downs, you know, in the context of what is happening to black america over the last 50 years, and it just seemed right, and we couldn't come up with a better one. so, we went with that. but it was precisely for that ambiguity, because we -- that's what we were trying to express. >> i think it works in so many ways, eugene. on page 4 of your book -- this it what really blew my mind. totally blew me away. you talk about -- you introduce the concept that black america is no longer one black america no longer one community. that was a surprise to me. i'm still dealing with that concept. as i read the book, it became very, very clear to me, and you talk about four different groups

that are -- have now emerged in the african-american community. can you talk about those groups? >> sure. actually, alberta, maybe i will read that one paragraph and then i'll talk about the four groups. there was a time when there were greed-upon black leaders, and when there was a clear black agenda, when we could talk confidently about the state of black america, but not anymore. not after decades of desegregation, affirmative action, and urban decay, not after globalization, decimated the working class and trickle down economics sorted the nation into aways and lose -- into winners and losers. not after most people ceased to notice, much less care, when a black man and a white woman walked down the street hand in hand. these are among the forces and trends that have had the unintended consequence of tearing black america to pieces,

and so that's kind of the departure point for the book. i had been turning this idea over in my head for a while, and in 2007 two things happened. i worked for the washington post, and we had a group of black publishing executives, mostly from the african-american press, visiting washington. they dropped by the post. i was supposed to do a kind of five-minute drive-by greeting, basically, in our conference room. hi, how are you, great to have you hear, you know. and i went down, and i started talking, and i started tossing out this notion. i tossed out the notion of, well, is there a black america anymore? are there -- or in fact are we

several groups? to my surprise -- because i broached the subject gingerly -- there was such a reaction, there was such -- the enthusiasm for talking about this subject, that this five-minute drive-by turn in an hour-long discussion, where i talked and they talked and somebody said, what about the immigrants and what about this and what about that? and so i said, well, hmm. maybe i'm on to something here. and then the other thing that happened was the pew research center came out with a poll, survey of black americans, that contained just a stunning figure. one stunning figure. it was that 37% of the african-americans they surveyed

believed that black americans could no longer be thought of as a single race. i said, what in the world does that mean? 37%. that's almost four out of ten. what do you mean by single race? didn't really ask followup questions, so i had no idea that meant and still not quite sure what that means. but those kind of -- those two things, the encounter and the pew finding, made me want to know more. so that what launched the book, and the exploration of this question, i started pouring over census data, marketing studies, talking to people, doing whatever i could, and then something intervened, thissings thing called the presidential campaign, this guy called barack obama, a name that seemed to be

off the guantanamo list, junior senator from illinois who thought he was going to be president, and then it started looking like, well, maybe he was going to be president, and he was certainly going to try. and so it seemed clear as the campaign went on -- seemed to illuminate and illustrate a lot of the -- and at times aned a -- answered a lot of questions i was asking and issues i was addressing. so i said, we can't do this until after we see how this comes out. so that was the timing. you know, you have to pose at the end of the day -- impose a structure on your thinking, i think, and it seemed to me that you could outline four groups that constitute black america today, and it seemed to me that the distinctions among these

four groups seemed to be clearer and more vivid as time went on rather than more -- more than soft or diffuse. the first is a majority, 55%, maybe, 54%, of african-americans who it seems to me have entered the middle class. now, there's been a big asterisk there. what is the middle class these days? especially during the recession. you can certainly argue that the middle class is precarious, white, black, or otherwise, in this country right now. but to the extent there is a middle class, i'd say a fairly slim majority but a majority of african-americans have reached it. and i'm not just looking at

income but also educational attainment and amibition, and other kinds kinds kinds of inde. i call that group the mainstream. there is, however, a large minority of african-americans, somewhere between 25 and 30%, that did not climb that ladder into the middle class, that remains in this kind of stew of poverty and dysfunction in the inner cities and the rural south, and in places around the country, and for whom the possibilities of climbing that ladder seem to me slimmer than at any time in the last 50 years, maybe that at any time in the last 100 years, simply because the rungs on the ladder are no longer there.

they're missing. and someone of limited education, maybe with high school or whatever, used to be able to go down to the plant, get a job at the plant, and union wage and -- with job security, wages good enough to take care of your family, to buy a house, buy a little house, send your kids to college, so they'd have a better life than you did, and when it was time to retire, you had a pension. now, that sounds like a grimms fairy tale at this point. that's not the way increasingly this country works. and those jobs at the plant are not there because the plant is in china, or the plant is in brazil. it's not anywhere near where these folks live. so, i call that group the abandoned. because i do believe they have

been abandoned, not only in the material sense but we don't even talk about them anymore. we did during katrina. we said that was going to open a discussion about poverty, and that discussion lasted about three weeks and we all went about our business. the other two groups are interesting because they're new. there is a very small elite -- oh, any elite is small by definition, and this one is, too. this is a group of african-americans who have attained wealth, power or influence on a scale -- not just relative to other african-americans but relative to the whole country or the whole world, and obviously -- who belongs to this small group? obviously president obama.

obviously oprah winfrey. obviously tiger woods, richard parsons, the former c.e.o. and chairman of time-warner, who -- here's an example of something that could never have happened before in our history. financial crisis hits. the banks melt down. citigroup is among the financial institutions that takes a big himself needs needs -- hit. needs to be gotten back on track, and an african-american president can turn around and look to a seasoned african-american chief executive, richard parsons, who used to run the biggest media and entertainment company in the world, time-warner, and ask him to come out of retirement and encourage him to step in as chairman of citigroup for a time, to help get it back on

track. that could never happen happened. so i refer to this small group as the transcendent group, and there's the group i call the emergent. and there are actually two major components of this group. one is made up of immigrants, black immigrants from the caribbean and africa, and their sons and daughters. a few years ago -- this african-american immigrant group is particularly interesting because it, too, is new. there's always been a pretty good stream of immigration from the caribbean, but certainly before 1965, when the was a change in the immigration law, and then there have been subsequent changes -- in the past it was almost impossible to immigrate from africa. it was very difficult to do. it became easier and some programs were instituted that

african immigrants from nigeria, ethiopia, every country, have taken advantage of. so we have seen an unpress departmented wave of immigration. the numbers are still not huge yet, but the impact is starting to be huge. a few years ago, harvard professor skip gates of the beer summit fame, you remember the famed beer summit. he and lonny, another name you might recognize, did an informal study at harvard. they looked at the list of incoming black freshmen, and just picked off the african surnames and found that was more than half of the incoming black freshmanmen at hard record. so the sons and daughters of

immigrants are doing very well. the best educated group of immigrants coming to the united states today, the african immigrants. better educated than the asian, south asias, europeans, anybody, the best educated group. they don't come with a lot of money but come with a lot of education, intact families, educational aspirations and they're going to have a big impact in years to come. as the other component of emergent group was biracial americans. there there were laws outlawing misogeny.

strom thurmon called it misogyny iation, and that was in the 60s and 70s, and a time when social barriers between white people and black people were tumbling, and i know in the generation of my sons, who are 27 and 20, they have tumbled. it's just not there or they don't feel it's there they've grown up in integrated settings. they have gone to schools where diversity has been taught as a good thing, and so there's a growing number of biracial americans, and it is hard to give specific numbers. what interests me is something that president obama, who was one of these groups -- with this group -- he belonged to several of these groups, actually. one of the things he said -- if you recall his race speech during the campaign in

philadelphia, and he said something -- i'm paraphrasing here -- this is during the first reverend wright eruption. the said, could i no more disown the reverend wright than i could disown my own mother. he eventually did disown the reverend wright. but the point about his grandmother i found interesting because he was saying he has a somewhat different emotional relationship to white america than i do, than with two african-american parents, having grownup the south at a time when there was very much a kind of sense -- you know, at it not that i go around thinking us versus them anymore, but that

was -- that's how i was raised, and his -- the way he was raised and the way he has to think of himself -- because it is him -- is somewhat different. so those are the four groups, main stream, abandoned, transsend transcend dent and emergent. >> you talked about gates, but the situation in cambridge brought together the intersection of race and perhaps power and him being in that transsend dent group. it brought it together for him and brought it together for president barack obama, and how the situation was perceived and handled. you did a wonderful job of taking us through that scenario,

through henry louis gate's eyes and president obama0s eyes. can you talk about that? >> we're both journalists so you understand, this context. i loved this incident because it was one in which no one behaved well. everybody behaved badly. and so here you have the situation where, what we think of as the traditional power relationships between black and white, power and status relationships between black and white in this country -- were reversed. you had this rich, famous, arrogant, harvard professor -- to say arrogant harvard professor is a redundancy.

tired, cranky, coming home, his door won't open, jimmies his way into his house, and he feels a certain status about himself, and a certain sense of himself. here you have this working class white police officer, a sergeant who -- a police officer in cambridge, mass, probably makes a good living but doesn't make the living henry louis gates, jr. does, and doesn't wine and dine with presidents and he wasn't on his way back from china, having filmed his latest pbs special. you know. it was a different thing.

so, you have this clash, and what happens? well, skip gates, the powerful person in this encounter, nonetheless goes off, and goes immediately to, you know, you're harassing me because i'm a black man. and acts like an arrogant harvard professor but goes over the top, and officer crowley is being given lip by this uppity black guy who has the nerve to dress him down, and the result is, of those two examples of bad behavior, skip is handcuffed and taken off to jail. i thought that was a fascinating

little vignette of how power relationships can work now -- they don't always work this way -- but they can work now in this country and could not have worked that way in the past. i also thought it was fascinating that when president obama said what he thought and, frankly, what i thought at the time, was a very innocuous thing. the officer had behaved stupidly. he had, after all, arrested the man on his own front porch, having already ascertained he was who he said he was and it was his house. skip gates is this tall and walks with a cane. he wasn't swinging it at the officer. he wasn't in danger or anything like that and there was no threat to public safety. and nonetheless there was thing -- this big outcry when the president said the officer

act stupid he -- stupidly, and then he had to invite them both in for a beer to tamp it down. it was fascinating to me there was such a reaction from so many people. >> the reaction from the country, as i read in your book, because of how they felt certain whites viewed what the president said not as a statement just coming about, well, this is stupid, but almost as a racial identity -- >> as if he were taking sides. >> right. >> and i onceot a -- wrote a column during the election, and i said for president obama to get elected he had to be

perceived as -- i didn't know how true that was at the time. i've seen surveys -- i wish i knew chapter and verse on this but i saw a survey once of republicans, and to me it was a shockingly high number believed that president obama was advocating and instituting policies that specifically favored african-americans over others. and i thought that was bizarre, given that i know for a fact that the white house has taken enormous pains to frame all its policies as race neutral, and it is not possible to go to the

white house and to get -- at least get them to say -- and i think they're being honest -- that that ain't part of their agenda, specifically aimed at african-americans. and that's not -- they decided not to do that. in fact, i think it's in some ways -- it would be easier for a white president to say, you know, gee, we need to do something about this -- about entrenched generational black poverty and dysfunction and here's what we want to do about it. a white president could do that, and president obama can't. and it is well understood at the white house he can't. >> that's very true, because our own lbj absolutely did that. >> he did. >> and with the voting rights

act, and the civil rights act. but talking about this whole disintegration and splintering of the black community, you also hit on the topic of the great migration, and i did not realize that by 1950, close to seven million black people had left the south because of jim crow. but you also talk about two types of racism, north and south. you talk about that in the book. and maybe even a third hybrid. you talk about. could you talk to us a little bit about that. >> well, it's just where i grew up in the south, everybody knew where they stood. okay? there was white sides of town, black sides of town. there was jim crow segregation, which had the force of law. so, there were laws that

segregated public accommodations. in my town, orangeberg, there were stores that black people were supposed to enter through the back door. i had real buck teeth when i was a kid, and went to an orthodontist, who lived in another city, and i remember being cop -- confused. we could never wait in the waiting room. we waited in the doctor's own private office until it was time for our appointment. we weren't allowed to wait with the white patients. and i didn't quite realize what was going on until i got a little older. and so with that -- that was what it was like in the south in the north, it was more subtle. but there was discrimination and there was effective segregation.

sometimes through housing covenants. chicago, for example, and in many neighborhoods there were -- if you don't keep up the house, you sign one of the pieces of paper you signed was -- said you want sell it to a black person or in many cases a jew. so, they didn't want blacks and jews. i guess they didn't think about the possibility that anybody else other than white would existed or would want to buy a house. so, they were different, not only in terms of their formality, but they were different in degree, too. my father grew up -- he was born in rural georgia. as a child, made the great migration. his mother and father had, i guess, a total of six children, and every one was born in a

different city as they made their way north, from -- started actually out west but came through alabama, mississippi, georgia, tennessee, ohio, and my father ended up growing up in an arbor, michigan. it was a pretty liberal college town so he was one of the few -- he died at the age of 92 and one of the few black men of that generation 0 -- who went to an integrate it high school. so there were exceptions. >> we're going to get to some questions, so please get ready to line up. we have only ten minutes left in the session. one quick -- one more quick question. eugene. what are the ramifications of this splintering of black america? >> you know, i think the

ramifications are that one size does not fit all. what frustrated me at the outset was that -- to the extent we talk about black america, we talk about it, i thought, as it might have been 50 years ago. but we weren't talking about it as it is now. and i think, again, we both -- we're both journalists. the way we, i think, see the world is to try to understand it and write about it and to -- because one of my core beliefs is that if you -- how have to see things clearly in order to then try to figure out what to do. if you're talking about -- if you're not seeing things clearly, you're not going to see what needs to be done, and so i thought that there has to be --

you know, an acknowledgment, number one -- there are 40 million roughly african-americans. it seemed to me there has to be an acknowledgment that there are quite a few african-americans who are doing well. that not to say that racism has disappeared. it has not disappeared. there's lots of indications we see, lots of studies, you know, every year, somebody sends a white couple and a black couple with the same identical credit scores and income to a mortgage broker and the black couple gets a worse deal. that's a kind of standard study that gets repeated all the time. so at it not -- there's not kind of full parity between the black middle class and me white middle class, especially in wealth, but it's not like it was 50 years ago, and it's -- there have been changes. we should acknowledge that. i also think we should see and

acknowledge the fact that there's a far too large group of african-americans who haven't made the climb and that, as i said before, the rungs of the ladder are gone, and so kind of yelling at them and ignoring them and whatever isn't going to work. as far as i can fine in -- find in my research what does seem to work is a holistic approach because you have to look at health and education and infrastructure and all sorts of things to really begin to have impact, and -- but is that politically possible? there are 60 votes for that in the senate? i decided in the end that if i was going to confine myself to

what could get 60 votes in the senate, i'd still be writing and have to call up florence lincoln and the two senators from maine and ask them, what should i write? >> well, thank you. we're going to move on to some questions. [applause] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> and -- we have about ten minutes so please be brief. >> do you think the -- do you think the election of president obama will make it easier or more difficult for the next black presidential candidate. >> will the election of barack obama make it easier or more difficult for the next black presidential candidate? well, you know, on the whole i would say easier. because before barack obama we

didn't know there would -- that we'd be talking about the next black president, you know. the fact of his election opens up a possibility that at least to many of us seemed not to be there. you would have asked me five years ago, would there be a black president in my lifetime, i am sure i would have said no. or certainly would have said the odds are against it. so, just by having been elected, yeah, i think it makes it easier. it mighting be a while, put we'll see. i don't know. >> i do come from the south, and you said some things that brought some things to mind. when i was born, there was the n-word, but if you're a little more polite you used the world

colored, and if your were liberal you said negro, and by the time i was teenager, black got to be the term, and now the term african-american has taken hold. do you see this is where this whole type of desi nation is -- desi -- designation and there's going to be different ways to refer to people of african origin? >> i have no idea. you started the evolution well, and the answer is, i don't know where it goes, to tell you the truth. maybe this will stick around for a while. some people -- i've heard as i've been talking about the book, a couple of times people said, i prefer black to african-american. >> i'm black. i'm still black. >> there you have it.

>> i'm an admirer of yours and watch you on tv and read your columns. >> thank you. >> one of the thing is notice about you is kind of your bemused take on most things, be they racial or political or whatever, and i just wonder where that comes from? how do your keep -- [laughter] >> it's not from medication. [laughter] >> i can answer that question. [applause] >> ask my good friend pat buoy can buchanan, and i have wanted to throttle him a couple of times. i've come close. comes from my grandmother, who was full of sayings. she died at 98, and she just was a fountain of sayings, and she used to say, well, just as well the last is to cry. and sometimes things i talk

about are just so stupid and so ridiculous that you can't help but laugh at it. and so, anyhow, that's where it comes from. sadie smith was my grandmother. >> i don't know if you read today's "new york times," an article writ was -- where it was black voters are poised in 2010 to have a strategic impact and quotes the center for political and economic studies. to make the point that they can do this because there are many of them -- men blacks still reside in the areas in district in states that have the most contentious elections. can we, given the premise of your book, speak that way of black voters, and if not, how do

we politically plan? >> i think politics and voting is the one area in which, yes, we can speech meaningfully and confidently about black voters in terms of who they will vote for, especially right now. for some time, black voters have been overwhelmingly in support of the democratic party. i believe that one reason is that the republican party hasn't made a serious play for the black vote, and until they do that, i don't think it's going to change. i also think that, you know -- i would put a whole lot of money on the prop proposition that when president obama runs again, he is going to get black support in the 90s, not just because he is a democrat but but --

because of his historical saying significance. the one question about that its, black voters traditionally, generally vote in lower numbers in mid-year elections than in presidential year elections. mid-terms, they are a smaller percentage of the electorate. so the dropoff in terms of black voters is greater than in terms of white voters. so, in order to have that outside impact -- which black voters can have in this election -- turnout is the key thing, and they have to define historical trends and come out in larger numbers than they usually do. in which case, if that were to happen, then there could be a significant number of surprises

on november 2nd. but it's always dangerous to predict that historical trends. >> we're into the lightning round. we have two minutes left, i'm told. so let's make it brief. >> in the course of creating blackness were you told that we haven't actually come to a concrete general consensus what constitutes blackness? >> we haven't and that's an open, shifting definition, and used to be if you had one drop of african blood, you were black, and then i wonder if that's still the case to the extent that it used to be. most people are biracial. black and whites identify as black or african-american.

i wonder if that will always be the case or if there will be more of an identification as biracial, as there is in some other countries. >> i think that's the last question. >> the concept of the talented -- 10% of the black population were our aristocracy or our elite and that was almost 100 years ago, 50 years ago, malcom x talk about the field negro and -- he used different words. >> uh-huh. >> and some people say that, well, the fact that blacks are fragmented, politically and economically, is a no-brainer, and to try to find evidence of that, bill cosby got in trouble

for his, i guess, critique of the black underclass. do you think that his critique, his take on the relationship -- does that exemplify how we're thought about? >> i think there's some people who think that and others who don't. my only problem with bill cosby's critique is it didn't do a lot of good to yell at people, just yelling you must do better. fine. where are the tools? where is the possibility? >> we do have time for our last question. >> my question and concerns of the audience makeup here. it's almost entirely white and older than the average demographic, and does that mean that -- well, what does that mean in regards to black americans reading and young american reading and the texas book festival and austin, texas?

>> you may live here. i don't live here. so i don't know exactly what it means. talk about black reading habits, though. african-americans, particularly african-american women, are avid readers and book-buyers, and they are a hugely sought-after demographic for publishers. so i don't think that necessarily says that black folks aren't reading. may have more to do with austin. i don't know. i'm glad everybody who is here is here. >> thank you. [applause] >> with that, the old saying, if you want to keep something from black people, you have to hide it in a book. but we won't get to that today. with that, we thank you so much for being here, this was a speed

date, so next time we have to have him back, it's going to be a long date. >> okay. >> thank you so much. next door at the book signing. >> thank you all very much. thank you. thank you. >> eugene robinson, associate editor and columnist at the "washington post" was a worth a pulitzer prize for distinguished commentary in 2009. he's also the author of "coal to cream" and "last dance in havana." this event was part of the 2010 texas book festival held annually in austin. >> every weekend booktv brings you 48 hours of history, biography and public affairs. here's a portion of one of our

programs. >> why, when we hear the president and others talking about the facts, we must make government efficient? for the people. did our founding fathers actually design the government to be inefficient? ask yourself that question. because this is a model for inefficiency. but it was done deliberately. why? because in order to have basic liberties, you have to have the government with very little power. the more efficient the government is, the more liberties the individual has to give up. they cannot do their job efficiently and less they have the power to tell you what to do. very interesting, isn't it?

and yet our society today generally believes that we have to have an efficient government because we've been told time after time after time we must make the government efficient. but that is the road to loss of freedom. >> to watch this program in its entirety, go to booktv.org. simply type the title or the author's name at the top left of the screen and click search. >> you've been watching booktv on c-span2. every weekend we bring you 48 hours of nonfiction books, public affairs, history and biography, saturday morning at eight through monday at 8 a.m. eastern. >> you're watching public affairs programming on c-span2. next the communicators. . .

>> our guests are two former advisers to the house energy and commerce committee. >> host: well, with control of congress up for grabs in tuesday's election, "the communicators" is looking at potential leadership changes in congress when it comes to telecommunications policy as well as legislative of proposals that the democrats and the republicans may take up in the 112th congress when it comes to telecommunications. joining us are two former capitol hill staffers who have both worked on

telecommunications policy. howard waltzman worked with the republicans, and he's a former chief telecommunications counsel for the energy and commerce committee. gregg rothschild served in the same position for the democrats, he also worked on the senate side on telecommunications policy. gentlemen, thank you for being with us. >> guest: thank you for having us. >> host: both of our guests currently are lawyers who practice telecommunications law. joining us, also, tony romm from "the politico" as our guest reporter. howard waltzman, we'll start with you. if republicans take over congress, the house and/or the senate, what do you think are some of the legislative policies that they may pursue, and where, where will they concentrate their efforts when it comes to telecommunications? >> guest: i think it'll be both a combination of legislative policies as well as oversight. i think they'll be doing an inventory of what the fcc and ntia have been doing, what

proceedings are outstanding and evaluating the direction that the commission has been going as well as ntia proceedings on spectrum. obviously, at the top of that list is the issue of broadband reclassification and net neutrality, so i would expect the republicans to take a very hard look at where things stand with the commission. obviously, the commission recently asked for additional comment on managed services and wireless. they'll be taking stock of where the commission is and where the commission intends to go. on the legislative side, you know, you could, you could see a legislative reaction to what the commission may do on broadband reclassification. i also expect a lot of activity on the spectrum front. obviously, there's been a lot of talk about there being a spectrum crunch and about the need for additional spectrum for commercial mobile services as well as, you know, a need for congress to act to provide the

fcc with the authority to have an incentive auction. so i expect the republicans to be, you know, initiating that discussion at the beginning. >> host: gregg rothschild, if democrats control one of the chambers or both and there's been talk about revamping the telecommunications laws, where do you see them going? >> guest: well, it's an interesting question. hopefully, obviously, i hope they do control, and that would leave henry waxman still chairman of the energy and commerce committee. i would certainly expect him to continue his efforts to find some kind of compromise on broadband renovation. i think in an honorable way he took on the issue in the last year against some tough odds and got a lot of compromise between stakeholders. the republicans didn't want to move forward at that time, but i think he did yeoman's work in reaching a compromise, and i think he will be likely to push

that forward. on the senate side, senator rockefeller considers spectrum to be a priority. he has a proposal to allocate the d block which is a spectrum band that has long been sought by the public safety community to build a network, and i think that with support from the public safety community and support from certain carriers, he will look to move that early in the next congress. >> host: tony romm. >> host: sure. i think no matter what happens next week, there seems to be some consensus that there are going to be a lot of changes on the communications subcommittee in many particular. a lot of members seem vulnerable, others retiring, and another crop have aspirations elsewhere even outside of the energy and commerce umbrella. so i guess the question is, you know, boucher has operated under a rather bipartisan regime. he told us that he felt that the subcommittee was probably the least likely to be impacted by a change in the control of the house. so with a new crop of republicans coming into the subcommittee, do you think that

the subcommittee keeps its current bipartisan flair, or do you think there's more swag nhl over some of the issues that you two just identified? >> guest: well, i think that subcommittee's had a traditional bipartisanship going back more than a decade, back to the days when it was jack fields and ed markey and then fred upton and ed markey. and, you know, markey and upton then sterns, and sterns and boucher. it's always had a tradition of bipartisanship. gregg and i worked on a number of issues together. there's always an an impetus to try to move forward in a bipartisan manner. >> host: sure. but this election in particular has been rather bipartisan. do you see that changing at all with the new crop of gop candidates coming in? do you think the subcommittee could become more polarized as some of these hot button issues

become the key things that the subcommittee's considering? is. >> guest: well, the communications issues historically are not polarizing issues or hot button issues. it's not sort of, you know, the polarizing issue that health care is. so when you look at spectrum issues, broadband deployment, when you look at even privacy, none of these issues really break down in a partisan manner. i mean, sure, there are different approaches, but there aren't sort of categorically different approaches like in other policy areas. >> guest: i absolutely agree with howard on that point. if you look historically to the bills that became the 1996 telecommunications act, they all had democrat and republican sponsors. and even after very partisan elections in '94, 2000, that subcommittee always worked in a bipartisan way. and on that one issue, net neutrality, which really came to the fore back in 2006, it has

largely broken down along partisan lines, and that is one issue where, you know, a boucher and a waxman in the committee and the subcommittee side and whoever's head of the republican side of the committee and the subcommittee, i would expect them to take very different view points. >> host: sure. and i think that gets us into the natural segway of net neutrality which is making headlines everywhere. just before lawmakers went on their break, we saw the beginning of a compromise of sorts that was introduced by waxman over at the full committee. it seemed that some republicans could have supported it but ultimately did not whether it was because of the timeline, the fact that it was introduced so quickly or the fact the election was coming up, there are no shortage of reasons on that alone. so i guess the question is going forward, if gop does end up taking the house, does that compromise come back? does the gop never even broach the subject of that compromise? >> guest: i think one thing you need to recognize is the different approach and

motivation for any type of broadband regulation legislation. you know, on the democrat side, you know, i think a lot of the democrats including the leadership of the committee believe there's a threat to internet openness in the absence of at least fcc oversight, if not also congressional oversight. on the republican side, they don't believe that there's a threat to internet openness. they see, you know, a lack of problems happening out there, and they don't see a need for regulation or legislation. so the motivation for legislation at all as it exists on the republican side is to stop the fcc from regulating broadband services under title ii as common carriage. so, i mean, that approach sort of colors the entire debate because, i mean, you know, the motivation for doing it is going to be, essentially, based upon whether or not the fcc is going to move forward or there's a real threat that the fcc is going to move forward.

>> host: sure. where does that leave democrats? >> guest: well, to pick up on howard's point, i agree with what he said, i think a lot will depend on what the fcc does between the election and when congress comes back in. if fcc chairman goes ahead and has an order reclassifying title ii, then i would expect the congress -- frankly republican or democrat -- to work together to make sure that there's a legislative, a legislative strategy in place to address broadband regulation as opposed to what the fcc did. certainly, if republicans take over, you would see, probably, investigations and more oversight of that decision in addition to legislation. >> host: do you think that, then, forces the fcc to speed up or to slow down any movement on the reclassification or the net neutrality front if gop were to retake the house? this and that's to both of you. >> guest: you could make an argument both ways. the chairman of the fcc has said he's deferring to congress, and he wants congress to go ahead and act which makes sense. the telecommunications act currently was written for a

single network, single-purpose network analog environment, and, obviously, that doesn't exist today. you have multipurpose networks that are digital so the chairman of the fcc is looking to address that after the recent court decision. if he does, then clearly we'll have, we'll have reaction coming from the congress. and one point i wanted to add to what howard mentioned, the one problem when you look at it from a democrat/republican side, many democrats don't support the fcc decision. you had roughly 25% of the democrats write the fcc a letter saying, don't go forward with this approach, and that would color what happens next year. >> guest: you know, i think the question in terms of does the fcc wait for legislation, you know, legislating is not an easy thing, it's not a quick process, and, you know, gregg and i could go on for a long time about how the telecommunications act needs to be updated, inudding and especially with respect to the internet space. so, you know, is the fcc going

to wait until january or february for the congress to act, or is the fcc going to be patient and wait for congress to create an appropriate framework for internet services? you know, i don't think if it's just a question of, well, the fcc will wait if congress is going to enact legislation, achieve con consensus in both houses by january or february. they're, obviously, a lot of the public interest groups are pushing the fcc to act as quickly as possible. i don't think republicans feel a need for the haste of legislation because, again, they don't see a threat to the internet out there. >> host: immediately, you know, once republicans begin to take over the subcommittee, we've dealt with who might be leading it, republicans look for ways to maybe constrain the fcc or redefine its role in the broadband space? >> guest: well, again, to redefine -- >> host: in a more limited role, i suppose. >> guest: well, i mean, to redefine it would have to be legislatively. i do see them immediately

engaging in oversight and really evaluating where's the fcc, what has the fcc done, what is the fcc planning on doing and then putting together an action plan from there, you know? if there's immediate need for action, you know, i would expect the republicans to act. but, you know, if there's not an immediate need for action, they're probably going to take more time and address this issue in a deliberate fashion. >> host: gentlemen, if broadband issue is, you know, opposed by 25% of democrats, is this a philosophical issue? is this a geographical issue? how does this one break down? >> guest: well, i mean, it's, you know, part of it, i think, is philosophical, part of it is what is the extent to which the fcc should be involved in sort of internet network management. should prioritization be possible? i mean, what are the sort of expectations with respect to internet applications. but a lot of it, also, comes

down to deployment, and i think that's a regional issue. because i think a lot of members are more concerned with, you know, what's the extent of deployment in my district or state, what are the speeds, what are the -- what's the network sophistication, and they're more concerned about getting investment out there to have the best services possible. they're more concerned about that. i think what you saw with every house republican, and as gregg said, you know, 25% of the house democrats saying, wait, fcc. this is, you know, your third way is wrong approach. they're more concerned with getting the best broadband services to their customers and making sure that the private sector deployment and investment supports that than they are about a potential threat in the future to internet openness. >> guest: and to add to that, i think what howard is referring to is this notion that members want to see the fcc help them get broadband to their districts. they view, i think particularly today when jobs is such an

important issue, they want the fcc to help them get broadband, get deployment, get jobs, get economic growth in their districts. and they believe that when julius genachowski, the fcc chairman, was talking about the national broadband plan, that was a good step in that direction. he was talking about making more spectrum available for wireless, reforming universal service to get broadband deeper into certain parts of america that don't have it today. and a lot of, i think, democrats and republicans potentially look at the fcc's recent preoccupation with net neutrality and say, wait a second, we want you to focus on broadband, and i think a lot of the democrats in this opposing the fcc's reclassification proposal were sending them a message, we want you to get back to basics. >> host: gregg rothschild, what is the relationship between the telecommunications committees and the fcc? who, is there a lead? >> guest: there's always been a lot of communication, i think, going on between the chairman of the committee and the chairman of the subcommittees in both the