to that question guantanamo bay was for better or for worse the best thing that we could come up with. and i think what you are all struggling with now is trying to figure out what is the best thing that you can come up with. and it's not that easy. so i think that the president and his this administration is really confronting any of the same issues that we did our tha lisa touched upon, all of these people are struggling with good faced with very, very good question and i wish them the best. >> hopefully,.

[inaudible] >> we are confronting a lot of these same issues, but we are also coming out in different places on some of his. >> absolutely. [applause] >> so, ron, you worked for two vice presidents. the constitution gives the vice president virtually no duties or power, but you worked for two people who obviously had tremendous power in the context of a new administration. and in between, we had another vice president who was an activist in the role of the vice president. so maybe we could take this conversation and take it to the question from where you sit, how do you make the vice presidency relevant, and maybe as

importantly how do you make it accountable? are there lessons that, reflecting back through three administrations that you would bring to bear on this set of problems, and if you want to jump in with lisa and noel and get into the substance of those questions feel free to get in that also. >> we'd did get rid of the man sized safe. [laughter] >> before i answer john's question though i have to say just personally, i need to take a second, just to say as lisa did how exciting it is to be here. i had the great honor eight years ago in a small classroom of georgetown classroom being an outside speaker which is now acs, and see how far this group has come in eight years. it's really just spectacular and wonderful to be here and be part of it. it's also to be exciting to be here tonight, to be here with my

friend john podesta. for those of you who share anywhere near the level of pride and joy i do over what the obama administration has been able to accomplish these first 125 days, an extraordinary amount of credit goes to john and the transition he put together and the job he did on behalf of the president and vice president-elect. it's also great to be here with lisa given her contribution to acs. but mostly i just have to say after my fifth acs commissioner i have spoken after four kinds of debating administration officials, it is nice to be an administration official. [applause] >> you know, i think i have had the unique role of working for two vice presidents and a very different and interesting vice president in between. i think with all of them, with all of them the role of a vice president starts and ends with his relationship with the president and what the president asks him to do.

al gore would have noted as he often said the vice president does one other duty which is to cast a vote in the senate when there is a tie vote, and vice president gore responded every time i vote we win. but beyond the tidal power, it really does come down to the relationship with the president, and i think in the case of vice president biden, president obama has really asked him to be a counselor at large to give him advice on matters of domestic policy, foreign policy, to take on special projects as they come up. right now we are spending a lot of time in the office including the recovery act and have a lot of our staff working on that. also, on foreign policy side of working on issues of nonproliferation and tried to implement the president policy reviews in iraq and afghanistan. >> must be vice president cheney. [laughter] >> implement the presidents policy and helping them move the president policy review of

afghanistan and iraq. but i think, but aside from the specific responsibilities the general rule of providing advice and experience and some insights as the administration makes these decisions. of course, vice president biden's case also a lot of that is a 36 year track record in the united states senate and a lot of relationships on capitol hill with working and try to help pass the president's agenda by talking with his former colleagues and staying in close touch with them and trying to help move that agenda along. we have faced the question of how to approach the vice presidency after vice president cheney's controversial tenure in the office. and i think we really focus on a couple of major things. the first is transparency, and some of those things are small things. things. that we do every night but out of over the vice president is going to be the next day. there are no undisclosed

locations in vice president office. some of the larger things, they share in the passport unlike vice president cheney's energy task force has all of them beatings in public, on the record. outside groups meet with us are all the schools and posted on the white house blog. until we make an effort to have a standard of transparency in the office that hopefully sets the right agenda and right on. and the other is accountability. i think we are working very hard to make sure that the vice president's staff and the president's staff work well together, that they are part of an integrated whole and serve a common agenda. i mentioned earlier and i want to take a second more broadly to talk about relations with congress, something the vice president spent a lot of giving his history. and people say it is a very exciting time to be in the administration. it is an exciting time to be in washington, but i think it's also a very exciting time on capitol hill.

i don't think we should lose sight of that either. this president has a very, very aggressive domestic agenda that by necessity have to deal with many topics at the same time because of the situation our country finds itself in, and is addressing those issues by working closely and energetically with the congress. and i think it is about relationship and the progress we are seeing on capitol hill already with passage of the recovery act, ledbetter bill, public lands bill, the tobacco bill recently, that relationship and of course the big work ahead on health care, energy and financial radio tort reform that i think really is the biggest change in washington and the biggest change perhaps in the long term of what is going to come out of the next four years. and the kind of changes, substantial policy changes we will see for our country. so it's great to be here at acs. it's good to be part of the administration. great to be working with our friends in congress and great for bringing the change which i

think many people in this room have worked long and hard to bring to washington. thanks. >> i'm going to turn to preeta necks and try to get my mic back. you are the general counsel of the office of management budget. probably a lot of people don't know what that is, but ron talked about the very aggressive domestic agenda that the president has been undertaking. in this administration, the office of management and budget really become a powerhouse across a range of questions, not just putting together the federal budget but the administrators is very active on the health care, he's very active on climate and energy, is a new radio tort reforms is in your baby weight. you have a cio which is implement transparency. they even did personnel stealing the portfolio from the office of personnel management, which was noted in the washington post

today. is this just a natural aggression of power? you have worked in state government. you work at the justice department. it's just more and more authority by necessity now moving into that compound that and that fence that surrounds the white house, and what your reflection on the way this omb is operating in the context of this very aggressive baby untrimmed agenda that ron talked about? >> i think in many administrations but especially this administration is kind of an agent for institutionalizing change. we all believe in change. change is a big work. i think omb is kind of implementation arm of presidential policy. you have an unbelievably hard-working visible set of creative policy people throughout the white house, throughout the various agencies. but, you know, how do you