there, and the vice president referred to her as a critically important person in trying to help martial and organize and coordinate the various federal agencies. that's something i always found when i was working for the government, one agency, another agency may not always see eye to eye, or turf is a big battle. i used to say the dirtiest four-letter word in the english language was you are the the. , and -- turf, and i saw that a lot. >> host: if the federal government can better coordinate its enforcement of intellectual property rights but does not make any other legal changes that the industry has been supporting at home and abroad, would this be enough for the content industry simply to better act under existing law and protect the copyrights to the extent they can now? >> guest: certainly it'd be helpful, but i think we have to look at the legislative the arena and bilateral trade arrangements. a lot of what's happening here is affected by what's happening

in the rest of the world. >> host: dan glickman is chairman and ceo of the motion picture association of america, greg piper is with the washington internet daily, this has been "the communicators." >> "the communicators" airs each monday night in prime time. if you missed any of this discussion with motion pictures association of america chairman, dan glickman, on copyright protections, you can catch "the communicators" again tonight and each monday night at 8 p.m. eastern right here on c-span 12.

>> now, a group of supreme court reporters share their stories. this forum was hosted by the georgetown university law center, it's about an hour and ten minutes. >> thank you for coming today. for our discussion of the book recently released by the university of michigan press on oral argument in the supreme court. i'm paul wahlbeck of the

department of political science at george washington university, and i'll moderate our discussion of a good quarrel. this book, edited by tim johnson and jerry goldman, is a unique volume. the editors have assembled a series of essays written by journalists who cover the supreme court. each essay focuses on oral argument in a case before the supreme court and offers lessons on the court and the role of oral arguments. as you know, the supreme court's decision making process is a uniquely closed process to the public, virtually all of the court's deliberations occur behind closed doors. one of the only exceptions to this secrecy is oral argument when the court spends an hour in public discussion of a case. as such, oral arguments presents a unique window on the supreme court and its decision making. the panelists have observed countless cases of oral argument having had the unique opportunity to observe what the

court does in oral argument. their experience gives us an interesting perspective on this public face of the supreme court. on our panel today, we have one of the editors, tim johnson of the university of minnesota's department of political science and law school, and we have the authors of four of the 11 essays. dalia, senior editor and legal correspondent of slate.com, lyle to her right, a supreme court correspondent who regularly contributes to radio wbur in boston, charles bierbauer who served as cnn's senior washington correspondent and is now a keen at the university of -- dean at the university of south carolina, and tony morrow who covers the court for american lawyer media writing in legal times and american lawyer magazine. let me say a word about the process we'll follow today. we'll proceed first by asking tim johnson, one of the book's

editors, to describe how this book idea came about and what he and jerry goldman hope to english with it. we'll -- accomplish with it. we'll then turn to the writers, they'll tell us what we can learn about oral arguments from their case, then we'll open up the discussion to broader questions about oral arguments. tim? >> thanks, paul, i appreciate it. thank you all for being here today as well. this project was the brain cheeld of jerry goldman and i. jerry is the founder and continuing controller, i suppose, of oea.org which is the web site online which holds hundreds and hundreds of hours of supreme court audio. and when the project is complete, it'll hold all audio ever released by the u.s. supreme court. as jerry and i began work anything the early 2000s together, we thought that it would be good to try to bring this process to many more

people. as you know, you can go to the supreme court to hear the arguments, but the seating is very limited. you may go in if you are lucky enough and hear an entire session of oral argument, but usually that is reserved for fewer than 50 people and often times fewer than 25 people. you can sometimes sit in the three minute line or two-minute line and sit in the back row for just a few minutes to catch a glimpse of the justices sparring with some of our nation's best attorneys, and jerry and i thought it would be great to open this process up to more people. with the audio online that was one way to do it. both jerry and i have an academic understanding of the oral argument process, and that is how we have thought about that process for a number of years, and we thought it would be great to bring the public a much more insider perspective, and who better to bring in that perspective than those, as paul said, who are at the court day in and day out from the first monday in october until the end of june every term?

to tell us, the readers of this country, those who may like the law, those who are interested in the law, those who like understanding and knowing about the u.s. supreme court what goes on during these proceedings and what those proceedings mean. now, there was another part to this book that was always in the back of our minds that really was able to come to fruition, and that is making a unique book that whetted not only the written word, what do the writers think about a case, but allowing them then to go in and point you, the reader, not only to the written transcript, but to the audio transcript as well. so as you are reading this book, you can actually hear the attorneys arguing with the justices, hear the questions posed from the bench and how the attorney thes deal with those questions. and so this book, the culmination of five and a half to six years of work in working with these great authors, melds their wonderful analysis with you, the reader's, ability to go

online while simultaneously reading the book and listen to particular clips of the arguments. or as you are reading the chapter to listen to the entire hourlong oral argument or in the case of bush v. gore, longer than an hour for that argument. so what we have for you today is a synopsis of four of those chapters and, hopefully, as our four esteemed authors go through their description of their chapters, you will hear some audio as well that they thought may be the most telling audio from those chapters. >> dalia? >> well, thank you, and thank you for having me. it's an honor to be in this company. well, i picked my chapter as a slight act of rebellion, and if you've ever read me, probably that wouldn't surprise you that i would pick my chapter as an act of rebellion, but i thought and have noted and i think everyone on this panel has noticed there's been b this

increasingly professionalized supreme court bar. and a couple years ago i dubbed that ten or 12 really stupendous supreme court attorneys who really limit their practice mostly to supreme court oral argument, i dubbed them the harlem globetrotters because they're so perfect. they never miss a shot. more and more there's a sensibility, i think, at the court that if you really want to prevail at oral argument, you just need to hire one of these top guns, and that wasn't always the case. you know, you can only just watch so many three-pointers and then it just is not that interesting. and so i thought i would pick for my chapter an oral argument done by a rank amateur, by someone who had never set foot in the supreme court, who'd only just been admitted to the bar who was a surgeon by training and really, you know, shouldn't have had any place there at all. and the case i picked was the oral argument that you'll probably remember from several years back, a gentleman who was

an atheist who was challenging the insertion of the words, under god, in the pledge of allegiance. he was challenging it on behalf of his daughter who he felt shouldn't be compelled to say the word god. he was an atheist, it offended him, and i think we all thought probably going into that argument, holy train wreck. it'll be a debacle. and for those of us who had followed him a little bit who'd spoken to him on the phone or heard him interviewed before, oral argument, he had that quality of being just the absolute wrong person to argue a case at the court. i don't know how to put it more subtly. he was just incredibly brilliant but very smug, very angry, this was very personal. he wanted really to talk about the custody problem he was having with his daughter more than he wanted to talk about the pledge. and i think going into oral argument a lot of us slunk in thinking, oh, my god, this is going to be a bloodbath, that this guy is too perm, too

invested, too angry and having watched these harlem globetrotters over the year, i had sort of acquired a sense of there are certain rules about how one conducts themselves. and the more dispassionate, the more emotionless, the more professional you were, the better. and any attempt to humanize the case or to appeal to the justices' humanity or to say that you had a personal stake in the case was sure to backfire. the justices' faces would go on screen saver when you tried to be emotional or personal. so i thought, as i said, this was going to be a debacle, and this guy was going to start talking about his daughter and his investment in the case, and it was going to be a wreck. and he did. he did go in and do all a those things, so maybe we can hear a little bit of his, of his opening? thereby. [inaudible conversations]

>> and this is what we thought would happen. >> shall i just read? >> can you stop for one second? >> no. >> no, all right. you can't. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. it was working when we started this process. let me try one more time. i apologize, guys. no, i guess you're going to need to read to begin, and i'll bring the audio when i can get it going. >> all right. so as compared to any other opening out of any attorney's mouth i had ever heard, michael started this way: every morning in the elk you've unified school district's public schools, teachers have their students stand up, including my daughter, face the flag of the united states of america, place their hands over their hearts and

affirm that ours is a nation under some particular religious entity. the appreciation of which is not accepted by numerous people such as myself. i am an atheist. i don't believe in god, and every school morning my child is asked to stand up, face that flag, put her hand over her heart and say that her father is wrong. it was the most personal, emotive, invested emotionally thing i had ever seen at the court. and the reason i chose to do my chapter on him is that it wasn't a train wreck. it was, in fact, one of the truly not just fascinating, but i thought persuasive, interesting oral arguments i saw, i've really ever seen at the court in ten years. and i chose it because even though -- and i laid out my chapter as the sort of commandments of what thou shalt not do at the oral argument. and right out of the gate he was ignoring all of my commandments,

emoting and scolding the justices and talking back and doing all the things you would never see one of these harlem globetrotter types do. he was really good, so i wrote my chapter about how good he was and how persuasive he was, how much i thought he brought the justices into his story. they became very, very invested in the custodial relationship with his daughter, they became very interested in her feelings. it was the sort of thing that flew in the face of everything we think we know about how oral argument has to be depersonalized and how the parties are not really people, they're just on paper. so i think i'll stop there and just say that my chapter is sort of a lesson in how, if you're not going to play by the rules, how you can sometimes if you're a little guy like the bad news bears break all the rules and still somehow win. i just want to be clear, he didn't win. he lost on a standing issue, but i still think he was one of the most impressive, forceful, passionate oral arguments i've

ever seen at the court, and it made me think we should have a lot more beginners. >> i just want to apologize to you all. the tech people had the audio working right before we started, and hopefully we will get it running. i apologize, dahlia, it was all good, and now something has happened in the interim. go ahead, paul. >> thanks, paul and tim for putting together this little show for all of us to promote the book and to draw our public more into the internal workings of the supreme court. i chose the casey decision that was decided in 1992. and i did so for what is, for me at least, a very obvious reason. beginning with justice o'connor's ascension to the bench in 1981 it was very clear that roe v. wade, the 1973 decision establishing a woman's right to have an abortion, was

under siege. and each time a new opinion came out of the court, the court appeared to be less and less committed to sustaining the right to terminate in an abortion. and, in fact, it finally got to the point where the majority was down to five, 5-4. and there had been indications, particularly in 1989, that o'connor might well provide a vote to overturn roe v. wade and, indeed, the administration, the reagan administration had tried several times to persuade the court directly to overrule it. i chose this particular case for our book about oral argument because of the audacity of the counsel who argued in favor of maintaining roe. the women's rights movement very much fearing that roe was in jeopardy had shaped this case to be a genuine test case.

and we often too loosely talk about test cases almost as if every one was a test of some new juris prudential principle, but this was put together by the women's rights movement as a fundamental test of whether roe was still a viable precedent. and, in fact, when katherine colbert put together the brief with with her colleagues, they asked one simple question, and it is entirely unlike any question you will see at the front of any supreme court petition for review, has the supreme court overruled roe v. wade? i mean, if you put that as a factual statement, the answer, clearly, was no. it has not overruled roe v. wade. but it was very clear that the women's rights movement thought there was a risk that the court when it addressed that issue would overturn roe v. wade.

but they also had very much in mind that the fact that 1992 was a presidential election year, and they were determined to turn this lawsuit and this supreme court case into a political campaign issue. to try primarily to help bill clinton win the white house. and, in fact, there is some evidence from the political world that this case and the outcome of this case did help. but there was another aspect of katherine colbert's argument which, i think, is really enticed me into writing about it. the hardest thing that a lawyer appearing before the supreme court has to do is to keep control of the argument that they want to make because there are nine justices, eight usually because justice thomas doesn't often participate in oral argument, but there are at least nine very smart people who have already done some thinking about the case and are coming to the

argument completely prepared to befuddle you and, indeed, to drive the argument in the direction that they would very much like to do. it's important to remember that the supreme court justices do not talk much about a case before they go into oral argument. so oral argument is really an agenda-setting moment. it really does shape at least the opening of the conversation that the justice thes will have when they go back behind the curtains and decide how they're going to vote initially on this case. so a lawyer who really wants to shape that argument, who wants to put some control under the first argument that the justices are going to have among themselves must keep control of their arguments. and it was very apparent from an early or point of the argument, and the book has an excerpt from justice o'connor saying, well, i

don't want you to talk about the standard, i want you to talk about b the specific issues before us involving the specific pennsylvania law that's under review here. >> i'll interrupt you there for a second, lyle, because they're going to the make sure the audio's on, and i'll play that clip then. >> okay. [inaudible conversations] >> i think it's that computer down there. >> try it now. >> [inaudible] >> do you plan to address any of those in your argument? >> your honor, i do.

however, the central question in this case, what is the standard this court uses to evaluate the restrictions that are at issue? and they're saying -- >> [inaudible] we still have to hear the specific issue, and i wondered if you were going to address -- >> [inaudible] >> you can see in that exchange the tension that was evident in the courtroom on that day because o'connor is a very precise, was a very precise kind of judge, and the court, in fact, in granting review had rephrased the question that it was going to answer in the case getting away from the was roe still a valid thing as to whether or not the specifics of the pennsylvania statute were

constitutionally valid. and o'connor was pushing, and it turns out that justice kennedy also was pushing, but as you could hear in a rather deft way, katherine colbert said, well, i will get to your point, and i will argue the pennsylvania statute, but i want to get back to the standard which by which she meant the standard, are we going to sustain roe v. wade? and the argument went that way throughout, and justice kennedy also jumped in with a similar kind of attempt to push colbert back onto the specifics. >> question the importance of your arguing that the fundamental right, as you've done -- [inaudible] any number of arguments in this case on time, place, and manner.

i don't think our decision -- [inaudible] but one way of understanding the fundamental right -- [inaudible] set of provisions here that i think you should address. >> the critical factor in the result of -- [inaudible] this court will accord the standard of roe, that is -- [inaudible] because under that standard there's a dispute among -- [inaudible] the 24-hour mandatory delay have been found unconstitutional and significantly this court has also gone so far to say that the husband's consent requiring notification requirements at issue in this case have also

been found unconstitutional -- >> [inaudible] statutory provision did not necessarily undercut -- [inaudible] >> it's our position, your honor, that if this court were to change the standard which has been the central core of that -- [inaudible] that will undercut the whole -- [inaudible] of this court and effectively overrule -- [inaudible] to adopt the standard, to abandon -- for less protected standard which has been discussed by this court on many occasions would do the same as overruling roe. the protections of roe flow from the fact that this court is a -- [inaudible]

on government to come forward with a compelling -- >> if you're going to argue that roe can survive on -- [inaudible] that's a lecture you can make as counsel. i'm suggesting to you that that's not the only logical possibility in this case. >> as you can see, the pattern that was set early continued. i should mention, to be fair about it, there were two other lawyers arguing in this case, and the chapter that i wrote deals briefly with them. but the performance of katherine colbert, i think, really ultimately proved the worth of her choice because she did shape the conversation that thereafter occurred among the justices. finally in the end, justices kennedy, o'connor and david souter got together and fashioned a way by which the court could sustain roe v. wade, at least in substantial part,

and they did, indeed, strike down only that one part, the requirement that a woman contemplating abortion notify her husband that she was doing so. it's, it to my mind is a classic demonstration of deciding what you want to argue, going in to make that argument, and no matter how hard the resistance is to you making your argument, to holding to it, sticking to it until the very, really the bitter end. and then hoping for the best. and it was a very classical performance by a really talented lawyer, and, in fact, to this day a good many years later roe still survives in the form that it emerged as a consequence, a direct consequence i would suggest, of katherine colbert's argument. thanks, paul. >> thank you, lyle. >> thank you, paul, and thank

you, tim, for including me in this project. the year 2000 was also a presidential election year, so it wasn't terribly tough to select bush v. gore 2000 as one of the cases to write about for this collection. indeed, it was a case unique in the history of the country for starters, in american politics and in the circumstances of the supreme court. obviously, this was of great importance. one might even suggest as a political reporter which was part of my responsibilities in addition to covering the court that the best five weeks of the 2000 election campaign were those five weeks between election day and december 12th when the court handed down it opinion in bush v. gore because then we saw all pretty much laid out in front of us and without the bamboozlement of a lot of political advertising what the courts were going to do both here in washington and in the

state of florida. and we were kind of commuting, literally if not figuratively -- figuratively if not literally, between the courts in tallahassee and other places in florida and the supreme court. in the span of ten days, the u.s. supreme court heard arguments related to the election not once, but twice. that in and of itself is extraordinary. and this was not something that had been ripening for five or ten or fifteen years in lower courts but was still festering on the political scene only days after the election so that not only were voters, the public, the world at large, but the lawyers who had to deal with it and the justices who had to decide on it all dealing in a very contemporary setting of uncertainty. what exhale happened? what did -- actually happened? what did those ballots that we saw people looking through or trying to look through

represent? and what were the kinds of things that had to be judged here in the u.s. supreme court itself? added to that from a broadcaster's perspective, i was a cnn correspondent, was the opportunity to not just sit in the court, but then to run out in front of the court and have those tapes played back b on the air, the audio. alas, it was only audio, not video as well. but the audio was released as soon as the arguments were concluded. so no sooner had justice rehnquist uttered the words, the case is submitted, than within moments we were able to turn around and hear justice rehnquist say, we will now hear arguments in the case of bush v. gore 2000. and so that unfolded, and people got a chance to hear what was happening in the court. what they heard from my judgment was two extremely competent the attorneys arguing. ted olson on we half of the bush campaign, and david boies on

behalf of the gore campaign. somewhat in contrast to your attorney, dahlia, these were extremely accomplished faces, although david boies had only once argued at the u.s. supreme court, he had been handling the arguments in the florida courts and was probably as familiar as anyone with florida law as it unfolded. now, what he encountered, and i spent some time talking with each of them subsequent to the arguments in preparation for this book, was what had become a bit of a two-track possibility in the way that the court was going to decide the case of bush v. gore. .. the court in florida had adhered to constitutional provisions, really a structural approach as to whether the court in florida

was respecting the desires, the wishes of the florida legislature in terms of how the electors would be chosen for the vote on the presidency, or whether there was an equal protection issue in the way presidency, or whether there was an equal protection issue in the way everyone who cast a vote within the state of florida but in particularly in four of the counties was being just. whether each ballot was given that same scrutiny, that same quality of potential for being counted because we were dealing with not only ballots that had hanging chads and dimpled chads and pregnant chads, which is to say ballots that weren't completely marked we were dealing with over-votes and under-votes and some that didn't have markings for the president and two markings for the president and a whole variety of

different ways the ballots were constructed from county to county. the most notorious of which was known as a butterfly ballot. we don't go into that details but you can get the notion that it had two wings and they didn't quite line up. what became interesting in terms of the arguments was which way and one of the clips i'd like to play is david boise representing al gore and the democratic campaign. and as quickly as he set out to try and make an argument on one point, he was diverted by justice kennedy. >> i think at that point then you can conclude that what it has done is it's changed the law but i think the first degree is the standard this court has generally applied giving deference to state supreme court decisions. >> but is it in line of article 2, i'm not so sure. i mean, i would have thought

that bears on the standard, frankly. when it contemplates when it's plenary power of the legislature, does that not mean that court has interpreting a legislative act give special deference to the legislature's choices insofar as a presidential election is concerned? i would think that is a tenable view. and especially in light also of the concerns about section 5. >> i think, your honor, if the florida supreme court interpreting the florida law -- i think the court needs to take into account the fact that the legislature does have this plenary power. i think when the florida supreme court does that, if it does so, within the normal ambit of judicial interpretation, that is

a subject for florida's supreme court to take. >> you're responding as though there were no special burden to show some deference to legislative choices in this one context not when the courts review laws generally for general elections but in the context of selection of presidential electorals. isn't there a big red flag up there, watch out? >> i think -- i think there is a sense, your honor, and i think the florida supreme court was grappling with that. [inaudible] >> i think it did -- >> that was justice o'connor joining the conversation shortly after justice kennedy where mr. boise started the words thank you, mr. chief justice may i start with bextrum and justice kennedy said can we start with

that first because he had two real targets sitting in front of him, kennedy and o'connor. he knew going in that this was pretty much a 5-4 court because the court had also taken the unusual step of issuing a stay on the counting procedures in florida. that was done on saturday. arguments were on monday. the issuance of the stay suggested that there were already 5 votes stacked against mr. boise and vice president gore and if he was going to persuade anyone, he had to focus his attention on kennedy and o'connor and if justice kennedy says, could we start here, there's only one response and that is, yes, justice kennedy, let's start there and discuss that. in effect, what eventually happened was that the five votes that ultimately decided this case, though, i would prefer not to say decided the election, that was sort of the carry-over from what the florida numbers resulted in, although, some people think the election was

only decided by 9 people, ultimately it came down to justice kennedy, justice o'connor and then the three much more conservative members of the court, chief justice rehnquist, justice scalia and justice thomas issuing a procurium, it was an unsigned opinion for the court. the authorship later became evident was kennedy's and it was only because kennedy and o'connor were comfortable with the equal protection aspect. that is is every vote being counted like every other vote that they were able to muster the 5 votes although there's one place where it says 7 of us agree and those of us who scrambled out in front of the court afterwards found that one and said perhaps momentarily, uh-huh, it's a 7-2 vote now, let me look. no there are 1, 2, 3, 4,

dissents to try to parse out the dissents. it came out to how the ballots were being counted. there was a very short exchange between ted olson representing mr. bush and justice souter. >> and we submit that it's incorrectly construed in federal law and what they have inevitably done is provide a process whereby that is virtually impossible if not completely impossible and i think it is completely impossible to have these issues resolved and the constitution controversies revolved in time for that federal statutory deadline. furthermore, it is quite clear that we submit the process has changed. >> well, if your concern within impossibility, why didn't you let the process run instead of asking for a stay? >> well, because we said -- >> well, what justice souter is saying, if you'd let it go you might found exactly how these

ballots had come up but that was not the intent of mr. olson and governor bush at that particular time. many justices will say that oral arrangements don't change their opinions. but that they help them close the gaps and narrow some of the inconsistencies. i'm not sure. but in hindsight looking at this and listening to the arguments again just the other night, you see justice kennedy in particular trying to wrestle his way to a conclusion that works for him. and it wasn't the more seemingly draconian article approach to it but rather if there's a way that he could find the result that said equal protection was not being afforded every voter here, that was a comfort zone for him. >> well, it's an honor for me to be here as well and it was a great, fun project to work on this book about oral arguments.

it's an intense and fascinating process. and i'm struck how intense it is by the fact where we are right now. we're sitting at a replica -- a replica of the supreme court at the georgetown university law center where the dimensions are exactly as they are in the court with the lectern the same distance from the justices in real life and it's incredibly close and i can imagine it's just a really nerve-wracking experience for the lawyers. i always feel for them and i'm surprised more of them haven't fainted as has happened in history. but the case that i picked to write about in a way is a lot -- well, it's a lot less known than the others. we've just heard about. but it is in a way the exact opposite flip side of the coin from dahlia's case. in this case there was a rookie

lawyer, a lawyer who had never argued before the supreme court before, but he ended up making a spectacularly unsuccessful argument. he like michael was totally passionate about the facts and the background of the case but it was -- it just fell flat. it was too passionate. and it makes another point about the supreme court. many cases when they get to the supreme court are at a much more abstract level than the trial court than the lower court levels. in the trial court the issue is the facts, you know, did the police officer do this or not? but when you get to the supreme court, the facts often fade into the background and the court is really just concerned about a legal issue, a constitutional issue and that's what this lawyer forgot. the case just briefly to summarize is called glickman

versus wildman brothers and it's a first amendment case. of course, the first amendment protects the freedom of speech but it has also been found to protect in some instances the right not to speak or the right not to have the government force you to say something you don't agree he with. and in this case it was a group of california fruit farmers, producers of vegetables and fruit in california, whoever -- who every time they sell a bushel they have to pay a dollar or fee into a federal will he marketing program and that then pays for ads and commercials on television to advertise the fruit in a generic way. it's much like the milk commercials you see or beef -- you know, beef, it's what's for dinner.

this group of fruit farmers did not like the ads that were being produced on their behalf through this marketing program. the ads were featuring a varieties of fruit that they don't grow, they didn't like some of the sublimbal sexual images in some of the ads about the lusciousness of fruit. so they decided to make a first amendment challenge to this marketing program. and thomas campaign, a lawyer in fresno, had been their lawyer for years and was challenging this program every step of the way. he knew everything there was to know about this marketing program. and as the case got to the supreme court, he wanted to hang on to the case like many lawyers do. but some of his clients felt that this was -- this is now gotten into the -- we're getting away from the facts. we need a really good first

amendment lawyer and they hired michael mcconnell who was now -- who then went on later on to be a distinguished federal judge. he's a tremendous first amendment expert so we had two groups of farmers, one sticking with thomas campaign. the other one sticking with -- or going with the new lawyer. they both filed briefs in this case and the supreme court didn't know what to do. we have two lawyers and we only a half hour for them to argue. so the clerk of the court actually flipped a coin to resolve this unresolvable fight between these two lawyers and thomas campaign won. so he argued the case. and almost from the outset you could see -- the first amendment issue of the forced speech was of no interest to him. he wanted to relitigate this program about fruit. and he started to argue about

stipulation 43 and exhibit 297 as if he was back in the trial court and there's one clip we have of how unsuccessful that gambit was for the first clip. >> what is the problem with peaches, plums and neck -- ncektarines. well, justice scalia, the solicitor in answering your question in that regard, i believe, mostly cloudy. -- misspoke. that there was a fighting in the disorderly markets. the records show here because we have a situation that justice o'connor spoke about in the nutrition case. but he filed a petition.

we sued. as a matter of fact we stipulated in exhibit 297 and i made that stipulation, that stipulation number 57 -- i'm sorry, 59, but that was the exclusive amendment. and the court -- >> just a minute, mr. kennedy. hold up a brief and say there's stipulation number 59, if you want to make a point make it so we can all understand it. >> very well, your honor. >> in that stipulation, they said i've got a problem. i don't understand the point you're expressing in your questions. i want you to give me every opportunity to show me that there's disorderly argument going on in california but not in the other 32 states. and the stipulation is that the

usda relies on -- >> well, you can see he was so wrapped up in the details that chief justice rehnquist became very annoyed and told him, you know, to stop it and then he kept going. back to stipulation 57. and it, unfortunately, it just kept going in that vein. he never really took on the first amendment argument that was very crucial to the case. and, in fact, he again got so impassioned about the fruit that he was -- that his clients grew that it became a real embarrassment. and we can play -- go to the third clip, not the second one, the third where he was arguing that his clients grow green plums and the ads really should have been about green plums because green plums have a bad rep that's people think that

green plums are unripe and will have bad effects on people. so you can play that. >> green plums. and give them to your wife and you're thinking to yourself right now you don't want to give your wife diarrhea. [laughter] >> i've never even seen a green plum. >> so he was directing this to justice scalia who was sort of -- you know, who was so flummoxed telling me why i shouldn't buy green plums for wife. i've never seen a green plum. and that's -- he wasn't trying humor but it came across as just terrible, terrible humor and it just completely fell flat. in the end, maybe that's the bell for me to stop. but in the end, he lost the case 5-4 and a lot of people think that if a true first amendment lawyer had argued the case it might have been 5-4 the other way. just one quick post-script, the

faction of fruit growers who objected to thomas campagne arguing the case were so upset that they filed a malpractice suit against him. and one of their counts was that it was malpractice for him to fail to refer the case to a supreme court specialist and i thought in a symbolic way it really symbolized the supreme court specialty bar had arrived. it was so -- deemed so objectively better than the run of a mill lawyer that it became the basis of the malpractice suit. it didn't succeed and there was a settlement but it symbolized that sometimes it really does matter to have a good supreme court advocate on your side. >> thank you, johnny.

well, at this point i'm ask questions of our esteemed panelists and we'll talk a little bit more about moral arguments. so i'll start with a question with dahlia you concluded your comment that an outsider could prevail over a polished insider because of his passion to win. so, for instance, and some of the examples you gave in your chapter that he violated the command not to use sound effects and so he said bam at one point. or to cause the courtroom to erupt into laughter and applause, which he did. so to what extent -- what is the interplay between sort of the presentation of ideas and being colorful and to present one's ideas well as opposed to the ideas themselves? when you think about what's going to lead to your success as an advocate before the court, how do you make a tradeoff between those two different objectives? >> well, i think for every -- for every story that i tell,

there's 10 that tony can tell. that is to say, i think that anyone going into the supreme court for the first time would be ill-advised to do any of the things that michael did. and one of the things that was so interesting to me was that really we were all dying watching this performance and yet it became clear that he was doing something slightly magical there. i think -- i'm thinking of an article -- of an oral argument this year where carter phillips was talking about fleeting bad words and a change of policy if one were say paris hilton going to swear briefly, whether you could be fined for that. and it was very interesting because cater phillips who really is one of the harlem globe trotters is astonishing but really doesn't do a lot of flash. he's just meticulously good on

the argument piece and not one to draw attention to himself or anything else. everybody was whispering going into this argument that he was going to actually say one of these fleeting words because he'd done it at the court of appeals and, in fact, not only had he done it but the court of appeals but the whole court of appeals turned into a sailor's bar where the judges were swearing and he was swearing and it was one of the most fun oral arguments and the scuttlebutt was he was going to go in there and cuss at the sailor at the supreme court and at the very last minute he didn't. and i think it was an interesting choice. to essentially say we're not going to be transgressive here. this particular court wouldn't have thought it was, it added -- i think they thought it massively detracted and he made what i think is a very, very smart choice to argue the case. and not do the bells and

whistles that might even work at the court of appeals and so i think for me really the object lesson is it really was an outlier. this was not -- i don't think anyone would take away from this particular case that you should go in, representing your daughter, get emotional, yell bam, insult the chief justice and make everyone laugh. every one of those things was a cardinal sin. he pulled it off because of some perfect storm of what he was and what the case was in that moment but i really do think the lesson that i took from carter phillips is don't be too smart. go in and be safe and argue the case the way you'd argue respectfully in front of a court. >> anyone else want to weigh in on this question? okay. so let me ask you a question, as you were describing the casey case and katherine's arguments itoundedike s w her guns.

this is the argument i want to make and despite all of your efforts to get me to deviate from these arguments i'm going to stick to my guns here. in contrast, charles' description of bush vs. gore and his quotes from ted olson suggest if the justices suggest they want to go in a direction, you're going to follow them in that direction. so how do you reconcile this? is your case the anomaly here? how can we best understand oral? >> if you know katherine, you know that she is stubborn. i mean, she was and she remains very committed to her cause. if you keep in mind that this was as much as a political adventure as it was of a jurisprudencetial enterprise, katherine knew what was on the line. it was a high risk.

i mean, she was really rolling for a major loss if she either offended kennedy or o'connor. because she clearly needed both of them. and from the excerpts that we played for our audience, it's clear that both of them came into the arguments skeptical of her go for broke approach. i don't think it was -- well, you could probably say it was an aberration in the sense that not many causes are that emotional. i mean, dahlia's chapter is about one of the ideas, and a death penalty case is, too. but most of the time when you go into an oral argument, the issue is not quite as close as it is -- as it was in this case. most of the cases are not bound to be 5-4. i mean, the 5-4 is still an exception. the court still decides more cases by 7-2, 6-3 so when you

know going into a case that it's likely to be 5-4, the risks just rise largely. but katherine simply understood that as a political activity she couldn't do anything else. and, in fact, she was lucky in this sense. no matter which way the argument went or the outcome went, they had a political issue. because if the supreme court struck down roe, then you could make the argument that we have got to get a president that cares about reproductive rights. while it was high risk in the sense that katherine may well have lost the outcome, it was not a political risk because either way they were going to have the kind of political argument that they fashioned going in. >> that part of casey is sort of unusual, i would think. there were two goals being pursued by the attorney.

are there other instances where the lawyers who are arguing a case have to go beyond the litigation that is being deliberated? >> well, most of the time when the case gets in the supreme court, you know, it's rare because the court gets something like 8,000 petitions a year and they decide 75. i think most lawyers understand that what they are doing is not simply getting a resolution of a fight between party a and party b. another case that occurs to me was the 2005 decision in which the court validated taking away a woman's home in new london, connecticut, so that they could build a new economic development that was going to support the pfizer pharmaceutical giant. in that case, it was very clear that both sides went into that argument not only hoping to win this litigation between these parties but to establish a larger principle. and so in that sense, paul, i

would say supreme court arguments, given how few there are, and given the limited scope of what the court is willing to hear, almost every case has a secondary impulse that the lawyers are going to pursue. it isn't often quite as blatant as it is in casey. >> charles, let me ask you about televising supreme court proceedings. you mentioned that in bush vs. gore, one of the interesting things was that as soon as the case was over you had the audio recordings being made available to the public. there is a great deal of public interest in that case. so what -- what would you say then about why are the justices reluctant to have their proceedings televised? and along those lines, what kind of impact would have it on the justices in oral arguments and the attorneys who are presenting their advocacy?

>> this is a case that i argued before in the supreme court one by one, justice by justice trying to get their perspective on it, those who would talk about it. in any sense. and the feeling has been that the court at least up until now has been very reluctant. it has complete authority to admit cameras if it chose to. but justice souter famously has said over my dead body. that will not be an issue much longer. not that he's in poor health but he's retiring and so no more justice souter saying no cameras here. souter's experience on that relates to the new hampshire state supreme court which did have cameras, and he felt that he pulled his punches in questioning because of those cameras there. that he might not have been perhaps as confrontational or that he was just hesitant in some dimension in front formulating his questions.

i don't know that every justice would take quite that approach to it. certainly chief justice rehnquist was sympathetic to justice souter's position and said as much as so long as one member of this court is opposed to cameras, there won't be any cameras. chief justice roberts is not that absolute about it. but he's not in particular in favor of it. i discussed this with him. and then you have others who say -- you can sort of anticipate who these are. you'll just cut me into 6-second sound bites. and lose all the context of the argument and i don't agree with that. but we do that in quotations. we do that in graphics. we do that in headlines. and if you had the completeness of it, perhaps that particular justice might not grumble as much. and i think personally would be a ideal place.

the 60 minutes fits kind of nicely, at least that's my argument. why not? doesn't the american public deserve to see this? >> there's another argument that souter makes this argument as well. it's a matter of security. and souter likes his anonymity. he's not easily recognized on the street. he likes to tell stories about how people encounter him in grocery stores and say, you look like a fellow who's on the supreme court. and he says, a lot of people have told me that, or something like that. but he genuinely believes that if they become public personalities and he is sure that would be a product of putting their faces regularly on television, then they would be confronted with a personal security problem. >> it's a false argument. that works if you're a judge in columbia putting drug dealers behind bars. but that's a false argument here. >> it's his argument.

>> it's an argument that, unfortunately, perhaps from charles' perspective has been persuasive with his colleagues. and so i'm not sure that i'm persuaded myself by the argument and as a matter of fact my own sense and i know charles agrees with this, is that if there is a constitutional right of public access to public proceedings you cannot say that that right of access depends upon what you will do with the information that you gather. and so my sense is that there should be, as we know ever since 1980, there is a constitutional right of access to sit in on court proceedings that are generally public, my sense is that includes the opportunity to bring a recording device and then to reproduce the argument elsewhere. but i don't get a vote on that. >> i think charles right that the justices, you know, they still like to be able to -- that

they don't want cameras in part because they can still say no. there aren't many other institutions that have that choice anymore. but i think the momentum of the internet, congress is getting impatient. i think the direction is in favor of cameras in the court and i think eventually they're going to have to say yes. and, in fact, justice souter unwittingly gave support to this momentum by his valedictory speech that i gave not very far from here where he said that the state of public knowledge about the structure of government is abysmal and we have to -- we have to improve civic education for this new generation. and, you know, what better way to teach about the supreme court than to allow cameras to cover their proceedings. >> i mean, if you get a case

that involves the question of when can a plan administrator from erisa benefits sue and under what conditions can that administrator be sued, i'm not sure if anybody is going to stay up late and turn off rachel ladlo and watch this instead. >> and i'll complete the circle since we're talking about audio. even more bizarre than the court's power to say no over all video is the court's clear policy on when they allow audio. and one of the things that's been driving me insane is that, you know, one of the -- the only times that the public gets access to audio are in the opposite of the erisa case. the court by some metric that is unknowable to human kind decides which oral arguments are going to get this instant audio treatment and there's usually two or three a years since bush v. gore but i think it's a

colossal mistake to say let's do the audio for the abortion cases, affirmative action cases, the cases that make people insane and that make the justices, i think, act out and that if you're going to allow only selective audio, my god, allow audio that's representative of what 90% of the court's docket is which is not all that sensational. but i think this current policy of allowing audio access only on the cases in which scalia is guaranteed to say something that is really a good sound bite or, you know, that justice souter is guaranteed to say something to make people think that the court is a completely ideological body, this policy is the complete opposite. >> johnny, can i ask you a question about your case. justice scalia once remarked that not infrequently a lawyer who's done a terrible job both in brief and in oral argument wins the case.

and you know he's going back to his client and say, you know, while we did it for you again, scalia then continues to quote saying there's no mark for quality of argument or oral presentation. it's who has the better case. so given the flawed arguments by campaign, couldn't the justices just sweep by his faulty arguments, which is sort of leads to the broader question of, so what role do oral arguments have or play in supreme court decision-making? >> well, that's a never-ending debate. and, you know, i think the general axiom is that you can lose a case at oral argument. you don't win it. and i think my chapter reports on a case where the oral argument might have lost it. somebody with a more persuasive first amendment argument may have flipped one vote and that's all he would have needed. but overall it's -- i think the point is clear.

i mean, there have been many, many cases where we can count hundreds, probably, where the poor oral argument -- that somebody who makes a poor oral argument still wins because the case -- the facts are -- or the cases are on his or her side but i think that still doesn't -- that doesn't answer the whole point and i think oral argument does matter. [inaudible] >> it made a difference for him about half the time. that he would go into an oral argument having discussed it with his clerks and listen to the oral argument about half the time he second-guessed himself and perhaps didn't go the other way entirely but at least was willing to reconsider the kind of instinct that he had harbored going into the argument. i would say, and that i said, of course, in discussing my own chapter, the purpose of oral

argument is really to shape the conversation that the justices are going to have because they -- and i don't know that the public knows this entirely, but they cast their first vote very quickly afterwards. the cases that are heard off a monday, they cast their vote on wednesday afternoon. and the cases are heard on tuesday and wednesday. they cast their vote on friday at the conference. a private conference. and so the court is going to put on report for itself an initial impression of where we're going to go on this. it may not be a very substantive discussion but it is a discussion that leads to a vote. and that vote usually dictates who get assigned the task of writing the majority and if there are dissents, there are dissenting opinions. and if the lawyers are able to shape that initial conversation and the good ones usually are capable of that, and maybe sometimes the bad ones are as

well, but i think that's why -- i think that's why the court won't ever dispense with it. you know, there used to be a time when i was younger, which could well have been many years ago, when the court disposed of some cases on the merits summarily without an oral argument. they just decided them on the basis of the briefs. but that was back in the time when they had 125, 150 cases a term that they were deciding with oral argument. so the court is capable of doing away with oral argument if it wants to, but i think -- i think enough of the justices think it's valuable that it's an institution they are likely to retain. >> i'll just add to that. a number of justices have talked about this and i forget who had made this quote exactly. but it goes along the lines of justice powell and that is, you know, there have been two numerous times where the way my mind -- my view of a case shapes up after oral argument is

different from the way i thought it would shape up prior to oral argument and what we often see on the news, in newspapers, online, not from these reporters and others the court affirmed a lower court decision today 7-2. and the readers -- and i've been guilty of this in the past as well, just says oh, the lower court has been affirmed or the lower court has been reversed. the case is not about 7-2 or 5-4 or 9-0. it's about the substantive law that is created in that case. now, this justice and others who have talked about how oral argument can affect their decisions -- it's not affecting their votes probably most of the time but what it is affecting is their view of the law that the court ultimately sets. therefore, a justice may continue to say, look, i'm going to affirm but in the end, maybe she has been persuaded that that affirmance or the reversal doesn't go as far as maybe she thought it would prior to oral argument or maybe it goes further than that. so the point is, and from my own

research and i know some research that paul has done as well that oral argument can have an effect on the legal outcome of the case, not necessarily just the vote that is produced by the justices. >> let me just add another point here. about the value of oral argument. in the present operation of the supreme court, 7 of the 9 justices use a pool of clerks. ea%2!v case that the court is considering whether it's going to hear is examined by one clerk for seven chambers. so what that means is that the group -- the group of seven is goia clerk's memo that recommends hearing the case or not hearing the case. and whatik that does is it rems the justices even further from an intimacy of the case and it

removes the exchange they will have on the bench and they have eliminated the delegation to a certain degree and they don't talk about that so much until they get on the bench on the day of oral argument. so i think that contributes to the sense that, hey, this is an interesting case that we're encountering for the first time when we walk into the bench. >> i would also throw in the notion is that a good quarterly may be what the justices are from time to time looking for. and they certainly choose the cases based on the best facts.sñ and i get the sense at leastwéf they are more engaged in many instances when they know who is arguing the case. certainly what struck me about bush vs. gore is the dialog. this was an engaged conversation. there was no one with the exception of justice thomas of leaning back and not participating in this. even in my own case as a reporter covering it, there might be a case i wasn't

particularly interested in that had an interesting and effective attorney arguing it and i'd have gone to court just to listen to john roberts argue a case. >> and it may be worth adding that different justices use oral argument in different ways. and that, you know, we're talking as though all nine justices use it to the same ends and i think, you know, going back to charles' discussion of bush v. gore, there are arguments who made up their mind 2 seconds walking in. i don't know that justice roberts changes his mind a whole lot based on oral argument. i think he uses for different ends. as charles said you get into a situation where advocates are literally ignoring questions from justices or to take justice kennedy's questions or justice o'connor's questions because there's a feeling there's justices to tease out something they're working on. and so i think different

justices really do go into oral argument with a different degree of open-mindedness. i think one of the reasons clarence thomas says he doesn't speak at oral argument is he says there's no point in them at all. >> thanks. i'm afraid we're going to need to wrap it up here. i think we could have of agç÷ conversation that lasts another hour on the topic of oral arguments.óml but we've been talking about the new book edited by tim johnson and gary goldman, "a good "ráráy of michigan press. i want to thank our panelists for coming and making the time to talk to us about oral arguments. it's been a fun exchange.ú"= and gladly there are no good quarrels on this bench.r i want to thank georgetown university law center for hosting our discussion and i want to thank you for coming and for watching today. thank you. >> you could watch this program again or other recent america and the courts programs at c-span.org.wv4 just click on america and the courts under the c-span series

link./vm'ñ and join us next week for america and the courts saturday evenings at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >>a the senate'swq bill passed a critical hurdle last night when 60 lawmakers agreed to limit further debate.o[u setting up the next vote around 7:00 am tomorrow morning and making a final passage vote more likely by christmas. later today, senate majority leader harry reid and fellow democrats max baucus, chris dodd and tom harkin will speak with reporters. we'll have that live for you at 1:15 eastern on our companion network c-span. earlier today, we learned more about work in the senate from a reporter covering the action. >> david drucker joining us from roll call. what does this mean in the healthcare healthcare debate.

>> the big task was last night's vote because this morning because it was the first in a series of votes as a part of the endgame towards final passage of the healthcare bill. last night all 60 democrats voted with the majority to end debate on a particular amendment to the herk reform bill. and we're here now -- they've done that and i think that signals that this thing will pass the senate and head to a conference committee with the house. and even though the majority leader had secured the support of his members in advance, you know, there's always a little trepidation before you get to the vote. and you could tell once the vote occurred and it was successful for the democrats, that the leadership and the members on that side were very jubilant and

very excited and they think this thing is now a done deal. >> what did democratic leadership have to do to get ben nelson on board in the end? >> well, they had to accede to his demands and offer a couple of deals as part of the legislation. there is compromise, abortion language in the bill. that will make it a little bit harder for women who want to use insurance with federal funds to pay for abortions. it would make it hard for them to do that. also the state of nebraska will never have to pay for the expansion of medicaid that is called for in the healthcare reform bill. of course, medicaid is a program that provides healthcare to the poor that's jointly funded by states and the federal government. for nebraska it will not be jointly funded by the states. it will only be paid for by washington. and there are a few other things in there that nelson wanted that he got. >> is there -- is it still on schedule or any chance of that schedule which now looks like a

christmas eve vote on final passage on this legislation? any chance that schedule will be shortened? >> no, the only way the schedule will be shortened if the republicans, you know, do what's called wielding back time basically saying although we have these votes to end debate or votes to break a filibuster, we're not going to require you to use all of the 30 hours of debate time leading up to the cloture vote. that there's no way republicans are going to do that. they don't like the bill. their supporters don't like the bill. and not only would they take a lot of flak for not forcing the democrats to use all the time, i think in their mind they want to stretch this out. they want to make these votes as politically difficult as possible. and, you know, signal that they're not going to go quietly. >> when that final vote comes, democrats, will they need 60 or a simple majority do for final passage?

>> well, final passage is simple majority. there are three cloture votes just because the way this massive piece of legislation is set up. last night was on a amendment which included all the compromises and changes that harry reid negotiated and senators like ben nelson and there were other changes. coming up on tuesday morning, although i don't believe it'll be as ridiculously early as the first vote, that will be on a substitute amendment to the main bill and coming up wednesday you have the underlying healthcare bill itself and christmas eve night you have a simple majority on final passage. >> david drucker of roll call with an update on the latest. thanks for joining us this morning. >> anytime. thank you.

>> all next week, a rare glimpse into america's highest court through unprecedented on the record conversations with 10 supreme court justices about the court, their work, and the history of the iconic supreme court building. five days of interviews with supreme court justices starting next monday at 8:00 pm eastern on c-span. >> next european commission president jose baroso takes questions from the european parliament during their meeting in strasbourg. questions will be economy, europe 2020 a 10-year economic plan to the future of the european union. this is a little over an hour. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: i hereby resume the meeting and i would like to welcome the president of the european commission.

but before we start, the question hour, i would like to inform you that the minutes of yesterday's meeting is already available. are there any objections or comments to the minutes? since there are no objections, the minutes shall be adopted and now we shall move on to the next item on the agenda. question hour with the president of the commission. i would like to once again welcome joseph to the european parliament. we start with parts one. and that is questions asked by the heads of the political groups and by other persons appointed to ask questions on behalf of the political groups. question, 1 minute and the response is 1 minute. there can be an additional question of 30 seconds with a response, which lasts for 30 seconds as well. we shall start by e.p.p.

[speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you, president. the expectations of 2020 have been set very high in our group but also the citizens themselves. they expect progress. they expect jobs to be created in an operative social market economy. specific proposals for strengthened small, medium-sized enterprise in europe especially when it comes to the development of capital and knowledge. 2020 strategy with a much more stringent and clear governance structure and the president doesn't want to be informed about the solutions that the commission has. we want involved. -- we want to be involved and framing the 2020 strategy. how are you going to make sure that this is the case and what is the time frame you want to set? the presidents of the council said there will be conclusions drawn in march.

can you take the initiative here. can we set up a specific framework that's put in place with objectives, with goals on the basis with this parliament having been brought on board. can you tell us about the timetable that you're going to be looking towards and who's responsible for that? are you, mr. 2020? [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. >> because this will be the central task for the next commission as i've presented to you in my political guidelines. we hope to have a formal communication ready for the spring council but i think it will be better to have the formal conclusions only in the june council. that is going to be my proposal so we can have and he very much wish it full participation and ownership by this parliament for the strategy.

at the european council level there was also a prediscussion this time about the economy and, in fact, i've encouraged european council from the council side to take full leadership as well and force the mechanisms of governance. as you know five years ago when you have launched the strategy there was a resistance of some member states to follow some recommendations of the report. i think this time there are conditions to a reinforced system of governance in the strategy. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much, mr. president. now on behalf of the alliance of socialists and democrats. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you, president. president of the commission, the year 2009 is coming to an end under very difficult circumstances. high levels of unemployment, economic difficulties, budgetary problems and at the same time

five years of the barroso commission is drawing to an end. what conclusions do you draw from the first five years that you will carry over into your second five years if the commission is confirmed particularly when it comes to economic and social issues. what messages would you like to give to our citizens and also to their commissioners what should be different in this new five-year period? i think we should work together particularly when it comes to our economic and social targets to set new priorities, new goals to avoid what has brought us into this situation today. so what consequences do you draw from your first five years and what do you want to do differently and better in the coming five years to be able to contribute to citizens' wishes. >> first of all, i think this parliament voted again for man date for myself is a signal that there is a support for the action we have been taking.

having said this, of course, there are issues that we have to change and to improve. the situation today is different. there is much more a sense of social urgency than before. as i've said very often, most important problem today we face in europe and most likely we are going to face for some time is unemployment. so we have not only to find new sources of growth but we have to see what was wrong with the previous model of growth. it was obvious that the previous model of growth was exhausted. yet they created some artificially bubbles not in the financial sector but in other seshlts. -- sectors. and also from an energy and climate point of view so that is the center of my strategy. the strategy i put forward to the parliament and what i hope to develop and with the next commission and, of course, in a very close association with this parliament. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. 30-second question.

if i may, president, just ask a supplementary question if during the hearings within this parliament we reach the decision that the distribution of portfolios doesn't correspond to that objective and we make proposals to change the portfolios, are you in principle prepared to enter into a discussion in that regard and to make changes or is that something you would reject or are you prepared to consider it. thank you. >> the competence of all the institutions and it is clearly stated in the lisbon treaty that the internal organization of the college and the commission services is a responsibility of the commission. i'm always ready to listen to your suggestions and also to your comments. i'm always open. and, in fact, some of the innovations -- we're following some debate with your group and other groups. but i really count on your support for the full respect of

the competence of the commission as i will always respect the competence of the parliament. so i'm always open to listen to your suggestions but, in fact, i think we should concentrate more on matters of policy, of substance, the organization of the commission, i believe, that after five years of every day work, i am pretty informed of what can be the best way of allocating resources. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. additional question and response should last for 30 seconds. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: president, i want to concentrate on the situation in greece. the situation is very worrying if you look at the figures, we've got a government agreement

at 12.7% and a debt of more than 130%. this is the situation, president, that i saw when i was a young minister for finances in 1985 in belgium. i could never forget those figures, 12.7% deficit at the state level. so it's obvious that the greeks are going to have to do a great deal. they're going to have carry out reforms. but we can do things as well, presidents of the commission. we can make sure that the costs of the debt at state level can be reduced at state level by bringing in an obligation at the european level whereby we can cover more of the debt that is there. more than hundreds of millions of euros is not covered by a debt of -- a government debt. it's not covered 'cause we don't have this obligation. there's a problem of liquidity there and i want to know if you could take the initiative and

make sure that euro-bombed market can be put in place because that can really help. obviously, the greeks have to do something. i'm not disputing that. [speaking in native tongue] >> translator: thank you very much. time for the response. >> i was reassured by yesterday prime minister's commitments that through permanent expenditure cuts and also revenue increases. we believe the current budget for 2010 that is discussed now in the greek parliament and the prime minister's statements are steps in the right direction. i've followed this with the previous government and the present government namely in the public finances. and the presentation by the prime minister of greece and he's aware of the problem and he has shown us his determination to address it. greece will submit to the commission in the course of january in the stability program.

i trust that this program will conclude concrete measures to strengthen fiscal adjustment 2010 and to ensure lasting consolidation of public finances. naturally the commission will continue to monitor very closely the macroeconomic and fiscal situation and implementations of the measures in greece. having said this i don't consider it improper that it states to liberate on possible scenarios. we believe that greece is now taking the proper measures and we should support greece in the enforcement of those matters. . ..

the u.s. are paying a lower level than the germans even though the german public finances are in better shape than the americans. this is an urgent reason to do this. >> thank you very much. >> not contemplating at this stage the measures you have been suggesting and it is not appropriate to link these proposals to specific situations today. it could, in fact, elect -- let's be honest about this. these countries have a specific obligation that comes to implementing conditions of the prospects. it is important for them and the results of their economy but

also important -- at this moment, suggesting there would be a solution outside the efforts -- not the best way to help our good friend to implement discrimination measures. >> thank you very much. >> [speaking native tongue]] acquistion. we think the approach you have taken is very presidential. and basically making sure you

are very powerful. -- how you deal with that is a puzzle for you but there seems to be some sort of homeland security -- climate change, that is fine but if we are going to have a climate commissioner, we need to make short behind this climate commissioner there is real power and they get access to energy environments -- we can't see that happening. >> one question regarding the portfolio together on climate. regarding justice and security, i have forwarded a suggestion made by many of you to have a

specific portfolio more centered, if it meets your approval she will be commissioner for citizenship. we have a commissioner for home affairs and this is what happens with most but not all member states where there the minister of the interior and a minister for justice. it is more efficient so they can work with their police in respective council. also it will be -- in terms of the amount of work, program, a very ambitious program where this parliament, lot of important things. it justifies two different commissions. not just the role of the president or the commission. it has to do with the need to have division of labor in an important area.

i want the commissioner to have concerns and for the commissioner of security to do it. >> do you agree? >> thank you very much. >> translator: a supplementary question. how are you going to ensure the climate change commissioner is strong? has teeth? is covered in this structure? the second possibility, another issue which we think doesn't make sense, the technology you advocate, this is in health, in agriculture. >> i am happy to see you are happy with climate change. there's a lot to do.

it will not be the end of the road. mainstream climate change in all the sectors of the commission. many others, almost all policy in the european union, some impact on climate action to research from enterprise and industry to maritime affairs. but you have a dedicated climate change. i want the commissioner for climate change to ask for instruments to pursue policy but she has to do it in cooperation with the other commissioners and the commissioner for energy and also this is such an important policy that has an important -- >> on behalf of the european

group. i would like to ask about the summit that took place two years ago with the european union ukraine summit. when i was in kiev i heard the european side refused to enter the statement into the declaration and i am concerned about that. the delegation refused the monument to the victims -- currently a customary -- >> it was a successful meeting. our friends have to do more if they want us to help them more. i want to tell you i have been

spending more time working on ukrainian issues than most of the members so that we have potential for greater concerns. that is why we have offered them -- the european union created an agreement -- that you can give to a country. this is not possible. there was some discussion but if you look at the final accomplishment it is reaffirmed that it is a european country. we want to be closer with us. i believe it was a productive meeting but we cannot expect to create a new status for ukraine. the last one was in paris.

we have granted the association or new status. it is honest and open and friendly. >> on the house group -- >> president -- i have a question to put to you. the meritorious proposal. nobody picked up on it and introduced it. everybody always says if people don't bring it in all across the board at the same time it won't happen. maybe if the council decided on it, perhaps this should not be put out to grace. maybe we should see it introduced now. how do you see that?

>> if there is an overall global action we should support it. i personally supported it in discussion with the european council. the european council asked for ideas on that and we are preparing it. also the issue of financing. i personally believe that if you want to meet our obligations regarding the fight against climate change it cannot only be the money from our budgets. it is obvious that our budget are under such pressure that we cannot have the resources from our national budget in next year's alone to fight climate change. we need to talk about global financial sections that seems to me a very good it and you are working on this area, at the appropriate time. i hope the commission will come with proposals on these areas.

>> europe freedom and democracy group. >> jose barroso, this was to be a closure in northern england. this is due to a target reduction of 20% in carbon emissions. thanks to the carbon credits we can no longer employs 5,000 steelworkers including suppliers. we have the spectacle of the british government admitting its hands are tied on this issue because of punitive competition law. the real gains from stopping production, the carbon allowances allocates the nation's trade and insistence which is six hundred million pounds over the next three years. surprise, guess what?

the heads of the foundation, one must ask, it own quarters. the question i would like to ask is okay. is it now, official policy to open the census to companies -- let me finish. let me finish. they can opt for their business to countries like india. >> the insinuation that you make, i cannot comment. if i was involved by would put it to the court. concerning the issue at stake, you said the british government said this was in position from the european commission days ago that they have been pushing the

european union on the fight against climate change whether we like it or not. the common agenda today at the european union is to reduce the global emissions of greenhouse gases and consequences in place of the industry. we want industry to be kept in europe and another kind of industry, less energy consuming and more friendly to the environment. >> an additional question. >> the question was is it official policy to offer incentives to companies that outsource the business to countries like india? you didn't answer the question. please answer it. >> no. >> can i come back one more time? are want to respond to this?

>> blue card is not working now because this discussion between two people. it is difficult to involve blue card. the additional question was i don't know which person. >> it is currently unattached. >> microphone for the speaker. the european commission issues declaration to qualify troubling and ambiguous has stated to member states who might be tempted to take similar

decisions that there was a need to respect fundamental rights like freedom of religion. this requires clarification from you and especially given the opinion that all european people would have voted in vast majorities had they had a chance to do so. jose barroso, have a european countries the right to put the referendum, the same as another 20 ninth of november? yes or no with the commission opposed a sovereign dissident taken by our people since they voted like the swiss. this is more totalitarian and democratic and we end up to that. >> translator: it is the sovereign right of members states to take decisions according to their constitutions to decide if they want to hold a referendum or not and i won't

make any hypothetical declarations on hypothetical referendums. what i can say is is up to a member state in such a situation to take the decision they see fit. i don't wish to had anticipated potential referendum being held in a country or what the outcome of the referendum might be. the commission has competence when it comes to very fine measures or decisions taken by members states when it comes to implementation of european legislation and the european commission has the right to reduce it. >> thank you, mr. president. another question. >> the question was clear. it wasn't about the hypothetical referendum. the referendum would be identical to the referendum put before the swiss people if one of the member states were to ask

the same question by way of referendum. the same question -- do member states have the right to do so and would the commission approved a sovereign decision taken by people of europe? >> it is a hypothetical question. by french is not as good as yours but if you use what if, that is a hypothetical question. that is a hypothetical statement. i don't have -- reality is already complex enough. what i can tell you is the commission is against any form of discrimination that includes discrimination when it comes to religion. that is a clear position. that is the commission of all democratic member states of the european union. i am not going to comment on a

hypothetical referendum. >> we have concluded the questions. thank you very much for your questions and the response. this is related to europe of 2020. it is similar -- we have one minute to ask questions. >> thank you, president. i wanted to ask a question of the commission. within the socialist group that had a question on the hearings. the commissioner's hearings. from the socialist group there are no political gains to change

portfolios. we do not have the competence to change the portfolios. however, the competence of the president of the commission. that is where it is chosen from our political group, from the liberals and socialist group. we should not have the confidence to change portfolios now, changing portfolios from the proposed commissioners. after the question -- >> it was not a question so i do not have to answer. i would like to say the following. the principle of loyalty between the institutions and also now that we have a new treaty, we need to respect the competence of each institution. i said to you how important it is to have a special

relationship between the commission and the parliament and i will work for that. but this means the respect of the competence of each institution in its own field. >> thank you very much. we were talking about europe 2020. for one minute. >> president of the commission referred in a speech in the beginning to the earlier models on what is wrong with them but what is wrong with them is the fact that the good programs, member states do as they please. they would not have carrots and sticks he enough to direct the

member states's behavior. i noticed the behavior does not include enough thinking on how member states should be directed. i would like to ask if the commission plans to use the articled 121 and the sanctions here of member states if the government doesn't abide by or doesn't want to do. doesn't abide by these programs. >> thank you for the question behind your question. my intention is to propose to member states to bring forth economic governance in new york. we have an occasion to do it. probably you have read an interview of one of my predecessors which said it failed in '93 when he proposed the plan for the nation mainly on social members refused by the member states. that was interesting because i

ran to see what i said then. one of those supporting a reinforced -- the member states in that area -- it was not possible. when there was a revision of the strategy we came to the proposal based on the report that was refused by members. after this crisis, they are much more aware of the need to have real coordination in response to the crisis. we need the support of the member states to achieve this. we need them because some of those policies are made at the national level and some at the community level and i am encouraged by the european council and the new presence of the council. he already announced he wants a formal exchange at the beginning of february. i hope that will be a way of

having more commitment for mechanisms of governance of the european union. >> thank you very much. >> my microphone is working. if i could ask the services to give us a knot of the head or something when they have recognized as. otherwise this procedure is providing a bit of athletic activity. 2020. we are seeing the proceeding that has not made us the leading economy. it is a bit of a mirage. for the years ahead, 2010 onward, looks like an oasis of stability for the citizens of europe. reading in your memo, talking

about internationalizing the ones driving job growth. don't you think the urgent issue is to stabilize, to reassure, can you commit today to the commission, opposing any regulation frenzy when it comes to these areas of policy so that the principle is applied? >> this was one of the priorities of this commission and will be a priority for the forthcoming commission as well. the ones who create jobs are created a small -- this is particularly for small and medium enterprises. there is a potential that be drawn on. the international dimension is

crucial too because the medium sized enterprises still encounters many difficulties when they try to work the markets. so i think this is one of the priorities of the new strategy, it is a strategy to focus more international dimensions. today globalization is making its effect proactive to allow us to win the battle. >> i would like to explain is a very important question by frederique ries. we started to prepare the least of speakers at 3:00. when we started our discussion. to your blue cards to people. we can give another speaker status. is impossible to talk during

this meeting. if you wish you can keep your cards and we will take the next speaker in one minute. we can try to put on the list the rest of the people who would like to speak. i can tell you very honestly is impossible to have so many speakers. i have about 30 beginning at 3:00. we started to deal with the list. i am sorry, colleagues. if anybody would like to ask his name, please keep it to one minute. >> thank you. president of the commission i have a question. in the 2020 strategy and particularly the reinforced governance system. what are you going to do about

lobbies? when we are looking at 2020, they will be lobbying across the board. the parliament and the council and you will be aware as well that there is an institutional debate on what to do. i just wonder who in the commission will be responsible, which commissioner and what will his mandate be. what i would like to see and i am a member of an institutional group. i would like to see mandatory registration system. that helps transparency and it also means citizens will understand better how decisions are taken at the european level one not counsel commission and parliament, thank you. >> >> translator: that is a very important problem. during my commission period in office we have made progress.

you mentioned the vice-president and with him we have done a great deal to try to make progress. we have done a great deal on registering this as well. to my mind i think we need to recognize the best way of dealing with this problem is through transparency, by not hiding information. that is the normal way of proceeding in an open economy. we hear different opinions expressed and they are contradictory. on those lines the commission intends to commit its actions. more transparency when it comes to contact with different representatives perhaps with different interests be they lobbyists or trade unions or specific points. the person responsible, if you give him your support, is the vice-president. he will be responsible for administration and that will be his task as well. >> mr. president, i welcome your

vision for 2020. you show that even in the dark days of recession you can dream of utopia. i do welcome your comments on european research areas. i represent cambridge, the leading research that is already seeing great successes in a high-tech biotech and if we are to turn your dreams into anything like reality, we could do it listening or learning from the cambridge experience. research needs funding. innovative businesses need funding, world-class innovation needs world-class funding. last week i met the wellcome trust, largest cherry. last year they gave 3-quarters of a billion euros to medical research. they came to brussels to sell this parliament that if we pass

the legislation drafted on alternative investments we cut their funding by two thirds. please don't say one thing or do another. >> please keep your time because we would like to give the floor to more people. >> congratulations to cambridge. cambridge is one of the greatest universities in europe and the world and it is precisely because we don't have so many cameras in europe that they have been working to have a real research area because cambridge is an important university. they are quite international and able to attract different funding. in other countries especially small countries, some of the tourist countries they don't have that kind of resources. that is why we need not only private funding like the ones we mentioned, welcome all the force of the foundation and the ones we mention but also public

funding from the state and the european union budget. that is one of the points for the european union budget. the investment managers, i don't see the link. we should not use one thing or the other. is important -- the financial markets considering what happened. it is problems. >> >> translator: i would like to tell you that when talking about

the ambitions, our country, entered into the strategy. the prime minister announced measures for reducing the deficit and the markets with trepidation. i hope you respond to the question. i would like to ask the following question. apart from the follow-up to the commission with the public deficit, what can the commission do with these problems? when it comes to the strategy, how can we take account of national peculiarities to ensure such problems don't recur? >> these are precisely 12, for example the european community wide programs, we want every

member state to put specific and objectives for each country taken into consideration. this is a specific situation today. grease will go on benefiting because it is one of the countries benefiting from those funds. it is important to understand why countries like greece have to correct the deficit. the interests the country's hayfork. we cannot put hospitals or schools personal not because we are attached to an idea of macroeconomics discipline. it is because we are thinking about the social expenditure and the concerns of people we recommend member states not to

keep very high and not to keep very high -- >> thank you very much. >> translator: a question in terms of the future. the car industry is one of the key factors even after 2020. as you know, some factories are being outsourced to china and that is not very positive and i hope we will be able to reverse that trend soon. you as commission president need to make sure we step up our gear to ensure we focus more on the car sector and we need more money, then is the only way to ensure that in the future we can reduce our crude oil dependence. we shouldn't switch to a new

dependence replacing with a new dependence on electric batteries from china. my question is whether you and your new commission, planning to take a short-term coordination so that we can have a clear stance and a green technology in cars. >> the commission has been keeping an important position, promoting necessary meetings with in different countries involved and companies concerned. regarding the issue of the automobile industry the problem of public capacity in europe and the world, the future is as your question suggests to find new technologies and development of cleaner cars and we have been supporting this idea not only the idea but in terms of funding. special facility for this in the

priorities developed, a greener automobile industry that is more advanced. >> mr. hughes? >> the european anti-poverty network described the consultation document, a step backwards from successive european councils to strengthen social dimension. your document only mentions flexibility and training. we kind of accept the strategy of letting social content. 2010 will be against poverty and social exclusion. the fight against the scourge of poverty and centerpiece in 2020 strategy and finally recognizing that all jobs created since the year 2000 in the european union

are in the social and employment services making double contribution to reducing poverty and providing services and creating employment. cit the 2020 strategy set targets for high-quality social services? >> thank you, don't use two questions in one minute because it is difficult to ask for during 1-minute two questions. which question you prefer, the first or the second. it is very important. >> i put three points. >> thank you very much. i will try to choose the best question. the honest answer is the consultation document, welcome your input. but me tell you my personal

opinion. you have to do more. we need the support -- i can tell that several times i propose corporate measures, i received a very loud no. some member states use the social method not for us but for you. that is an interesting debate. let's see if we agree on that. inspectors find poverty, instruments as we level that complement to interest at the national level. that is what we will be defending and all member states will be ready to support the issue. >> translator: mr. president, mr commissioner, the strategy is not very strong.

how do you intend to amend this strategy to achieve this? are you going to draft a document which will be a guideline on this strategy of step-by-step activities to be implemented to implement the new strategy. this will be very worthwhile because we could monitor implementation of the strategy and finally i believe we have the deadline of the fifteenth of january for social consultation and this is too short. we should treat our social partners seriously. they need more time. >> this deadline is for consultation on these documents but other occasions to consult, the strategy in 2008 at the least, preparing an interesting report and the social committee as well. i am ready for the special

debate, especially on this. it is extremely important. it is extremely important to have the ownership of this parliament to associate national parliament to the future. this is the central piece of the strategy for the future. regarding the issue of the mechanism of government, that is what we are preparing and there are some ideas. the idea is expected to have some ways of measuring progress, according to some indicators in some areas. this is the way we are preparing. your support, the support of the public and the agreement -- >> thank you very much.

i would like to say something on the climate strategy for 2020 and the context of the question that has been asked. is it correct that the emissions trade system allows the biggest -- ninety billion tons of co2 emissions this year, thirty-four million tons, can it be that the largest state producer in europe has 1 billion pounds by 2012 will earn that amount through e missions because they have obtained the largest amounts? >> i don't know exactly what you are referring to but since you speak about the emissions of europe, let's be honest about this. our emissions generally speaking

are 14% and the trend is to go down because there are big ecology's coming up per-capita. we are much above some of those economies. let's be fair. we also have historic responsibility. the americans have more greenhouse gas emissions than we have but we have much more in china and much more than india. this is indeed a problem we have to address in the spirit of fairness. if it is a threat to the planet is climate change the collaborative efforts on all sides and -- than in other parts of the world. that is why we are seeing this

to develop new technologies to meet our targets. >> can you read -- >> mr. president, gillick additional questions, the press question. i prefer to keep the fresh question. >> not to lose anything in transition. interest rates as you mentioned, the economy. they reflect the confidence in the economy and the international economic community

is affected by them. i cannot make a question of the president's. can i have my time. interest rates get affected by the confidence the community has in the economy and in terms that many times the statements or confidence the european commissioner shows. in that sense speculators tried to speculate on a bad economic situation and make it worse. are you prepared for the support announced by the government to readers the economic situation? do they believe they are in the right direction and if applied, they could change the financial

situation in the past? >> i have already said that i was happy to hear yesterday's prime minister to cut public deficits and reduce -- reduced to permanent expenditure cuts and revenue. even added the 2010 budget and the prime minister's statement are steps in the right direction. naturally the commission will monitor closely the fiscal situation and implementation of the measures that increase. is clear the statement of support and i believe this is the best way of helping grease. we have some important results. >> thank you very much.

>> i welcome the chance to play questions -- the conference of committee chairman has been moved for rebecca word so the committee chairman is able to be here for the first time. i want to ask him about a policy to help frame work which i was rather disappointed. that is to harness the huge potential of public procurements throughout the european union to stimulate energy production services. and i want to ask if he would take up the recommendations endorsed almost unanimously by this parliament in my report last november which showed how this could be done and just to give him an idea to share with

colleagues, european public procurement was secured for innovative products and services it would raise the investment of innovation across the european union by no less than fifteen billion euros. >> thank you very much. there is no first draft of the new strategy. there is a working document in the commission for consultation. it is the moment of presenting a draft. don't expect me to reply to make a decisive answer to such an important issue. i am aware of your report. the interesting proposals we have made, it is also brought guidelines i presented and

referenced to the need to deepen those commitments in terms of more market friendly public programs in europe. this will be part of our strategy but i cannot commit that. >> thank you very much, president. one of the biggest failures in the best liz and strategy is there has been partial failure to get member states to contribute and achieve the goals set off in the strategy. ask the president how to get the member states on board to contribute in this way. it is interesting the amounts the member states should be investing in research and

development. research and technology. >> all the targets, the new proposal we will make a very honest and objective assessments of what went right and what went wrong. i cannot commit to what we are going to propose. we are thinking of -- when i mention these kittens, it is real discussion i want to have with you because your input is very important. i personally think the overall targets for all the member

states is not realistic. in the next phase will have to be more refined and more specific at the member states for different situations. this is my personal thinking about it but we have not come to the position of presenting you. i want new commissions on the proposal that will come to you and we will present the lisbon strategy. >> it is different than 2008. in 2020 there will be four to seven at least. each one of the new member

states will be receiving cohesion funds which are subsidies by another name. from the date they become members right through until 2020. can the british taxpayer anticipate any further doubling in britain's net contribution to the european union by 2020 and is not, why not? >> thank you very much. >> a discussion and financial perspective. i cannot anticipate the discussion of britain. i understand the concern you are expressing because the british taxpayers are paying very important contributions by the financial sector in britain. there was no other case of so important state aid as we are seeing in your country.

we believe it is important to set the priorities for the future. to see what we have to spend that the national level and what we have to spend at the european level and then we will have a discussion about a fair way of sharing this investment. in some cases it makes more sense to spend and the european level because of the potential benefits of exploring the european dimension and market. we will come to that discussion. >> president jose barroso, it was our third meeting on the european commission. thanks for giving questions for discussion. it was people in the hall in

comparison with the beginning, 3:00. sorry about that. we prefer to have a lot of you being chair. thank you once again. now we are going to another point. point of order. point of order. >> thank you, mr president. the point i would like to make as many people haven't had a chance to ask jose barroso questions. can we not spend another 30 minutes on a regular basis to make this an hour and a half? 750 members in his place, 30 minutes is ridiculous. can we not have an hour and a half? come here for 90 minutes, not 60. >> thank you for this question. jose barroso is smiling brightly but we will not decide about that. thank you for giving such a proposal. thank you once again. mr. president?

>> the snow in the nation's capital did not deter further health-care debate. the bill passed the critical hurdle last night when 60 lawmakers agreed to limit further debate setting up the next round of the vote tomorrow morning around 7:00 eastern making final passage of the vote more likely by christmas. senate majority leader harry reid and the democrats will be speaking with reporters. we will have that at 1:15 on c-span. earlier today we learned more about work in the senate in that vote from a reporter covering the action. david drucker joining us from roll-call. most of us missed the vote. , is what this means and where we are in the process of the health-care debate. >> guest: the big test for harry reid and the democrats last night's a vote because it was the first in a series of votes,

passage of the health care bill. they have done that. that signals this thing will pass the senate and enter a conference committee with the house. even though the majority leader has secured the support of his members in advance there's always trepidation before we get to of vote. you could tell wants the vote occurred it was successful to the democrats. leadership and members on that side were very excited and they think this is a done deal. >> host: with the democratic leadership do to get ben nelson on board?

>> guest: they had to acquiesce to a few of his demands and opera couple deals as part of legislation. is a compromise on abortion language that will make it harder for women who want to use insurance to pay for abortions and make it harder for them to do that. also the state of nebraska will never have to pay for the expansion of medicaid in health care reform. that is a program that provides health care that is jointly funded by states and the federal government. for nebraska it will not be jointly funded by the state but only paid for by washington. there are a few other things. >> is it still long schedule or any chance of that schedule which looks like a christmas eve of vote on final passage on this legislation? any chance that schedule will be shortened? >> the only way the schedule

will be shortened if the republicans yield back time basically saying that although we have folks to end debate or break the filibuster we are not going to require you to use all but 30 hours of debate time, there is no way the republicans will do that. supporters don't like the bill. not only will they take a lot of flak for not forcing the democrats to use their time, in their mind they want to stretch this out and make these votes as difficult as possible. and straighten that out. they are not going to go quietly. >> democrats, will they need 60 or will a simple majority do? >> final passage is simple majority. there are three vote because of the way the piece of legislation is set up.

last night was including of a compromises and changes with senators like ben nelson and there were other changes. tuesday morning, although i don't believe it will be ridiculously early as the first vote, that will be on a substitute amendment and coming up, the underlying health care bill itself. just a simple majority on final passage. >> thanks for joining us this morning. >> tonight on the communicator's the head of the motion picture association of america and efforts to improve copyright protection and reduce movie piracy. tonight on c-span2. >> c-span christmas day. a look ahead at 2010 politics

including republican congressman eric kanter and david gregory. buzz aldrin and fellow astronaut on the legacy of apollo 11. world.ion on a roll of muslims later a former cia intelligence officer on u.s. strategy on al qaeda and afghanistan and starting at 8:00 eastern, remembering the lives of william buckley jr. and senator ted kennedy. >> david axe was recently embedded at canned our air base in southern afghanistan. he observed how the u.s. military is treating the afghan air force. >> they won't -- this is the crash. ..

>> that pkm only has a 45-degree motion. [speaking in native tongue] >> you come up the side.

you might have to cut it off there to get it loose. there you go. your team, you for, start the process. go slow. slow, slow. all right. >> the afghan military is still pretty small even eight years into its war. it's like 80000 afghan soldiers, probably slightly more police. so it's like a couple hundred thousand guys, most of them ground soldiers. but in the interest of building

up kind of self-sustaining, self supporting afghan military, nato has been encouraging the development of an air force. because in afghanistan, most of the time you want to deliver things by air. you are trying to support your afghan army battalion, hundreds of miles from some population center. they need helicopters to bring them their supplies. they're not always going to be able to rely on u.s. and nato helicopters. eventually they have to do this stuff on their own. u.s. air force has an advisory group, this team of helicopter pilots and experts and maintainers, and administrative officers to try to help grow and afghan helicopter force. so there's two wings. one and cobble up in the north and there's one in kandahar down in the south. it's like a bunch of americans, a bunch of afghans and a few russian-made helicopters. they are trying to grow an air force from the ground that. so it's a matter of once you have some helicopters, you

either buy them with u.s. money or afghan has bottomed themselves. you try to recruit some old afghan pilots who are probably trained by the russians way back when, 20 years ago. bring them back in, give them some refresher training and then try to get them working by kind of u.s. model of air power, where they are serving the ground troops. the ground troops, hey, we need water. they have a process for calling in, making requests to deliver some water. and all that may seem simple in theory, but making it work in practice reliably day after day after day is really comforted. so the americans just work hand-in-hand with the afghans to try to show them, look, this is how we do things in the u.s. air force. you can do it like us and you will be able to supply your own troops. to what that looks like in practical terms is, there's an afghan infantry battalion that needs some water. the americans help process the request, and then they get on the helicopter with the afghans, fly with them.

every step along the way, taking off, flying, landing, offloading, reloading things. the american sort of heed advice. the interpreter is sitting in the back of the helicopter to the afghan pilot. you could do better if you did it this way. i recommend at this point you usual map, you know, they don't like to flyby maps. they want to do with their eyes. how about trying gbs in this particular valley? so it's like all these little things that feed tidbits of advice to the afghans, and to do that day in and day out hoping the afghans will pick up on that and do it on their own.

>> the first, they got much better during the end of the flight. but towards the beginning i think the problem was you had it too far to the left or even when you came back straight, you kept coming back. always remember to return it

where ever you are. [speaking in native tongue] >> the other is always remember that when taking out power and putting in power, to use your pedals. you said you remembereremember to do that and i saw that you did. good job. i think it requires just a little more than what you did. [speaking in native tongue] >> i am captain tyler rennell

and i work with the 438th. we are the air mentoring group out at kandahar airbase in afghanistan. we just completed a flight here to shorelock outside of bastion. it took about 50 minutes, and we had a good amount of different types of flights. we had low-level flight. we did some maneuvering as well. got to test fire the weapons. so we got to practice clearing the aircraft on both sides as well as changing the formation. we also did some high level flights so we got some practice climbing and descending, as well as taking turns. we got to work on some radios as well as some turning approaches into the wind here in shorelock. we are going to pick up some cargo and basically do the whole thing in reverse to get back to kandahar and do some mentoring, do some flying and had a good time for everybody involved. >> was the biggest lesson you try to impart? >> good question. i would say the biggest lesson really is being conservative, but also thinking outside of the

training that they have. right now, they've all been trained kind of in the russian style in the sense that, unit, this is the way you would do this. you will always do it this way. we are trying to get them to think about hey, you might want to think about different approach or different type of formation. but at the same time, if you're going to do something different, realize you also need to be safe when you're doing it.

>> tell me about the language barrier. how does that affect the mentoring? >> it slows it down. it makes it a lot more difficult even to get across some of the simple concept. there's a lot of technical terms in aviation, and getting those translated properly and getting them across in a timely manner, especially when you're in fly trying to do it, is a huge challenge. and i've tried to learn a little bit of their language in order to take away some of that stress and the confusion, but when you're trying to do with the more competent processes, technical terms on aircraft, flying terms, there really is no

substitute for talking the same language. and because the afghans haven't learned enough english, we have to rely on interpreters. even during flight, after fly, during the breeding. so that makes it -- takes about three times as long, for one. you also have to break it down to the basic level of terms. just so that the interpreter knows what you're saying so he can try to explain it. and then you don't know if they understood exactly what you said, because you have to trust the interpreter said the right thing. so it brings a whole new dynamic to the training and advising process. it's difficult to gauge how effective that you are, maybe immediately. it takes time after time of doing similar things to figure out whether they really grasp what you said.

>> well, we have 15 u.s. mentors here that are experts in each of their field. that team of mena's mentors are working with the newest wing here at candelaria airfield with the men here at kandahar. what we are dealing with is maintainers that are sometimes 40 or older for the most part, the ones that have been trained. training received in russia. these folks have been working helicopters for a great portion of their life. , that maybe five to six years that they haven't worked on helicopters so we have to get a quick assessment of the skill level, the folks that we have on a team. since we're just building up a team here at kandahar, that's one of our biggest challenges is getting a team of people that can perform the required level of maintenance that needs to be accomplished. we still depend on kabul, the

other wing, a net win, to provide specialist when we are short on the team that we have ourselves. we focus on the maintenance basics, foundational principle. the tool control procedures, following technical data. which is quite a challenge for a good portion of the maintainers that we have. by culture they rely on just what they have learned through their training, and not referring to a book because they feel like that's weakness. they need to remember what it is they have learned. so we have a challenge because of that in cultural issues they're trying to overcome that. but it's a significant challenge, but we are working with them in the last month with a 40 maintainers are working with each one of them to test their skill and so they can fly operations while building the capability. and focusing on maintenance

basics, and things that will allow them to sustain operation when we leave. >> you seem to exist in organization, existing kind of of a complex bureaucracy where you have got the afghan military, nato and the u.s. and always not always talking clearly to each other. is it a challenge dealing -- being stuck in the middle of these organizations? >> right. a good example of that is about a month ago, we had a large bit of coordination with many different nations to move into the new hangar that we are operating out of. we had to deal with the check mentors as they came in, had been in my early five operation and we were dealing with them. trying to move into a hangar with slovakian guards and the bulgarians, and combined with that we had the afghans that we were dealing with just to make that whole effort work.

so for all the support agencies, there's a lot of different nations we have to deal with. ole asian with forces. specifically with the a neck, since we're a new wing here, there are still some challenges with some battle of wills i think with the established organization up in kabul in this new organization here, some of the afghans don't really want to come to kandahar. there's some issues with this being a new wing. they are really connected to the families and really want to live where their family is located. we have some challenges dealing with them in that regard, with their families. and actually getting people to come here and work is a challenge at times. and then, you know, just the way they deal with their daily operations. sometimes it may take him two or

three days to talk through a maintenance discrepancy and repair actions that they expect it will take. and the planning process, and that states we would do that same three-day process probably within four or five hours, determined very quickly what parts do we need, what skill levels do we need and how can we move expeditiously, repair this aircraft and get it airborne that it takes him a lot longer. so there's a lot of patience that we have to do to show, and their frustration level that comes about i usually get with my team quite frequently and let them know, you know, the ring is a concept we have to avoid. expect that the afghans are going to be able to perform as we do. because the small things that we do back home, sometimes we overlook are the things that allow us to do things as effectively as we do to get to have the skill and the training

ability to push the skills that we need to be able to do our source at the rate we do. they don't have all those foundations in place. it's part of their culture and giving with them, that's one of the things we have to be patient, we have to keep focused on small incremental improvements. basically, it's a sustained effort over time. >> its attitude among afghan security forces, inability to really see more than a couple days in the future. there's just a huge lack of foresight planning. it's one of the biggest problems in afghan security forces, and it's a cultural thing. i guess as hard as it is, you don't look too far into the future. and so getting the afghan security forces to plan far

enough in advance to actually get aircraft moving around, delivering stuff in keeping the aircraft flying, recruiting aviators and getting them trained up, all the stuff is really coveted and takes a long time, requires planning. very hard to do. >> freelance video journalist david ax was in bed with the u.s. air force at kandahar air base in october and november. this was his second trip to afghanistan. to watch this program again or to watch other programs produced with this material, you can go to our website, c-span.org. >> a 60-40 vote in the wee hours of this said that the next round of votes in the senate at 7 a.m., by 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. that 60-40 vote to invoke cloture eliminating the possibility of a republican filibuster.

later this week a measure that can be reconciled with house legislation. possible passage by christmas. later today senate majority leader harry reid and fellow democrat max baucus and chris dodd and tom harkin will speak with reporters. we will have that news conference live for you on c-span beginning at 1:15 eastern. the senate is coming in at noon issued today. we will show you some of the highlights of yesterday's debate prior to the 1 a.m. vote. here's a look. >> the senator from tennessee. >> mr. president, i intend to take 10 minutes of the republican time. we please let me know when one minute remains? >> the senator will be notified. >> mr. president, there'll may be a number of americans who are switching over from the minnesota versus carolina football game and they enable wondering what in the world is the united states senate doing coming into session and the middle of the night of a snowstorm and getting ready to vote at 1 a.m.?

let me try to explain that for just a mullah. the reason is that the majority leader, a democratic majority leader who is the only one who can set our schedule, showed up yesterday with a 400 page a minute yesterday. this amendment has been written in secret for the last six weeks. the assistant democratic leader said last week on the floor, he had no idea what was in it. of course, none of us on the republican side knew what was in a. so no one here knew what was in it. it was presented to us, and then the democratic leader said, well, we're going to start voting on a. we're going to pass it before christmas. this is an amendment to the health care bill. which when fully implemented will cost about two and a half trillion dollars over 10 years, according to the congressional budget office. which restructured basics of our economy, which affects 300 million people. which will raise taxes by about a trillion dollars when fully implemented over 10 years. which will cut medicare by a bout a trillion dollars when

fully implemented over 10 years. not to make medicare more solvent, because as we know, it's going to become insolvent according to its trustees by 2015. but on this new indictment, and it will also shift to the states a great many expenses, so much so that our democratic governor has said it's the mother of all unfunded mandates. the governor of california says it's the last thing we need. take your time, get it right. the democratic leader and his colleagues insist that we need to bring this up in the middle of a snowstorm, write it in secret, boat on in the middle of the night and get it passed before christmas eve. why would they want to do that? mr. president, i think the answer is very clear. is because they want to make sure they pass it before the american people find out what's in it. because the american people by nearly two to one according to the cnn poll don't like what they've heard about the health care bill.

and when they had to start explaining what's in it, they are afraid it will be worse and it will never pass. republicans are not the only ones who believe that we ought to stop and think about big issues before we deal with it. eight democratic senators, senator lincoln and by and landrieu, lieberman, but casco, nelson, pryor and webb wrote senator reid on october 6 saint as you know, to senator reid, americans across our country have been actively engaged in the debate on health care reform. without a doubt reporting health care reform in americas is one of the most monumental and far-reaching undertaking considered by this body in decades. we believe the public% submission of this process is critical to our overall success. i'm going for an eight democratic senators. they'd want to say they want to make sure the bill is on the website for at least 72 hours in before we vote on it. mr. president, this bill was given to us yesterday, 400 pages

of a. we haven't seen before. 72 hours would be tuesday. so the minimum requirement according to the eight democratic senators and all 40 republican senators, we shouldn't even think about voting on it until at least tuesday. then one would think we would be a mending it and debating it and considering it. thinking about it and trying to find out what it actually does. according to a democratic senators by publicly posting the legislation and the congressional budget office scores, 72 hours before it is brought to a vote in the senate, and by publishing the text of amendments that are debated, our concessions will have the opportunity to evaluate these policies as their democratic elected representative, it is our duty to listen and to provide them with a chance to respond to proposals that will impact their lives. yet we are presented with it in the middle of a snowstorm on saturday. we are meeting at midnight. we are voting at 1 a.m. it's demanding that it be passed even though most of the

provisions as the senator from maine has said, don't even begin to take effect before four years. what's the rush, mr. president? i think the rush is that our friends on the other side don't want to explain to 40 million seniors how you can cut $1 trillion out of medicare. now it's exactly 470 billion over the next 10 years, but when fully implemented, a trillion out of medicare. and spend it on a new program. without reducing medicare services to 40 million seniors. the director of the congressional budget office has already said that 4,011,000,000 seniors who are on medicare advantage to fully capture benefits will be affected. i think our friends on the other side don't want the american people to understand why the 578 billion in new taxes that are going to begin to be imposed next year, they're going to have

a hard time explaining how that will create new jobs in america at the time we have 10% unemployed. and they really don't want the american people to find out that the director of the congressional budget office said that if we put those new taxes on interest premiums, on medical devices, almost all of them will be passed onto consumers. and as a result, premiums will go up. those are very strong words coming from the other side about republicans saying that this bill will actually increase the cost of health care. is not republicans were saying that, mr. president. here's what david brooks of "the new york times" said in his analysis of the bill when he gave the reason for it and the reasons against it this week. and came to the conclusion that if you were a senator he would vote against it. the second reason to oppose this bill, said mr. brooks, according to the chief actuary from medicare, it will cause national health care spending to increase

faster. that's right, mr. president. we're going to raise taxes, cut medicare, send a big bill to the state, all for what? quote, according to the chief actuary for medicare, it will cause national health care spending to increase faster. so if you're paying x. for premiums, you're going to be paying more as a result of this bill. health care spending, continue stainbrook, is zooming past 85 percent of our gross domestic product to 22% beyond. then it's going to be hard to explain to the 9 million people that the congressional budget office letter said would lose their employer insurance under this bill, while that will have. of course it will happen because under the bill as a whole, as employers look at the mandates and the cost, many will decide not to offer health insurance. so those employees will find themselves either in medicaid, the program for low income

americans into which 15 million americans are going, a program which 50 percent of doctors will not see new medicaid patients. it's like giving you a ticket to a bus when the bus only runs half the time. that's where many of these americans will go, or they will go into the individual market. in the individual market will have entire premiums. the other side says but there will be subsidies for some of you. but the premiums are going to be higher. the health care cost going to be higher. the majority doesn't want to blame why this bill changes the bipartisan agreement not to federal funding for abortion doesn't agree to since 1977. they don't want to take time for the american people to understand the class act, the long-term insurance act, a new entitlement which sounds wonderful. but the democratic chairman of the budget committee described it as a ponzi scheme worthy of

bernie madoff. that is because the amount of money that would be paid in, a person pays a premium of 2880 for five years, they were paid 14000 then they'll have a 1500-dollar benefit for a long time after that. mr. president, it's obvious why the majority -- thank you, mr. president. it's obvious why the majority have cooked up this amendment in secret. has introduced it in the middle of a snowstorm, has scheduled the senator cummings session at midnight, has scheduled a vote for 1 a.m. this is insisting that it passed before christmas because they don't want the american people to know what's in it. it's a deeply disappointing legislative result. but our friends on the democratic side seem determined to pursue a political kamikaze mission toward a historic

mistake. which will be bad for the democrats, i am convinced, but unfortunately even much worse for our country. thank you, mr. president, i yield the floor. >> the senator for arizona is recognized. >> mr. president, as we approach in less than an hour of a very important vote, some have called it historic. some call it pivotal. some -- it's been given very adjectives and adverbs. i think it might be appropriate to discuss for a minute or two how this all began. it all began in the presidential campaign. i don't really like to spend much time recalling it, but health care was a big issue in the presidential campaign. and on october 8, 2008, just less than one month before the election, then candidate obama said, and i quote, concerning health care reform, quote, i'm going to have all the negotiations around a big table.

we'll have negotiations televised on c-span. so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies. keep that in mind, the drug companies or the insurance companies. now that was a statement made by then senator candidate obama. so what we have seen here, what we have seen here is a dramatic departure. there's never been a c-span camera. there's never been a negotiation, a serious negotiation between republicans and the other side. there has never been. i say that with a knowledge, ran two of someone who has negotiated many times across the aisle on many agreements. so don't stand up and say that there were serious negotiations between republicans and democrats. there never were. but there was negotiations with the special interest, with pharma, the same ones that the president said was going to see

the america people were on the side of. clearly this administration and outside of the i was on the side of pharma. because they got a sweetheart deal of about $100 billion that would have been saved if we had been able to reimport prescription drugs. there's a provision in this deal for them, plans that may get insurance is all but a rpr exempt from tax on insurance companies. the ama signed up because of the promise of a dog fix. there was throughout this. we should have set up a tent out in front and put persian rugs out in front of it. that's the way that this has been conducted. and of course then, so the special interest were taken care of. then we had to take care of the special senators. one deal has called -- we've got new words in our lexicon now. the louisiana purchase, the cornhusker kickback, i got a new

name. the florida flimflam. the one that gives the medicare advantage members in florida around the country, benefit, but my constituents and medicare advantage of don't. and so in answer to this, and in answer to question today, the majority leader said, quote, a number of states are treated differently than other states. really? a number of states are treated different than other states. that's what legislation is all about. that's compromise. where is that todd? where is that todd? a number of states are treated differently than other states. that's why legislation is all about. that's coppermine. my friend, that's not what the american people call governing. that's called exactly an opposite and contradiction of what the president of the united states had what he says we will have negotiations televised on c-span so that people can see who is making arguments.

i see the letter from illinois over there. just a few days ago i said what's in the bill. the senator from illinois says i don't know. i'm in the dark to. i can give him his own quote. so here we are. the senator from tennessee said in the middle of the night. and here we are my friends about to pass a bill with 60 votes. now, 60 votes represents 60 percent of this body. but i can assure my friends on the other side of the aisle, it doesn't represent 60 percent of the american people. in fact, 61 percent of the american people, according to ac and in both say they want to stop. they disapprove of it. i guarantee when you go against the majority opinion of the american people you pay a heavy price. and you should. and you should. i will tell my colleagues right

now, that this will be, if it is passed and we are not going to give up after this vote, please believe me, when you -- for the first time in history, for the first time in history there will be a major reform passed on a partyline basis. every reform, and i've been part of them, has been passed on a bipartisan basis. this will be a strict partyline basis. you know, i was thinking today about his vote. and i was thinking about other times and other examples i've had of courage or lack of, the fact that in the face of odds that you have to stand up for what you believe in. and i thought about back when i first entered the united states naval academy at the young age of 17. one of the first things they told us about in our learning of naval traditions was about a battle that took place early in the revolutionary war. an american ship run by a

captain who engage a british ship, the mighty british navy. the american ship was outgunned and it was outmanned. and as they came together and mortal kombat, the dead dying all around and a british captain said, do you surrender? and that captain, that captain john paul jones said, i had not yet begun to fight. i tell the american people, we're going to go around this country. we're going to the town halls. we're going to the senior centers. we're going to the rotary clubs. we're going to carry this message, we will not do this. we will not commit generational theft on future generations of americans. we won't give them another $2.5 trillion of debt. we won't give them an unfilled policy where deals are done in back rooms. and we, we, all of us on this side of the aisle will stand up for the american people, and we have just begun to fight.

>> mr. president,. >> the senator from iowa is recognized. >> mr. president, you know, for the last several weeks all we've heard from the other side is attack, attack, attack. all we've heard from the other side is no kno, no, no. i just heard the senator from arizona say this is not a bipartisan bill and i've heard

so much talking as i can last several weeks about how this should be bipartisan. let's look at that for a second. as i see the republicans have no bill of their own. our bill has 60 democrats. a super majority or a super majority. well, i guess there is a bill over there, the cockburn bill that has seven cosponsors. that's it. that's it. nothing else. not all of the republicans are supporting it. my friends on the other side are all over the place. they can't even agree among themselves what they want to do. they have no comprehensive bill. like we have. , come up with. so i keep hearing that we democrats are not bipartisan. but who do we deal with? just the senator from arizona? just the senator from tennessee?

how about the senator from oklahoma or south carolina? well, i'm sorry. i feel sorry the republicans are all split up. they have not done their own homework. to pull their own senators together for something positive. so what they've done is they have pulled together to say no. to try to kill the reform bill that we have worked so hard on all your. we extended a hand. now if we had really wanted to reach out to republicans, we have would have thought of their lead and what they did in 2001 when they ran through that tax cut for the wealthy. they did it on reconciliation. so we couldn't filibuster. so we couldn't have any debate on it. that's what they did. that's what they did. we didn't do it that way. president obama said we want to hold the olive branch out. we want to wear with republicans. so that's what we try to do.

under the leadership of senator dodd on our committee. we had numerous meets with republicans. we had a markup session that lasted 13 days, 54 hours a quick second 151 of their amendments. and in the end, everyone on the republican side voted against it. senator baucus bent over backwards here week after week. not only did he go to x. amount, he went the extra 100 miles. tried to get republicans to work with him on this bill. and in the end, only one republican would vote for the bill out of committee. so that's what we have, we just have, i'm sorry to say my friends on the other side are in total disarray. they have nothing they can't agree on. well, we have something that we have agreed on. 60. a super majority to have agreed on moving a bill forward. a pivotal point in our history.

in a decades long march towards comprehensive health reform. alluding congresses and presidents going back to theodore roosevelt. my friends on the other side defends the status quo. they want us to vote our fears. fear, fear. everything you hear seems on the other side is fear. be afraid. well it's not going to work this time. because what the american people want is not fear. they want hope. they want to hope that they will have a health care that they need when they have to have it at a price that is affordable. they want to have a piece of my insecurity of knowing that their children, if they have a pre-existing condition, will be covered by health insurance. they want to have the peace of mind to know if they lose a job, they don't lose their health insurance. the american people want to hope and the security of knowing that

if they get ill, they will not be dropped by their insurance. they want the hope with the security to know that they aren't just one illness away from bankruptcy. we are the only country in the world, the only one, where people can go bankrupt because they all a medical bill. no other country would allow that to happen. we're the only one. this bill is going to stop that. people will not have to fear. going bankrupt because someone in their family got a chronic illness or a disease that can cost a lot of money. american people want us to move forward. and we're going to do it tonight at 1:00. we are going to move forward. we're not going to vote fears. we are going to vote hope. we're going to tell the american people that we are going to do

three big things. first of all, we're going to cover 94 percent of americans with health insurance. 94%. 31 million people out there with health insurance are going to get health insurance. secondly, we're going to crack down on the abuses of the insurance companies. no more cancel your policy just because you got sick. no more lifetime caps, which basically cause more and more people to go into bankruptcy. no more of those lifetime caps. we're going to make sure your kids can stay on your policy until they are age 26. we're going to do away with all these pre-existing condition causes. next year for children, up to age 18, and therefore everyone later on after we get the exchanges set up.

insurance cover you will not be able to resend your policy or drop you because you got cancer or a heart disease. and if you are a person, if you are out there and you have your own health insurance poly-right now and you like it, you can keep it. you can keep it. but guess what this bill will do? it will lower your premiums. and it will include your coverage. if you want to keep your own health insurance that you have right now. mr. president, average or about 45000 americans die in this country because they have no health insurance. johns hopkins did a study and said kids, children, who have no health insurance are 60% more likely to die because of hospitalizations than kids who have health insurance coverage. it's a moral disgrace. the health insurance policies of

america, what we have right now, is a moral disgrace. you can talk to people from other countries, our closest allies, our closest friends, that share so many of our values. and when they find out about our health system, they say how can you put up with it? this is disgraceful. you're the leader of the free world. you're supposed to set the example. and what a terrible example we have set. in health care. what a terrible example. well, we finally arrived, mr. president, at one of the most significant moments in the history of the united states senate. one of the most significant. our former chairman, senator ted kennedy, who fought all his life for national health insurance, who years ago back in the '60s said that health care ought to be a right, not a privilege.

he said that over 40 years ago. almost 50. that health care should be a right and not a privilege. it was always his highest priority. it was his great dream. of an america where quality, affordable health care is that right. he thought of it as a moral imperative. a moral imperative. a lot of times we lose that. we hear a debate about how much of this and this and who is going to lose this and all these scare tactics. we see all these numbers and all that kind of stuff. we forget the essence of it. it is a moral imperative. we are called upon to write a great injustice, a great wrong that has been put upon the american people for far too long. it is a moral imperative. that confronts us now that we

will vote on in a half an hour. we are closer than we have ever been to making ted kennedy's dream a reality. a lot of people have worked very hard on this bill. i mentioned senator baucus. i mentioned senator dodd. senator reid, our leader, the amount of hours he has been and the days he has spent here without his family, without going home, being here all the time working. are assistant leader, senator durbin. so many people have worked so hard on this bill. we've had so many input on it. everyone has had input on this bill. our republican friends have had input on this bill. they had in our committees. as i said, we accepted 161 amendments. so i guess you could say this bill has a lot to offer. but there's really only one author of this bill.

senator ted kennedy. senator ted kennedy. is his bill. because it does get us the start, the start. to my friends, i say this is not the end of health care reform. it's the beginning. but we must make this the beginning. in order to fulfill that dream and really make health care a right, not a privilege. so in a half an hour, let's make history. the other side says fear. we say hope. the other side says no. we say yes. we say yes to progress. yes to people. yes to health care. as an inalienable right of every american citizen.

i yield the floor. >> mr. president, parliamentary inquiry? >> so recognized in the early today senator grassley raised parliamentary inquiry based on rule 44, the standing rules of the senate. as my colleague will recall, this was a rule that is the senate passed pursuant to the honest leadership and open government act of 2007. and the question had to do with whether the manager's amendment that we're getting ready to vote on complied with rule 44 earmark disclosure requirement. at the time the chair indicated the disclosure list was not submitted at the time, that was about 6 p.m. today. my inquiry is, is the chair aware of the disclosure list being made a veiled as required by rule 44 now as we vote in the next 30 minutes? >> the chair is not aware at this time whether that statement has been made.

>> under the senator from connecticut is recognized. >> mr. president, i want to take a few closing minutes if i can. i spoke earlier this evening about the importance of this moment that we all have come to appreciate, i believe. a moment that has been years in the making going back as all have pointed out are most of pointed out, in favor of this legislation, dating back to the early part of the last century of theodore roosevelt or a reformer republican and first advocated the notion of a national health care system in our nation. franklin roosevelt picked up that challenge and harry truman of course was the one who articulated very specific terms. it was 69 years ago this very month, mr. president, that franklin roosevelt identified the four freedoms, freedom of religion, speech, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear. and it is that last freedom that franklin roosevelt talked about in december of 1941.

that is deserving of our attention at these closing minutes. because whatever else one may argue about the specifics of this bill, it is that fear that some of our fellow citizens have of whether or not they will be confined with a health care crisis and have the resources to address it and the ability to have a doctor, a physician, a health care provider, hospital, to provide them with that kind of health when they need it. that there is not just for those who are without health care, even for those who have health care, insurance. that fear persists. and so this evening more than anything else, beyond the specifics of the legislation in front of us, is our desire to address that freedom, that freedom from fear, that was addressed so eloquently almost 70 years ago. so this evening, we attempt anyway to begin that journey of eliminating those fears that summary of our fellow citizens have over the walls of the inability of acquired a kind of

health insurance or the ability to have a doctor. on legislation and that finally makes access to quality health care a right for every american that if you don't believe it is a right, it's only a village, then i suppose you can come to a different conclusion. and there are those like us to believe it is a privilege to have access to health care as an american citizen. those of us on this side of the aisle believe it is a right to have. and as such, as a right you ought not to be denied that right based on the economic circumstances, your gender, your ethnicity, and in this nation if you want to have access to health as a fundamental right and our nation. nation. i did say we need to participate, engage with responsible activities that will make sure that we contribute to well being of our nation to reduce the cost of health care. this is a comprehensive bill. it's been more than just a year, but goes back 40 or 50 years. in terms of drafting and efforts have been made to achieve what we are trying to achieve this

evening. at the end of the day however this legislation is about freedom from fear as i said a moment ago. the bill frees americas from the fear if they lose their job, they will never find insurance coverage again. the bill frees americans from the fear that they might get sick, and be unable to afford the treatment that they need. and the bill frees americans from the fear that one elvis, one accident, cost them everything they built their homes, their retirement, their life savings. in a nation, mr. president, founded on freedom, it is the same of unimaginable prosperity as i mentioned before, this bill is long overdue and critically important. no american can be free from fear when getting sick can mean going broke. this site is older than most of us who serve in this body. the past has been elevated by a torch lit years ago. in the days of harry truman has sustained for decades by good people, republicans and democrats, the nixon

administration, the clinton administration, members like john casey who worked tireless on the afghan trying to craft a good health care bill. you ever do others talk about the regrets they have that not acknowledging his ideas would he propose them. we might not have been passionate we might have been able to address this issue years and years ago. people have tried to come up with answers for this issue. it is with a note of sadness this evening that we're going to have a partisan vote on his bed but i wish it was otherwise. i would like to point out that of course many of others have fought, challenged us to come up with these answers. but tonight, this is our answer. 60 of us will vote to go forward with this. senator harkin just pointed out it is hardly the final answer on this matter. but it allows us to begin that process of addressing these issues in a more thoughtful and comprehensive way in the years ahead. and of course, no one was a better champion of all of this than senator harkin blurred out, then our deceased and beloved colleague from massachusetts,

senator ted kennedy. he thought his battles for so many years. he tried to piecemeal. he understood you could never solve all of these issues and one fell swoop. it was one to take an incremental approach to get us there. while i can guarantee if you read this bill, it would be disappointed he would have any. i knew him well enough to know that to say that this evening that if he could have written it on his own he would write it differently. i guarantee you as i stated this evening, that would be among us this evening, he would urge all of us to move forward on this bill, to address it, to vote for it, to allow this nation that should have been solved more than 50 years ago. so this evening again, as we come down to the final minutes of this debate, let us remind ourselves that i think history would judge as well. for taking up this challenge once again and asking ourselves to give americans the opportunity to live in freedom of those fears that they have this very evening. tonight we begin to alleviate those fears that i urge my

colleagues to support this effort. >> mr. president? >> the republican leader is recognized. >> tonight marks the culmination of a long national debate. passions have run high, and that's appropriate. because the bill we are voting on tonight will impact the life of every american. it will shape the future of our country. it will determine whether our

children can afford the nation they inherit. it is one of the -- >> procedural vote will move the health bill for. president obama just a few minutes ago at the white house made some comments on the passage for the vote last night, i should say, 60-40 vote in the senate. here's what the president had to say. >> hello, everybody. good morning. before i begin, i want to say a brief word about the historic vote which took place earlier this morning. the united states senate knocked out a filibuster aimed at blocking a final vote on health care reform and scored a big victory for the american people. by standing up to the special interests who have prevented reform for decades, who are lobbying against it now, the senate has moved us closer to reform that makes a tremendous

difference for families, seniors, for businesses, and for the country as a whole. for those who have insurance, reform will mean greater security and stability. no longer will people with pre-existing conditions be excluded from coverage. no longer will people who are seriously ill be dropped from coverage. no longer will families be allowed to go broke because they are forced to pay exorbitant out-of-pocket expenses. many people recall the enormous fights around the patient's bill of rights that never had gotten done. well, you know what? the patient's bill of rights is embedded in this health care bill, and to make sure all americans who have insurance right now are getting a fair deal from their insurance companies. small businesses, even those who don't get insurance through their employers, will finally be able to get injured at a price that they can afford him with tax credits to help her and medicare will be stronger and extended by nearly a decade.

seniors will get more citizens -- prescription drug costs than they are getting right now. finally these reforms will help the unsustainable rise in health care costs that are overwhelming. families, businesses and the federal budget. the congressional budget office now reports that this bill will reduce our deficit by $132 billion over the first decade. and by as much as $1.3 trillion in the decade after that. so i just want to be clear, for all those who are continually harping about how this is somehow a big spending government bill, this cuts our deficit by $132 billion in the first 10 years, and by over 1 trillion in the second. that argument that opponents are making against this bill does not hold water. >> president obama commented on

the senate vote last night. when 60 lawmakers agreed to limit further debate setting up the next round of votes tomorrow morning, probably likely around 7 a.m. eastern making the final passage vote more likely by christmas. later today we are going to hear from the senate majority leader, from harry reid and fellow democrats. news conference coming up for you at 1:15 eastern. will have your life for that on our c-span. it came as senators voted from the desk, congressional courtly reporting that they customers or for the most important matters. they write that aiding robert byrd was brought in remaining for the end of the vote. that from the congressional quarterly. they are coming in next. the senate comes in momentary. they will continue debate on health care legislation. among the senators you will see in the