seen everything on tv that has come up. i read "hostile takeover." you have halliburton, all these people making lots of money, and they do not have to pay anything back. you have dick cheney, george you have dick cheney, george bush involved. the education levels that we need. unfortunately, we are trying to get a lot of them into the

government, and that can be problematic. at the basic level, we are bringing people from high school, now going after the top graduates and afghan high schools. i can there is enough of an educated population there to provide the necessary leadership. educated population to provide the necessary leadership. you are not going to have every policeman reading but again, the taliban, a lot of them can't read and are doing pretty well, so i don't think -- i don't see that as an obstacle we cannot overcome. >> host: what about offering money to afghanis to enlist in to this effort and specifically the top grounds you're talking about repaying a half year amount of money than they would receive if they tried to get a job? >> guest: that is a point of contention because in a physician's are actually getting paid less than people in the

security forces in many cases and so that is having an unfortunate effect. we had to do that because the taliban pays well and we try to offset there's also the question of can we pay entire tribes to join the site as we did in iraq and some cases yes but we have to be careful because we've seen a lot of cases where unfortunately we paid to this tribal or warlord to join our side and they ended up doing things to other tribes that cause them to join the other side or the in the that defecting, so we have to be careful. >> host: what is the tactic on having all feast for an tribes in afghanistan coming together under one roof? >> guest: that is a lot of discussion going on about that right now. a lot of different furious and some people are talking about we need to focus on the tribes and others say you have to address it at the level of the individual village and i think what is -- we are starting to see it as grant be handled on a province by province basis because the struggle to the control structures differ depending what part of the

country or in they are stronger in some areas than others and so i think ultimately as in most things counterinsurgency is going to be handled on an ad hoc individual basis rather than one grand plan. >> host: republican line commodore on the air. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. i feel she frigates with the war is about. 9/11 was not just about war but there was an active or mac. you have for planes altogether, two of them are to head the world trade center. that would destroy less financially. the third plan, the pentagon was to destroy the military and the plan that creston pennsylvania was to hit the seat of power either the capitol building or the white house. this is a war. so whatever roles we do is a must we must win. it is no different than the japanese hit pearl harbor, and i think people have to remember that because this is the future, this is what we want to do is to

make sure we are still a free country, too. >> host: mark moyar, any thoughts? >> guest: yes i think that is a very good point, and i think again that is part of why we have been able to sustain a certain amount of support in the u.s. for afghanistan is the memory of 9/11 though it is interesting i think some people do seem to be forgetting about jpma. i think the christmas day donner was perhaps a week call and had brought back to many americans the reality that there are these terrorists plotting against us and if they have safe areas where they can go that that is to their dead and agenda that they are going to be able to do that and get through airport security system as they did in that case and we are just very fortunate the bomb didn't work as intended. >> host: next phone call, bald independent line. >> caller: yes, good morning. mr. moyar -- can you me?

>> guest: yes i can. >> caller: how is it that we -- our good guys, the afghan army but we are paying for, how come we have such a difficult time getting quality recruits whereas the insurgency doesn't have a problem getting quality individuals. who is treating the insurgency? how come they are so good and we can't seem to get together an army in afghanistan? is it because we have to pay mercenary's basically who have no respect they would allow a foreign nation to occupy their land and be mercenaries? >> guest: one of the things i did look at when i was over there is what can we look at from how the taliban recruiting and developing their leaders because as you mentioned they do have some very good people on their side. one part of it which i think needs to be sort further is the role of foreigners and their leadership. there is clearly a significant element in terms of leadership and in terms of training their

forces. now, i do think that the junior levels we are seeing some very good afghan officers. you have problems of the middle and upper levels we're part of the problem is you have a gap between 1990 and after 2001 where there was no professional education. the general before that was trained by the soviets with a centralized model that doesn't work very well, and we have seen unfortunately amount of nepotism and cronyism that's gone on in terms of how the leaders are appointed in the army and police and that is another big piece of this that we are finally belatedly starting to tackle. i think at the lower levels we are starting to see especially in the army very good people. the police recruiting has not been very good and that is something that is now being fixed. again, it's unfortunate we waited so long to do that. >> host: what grade would you give the counterinsurgency effort in afghanistan right now? >> guest: i would say right

now is hard to say. i would say it is certainly probably an -- you have to look at a different piece of it. i would say the afghan police right now has been sort of vague cd effort. it's been that we a long time and we are finally starting to fix it but it's going to take time. >> host: how long? >> guest: that is a good question. we officially said july of 2011 we will start turning things over. i think more realistically president karzai put out a five your time line which is more realistic to when we can get the police going, especially it takes a while to produce leaders. we tried to mass produce the leaders quickly and we found it takes time so i think realistically to fix the police is five years and the afghan national army has been more of a

b. the u.s. side varies. there's some units that are a plus, some of the units and helmand right now for example they are doing a terrific job. there are others probably more in the b or c. range command again it comes down to the individual commanders, and you know, the battalion commander, the company commander. without any awful people, but we have some who are not very innovative or don't take the initiative. we have a major problem with risk aversion. one of the biggest problems we have in the forces right now is people are afraid to take too many risks so they rely on our word vehicles or stay behind a glass walls instead of getting out amid the population as they should be. >> host: phoenix. paid on the democrats' line. >> caller: good morning. i recently read "war and peace," and was reminded of the very classic lessons about military,

and i was -- there is sort of a secret x factor which is not only equipment and strategy and tactics, generals or the members of our forces is but it's the spirit of the force that is fighting, and i keep wondering what deployments of four, five, six, seven times, i keep wondering about the spirit of our military forces and whether that in fact the most critical factor can't help but be waning. >> guest: it is an important consideration, certainly based on my time spent over there and also teaching military institution we have been surprisingly resilient. certainly it has taken some on

our military into unfortunately we have a relatively small group of people that are going through this again and again, but i come back if you look at the morrell, people talk about moral but don't often look at the sources of moral and it comes down largely to the leadership. if you have a really good captain or lieutenant colonel, the moral of the individuals unit is going to be very high. even if we know they're going to be their loyalty and if we've been there a long time and someone who doesn't inspire the confidence, the morality point below and we see is especially on the afghan side because the number one cause of desertion on the afghan side is bad leadership. we think of all the this other things that if the afghans have good leaders, they are going to have high moral, they will have a fighting spirit, and so that is again, why we need to really try to help the afghans get more of the dictated fighters into

the leadership ranks and remove some of the people who don't deserve to be there. >> host: hackers, maryland, to preach on the republican line. >> caller: hey, how're you? everybody wrapped it up when you all were talking about everything you all are right, democrat or republican. i'm really concerned as a real american, and its leadership. it has to come from leadership. we had bush, the president of the united states, obama, but the thing is everybody is planning bush. you have to understand my opinion is when bush took office clinton was in charge, right? so what happened was -- and getting educated now because my kids go to college, thank god for that. so now, he inherited -- obama said he inherited all of this, he inherits the united states of america. isn't that wonderful? is in that wonderful we have the best military and the world?

that's what he inherited. so the thing is when clinton was in office he balanced the budget but to all the money out of the military. there was no war. so my opinion was some time getting educated now, i'm a senior citizen and really getting educated now and i've got a lot of time to read so i don't want to say everything but he has to leave, obama has to leave and he's not leading -- >> host: mark moyar? >> guest: this is my opinion, not those of the government because i do work for the government. but i do think it is important for the president to get out there and keep stating the reasons why we are fighting in afghanistan. we did see him do that in december but i do think more of that would be helpful to keep the people aware of why we are fighting there. i've written a couple of books on vietnam and we saw this

problem in vietnam where lyndon johnson did not go out and spend much time trying to explain the war to the people and try to get them motivated to stay there for the long haul and they ultimately came back to haunt because i think a lot of people didn't fully a understand why we were there. they didn't see the need for sacrifice, so hopefully we will see more comments coming out from the white house and explaining our commitment and rallying people around the cause. >> host: louisianan, teddy, independent life and. >> caller: you haven't got eight years and you haven't got it right. so what are you doing there? okay what are you doing there? 9/11, okay, 9/11. what are you going to find out? what are you going to do when you find out seven of the hijackers or alleged hijackers of 9/11 were interviewed on bbc

tv after 9/11. what are you going to do when i sought testimony on c-span that the christmas day bomber was allowed by our government intelligence agencies to get on that plan? the question remains did they know he had a bomb when our government about him to get on the plane. >> host: what about the call's sentiment? you just said you agree with the president of afghanistan's assessment that it's more like five more years. so how does -- how do the american people get behind five more years after eight years? >> guest: that is a tough question. the president since is peoples in patience and please to that by offering this july 2011 date. i do think within the u.s. government there is an understanding that this is going to take longer and you heard after that comment statements from the senior officials that

we are still going to have a major presence. i think everyone in the government acknowledges we are still going to have a large presence by years from now, and again a lot of it requires i think the other leaders explain to the american people why this is going to work and also emphasizing it is a good question. we've been there a long time. why haven't we succeeded and why is it me to be different now and as i mentioned to you we are taking very positive steps now in terms of finally fixing afghanistan for a serious leadership problems and also sending additional american troops allows us to cover more territory because what we've seen to now is we will go to one area, the taliban fleet, we come back and you need to be able to cover a lot of areas at once and finally we are able to go into the big sanctuary which will be in the coming weeks going into this town of helmand province,

the last big sanctuary area and having disagree is important to them and we are going to stop them from using these sanctuaries. >> host: there's a "washington post" article this morning titled in afghanistan small gains are bolstering big hopes. talks about a strategy there with a fist stryker brigade combat team to preserve freedom of infirm to the misfud on the highways from southern afghanistan. by doing so they hope to restore credibility to the local government but this is not everyone is sold on general mcchrystal's protect the population mantra. some officials think an expansionary bush by the marines and the taliban territory in the neighboring helmand province is more effective than hundred and down to the slow work of improving government. your thoughts on those two different approaches. >> guest: you do have to combine offense and defense and

that is one of the problems i found with a lot of our current counter insurgency doctrines and again one of the reasons why the book attract some attention is because i argued and there are two main schools of thought on counter insurgency. one is the population center where you focus on protecting the population, local governments, economic development and the other is the enemy center where you go after the enemy forces even when they are not near the population. what i argue is you have to do both of those things and so the feeling i bring up is the leader centric theory which says it's not so much about which of those things you focused on what it's about the quality of your leaders and it varies from case to case. what you're going to have to do, to have to do some of the population control because if you don't the insurgents will infiltrate and get support. but at the same time you do have to go out after the enemy offensive lee because if you don't they are going to be able to at hecky where they wanted we have seen this time and again if

you just sit in your village and wait for them they are going to be able to attack you with overwhelming force and we have seen even people like general petraeus i don't think it's recognize people like general petraeus and abrams in vietnam, they did the population control but also the offensive operations. they sent troops out into the hills and to hunt the enemy down. and inflicting casualties ticket to the enemy on the run and we have seen, you know if you look at the insurgent accounts afterwards when they came after we had to move every 24 hours, we didn't have time to rest and recuperate, we couldn't organize and kept us from doing anything so you have to have a combination. >> host: said louis missouri. markey on the democratic plan. >> caller: yes, i listened to a lot of calls call in and they don't look at, listen to the history of look at the history because you can't -- what the issues is you can't go into these countries, some of the things the united states did like promise things when they

thought the russian force and then you expect to get the best from people when you did something like that. that is why you get a lot of the insurgents who are the best fighters who look for the justice from with the united states has done and i think one of the things you've said that makes a lot of sense is you have to get people to see that you're doing it for the benefit instead of the things we have done to facilitate this war and start this thing. that is what we need to look at is the history of what goes on in these countries and why there are so many things and problems and war that get started because the problems to be to promise people one thing and take things away. >> host: can you shed light on the history? >> guest: there's a fair amount of resentment about the fact that we did abandon afghanistan after the war against the soviets. there is a the same time resentment against the taliban for a lot of the cruelties they perpetrated during their period,

so don't think it is a uniformly negative situation but it's something that we need to address, and i do think a lot of the afghans are more concerned with the here and now than the past so what we need to focus on is showing what we can do for them now. one of the things again security is crucial. they want us to be to maintain security and that means permanently so that we are not here in three months from now we believe and they want us to know that we are here to stay and have more troops lets us do that and they also want us to show that we can provide them the basic dignity so they are not getting robbed at checkpoint by government forces and have americans work more with afghans prevent some of the abuses of power that we've seen so the past is certainly an impediment, but most of the afghans are more focused on what have you done

for me lately. >> host: wrote in a "new york times" piece an officer and a creative man about sensing judging versus intuitive thinking. what are they? what are the differences? >> guest: br personality types from the myers-briggs personality test. there's 16 different groups of personalities. four of them fall into each of those categories, and if you look at large organizations a lot of people studied this in the business world, not so much the military world with there's two main types of personalities that dominated these big organizations. one is the sensing judging which tend to be people more focused on the concrete. they like to do things by the book. they like to do things the way things have always been done and they tend to work pretty well when you've got a standardized activity and something that is quick to be the same next year as it is this year and they are good at getting things done in

that situation. not as good when you get into environments where things are changing quickly so high-tech companies, computer software for the change is rapid. that is where you get the intuitive thinking people who excel and they rely on intuition and get the split-second in sight. they are willing to think outside the box to do things in ways they haven't been done before and they tend to be more risk taking them the sense in judging group and so what i've argued is that in the 90's when we had a very standardized military we were focusing on our armored warfare that the sensing judging folks came in and they now dominate the leadership in much of the army also the marine corps but as a result of that you had people who are not going to innovate as much and are not critique this increased risk as i mentioned they've now embraced the counter insurgency doctrine

but counterinsurgency doctrine was meant to be adopted and it wasn't just to get a checklist to go through, so they are not able to do with changing environment counterinsurgency and i think the biggest problem is the risk which i mentioned. i did a survey for the book and i said the italian company levels which are the most important command levels of counter insurgency. does your service promotes risk-taking and in the army only 28% of them said yes and 58% said no which is in shock. 50% of the marine corps on the other and said the servers to promote risk-taking and this leads to moving around in very large groups which cuts your ability to do anything, traveling in armored vehicles which prevents you from talking to the populations, so that is a really big hurdle and right now there is a struggle within the army. petraeus is more of the into it thinking sled pushing for these types of leadership. a lot of the old guard is more

in the sense of judging old and so i think in the next year as we are going to see the play of and by helping again the intuitive thinking side is going to prevail. >> host: venice florida marianne on the republican line. >> caller: good morning. i'm calling to see if you have red greg martin xin dee dee de mortenson's book, three cups of tea. what did you think about that and his approach to establishing schools? >> guest: i think it's very good and another case of an individual showing some leadership making a big difference, one thing i would caution is that sometimes we think that if we just build the schools all the other problems are going to go away and unfortunately what we have seen in many cases is that you have an effort like this and the insurgents recognize it is a

threat and they come and kill all schoolteachers. and so you have to have a security company to go along with that and it is in the long term very important to have the education peace because that's where you're going to educate the leaders of the future. and again, what they're doing in terms of education is very good. that's something that is going to take ten or 15 years to bear fruit. so we need to support that but again the same time recognize we have to do focus in the shorter term on building up security forces from building up local law administration. >> host: next phone call, carol independent line. >> caller: if these people in the bush administration had understood any lessons of history we wouldn't have been in afghanistan on the ground and we wouldn't have been in iraq on the ground. iraq and iran were so busy

fighting each other they were not worried about us. all we did was undercut iraq's ability to keep iran and check. i don't know when washington is going to understand the lessons of the vietnam. you don't invade a country to win their hearts and minds is the first one. if canada invaded the united states, all of the democrats would have been out there to protect george bush and so with all of the independence. it doesn't make any difference. you don't win hearts and minds that way. you don't win hearts and minds by paying people. we are a democracy which we are supposed to be promoted around the world and here you have to pay people to fight for their own freedom? >> guest: i think there's a major difference in that regard between iraq and afghanistan. the case for afghanistan was more compelling certainly americanized because of 9/11 and

i think they did try more so in afghanistan and iraq to pay attention to history and the lesson they took away was that you don't want to have a big foreign presence as the soviets did, so we went in and helped bring karzai to power. initially we were going to have very small presence there and we were going to rely on afghans to deal with security and we in the power of the tribal war lords who seem to be the best people to do that, and unfortunately, it hasn't worked out. we did several years there. was relatively people and things seemed to be going great, to be going well. things have deteriorated since 2005. mostly because of the failures in the afghan government and so we are now stepping in their. and again certainly not ideal conditions but at the same time i think a few americans would be willing to get all of afghanistan if it meant return

to things like 9/11, and if we had perfect airline security it might be different because i mentioned we've seen airline security remains problematic and we've got lots of other boulder abilities. >> host: a couple more phone calls. detroit, dave on the independent debate could democratic line. >> caller: i would like to ask a quick question about what the pipeline going through the afghan mountains, how that affects the presence there and also i would like to make a comment about the thinking from conservatives or the right wing that clinton toward the military. that is not true factually. the military budget was set by congress which was patrolled by republicans. i think that cheney voted against or voted for that decrease in the military spending. to the contrary clinton was trying to get through the counterterrorism bill which of course republicans stripped down and called it a terrible bill,

so that is actually not correct. the jury, thinking needs to be noted. and also why did we send 10,000 men into afghanistan, 10,000 soldiers when that is where bin laden was and then we said 160,000 men into iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11. >> host: mark moyar? >> guest: let me -- you mentioned the logistics pipeline. there is -- there are areas in afghanistan where we are paying off warlords who are paying the taliban and i think some cases the people affiliated with the taliban to preserve our logistical lines because we are very dependent on fuel and food and all sorts of other stuff coming through and there is probably in the short term that is necessary just because we can't do without those and unfortunately we are assisting

those local taliban. i think ultimately we want to put an end to that. i think you want to as you go along we are starting to destroy the sanctuaries. we are going after the marginal and eventually these other sanctuary areas that we are having to comment with taliban we have to go in there and squelch those as well. >> host: next phone call, just on the republican line. >> caller: how are you guys doing? >> host: good morning, just in >> caller: hiding behind the money where is this money coming from the taliban? >> host: are you following the question? >> guest: are you talking about the money being protecting our logistical lines? >> caller: no, i'm going on the taliban, we talk about paying them. >> guest: talk about paying them with u.s. money. they also have their own sources

through poppy. part of the reason we are going into helmand is to cut off the poppy revenue and they are also getting money from other foreign actors but as i said again you've got to be careful because some of these people will say they are going to support and take our money and continue the things they were doing. and certainly in the cases it can work as it worked in iraq. but again i think it is going to depend province by province where it is actually going to function. >> host: lawrence's the last phone call in the maryland. >> caller: hello. am i on the line? >> host: good morning. you are on the air. >> caller: i have a question for you, mark. one of the ultimatum is the afghanistan, the government says as far as osama bin laden is pretty much if united states wanted the national hero there to pretty much shall prove that

he had done these things you guys accuse him of and we will turn him over. and we pretty much reduced and said no, we are going to come in. how, we won't just actually -- how come we didn't show them to prove that he did commit these things which would have kind of averted this war that we are going through, but yet we kind of said no, we are going to go in any way. thank you. >> guest: you are talking about in 2001 when we asked them turnover bin laden. i think we have a pretty compelling case at that time and we did make some effort to get them to turnover bin laden. they were not willing to go along and now there's talk about how al qaeda and the taliban are not really close. we can split them off from one

another but clearly the top level mullah omar and other leaders are still close to al qaeda and they do pose a threat so even if they are not allowed in our julca presence in afghanistan now i think if you to see the taliban retake the power than we would see a return of the taliban and al qaeda. >> host: mark moyar, thank you for your time this morning. we appreciate it. >> guest: thank you.

up next, a forum on recent supreme court rulings and their effect on state judge selection. we will hear about the case of citizens united versus the fec. a decision that strikes down limits on political of fertilizing by corporations and unions.

from the georgetown university law center in washington, this is one hour and five minutes. >> our next panel is going to be on the citizens united case and i have the pleasure of introducing our moderator. my place you can't hear? okay. all right. i had the pleasure of introducing the moderator for the next panel, tony mauro, supreme court correspondent for the national law the journal. tony has been a good friend. he's moderated for us before. he has a number of fine credentials to his credit but i want to mention now before he starts, just one. he's on the advisory board for the masters study in the program for journalists. and one of the things that is very important in increasing public understanding of the courts and of the judiciary is for reporters to really understand the beat they are

covering and georgetown in setting up this program is educating reporters on the law and judicial decisions so they are able to convey the information to the public. we are all very delighted that there are few in the greenhouse's in the world who are able to describe the activities to the supreme court, so very well and we are hoping through programs like this we will get more. thank you for that and i will turn over to you. >> all right. thank you, maryland. thanks to george kind aspen institute for this panel which as was said earlier is very timely. our subject is the citizens united decision on which the eink is barely dry. last week we were getting a little nervous that the decision wouldn't come down in time for this panel and that we would have to spend one hour engaged

in the rank speculation which would have been part of the course in washington anyway, but for better or worse, we do actually have a decision on something concrete to talk about the 5-4 decision written by justice kennedy who else was mentioned earlier also wrote the decision. there's been strong immediate reaction to the citizens united ruling much of it focused on its impact on federal law and federal campaigns. but there will certainly be ramifications for the state elections and state judicial elections as we have heard already in the first panel. we had a large panel and i want to get right to their comments and they will be talking about the citizens united in general and as well as the impact on the state courts, and it's a great panel indeed. first, i will hand over to baron

who gave one in this morning's of his page. he's been the go to guy for the reporters like me for years as a fair minded expert on campaign finance law we and he's got a particular knowledge about this case having written an amicus brief on the winning side for the chamber of commerce of the united states. he's a partner in the firm of d.c.. >> thank you, tony. good morning, everybody. i think i can summarize citizens united but i think it is important to make sure we are all agreed on some of the terms that are crucial to the decision. first of all, as you are familiar with campaign contributions that is a legal term which means providing money or something in kind to a

political party. campaign contributions are highly regulated as a result of the bulkeley decision. they are subject to limitations, whether judicial races or under the federal law for campaigns for president, senate or the house, and in the case of corporations and unions are prohibited even today after the citizens united case. the second important term is independent expenditure. we've had already some references to that in the earlier panel. under federal law we the expenditure is a form of art as well and it refers to spending by somebody independent if a candidate or political party and it is for advertising public time indications that contained what the law refers to as words expressed efficacy. words that explicitly advocate

the election or defeat of the and identified candidate is the phrase. we call them sometimes the magic words, vote for comedy feet so and so and things of that sort. and then suffered important term is an electioneering communication. this was something that was created in the mcain-feingold law, the bipartisan act and an electioneering communication since 2002 is a public communication that to a certain audience through certain transmission under the federal law it is television, radio, cable or satellite communications and the content of which merely refers to a candidate or political party and this communication is disseminated the third 30 days before a primary election were 60 days before a general

election and the communications as mccain-feingold are prohibited or were prohibited until thursday by a corporation or labor unions or using the corporate money. so, what did citizens united and its decision to? christa baala did nothing to the contributions. corporate contributions under the federal law are still prohibited. they cannot give money to any candidate and can't spend money in collaboration with candidates because i would be a contribution and that is prohibited. the court reversed its decision in the mcconnell versus fcc to the communications. there wasn't much to reverse however because after the mcconnell decision, the supreme court wisconsin right to life concluded the selection airing them couldn't be applied to

issue advertising and as a result after that ruling and before mcain-feingold, you may have seen on your television lots of ads financed by corporations and unions that and with this charming phrase you know, call candidate jones and tell them that to stop raising taxes or to support health care reform and things of that sort. issue advertising. no magic words. then with the court's decision of citizens united did was declared corporations and unions may use the magic words and their independent communications. they can say vote for or defeat the candidate. that required reversing the 1998 opinion michigan versus chamber of commerce which held that a michigan statute that did that was constitutional under the first amendment. but as i have said, they're has

been a lot of advertising up to the risque already financed by corporations and unions in fact there's a number of articles about the massachusetts special election race where unions and corporations before the citizens united case spent at least $3 million for advertising of the sort i just described. so the immediate effect technically of the citizens united case is to allow corporations and unions if they want to independently financed public advertising that make now say vote for or defeat the naim candidate. any spending for those types of expenditures, any -- excuse me, spending for those types of ads, whether they are independent expenditures or electioneering communications under federal law are subject to disclosure and have to file reports with the

commission. let me just conclude my preliminary analysis or discussion of the decision by noting that in the context of the state elections, the effect whatever it may be of this decision will be less than it is that the federal level. because 26 states and the district of columbia have no provision on independent corporate union spending. it did not even before the citizens united. so, the decision will affect those 24 states that prohibit independent expenditures and there are approximately 14 states that since mccain-feingold adopted the so-called electioneering communication provision and in those states they will have to amend their law to accommodate the supreme court decision.

>> before i move on in a sentence or to what has been the experience in those states that have not had the limitations on corporate expenditures? >> in the brief he mentioned we filed on behalf the chamber of commerce, we addressed the experience of the 26 states in the district of columbia, and these states are varied. they include virginia and illinois and california and washington state and oregon, states we might think of as good government states and there are those that are perhaps a little more questionable, and there are two studies that have been undertaken. one in california and one in washington state. examining the volume of independent spending and where it occurred.

in california there were apparently 12th state senate races over a period of almost a decade where there was substantial independence pending and as under the federal law that is subject to disclosure under the state law. the number one finance years of the independent spending for individuals, wealthy individuals. number two were labor unions. number three were indian tribes and then there were a couple of corporate contributors, 12 races. in seven of those 12th races, the candidates who were the purported subject of negative advertising won.

and this is a study that encompasses essentially approximately over that period of time 1,000 races. so, the evidence suggests that number one, there's not a whole lot of independent advertising, and again this is not addressing judicial races, but we are talking about congressional races that there's a little more evidence on judicial races within the congressional races for the legislative races, the experience in those states that don't have these types of provisions is that it doesn't happen often and when it does happen it does not involve corporations and to a lesser extent not even to a greater extent unions it tend to be individuals who finance beestings and other players, and it is not determinative the outcome of the race. >> thank you.

next we will hear from karl spence, from 1998 to 2002, and he is of counsel to the former perkins. he will get all its related to the corporate governance and shareholder rights coming out of the decision, and i meant to mentioned earlier we would like to keep these opening remarks to five minutes. >> first i want to thank meryl for the opportunity to speak today and hope to bring a somewhat different perspective to this than the one that you have seen in of heads and editorials since the decision last thursday. i was pretty pleased with two aspects of the case. first the court broadly upheld the disclosure and in doing so recognize the importance of the disclosure to shareholders. i think that you understand the disclosure broadly to include a disclaimer requirements,

solicitation restrictions and reporting to the federal the frattali agencies and to the shareholders. second, the court recognizes protecting shareholders was a legitimate government interest that could be pursued through other regulatory ban should corporate speech. i think it's likely commerce and state legislature will reduce the two avenues to bring greater transparency and accountability to the corporate political spending. and i believe shareholders will try to do the same. turning to the aspects of the decision which i find disconcerting, first the decision proceeds from a largely unexamined premise that the modern corporations are best understood as organizations and individuals that freely choose to associate with one another. a large publicly traded companies hardly fit the description. by one estimate, 66% of publicly traded companies are owned institutionally. it takes a lot imagination to

think of calpers, the sovereign both funds, saudi arabia and china, the group, the ntia craft and vanguard as collections of freely associated individuals. thinking to myself as 70% really associated water molecules. i am not sure where automated trading systems didn't to this world the court has constructed. second the decisions suggest the minority or the dissenting shareholders can sell their interest if they disagree with the decision of management. this is not the case for beneficial owners of stock. let's stop there a moment for the beneficial owners of stock. i imagine there are more beneficial owners of exxon stock than voters in the state of california. among those would be a federal employee who places his retirement savings in the fund

of the thrift plan and he probably has less ability to influence political decisions of the corporation in which his money is invested ability of a 10-year-old. in 1904 and negotiated contract for his labels. most disconcerting to me is the failure of the court to recognize large corporations are not like you and me. we do not expect corporations to be motivated by altruism, mercy and justice unless it is good for the bottom line. questions of war and peace, civil rights, gay marriage and abortion rights can be are and are expected to be ignored by corporations. there is no religious, ethical or moral duty to take notice to consider, to act. the only duty is to abide by the law and profit.

corporations are managed enterprises that accumulate capital for the purpose of maximizing profits to the shareholders. it is these very attributes when applied to politics to pose a danger to the political and economic marketplace that the court chose to disregard. what motivates a corporation to spend? history teaches corporations stand to stifle competition, to privatize public goods, to prevent or impede regulation and allow managers to enjoy the benefits of private friend seeking. 73% of individual shareholders believe that corporations spending is most often undertaken to advance a private political interest of managers. what else do we expect of them? if i was a retiree who told at&t stock when it was a monopoly i certainly would want the company to spend to protect that monopoly.

it is not surprising the biggest corporate centers in 1904 were trusts. corporations that spend publicly are motivated and the it differently than you and me. seldom do you see individuals contribute large sums of money to both political parties. corporate pac money i believe 92% goes to the incumbents. the court has taken the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas and brought the laissez-faire economics to it. is this supposed to be on judicial elections. what should a corporation consider? should be the expected return of the spending just discounted by the likelihood of success? what else do we expect of corporations? i would like to end just with a quote from one of the resupply route from president roosevelt. the fortunes of the corporate

organizations are now so large and invest such power in those that yield them as to make it a matter of necessity to the sovereign, that is to the government which represents the people as a whole. some affect the power of supervision over their corporate views and i would suggest the court is the one who usurp that responsibility. >> thank you. next he will hear from bradley smith, professor of law at capital university law school in columbus ohio and former member and chairman of the fec. he said some provocative ideas about campaign reform for many years and he will talk to us about the citizens united case and its impact on states. >> thank you, tony and georgetown and the aspen institute for having us here. as was pointed out of 26 states

that even before citizens united allowed unlimited independent expenditures, 28 states allowed some level of independent expenditures and those comprised of about 60% of the united states population. so i would emphasize that point but i don't think in certain ways this is this leap into one chartered waters in fact of those states, depue senter ranks states every couple of years on their government and now they are using a set of criteria that doesn't go much to the substantive policy that how well governed the states are but because they are a group that has also funded reform efforts in campaign finance because they are choosing relatively non-partisan criterium, i think it is a good measurement and an indicative won the top six states in the rankings are the six best governed states in america are the six states that allow unlimited independent expenditures even prior to last thursday's decision. additionally we have experienced a lower federal government that

is prior to 2002, that is throughout the 1990's and 1980's corporations could make these issue ads that jan baran talked about earlier and was an article of faith argued vigorously in the courts by my colleague here, fred wertheimer and others there is no difference between the issue eds and express. they were the scene and had the same impact on public policies. okay let's assume that is true. then have the plates shifted so much with thu's decision or are we simply back to the pre-2002 status quo? and if that is the case do we really want to sit around and say boy government since 2002 has been a lot better than it was in the 1990's and the 1980's? things are a lot better now. aren't we lucky gang of people. i don't think we think that. i think most people think that the heyday in the 1990's were some of the best times this

country has been through in recent years. i think it needs to be pointed out the government clearly had to lose citizens united. there's no way the government could have won citizens united and it's amazing to me that the four justices of the government should have won citizens united. i expect some of the liberal members of the court to concur in the judgment will disagree with overruling but they didn't which i find interesting and interesting to their claims that the court could have done may be something less. none of them found a way to something less. why did the government had to lose? the government's position was, and this was not abandoned at any point despite what fred will tell you the government position was the government had the authority to limit books dustin did through kindle, but movies distributed on demand, limit internet, one of the publication of books by simon and schuster or the sale of books by barnes

and noble if they contain the than one line of expressed advocacy or attacking comments on political candidates. they had to lose that case. you cannot have the government when that case and the fact that the center showed no narrow basis on which the government could have lost i think this is barrels about what the it. what we say a few comments on the judicial elections here. i'm kind of agnostic. it's not i would generally go for what i am not sure they are the worst thing in the world. i think that the professor state exactly read the problem. it's like health care system, people don't want much, they just all they want, where they want it and don't want to pay for it. to demand. laughter could the same thing for the judicial elections. i think that we need to remember when we talk about appointed process these there are different types of appointed process these. the maza reply and talked about

a little bit in the first panel cost for appointment by a group of people who are selected by the bar association and subject then only to detention elections and thus avoids all space accountability. the retention elections do not provide democratic ability to read 99% of justices wendi retention elections. there is nobody to campaign against them to speak. it is just them. there's nobody to say we should do something different. and if there is, who will that be? it will have to be by definition the groups making a large independent expenditures, exactly the kind of things people are now concerned about. on the other hand of the traditional system of a point and we use for example in federal races where they are appointed by the president or by a governor and approved by the senate has still level of popular accountability in at least that the appointing and confirming officials are popularly elected and in fact these become issues and

campaigns, but at the same time judges are removed one step from the need to go out and get the votes and worry that their immediate decisions. .. he'll also discuss the decision that the federal and state levels.

>> thanks, tony and things for georgetown and aspen institute of justice o'connell for putting on this event. and i appreciate the opportunity to be here and perhaps explain my own views. i congratulate brad and jean on their big three. deified very hard for this position for some time. it's a little surprising to me that they seem to think that this position will have so little impact that they've been so devoted towards winning. i want to talk a little bit about the context of this decision and then what i see as the potential impact. the decision that we did not want corporate wealth involved in our campaign goes back to 1907, one of the country we banned corporate contributions and federal elections. in 1947, the ban on corporate

expenditures was added along with a ban on labor union contributions and expenditures. if you go back and look at what the sponsors of the legislation said about the corporate expenditure ban, and they were just codifying what everyone had understood the corporate contribution bantu means. we've had two decades of supreme court rulings that upheld the corporate contribution, the corporate expenditure band. so, when i look at last week's decision. unturned, what i see is a court that has been divided for a while on the issue campaign finance laws and i don't think it reflects the kind of change circumstances that we usually have as a basis for overturning

past presidents. i think it reflects a change in the makeup of the court. if not found, and ideological change with a new five vote majority to carry forward what has been for decades the views of the minority on this and other issues. so i don't think this decision has much grounding to stand on. and it faces being changed again at whatever point we reach for the ideological so-called conservative majority on this court changes. some of us will look at stevens dissents as the majority opinion in waiting and maybe i'll be around to see what happens, maybe it won't. but others of you well. in terms of the practical impact, i see this as an enormous transfer of power from

citizens to corporations. it opens the door wide for corporations to conduct iraq champions to elect or defeat whether it's campaign advertisements, direct mail campaign, phone banks or whatever. and it opens the door for those kind of expenditures to be used by influence over the decisions made by officeholders. i think that a "new york times" article headlined last week at a right, that the decision gives lobbyists a potent weapon in carrying out their responsibilities on behalf of their corporation. i think if you look at this in terms of specific examples and to the guys abimelech did official, what you will see is the capacity for any number of

tanks, insurance companies, drug companies and the like, either directly or through intermediaries, such as trade associations, to conduct multimillion dollar campaign for or against elected officials, based on whether they vote to support their positions of those corporations. that is a powerful weapon in a powerful tool to attack the psyche and reality of members of congress. and it won't take long after one or two or three members are taken out because they voted down, whereby the threat, not the reality of spending, the threat of spending will have a similar kind of impact and you won't even have to spend the

money. in terms of judicial races, this takes a very bad situation and makes it worse. and i find it more than ironic that justice kennedy, who saw a real threat to the integrity of the judicial system and caperton on the basis of very large independent expenditures, saw no threat to the integrity of congress or the executive branch, with similar kinds of very large independent expenditures. in terms of remedies, congress is going to be looking at a number of things within the confines of this opinion. but i think you're going to see a very intensified expansion of disclosure requirements for corporations. disclosure requirements to shareholders. the disclosure requirements to the public. at first when third parties or

making expenditures to ensure that the public is able to know who is providing the money that is funding those expenditures. as carl said, there's a very broad strong support here for disclosure. and efforts will be made to have maximum required disclosure for corporations and those who spend corporate money in the near future. thank you. >> just on that last point. it was an aide to one vote in favor of the disclosure requirements, but the court has in some contexts found disclosure requirements to be unconstitutional. are you pretty confident the disclosure even more strict

regime of disclosure requirements will be upheld? >> the court in buckley have a caveat for cases where people could show harassment had occurred. that caveat remains, but the court took a very strong position on disclosure. in the mcconnell case they taken a very strong position in disclosure on citizens united and i think there will be enough to maximize disclosure in this area. with the apparent blessing of the supreme court. >> okay. next we'll hear from tommy wells is the immediate past president of the american bar association and partner in the firm maynard cooper in jail in birmingham, alabama. had the privilege of getting to know tommy during his tenure at the aba where he may judicial independence and integrity in promoting both cornerstone of

this year. he's going to give us some death from on the ground in alabama. >> thank you, tony. it's a pleasure to be here. how do you think mayor chertoff and been the driving force behind this and also the georgetown law school and the aspen institute for allowing us to be here. i'm going to talk about i think what we can expect in judicial races in the wake of down where the drunks can get out of. i think what we're going to see is what we thought recently in the last judicial race, say why judicial race in the state of alabama in 2008. we had an open seat on the alabama supreme court. and so they were so no incumbent involved.

two judges announced they were going to run against each other for the open seat. one was a district court judge, and other court of criminal appeals judge. between the two of them, they raised and spent $3.8 million. that in and of itself is bad enough. however, in the last week of the campaign, what i want to focus on is what happened with third-party involvement in this race. the so-called independent expenditures. first, one week before the election, a series of ads began to run, praising judge craig shaw who was the republican nominee's performance on the court of criminal appeals. he didn't say vote for judge shaw. he didn't say vote against judge deborah bell passer who was a democrat. it simply said, judge craig shaw was a very good judge on the court of criminal appeals. over a million dollars and have

survived in the past week, funded by a group out of virginia called the center for individual freedom inc. now, what the center for individual freedom incorporated in virginia had in terms of the men checked an open seat on the alabama supreme court is beyond me at this point. but it was enough that they spent almost a million dollars in television ads. following up on that, codes began to ring with so-called push polls. you've heard of push polls. it's supposed to be a poll, but really it's pushing a particular agenda. and this particular push poll, by the way, that area code for the call that came in was from area code 703. if you happen to know area code 703, that also happens to be in virginia. now why the americans in contact

pact and northern virginia wanted to run these push false for an alabama supreme court race, again, the logic defies my understanding. in this push poll however one of the questions was as follows. were you aware that judge deborah bell passer were both given every team have asked by the alabama state bar association class now they've never said that against judge pasteur and they never said vote for judge shaw. but they said, judge pasteur received a rating of past from the alabama state bar. now what the truth of the matter was 20 years ago in 1989, the administrative office of courts have a grading system for quote case currency. how fast you resolve cases and a particular court. they had a rating system eight, b., c., d., e., s., ng.

it turned out in 1989 the court on which judge pasteur sat because it was understaffed and had a very heavy caseload was toward the bottom in their case currency. so her court had received a rating of last. the administrative office of courts found that that was a bad rating system and had to and had abandoned that for the past 20 years. but the push poll asked, were you aware that judge pasteur received and asked not from the administrative office of courts but from the alabama state bar. but of course that the alabama state bar interested in the president of the alabama state bar put out announcements at the alabama state bar doesn't rate judicial candidates and we certainly don't take positions in contested judicial lectures. that was followed again by yet another third independent expenditure group called the alabama voters against lawsuit

abuse, then began running television ads that said the judge never received an aspirating from the bar association. the truth, official court documents show she did receive an aspirating from the administrative office of courts. this was according to the press release issued by the administrative office of words and i'm going to quote, misleading and inaccurate. yet in that particular race, again all of this occurred in the last week of the campaign. again, the press of the alabama state mark white complained to the state attorney general for an investigation. the executive director of the alabama voters against lawsuit abuse claimed it was a violation of guess what, their first amendment rights. and it was referred to mark the press of the alabama state bar

as a legal hood on. did this have any impact to the race. i'll let you decide. one week after these ads began to run, craig shaw the republican won by 12,000 votes out of over 1.2 million votes cast. it was less than 1% of the votes in that particular election. so you decide whether the independent expenditures in the last week of the campaign had an effect. now let's talk just for a second about disclosure. because while the supreme court said you can have on the federal level disclosure rules and if you want to understate level. if you don't enact disclosure rules on the state level you're going to end up with what we ended up with in alabama, which is disclosure found the center for individual freedom as to where there came from, none.

from the americans and contact patch where their money came from, none. from the alabama voters against lawsuit abuse where their money came from, none. why? because they didn't use the words vote for or vote against even though it was clear what they were doing and the election. now i think it's a juicy to look at that and circle back now to the caperton issue. a recusal issue. how in the world can you ever filed a recusal motion if you don't know where the money came from? it simply becomes an impossibility. so for better or for worse, now i'm afraid in all states you're going to be stuck with independent expenditures in judicial races like that that was fought in the 2008 campaign

in alabama. >> thank you. i want to move in a few minutes to some questions from the audience. so get ready for that. but first i wanted to see if there are any comments that speakers want to make about other speakers comments. and one way to frame because there seems to be disagreement about the impact of this case is one thing i want to be sure about and this may be a naïve question, but our research and that in fact this decision will reach to shell state judicial elections. while you're in the last panel said, you know, asked the classic question of whether our judicial elections really different. and are they different enough that they could be held to be outside this decision or is that argument pretty much by the boards at this point? >> i think in light of the white case for minnesota, that they're

not different enough to warrant a different first amendment analysis. now, there are solutions or at least some courses of action that can be taken to accommodate the difference in the earlier panel mentioned public financing. i served on the aba commission that recommended public financing for judicial campaigns. i think we have to recognize that those campaigns are different here is one of the big differences is that judicial candidates really have a difficult time raising the resources to conduct the campaign. i mean, were they going to go to? the ever citizen is not going to be that interested in contributing and they wind up turning primarily to lawyers and perhaps litigants. so we've got to give them more resources because public demands that they run are going to have

to run for election to have greater resources to do so. but public financing doesn't then become a license to try and regulate independent speech. there are proposals to do that. the safest on that doesn't apply to judicial elections, but other elections in arizona that try to jury rig what other people try to do in these elections. the district court just how that system unconstitutional about a week ago. so there are limitations. impact of a recusal, although i'm struck by tommy's notion that one way to effectuate recusal is to require people who may be engaging in spending money and make them publicly known so that the judge will know who's spending the money is supposed to not knowing who's spending the money. presumably you don't need to recuse yourself if you don't know that the party has done anything in a particular election. and in terms of alabama, i also

point out that one of the potential solutions are is that alabama could join one of those 13 states that currently have disclosure rules for the lectionary to indications. so you don't have that. processing legislature will consider passing something like document disclosure will be expanded to the type of advertising that you describe. >> i would note, tom, earlier my good friend jan was referred to as a child of winning brief. he also filed i believe my good friend brad smith filed briefs against disclosure, saying that disclosure itself presents good speech from occurring, that's anonymous speech is good speech tonight and corporations should be allowed to engage in speech without -- and trade associations can without disclosing where the original source of funds were coming

from. >> was badinage their limitations of disclosure. you can choose to exposure to a reasonably bergner and arrest people. and impact of the proposal or proposed reaction to this decision is okay, will discourage these people from getting involved in spending any money by making it so complicated, so burdensome, so difficult for disclosure that will present constitutional proposals as well. >> we wouldn't do anything like that. [laughter] >> any other? >> that would make this remark. i don't understand what factors a corporation should consider other than the effect on the bottom line whether to spend or not. what to expect of these companies other than trying to maximize profits for their shareholders. so they're spending actually seemed to increase the bottom line. don't they have a duty to their shareholders to spend money?

>> good idea to jim's point about where he mentioned the disclosure for lectionary communications, this opinion does say that you don't need express advocacy to require disclosure of these races. it upheld the disclosure for lectionary communications, which is the timeframe. and which dimension of the name of the candidate and certain other factors trigger is disclosure. so, there is room for disclosure that goes beyond express advocacy disclosure in congressional, presidential, or judicial races. >> i'll jump in with three quick points here what the heck. first as regards, to mr. wells comments from these places comments in the context of an ever tightening campaign and i don't have any reason to doubt his description of it appeared as he is described it he said

it's a terrible thing to do. i think it's important that we separate out legal principles from a particular bakke case. i don't think we've ever held in the first amendment that because some people will say things that we don't like or think are not constructive that we can therefore blanca lake venice beach. if we have at the same thing about a campaign that was entirely truthful, that was wonderful, but off the lies being told by the candidate himself, kennedy perhaps tonight he'd ever been given an ad. and then the candidate lost by 12,000 votes. we'd say boy things goodness there was a independent spending there. we have to separate the analysis to whether we should have this kind of independent spending from a particular campaign i think of good or bad. it just on disclosure, i want to say very briefly, you know, make your disclosure that your center for competitive politics which i shared and filed briefs in the case. that's what we get to be your guest.

is that i've heard some people say it's not regulation, just disclosure. it is a form of regulation. the purpose of disclosure is to help citizens monitor their government. it is not for the government to monitor its citizens reared and i'm not quite sure all the time where that line is, but we do need to be careful. i get very nervous whenever i hear people say we did everything disclosed on the internet. we don't need every little small donor of $200 so undisclosed. i think moderation like most things in life is good in moderation. >> i wanted to ask the panelists about the interplay between caperton and citizens united. justice stevens said motions to recuse will catch some of the worst abuses of this new flow of money into judicial campaigns. but he said there was a small

comfort to states and mena want to be up out of place and love the doll dollar corporate electioneering. so i just want to see if you think caperton does provide a remedy for whatever excesses citizens united may bring at least in the judicial election. >> well, tony all jump in there since i sort of link the caperton to my story. i think it's going to depend entirely on disclosure. in the alabama situation, if you can't find out who provided the money for the push polls, and jan i'm not so naïve as to believe that judge shot doesn't have some idea who gave that money to support his candidacy. but the general voting public doesn't know that. and certainly the weather gets to appear before the supreme court don't know that and therefore can't file any type of motion, even though the

$1 billion for the center for individual freedom spent in support of justice shaw's campaign wasn't quite as much of the 60% that was spent by don blankenship and independent expenditures in support of the west virginia campaign. but it was a significant amount of it was a third at least of the amount that shaw spent on his entire campaign. if we knew who gave $10 million, we might be able to file a caperton motion. but we don't know. and so, without disclosure, you're not going to have a caperton motion. so, i think the next step i think for people who are interested in particularly judicial elections, but quite frankly, all elections come is going to be in those states that don't have some type of

disclosure to try to move to strengthen your disclosure requirements so that the donors cannot hide behind the center for individual freedom inc. in virginia. >> it's also going to depend on the judge as. judges refuse to recuse themselves, you're not going to find many litigants who are going to be in a position to pursue this through the courts. so, the attitude of judges will have a great impact on the potential for recusal be in a solution here. i'm kind of in the small comfort school. >> any other thoughts before we bring in some public questions from the audience about what next will happen at the state level in wake of citizens

united. will there be motions to declare state laws unconstitutional? how does that process work? >> well, it tends to work either legislatively or through opinions of an attorney general or entity that has responsibility for enforcement, you know, legislators repealed their laws that the extent aren't consistent with the attorney general will issue a ruling. and if there are states that either refuse to do that or are more likely that there might be a dispute over a particular statute as to whether or not it's inconsistent with the statute. well, then as we lawyers like to say, litigation will ensue, right? >> anyone else? okay, are there any questions about citizens united family audience? >> hi, my name --

>> i'm sorry. [inaudible] >> there's a speaker right behind you there. >> i just wanted to ask a question, as someone who is more persuaded by justice stevens dissent in by the majority opinion, i'm struck by both the pros and cons hysteria. that is, it seems to me, i guess my question would be partly to fred entirely to tommy. if indeed it is the case that in the bad example in alabama that the senator for individual freedom inc. in virginia did not use magic words, manage simply to make the point clear. and that's what we're focusing us on the incremental impact of the citizens united decision

rather than the last 20 or 25 years of jurisprudence. denizen of the case that people like fred and carl are exaggerating the likely pragmatic impact that is the same thing could've been done the day before citizens united. it's just that now things might be a bit more transparent. and isn't transparency even by their values they could name? there will be people who react to this somewhat appalled poet reaction to know is given over government to corporate control by focusing on the importance of better shareholder remedies, more complete disclosure. i would imagine too that this will energize the attention to how spm carlin suggested on the caperton may really miss the big targets which is the inherent

tension in democracy between the desire for independent to vacation on the desire for accountability and encourage the movement that justice o'connor is happily propelling for eventually replacing elected judges, judges appointed by some other process. in other words, isn't this wrongly decided case a good day in terms of what its likely impact will be? >> no, in my view. you know, part of this argument depends on whether you think money does influence government decisions are not in a lot of people don't think it does. and in that case, the impact won't be much. i am not of that view. what we've gone fran is a system

where was the legal to make these expenditures and were expenditures were made around the shades of that legality, in which there've been fights over, which resulted in the electioneering communication provision. to a point where it is now an exercise of my constitutional right as a corporation to make these expenditures. and while there are some constraints in terms of shareholders and nervousness without being publicly identified with this corporations do have the responsibility, fiduciary responsibility to backslide their profits. they have extraordinary economic stakes in washington. and in the decisions that are made. and it's been my experience over 40 years that when opportunities

are provided to put money into campaigns and into the political process to obtain influence, those opportunities are quickly filled. we wound up with a $500 million soft money system, funded by corporations, business, labor unions, mostly corporation and business interest very quickly. so, i don't think this is a question i've hysteria. i think as i said i also think you have to look at this through the eyes of what members of congress had to deal with. house members on 24 hours a day for every two-year period. anytime you're going to vote as a member of the house or senate, you are going to now have to take into account in ways that you did not have to take into account before, in equation of what is the potential impact in terms of bringing large

resources against me and to my campaigns? and is nonsense, you will have an impact on the thinking of elected officials, even if danny is not spent. now, we'll all find out whether this is just an incremental change or not. and i don't expect corporations early on to go out there with advertising campaigns directly. i expect them to do it through third-party groups. but i do believe that one ought to take seriously the kind of shift and impact that this is going to have on the electoral process and government decision-making. and maybe i contact to jan and see if we can extend his support for public financing of judicial elections to federal elections, but i haven't been able to so far. >> you haven't proposed a system that didn't have all kinds of bells and whistles that were

unconstitutional. but if you decide to, i will support it. >> let me answer the professor's question since he is part of it to me. i think the answer is yes and no. it's going to be worse than states that had campaign restrictions. because they're going to go by the wayside, campaign restrictions. i think it is an opportunity back in states like alabama that did not have disclosure requirements that now they can clearly say we cannot transparency in this process. so it's an opportunity for the half states, roughly half and half, that didn't really have campaign finance restrictions or disclosure to at least enact disclosure. so i think the answer is both yes and no. >> i answered the question pretty much the same. this won't be the first time i disagree with brad.

we disagreed with the number of decisions i made was in the federal elections commission. but i think they gasper comes comes from the fact that since there has been no effective limit on what corporations believe they could stand in elections. so this doesn't signal big departure from what the state of the law was. and what's good about this is it does bring focus within corporations that activities to date have largely been not transparent to which no one was accountable. and i think to the extent it brings greater accountability and transparency to what these very large institutions are spending money when they attempt to influence elections and why they were spending benefits a plus. that's a prediction about the future i'm not confident that we will actually get greater transparency and accountability. but if that is the result, then

i think that there is not quite a silver lining, it whining here that we can appreciate that we will me be better the system to the direction it was going. >> do you want to -- >> thank you. dingman bro, i'm an attorney sharon tana graduated from the fosco 25 years ago so it's good to be back. it's good to hear a speaker i can understand. i'm a little bit confused as chris matthews was while you're not a little bit more irritated or i can tell when the case because never seems to bear happy. it might require model rules for state borrowers to know how to rule on recusal. wouldn't it be possibly a good idea for groups like yours are people like you to put up model rules to be used for disclosure? because the leading governor candidate in alabama there are no restrictions, but they also don't have an effective for

disclosure. and it occurred to me that you mamma to group together with some of your colleagues about the model rules on disclosure because if they don't restrictions they probably don't have a lot of practice and are disclosure either. and thank you, justice o'connor. >> we are focused on not looking at what would be appropriate disclosure rules. we would hope you join with others and doing something exactly like that. >> i served for three plus years on the aba committee reviewing the model code of judicial conduct. and we didn't get to disclosure, but we did get the issue about campaign contributions that we did address the issue of recusal. and some dearly refuge of the culture of judges. and i would say the issue of recusal and also to the issue of gift rules probably revealed to me the culture of judges more than anything off.

which was basically, we don't want to get into that and take too much because i'm a judge then i'll decide, you know, whether i should accept the tickets to the university for dog and or not, assuming it's not a lawyer or litigant and things of that sort. i will decide on what basis recusal is required and we want to retain aggression discussion. when it comes to disclosure of course i'm confident the judges as well as the aba and all the folks who hang out with brad and say well that doesn't affect me. i want to know what's going on and i'd be glad to have as much disclosure as the government can pass. >> okay. well, thank you for your much for the panelist or there's obviously still disagreement over how big of a deal citizens united is. in this context and there probably will continue to be

debate for months and years and thank you to justice o'connor for bringing us all together to watch the debate. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> today in the senate, members blocked the confirmation of president obama's nominee to the national labor relations board.

here are some of the debate prior to a vote to advance the nomination. we'll are from republican natojohnccaind democrat dick durbin. this is a half-hour. >> mr. president. >> senator from arizona. >> mr. president, i rise in opposition to the nomination of mr. craig becker to be a member of the national labor relations board. mr. craig becker is the first person, i repeat, the first person nominated for a term on the national labor relations board who comes directly from a liberal organization. mr. bakker is an officer and an associate general counsel at two of our nation's largest unions. the afl-cio and that seiu. these unions have a substantial interest in the most important decisions pending before the board. that's one thing to come from private law practice represent employers or unions of client. it's quite another to come to

the board directly from being an officer in an associate general counsel of the labor organizations with that mention substantial interest and multiple matters pending or that will be pending before the board. last week's hearing was clearly necessary as it revealed that while mr. becker will recuse himself for a period of two years and only for two years from those incentives, when his former employers, the international union are a party and a board proceeding. he did not commit to recuse himself from cases raising issues in which the internationals are involved were impacted and he did not commit to recuse himself from cases involving the locals of these two international unions. parties before the board, whether union or employer have a right to a fair and impartial tribunal. the confirmation of an officer and an associate general counsel of two of our nation's largest

unions for a term on the national relations labor relations board will make the appearance of justice and many of the decisions in which he participates impossible to achieve. and further, to the extent he interprets the act to adopt the policy of paradigms that the seiu for the afl-cio and not those expressed by congress in the act, he will further undermine the board in self-criticism in the labor-management community as well as amongst workers whose rights to engage in protected concerted activity are refrained from doing so are protected under the act. mr. becker's writings suggest that he believes the board can implement provisions of the employee free choice act into labor law through decisions of the board. this view suggesting the board can do what congress has not authorized should raise concerns

with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. let me read a direct quote from mr. becker's colleague, mr. stewart kickoff, the afl-cio's director of organizing from a february 3rd, 2010 posting on the huffington post or if this was just last week. and i quote, we are very close to the 60 votes we need. if we aren't able to pass the employee free choice act, woodwork with president obama and vice president biden and their appointees to the national labor relations board to change the rules governing the form the form to make union through administrative action to once again allow workers in america access to one of the most basic freedoms in a democracy. mr. president, this is cleared. this is clear. mr. becker's folly, clearly

indicated by mr. becker's agenda would be, which would be to violate what is absolutely only a prerogative of congress in the united states. this type of bias is why the most respected business groups in america are opposing mr. becker's nomination. in a statement opposing mr. becker's nomination from the national association of manufacturers, the nation's largest trade association, i quote, a man firmly agrees that with the nlrb commission should protect the principles of fairness and balance that characterize her labor law system. employers should have the right to information from both employers and union officials on the time to review that information in order to better make important decisions that impact their jobs and families. unfortunately, mr. becker's interpretation or labor laws does not reflect these principles and cast serious

doubt on his ability to administer our nation's law in an unbiased manner. we are particularly concerned with mr. becker's writings and academic journals that argue that the nlrb should limit the ability of employers to communicate with their employees during union organizing campaigns. specifically, mr. becker is claimed in 1993 minnesota live review article that quotes, the court defect in union election law is the employer status of the party to labor representation proceedings. mr. becker is asserted views that the nlrb should rewrite union election rules in favor of union organizers. such policy decisions should only be determined by congress. the nam is particularly concerned that if confirmed, mr. becker with the two advanced aspects of the jobs killing employee free choice act through

actions of the nlrb. and from the u.s. chamber of commerce, was only opposed three nominees in the last 30 years. i quote from the u.s. chamber statement, this is only the third time in more than 30 years that the chamber has opposed a nominee to the board most recently the 1993 nomination of william b. gould. mr. becker has written prolifically about the national labor relations act, the law she would he charged with interpreting and enforcing should he be confirmed. many of the positions taken in his writings are well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance of current labor laws. these positions every significant concerns in the employer community. among those concerns are the extent to which mr. becker would restrictively interpret employers free speech rights in

the extent to which he would seek to expand the use of intermittent strikes and other forms of work stoppages that disrupt the right of employers to maintain operations during labor disputes. there may be no one ever nominated to the nlrb more opposed by the business community in the entire history of the nlrb. are we to believe that the president could not find a single person in america that wouldn't elicit this kind of response do to their bias? last week, over 500 employers signed a letter opposing mr. becker's nomination. twenty-three major business associations opposed mr. becker's nomination. mr. becker's views speak for themselves. but his supporters on the left have explained in full view of whether attempting to seek mr. becker. from the offers and the left-leaning publication, the

nation obama's prounion nominations to labor relations board stalled january 20, 2000, i quote, the battle over nominations to the nlrb, even more than espn may be what really determines the extent of labor skeins under obama. should obama persevere and see his nominations confirmed. there is reason to believe that much of what organized labor hopes to accomplish via efca and will be realized through the rulemaking power of the nlrb. and if there was any doubt about the euphoria on the left, look no further than that wade radke, the chief organizer of community organizations international, from the acorn, founder and chief organizer of acorn and founder and chief organizer of local 100 service employees international union recently wrote, for my money,

journeyman's contribution has been his work in making a legal strategy which have allowed the effective organization of informal workers. home health and home depot has been the great exceptional success story within the american labor movement for a generation leading to the forced use of perhaps half a million such workers and unions such as seiu of the ast. becker is the key player from the beginning in the early 1980's who was able to piece together the arguments of representation that allowed those of us involved in trying to work in his home health care workers in illinois, massachusetts and elsewhere. backers roll is often behind the scenes devising a strategy with the organizer and lawyers, writing the breeze for others for file and putting all the pieces together. but he was the go two guy on all

of this. radke concludes, i can remember had leaky necessity for the seiu in chicago and also making sure there was money for the organizers, but that seiu was also getting access to credit. me just point out i just received from the alison riordan of the employees union came out with an e-mail today entitled senator, your attendance and crucial to appointing craig becker to the national regular regulations board. please help report of president obama's nomination on craig becker for senate confirmation. this is the highest priority for organized labor.

but majority leader reid will fire cloture on friday to fifth and has assured us the senate will vote to and debate monday at 5:00. mr. president, when this president was elected he said he would govern from the center. if craig becker to be nominations approved we will see the undermining of long-standing practice in labor law that should be the prerogative of the united states congress. as the congress of the united states and his wisdom occurrence decides to pass efca, then that's an act of congress. it should not happen. card checks should not happen because pamela did bureaucracy of the national labor relations board is the one to do it. gentoo without thasbvious my conclusions on his agenda. i urge my colleagues to vote no on the cloture motion on

mr. becker's nomination. >> resident. >> senator from illinois. >> is to present, the ticket book of the history of this great nation at least in my lifetime you cannot miss what happened to america immediately after world war ii. veterans came back from that war, thousands of them and they were greeted with the g.i. bill. which open the door for them to buy homes, start businesses, start an education, find good jobs. it may have been one of the most amazing progressive positive things we've ever done in our nations history, to take a war effort and bring it home to create an economic effort in america. businesses were springing up in every direction. workers were finding jobs and building homes. it was a wonder time in our nations history. in parallel to that g.i. bill and matt economic development,

was the rise of unionism in america. more and more workers were able to go into there were slaves and bargain collectively for the basics that people need, safety and the work ways, a living wage so if you work 40 hours a week you could make enough money to take care of herself and raise a family. retirement benefits, health care benefits, these all came about at the same period of time after world war ii. the rise of the american economy with the returning veterans on the rise in the number of people who were belonging to labor unions in parallel, but the middle class into reality in america. it was a positive force across our nation. i know a little bit about it. my own personal family experience. my mother, my father, my two brothers and i worked for a real road, east st. louis, illinois. dad was a labor organizer.

he wasn't a high ranking officials that he was a proud member of the brotherhood of railway clerks found the same way. and i were at various times that summer jobs in the same railroads. i knew i was going to get not a lavish salary, but a decent salary for my work and have good condition because i'd union has set down the bargain so i would be recognized as an employee and protected in terms of the work that i did. made sure that i was fairly paid. the same thing was true of many other families. union families all across america. my mom and dad needed to the eighth grade. they send their boys on to high school into college and i managed to finish law school. it was the american dream. an american unions played a big role in realizing the turn. now what has happened? fewer and fewer americans belong to labor unions. fewer and fewer americans are able to bargain collectively for

decent wages and working conditions in the basic and if it's that we would expect. and what do we see happening across america as a result of that trend? a growing disparity in terms of the wages earned by working people and the amount of money being paid to those who are the officers of corporations. that disparity has reached shocking, if not disgraceful levels, where people who were the highest rung of corporate america are drawing salaries and bonuses, dramatically higher than the people who work for them, who actually are productive in doing a good day's work. many of us believe there is an imbalance here. it is an imbalance that has been created deliberately over the years. as business interests outside for power here in washington, they have made it increasingly difficult for workers to exercise their rights in the

workplace to organize and speak for themselves. in the agency that is supposed to be the referee in this battle is the national labour relations board. they look for unfair practices, by either the workers attempting to organize or the business, which is being organized. they basically stand by a principle, which we all respect. and that is set up a majority the workers want to bargain collectively, they should have the right to do that, to organize a junior and if they wish. but we know what happens. when organizers come to many businesses, not all of them, but many of them, try to speak the employees and tell them here's what we can offer for you if you'll join our union, if you will join with your other coworkers and are coming together. many times they are not only shunned, they are sent away. and if they are fortunate enough to come up with the majority of workers who want to move toward

unionizing, they find themselves facing legal battles one after the other. go on for literally years. until you literally wear out the people who are trying to organize that plant. in complicit in that has been the national labor relations board many times without effect and forceful enforcement of laws that exist, without a sense of urgency and decision-making, this agency has allowed so many workers in america to fall to the wayside and not have a chance to stand up for themselves. ..

now comes the unions and say -- they come to us and say, we want to change the way that we organize the workplace. they put together the employee free choice act. that is their term for the legislation that has been legislation that has been free choice act. that is their term for the legislation that has been offered and it offers a new alternative to gauging whether majority truly wants to organize the work place. the bill has been considered in the other body. it hasn't been called in this body and it is not likely it will ever be called or passed in its original form. but many of us realize it's only fair to make some changes in the way these workplaces are organized so if a majority of workers to want to organize they have that right. they are not harassed and

intimidated, threatened and fired because they're exercising their right under the law to consider to a union voting in favor of belonging to a union. part of this discussion relates to the national labor relations board. before the senate today is the nomination of craig becker from illinois to be the national labor relations board. you heard senator mccain, and talk about his activities. senator mccain is my friend, he and i see america and perhaps the world in slightly different perspectives from time to time and we certainly do in this case. the senator from arizona was critical saying that he was an active organizer for the service employees international union. that is the fact. the fact is he worked for them an effort to organize work places and in many respects he was successful.

that was his job. it was nothing illegal. it was an honorable effort on his part to give voice to employees who otherwise didn't have and some of the service employe unions incidentally represent people with modest jobs. people who may be giving custodial work or basic maintenance work who are overlooked in many organizing efforts so mr. becker was fighting for them he was fighting to give folks who otherwise wouldn't have a chance and a voice of of a fighting chance to be treated with some dignity in the workplace. right now we know what the facts are when it comes to the national labor relations board. if you were in the process of organizing the work place and there is a violation of the wall, the national labor relations board will take two years before they make a decision on a violation of the labor laws.

two years. well things change and the owners of businesses know that so making a violation and waiting two years by is than the time to change the sentiment in the workplace. it takes one year having in organizing a petition signed before the national labor relations board makes its decision. craig becker knows that. he comes before us because we believe and the president believes he would be a good person on the national labor relations board. it's hard to look at his background and say that he's not qualified. he clearly is qualified. we know the national labor relations board of the minister's the primary law governing labour relations in the private sector. its normally five members currently has only two sitting members and it's often deadlocked on issues. it has led to many legal questions raised about the validity of the board's decisions. craig becker is accomplished lawyer and academic. this is the general counsel for the service employees

international union, craig becker work to protect the rights of organizers. he's arguably were and employment law we cases of most levels of the federal court system including the supreme court of the united states. is their anyone who questions this man has qualified for the job? he taught labor at ucla, university of chicago and at georgetown university. his research and academic work is well respected and cited by many others in the field. he was first nominated with one of the three openings in july of 2009, nominated by president obama just last month. both last year and last month by help committee chaired by my friend, senator tom harkin of iowa will be on the floor with minority leader ranking minority enzi on the same committee approved the nomination, the committee approved the nomination. since he was nominated mr. becker has responded to over

300 written questions from republican senators. more than nearly any other nominee. i don't know how many questions are asked of supreme court nominees but when you ask 300 questions it is pretty clear it goes beyond needing some information. the idea is to try to trip up the nominee or ask so many questions you will wear them out. he met personally with every interest in san natural wanted to ask his own personal views. he addressed the concerns of senator sam congressional hearings only the second time in nominee incidentally had a second hearing in the last 25 years. throughout the process mr. baker stated its belief congress create sleeper laws not the nlrb. i guess there is a parallel to this argument by judicial activism where the argument being made on the republican side if mr. becker is brought the national labor relations board he's going to make the law

and he said he will. his job is to basically interpret bill law has written and implement as congress has passed it. he has said repeatedly if confirmed he will apply the law fairly and impartially. confirming craig becker will allow them to move forward with the congressional mandated duties and i am certainly going to support his confirmation. i just struggle when i hear my republican colleagues say well you know, it just is not fair when a democrat is elected president he might appoint someone to the national labor relations board who is more friendly to the labor unions than a republican appointee. i mean, is that a stunning revelation to anyone? what we're looking for are honest people who have no prejudice against either side and will try to make the system work and make the national labor relations board work. when i look at some of the statistics here about what's going on, the number of

contested decisions issued by the national labor relations board on the four year average is 426 and the time it takes them for processing time to church to board decision, 782 days, more than two years. it just tells me if broken down in terms of their basic responsibility to the law if we keep the net to members and people can question the validity of their decisions, then those who want to make sure the national labor relations board is not an effective working force in the government may have their way. i hope they don't. i certainly hope that we will reach a point where we will prove this man who has stood before the help committee and this samet on two separate occasions answering all the questions that have been offered. he comes with solid credentials in terms of his legal knowledge

as well as his life experience. he is a person that i know has worked hard to help those less fortunate who are looking for a chance for a living wage and decent working conditions. are we going to say that anyone who comes to the national labor relations board who worked for a labor union is disqualified? is that the position being taken by some? i hope not. that's fundamentally unfair like seeing someone who owns a business can't be a member of the national relations board. i wouldn't agree with that. i think we need fairness and balance and in partiality, and i think that craig eckert will bring that so i hope my colleagues will join me in supporting his nomination and i yield the floor.

today, government officials announced the recall of 500,000 crib's after the death of three infants. this follows nov's ghraib recall which was the largest in u.s.

history. recently, this house hearing looked into new safety standards for cribs. witnesses and with the chairman of the consumer product safety commission, the agency that issued today's recall. this is two hours and 15 minutes >> good morning and welcome. we are going to begin this hearing, the subcommittee on oversight and investigations. the hearing is entitled assessing the need for better oversight on crib safety. members will be recognized for opening statements. i will begin. today we are here to answer a painful and difficult questions; are we doing enough to protect infants and toddlers from injury and death in their cribs? most experts agree the safest place for an infant to sleep is in a properly made crib that meets the highest state standards. babies sleeping on their backs in the crib with a firm mattress and without soft bedding are less likely to die from sids or

suffocate. our world today is critical because the unique nature of a baby crib. as we will hear from our witnesses, and a baby crib is the only product designed so parents can leave their child unattended for a long period of time and be confident that their child will be safe. it is reasonable for parents to expect the crib the purchase meets safety standards enforced by a strong regulator. unfortunately the subcommittee learned those reasonable the expectations of could safety have not been met. the consumer product safety commission, cpsc, the government agency task of keeping consumer products safe for americans recalled millions of kurds in recent years after investigating reports of broken and effective cribbed hardware, jobsites that detach and poor would quality. what is more shocking is that all of these recall cribs were certified as meeting the industry's voluntary safety standards. the crib recalls his questions about the effectiveness of the regulations and leave some

parents to dealt with in a crib on the market is safe. in november of to the line, the cpsc announced the recall of more than 2 million storkcraft drop side chris, the largest in history. just this tuesday the cpsc announced yet another voluntary recall involving 635,000 drop side and fixed rail cribs manufactured by eda asia corporation. congress instructed the cpsc to revisit the safety standards for the crimson that the consumer product safety improvements act of 2008. cpsc is prepared to meet the obligation. our hearing will detail the crib -- recent crude recalls and consider how cpsc prevents defects from entering the market. we will examine the industry's role in ensuring products are safe and eckert standards are designed to keep consumers save. today we will hear specifically about the safety concerns of the drop side cribs.

a drop side krepp allows a parent to raise and lower the front of the crib for easy access to their baby. as opposed to the fixed rail credit that has four sites that do not move up or down. according to the juvenile products minute dr. is a station, retailers sold approximately 500,000 full-sized cribs in 2008, of which 15-20% had drop side. since to those of five, the cpsc announced more than 30 recalls of 7 million cribs for a variety of safety problems. many of them involving jobsites. cpsc experts found that mattress support brackets and drop side hardware can break, the four more are lost. the design flaws permit consumers to intentionally or unintentionally install the drop side reeling upside-down putting unintended stress on the crib hardware. many different problems can cause the drop site to detach creating a dangerous gap between the railing and the cribs to the

to crib magers. as this simulated picture from the cpsc shows, it should be up here on the screen, in some cases the body of an infant or toddler can become trapped in the space and a child can suffocate. since 2007, the cpsc has issued recalls involving millions of drop side cribs sold by different manufacturers. the cpsc issued for recalls of drop side cribs and factor by simplicity after receiving a report of dozens of incidents involving several deaths. in october, 2008, the cpsc recalled nearly 1 million delta brandt jobsites cribs. the cpsc issued to recalls and to those in line of storkcraft drop cribs were problems associated with brackets that all the matches in place and problems with the cribs plastic hardware. the cpsc lived for deaths associated with storkcraft faulty cribs. in the recall involves more than 2 million cribs, the largest crowd recall in u.s. history. the fact that most recalls have

involved christa were built in compliance with current voluntary safety standards shows the system for measuring and insuring and enforcing crib safety is not working to read the juvenile products manufacturers association in the national trade association representing more than 250 companies certified that simplicity, delta and storkcraft cribs involved in each of the recalls met all of u.s. standards and voluntary industry standards. the jpma gave the cribs their seal of approval. unfortunately, neither the mandatory or voluntary standards were or are strict enough. jpma will be testifying at today's hearing and i look forward to learning more about what the crib industry must do to improve its safety record. in november, 2008 the cpsc acknowledged the mandatory and voluntary standards do not include adequate performance requirements for durham ability of drop side crib hardware, the strength and quality of the what used to make the cribs and the

utility and cleared of the crib assembly instructions. i look forward to the cpsc chair person's testimony today about what the commission can do to develop and enforce stronger crude safety standards. today we will also examine the november recall of the 2 million storkcraft drop side cribs as a case study on the need for better regulation and oversight of crib safety. first, what can congress, the cpsc and the crib manufacturers learned of the massive recalls? second, how does the cpsc plan to address the ongoing safety problems with drop side cribs under its rule making authority? the cpsc has the legal authority to tackle this problem and restore american consumers' confidence in the safety of cribs. because the work of some of the members of this subcommittee, particularly congressman schakowsky, the consumer product safety and project requires an cpsc to study and develop safety standards for durable nursery products. including full-sized cribs. the act directs the cpsc to accept the existing one to

receive the standards for these products and make them mandatory or provide a stricter federal safety standard. our hearing today consists of three panels of witnesses. first we will hear from this is susan cirigliano, who lost her son, bobby, in 2004 when a drop side of his crib detached and he suffocated. mrs. cirigliano and her husband have been working to van drop side cribs in new york state. second we will hear from michael dwyer of the juvenile manufacturers association and nancy cowles of the foundation by the parents of adelbert died when a portable crib collapsed from his neck. these witnesses will be able to share their perspective on the crib safety, consumer protection and comment on the cpsc's rulemaking authority. finally, we will hear from the chair person of the consumer product safety commission, linus tannin bob. i want to thank of the witnesses for participating in today's hearing. particularly thank the

cirigliano's for their time, dustin and become a traveling from new york to share their personal tragedy and the american people. in preparation for this hearing, the subcommittee requested and received documents from the consumer product safety commission and juvenile products manufacturers association. the cpsc and the astm have been cooperative with the document requested preus tens of thousands of pages of documents of the holidays. i appreciate their cooperation with this important inquiry. in addition, the subcommittee requests documents from storkcraft, a canadian based could manufacturer whose drop side cribs were subject of the largest recall in the history. storkcraft pledged cooperation and just yesterday provided the subcommittee with its first submission of some responsive e-mails. i urge storkcraft to cooperate fully and complete its production of documents promptly. storkcraft will not be testifying here today but we look forward to reviewing their submissions, the documents they

submitted yesterday. and we reserve the right to schedule additional necessary to bring storkcraft and explain their role in the recall process and its responsibility to ensure the safe manufacturing of cribs. with that i will yield back the balance of my time and what next turn to the ranking member of this subcommittee, mr. walden of oregon and they've been very cooperative. we worked well on this and we may have future hearings. thanks for your efforts on this hearing. >> thank you peery i appreciate your holding this hearing and the work that both sides have done on this issue. i first want to mention that i, also scheduled to be on a telecommunications subcommittee markup session that's going on right now. we are actually voting on a couple of bills so i may have to step out and go to that committee and then i will return. i want to extend a warm welcome to the cirigliano family. we are -- we feel awful about the loss that you have suffered. it is unthinkable and less than any parent wants to go through. so you have our deepest

condolences and sympathy. thank you for troubling and for telling your story. we look forward to your testimony and admire your courage and willingness to speak up and make difference in public policy. u.s. consumer product safety commission is charged as you heard from a colleague with protecting the public from unreasonable risk of serious injury or death. thousands of products and infant crib sort of the products under the cpsc's to his diction and major focus of that agency. the commission acted in the past several months recalling millions of drop side cribs. today we have an opportunity to examine the recall process and product integrity questions raised by the but latest storkcraft recall and understand the role of the consumers play in the effectiveness of the recall and keeping children safe. our goals are to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the system and second to discuss possible solutions to improve

safety and oversight while still allowing access to a wide range of products with assurance of the public safety. we will also consider the astm international standard specifically for the crib manufacturers that were released in december of last year. astm is an entity that develops technical products standards that guide the cpsc's evaluation of products. we want an assessment from the witnesses of whether the new astm standards will be eliminated or significantly reduce the risk of serious injury. i welcome cpsc chairman inez moore tenenbaum and look forward to her statement and opportunity to ask questions. i'm anxious to hear if and when the commission will adopt the astm standard and if not, why not. i'm also interested in learning the complex matrix the agency uses to determine whether a certain number of isolated consumer complaints and incidents evolves into a full-blown investigation and lead to an ultimate product recall. congress has not been an active

flight comes to increasing federal regulation of juvenile products and increasing effectiveness of product recalls the consumer product safety improvements act of 2008 versus several issues that bring us here today. this inez moore tenenbaum will be able to talk about the authorities of the condition that they have at under cpsc -- cpsia including rulemakings procedures that allow the agency to revise its mandatory product standards work easily new-product reza station programs and increases in the agency's budget. what implementation in the last administration with early warning system the cpsc stuff and previous commission leadership role for the increasing their surveillance of cribs, bassinets and play cards. the system helped trigger the recalls of millions of cribs since that time. i hope chairwoman will talk about the system and how it can be expanded, strengthened, and approved under the new leadership of the commission. since medical experts agree the safest place for an infant to

sleep is in a crib, i want to know what we can do to increase consumer confidence in these products to ensure the parents are not discouraged from purchasing a crib adel. the consumer, the companies that manufacture these products, cpsc and congress, must work together to improve communications and quickly and thoroughly respond to products that may pose a threat. i do hope as we move forward the cpsc will be able to maintain a strong level of collegiality amongst five commissioners and both republicans and democrats will work together to insure that the cpsc effectively and wisely use its its new and additional resources and authorities to improve crib and product safety. thank you, mr. chairman. i look forward to the witnesses and to what some point have to step out for this market. schenectady good point there's another hearing going on the first floor and members will be bouncing in and out. it is a market which means we might have a vote in committee and may have to leave. i will stay and keep the hearing moving on.

next, mr. braley for an opening statement. three minutes please. >> thank you, mr. chairman and ranking member wallen gereed i can't imagine a more important committee hearing of the one we are having today. as a child growing up in the late 50's, my parents had a drop side crib three as a parent whose children were born in the late 1980's, i purchased, assembled and my kids all spent time in a drop side crib. and to the cirigliano family i want to expend our sympathy and appreciation for your courage and using this tragedy to teach others about this danger, and i can't thank be enough for coming down and spending your time to help educate on this important issue. i am very concerned about the recall largest of the recent grads with the millions of kurds recalled in the last several months. and i believe we need to act immediately to ensure all cribs sold in the united states meet the highest safety standards possible. you have heard the member, six

under 35,000 cribs made in china and the bomb by asia were recalled. it is on the heels of the largest crib recall in u.s. history two months ago. and this has been something that hits home for me personally because of the most recent recall has been linked to the october, 2008 death of a six month old infant in my state of iowa who was strangled after getting trapped in the crib when the drop side hardware broke. in addition to that tragedy the cpsc received 31 reports of incidents involving general asia drop side cribs including six reports of children being trapped between the mattress and the drop side. also received 36 reports of broken slabs on the crib and this gets back to my point earlier. i can tell you having purchased and assembled a drop side crib 30 years after what was in one of the quality of material being used in these cribs is much less than it used to be in terms of the wood products. that is why we need to have a

strong response to deal with this clear pattern of problems. in their statement, they said that the recall the cribs meet and exceed all applicable safety standards. if that is true, then this is just one more clear indication we need to act as quickly as possible to strengthen and enforce any standard. these deaths are inexcusable. the end of the most vulnerable members of the population, and we have no excuse for not fixing this problem immediately. i'm glad to hear cpsc has taken initial steps to address the safety concerns for the cribs as mandated by the consumer product safety and reflect which we passed in 2008 and which this committee addressed at hearings but i'm concerned about the length of time this is taking and i look forward to hearing from chairwoman inez moore tenenbaum about the additional steps commission is taking to improve and upgrade the crib safety standards. unfortunately, the crib recalls

also illustrates the danger of the free and restricted trade with companies that don't have the same safety standards for manufacturing that we do in the united states. to ensure the safety of american families, we need to ensure the country's we import products from on a level playing field with those that are manufactured here in this country regarding product safety regulations. that's why as the chairman of the populist caucus line working to make sure future trade agreements include strong product safety standards and that products imported into the united states meet or exceed u.s. health and safety standards, and i believe that the enactment of those provisions contained in the trade act would go a long way toward ensuring the safety of imported products including cribs. i want to thank you, chairman stupak for holding this timely and important hearing. i look forward to the testimony of all of our witnesses. and i hope that this hearing will be an important step forward toward the prompt

implementation and a strong enforcement of the highest speed line safety standards possible and i yield back. >> thank you mr. braley. mr. burgess, opening statement. three minutes please. >> thank you, mr. chairman. we are here of course today because of a tragedy. it's a tragedy we cannot reverse. maybe we can prevent future tragedies. i am profoundly regretful that for so long the standards as it relates to crib safety have been voluntary and not mandatory, despite more than 7 million cribs being recalled the last five years. one of the first speeches we have in the commissioner of the come safety commission inez moore tenenbaum was last august and she correctly noted a great deal of product safety ochers by relying on standards coupled with regulatory authority to intervene quickly and preface by saying they should be voluntary consensus standards. this makes sense for the new commissioner who has missed the aftermath of the mandates that

were issued from the congress through h.r. 44 the consumer product safety and proof that act because we as a congress have yet to go back and fix some of the unintended consequences that we visited upon consumers with that act. however, that being said the consumer product safety improvement act has the leverage the safety commission. as we have improved their funding. yes, we've improved their staffing but i will tell you as one of the few members of congress who has been to the consumer product safety commission and has watched the good men and women out there doing their work i will tell you that it is startling the amount of work that -- the amount of safety they are asked to assure the small staff and the brother primitive working conditions that they face on a daily basis. they don't have the manpower to implement the law we were the finances and they are trying to meet the deadlines imposed. and the issue stays and enforcement state after state

after state while trying to come up with solutions and the only real solution is congress going back and finding -- fine-tuning aspics of the legislation and fixing the mistakes we made when the legislation was drafted. section one of four of the consumer product safety improvement act specifically requires the consumer product safety commission to study and develop safety standards for durable and nursery products such as infant bath seats and walkers and cribs to read the consumer product safety commission could have either made mandatory existing voluntary safety standards or provided stricter federal safety standard and the consumer product safety commission worked to initiate rulemaking by august, to those in line and to more rules every six months until all durable nursery products that the mandatory safety standard. but today to the consumer product safety commission has only proposed safety standards for infant bath seats and foot lockers but not cribs, the source of 30 recalls. the crib issue is an issue of

the failure of those trusted by the american public to act during the last administration the rule regarding crib safety was being advanced but the new administration came and the school has never been finalized. here we are a year later and see the same problems as we have seen before. really mr. chairman we have no one to blame but ourselves for not regulating one, not one single product especially kurds. i yield back the balance of my time. >> thank you, mr. burgess. mr. green for an opening statement, please. three minutes. >> thank you, mr. chairman for holding this oversight hearing on this issue. there's been 30 recalls since 2005 the largest happened two months ago when more than 2 million kurds were recalled in 2009. again on tuesday there were a recall of 600,000. the major recalls demonstrate we need to do sitting safety standards for cribs and testing and for some of the standards.

there's a grandfather for under five and went thank of the witnesses particularly the speed family for the loss of their child. it leaves a hole in your heart for your whole life. i want to thank the consumer product safety commission chair inez moore tenenbaum for being here and i look forward to hearing what actions the commission plans to take as it reviews safety standards for the crevice as required by the consumer product safety act of 2008. astm international law provides technical standards and factors can follow them into the standards last one that remove standards for what had been of the most dangerous types of crimes especially making drop side crib monk compliant with of the astm standard. there's a serious problem these types of cribs were not addressed sooner either by the astm were the cpsc when it was a drop side crib so many recalls because the safety to infants and children. in 2007, a seven month old in my

hometown of houston died due to a malfunctioning drop side crib made by simplicity. the cpsc recalled the cribs made by that manufacturer but the overall issue of dangerous posed by the drop side cribs is not addressed. without knowing it the family of the seven year old put the drop side crib on upside down, the rail and because that the hinge broken about a gap between the mattress and where the child suffocated to death with their head against the mattress. this is not a unique problem on the drop side cribs but one not specifically addressed until december, to sell some line with astm removed standards for this type of crude. cpsc now has authority provided by the consumer product safety and prove that to move forward strengthening the regulations on the eckert of safety and i hope it is not just setting standards that enforcing testing to ensure cribs never make it into consumers' homes in the first place to get i'm also concerned about the secondary market for

the cribs. whether it be through gracia sales or resales. similar to the car seats. you can buy the car seat on the side of the road in houston may be 20-years-old but it doesn't meet the safety standards of the day. again i want to thank the chairman for holding the hearing and look forward to testimony from witnesses of congress can do to help protect infants from the terrible accidents. yelled back my time. >> thank you, mr. greene. ms. christensen, opening stevan please? >> thank you, mr. chairman. i also want to speak to you, chairman stupak and ranking member walden for holding this hearing. because becoming a parent looks the most important even in a life and else parents and consumers, we trust the products we buy are safe for our children and we need to have that reassurance. however we are here this morning because some of those are not safe in particular 40 cribs that have resulted injuries and even death. and i would like to also add my word of welcome to the cirigliano family and extend my

sympathy to them as well. and also commend them for being here today and turning their tragedy into a crusade to save lives and preventing other parents from experiencing the same misfortune. we can all agree we need to work diligently to strengthen crib standards and standards for every child into the. and to ensure they are meeting the highest safety measures providing protection to children in a manner that they are supposed to be designed to do. and i would like to also extending thank you to the witnesses for being here today and i look forward to their testimonies. >> thank you. ms. schakowsky? opening statement. i know you are probably of the other hearing that i mentioned your leading role in the act which passed in 2008 and your interest in this area. thanks for being here. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i'm happy we are holding this hearing. this is a life or death issue,

the safety of cribs. attending hearings where we hear testimony from families of children who have died in preventable accidents is one of the hardest things i do as a member of congress, but of course nothing compared to what it means to the families like the cirigliano family who mustered the incredible courage to come and tell their story so that they can prevent these accidents from happening to other children. the consumer product safety and protect has taken a lot of heat over the last year and it's true that under previous leadership, the cpsc's implementation of the law was problematic and produced widespread confusion particularly among small business owners. but we can't lose sight of why this legislation was passed to protect children. children like danny for whom the bill was named and bobby cirigliano, whose parents are brave enough to share their

son's story today. for years we have heard stories of horrible injuries and death of children in cribs and it's been mentioned many times how literally millions of cribs have been recalled in the last few years. no need to go through that again. but all i authored the provision in the speed cpsia it requires the consent consumer safety commission to provide strong as possible standards for the products and putting cribs. it's my understanding the bea cpsc has proposed rules for the first products come infant bath seats and walkers. i am concerned a year and a half after the bill became law when there is still noval for crevice and i am eager to hear from chairman inez moore tenenbaum why will come today about how we are moving forward on such a rule and i also want to welcome other witnesses including nancy cowles and i yield back the

balance of my time. >> thank you. that concludes all of the opening statements. i would like to call the first panel of witnesses not. robert and susan speed if you could come forward and have a chair. as we know they are from new york and unfortunately and tragically lost their son, bobby. it is the policy of the subcommittee to all testimony under oath. please be advised you have the right under the rules of the house to be advised by counsel during your testimony do you wish to be represented by counsel? >> no thank you. spread the witnesses indicated they did not therefore i ask you to raise your right hand to take the oath. do you swear and affirm the testimony you're about to give to be the truth of the culture and the matter pending before this committee? >> yes. >> with the record reflect the witness is replaced in the affirmative. they are under oath. i would now ask for an opening statement. five minute opening statements. it will be part of the record, so if you want to submit a longer statement, you may.

it's my understanding, susan, you are going to do the test fighting. >> disk. >> would you pull the mic a little further. a light should go on. >> good? >> good. just put up a little bit more please. >> i'm so short. good morning. we are robert and susan cirigliano also known as daddy and mommy. but we have only heard three of our four children call us that because i was on, bobbie, never had the chance. on september 15th, 2004, bobby was six months and three days old when his head and neck were caught in the detached side realize his crib. after de drop side side realty touched his head was cut between the side real and actress. with his face pressed against the mattress he suffocated. bobby was taken from his crib and put into an ambulance and arrived at the hospital and never came home. we miss bobby every day but what is most important is what bobby

mrs.. bobby has an older sister who never had the chance to teach and how to get in and out of trouble. bobby has a younger brother and sister that he has never met. bobby has to grandfather's he never played catch with, to grandmothers whose cookies he was never able to taste. bobby never had a chance to wear his first halloween costume. he didn't get to sit on santa's's lab and never blew out a birthday candle. sorry. our smiles have told and our family will never be complete again. other than mommy and daddy's farms, bobby was in one of the safest places, his critics. the reality is his crib was not safe in our lives will never be the same. we refuse to allow any of their family to suffer the pain we have. while we are happy to hear about the millions of crib recalls, we are convinced the only answer is a complete ban on drop side cribs. we do not believe that parents realize the severity of placing their children to sleep in a drop side crib.

the one place that would leave your child alone has become a threat. if they cannot purchase the drop side speed line, they would have no option but to purchase a stationary crib. we do not believe a repair kit is the answer. it's a speed line has the ability to kill a child should not be manufactured. the recalls of downplaying of the number of children suffocated in the drop side crib. our son, bobby, wasn't included in the cpsc reports. their reason for this is the location of his drop side real detached was not the same as the other infants. our problem with this is the investigator's report stated the bottom left rail was not secure. while bobby's rail the attached to the lower right side. the point is bottom left, bottom right, bobbie was asphyxiated and died when his drop side rail detach and he was trapped between the mattress and the site rail just like infants before him and just like infants after him. the number of infants reported

should not be determined where the rail detaches but by the end result. we have in the last five months worked with legislation and suffolk county have a bill passed banning the sale of drop side cribs. we have worked with the county legislation banning the sale of drop side cribs and are awaiting the signing. we are currently working with roca and county legislation to help the van pass also, which by the way it passed on tuesday night. we appreciate congress inviting us to be here today to share our story. we hope you think of body while you determine how to keep our baby's safe. we are all they have come their lives depend on it. thank you. >> mr. cirigliano, would you like to say anything at this time? okay. i take it that is a no. thank you again for being here. >> thank you for inviting us. >> we will have members ask you questions. okay? >> okay. >> let me ask you this, in your

statement to set our somebody was not included in the cpsc's reports. their reason for this is the location of the topside rail de tache was in the same as others to bigot can you explain that? >> we saw an interview on television regarding the mant doctrine of our cribs recall. the chair person of the time was asked wide-body's death was included in the recall and her response was because of the location where his drop side rail detach. >> there was no doubt that the cpsia detaching was cause of suffocation, it's just the location of it? for the rules and regulations? is that your understanding? >> yes. >> [inaudible] de recalled crib, a manufacturer highlighted the piece that

malfunctioned on my son's crib and that was one of the two pieces for the recall, and its -- we would still like an explanation for it actually. we never got one. the manufacturer put a picture on their web site of the same exact piece malfunctioned on my son's could also. >> did you report your son's death at a cpsc's safety council? committee came to the medical examiner's office and day inspected the crib. >> but do you have any personal knowledge -- and i don't mean to push on this. i'm trying to figure out because it is my understanding there is no requirement to report so we don't know how many deaths have been caused or even a number of injuries. was there a requirement that you know of the report to the cpsc

but the injury to your son? >> i don't understand. i'm sorry. were we required to report it? >> right -- your son went to the hospital unfortunately and died. then who has the responsibility then to report so we have accurate information of the information. >> the last thing you're thinking give out is reporting it. >> i agree. >> but after a couple of weeks we realized they came down and inspected the crib it was that point we didn't know what has happened. stan mckee said they came down and inspected the crib. some of the local officials? >> i'm not sure but there was a report, and actually there was some parts of the report that didn't make sense. the bottom right part -- the bottom right drop side was the

malfunctioning side. they reported the bottom left so that was wrong also, and also they said that day asked the medical examiner if they could come and interview us and they said the medical examiner said no don't bother the family. that turned out not to be true. so i don't know there's just a lot of stuff. >> that is what we are trying -- >> we would like some answers. that would be nice. >> i'm curious, to come in because when you're in a situation like that, the last thing that goes through your mind is to contact anybody, you know what i mean? and i understand your question and it is a great question. from what i have on our cpsc report, they received their information from one of the newspaper articles, so that is a wonderful question. as a parent when you are in that position the last thing you are

thinking about is -- >> nor should the burden be on you. >> should be the local police department, you know, somebody has to contact. >> we are looking for a way to make sure the consumer product safety commission and the authorities of the most complete information on this product or any product. just listening to opening statements, mr. braley mentioned one in his area, mr. green mentioned one. we have you come at least four deaths reported in 2009. i bet there are more in 2009 but no one knows because how do you get the information? who is required to give it and what manner and then there's always the squall said he will get you have to have reason to believe whoever is doing the reporting that the crib as the one that was the cause of death and it's always a way to say it wasn't product was something else and many of these cases it looks like a lot of times they say the parents did this wrong or the parents should have -- i

don't mean to push don't expect you to know who report to. >> and stand we are trying to figure of the chain of how it's supposed to get where it should be. >> correct. that concludes my questions. mr. walden, questions please. >> i think you've covered most of it, mr. chairman, very well. the question i would have is do you think the new system for reporting the early warning system and all can be effective, as effective? i realize it wasn't in place in your situation, a tragedy, but it looks like perhaps out of your situation and that of other states and we have to fix how we collect data and evaluate them and spread it out so somebody catches these problems quicker. are you familiar with the new early warning system? do you think you would have made a difference in your situation? >> there's been a lot of recalls

from the early warning system and, you know, basically the problem was one agency wouldn't know what the other agency reported and they couldn't get their data to get there and put the similarities together and i think that is a big step the cpsc has taken and i think it's working. i think the big thing is to make it a mandatory -- every group needs to be tested and it shouldn't be voluntary, and we all know that. and the other big problem is countries importing these cribs and to the united states, and they are making them a lot flimsier. you can tell.

the plastic spurring pegs has been an issue and it is a little three quarter inch piece of plastic that's supposed to hold a whole side cpsia up and back in the 80's to make them out of metal, and they are trying to mix the six they're making a cheaper product and that needs to be tested. every craig needs to be tested. islamic and the new standards that are coming out or cannot i guess the recommendations in december of last year, have you had a chance to review those? the astm standards? >> i haven't seen them. >> i would be curious -- i realize you probably have a good things going on in your life than this but i can certainly understand why this is such an important issue for you but i would be curious to get your feedback at some point because i think they address some of these issues at least. thank you mr. chairman. >> thank you, mr. walden.

mr. braley. >> mr. cirigliano of one to follow on the point he made because my recollection of the crib in our family for years was exactly as you described, the quality of the blood itself, you could run a tank into it and it wouldn't collapse. i took four years of high school shop class and assembled a lot of consumer products and applied a lot of torque to make sure they are tightened and the one on a assembled even though it was on wheels and a hardwood floor there was a flimsiness just in the way that it stood there that i don't remember on the one my parents owned. as a parent, can you share where bobby was? was this for the first, the second, third? >> we had the crib for my

daughter, and at the time she was -- >> we bought it for her when she was born. >> my son started using it i guess three years later call and we never took the crib apart. i remember putting it together. you try to tighten everything down as quick as you can and when you buy a crib they've got all these safety labels. maybe you have a false sense of security, and at that point we never realized there were all these problems. it just wasn't out there. if it was we would have never bought one. spec that is a very important piece here, and the congress's blease is going to be huge in this to be getting of the word out to everybody that has these cribs, they can be in the garage, up in the attic and they

go to bring it back out for a newborn in the family they need to throw those out. they are no good, and i think the voice of congress is going to be huge in this. >> mr. cirigliano, i want to talk to you but the safety certification on the kurds in the marketplace because a lot of parents, young parents are constantly trying to educate themselves about product safety. they want to buy products that are going to take care of their children. we have seen information in preparation for this hearing the thing that makes tikrit unique is one of the few devices that an infant uses where you expect that child to be safe absent constant attention of the parent. that is a whole underlying premise for the credit so you can go to sleep yourself at night with confidence that your child is going to wake up healthy and alive in the morning. one of the things we know is most manufacturers use

certification meeting voluntary safety standards through the juvenile product manufacturing association that the certified with the seal on the product that it's been tested by independent labs and it meets all current and mandatory voluntary safety requirements and if you look here on the screen i believe this is the seal that is used. is that your understanding? >> yes. >> was this crib you bought for your donner originally it was used by bobby, did that have this sealed? >> it looks very familiar. i'm not sure what i do know it had to seals on it and that is one of the things we were looking for when we went to purchase tikrit. >> and when you look for that and see that on there as parents, what does that say to you? >> it's safe, it's been tested. >> it gives you a sense of security. >> what is surprising to learn the crimes involved in the latest cpsc recalls were certified by jpma as meeting all

applicable safety standards? >> it wouldn't surprise me, no. >> in your opinion as parents who purchased this product, what value does the certifications feel have to parents? >> now or when we purchased the eckert? it has no value right now. is that why is that? >> i've been doing a lot of research and it seems like you're looking at millions and millions of cribs that have been recalled and the reasons for the recall. a little pieces of plastic and springs. how long is a spring reliable. >> you're talking about a spring in a plastic piece that are what you use in a big pan. it's basically the size of what it is and how long the japan last? i would think a majority of

families do not go out and buy a new crib every time a child is born. most families by juan crib and use it through the bank of all of their children. >> i couldn't agree more and mr. chairman i hope we will use this as a way to identify ways to improve the safety certification process to protect the rights of consumers and the safety of infants and i yield back. >> thank you, mr. really. mr. burgess for questions. >> thank you, mr. chairman and both of you for being here. i can't you have already answered this with mr. braley but this was a crib that he purchased new, yourselves? >> yes. >> so this wasn't a hand me down, this is one that you had? did this crib ends up on the recall list? >> yes. >> how did you receive the notice of the recall? >> bye watching television.

>> so it was after the fact? >> right. >> now think mr. cirigliano, you reference to this the way the data is managed and collected as critical and the cpsc is trying to build a registry so clearly that would be something there would be helpful and yet i get the impression from listening to your testimony that with the drop side design that even the registry is really insufficient. it's the baseline assault of the drop side; is that correct? >> that is my belief. sprick the drop side is developed at some point because someone thought it would be worthwhile to save wear and tear on the long as the baby gets bigger and bigger to be able to change and attend and move him in and out. there may be a trade-off but at the same time about not to be safety and the thing we trade-off and i agree consumers

need to be informed about the potential jade dangers of the drop site if that is what they're going to purchase, they are advantages but they are disadvantages as well. do you think of the cpsc have a registry when your crib was recalled would that have been helpful to you? i'm worried we don't get the word out. you bought your crib new collis if there were a card that he returned or registered that is one of the things we struggle with when we did 4040, the big improve much on the consumer safety we did a year or two ago but i will tell you i'm not good about the cards myself and as i remember cribs from when my kids were little my wife's dad got a crib from the attic and arkansas and brought it to texas and that was our crib for a couple of years then and went on to its next life in her sister's home for awhile and i don't know where it is today but i think it isba